World Church moves to advance statements regarding creation
@Bravus:

No, I’m implying that recent creationism is sinking. The mountains of evidence against it are so immense, and young people are becoming better and better educated in actually looking at the evidence.

You mean that more and more young people are being brainwashed to believe that mole hills are really mountains in order to support a theory which is the basis of intellectual atheism…

Millions of Christians all around the world are able to reconcile evolutionary theory with their faith, and the Sabbath can be established on God’s words and a symbolic creation story just as well as on a literal creation story and (b) despite the claims made loudly and frequently here, the evidence is as the evidence is.

If you make everything about your “Christian” faith symbolic, what is there that distinguishes your faith in the existence and personal care of God from a belief in garden fairies, Santa Claus, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Hmmmm? As far as I can tell, such social Christianity is no better than essential atheism when it comes to establishing a solid hope in anything.

It is as William Provine, late professor of biological sciences at Cornell University, explained in his very interesting speech for a 1998 Darwin Day keynote address. As part of this speech he noted:

Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly.

• No gods worth having exist;
• No life after death exists;
• No ultimate foundation for ethics exists;
• No ultimate meaning in life exists; and
• Human free will is nonexistent.

Provine, William B. [Professor of Biological Sciences, Cornell University], “Evolution: Free will and punishment and meaning in life”, Abstract of Will Provine’s 1998 Darwin Day Keynote Address.

Provine also wrote, “In other words, religion is compatible with modern evolutionary biology (and indeed all of modern science) if the religion is effectively indistinguishable from atheism.”

Academe January 1987, pp.51-52

It seems to me that Provine was right. Darwinian-style evolution is just one more argument for the philosophical position of “Naturalism” – a position that suggests that everything within the physical world, everything that we can see, touch, hear, taste, or smell, is ultimately the result of non-deliberate mindless forces of nature. These forces do not have feelings or care about you or me or our feelings regarding what they are or are not doing to us or for us.

Now, if you want to by into the basis of such a philosophy, you are certainly welcome. It is just very difficult to hold such a philosophical view and make your “Christianity” appear to be “reasonable” at the same time…

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

World Church moves to advance statements regarding creation
Wow! This does look promising. I hope and pray that these important issues for the SDA Church today will indeed be substantively addressed by the GC – – especially when it comes to significantly clarifying the wording of SDA Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation.

Anything short of specifically addressing and updating the current ambiguous wording of FB#6, wording put in place by so called “progressive” men like Fritz Guy and Lawrence Geraty (who do not personally believe in or wish to uphold the literal nature of the creation week) will leave the SDA Church no better off.

After all, the GC has already put out a very clear statement in support of a literal 6-day creation (back in 2004) – a very clear statement that has been completely ignored by those at LSU and elsewhere who point to the weakness and claim ambiguity in the language of FB#6 as an excuse for their subversive actions against the Church’s historical position on this “Fundamental” Pillar of Faith…

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

After the Flood
Thank you Ariel. Hope you are doing well these days. Miss seeing you down at Loma Linda. Hope you had a Great Thanksgiving!

The Flood
Thank you Colin. Just trying to save lives any way I can. Not everything that the government does or leaders do is “evil” BTW…

The Flood
Only someone who knows the future can make such decisions without being a monster…

Pacific Union College Encouraging Homosexual Marriage?
Where did I “gloss over it”?

Review of “The Naked Emperor” by Pastor Conrad Vine
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.