@Ron Nielsen: Sean, it is not true that you are …

Comment on Readers respond to Adventist Review article by Sean Pitman.

@Ron Nielsen:

Sean, it is not true that you are simply opening up the topic for discussion. You are not presenting a cogent argument for or against evolution, you are accusing the teachers and staff of La Sierra of being disingenuous, and you are advocating that the teachers be fired. If you have evidence for creation and against evolution, then by all means enter the discussion and present it in a way that will convince the intellect and convict the conscience, but everyone, teacher and student alike, must be free to decide without coercion. God cannot accept a forced allegiance.

Have you not even glanced at my website – the website I list after my name in every post on this website? I present extensive evidence against mainstream evolutionary ideas and for the young-life perspective.

Outside of this, however, just because a professor is not convinced by such evidence does not mean that this professor should expect to get paid for his/her contrary views by the SDA Church. Since when is it “forced allegiance” for any organization to expect to get from its employees what it hired them to do? – of their own free will? No one forced the employee to take on the job and no one is forcing the employee to stay. However, if the employee wishes to remain employed, it is only expected that the employee will be able to actively promote what the employer originally hired that employee to promote…

The Church simply isn’t in the business of paying just anyone and everyone for just any and all ideas. If that were to happen the Church would soon collapse into irrelevance. The Church, like all viable organizations, must only hire those representatives who are actually able and willing to support the Church’s stated fundamental goals and ideals…

The very foundation of our church is openness to truth. We are here because our forefathers were willing to risk being heretics and to be excommunicated from their churches in order to ask difficult and disturbing questions. And they were willing to tolerate the painful dissonance of opposing opinions within the church and to stay engaged in the discussion until everyone was convinced, not by force, but by reason and conscience.

You are quite mistaken. The founding fathers (and mothers) of the SDA Church originally fought against the internal enforcement of Church order, government, and discipline, but eventually saw the need for it as the Church grew bigger and started to fragment. Your ideas rest on the mistaken notion that all it takes to get everyone on the same page is enough discussion. That’s simply doesn’t work. You can talk to some people till Kingdom come and you will not change their minds no matter how much evidence you offer – even if someone be raised from the dead they will not believe (to quite Christ himself).

Because of this James White and John Loughborough started issuing “Card of Commendation” to those who accurately represented the early SDA Church. They did not give such cards to everyone, and this, of course, made those people who didn’t get these card very upset.

J.N. Loughborough wrote:

Of course those who claimed “liberty to do as they pleased,” to “preach what they pleased,” and to “go when and where they they pleased,” without “consultation with any one,” failed to get cards of commendation. They, with their sympathizers, drew off and commenced a warfare against those whom they claimed were “depriving them of their liberty.” Knowing that it was the Testimonies that had prompted us as a people to act, to establish “order,” these opponents soon turned their warfare against instruction from that source, claiming that “when they got that gift out of the way, the message would go unrestrained to its `loud cry.’ ”

One of the principal claims made by those who warred against organization was that it “abridged their liberty and independence, and that if one stood clear before the Lord that was all the organization needed,” etc. Upon this point, when church order was contested, we read: “Satan well knows that success only attend order and harmonious action. He well knows that everything connected with heaven is in perfect order, that subjection and thorough discipline mark the movements of the angelic host. . . . He deceives even the professed people of God, and makes them believe that order and discipline are enemies to spirituality; that the only safety for them is to let each pursue his own course. . . . All the efforts made to establish order are considered dangerous, a restriction of rightful liberty, and hence are feared as popery.” – “Testimonies for the Church,” Vol. I, page 650.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

Sean Pitman Also Commented

Readers respond to Adventist Review article
@Carl:

My purpose here is not to convince anyone that evolution explains human origin – I don’t believe that. I’m here mostly because your certainty about the science issues needs at least a little balance. I have never met anyone who is so sure about so much.

You don’t come across as being all that unsure of yourself either ; )

I’ve been intensively studying evolutionary theories for over 10 years now. I do indeed think I’ve discovered a few things and what I’ve discovered strongly favors the literal biblical model of origins. I know you don’t agree, and that’s fine. It is just that you are also in fundamental disagreement with the stated goals and ideals of your employer. You are publicly undermining these goals and ideals. That, in my book, is not fine at all because it is not what you are being paid to do…

But, at the very least, your efforts and the efforts of those like you should be open and transparent for all to see. Everyone should know exactly what our schools are really teaching our own young people…

This is the primary goal and purpose of Educate Truth. Transparency…

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


Readers respond to Adventist Review article
@Carl:

Because my commitment to Adventism is based on a continuing search for the truth. The Bible is our only creed, and that leaves room for a range of interpretation. That’s why the preamble to the Fundamental Beliefs says that they are subject to review and possible change.

So, I hope FB 6 will be revised to widen the search for truth and you demand that we nail it down tight so as to prevent a further search for truth. But, we’re in this thing together.

There are a lot of Christian churches, with very widely divergent interpretations of Scripture, who claim that their beliefs are based on the Bible and the Bible only. Diversity on such a scale, from paid representatives, would lead to chaos, not long term viability. You think we should pay pastors to go around teaching that we should pray to the Virgin Mary or that sinners will burn forever in eternal Hell Fire? Surely not. If a person believes and wishes to be paid to teach such things, that person should seek employment outside of the SDA Church…

The early Church founders, while realizing the potential and even need for change and growth in understanding as new truth came to light also recognized that God does not change and does not counter truths that were clearly revealed by the Holy Spirit during the founding of our Church. New light does not counter older revelations, but compliments it.

When the power of God testifies as to what is truth, that truth is to stand forever as the truth. No aftersuppositions, contrary to the light God has given, are to be entertained. Men will arise with interpretations of Scripture which are to them truth, but which are not truth. The truth for this time, God has given us as a foundation for our faith. He Himself has taught us what is truth. One will arise, and still another, with new light which contradicts the light that God has given under the demonstration of His Holy Spirit…
[Satan] knows that if he can deceive the people who claim to believe present truth, and make them believe that the work the Lord designs for them to do for His people is a removing of the old landmarks, something which they should, with most determined zeal, resist, then he exults over the deception he has led them to believe…
We are not to receive the words of those who come with a message that contradicts the special points of our faith. They gather together a mass of Scripture, and pile it as proof around their asserted theories. This has been done over and over again during the past fifty years. And while the Scriptures are God’s word, and are to be respected, the application of them, if such application moves one pillar from the foundation that God has sustained these fifty years, is a great mistake. He who makes such an application knows not the wonderful demonstration of the Holy Spirit that gave power and force to the past messages that have come to the people of God.

Ellen White, Preach the Word, p. 5. (1905); Counsels to Writers and Editors, p. 31-32. (1946)

Also, organizations cannot be maintained if individuals think to move significantly faster or slower than the organization itself. If you think you are so far beyond the organization in your understanding of obvious truth, perhaps it is time you move on instead of continuing to take money from an organization while undermining its stated goals and ideals (which are clearly stated and have been even more clearly restated by the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists).

God is leading out a people, not a few separate individuals here and there, one believing one thing, another that. Angels of God are doing the work committed to their trust. The third angels is leading out and purifying a people, and they should move with him unitedly. Some run ahead of the angels that are leading His people; but they have to retrace every step, and meekly follow no faster than the angels lead…

Ellen White, Testimonies for the Church. p. 207. Vol. 1.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


Readers respond to Adventist Review article
@Geanna Dane:

“Good News?” What the heck is that? You won’t find talk of Good News here at this website!

Really? – I wonder why I just talked about it then? ; )

The reality of the “Good News” of the Gospel is based, for me anyway, on the demonstrated dependability of those statements of the biblical authors that I can test and evaluate in a potentially falsifiable manner. This has to do with establishing credibility…

For example, remember the time when Jesus was presented with a paralyzed man and told the man that his sins were forgiven? The priests and pharisee around him doubted his claim to be able to forgive sins. So, Jesus asked the question, “Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’?” – Luke 5:23.

Let me ask you, what would have happened to Jesus’ claim to be able to forgive sins if, when Jesus said to the man “get up and walk” the man had not been able to get up and walk? That would have been evidence, very good evidence, against Jesus’ metaphysical claims.

In the same way, evidence against the testable physical claims of the biblical writers is also evidence against their credibility in their other metaphysical claims that cannot be directly tested or evaluated.

On the other hand, evidence in support of the physical claims of the biblical authors is also evidence in support of their overall credibility. In other words, the predictive value of their metaphysical claims increases as the predictive value of their physical claims increases.

So, you see the scientific reasoning behind a solid confidence in the Gospel’s “Good News”…

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.