William says: I do not personally know Prof. Ness, …

Comment on PUC Professor: The Noachian Flood was just a local flood? by BobRyan.

William says:

I do not personally know Prof. Ness, but I do know professors who have been similarly asked to present the counter arguments to our faith. Just because he did so without offering the balance of his faith in that specific lecture doesn’t mean that balance does not exist. In fact, if he presents a lecture like that, who is to say that he doesn’t spend the next 3 weeks explaining counter evidence. Also worthy of consideration is the reality the Ellen White tells us specifically that it will be impossible for us to remove every reason for doubt in the voracity of Scripture. I think we would be wise to be cautious about attempting to get rid of every professor who admits that he/she cannot reconcile all of the “evidence” of science with our fundamental beliefs, particularly when they state publically that they believe the truths of the Bible though they cannot prove them scientifically.

This is actually a pretty simple matter. PUC has stated that Ness was not presenting what he knew to be true – but rather was playing a kind of devil’s advocate with the Theology department.

The wrench in that argument comes from Ness himself. He does not state that he was presenting claims for science that he felt were wrong or flawed. Not even in his comments here.

In the discussion on the video he leads the students to look for “bible bending” solutions to the sweeping claims for evolution that he starts with. Furthermore his posts here are consistent with that model in that he claims to stand behind his claims in that video. Not only does he appear to oppose the origins doctrine but he also opposes the Bible teaching regarding a world wide flood.

Certainly we may have many church members here or there who question one or the other of those doctrines – but we generally don’t ask them to teach those doubts in our universities.

The point here is that it is highly doubtful that a theology student setting is the one where you present challenges from science and then incourage the students to come up with science solutions in the first place. One has to wonder what the thinking was there in the first place.

In the video they clearly appeared to be trying to get the theology students to come up with “creative bible solutions” and possibly solutions involving some creative reading of Ellen White’s material.

All very odd.

in Christ,

Bob

BobRyan Also Commented

PUC Professor: The Noachian Flood was just a local flood?

Adventist kid: An interesting and pertinent art project at PUC:
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=130821580328265

I consider it very possible that the art department at PUC actually believes in a real 7 day creation week less than 10,000 years ago.

in Christ,

Bob


PUC Professor: The Noachian Flood was just a local flood?

Paul Giem: The problem I have with La Sierra (my information is mostly secondhand at PUC, and I didn’t even get to see the video, and so can’t comment there), is that the above is not the approach of the (controlling) majority of the biology faculty, from all the evidence I have seen. Rather, they have repeatedly sought to keep evidence that might support YLC out of the discussion, and at least in some cases their privately expressed beliefs matched their public (or at least classroom) pronouncements. That is, they teach long ages and unguided evolution, while attempting to disallow any other point of view.

Which again points to the real heart of the problem. This is not a case of teachers that are either Creationist or simply neutral, presenting facts both positive and negative regarding evolutionism.

This is a case of evangelists for evolutionism discounting any thought in favor of God’s view on this topic and favoring every speculative unproven conclusion in favor of Darwin’s self-admitted anti-Bible position (“as if” they have been doing a good thing).

in Christ,

Bob


PUC Professor: The Noachian Flood was just a local flood?
As you watch and listen to that video clip – adding up all the reasons given not to believe the the 7 day creation week and literal world wide flood — you get such “nonscience” ideas as –

1. Did Noah know what the world was – Did Moses know what the World was to report a world wide flood.

1.B “So after our discussion here apparently it would not be too big a deal to make Noah’s flood local not world wide. In fact the only real objection I can think of for that is Ellen White. If you want to claim that Ellen White is accurate in evertyhing she says well then you have to deal with that point… the Bible can be interpreted in different ways.”

2. Bending the Bible defintion for World Wide Flood is the easiest problem to solve.

3. Some people in the SDA church like to insist on a literal 7 day creation week because they think “well that is just the way it was” –

4. Those who wrote out belief #6 were careful NOT to say it is a “literal 7 day week” because they did not want to box any SDAs into thinking that this is the only option and they knew many SDAs simply do not accept it.

5. If you want to change the World Wide Flood idea – another problem you have is Ellen White – so you need to decide whether she is really an authority.

Hint: NONE of that is “science” or “biology” or “news from the science department”. NORE is it a conversation in the form “let is look and see if the science claims being made for evolutionism really hold up”.

Thus the PUC “devil’s advocate” claim appears to be in the form of a supposed devil’s advocate trying to find ways to bend the bible and discount Ellen White, as well as a devil’s advocate making sweeping assertions about science claiming that it is beyond question — because in this talk Ness does not give 40 seconds of time to the idea that maybe his science claims on behalf of evolutionism “could be reinterpreted”. Rather it is only the Bible and our use of Ellen White that is suggested for “reinterpretation”. How “scientific” is that?

The objective unbiased reader using even a small degree of critical thinking when watching that video is going to get a very clear picture of what is going on. No wonder PUC wants to hide it.

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