Comment on Deal with LSU by Sean Pitman, M.D..
Carl: Your argument by extention is pure nonsense. I have never argued that anything goes and I don’t believe such a thing. However, there are times when issues need to be re-examined, and this is one of them.
That’s just it. Who gets to decide when an issue needs to be re-examined? The SDA Church has examined this issue and still hasn’t changed its mind as an organization. You may disagree with this current decision of the SDA Church, but the fact remains that it has made a decision.
In your argument that the SDA Church is not creedal, what then are you suggesting? – if not that “anything goes”? If you agree that the SDA Church should stand for something, upon what basis should it make decisions as an organization? You do realize that regardless of the decisions made, there will always be some who do not agree – who think that the Church needs to “re-examine” and change its official position on this or that issue?
After a point, the Church has to take a stand regardless of who disagrees and support this stand with some sort of limitations on who it hires as paid representatives. There is simply no other workable option for any viable organization.
I certainly do not mistake your primary purpose. I simply find you to be irresponsible and deceptive. You want people to believe that the case is very simple and that the problem will be solved if we all line up with the fundamentals whether they are right or wrong. You are not correct.
I never said that the case for or against creationism or evolutionism was “very simple”. It isn’t simple at all. It took me many years of intensive investigation to come to my current understanding of the issues in play. I’m also not suggesting that one who does not agree with the SDA fundamentals simply cave into them. I’m suggesting that such a person do the honest thing and seek employment outside of the SDA Church in such a case – and not undermine the Church’s stated position on the Church’s dime.
What does seem very very clear and simple to me is that taking money from any organization while undermining what that organization is paying you to do is a form of theft – – a clear moral wrong in anyone’s book.
This is the main point of this website. Regardless of what you or I or anyone else thinks of the evidence for or against evolution or creation, this website is urging that the Church be consistent in what it claims are its “fundamental” positions. Saying that is stands for a literal 6-day creation while hiring teachers who believe and teach otherwise is inconsistent – even schizophrenic. The Church should move one way or the other in order to escape this schizophrenia. It should either decidedly support its stand on 6-day creation or remove this statement of fundamental beliefs from its list of what it supposedly stands for. That way, no one can accuse the Church or its schools of false advertising and deception. No one can have hard feelings when their children are educated in complete opposition to something like the 6-day creation week.
One more thing this website stands for is transparency. If a school like La Sierra University is actually teaching a certain philosophy or perspective in its classrooms, then it should make this fact abundantly clear to future students and parents, as well as to the Church constituency at large. All involved have a right to know what is actually being taught to our young people. Such transparency is vital to any sort of real growth in the Church – – and it is the right thing to do for those who are paying good money for a particular product. They deserve to know what they are really getting.
Nothing makes me angrier than to see someone being convinced that they are getting one thing for their money when they are really getting something very very different… That just isn’t right and no one should have to tolerate it.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
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Sean Pitman, M.D. Also Commented
Krisztina: You must at least have dinner with these professor and listen to what they have to say before you can really begin to form some opinion about what they deserve. Several contributors on this forum are treating these professors like a lynching mob would an accused man, trying to kill the accused before the trial or trying to not even have a trial. What happened to innocent until proven guilty? Sean please, at least consider it. I know you guys are all fired up about this and you have been thinking about it a lot. Eternity is at stake. You have a reputation to uphold. I know, I get it. But please consider they way you would like to be treated if you were in the wrong. Please be more cautious, tread lightly so that if you ever get into a fix and have to eat your words they are not so bitter.
I have talked to the professors. I have spoken at LSU twice. I lived in the Loma Linda area for 11 years. I have first hand knowledge of what is taking place at LSU. This, together with the witness of LSU parents, students, and the LSU professors themselves is beyond question. The deliberate undermining of fundamental SDA doctrinal positions has been going on at LSU for decades. This is no exaggeration. I’ve been personally involved for over 5 years.
As far as treating others as I would like to be treated, I guess I would love it if others would simply send me money regardless of anything I said or did. How about you? Care to support my personal bank account?
You see, even if a person would want to be paid for doing his/her own thing, independent of the organization or client(s) which he/she serves and to which he/she is dependent for a paycheck, the reality is that payment is supposed to be the result of delivery of the specific product which is being paid for by the client. Anything else is theft from the client. That is, regardless of a person’s desire to be paid for the delivery of goods other than that desired, is a moral wrong.
LSU is especially guilty of this moral wrong because of the fact that they are trying to cover up the actual product that they are delivering to students. They do not admit in their PR advertisements or on their website or anywhere else that I can find that most of their science and many of their religion professors believe in and actively promote theistic evolutionary ideas to their students – directly counter to the clearly stated views of their namesake, the SDA Church, on this fundamental doctrinal issue. This is very deceptive on the part of LSU.
I myself would not think to deliberately steal either time or money from my employer. And, I would not think to deserve anything else but being let go if I did continue to deliberately do so. It just wouldn’t be rational of any employer to maintain and employee who will not do what he/she is being paid to do…
Again, this isn’t personal. My words are not “bitter” against anyone on a personal basis just for believing differently than I do about doctrinal issues. Some of my best friends are agnostics and a few are determined atheists. And, I don’t think that such views are a basis for salvation since I don’t think knowledge or a lack thereof saves or condemns anyone in and of itself. Salvation is based on motive, the motive of love, not knowledge. It is how you use the knowledge you have that is important for salvation.
Now, this isn’t to say that true knowledge is therefore irrelevant or unimportant. That’s not true at all. If it were true, I wouldn’t be contributing to websites like this one or my own website. True knowledge is the basis of conscious hope. Many may be saved who did not have a conscious realization of their bright future while living on this Earth. However, I think all would agree that having a conscious realization of our Hope in Jesus is very valuable to have here and now. This is why I work so hard on issues such as this…
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Krisztina: Sean are you really asking people to leave the church?
I’m asking those who claim to represent the Church on the Church’s dime to actually do what they are being paid to do – i.e., accurately represent the Church’s stated “fundamental” positions to the world. If a paid representative cannot do this, that person should resign or be let go from employment.
You certainly wouldn’t expect the Catholic Church to continue to pay one of their own representatives to blast cherished Catholic doctrines from the pulpit or classroom – right? How about the Latter-day Saints? How about Coca Cola? – or any other viable organization? “A house divided against itself cannot stand” – right? Why then should anyone think the SDA Church should continue to pay people who are in fact doing just that? – attacking what the Church, as an organization, claims are its most fundamental “truths”?
We are not talking about the imposition of civil penalties here, so please don’t bring up the usual comparisons to the inquisition. Such comparisons are only attempts at inflammatory red herrings that are really irrelevant. The case at hand is simply a matter of supporting a viable organization by only paying those to represent the organization that actually represent the organization. Not just anyone and everyone is qualified to be a paid SDA representative – regardless of his/her otherwise magnificent educational background and qualifications to get paid to work elsewhere.
Beyond this, LSU is trying to hide the fact that many of its professors are directly attacking fundamental SDA ideals in their classrooms. At the very least you should be open and honest and transparent about what you are doing. Why try to hide this activity?
I think even you would admit that parents, students, and the SDA Church membership at large have a right to know what they are paying good money to support. It is a moral wrong to make it appear that you are providing a particular product for purchase when you are actually delivering something quite different in practice. That’s called stealing – wouldn’t you agree?
Now, I ask you, what’s so “complicated” about asking for openness and transparency from LSU? – at the very least? This request is downright obvious and simple to the candid mind. There is simply nothing complicated or difficult about it.
What’s so difficult or complex about being open and honest?
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Deal with LSU
If you take on the title of SDA, you should pay your tithe monies to the organized SDA Church – otherwise, you really don’t believe that the organization of the Church itself is inspired by God and ultimately in God’s hands. It is not up to us to divert God’s money from the organization of His Church – if we in fact believe that the SDA Church organization is important to God.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Recent Comments by Sean Pitman, M.D.
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Thank you Ariel. Hope you are doing well these days. Miss seeing you down at Loma Linda. Hope you had a Great Thanksgiving!
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Thank you Colin. Just trying to save lives any way I can. Not everything that the government does or leaders do is “evil” BTW…
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Only someone who knows the future can make such decisions without being a monster…
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Where did I “gloss over it”?
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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.
