@Sean Pitman: I was initially invited, by a student group, …

Comment on LSU leaves out key facts by BobRyan.

@Sean Pitman:

I was initially invited, by a student group, to lecture at LSU in 2005. At that time I was informed of the theistic evolutionism being promoted by many of the teachers at LSU and even supported by then president Lawrence Geraty as well. In response, I wrote many letters and had many phone conversations with leaders at LSU and at various levels within the SDA Church structure. I also had personal discussions with many of the students and a few of the professors involved at the time. Usually I was told that the issue was indeed a serious one and would be investigated carefully. I was told to remember that the Church would go through to the end even though it might have a few problems – so hang in there.

After my first lecture, around 100 students signed a petition to have the SDA creation perspective presented in the science classrooms – to include upper division science classes.

Of course, nothing happened and the status quo remained and still remains in effect at LSU…

Yet “another sign” that there is no “you must actually BE Adventist” message effectively coming across from the LSU Board of Trustees – to LSU management.

The constituents at the Pacific Union meeting coming up – need to be informed.

in Christ,

Bob

BobRyan Also Commented

LSU leaves out key facts
Getting back to this “the Bible and science” idea —

Let’s say you lived before the flood and you wanted to look into the science of testing to see if God created the world. So you go ask Adam and Eve and they give you their eye witness account of the first Sabbath.

check.

Then you go and see the angels standing at the entrance to the garden of Eden.

Got that – check.

Then maybe you do a DNA test on Adam and Eve vs Seth — and maybe you check to see if Adam has a navel 😉

Perhaps you even begin to test various species to see what the genetic mutational drift has been since the creation.

Lot’s o’ science things “to do” in that case.

But what if you live 4500 years after the flood and you cannot check into those artifacts from creation week?

After Einstein postulated his theory of general relativity (regarding the fabric of space-time and the idea that gravity warps that fabric) – Charles Davidson and Andrew Crommelin were able to test that theory by carefully observing a sola eclipse in 1919. Knowing what the answer “should be” according to the theory was a help in designing the experiment to test it, provided that the variables are “few” and the constraints are known of course.

in Christ,

Bob


LSU leaves out key facts

@Carl:

As I’ve said elsewhere, if someone can present a workable short-history model for the earth and its life, the nature of this argument will change radically. Our problem is that we have no short-history model nor even a suggestion of how to develop one.


If you have a scientific model for a short chrnology, bring it on. I am one who would be excited to hear about it.

I have one… “In the beginning God Created the Heavens and the earth”.

You see it depends on what you mean by “science”. If by defintion “science is NOT whatever God did” then the self-conflicted argument above is “show me a way where God did NOT do — what God said HE DID… Show me that it just happens on it’s own in 6 literal days”.

If I show you a Picasso and I say “Picasso painted that in a day” you will respond “that is a workable model” — If I say “God painted it in 25 seconds” you will say “that is not a workable model”. Clearly “workable model” becomes a label for “shown to happen on its own” or “something we can reproduce”.

Here is some “science” for you –

Clearly nobody can make abiogenesis work and clearly no one is able to get birds from reptiles. So we know that “man cannot do it”. And we also know that we do not see it happening in nature.

Can God do it? Atheists claim that there is no “workable Science model” for God doing anything.

So be it. That is the essence of the atheist-centric claim that “There is no model showing a God-did-NOT-do solution (science alone) for what God says He DID do (God claims rocks cannot do this on their own)”

But what if we COULD show that all life can come about ON ITS OWN scientifically in 6 literal days? What if we could reproduce it? What if we could show every step? Well then we will have just disproven the Bible – again that would be a very satisfying conclusion for atheists.

So then if we CANNOT show it happens on its own (scientifically) in 6 literal days – then the atheist argument is “there is no science model for all life coming about in 6 literal days – you have given me no model”.

The entire thought exercise benefits only one group – as it turns out.

But if you want to make the wild claim that all life came about in 6 literal days – but that it happened 100,000 or 100 million or 3 billion years ago – then you have a self-conflicted argument that even atheists will not sign up for – because there is no fossil evidence of modern man 100 million years ago, not even in the atheist’s story.

in Christ,

Bob


LSU leaves out key facts
As I stated at the outset – the “distinctive” that a student gets from his LSU indoctrination into evolutionism that the student DOES NOT get from a public university – is that LSU professors can demonstrate how to compromise faith in the Bible for faith in evolutionism as an Adventist – by modeling that FOR the student.

“We are Adventists” follwed by – the Bible cannot be trusted or the Bible can be bent to fit the needs of evolutionism.

You can’t get that from just any old public university. For that special treat — you need something like LSU.

The LSU Board has just handed LSU biology professors the platform that they most desire. An entire class devoted to — how-to-compromise faith as an Adventist when you are looking at the junk-science doctrines of evolutionism.

Wisby has chosen to place the fox in charge of the hen house and call that “compliance” with the board directive.

His actions are far more transparent to the objective observer than he may have at first imagined.

in Christ,

Bob


Recent Comments by BobRyan

Academic Freedom Strikes Again!

george:
By definition, I don’t believe in miracles or apocryphal, anthropomorphic stories about same.Why aren’t scientists observing them today if they occur?

Circular argument. If they were naturally occurring we would expect scientists to see that they are still occurring today. If they are singular events caused by an intelligent being – that being would be under no obligation to “keep causing world wide floods” as if “to do it once you must continually do it”. Armstrong went to the moon.. shall we argue that unless he keeps going to the moon so each new generation can see it … then it did not happen?

Your argument is of the form “all eye witness evidence to some event in the past is no evidence at all unless that event keeps repeating itself so we too can witness it”. Seems less than compelling.

“Could it be that science is better able to detect hoaxes and false claims?” As a rule for dismissing every eye witness account in the past – it is less than compelling. (even when that event cannot be repeated)

Evolutionists “claim” that dust, rocks and gas (in sufficient quantity and over sufficient time and a lot of luck) self organized into rabbits via prokaryote-then-eukaryote-then-more-complexity. But such self-organization cannot be “observed” today.

(What is worse – such a sequence cannot even be intelligently manipulated to occur in the lab)

By your own argument then you should not believe in evolution.


Academic Freedom Strikes Again!
@Sean Pitman:

Suppose you were at a crime scene … there is a tree limb on the ground and a bullet hole in the victim — “all natural causes”? or is one ‘not natural’? Those who say that nothing can be detected as “not naturally occurring in nature” – because all results, all observations make it appear that every result “naturally occurred without intelligent design” seem to be missing a very big part of “the obvious”.


Academic Freedom Strikes Again!

george:
Gentlemen,

What just God would allow an innocent child to be born guilty for the sins of a distant ancestor? …What if there was only One Commandment? Do Good. ‘Kant’ see a problem with that.

An atheist point of view is not often found here – but this is interesting.

1. God does not punish babies for what someone else did – but I suppose that is a reductionist option that is not so uncommon among atheists. The “details” of the subject you are commenting on – yet according to you “not reading” – is that humans are born with sinful natures. A “bent” toward evil. That is the first gap right out of the gate between atheism and God’s Word..

2. But still God supernaturally enables “free will” even in that bent scenario, the one that mankind lives in – ever since the free-will choice of the first humans on planet earth – was to cast their lot in with Satan and rebellion..(apparently they wanted to see what a wonderful result that poor choice would create). John 16 “the Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin and righteousness and judgment”. And of course “I will draw ALL mankind unto Me” John 12:32. (not “just Christians”). Thus supernatural agency promotes free will in a world that would otherwise be unrestrained in its bent to evil.

3.God says “The wages of sin is death” — so then your “complaint” is essentially “that you exist”. A just and loving God created planet Earth – no death or disease or suffering – a perfect paradise where mankind could live forever … and only one tiny restriction… yet Adam and Eve allowed themselves to be duped by Satan… tossing it all away. The “Just God” scenario could easily just have let them suffer the death sentence they chose. He did not do that… hence “you exist” – to then “complain about it”.

4. Of course you might also complain that Satan exists – and Satan might complain that “you exist”. There is no shortage on planet earth of avenues for complaint. But God steps in – offers salvation to mankind at infinite cost to himself – – and the “Few” of Matthew 7 eventually end up accepting that offer of eternal life. The rest seem to prefer the lake of fire option… sort of like Adam and Eve choosing disease and death over eternal life (without fully appreciating the massive fail in that short-sighted choice).

In any case – this thread is about the logic/reason that should be taken into account when a Christian owned and operated institution chooses to stay faithful to its Christian mission — rather then getting blown about by every wind of doctrine. Why let the alchemy of “wild guessing” be the ‘source of truth’ when we have the Bible?? We really have no excuse for that. As for science – we can be thankful that it has come as far along as it has – but no matter how far back you rewind the clock of our science history – we should always have chosen the Bible over wild guessing.


Newly Discovered Human Footprints Undermine Evolutionary Assumptions

Ervin Taylor:
Perhaps Dr. Pitman would enlighten his readers what on earth “the neo-Darwinian story of origins” might be. Darwin did not address origins.

Origins of what?? the first eukaryote??
Or “origins of mankind”??

Darwin himself claimed that his own false doctrine on origins was totally incompatible with Genesis and that because of this – Genesis must be tossed under a bus.

hint: Genesis is an account of “Origins” as we all know — even though “bacteria” and “amoeba” are terms that don’t show up in the text.

The point remains – Darwin was promoting his own religion on origins totally counter to the Bible doctrine on origins. He himself addresses this point of the two views.


Newly Discovered Human Footprints Undermine Evolutionary Assumptions

Ervin Taylor:
Here we go again.If the footprints upon close examination, are determined not to be from a hominim/hominid, I wonder if Educate Truth (sic) will announce that determination.Or if the date of the surface is determined to be much younger, will there be a notice placed on fundamentalist web-sites.If you believe the answer to these questions are yes, I have a big bridge that I would like to sell you for pennies on the dollar.

Here we go again … hope piled upon hope…no matter the “observations in nature” that disconfirm the classic evolutionary hypothesis

Reminds me of “What we still don’t know” by Martin Reese and Leonard Suskind