Sean Pitman: The SDA Church does support the search for truth …

Comment on Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull by Faith.

Sean Pitman: The SDA Church does support the search for truth – just not the denial of truth once it is revealed to us by God.

Amen, Sean, Amen.

To Ron:

If I was searching for my black handbag and I found it, how dumb would I be to continue to search for it? Anything else I found after that would be an error. Just be satisfied with the truth as revealed by God and don’t keep looking for you will not find truth, but lies.

Faith Also Commented

Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull
Hi Ron,

It was me that asked that question.

I must admit that I am absolutely mind-boggled at your reply. I totally agree with what Sean has posted above.

Frankly, Ron, I don’t understand your reasoning. You post more than one comment regarding your father’s death which seems to be bitter and blaming toward God for allowing such a thing to happen. Yet, you affirm Eve’s choice that brought the entire world into sin. Without that sin, there would have been no death in this world. We would have been born into a perfect world where happiness reigns supreme (because, of course, God reigns supreme).

A world where perfect children would be born painlessly and never be sick or hurt themselves; where father’s and sons (or anyone else, for that matter) would never be parted by death; a place without war or accidents or anything that would hurt or maim; a place where you could trust your fellow man to be honest with you; a world without fear; a world where we could communicate with God and the angels face-to-face. I’m sorry–I don’t understand how that is not the most desirable of existences.

Let’s look at this for just a moment. What did we gain by acquiring the knowledge of evil? We learned what it is to be sick–to see little babies born with cancer live short, little lives of suffering. We see pain and death everywhere we look–horrific accidents, natural disasters, young mothers dying in childbirth, young fathers dying in war. We see cruelty, poverty, selfishness, immorality, dishonesty, and fear. In short, it is a dog-eat-dog existence.

And not only man has paid for that original sin; the rest of creation has not escaped the marks of it either. We see one animal hunt and kill another for food. We see the earth being literally destroyed by pollution. And this is just the tip of the iceberg–I can’t possibly list here all the “benefits” of the knowledge of evil.

So you think that the knowledge of sin is so desirable? I can’t see why. I wish I had never heard of it, and I am deeply sorry Adam and Eve did what they did.

Ron: I am actually a partaker of the Divine Nature, having wisdom and knowing good from evil.

So are you trying to say here that Satan was right, that we do become like gods by knowing evil? Perish the thought!


Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull

Bill Sorensen: Such as, the bible says God hardened Pharoah’s heart. So, did God really harden his heart, or did he harden his own heart?

Bill, I cannot lay my hands on it at this moment, but I remember reading in SOP (I believe it was in Patriarchs and Prophets) that God did not perform any supernatural action to harden Pharaoh’s heart. It was all Pharaoh’s choice. God just knew, by Pharaoh’s character, that he would make such a choice; and then the whole plagues and miracles thing would show people that God did exist, He was ruler over all the earth, and was more powerful than all Egypt’s false gods. I will see if I can find it for you this weekend. I won’t promise, but I will try.


Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull

Bill Sorensen: God’s desired will is that “none should perish”, but if a person refuses to repent, then in this situation, it is God’s will that they must be destroyed.

Bill, while the above is true, you did not point out that this destruction of the wicked is a strange act for God. He must finally cleanse the Universe from sin for the greater good and happiness of the major part of His Universe. He could have annihilated the entire planet when Adam and Eve sinned in the first place–but then the rest of the universe would not have understood the nature of sin and its consequences. In ways, just the act of allowing sin to come to fruition is a strange act for God. He doesn’t enjoy watching the results play out here on earth any more than we on earth enjoy participating in the results. But He knew, in His infinite wisdom, that if this scenario was not allowed to play out, there would always be questions. The earth is answering these questions for all time. When God sees that every question has been answered, He will put an end to all the misery we have had to endure. Then He will cleanse His universe for once and for all with the final strange act of the destruction of sin and sinners. When you think about it, this is a brilliant solution to the sin problem, isn’t it? Painful though it may be for earth and for God Himself…it works.


Recent Comments by Faith

Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation
And you are correct, Sean, PK must consider where his influence is going–for God or against Him.


Southern Adventist University opens Origins Exhibit
Mr Taylor,

After reading your comment above, I must say PK isn’t the only one in that boat.I would make some comment as to how I really feel about you, but I know Sean will only delete it and you won’t benefit from my insight anyway–seeing as Sean is more concerned about other people’s feelings than you seem to be.

How you have the nerve to come to this website and call us all a bunch of morons (which is really what you are doing) is beyond me. You and your cronies are the ones drowning in error. Anyone who dares to accept man’s opinions over the Bible or SOP isn’t to be trusted to define truth for anyone.

Too straight-forward in my comment? Trust me, I have restrained myself admirably. If you only knew….


Southern Adventist University opens Origins Exhibit
Further to my comment on skeptism and our professors, I’ve got to tell you that I found Prof Kent to be extremely annoying in his comments on EGW. He seems to think that she is an embarrassment to the church when she speaks on Science.

Personally I find people who dis her to be the embarrassment to the church. I really don’t see how they dare to contradict and mock God’s prophet. By doing this they undermine a lot of our church’s beliefs to outsiders as well as church members. God will hold them accountable for that.

Furthermore, David’s unpublished manuscript plus other books I have read on archaeology have reported skeletons of the type that EGW mentions. Also found were artifacts such as huge iron bedsteads made for and buried with kings of huge stature.

Just because you haven’t done your research, PK, don’t jump to the conclusion the evidence isn’t there. It’s there, all right, and you make yourself look a little foolish for not knowing about it.


Southern Adventist University opens Origins Exhibit
David Read said:

“Ellen White’s statements about larger antediluvian life forms are well attested with regard to many different types of flora and fauna. They’re not even controversial…

Hi David,

As you know, I took advantage of your kind offer and I read your manuscript as well as I purchased 3 of your books, one for me, one for my sisters, and one for the church library. It took me a week to finish the book, and I and my sisters are very impressed with it. My one sister calls it “one incredible book”. It has answered a lot of the questions we had on the subject of evolution vs creation science, and, yes, I believe we (you and I and my sisters) are on the same page in our beliefs. We have immensely enjoyed discussing the various aspects of the subject as we read. It makes perfect sense to us.

I still have a couple of questions–new ones will probably always keep popping up–but I would say you have covered the subject admirably. Thanks so much for this book.

I agree with Elder Wilson, this is something every Adventist should read. In my opinion it should be used as required reading for science courses. It is exactly the way I would want science courses in the universities to treat the Creation/evolution debate in the classroom. And if the professors at LSU and the other SDA institutions would do this we wouldn’t be constantly losing our young people and, for that matter, our professors, to skeptisism.

Thank God someone has the courage to publish the truth and expose error.

God Bless you, David.


Southern Adventist University opens Origins Exhibit
Hi Sean and Bill,

I am wondering if the difference of opinion here is due to varying definitions of the word ‘science’. As we all know there is true science and there is worldly psuedo-science.

If Bill’s understanding of ‘science’ in this case is actually worldly psuedo-science, then he is correct in not wanting any truth to be compromised with it.

From Sean’s post, I believe he is referring to true science, which is definitely part of our beliefs on origins and is well supported by the Bible and SOP, as Sean admirably demonstrated.

Not having seen the exhibit myself, I cannot comment on whether or not they are mixing psuedo-science into it. (Perhaps a few of you posters out there can see the exhibit and report back to us.) Knowing the general philosophy of SAU, I would be surprised if they did.

Their goal is “to provide scientific evidence that substantiates the Bible’s account of creation.” Sounds good to me.
They also say: “Religion and science don’t need to be at odds.” And that is true when you are referring to true science, which I believe they are.

However, I do understand Bill’s reaction in that these days when people use the word ‘science’ without qualification it so often means evolutionary pseudoscience, that we tend to be suspicious.

I think, Bill, that in this case we don’t need to worry. I believe SAU’s heart is in the right place and I am so glad that at least one of our institutions is willing to stand up and be counted on the side of Creation, even though they will probably draw much criticism from the ‘scientific’ community as well as from the TEs in their own church.

God bless them for their fidelity to Him. And may God strengthen them to meet the onslaught that is most likely to follow, is my prayer for them.