Are we ultimately going to be judged by what we …

Comment on Supreme Court Decision on Church Employment Case by Eddie.

Are we ultimately going to be judged by what we believe or how we live our lives? What about the pastor, a few of which I can name, who believes all 28 fundamental beliefs yet gets convicted and jailed for statutory rape? Or the staunch conservative that cheats on his or her spouse, or taxes, or whatever, but never gets caught?

Personally I’m happy that there are liberals who join the SDA Church and consider themselves SDA. And I’m pleased that there are pot-smoking and alcohol-guzzling students who choose to attend SDA schools. How else could we possibly share with them the love of Jesus and the hope for redemption if we completely isolate ourselves from them? They are my brothers and sisters in Christ, even if they don’t agree completely with what I believe.

The SDA Church never has and never will be “pure.” We are all sinners in need of a savior (well, perhaps a few here are exceptions, but certainly not me). If the SDA Church was as pure as some here seem to aspire, there would be no need of a savior.

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t condone SDA employees teaching doctrines contrary to SDA beliefs, and I think our leaders have the right to maintain discipline within the church, especially among employees. But I don’t condone the attitude some here seem to embrace that heretics (aka liberals) should be publicly exposed and expelled from the church. God is love and love is God. For Christ’s sake, let’s treat each other with love and respect.

Ken and Ron, I hope that you don’t give up communicating with SDAs on SDA forums. You’re always welcome in my big-tent SDA church.

Eddie Also Commented

Supreme Court Decision on Church Employment Case
Interesting banter. If conservative SDAs can’t agree on the details of something as vital as how a person obtains salvation, how can all members ever be expected to agree on the details of less important matters such as how and when the creation occurred?


Supreme Court Decision on Church Employment Case

Mack Ramsy: 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.

Mack, I agree that the flood has multiple problems for YECs and YLCs, but geologists pretty much agree that there is substantial evidence for not one but two truly global floods, and according to their data the first nearly covered all of the continents at a time when no high mountains existed:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Phanerozoic_Sea_Level.png

I’m not sure how YECs and YLCs would interpret the evidence for TWO major floods, but the often-repeated assertion by SDA intellectuals that there is no evidence for a worldwide flood is simply untrue.


Supreme Court Decision on Church Employment Case

Ken: Wasn’t Jesus’s message about being humble and loving one’s fellow man rather than being self rightgeous?

Amen brother Ken!


Recent Comments by Eddie

Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation

SDA Bio Prof: The Bible makes multiple falsifiable prophecies about Nebuchadnezzar conquering Egypt, yet history never records it happening. Does this mean the Bible is effectively falsified?

Sean Pitman: Egyptians had a strong tendency not to record their losses… only their victories.

Sean, does that mean YOU personally believe Babylon conquered Egypt, just as predicted by two prophets? In the absence of any empirical evidence? If the Egyptians didn’t record their losses, why wouldn’t the Babylonians have recorded such a stunning victory?


Southern Adventist University opens Origins Exhibit

Holly Pham: One of the things that has always concerned me is that, according to what I’ve read, birds and reptiles have completely different forms of respiratory systems (flow-through vs. bellows) How is this explained by evolutionists?

Evidence from the vertebrae of non-avian theropod dinosaurs suggests that they, too, possessed unidirectional flow-through ventilation of the lungs. So, according to evolutionary theory, it evolved first in “primitive” non-avian theropods rather than in birds, and comprises one of many shared derived characters supposedly linking birds with more “advanced” theropods. However, I don’t think there is any evidence or even a hypothesis for a step-by-step process of HOW it evolved. Here is a reference:

http://www.ohio.edu/people/ridgely/OconnorClaessensairsacs.pdf


Southern Adventist University opens Origins Exhibit
@Bob Helm: Bob, if you send me an e-mail at sdabioprof2@gmail.com I will send you a pdf file of a 1991 article published by Chatterjee in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 332:277-342, titled “Cranial anatomy and relationships of a new Triassic bird from Texas.”

Curiously his description is based only on cranial anatomy. I don’t think he ever published an analysis of its postcranial anatomy.


Southern Adventist University opens Origins Exhibit

David Read: Eddie, ecological zonation will yield the same basic order that you’re pointing to: invertebrates appear before vertebrates; fish appear before amphibians; amphibians appear before reptiles; reptiles appear before mammals; reptiles appear before birds, etc.

It could, and it’s the best creationist explanation, but it doesn’t explain why flowering plants were absent from lowland forests. Or why so many land plants appeared before mangroves, which today occur strictly in the intertidal zone. Or why no pre-flood humans have been found. Or, if Sean is correct that the flood ended at the K-T boundary, why many modern groups of birds and mammals (including marine mammals) which first appear during the Tertiary were not buried by the flood.

David Read: The fact that something appears before something else in the fossil record is not proof than anything evolved into anything else.

True.

David Read: You seem to be complaining that God has not made the fossil evidence compulsory, i.e., so clear that no reasonable person can possibly doubt it. And if God hasn’t made the evidence skeptic-proof, then the skeptic is God’s fault, God is responsible for the skeptic.

I’m not complaining. I’m merely pointing out that the evidence can be interpreted in different ways by honest people. And I’m relieved to see that even you don’t think the evidence is crystal clear.

David Read: Only people of faith can be saved, that is, only people who are willing to trust God and put away doubts can be saved.

I agree.


Southern Adventist University opens Origins Exhibit

David Read: Those tracks are so obviously bird tracks that the fact that some scientists want to assign them to “birdlike theropods” is itself a very useful teaching tool as to how the model creates the data.

David Read: That the model actually creates the data is one of the hardest concepts to get across, not only to lay people but even to the scientists themselves.

How does the model affect the data? Data don’t change and they shouldn’t change. It’s the interpretation, not the data, that is affected by the model.