Comment on Board requests progress reports from LSU administration by Bravus.
Again, a brief response to the long conversation that has gone on while I’ve been asleep. People have managed to project all sorts of things all over my short statement about humility – postmodernism (nup) and completely giving up on evangelism or any understanding of God at all. People have also assumed that that statement was simply a stratagem to question (particular views of) the Biblical creation account and introduce evolutionism… which it wasn’t.
Perhaps that means I was unclear in trying to be brief, perhaps that they have managed to bring their own obsessions and imprint them over my intentions – probably a little of both.
I am humble about my knowledge of educational research, although I have written and published two books on the topic. Within the narrow field of narrative multimethod approaches, it could be argued I am an internationally known expert… but I know also how much more there is to know. Being humble about how much I know does not prevent me from speaking and writing about what I do know. It doesn’t even prevent me from suggesting to people who want to do educational research that my approach might serve them well in their studies.
What it also does, though, is mean I am willing to listen to others’ perspectives and learn from them. It means I’m much less willing to condemn without understanding. It means I can continue in dialogue with proponents of different research approaches, and draw the best from them.
Now, of course, religious cases are more difficult and the stakes are higher, and we are studying sacred texts instead of classrooms, and we have the guidance of the Holy Spirit. I still maintain that knowing both what we do know and how much we don’t know is far healthier than believing we know it all… especially when our Subject is infinite.
Table of Contents
Bravus Also Commented
Board requests progress reports from LSU administration
Wow, you really do continue to struggle with my ‘I don’t know’, don’t you? I claim nothing of the sort.
Board requests progress reports from LSU administration
(popping back in because I can’t resist ;-))
We’ve discussed this ‘speeded-up decay’ argument here on this site before. A speeded-up decay rate (by the required amount) would lead to massive amounts of heat and radiation, sufficient to kill all life on earth. Of course, it’s then possible to say ‘well, God shielded living things from the effects’. But that’s just piling ad hockery on ad hockery. God intentionally speeded up the rate of decay, but intentionally shielded the whole world from the effects of that speeded-up decay, except the atoms inside zircons… or radioisotopes generally. Why? What’s the purpose? To deceive us?
God has the power to do absolutely anything. That’s not the question. But (1) he is not capricious – he doesn’t do things, especially major things like this, for no reason and (2) the claim made here repeatedly is that he told us everything he did in the Bible… and there is no mention there of any event like this, or even a hint.
If they can establish a nuclear mechanism for changed decay rates, then they ought to publish it – they’d be well on the way to the Nobel Prize. As it is, they have no mechanism, they simply claim ‘God did it’, but with zero Biblical evidence.
Board requests progress reports from LSU administration
Thanks for your prayers, but I do what I do for my own reasons, and care not a whit for the reactions of ‘legalists’. I share what I enjoy because I enjoy it and think others might too. You’re in the same old game of condemning without understanding, which was dull (and occasionally amusing) back in the 80s but which I was completely over by the 90s and haven’t even really thought about in 20 years.
And now, that restful hiatus.Have fun, all, in fighting among yourselves again…
Recent Comments by Bravus
Ted Wilson: “We will not flinch. We will not be deterred.”
Interesting that he says he is very proud of the GRI when they clearly said during the discussion that there is ‘no model’ of scientifically credible recent creationism that can be taught in our universities.
“Don’t go backwards to interpret Genesis as allegorical or symbolic”
My guess on the two-thirds thing is that what is actually being said is ‘more than two-thirds’. 99% is more than two-thirds… that specific number was chosen, not as the actual vote-count, but as a break-point: some motions need a simple majority, some need a two-thirds majority… and the vote well and truly delivered that, and more.
Just my interpretation.
GC Votes to Revise SDA Fundamental #6 on Creation
Excellent, excellent post above. J. Knight.
“Don’t go backwards to interpret Genesis as allegorical or symbolic”
(that should be ‘place in the church’)
“Don’t go backwards to interpret Genesis as allegorical or symbolic”
Bobbie Vedvick, the quote you asked about was a parody, penned by me.
Faith (and many others in this thread), the comments about those who will be driven out of SDAism by this push tend to assume that they are in disagreement with what has always been SDA belief. This is not the case: the very strong literalist recent creationist position is a relatively recent view. Note that what has happened at this GC is a vote for a *change* to Fundamental Belief 6. SDA beliefs are being *changed*, and those who won’t go along for the ride told they have no ce in the church.
