Comment on Avondale College Arguing in Favor of Darwinian Evolution? by Mike Manea.
I left a similar comment on Advindicate but apparently the conversation is happening here.
It seems to me that everyone here including the author is missing the greater point. To use an illustration, the situation our church is in (and even Christianity in general) is as if we are on the Titanic after having hit an iceberg and, as the ship is filling with water, we occasionally take a small cup and throw some of that water back out. That is the basic impact of writing articles like this one.
Imagine for a second someone trying to impose an apostate version of Christianity upon some group of people. No matter how successful their indoctrination process, as long as those people still have access to the Bible, they will continue to discover the truth. To be truly effective, access to the source (the Scriptures) would need to be cut off entirely.
Today, science has tremendous influence because it has been incredibly successful. After thousands of years of relative darkness, science has taken us from the stone age to the space age in just two hundred years. So what we have to look forward to from here on is for more and more people like Dr. Rogers to spring up from among our membership and promote evolution. And, there are not enough Sean Pittmans around to counter that influence. Not to mention that our access to the secular public (the very people we are trying to reach with the gospel) will diminish more and more because of our stance on Evolution.
What we need is a solution that deals with the source itself. However, the internet has now made it next to impossible to cut off access to the source of the information. While past generations of Adventists/Christians could remain relatively ignorant of the arguments, today, the information is at everyone’s fingertips, literally.
The only option left for us is to take on science itself. We have to introduce a scientifically valid alternative model to the theory of evolution.
Very few people seem to realize how much the theory of evolution is strengthened by the fact that there are currently no valid competing models. Very few creationists seem to realize that their incessant pointing out of flaws with the theory of evolution is accomplishing absolutely nothing if an alternative model is not also proposed. And, very few creationists seem to understand why the alternative theories they are proposing are not scientifically valid or how to make them valid.
I am not saying that Sean’s essay should not have been written since Dr. Rogers’ article did require a response. But what I am saying is that there is a much more important conversation that we need to have, a fact that most seem oblivious to.
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Mike Manea Also Commented
Avondale College Arguing in Favor of Darwinian Evolution?
@Bob Helm:
We don’t need to overthrow; we need to coexist. The problem is that for many scientists, their philosophy coincides with their methodology (naturalistic). We on the other hand must come up with a way to test super-naturalistic concepts using methodological naturalism, which is somewhat tricky but not impossible.
Avondale College Arguing in Favor of Darwinian Evolution?
@Sean Pitman:
Yes, lots of people are making significant efforts. Lots of people have been making significant efforts for a century and a half now. And, fifty years from now they will still be making significant efforts though our situation by then will likely be quite a bit worse.
With this approach however, if we play our cards right, there is a descent chance that in as little as five years we can introduce something that will completely change the game for us. So I apologize if I’ve offended in any way, but, at least in my opinion, this matters.
Avondale College Arguing in Favor of Darwinian Evolution?
@Sean Pitman:
And this is precisely the problem: we mistake ‘open’ for ‘ easy.’
Think for a moment of the civil rights movement. That movement would not have succeeded under a monarchy or a dictatorship. However, just because it took place under a democracy did not mean that it would be successful without careful planning, hard work and sacrifice.
With virtually every other approach creationists have taken, scientists had legitimate concerns. With this approach there are no legitimate objections based on their own rules of engagement. Does that mean it will be easy? Definitely not. But if we don’t make the effort we have only ourselves to blame for the success of evolution and our inability to reach people with the gospel.
