@John Testerman: John Testerman says: January 30, 2010 I am writing …

Comment on La Sierra schism widens by BobRyan.

@John Testerman:

John Testerman says:
January 30, 2010 I am writing this as an Adventist scientist saddened that the “Educate Truth” staff are so certain about exactly when and how God went about creating the world that they are willing to risk a major witchhunt

Hint: Educatetruth is not some avant garde think tank that “just now proposed” that maybe Seventh-day Adventist beliefs should include acceptance of the actual 7 day creation week of Gen 1:2-2:3 and “SIX days you shall labor for in SIX DAYS the Lord MADE…”

Educatetruth is not some radical extremist group that recently came up with the idea that “theistic evolution” is in fact “disguised infidelity” 3SG 90-91.

As much as it pleases evolutionists to indulge themselves in fictional revisionist histories — and in this case – revisionist realities — such happy fictions on their part do not constitute reality for the rest of us.

… just to get rid of me and others who hold a different view of what it means to believe in God as Creator. Do you really want to force the many professional scientists among us to choose between science and Adventist Christian faith

We want them to choose between junk-science -vs- Adventist Christian faith.

We want them to choose between evangelizing for evolutionism – vs- evangelizing for the bible doctrines on origins.

We want them to choose between disquised infidelity — vs- faithfulness to both science and the Word of God.

We want them to choose between the confirmed fraudulent practices so prominent in evolutions public history to date – vs- integrity that would demand that those who campaign against SDA doctrines NOT be seeking paychecks from SDA institutions to carry on their nefarious work.

This could not be any more obvious at this point.

Was Genesis really written to trump scientific investigation in the 21st century, to be an alternative source of knowledge about Geochronology or Molecular Genetics?

Your penchant for revisionist history is showing “again”. Hint: Genesis was written BEFORE Darwin’s book – as it turns out.

The question that FITS history would have been “Was evolutionism invented as an atheist-compliant alternative for origins to that view that is presented in God’s Word”.

How “instructive” that you missed that not-so-subtle detail.

What does it mean to believe in God as creator, to accept a certain timetable of events? If we want to know how old a rock is, can’t we just ask the rock without getting permission from the theology department?

hint: “No talking rocks”.

But there are “various assumptions” about stasis and the processes of the past as well as the effect that the environment can have over time on the ratios of daughter to parent products in rocks.

All of which the hand waiving illusionists in the camp of evolutionism would like the viewer to “miss”.

If we want to know if two organisms are related, can’t we just look at their genes without having our Christian faith questioned

Hint: Looking at genes will tell you if two eukaryote specimens are in the same genome. But it does not tell you “what genome came from another”. For that bit of fiction (of the “birds came from reptiles” flavor) you need something like proven observation – not blind all-for-atheism guesswork!

by self-appointed guardians of doctrine who are apparently capable of only concrete,literal thinking?

hint: The objective unbiased reader will find it “instructive” that the argument above NEVER actually proposes an exegetically sound argument for “bending the Bible on behalf of the demands of evolutionism” while it continues railing against acceptance of the most direct and obvious statements found in God’s Law itself.

In a view accepted by many in the field of science and religion, Genesis and Geology (and Biology too, for that matter) do not offer competing views of natural history, but rather complementary views

1. That idea was reviewed in 3SG 90-91 and then called “disguisede infidelity”.

2. You keep proposing that the Bible solution was found for evolutionism (were you imagining just then that Moses too was a Darwinist?) – without ever stating the actual content of such a solution (showing your work, “doing the math” as it were). Kinda the model evolutionism uses without missing links to supports its happy fictions.

, the Bible explaining who and why and science describing the what and when.

So then IGNORING the “What and WHEN” details that we find in “SIX days you shall labor.. for in SIX DAYS the Lord MADE the heavens and the EARTH”.

You finally admit that the counterfeit doctrines on origins being evangelized by true believers in evolutionism – can only succeed by deliberately IGNORING the Genesis account’s scope of content and time frame “details” that are explicitly mentioned in the Bible in Gen 1:2-2:3 and Ex 20:8-11.

Whether you agree with this view of science and religion or not, it is one that enables many of us to follow where the data lead without pretending to know the answers in advance. That is what scientists do.

1. The atheist “knows” that “there is no god” in “advance”.
2. The atheist “knows” that all things we see around us today must therefore have occurred “by natural means”.
3.The atheist can argue then that “live appeared” and “live evolved” to the point that we see it today by natural means — after all “life is HERE”.

Christians who unwittingly agree to FOLLOW in that line of thinking (as if atheism is by definition SCIENCE) are directing the demise of their own faith — just as we see the results in post-Christian age of Europe, and just as 3SG 90-91 predicted.

What amazes me is that those evolutionists think that the rest of us “won’t notice”.

This is how we think and work. We can’t pretend we are doing science if only certain answers are allowed. Can we not have scientists in our schools, or is that ruled out by “fundamental belief #6,” as you have implied? I would like to think we have not been “ruled out.”

We are still waiting for you to show how to bend belief #6, bend Gen 1:2-2:3, bend Ex 20:8-11 with some more substantive “detail” than your current recommendation telling us to (in essence) “ignore scope and time frame whenever the Bible mentions it”.

Having trouble getting around to that pesky little “detail”??

in Christ,

Bob

BobRyan Also Commented

La Sierra schism widens
@Darrell:

My argument is that regardless of the obviousness of error in TE, the mindset that people are generating of ‘kill em all and let God sort them out’ will usually be applied to other things that are not the mountains like TE…

The current mentality from many conservatives is, ‘If you can’t believe as our church believes in every doctrinal specific, you shouldn’t be an SDA.” And I’m not talking about TE here. I’m talking about not believing on how to keep the Sabbath as some do, I’m talking about not believing the finer points of biblical prophecy or eschaetology as some in our church do. I’m talking about styles of worship, dress, eating and drinking that others feel they have a monopoly on the truth of it. This mentality is taken further when the witch-hunters decide you are not moving out the door fast enough for them. Character assassination, slander, railroading, vicious gossip..all of these have been engaged in because people won’t toe the status line.

Darrell I think it is facinating how you redirect this subject on the serious issue of leading SDA students into gross apostasy (such as atheist views on origins as found in evolutionism) – into the more bland subject of “what did you do on Sabbath that I don’t agree with”.

Is it your argument that all differences of every kind must be eliminated from church discusssion BEFORE we are allowed to even start to deal with the serious decades-long problem of evolutionism being promoted in our own universities?

Surely you have not gone to such an extreme.

Yet this is the logic in your argument above.

Did you really mean to go there?

This brings up a secondary issue. In the SDA church today we have an emerging group calling themselves “Progressive Seventh-day Adventists”. I am not convinced that that group is uniformly in favor of evolutionism. However I am concerned that they may see evolutionism as “their cause” to defend – as it gets to the subject of “let everyone believe whatever they choose” that is so near and dear to the Progressive agenda.

in Christ,

Bob


La Sierra schism widens
@Darrell:

Darrell says:

Second, why do you feel the need to ‘purify the church’? Theistic evolution aside, where is the diversity of belief in the church? Where is the tolerance and acceptance of differing beliefs? Who determines the level of purity to be reached and how exactly do you propose the church gets there? More witch hunts? More elitist thinking that insists your view is correct and everyone else can conform or get lost? Slander? Career destruction in the name of God’s work and ‘purity’? Where does it end?

Hint: 1Cor 5:6-7
1 Tim 5:20

But Darrell illustrates a good example instructive for the unbiased objective reader. His argument is to claim equality with all inspired texts (be that Ex 20:8-11 or 3SG 90-91) and then argue that all of those texts are merely “opinion” of no more value in than an TE-ist on the planet.

Therefore to choose to affirm those texts (as if they matter and as if ignoring those texts is actual error) instead of claiming “we are ALL the same” along with your friendly neighborhood TE is to be intolerant and elitist.

But as it turns out — the inspired texts actually do have value. weight and authority in these matters.

As hard as that is going to be on the TE solution.

in Christ,

Bob


La Sierra schism widens
@Debbie:

Debbie says:
February 2, 2010 Someone said our tithe goes to pay these Professors. Is this true? Just where does the tithe go anyway! I’d like to know.

Tithe goes to the religion department and to the men’s dean and women’s dean.

offering and Tuition pay for the rest.

To the extent that the religion department is cooperating or in Fritz Guy’s case – actively promoting evolutionism – it shares in the blame.

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