Karen wrote: I can’t imagine an educational environment without the discipline …

Comment on La Sierra University Continues Deceptive Spin Tactics by Inge Anderson.

Karen wrote:

I can’t imagine an educational environment without the discipline of critical thinking. If a six day creation week is “truth”, why are people afraid of exposing youth to all the different concepts? If it’s true it will bear up when compared with other points of view. If we apply the freedom of choice model here, which seems to be particularly important in making a decision about accepting God, why wouldn’t that apply to believing church dogma?

Karen, you have defined the problem: Currently students at LaSierra are not given a chance to make an intelligent choice. Evolution is presented as historical fact. So, if evolution is fact, as the profs say, who would choose to believe the creation account?

One of the most fundamental of Adventist teachings is that God spoke, and it was done in the space of a literal week. The scientific evidence fits this framework as well as the evolutionary framework. (See www.detectingdesign.com for some of the evidence.) However, the current staff seem to have such a narrow worldview that they believe only naturalistic evolution to be “the truth.” Thus, they must necessarily teach it as truth. The better they are as teachers, the more powerful is their influence over the beliefs of the students.

If you are only fed church dogma what kind of choice is that? There is no freedom of choice in that, it sounds like a dictatorship. Present all points of view and and give people the freedom of choice, and certainly the “truth” shall prevail.

You seem to misunderstand the purpose of EducateTruth. We are not proposing that professors “only feed church dogma.” We want science professors to teach science — genuine science with propositions that are falsifiable. All such science will be in harmony with the biblical text.

The kind of “science” that has corrupted the La Sierra science department is not that kind of science. The origin of life over billions of years is not a falsibiable proposition. There’s no way to test the proposition. It isn’t hard science at all, but “historical science” or “philosophical science.” It depends totally on one’s presuppositions or world view.

We want our students to understand what naturalistic science teaches, and we also want them to know that this is not real science, but essentially philosophy. We would also like our students to understand that the very same evidence that evolutionary scientists use to “prove” evolution will fit just as comfortable into a creationist framework.

There is some evidence for which creationists do not currently have an explanation, but evolutionists do. And there is some evidence for which evolutionists have no explanation, but creationists do.

How all that has come to be is not something that science can answer. It is a matter for faith to answer. It takes faith to believe in all the improbabilities of evolution, and it takes faith to believe in a God powerful enough to speak and it is done.

You choose where to place your faith.

Again, LaSierra students, if they choose to believe their teachers, are denied the choice to believe in a Creator who spoke and it was done.

Recent Comments by Inge Anderson

Northern California Conference Votes to Act Independent of the General Conference
Sean, while I don’t currently have time to address all the issues in your post, one thing concerns me greatly – that, as head elder, you would recommend that your church members should use their tithe as a tool of political action.

If your recommendation were followed by others, hundreds of thousands of people would be justified in not turning in tithe at all because they believe that the General Conference is out of line, being manipulated and controlled by a very small number of people. (But that’s another story.) And, really, anyone who disagrees with something done in the conference or the GC would be justified to withhold or re-direct tithe, following your reasoning. I do hope that you will decide that you “just cannot go there.”

When Jesus commended the widow who gave her last two coins, the “church” was as corrupt as it ever was or will be. Yet God recognized the gift as given to *Him,* and He blessed her and millions of people since then.

When we return our tithe to the Lord, I believe we must do it in faith, letting go of any control of how it is used. If administrators misuse it, they must answer to God. When we don’t return to God what already belongs to Him, we must answer for it. The way I see it, since the tithe already belongs to God, it is not ours to manage.

Offerings are another matter. If you feel your local conference is out of line, you are free not to send them the usual percentage for the conference budget and send it elsewhere.


God, Sky & Land – by Brian Bull and Fritz Guy
The direct URL for Cindy Tutsch’s article is http://ssnet.org/blog/2011/09/does-it-matter-how-long-it-took-to-create/


God, Sky & Land – by Brian Bull and Fritz Guy

Lydian: There is something else I would like for someone to tell me—

Where in the world is the GRI in all of this? I have searched the internet and find virtually nothing there that would attract anybody to what it has to say–if it has anything to say.

Good question.

There are a number of Adventist sites that deal with science supportive of the biblical world view, Sean Pitman’s among them.

It seems that the only Adventist university that has a site supportive of a biblical world view in science appears to be Southwestern Adventist University.

Their Earth History Research Center features research papers as well as material quite understandable to lay persons. I recommend clicking through their links to see what is there.

Perhaps this is where we should look (and perhaps send our dollars) instead of the GRI. You will see that Ariel Roth, former director of the GRI (when it was more supportive of a biblical world view) is part of the Earth History Research Center.

May God abundantly bless the efforts of all who are connected with this project.

PS Currently http://ssnet.org is featuring an article by Cindy Tutsch entitled, “Does It Matter How Long God Took to Create?”


The Heroic Crusade Redux

Professor Kent: This is but only the faith of Sean Pitman’s straw man. This is not the faith of the Adventist who accepts God’s word at face value.

Sean is correct in his characterization, because that seems to be the kind of “faith” that has been championed here by a number of individuals who have faulted Sean for presenting evidence in favor of creation having happened just thousands of years ago.

If you accept the interpretation of evolutionists who believe (by faith) that life began on this planet some billions of years ago and then “by faith” believe that God created the world a few thousand years ago, you are essentially asserting “faith” in what you intellectually recognize as being a falsehood. That’s a good sight worse than a child’s “faith” in Santa Claus, because the child doesn’t “know from evidence” that Santa Claus doesn’t exist.

I do accept God’s Word at face value, and because I accept it at face value, I know that all the evidence, rightly interpreted, will support the historical account in God’s Word. It is an intellectually consistent stance, whereas asserting belief in both evolutionism and biblical creation contravenes all rules of logic and intellectual integrity.

If you really do believe that the Genesis account is a true account of history, why do you characterize Sean’s presentation of scientific evidence to support the Genesis account as being anti-faith??


La Sierra University Granted Window to Show its Faithfulness to Church’s Creation Belief
This is encouraging, IMO.

However, the survey of students probably presents a more favorable picture than is realistic, since a significant percentage of the students may not even know what the Adventist position on creation is — considering the kinds of homes they are coming from. But even if they all knew, a 50% rate of believing that SDA views were presented is pretty dismal. That’s a failing grade, after all ..