Comment on Walla Walla University: The Collegian Debates Evolution vs. Creation by Ron.
Your problem is that you think everyone deserves a paycheck from the Church regardless of if they happen to support the Church’s primary goals and ideals or not.
That is not true. I expect everyone in the church, the teachers most of all, to participate in an open and rational discussion of truth. I would expect the teachers to argue for their perception of truth, even if it is different than the majority of the church. I expect every member of the church to have compassion and tolerance for those who don’t see things the same way. It is the depth of the search, and the quality of the discussion that is most important. I see the teachers and guarding the process of seeking truth. In order to explore and find truth there must be a safe forum for discussion. For me, that is the most fundamental reason for the existence of the Adventist church. If I just wanted to believe what had already been revealed in ages past, and established in creeds, then any old church would do. It is the Adventist church which was founded on the idea of seeking Present Truth, and our founding fathers explicitly rejected for formulation of creeds for this very reason.
You want uniformity and orthodoxy. The trouble is that you can’t get true agreement through force. True understanding and agreement only come from doing the hard work of reason with a free will.
The drive for orthodoxy was the driving principle of the inquisition. It is orthodoxy that is the motivation behind enforcing the “Fundamental Beliefs”. You have abandoned the search for truth in favor of coercion and force.
I do not believe that teaching about creation, the Sabbath, faith in Jesus, the tree angel’s message or any other fundamental belief is the primary purpose of the Seventh-day Adventist church. The primary purpose of the church is to help sinners to understand the truth and thereby develop a relationship with Jesus. You can’t do that if you are driving away everyone who believes differently. Exploring ideas that are not true is part of the process. If you prohibit discussion of beliefs you don’t agree with, you are the one that is undermining the primary function of the church. Which is to “draw all men unto me”.
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Ron Also Commented
Walla Walla University: The Collegian Debates Evolution vs. Creation
@BobRyan:
How much post creation evoltion is allowed?
Walla Walla University: The Collegian Debates Evolution vs. Creation
@BobRyan</
I never even implied a proto life or anything other than a six day creation. I am talking about what happens after creation.
Sean thinks that at least some Darwinian evolution takes place now. How does that happen?. Did god create the mechanisms originally, and they now happen atheistically, or does He continue to be active in the process?
Walla Walla University: The Collegian Debates Evolution vs. Creation
Sean, So I think I am hearing from you that a Biblical creation model would allow for basically any kind Is htof evolution there is, or which we might discover as long as it is destructive in nature, or is not too complex. is that right? You don’t believe that it is possible to believe that significant improvements are possible and still be a creationist.
Are you able to define that bounday between significant and minor theologically?
Recent Comments by Ron
Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation
Sean Pitman: No one is demanding that they “get out of the church”. . . . . anti-Adventist views on such a fundamental level.
You don’t see how characterizing a dedicated believer’s understanding of truth as “fundamentally anti-Adventist” would drive them out of the church?
I guess that explains why you don’t see that what you are doing here is fundamentally wrong.
Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation
Professor Kent: Nothing saddens me more than the droves who leave the Church when they learn that many of their cherished beliefs regarding this evidence don’t hold up so well to scrutiny.
I agree. I am sure that Sean and Bob don’t mean to undermine faith in God, but every time they say that it is impossible to believe in God and in science at the same time, I feel like they are telling me that any rational person must give up their belief in God, because belief in God and rationality can’t exist in the same space. Who would want to belong to that kind of a church?
Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation
Sean Pitman: and have little if anything to do with the main point of their prophetic claims
And by analogy, this appears to be a weak point in the creation argument. Who is to decide what the main point is?
It seems entirely possible that in trying to make Gen. 1 too literal, that we are missing the whole point of the story.
Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation
Regarding falsifying the existence of God through the miraculous:
While it is true that one can’t falsify the existance of God and the Biblical miracles at a philosophical level, it seems to me that it is possible to falsify it at a practical level. For instance prayer for healing. How many families who pray for a miracle for a loved one in the Intensive Care Unit receive a miracle?
While the answer to that question doesn’t answer the question of the existence of God at a philosophical level, it does answer the question at a practical level. After 36 years of medical practice I can say definitively that at a practical level when it comes to miracles in the ICU, God does not exist. Even if a miracle happens latter today, it wouldn’t be enough to establish an expectation for the future. So at a practicle level it seems it is possible level to falsify the existence od God, or at least prove His nonintervention which seems to me to be pretty much the same thing at a functional level.
Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation
@Sean Pitman:
Sean, what is your definition of “Neo-darwinism” as opposed to “Darwinism” as opposed to “evolution”?
