Eddie November 1, 2011 at 10:22 am “Like most of you …

Comment on Back to Square One… by Nic Samojluk.

Eddie November 1, 2011 at 10:22 am

“Like most of you I happen to accept all 28 fundamental SDA beliefs (by faith, not by scientific evidence, in contrast with some of you), but if I had to choose one of you to be marooned with on a tiny island for the rest of my life, it would definitely be……Ken!”

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Notice that you did not say “a mixture of faith and evidence” but rather “faith, not by scientific evidence.” I believe this led me to conclude that for you evidence was not an integral component of faith.

You do accept all 28 FB’s. I don’t. I only accept those which can be defended by what we find in Scripture.

Nic Samojluk Also Commented

Back to Square One…
What happened to all the postings dated November 9, 10 and 11?


Back to Square One…
@Eddie:

Eddie,

I must be a prophet. As I predicted, my previous responses directed at you were deleted, probably before you had a chance to read them. It would be foolish for me to repost them.

Since you are already familiar with my own web site, you will find the same material I used to answer your comment there. Look for my most recent entries and let me know what you think. Use my own web page for answering instead of Educate Truth.


Back to Square One…
@Professor Kent:

Professor KentNovember 7, 2011 at 3:35 pm

Nic Samojluk: #2: There is one God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a unity of three co-eternal Persons.

None! The doctrine of the Trinity was added in the third and fourth centuries and copied from pagan dogmas…The Trinity doctrine was invented by the Catholic Church.

“How can you be SDA, Nic, when you deny the Trinity?”

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I have a question for you: The Adventist pioneers were non-Trinitarians. This is a fact. Were they Adventists?


Recent Comments by Nic Samojluk

A “Christian Agnostic”?
@Sean Pitman:

Sean PitmanNovember 23, 2011 at 8:57 am

“How do you know? You said that you considered God’s existence to be “likely”. Isn’t the word “likely” a statistical/scientific term based on at least some ability to actually demonstrate the odds of a hypothesis being correct?

This is my problem here. How can you say that something is “likely” when, at the same time, you say that you have no empirical evidence for what you say is “likely to exist”? – no more evidence than you have for mythological fairytales?

You see, it is your use of the phrase, “likely to exist” that doesn’t make sense to me since it appears, at least to me, that you’re being inconsistent with yourself.

If you have no positive evidence for God’s existence, and if everything that you do know appears to you to have a mindless natural cause, how then can you say, one way or the other, that the “first cause” was “likely” an intelligent God-like being vs. some other mindless natural process? Upon what basis do you make this claim?”

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Sean,

Thanks for this impeccable logic. I appreciate the clearness with which you demonstrate the role evidence plays in providing support for our faith.

Faith without evidence places us at risk of becoming victims of charlatans and those who have been deceived by the Devil.

Sure, there is evidence for and against a belief in God and Creation, but the weight of evidence favors the biblical teaching that God is the one who created everything that exists.

We do owe our existence to him alone and he is entitled to our worship. The moment we credit Nature for our existence, we fall prey to the artful deceptions of the one determined to destroy our faith.


A “Christian Agnostic”?
@Sean Pitman:

Sean PitmanNovember 15, 2011 at 7:01 am

“@Nic Samojluk:

I think that Bob’s answer was superb, yet ten bloggers voted his comments down. Is the voting system rigged somehow?

The voting is not rigged. It is just that people tend to vote from the hip for or against a comment, before actually reading it, based only on who wrote it – not what was actually said in the particular comment at hand.

This also happens on Talk.Origins – and pretty much all discussion forums. I did an experiment once where I re-posted a comment from a well-known evolutionist under my own name (on Talk.Origins). There was no end to the ridicule against the comment based simply on the assumption that I had actually written it. When I pointed out that I had not actually written the comment, that it was written by one of their own, the attempts at back-peddling were quite hilarious

I’m sure the same thing would happen here as well. That is why the allowance of “voting” for comments is really only a curiosity feature “just for fun” and really has little meaning aside, perhaps, from keeping track of how many people from opposing camps are actually following a particular thread.”

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Thanks, Sean. You are so right! Perhaps I should pay less attention to the number of votes posted next to bloggers’ comments!


A “Christian Agnostic”?
@BobRyan:

BobRyan November 11 2011 at 6:11 pm

In this case we are talking about complex houses not just a cube – complete with embedded nano-tech capable of self-repair – self-healing, auto-paint-updating etc.

Something like this…


v=GVqJdAqTD4Q&feature=related

When your fellow atheists and agnostics view that in a moment of objectivity – they respond something like ABC News did when it reported on it…

And in this case – those houses would be found all over Mars. And the observing agnostic friend might be tempted to claim “well then complex houses of that sort must occur naturally in the rocks and sand of Mars — err… umm… somehow, because there are sooo many of them”.

For the rest of us – it would be a sign of Martians – very smart ones.

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I think that Bob’s answer was superb, yet ten bloggers voted his comments down. Is the voting system rigged somehow?


A “Christian Agnostic”?
@Sean Pitman:

Sean Pitman November 6, 2011 at 12:52 am

“Part of the problem, of course, is that biologists are far better at telling just-so stories than they are at math. It is much much easier to come up with imagined just-so stories about how things may have morphed over time than it is to actually do the relevant math or to understanding the statistical odds involved with crossing the growing non-beneficial gaps between functional systems at higher and higher levels of functional complexity.”

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I am reading a little book authored by Robert Piccioni, a physicist who took the time to calculate the chance of life being the result of an accident, and he concluded that such a chance occurrence is for all practical purposes almost equal to zero. The title of his book is “Can Life be Merely an Accident?”

He is also the author of another book dealing with this issue. The title is “Everone’s Guide to Atoms Einstein and the Universe.” He is not an Adventist, but he is convinced that the universe was the result of the work of a designer.


A “Christian Agnostic”?
@Bill Sorensen:

Bill SorensenOctober 30, 2011 at 7:57 pm

“Ron said…..

“If you take Gen. 1 literally, NOBODY can explain how to reconcile it with science.”
Really, Ron? And can you explain by science how Jesus rose from the dead? or how He heals the blind man? Or, how He can be God and man at one and the same time?
I know I can’t. None the less, I know they are all true by faith. I don’t look to science to “prove” the spiritual concepts of the bible.

Small wonder you justify doubt, skepticism and unbelief. Apparently you think science can eventually concur and prove all biblical statements and concepts.”

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Does Sean and Shane really believe that eventually science will be able to explain “and prove all biblical statements and concepts” including Jesus resurrection and his ability to turn instantly water into wine? If they do, I would like to know this!

There are things in the Bible—like Noah’s Flood—for which there is plenty of scientific evidence. If anyone has any doubts about this they need to listen to D. Ariel Roth.

Last Sabbath he made a presentation of such evidence and I was impressed. Does this mean that Roth can provide scientific evidence for all the supernatural evidence recorded in Scripture? Of course not! God provides sufficient evidence for belief to take root and grow.