Comment on The Heroic Crusade Redux by Sean Pitman.
All evidence tells us that nervous systems, lungs, and heart will fail and return to the dust from which they were formed. Faith tells us that none of these need fail, and even if they do, they can be reconstructed once again, better than before. Faith has no equal.
Faith can also tell us that Santa Claus exists… but that doesn’t mean it’s true. After all, as the old saying goes, “If wishes were horses beggars would ride.”
A kid was once asked by his Sabbath school teacher to define the word “faith”. He thought for a moment before saying, “Faith is a belief in those things you know just ain’t so.”
Must faith be nothing more than wishful thinking? – wishing desperately on a star that some miracle will happen?
Are we just fooling ourselves here? Is Christianity just a nice story to calm our fears about the future? Or, is there more to it than fanciful wishful thinking? Is there some real evidence to support the very bold statement that the Bible is something more than an moral fable? – that it’s real history and it’s description of a very bright future empirical reality for all who will accept the call of the Holy Spirit is just as certainly true?
Why should one believe the Bible, to the point of putting one’s life and prosperity in this life on the line, but doubt the existence of Santa Claus? How is faith in one superior to faith in the other as a means to lead someone who is actually intelligent and rational to make real risks and sacrifices?
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Sean Pitman Also Commented
The Heroic Crusade Redux
@Ervin Taylor:
I notice that on the EducateTruth(sic) site, when Sean posts something, he always gets a lot of “likes†and when I post, I get a lot of “dislikes.†I wonder why that is? Is it his greater logic? Is it his more pleasant personality? On the other side, why all of the “dislikes?†Do I offend? But I already use a lot of deodorant, but perhaps it is not enough. I will try to use more in the future and see if that helps.
Perhaps you can take comfort in the fact that if the very same comments were posted at Atoday, Spectrum, Talk.Origins or Pharyngula, or any other forum inherently opposed to the Adventist message, the voting would be, and has been, dramatically reversed. Your comments would be ever so popular while mine would be voted down in mass.
Consider also that your common use of the term (sic) comes across as a form of derision… as in an effort on your part to make fun of EducateTruth (sic) and all that we stand for here at this website.
Sic—generally inside square brackets, [sic], and occasionally parentheses, (sic)—when added just after a quote or reprinted text, indicates the passage appears exactly as in the original source…
The use of sics can be seen as an appeal to ridicule, whether intentional or not, because it highlights perceived irregularities. The application of sics with the intent to disparage has been called the “benighted use” because it creates a “false sense of superiority” in its users.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sic
I suppose it’s fine to try to be humerus or even disparaging in one’s efforts to address errors in the arguments of one’s opponents. Just don’t expect such efforts to go over well with those who don’t already agree with your own perspective.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
The Heroic Crusade Redux
@Ervin Taylor:
As for senility . . . . What did you say your name was?
Elvis 😉
“I’m a schizophrenic and so am….Iâ€
😉
Recent Comments by Sean Pitman
After the Flood
Thank you Ariel. Hope you are doing well these days. Miss seeing you down at Loma Linda. Hope you had a Great Thanksgiving!
The Flood
Thank you Colin. Just trying to save lives any way I can. Not everything that the government does or leaders do is “evil” BTW…
The Flood
Only someone who knows the future can make such decisions without being a monster…
Pacific Union College Encouraging Homosexual Marriage?
Where did I “gloss over it”?
Review of “The Naked Emperor” by Pastor Conrad Vine
I fail to see where you have convincingly supported your claim that the GC leadership contributed to the harm of anyone’s personal religious liberties? – given that the GC leadership does not and could not override personal religious liberties in this country, nor substantively change the outcome of those who lost their jobs over various vaccine mandates. That’s just not how it works here in this country. Religious liberties are personally derived. Again, they simply are not based on a corporate or church position, but rely solely upon individual convictions – regardless of what the church may or may not say or do.
Yet, you say, “Who cares if it is written into law”? You should care. Everyone should care. It’s a very important law in this country. The idea that the organized church could have changed vaccine mandates simply isn’t true – particularly given the nature of certain types of jobs dealing with the most vulnerable in society (such as health care workers for example).
Beyond this, the GC Leadership did, in fact, write in support of personal religious convictions on this topic – and there are GC lawyers who have and continue to write personal letters in support of personal religious convictions (even if these personal convictions are at odds with the position of the church on a given topic). Just because the GC leadership also supports the advances of modern medicine doesn’t mean that the GC leadership cannot support individual convictions at the same time. Both are possible. This is not an inconsistency.
