Wesley Kime writes: From the pew is heard, “Though the whole …

Comment on The Heroic Crusade Redux by Professor Kent.

Wesley Kime writes:

From the pew is heard, “Though the whole world of science be for Creation, yet will I not hear those other voices.” From the lectern the cry, even more urgent (“HELL-O-O-O-O!”) and sans a nanogram of irony, “Though the whole world of science be against Creation, yet will I believe.”

Informed Seventh-day Adventists are well aware that the world of science rejects a supernatural creation, yet the vast majority still believe. You should not mock their faith.

Professor Kent Also Commented

The Heroic Crusade Redux
Phil, NO ONE has argued evidence is inconsequential or unimportant; not me, not Phil Brantley, not anyone else. Our concern is which you will lean toward when Science and Scripture disagree: evidence (as interpreted by human reason), or God’s word?

This is Dr. Pitman’s position:

“I, personally, would have to go with what I saw as the weight of empirical evidence. This is why if I ever honestly became convinced that the weight of empirical evidence was on the side of life existing on this planet for hundreds of millions of years, I would leave not only the SDA Church, but Christianity as well…” [http://www.educatetruth.com/theological/the-credibility-of-faith/]

And this is my position:

Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. (Proverbs 3:5)

Choose ye this day whom you will serve.


The Heroic Crusade Redux

Sean&#032Pitman: 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.”

This is but only the faith of Sean Pitman’s straw man. This is not the faith of the Adventist who accepts God’s word at face value.


The Heroic Crusade Redux
You need a shovel or bulldozer to unearth your evidence, when faith can move mountains. And you and Dr. Kime insist they merit equal footing?

The apostles with Jesus in the boat responded with fear to the evidence they witnessed in the storm, and how did Jesus respond? “Oh ye of little faith.”

Evidence is important, yes; but it has no match in faith. Evidence won’t rescue us any more so than it saved Lucifer; faith can.

Let the faith-bashing continue so we can heap more praise on those who peddle evidence. That’s what this is all about.


Recent Comments by Professor Kent

Gary Gilbert, Spectrum, and Pseudogenes
Nic&#032Samojluk: No wonder most creationist writers do not even try to submit their papers to such organizations.
Who wants to waste his/her time trying to enter through a door that is closed to him/her a priori?

You have no idea what you’re writing about, Nic. As it turns out, there are in fact many of us Adventists who “waste” our time publishing articles through doors that open to us a priori. Even Leonard Brand at Loma Linda, a widely recognized creationist, has published in the top geology journals. I mean the top journals in the discipline.

The myth that creationists cannot publish in mainstream science is perpetuated by people who simply do not understand the culture of science–and will remain clueless that they do not understand it even when confronted with their misunderstandings. Such is human nature.


Southern Adventist University opens Origins Exhibit
Pauluc,

Your questions about conservation genetics are very insightful. I don’t understand how all these life forms were able to greatly increase in genetic diversity while simultaneously winding down and losing genetic information to mutations. Sean seems to insist that both processes happen simultaneously. I had the impression he has insisted all along that the former cannot overcome the latter. But I think you must be right: God had to intervene to alter the course of nature. However, we can probably test this empirically because there must be a signature of evidence available in the DNA. I’ll bet Sean can find the evidence for this.

I’m also glad the predators (just 2 of most such species) in the ark had enough clean animals (14 of each such species) to eat during the deluge and in the months and years after they emerged from the ark that they didn’t wipe out the vast majority of animal species through predation. Maybe they all consumed manna while in the ark and during the first few months or years afterward. Perhaps Sean can find in the literature a gene for a single digestive enzyme that is common to all predatory animals, from the lowest invertebrate to the highest vertebrate. Now that would be amazing.

Wait a minute–I remember once being told that SDA biologists like Art Chadwick believe that some animals survived on floating vegetation outside the ark. Now that would solve some of these very real problems! I wonder whether readers here would allow for this possibility. Multiple arks without walls, roof, and human caretakers.


Southern Adventist University opens Origins Exhibit

Ellen White said, “In the days of Noah, men…many times larger than now exist, were buried, and thus preserved as an evidence to later generations that the antediluvians [presumably referring to humans] perished by a flood. God designed that the discovery of these things should establish faith in inspired history…”

Sean Pitman said, “All human fossils discovered so far are Tertiary or post-Flood fossils. There are no known antediluvian human fossils.”

Ellen White tells us that humans and dinosaurs (presumably referred to in the statement, “a class of very large animals which perished at the flood… mammoth animals”) lived together before the flood. Evolutionary biologists tell us that dinosaurs and humans never lived together. You’re telling us, Sean, that the fossil record supports the conclusion of evolutionists rather than that of Ellen White and the SDA Church. Many of the “very large animals which perished at the flood” are found only in fossil deposits prior to or attributed to the flood, whereas hunans occur in fossil deposits only after the flood (when their numbers were most scarce).

Should the SDA biologists, who are supposed to teach “creation science,” be fired if they teach what you have just conceded?


La Sierra Univeristy Fires Dr. Lee Greer; Signs anti-Creation Bond
For those aghast about the LSU situation and wondering what other SDA institutions have taken out bonds, hold on to your britches. You’ll be stunned when you learn (soon) how many of our other schools, and which ones in particular, have taken out these bonds. You will be amazed to learn just how many other administrators have deliberately secularized their institutions besides Randal Wisbey, presumably because they too hate the SDA Church (as David Read has put it so tactfully).

Be sure to protest equally loudly.


Gary Gilbert, Spectrum, and Pseudogenes
@Sean Pitman:

So clearly you believe that science can explain supernatural events. Congratulations on that.