The hubris is in your denial that in the absence …

Comment on The Adventist Accrediting Association to Approve LSU’s Accreditation by Sean Pitman.

The hubris is in your denial that in the absence of any other support from science or biblical scholarship and using exactly the same sources as Martin Luther (ie the bible alone) you alone can come to conclusion that the gap theory is biblically correct and that the YEC that he espoused is biblically wrong.

Which is also true of many other ideas that Luther had about the Bible. Luther didn’t like the books of James or Revelation for instance. He didn’t understand the seventh-day Sabbath or the state of the dead or many other Bible-only based concepts to which Adventists subscribe. It is only to be expected that additional truths will be discovered over time.

Now if you concede that the evidences for the age of the earth available from the 18th century onward or a better appreciation of the provenance of the Genesis account obtained from the historical critical method of biblcal scholarhisp have lead to a change from the literalistic bible base YEC of Luther than I would be not have any concern. But this you clearly do not wish to do and I am left with no other conclusion.

There are other ways to learn additional truths from the Bible besides mainstream Darwinism or the HCM of Biblical interpretation.

I of course take a neo-orthodox position and am happy to admit that we know much more now because of biblical scholarship and the process of science. These are clearly important in my understanding and interpretation of the bible.

Good for you. But, your understanding simply isn’t Adventist. You may well be far beyond what the Church has been able to learn as an organization and adopt as “present truth”. However, being so far beyond the Church puts you outside of Adventism. It is therefore disingenuous of you, or those who hold similar views to yours, to continue to claim to be Seventh-day Adventists. You simply aren’t and cannot possibly represent the primary goals and ideals of the Adventist Church. Therefore, the most honest thing for you and others like you to do is to resign your positions within the Church and go and teach or preach elsewhere under a title that more accurately reflects your position.

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.