@Glenn Orin Clifford Stansal: As I stated on a posting …

Comment on CCC apprises leadership of LSU news by BobRyan.

@Glenn Orin Clifford Stansal:

As I stated on a posting regarding this matter on anther provided site, it seems to me that at least one of the most important issues needing to be addressed is that this institution is claiming to be one of ‘higher learning’. At least I would imagine this is the case. It behooves LSU, then, to follow a mandate of true ‘academic freedom’, regarding what is presented to students; that is, that all courses be taught in an impartial manner, and that the choice of what to believe is left to the student, based upon personal conviction and research.

That idea would never have launched a single institution of higher learning by this denomination. IF the church had stated the goals and vision for education as you just did and then had to weigh spending time and resources on building more impartial – neutral (read “public universities in theory not in practice” ) or else staying 100% focused on just spreading the Gospel — the Gospel would have won that decision tree exercise hands-down! (Obviously public universities are not neutral at all – but are heavily biased for evolutionism so technically they don’t even qualify – but in theory they should have qualified for this example)

If we had started with the goal of “impartial” education that did not in the least promote Adventist doctrines as even being correct – but merely taught evolution’s doctrines on origins and said “you are free to believe it or not” — (as if our job was done at that point) – we would have ZERO Adventist tithe, offering and tuition dollars diverted to such a pointless exercise.

But the “actual” goal was to teach health, sciences and religion in a way that stressed the distinct Advantages in all of those areas that is available within the Adventist world view. Makes for a horrible “public university model” but works well as an Adventist method for promoting the Gospel and the benefits of the truth given to this end-time people of God.

It would seem to me to be professional incompetence, or at least abrogation of duty, to promote one philosophy or ‘explanation’ of our origins as the professor’s personal pick, while then making a mere pretension of the statement that BOTH choices are being presented impartially.

I agree that Adventist professors should not claim to be neutral on this subject. They should tell students up front that they think God actually has credibility and that His Word is to be trusted and that they affirm the Adventist 28 Fundamental Beliefs as they apply to the subject of origins.

And guess what! – -you do not see “origins” (abiogensis) under a microscope. Neither do you see “birds coming from reptiles” there.

So those Adventist science professors never need to give credibiliyt to the hype and fear that a student will see abiogensis or will see birds coming from reptiles. It is pure fiction on the part of hopeful evolutionists and nothing more.

in Christ,

Bob

BobRyan Also Commented

CCC apprises leadership of LSU news
Critical thinking is necessary to avoid being duped by outright propaganda.

Propaganda typically takes the form of “appearing to have substance” when really nothing more than “POV designed to manipulate the reader/viewer” is present in the material. Thus marketecture or marketeering rather then reporting substantive facts that support the perceived claims being made.

An easy example “Doctor’s recommend CREST” or “Doctors prefer Crest” – simply says that more than one doctor was found that would admit to recommending or prefering Crest — but is stated in a way to “appear” to claim that Doctors do not prefer anything but Crest in general. Critical thinking is needed to discern reality vs spin-doctoring.

Thus Colin Patterson responds to the “suggestion” that he include an artist’s drawing of an imagined intermediate form – in his book on evolution, was that he could not find a way to do so without misleading the reader.

in Christ,

Bob


CCC apprises leadership of LSU news
@Glenn Orin Clifford Stansal:

Glenn Orin Clifford Stansal says:
February 8, 2010 As I stated on a posting regarding this matter on anther provided site, it seems to me that at least one of the most important issues needing to be addressed is that this institution is claiming to be one of ‘higher learning’. At least I would imagine this is the case. It behooves LSU, then, to follow a mandate of true ‘academic freedom’, regarding what is presented to students; that is, that all courses be taught in an impartial manner, and that the choice of what to believe is left to the student, based upon personal conviction and research. It would seem to me to be professional incompetence, or at least abrogation of duty, to promote one philosophy or ‘explanation’ of our origins as the professor’s personal pick,

And of course – currently we have that at LSU in the form of the biology department’s public evangelism for evolutionism and denegrading God’s claims to have Created all life on planet earth in a literal 7 day Creation Week — commemorated by the 7th day memorial Sabbath.

while then making a mere pretension of the statement that BOTH choices are being presented impartially. The appropriate facility for the promotion of one of these ‘explanations’ would be the campus church (assuming there is one on campus), and, for the other explanation, an off-campus forum for discussion or promotion.

Certainly the religion department should have its own “critical thinking” course customized to show the damage that evolutionism’s doctrines on origins do to the Bible doctrine on origins. We can agree to that part.

But the sciences also have a part to play in showing the evidence that remains from that 7 day literal creation week less than 10,000 years ago.

(Evidence from river delta formations, Helium build up, C14 equilibrium measurements in the atmosphere, rapid fossilization, global sea evidence, the impossibility of abiogenesis given what we know about necessary chiral orientation of amino acids, the lack of necessary- plasticity in the genomes for eukaryote systems that would be required for “birds came from reptiles” story telling, the fact that even atheist evolutionists admit that fossils do NOT reveal ancestors to a given species … etc)

And as for getting off campus evangelists for evolutionism – I agree that watching some kind of dog-and-pony show conducted by an evolutionist “true believer” would also be an excellent field trip.

in Christ,

Bob


CCC apprises leadership of LSU news
@colin campbell:

colin campbell says:
February 10, 2010 Teaching students to think critically might be an objective.

I agree!

So they could show them the list of confirmed junk-science fraud after fraud used for 10, 20, 40 even 50 years to prop up the religious view of origins promoted by evolutionism — and then how later that fraud was so convincingly exposed and publically admitted to be deception.

In other words – exploring “the propaganda machinery” behind evolutionism – given such a large volume of historically proven blunders, falsehoods and deceptive practicies already available to the objective unbiased reader. Blunder so massive that even atheist evolutionists “know to blush”.

There is a massive amount of “instructive value” for students who are given the opportunity to “be informed about that history” and then to “review the lessons learned” from it — case by case. Then some study of the principle that “Evolutionism only flourishes in the vaccuum of data we don’t have”. As soon as the full scope of data shows up – the evolutionist blunder is exposed!

The other aspect to this – would be to have a course in the Theology department where detail study is done showing how evolutionism has destroyed the Christian church in Europe – leading it to it’s current “post-christian age” and also showing in detail which doctrines in the Adventist list of 28 Fundamental Beliefs are undermined by evolutionism’s counter doctrines on origins. (Hint – it is amazing that we have evolutionists here that admit that our 28 FB would need to be changed – but they are often reluctant to list all the changes that would be needed to logically and consistently accomodate the false doctrines on origins offered to believers in evolutionism.)

Sadly – I don’t think that level of “critical thinking” is welcomed among the current group of LSU biologists.

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