Comment on The Adventist Accrediting Association to Approve LSU’s Accreditation by Sean Pitman.
You are changing the goal posts. I said YEC is the “traditional Adventist” position and now it is YLC. By this I meant that influential leaders such as Clifford Goldstein, members of the ATS, BRI and GRI now advocate a gap creationist view. I do not know what Ted Wilson thinks on this but suspect he may be torn between EG Whites clear endorsement of a YEC position and acceptance of BRI as the repository of Adventist orthodoxy.
Again, Ellen White never presents a clear endorsement of the YEC position where the entire universe was created on Day 1 of the Genesis creation week. That idea simply is not clearly present anywhere in her writings nor did she ever say that God revealed to her the truth of such a concept. There is simply no reason then, from the Bible or what one considers the “inspired” portions of Ellen White’s writings, to feel compelled to accept this notion. On the other hand, both the Bible and Mrs. White are quite clear that God directly revealed that He created all life on this planet, and made it habitable, within just six literal days. There is no question here and no room for argument within Adventism.
You however cannot with any sincerity at the same time say that because a few people like Uriah Smith accepted the growing acceptance of gap creationism in 1860 the traditional Adventism position was not YEC, and yet at the same time say that a minority view that advocates theistic evolution such as advocated by some biologists at Adventist Universities is not contemporary Adventist position.
You have to either reject both or accept both.
On the contrary, just because you can name one or two founders of Adventism who did clearly support the YEC position (like J.N. Andrews, for instance), does not mean that this therefore represents “traditional Adventism”. After all, the Adventist Church was formed during the late 1800s… a time when many where accepting some form of a gap interpretation of Genesis 1.
Of course, most accepted a gap interpretation of Genesis 1 at that time in an effort to try to harmonize Darwinism and the ancient ages that Darwinism assigned to the fossil record with the Bible. This isn’t the reason why Uriah Smith and other founders of Adventism accepted the YLC position. Obviously, the YLC position is not in harmony with Darwinism at all. Therefore, acceptance of the YLC position would not be any kind of effort to match the new “science” of the day with the Bible. Rather, it is simply a way to reasonably interpret all the statements within the Bible with each other – to include Biblical statements that strongly suggest that the universe and intelligent beings, “sons of God” pre-existed the creation of life on our little planet.
You either accept that there was and is plurality of views in which case your action against LSU is completely hypocritical, or you reject as heretical any variation from the historical Adventist position of YEC and your position is as Bill Sorensen would, and has characterized it, a distortion of traditional Adventist YEC view.
Your support of changes in FB may I suspect come back to bite you if in changing the FB there is a return to a clear articulation of the traditional Adventist position of YEC that aligns with the groups such as CMI AIG and ICR that are highly influential among Adventist creation warrior but support both biblical inerranncy and YEC. What would you do if YEC is indeed enshrined in FB#6? Will you then agree that you were in error in your YLC views?
I don’t see that happening since the YEC position is not and has not been favored over the YLC position in the Adventist Church – either by the church leadership or by conservative academics. And, even if, for some very strange reason, the YEC position were to be clearly supported by the language of FB#6, that wouldn’t change my position. What it would do is force me to no longer advocate for my YLC views if I were to become a paid representative of the church. I would actually have to advocate for the YEC position as the most reasonable interpretation of the Genesis account – something I could not do. Therefore, I could not work for the SDA Church in good conscience.
This is exactly what I’m suggesting to those who are advocating for the long existence and evolution of life on this planet – that they do the honest thing and resign their positions as teachers or pastors within the church.
Sean Pitman Also Commented
The Adventist Accrediting Association to Approve LSU’s Accreditation
This is the same language used by the Bible. Whatever “wiggle room” the Bible leaves open is still open when one uses this language. The Bible is not clear that the “creation of the heavens and the earth” means that the material of the Earth itself was created during creation week. Quite the opposite is true. The Bible seems to suggest that something was here prior to creation week. Or, at the very least, leaves this question open.
The Adventist Accrediting Association to Approve LSU’s Accreditation
Oh please. You do realize that there are difference kinds of “heavens” in Hebrew understanding? This is not a statement arguing that God made the entire universe…
The Adventist Accrediting Association to Approve LSU’s Accreditation
The question is if you or anyone else has even tried to explain how the evolutionary mechanism (RM/NS) can tenably work beyond very very low levels of functional complexity. The answer to that question is no. This means that this mechanism is not backed up by what anyone would call real science. It’s just-so story telling. That’s it. There is nothing in scientific literature detailing the statistical odds of RM/NS working at various levels of functional complexity. And, there is no demonstration beyond systems that require a few hundred averagely specified residues.
What is interesting is that no one who controls the mainstream journals will publish any observations as to why a real scientific basis for the Darwinian mechanism is lacking. The basic information is there. Contrary to Pauluc’s claims, a precise definition of “levels of functional complexity” has been published, along with what happens to the ratios of potential beneficial vs. non-benficial sequences. What no one is allowing to be published is the implications of this information.
Regardless, the implications should be clear to you. The math is overwhelmingly clear. If the ratio of beneficial vs. non-beneficial goes from 1 in 100 to 1 in 1,000,000,000,000 the fact that the average time to success will decrease quite dramatically doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out. Evolutionists, who have actually seriously considered this problem must recognize the implications here, but seem to be trying to brush it all under the rug because no one knows of any other viable mechanism (again, despite Pauluc’s unsupported claims to the contrary – to include his “life enzymes”).
In any case, it is possible for you to move beyond blind faith in the unsupported claims of your “experts” and consider the information that is available to all for yourself. Start at least trying to do a little math on your own and you will no doubt recognize the problem for yourself regardless of what your experts continue to claim – without any basis in empirical evidence or science.
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.
