@BobRyan: Assigning digits, to the nth decimal, to …

Comment on A big reason why so many people are leaving the church by oink.

@BobRyan: Assigning digits, to the nth decimal, to faith and evidence? 23.4% Impressive! Rather like Ivory Soap is 99.44% pure, Obama’s approval rating as of 10;05.66 AM is 43.68%, the precision itself being 99.44% evidence of validity, or are we to receive it 100.00003% on faith? Studies show that such postings are 78.88% belittling.

oink Also Commented

A big reason why so many people are leaving the church
@Ken: And greetings to you!

But my immediate question is, is Martin any relation to Kingsley, the Sir Kingsley Amis? He is: son, which of course you know. Doesn’t everybody?

Though circular, as you say, Amis’s anti-postmodernist reasoning (what he’s famous for, besides fiction, like his dad) is fine, and I’m in his circle. Hail, fellow anti-Postmodernist Orbiteer! Too bad there’s nothing, not even stray cosmic dust, at the center.

Meanwhile, anent Ex 3:14, I AM THAT I AM (Ex 3:14 KJV), if that is circularity it is the consummate and ultimate circle encompassing every other circle and orbit from subatomic to hypergalaxic, not just a circle but a sphere, encompassing and enclosing, at once orbit and nucleus, the very nucleus of the cosmos, is what I think about Ex 3:14. And John 8:58, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.”

Meanwhile?


A big reason why so many people are leaving the church
@Ken:
Now you’re getting exegetical! Me, when I look at that particular text, rereading it again and again, my eyes always see “made.” Right there, in B&W, regardless of version, in Times New Roman or some totally legible sans serif font, on paper or Kindle, wherever you want to look. He that hath eyes… (need I?) You’re seeing “evolved”? How’d you do that! Better yet, why? Better yet, sigh…

Meanwhile back to faith vs. evidence, Bible vs. mind — my eyes always see BOTH, not one or the other. Like love & marriage, efferent & afferent, autonomic and voluntary nervous systems. Sympathetic and parasympathetic. Eccrine & apocrine. Like male and female at the altar (not…need I?). He made them (no, not evolved them) both, separate but equal, equally crucial.

Mercifully, people seem quick enough to see the difference as well as the connection between male & female than faith & evidence, or used to. But nowadays … (need I?). Well, that’s what it’s come to, in this cheery, whimsical, channel-gender-switching postmodern age. Have a good agnoevolution!


A big reason why so many people are leaving the church
@ken: “…a PENULTIMATE deity…” I Just can’t let that one go by.

By whim or whimsy you may willy-nilly consign the cosmic Ultimacy to myth, metaphor, metonym, or model; to M, string, or Gaia theory; to quark or quantum; to geometric form, bronze, marble, or electronic, JPEG or TIFF; to pantheism or atheism, but never consign Him to penultimacy. Thanks, friend.


Recent Comments by oink

Beyond the Creation Story – Why the Controversy Matters
@Ken: Ken, re. yours of May 31, 15 12:42 pm: … those standing up for FB28 have every right to do so…until they [presumably the FBs, not the communicants, although either could be changed in a twinkling of any eye] are democratically changed.”

FB28? What’s that? You probably know better than I. Genesis 1 I can quote; FB28 I can’t. And won’t bother to check. I couldn’t even tell you where to find those FBs. I read what you say more assiduously than the FBs. (What’s FB? FaceBook?)

In the first place I think you’ve got Adventism wrong, or at least Adventism as I know it. Well, maybe you haven’t, the postmodernist kind anyway. I’m pre-catechistic, ergo prehistoric, alas. I’m that old.

FB28 or whatever it is, if it WERE changed, democratically or otherwise, dramatically or creepingly, by evolution or edict, even if expunged and expurgated in the interest of big-tent accord, which seemed on the verge of happening pre-T. Wilson, and may yet, I wouldn’t even know it until I saw it here. You’d know before I would.

With or without and despite FB28 or whatever, or EduTruth, I’d still honor Genesis 1. I’d honor it, A, by faith, because the Bible, i.e. God, says so. A validated faith validated by B, The evidence, good scientific falsifiable evidence. And C, the consummate cosmic multi-vectored syllogism. Everything fits.

Seriously, though, discussion has to start somewhere and be referenced by something, for convenience if not citizenship. But I’d prefer to start, if granted “every right,” with Genesis 1, at the beginning.


Dr. Ariel Roth’s Creation Lectures for Teachers
@Ken: “something Dr. Kime said struck a very strange chord in me: that a Chair in ID at Harvard would be a quantum leap (forward – my edit) while such a Chair would be a step backward at LSU. I’ m very sorry Wes, but for me to honestly investigate reality, such double standard is not acceptable. …[therefore] I think I’m coming to the end of my Adventist journey.”

I can, of course, dear friend, understand why, and respect that, you would see the two directions of leaping, forward and backward, by Harvard and LSU, as a double standard.

But might it also be seen as simple Einsteinian Relativity? It all depends on from whence you’re starting or observing. Two venues, Harvard vs. LSU, two vectors, not two standards. At any rate, a parting of our ways. The Chair did it. A very unlucky ill-omened Chair, from the start.

Parting — that indeed is sad, especially this parting. I grieve too. In sadness we are agreed. That’s not double speak; only you could I say that to.

For these several years you, and your courteous ways, even your questions, have been most fascinating, even endearing, inspiring to both poetic and, I now regret, rasping response. I’ve so much enjoyed your postings, always looked for them first, and appreciated your uncommon patience and politeness, and our camaraderie in the bomb shelter and on the grandstand. Too bad the Chair, our double bed, didn’t work out.

As benediction, maybe we can all get together again, somewhere. Meanwhile, the Mizpah, which I think I should be the one to deliver, seeing it was, you say, my one-liner that was the last straw, for which I’ll get heck all around, and rightly so: “The Lord watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another.” Genesis 31:49.

What the heck, have some popcorn for the road. And don’t forget your cyber plaque. You will be remembered, appreciated, thought about, prayed for. Do come back soon.

Until then, your jousting friend, W


Strumming the Attached Strings
@Phillip Brantley: Excellent! I shall quote you: “learn something from Sean Pitman.” Indeed, indeed — there’s so much to learn from that man.


Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation
@Bill Sorensen: “I don’t know if anyone has really been able to follow your thinking…”

A tad, a smidgeon, just slightly overstated maybe? Just a tad, just a smidgeon, at the cost of not a few dislikes? Well, I for one do follow it. And with great admiration. Great.


What does it take to be a true Seventh-day Adventist?
@Ervin Taylor: Out of purely poetic symmetry of rhetoric, Ervin, your trademark whimsical “…I guess someone who rejects…” is asking for — I was waiting for it! — a Pitman’s “I guess someone who accepts…” Lovely diptych, ping and pong.