Comment on Creationist students find little support from LSU by Sean Pitman.
David Read says:
April 7, 2010 Shane, are you sure about Warren Johns and “Temple Theology�? You say that Johns “believes the six day creation is literal, but vast amounts of time transpired on earth before ‘creation’ week.†This sounds like some version of the “gap theory,†a very common device for trying to accommodate the Genesis narrative to long-ages geology.
I have also heard Warren H. Johns explain his “temple” theory of creation. In short, he believes that living things existed and evolved on this planet, with Divine guidance of course, over hundreds of millions of years, until finally some pinnacle of progress was achieved. At this point, there was a “week of commemoration” to celebrate all the “creation” that had taken place over the previous eons of time.
Johns also believes that the time periods mentioned in the Bible are largely symbolic, artificially divided up in the cyclic patterns of years that are divisable by 7 – i.e., 490 years, 70 years, 7 years, etc.
In this way, while having a literal component of some sort, the biblical time periods and events mentioned are still largely symbolic in John’s understanding… not to be understood as they are seemingly represented by the authors or how the authors themselves understood them.
Any way you look at it though, John’s ideas are directly opposed to the clearly stated SDA position on origins and the nature of the literal creation week. Yet he, along with almost all of the other speakers for the new LSU freshman introduction to science/religion class are asked to present their ideas that are known to undermine the Church’s stated fundamental doctrinal positions. No one has presented anything in direct support of the SDA version of a literal creation week in that freshman class or in any other of the science classrooms at LSU. How can they? How can a department that consists almost exclusively of theistic evolutionists present anything else, in a compelling manner, besides mainstream evolutionary doctrine with a theistic twist at the end to make it seem more palatable? How can anyone hope to suggest that theistic evolutionists can be counted on to “bring our young people home at the end of the day”? – home to the clearly stated fundamental SDA position on origins (as Pres. Jan Paulson put it)?
Such a hope is more than wishful thinking…
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Sean Pitman Also Commented
Creationist students find little support from LSU
@Lorelei:
I fear that if our schools do not teach evolution at all, more and more young people will leave the church as they become disillusioned when faced with the overwhelming evidence in support of evolution.
No one is suggesting that our schools not teach about the theory of evolution. Our schools should teach the very best that the theory of evolution has to offer. However, if this is the very best that a professor in one of our universities has to offer, it isn’t enough. A professor in an SDA university must be able to go beyond to show the students why the stated SDA position on origins is more scientifically consistent with the available facts than is the modern theory of evolution.
You may think this an impossible task, but that’s where you’re mistaken. It isn’t impossible. It is very possible. There happens to be a great weight of evidence favoring intelligent design theory as well as the young-life position and a catastrophic formation of the geologic column and fossil records – consistent with the SDA interpretation of the Genesis account and the intent of the author(s) of Genesis.
For more information on such evidence see: DetectingDesign.com
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Creationist students find little support from LSU
@Beth Bishop:
I wonder if Professor Grismer who called Louie Bishop either ignorant or stupid is awarethat he not only graduated from the University of California Davis with a Bachelor’s degree in Business but was awarded “Student/Athlete of the Year†his Senior year. He was a standout both academically and athletically his entire four years at Davis.He is neither stupid or ignorant.How sad to treat young people in this manner.
You wouldn’t happen to be related to Louie would you? If so, you must be very proud of him. He has done and is doing something very special here…
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Creationist students find little support from LSU
From Advestist Today Blog
On April 5th, 2010 nicsamojluk says:Erv,
I wonder how long it took you to fish those extreme comments from the Educate Truth website. Did you find many other similar postings from readers? To they represent the views of either Shane Hilde or Sean Pitman, the main individuals behind the Educate Truth project?
The short answer to that question is no, the comments posted by Erv and others do not represent my views or the views of Shane Hilde and do not reflect the position or goals of EdTruth.
Also, as Erv very well knows, the goals of EdTruth have been very clear and simple from the very beginning – the production of increased transparency as to what is really being taught at LSU. Despite the suggestion of Erv and others that LSU is only teaching “about” the theory of evolution, Erv very well knows that this is a lie. The LSU science department is in full support of the truth of the modern mainstream evolutionary view on origins and is vigorously proselytizing for this philosophical position. This effort is in direct opposition to the stated fundamental ideals and goals of the SDA Church and is thus a robbery of the Church’s time and money by the LSU “science” professors.
Reporting on this truth of this situation has always been the goal of EdTruth and Erv knows it…
Also, Erv know that the accusation of Larry Becker that EdTruth blocks comments in support of LSU is untrue since Erv himself is a fairly regular poster to EdTruth’s blog pages and several extensive comments from Becker himself have been posted.
The only comments blocked are the ones usually moderated by automation, like those that contain swear words, are of excessive length, spam, or those which the author has specifically requested to be removed…
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Recent Comments by Sean Pitman
After the Flood
Thank you Ariel. Hope you are doing well these days. Miss seeing you down at Loma Linda. Hope you had a Great Thanksgiving!
The Flood
Thank you Colin. Just trying to save lives any way I can. Not everything that the government does or leaders do is “evil” BTW…
The Flood
Only someone who knows the future can make such decisions without being a monster…
Pacific Union College Encouraging Homosexual Marriage?
Where did I “gloss over it”?
Review of “The Naked Emperor” by Pastor Conrad Vine
I fail to see where you have convincingly supported your claim that the GC leadership contributed to the harm of anyone’s personal religious liberties? – given that the GC leadership does not and could not override personal religious liberties in this country, nor substantively change the outcome of those who lost their jobs over various vaccine mandates. That’s just not how it works here in this country. Religious liberties are personally derived. Again, they simply are not based on a corporate or church position, but rely solely upon individual convictions – regardless of what the church may or may not say or do.
Yet, you say, “Who cares if it is written into law”? You should care. Everyone should care. It’s a very important law in this country. The idea that the organized church could have changed vaccine mandates simply isn’t true – particularly given the nature of certain types of jobs dealing with the most vulnerable in society (such as health care workers for example).
Beyond this, the GC Leadership did, in fact, write in support of personal religious convictions on this topic – and there are GC lawyers who have and continue to write personal letters in support of personal religious convictions (even if these personal convictions are at odds with the position of the church on a given topic). Just because the GC leadership also supports the advances of modern medicine doesn’t mean that the GC leadership cannot support individual convictions at the same time. Both are possible. This is not an inconsistency.
