Comment on The Adventist Accrediting Association to Approve LSU’s Accreditation by Sean Pitman.
1] Do you believe as has been articulated; Ellen White personally held to various ideas that may have been mistaken and are downright wrong. She was only human and subject to errors in her own personal ideas and perspective – as were the writers of the Bible?
SEAN; YES
2] Do you think that Luther’s idea that the earth was created on day 1 of the creation week was the dominant Christian idea at the time?
SEAN: YES
3] Do you think Luther and his Christian predecessors could read and interpret the text accurately?
SEAN; YES
No. I don’t think Luther interpreted many Biblical concepts accurately. Adventism has discovered additional Biblical truths and insights that were not apparent to Luther. This should be obvious or I would be Lutheran.
4] Do you think that Luther, in stating his claim that the verses Gen 1:1-3 are literal and that the earth was created on the first day and the sun moon and stars were created in the first week mean that he though that the entire universe was created in the first 6 day?
SEAN; NO
Yes. This is what I would think is suggested by a belief that the stars were created during creation week. After all, this is the standard YEC position today – that the whole universe was created during creation week.
5] Do you think that an acceptance of YEC can only be invoked if you claims that the entire universe perhaps including God himself was created on days 1-4?
SEAN; NO
The standard YEC position promoted by the most prominent YEC organizations is in fact that the entire universe was in fact created during the creation week. That God was all alone all by Himself for eternity past prior to this point in time.
6] Do you think that the Adventist YEC position articulated in “SDAs believe” becomes legitimate if you relabel it a gap theory?
SEAN; YES
I have no idea what you mean by “becomes legitimate”? The fact of the matter is that arguing that the universe pre-existed creation week is based on a gap theory of creation. It is not the YEC position.
7] Do you think that the YEC position of modern creationists such as CMI AIG and ICR is that the entire universe including perhaps God Himself was created with the earth during the creation week?
SEAN; NO
God is not claimed to have had a beginning as far as I’m aware. However, it is the position of these organizations that the entire universe was created during creation week.
8] Do you think that the miraculous flood geology is true?
SEAN; YES
I don’t think Flood geology is miraculous nor does it require intelligent design to explain.
9] Do you accept as accurate the Wiki statement that “The Gap Theory”) is a form of old Earth creationism that posits that the six-day creation, as described in the Book of Genesis, involved literal 24-hour days, but that there was a gap of time between two distinct creations in the first and the second verses of Genesis, explaining many scientific observations, including the age of the Earth”?
SEAN; YES
Not exactly. There are many different gap theories, most of which are indeed an effort to explain many mainstream so-called “scientific” explanations. This is not the case, however, for the Passive Gap Theory (PGT). The PGT is not based on any effort to harmonize the Bible with mainstream geology or Darwinism – not at all.
10] Do you accepting long ages for the existence of the earth?
SEAN: YES
11] Do you believe that the science of geology including radiometric dating is the basis for accepting long ages for the material of the earth?
SEAN; YES
As I’ve explained several times already, to you, I do not believe that radiometric dating assumptions have anything at all to do with the PGT of creation.
12] Is accepting long ages for the earth the criteria for a gap theory?
SEAN; YES
Accepting the existence of anything, besides God, prior to creation week is the acceptance of some kind of Gap Theory.
13] If you personally accept a passive gap theory do you then accept that others may also legitimately have a different gap theory?
SEAN; YES
Again, I don’t know what you mean by “legitimate”? There are many gap theories that are not consistent with the Adventist perspective. No gap theories, for example, that hope to explain death and suffering before creation week are consistent with Adventism or with Christianity in general.
14] Are all other gap theories that would include fossils in the gap incorrect even though they are based on same scientific arguments you have used to justify a gap theory?
SEAN; YES
They are incorrect from the Adventist perspective. And, yet again, the PGT is not dependent upon mainstream scientific arguments for the age of anything on this planet.
15] Is it not capricious to accept one gap theory and not others even though they are based on the same process?
SEAN; YES
They aren’t based on the same process.
There that wasnt so hard was it.
I’m truly at a loss to understand how you still do not seem to understand concepts that I’ve explained several times – unless you’re just not reading through all of my responses to your posts?
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
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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.
