Comment on Adventists are virtually silent by Denver Fletcher.
@Bravus:Yes, that is correct.If no evidence can be found which necessitates a creative power that is indistinguishable from a God-like power, intellectually tenable theism would effectively be falsified.Hence Dawkins’ argument that Darwinism does this very thing…a very rational argument as far as I can tell.Sean Pitman
http://www.DetectingDesign.com
Not really.
It’s curious how the word theism gets used. In spite of how atheists like to frame this point, the famous giants of science were not merely theists, they were explicitly **Christians**. They did not believe merely in some amorphous generality, but in a personal Messiah. In other words, they made religious claims every bit as testable as their scientific propositions. I will go further and propose that, properly understood, there is no real distinction between the two, that science and religion are inextricable.
God Himself says, “prove me now, and see”, because God was the very first scientist, was He not?
It is not logically correct to insist that the two propositions must be logically equal in every sense: after all, one of them is necessarily false. We ought to expect the false one to exhibit the characteristics of falsehood, but not the true one, surely?
Christianity, and in particular Adventist Christianity, has made concrete predictions based on our theory of God. If those predictions fail, so too does our entire religion. So far, biblical Christianity, which ought to be synonymous with Adventist Christianity, is batting a thousand.
Evolution has made so many predictions that have turned out to be wrong that it would be a laughingstock if it weren’t emotionally necessary in order to provide a veneer of intellectual respectability for atheists. Some honest evolutionists, whom you’ve already quoted, have noticed this. Unfortunately, many have not.
Just to provide one example, since I anticipate the demand: Darwin himself expected the fossils to show millions of “intermediate” forms showing the gradual transition of one species to another. That was a necessary consequence of his proposition used as the title of his book, “On the Origin of Species”.
We are, of course, still looking for a single transitional form. The entire search for a “missing link” is a philosophical error, precisely because it assumes the truth of the proposition and lays blame on the evidence. It goes like this:
“we *know* evolution is true, because it must be true in order for us to reject God, so if we can’t find the link it isn’t because there never was a link, but because the link is “missing”.”
You know how many times those “links” have been invented since they do not exist.
The reality is that every species, EVERY SINGLE ONE, that we find either alive or as fossils, appears fully formed, fully functional, with no “junk DNA”, no “vestigial organs”, and no transitional components, let alone entire transitional forms. From an evolutionary perspective, the fossil record is almost nothing but missing links.
Stephen Jay Gould, a brilliant man, noticed this but, unwilling to abandon his atheism, proposed instead that evolution happens so fast that it leaves no evidence. He borrowed a concept from atheist cosmology and called this punctuated equilibrium. A neat sidestep but totally untestable. He thus leapt from the frying pan into the fire. But his argument about what the fossils actually show is incontrovertible. He was at least honest enough to acknowledge this publicly, for which honesty he was pilloried by his peers and mercilessly mocked.
It is quite simple to test the proposition “There is a God”, and I expect everyone who claims to be a Christian to have already done so. Are we not instructed to do so? If they have not, then I cannot help but wonder from whence comes their conclusion that there is one?
I also do not agree with Bravus at all that there is any area of life in which the philosophical disciplines of science can not or should not be applied. That is an appeal to a mysticism that is fatal to Christianity (and perhaps it explains to some degree why we are even having this debate at all, since so much of theistic evolution has a marked mystical aspect to it). God is so rigorously logical and consistent that we struggle to apprehend the extent to which that is true, but our struggle to apprehend does not invalidate that fact.
In the sense that we cannot force God to perform in a controlled environment, as we can the elements of the material world, you do have a point. However, it is only in that sense that you have a point.
On the personal level we are commanded to test Him, to prove not only His exisence but His character.
As the song goes:
“How I’ve proved Him o’er and o’er”
My Regards
Denver
Denver Fletcher Also Commented
Adventists are virtually silent
Dear David,
That was an excellent response. Thank you. At least now I think I understand your point, although I do not agree with it.
I think that even your last quote emphasises that true science and Christianity ARE in complete agreement. Surely they MUST be, since God IS the creator of both?
But man’s **opinions** about science and religion are often in conflict, which again only emphasises that the problem is in man, just as biblical Christianity teaches.
I do not agree that “the truth is not out there” because “the heavens declare the glory of God, the firmament showeth HIS handiwork”. All of creation is a testament to HIS character; it IS the truth, we just dont want to accept it because it deprives us of our illusions about independence.
The problem is that the truth is not IN US!
But thanks for some very interesting and thought-provoking insights.
Regards
Denver
Adventists are virtually silent
Bravus,
Neither science nor religion rises or falls on one (normal) man. However, and whatever we think of his ideas today, Newton was a Christian and not only a theist. That was my point.
Do Shakespeares sonnets not have forms and structures that can be analysed using scientific principles? How, for example, do you know that they are sonnets at all? Is there only one single way of evaluating or experiencing their brilliance, and it is confined to how they make one feel?
I do not think so.
I think Sean has already ably covered the love angle.
I doubt we’ll ever agree on the wisdom or otherwise of S J Gould’s beliefs, but I was summarising and not caricaturing.
My Regards
Denver
Adventists are virtually silent
David,
That’s interesting, especially your last line.
Do you mind if I ask you; what then separates the atheist from the Christian?
Has the God you worship (have faith in) created a world in which people are reduced to flipping a coin to decide what SORT of faith to have?
I mean, I agree that atheism in general and evolution in particular are religious convictions, but so too are witchcraft and Hinduism. They’re also, from my perspective, not merely rational alternatives to Christian faith, but they’re categorically **wrong**. I dont “paper over” any holes in my faith, since I have no need to. My faith is empirical, I’ve proved it over and over.
I am not sure how you could persuade anyone that they SHOULD be a Christian using your approach? If it is philosophically no different from being anything else then why bother to change?
What then is the point of the gospel commission, for example?
Do you have the same problem, with professors teaching evolution as if it were fact in an Adventist university, that I have?
If so, why?
I am afraid I dont get it at all …
Regards
Denver
Recent Comments by Denver Fletcher
Mortenson says these leaders and scholars are teaching “that science is the final authority in determining the correct interpretation of some or all of Genesis 1–11, or at least that science is the final authority in determining that the young-earth view must be wrong.â€
Science is an abstract ideal. It has, therefore, nothing to “say” for itself.
Scientists, on the other hand, are people. Humans. Flawed. Subject to all that flesh is heir to, as the Bard put it. That inlcudes the influence of money, power, and popular acclaim, and it’s opposite, public opprobrium.
Anyone who claims (A) to be a Christian (and in particular, an Adventist Christian) and (B) that a man or group of men is their authority to whom they resort for adjudicating Truth, has strayed far from the path of wisdom.
These two things simply cannot be simultaneously held without contradiction. But truth does not ever contradict itself, and therefore those who take this position are in grievous error.
We must pray for people so lost and confused.
Dr. Geraty clarifies his “Challenge” to literal 6-day creationism
The Ten Commandments are built on the principle of Love. each is an application of that principle to a specific circumstance.
We do not bear false witness against (call a liar) those we love.
There cannot ever be any reconciliation between loving God and calling Him a liar.
If this really is Mr Geraty’s position then he is a long way from the path of wisdom.
Matthew 5:19 “Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”
Mr Geraty has a stark choice to make, however he may like to deny that the choice exists at all.
Video show LSU undermining church doctrine
I’m disturbed by the sophistry on display in this first video.
The formulation given (that knowledge = justified, (and) true, belief) seems both self-serving and over-reaching. Further, it violates the consistency principle, since the speaker goes on to say that certainty is not knowledge and that certainty is not even possible (yet he seems certain that his principle of non-contradiction is true). He goes on to say that knowledge changes over time, that what we thought was true yesterday we “know” today to be false. But if it is false, how then could it have been true? If it is false, it was never true. It could have been “justified” previously, but can never have been true, and therefore cannot have been knowledge according to his formula.
I’m also disturbed by the quoting of E G White to the effect that the truth changes over time (which is not what she said) without giving any reference to her use of the term “the eternal verities” and similar terms, and what these portend.
For example, in Acts of the Apostles, page 64, we read:
When the disciples first heard the words of Christ, they felt their need of Him. They sought, they found, they followed Him. They were with Him in the temple, at the table, on the mountainside, in the field. They were as pupils with a teacher, daily receiving from Him lessons of ETERNAL TRUTH.
Hmmm, eternal truth that changes? I doubt that is what she was trying to convey. Leaving out such essential data is, in the scientific context, a lie.
These students are being set up by their teachers who, far from having in mind a free-ranging enquiry into the truth, have in mind a specific conclusion. A conclusion which is not truth or knowledge, but merely in conformance with their own opinion.
This is not even education, let alone an Adventist education.
It is only indoctrination.
Regards
Denver
Silence of the Geoscience Research Institute
I’d like, with the website owners permission, to recommend the following, all books written by Jonathan Sarfati:
– Refuting Evolution
– Refuting Evolution II
– Refuting Compromise
Especially the latter, which speaks directly to the foolhardy attempt to reconcile biblical Christianity with evolution, and decisively refutes it in quite comprehensive and devastating manner.
I have no interest in the sale of these works other than the defense of our faith, which stands on very solid ground.
Regards
Denver
Student reveals true intent of LSU’s biology seminar class
Louie
When the apostle spoke of spiritual wickedness in high places, he wasn’t only talking about places we consider “worldly”. The bible is replete with examples of spiritual wickedness within the family of God. What you have been exposed to is one more in a line of many. You are right to oppose it, and we all in the church ought to be vigilant in rooting it out of our insitutions wherever we find it, however much we recognise that we can never entirely succeed, in this life.
Unfortunately, there exists a class of people for whom the good opinions of other people are more important to their sense of self-worth than the good opinion of God. So, wanting to seem like “good people” to other Christians they live amongst, but equally wanting intellectual respectibility in the eyes of the world and its scientists, they have attempted to combine biblical Christianity with worldy theories.
To people who understand that God is the author of life, while the world follows the author of death, it is plain that this attempt can never succeed: the two things are inherently opposite and irreconcilable. Ironically, the attempt is fatal to both faith and respectability, because the world will not give them what they want – respect – while they remain Adventist Christians, and eventually they will sacrifice what little remains of their Christianity on this altar, in order to get what is not worth having.
I commend you for taking a very public, and at the same time modestly restrained, stand on this point. I know that God will honour and bless you for it.
Regards
Denver
