Comment on Supreme Court Decision on Church Employment Case by Mack Ramsy.
Let’s assume for the moment that every scientist on earth is wrong, even the Adventist ones, and that evolution is “pseudo-junk science” It remains the only explanation that we have. Even from your own perspective “real” scientists acknowledge that evolution must happen on some smaller levels and what happens on larger levels is a matter of faith. Fine. It still needs to be taught until there can be another rational explanation. You can’t hide the data (“God did it”, is not exactly scientific). As for data there’s lots of it. All the mistakes and chaos in the genetic code match up to what you’d expect to see in an evolving system, the missing links in the fossil record have been found (and DNA sequenced). So now let’s assume that there’s NOT some massive global conspiracy (including Adventist teachers) to mass produce fraudulent data or an intentional and cynical misinterpretation of said data. That for over 100 years the theory of evolution has held dominance in scientific circles. What does that tell you? You must either acknowledge a massive global conspiracy, or that there is some truth in what is being taught. And if there is even some truth then belief must change accordingly. But then what kind of forum is this were people of different perspectives are encouraged to go to “liberal” forums and we can condemn believers to hell. Is this not a place for exchange of ideas and dialog? Perhaps it’s more than liberals who are looking for “massive doses of affirmation where no one will challenge their belief system”. By all means lets make sure that the our understanding of God is enshrined in stone and never progresses. There are some in the Adventist church that would rather a shrine to understanding than understanding itself. @Colin you’re right when you suggest that there’s no way to interpret the bible to support anything other than a young earth perspective, however, it’s rare that any one interprets the bible so literally. Take as example the biblical flood. According to that paradigm it would have happened at around 4000BC. The problem? there’s stuff that is that old, archaeological evidence and so on. it’s hard to imagine fragile cave paintings surviving a world destroying event. Nor is 4000 years enough time for all the animals to spread over the planet let alone create a vibrant ecosystem. IT’s the lesson that’s the key not the dates. Ask yourself what god is trying to tell you in this story not what does the story try to tell you about history.
@Bill no one is trying to destroy the bible or accountability regarding it’s teachings. We’re trying to incorporate what the bible teaches in a constructive meaningful way. Oh i know this is kind of a personal question but how many gay people have you killed this week? No? any pagans then? Hmm. Might want to get on that. Just a friendly suggestion in helping you be personally accountable for biblical teachings from friend in Jesus.
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Supreme Court Decision on Church Employment Case
@all you guys hoping for “the shaking” probably shouldn’t hope to much. The church is as minuscule enough as it is. It also rather directly contradictory toward our evangelical goals. It’s awkward to go through purges when you’re trying to recruit new members.
Supreme Court Decision on Church Employment Case
@bill how can you imply that Liberals are secretly in control of the church when it was conservatives who got those researchers fired and the most conservative leadership in years has been elected into office? This rather suggests that political fortunes favor conservatives at this moment.
Supreme Court Decision on Church Employment Case
I think there is some confusion about the role of science here. Science is very explicit about “proof” and “certainty” in that there isn’t any. I presented you with a half dozen articles in a few minutes of searching. There might be better ones out there but from long experience I know that even the best evidence is unconvincing to the close-minded. Like I said before to be comprehensive would take libraries (and you’re welcome to the public access by the way, I included that in my search parameters). That said you’re right the sense that evolutionists may not have a perfect picture of how the world works, but they never claimed to. That claim is reserved by solely by creationists. I never said it would be convincing. In fact I said several times that it would not be. We all achieve the level of enlightenment that we work to obtain. For those who refuse to see truth or reason, libraries of evidence will never be persuasive. The Bar is set too high. You would have to go back in time and observe the events in person without disturbing the events in motion. The only “evidence” that could possibly be convincing is a notarized statement by god saying this is the way it is, which of course you believe you already have. That this doesn’t make sense is readily explained by being the foolishness of the Greeks. This is fine, let’s look at your story and see if that makes sense. The creation story blatantly contradicts itself between chapters 1 and 2, the flood has multiple problems such as number of animals, zoological necessities, sustainable ecology, the coming and going of all the water, the mysterious olive leaf, extant archaeological evidence predating the flood, lack of geological evidence for a truly global flood, the diversity of people and animals, the time it takes to spread from Ararat to the rest of the world, etc. When you look at the stories, it’s quite clear that Adam and Eve and Noah and the Ark are speaking about spiritual truths not literal ones. Ignoring all the physical evidence, logical idiocies, you have the language in the bible. It’s obviously spiritual in nature, the raven finds nothing, the Dove finds an olive leaf. It’s an blatantly spiritual story meant to have a spiritual lesson. This is a very different kind of language used in other places in the bible to talk about more or less literal events. There may well have been a regional disaster on the Mediterranean at some point, but it clearly didn’t destroy the entire world in a literal fashion. It would violate every known law of physics and biology that we know.
