@Ken: Thanks, useful friend. We’ve become accustomed to …

Comment on The ANN Highlights LSU’s Dr. Lee Grismer – An Evolutionary Biologist by wesley kime.

@Ken: Thanks, useful friend. We’ve become accustomed to your face. Look forward to seeing it.

But is Adventism — alas you know only the declamations you’ve witnessed here — of any use to YOU? I mean besides bemusement and the chance to offer exemplarily courteous one-upsmanship? Well, what more can anyone ask, in this collapsing world. There IS more to ask for.

wesley kime Also Commented

The ANN Highlights LSU’s Dr. Lee Grismer – An Evolutionary Biologist
@Ken: Ken, may I speak to that? Do I “ever take things on faith?” Never. Not faith alone, anyway.

I take things on both faith and evidence working together in sync, one validating and empowering the other, like I use both my brain and heart, both my sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, one kicking in stronger than the other as the occasion demands, like when a fire alarm sounds my sympathetic kicks in, and when I see, salivate over, bit into, taste, digest lasagna (and finally, after duly processing it, dispose of it) my parasympathetic kicks in, as God engineered it – and only He could come up with a system like that!

As to “anseeing a kvestion vith a kvestion,” as good Israelites, Socrates, all good practitioners of maieutics, and all good medical school professors on teaching rounds, are wont to do, how could I object? How could I when I used to pelt my interns and residents with questions. I learned that from Dr. George Thorn, chief of internal medicine, Peter Bent Brigham (Harvard) hospital, when I was a junior assistant resident there. The trick is not to get carried away with the joy of questioning, and to make the questions have a point. I remember (60 years ago exactly) as a junior medical student on rounds, and the professor asked, “What do you think of pain in the abdomen?” I still don’t know what to think.

But the ultimate such questioner is our greatest example, Christ Himself. The most startling, and frankly rhetorical, of His questions, I think, was on the morning of His resurrection, near the tomb, and Mary Magdalene came there to grieve, and saw Him, but somehow didn’t recognize Him. ““Woman,” He asked her, whom He knew so well, “why are you crying? Who might you be looking for?” John 20:14 (paraphrased)

Your colleague in askings, WK


The ANN Highlights LSU’s Dr. Lee Grismer – An Evolutionary Biologist
@Ken: “But Wes, do you think it is something bigger than Adventism?”

What a no-brainer! What a set-up, Ken, of whom no one is better by far for either one-ups or set-ups! Something bigger? Yes, of course, by far, good grief yes: God. You are on to something big, Ken, our good friend; something big and exciting, a helluva lot more exciting than even blog quibbling, by far. But don’t even think about taking it on faith, which I don’t think you ever would, would you?


The ANN Highlights LSU’s Dr. Lee Grismer – An Evolutionary Biologist
@ken: Ken, interesting thread, our present one, which, as I follow it, is: First, you again expressed your hope that, as the very winsome and gentlemanly agnostic we know you to be, “I am of some use to my Adventist friends.”

So, presuming to speak I behalf of your Adventist friends, I asked you, “Is ADVENTISM…of any use to YOU”?

I assume this was the question you answered by saying, “The answer lies in Dr. Pitman’s attempt to bridge the gap between faith and empirical reality.”

I didn’t expect that. Hmmm. Are you saying that your use for Adventism is focused on one individual lay Adventist, Dr. Pittman, his own focus epitomizing an Adventism you find attractive, and not simply on the brouhaha besetting him? If so you’re on to something, something big.

Regards, Wes


Recent Comments by wesley kime

Dr. Walter Veith and the anti-vaccine arguments of Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche
Informative and stimulating, but proceeding into more confusion. A veteran of Moderna vaccinations, I trust, hope, they are effective, at least until otherwise. The whole business, being part of End Times, is in the hands of God, not humans expert and as degreed as they may be.


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Brilliant, beautiful, and so right! Speaking of your presentation at LLU recently. Great to see you and your family (especially my namesake, Wes. God bless! WK


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@Bob Helm: Dr. Sanford is very familiar to most of us. He was invited to speak at LLU several years ago and I and a great many were privileged to hear him.


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Hats off yet again to Sean for pursuing this topic as a scientist should, no nonsense, and in it’s proper setting — as a revival of one of the ancient ideas recently upgraded as a desperate alternative to the increasingly compelling intelligent design data. I had occasion to review panspermia a few years ago and as is my wont I found it more amusing than scientific. If you would like what was intended to be a satirical response to panspermia and other related curiosities you could check out: http://www.iessaythere.com/black-hole-humor.html
Meantime, Sean’s article is of far more cogent worth.


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As he has done on this site many times, Sean in his line-by-line-item response to C. White (not EG or EB) has, to my mind, clearly enunciated the issue and resolution.

When all the hermeneutics, quoting, and arguing and inordinately judgmental riposte are over, it comes down, as I understand it, to two things: 1) Whether the 7th day Sabbath (whether enunciated in the famous 10 commandments or otherwise) is still valid, and 2) Does the grace obtained by the vicarious sacrifice by the shedding of Christ’s blood or other divine process too deep for us to understand in this life, cover every sin automatically and without ado, altogether passively on our part, or is it only on condition that we first totally and deeply accept it? Other details always hassled forever are distractions.

I accept that I must accept it, wholly, actively, even with agony, with my whole being.