Comment on A big reason why so many people are leaving the church by Sean Pitman.
What is faulty is not reality itself – regarding either the Bible or nature. What is faulty is the human ability to correctly appreciate reality – regarding the true nature of nature, the Bible, and all other forms of truth.
I believe in absolute truth. I just don’t believe in the human ability to accurately comprehend absolute truth. The best that we humans can do is approach truth without ever fully realizing it.
This means that all our beliefs, to include our belief that the Bible is in fact the Word of God, are subjective – subject to the possibility of error – to include your interpretation of history’s support of the Bible.
By the way, history was a part of nature and evidence in nature is the basis for validating history. This is why historical sciences are true sciences that use scientific methodologies. When you appeal to history as evidence of the Bible’s Divine origin, you are not truly using the Bible to confirm its own authority. You are using a reference that is external to the Bible as a form of empirical evidence that supports your interpretation or theory that the Bible has a Divine origin.
Thus, evidences in nature are what even you use to confirm your theories regarding the Bible’s meaning, origin, and credibility.
With regard to the Bible in particular, I think the odds that the Divine origin theory is in error are so small that I’d be willing to put my own life on the line that the Bible is in fact the true Word of God. That being said, I could still be wrong. The Book of Mormon or the Qur’an may actually be the true Word of God. As highly unlikely as that may seem to me at the present time, I must and I should consider this possibility.
My LDS friends, like you, refuse to even consider the possibility of error with regard to their belief that the Book of Mormon is the True Word of God – not the Bible. They will not even consider it a remote possibility that they could be wrong. No empirical evidence from history or anything else can convince them to consider the possibility of error. We need to try to avoid this trap of irrationality in our own religion…
In short, there’s a difference between the existence of absolute truth and the realization or comprehension of absolute truth…
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Sean Pitman Also Commented
A big reason why so many people are leaving the church
@Professor Kent:
Rejection of the Seventh-day Sabbath because of a rejection of the clear reading of the Genesis account of origins is a rejection of the nature of inspiration of the Bible that Mrs. White (and the SDA Church) was trying to promote. Such a rejection completely changes the picture of God in one’s mind and the nature of the Bible as well as the Bible’s power to change one’s life and one’s world perspective. The Bible means something very different if it is viewed as a allegory vs. if it is viewed as literally true on those topics where the author(s) clearly intended to be taken as describing real historical events.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
A big reason why so many people are leaving the church
@Professor Kent:
There are many different ways to “believe in the Bible” that are completely opposed to the type of belief or faith that Mrs. White was trying to promote. Many believe that the Bible is a book of good moral instruction, but has nothing of any real value to say about the physical world. Many believe that the Bible is a collection of man’s best wisdom over the centuries, but is not actually the Word of God.
What Mrs. White was talking about is that a belief in mainstream evolutionary theories destroys a belief in the Bible as the clear Word of God on every topic it touches upon – to include the topic of origins. The evolutionary perspective undermines faith in the character of God that Ellen White understood and which the SDA Church is trying to promote. It undermines faith in the reasonableness and rationality of God – suggesting that God is willing to “command men to observe the week of seven literal days in commemoration of seven indefinite periods, which is unlike his dealings with mortals, and is an impeachment of his wisdom.”
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
A big reason why so many people are leaving the church
@Shane Hilde:
Exactly! Not even Abraham was asked to believe in the naked word of God devoid of empirical evidence that would appeal to the rational candid mind. God was not offended when Abraham asked for this evidence because without such evidence, Abraham would truly have been insane to simply follow voices in His head claiming to be the voice of God without any external empirical confirmation…
There are false spirits out there that will lie to us. These spirits must be tested. And, the only basis upon which to employ and interpret tests is our God-given human reasoning abilities.
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.
