@Ron Nielsen: Sean, it seems to me that if you …

Comment on Dr. Geraty clarifies his “Challenge” to literal 6-day creationism by Sean Pitman.

@Ron Nielsen:

Sean, it seems to me that if you admit ANY functional change in the DNA the creation/evolution debate is lost in favor of evolution. All the rest, however you define species is just a matter of time and quantity.

Hardly. The vast majority of functional mutations are detrimental – based on a loss of qualitatively unique pre-established functionality. Most of the rare mutations that are functionally beneficial do not produce something that is qualitatively new within the gene pool of options, but produce only an increase or decrease in activity of the same type of functionality that was already there to begin with. And, the very rare beneficial mutations that actually produce something qualitatively unique as well as functionally beneficial never produce anything that requires a minimum of more than 1000 specifically arranged amino acid residues to work – not even close.

The reason for this is that evolution beyond this very low level of functional complexity would require trillions upon trillions of years to achieve – – on average.

This is why the constant demonstration of low-level examples of “evolution in action” do not remotely explain how higher levels of evolution are therefore reasonable – even given a few billion years. The extrapolation is not at all reasonable because of the exponential decline in evolutionary potential with each step up the ladder of functional complexity.

You say, “it’s just a matter of time and quantity”. What you don’t understanding is that the time required is simply not reasonable. The time required to get beyond even the 1000aa level is in the multiple trillions of years. Do you not see that as a problem?

That is why I think it is so dangerous to state that evolution is incompatible with belief in God and creation, because no one, not even you are willing to deny that that the mechanisms for evolution are in place.

The mechanism for evolution is not “in place” beyond extremely low levels of functional complexity. That’s the problem.

It’s similar to saying that because natural processes are known which can produce roughly cube shape granite blocks that obviously such mindless natural mechanisms could explain a highly symmetrical polished granite cube measuring exactly one meter on each side. Such a conclusion does not rationally follow since the higher level illustration requires exponentially more time for the natural mechanism to achieve relative to the lower level demonstration that does not require the same level of constraints…

Except out of wanton ignorance, it is not possible to deny evolution in this day of DNA mapping. If you insist on making evolution and belief in God mutually exclusive you will have to declare every single educated person in the church to be athiests and drive them out of the church. Your stance just isn’t reasonable.

Anyone who wishes to worship in our Church is welcome – even if he/she is an “atheists”. I would not drive anyone who wants to come out of our Church. However, this does not mean that such a one should ever expect to get a paycheck from the SDA Church for promoting his/her atheistic ideas from pulpit or classroom.

You see, attendance is not the same thing as paid representation. A paid representative must be held to a higher standard in any organization.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

Sean Pitman Also Commented

Dr. Geraty clarifies his “Challenge” to literal 6-day creationism
@Michael Prewitt:

I agree with this general line of reasoning…

Sean Pitman
http://www.DetectingDesign.com


Dr. Geraty clarifies his “Challenge” to literal 6-day creationism
@Geanna Dane:

In other words, you’d believe in the existence and love of God despite all physical evidence to the contrary? That is very similar to the faith of some LDS friends of mine. I suppose it works for some people, but my own relationship with God is based on the evidence that I think He has given me of His own existence and the reliability of his Word combined with personal experiences with answers to prayer, etc.

Now, I agree with you that theistic evolutionists can be saved even if they got the whole origins thing all wrong. God loves everyone and will save all who earnestly seek after Him and love Him in the person of “the least of these…” Salvation itself is not based on correct doctrinal knowledge, but on living according to the Royal Law of Love. However, correct doctrinal knowledge is not therefore worthless. It is very valuable in that it has the power to give us a clearer picture of God here and now and to provide a solid basis of hope here in now in the reality of God and of a bright and glorious future.

I’m sorry, but without correct doctrinal knowledge, without the Bible, you may have some sort of vague idea of God’s existence and maybe even His love for you through the features of nature, but you would have very little else upon which to base a solid hope in such notions. It is the evidence that the Bible is reliable in those things which can be tested and evaluated that gives solid confidence in those metaphysical statements that cannot be directed evaluated – at least for me.

This is why when you argue so strongly for the idea that science works against SDA doctrinal positions and offer nothing up but blind faith that the Bible is true that you undermine the basis of many people’s hope in the reality of the Good News. Your seeming suggestion is that science is quite clearly contrary to some very plain biblical statements and that the only way to overcome such evidence is through blind faith. That simply doesn’t do it for many many people. It certainly doesn’t do it for me.

I hope this helps you to at least understand why your ideas and comments are so strongly opposed by those who actually consider it important that the Bible be consistent with the physical evidence in order for its metaphysical statements to be considered trustworthy…

Sean Pitman
http://www.DetectingDesign.com


Dr. Geraty clarifies his “Challenge” to literal 6-day creationism
“Species” based on mtDNA phylogenies?

As far as the topic of human ethnic groups compared to various “species” definitions for animals, consider the case of the Neanderthal. Many scientists consider Neanderthals to have been a separate “species” of human – not just a unique ethnic variation. This is due to several unique morphologic features of Neanderthals compared to modern humans – as well as to unique DNA sequences and average numbers of mutational differences.

According to a 1997 study by Pääbo et. al., on certain mtDNA sequences of Neanderthals compared to modern humans, Neanderthals would seem to qualify as a unique “species” – and not just a “cryptic species” due to their prominent morphologic differences.

“The Neandertal sequence was compared to 994 contemporary human mitochondrial lineages, i.e., distinct sequences occurring in one or more individuals, found in 478 Africans, 510 Europeans, 494 Asians, 167 Native Americans and 20 individuals from Australia and Oceania. Whereas these modern human sequences differ among themselves by an average of 8.0 (range 1-24) substitutions, the difference between the humans and the Neandertal sequence is 27.2 (range 22-36) substitutions. Thus, the largest difference observed between any two human sequences was two substitutions larger than the smallest difference between a human and the Neandertal…

The Neandertal mtDNA sequence thus supports a scenario in which modern humans arose recently in Africa as a distinct species and replaced Neandertals with little or no interbreeding.”

If mtDNA was in fact isolated from the Neanderthal bones, these conclusions might seem reasonable until one considers a few more facts. The Cell article itself noted that the range of sequence differences for modern human mtDNA goes from 1 to 24 with an average of 8 substitutions. The mtDNA sequence differences between modern humans and the single Neanderthal fossil range from 22 to 36 substitutions, with the average being 27. In other words, the two most different humans analyzed in this study, as far as mtDNA substitutions are concerned, are different by 24 substitutions. The closest that any human in this study was to the single specimen of Neanderthal mtDNA was 22 substitutions. This means that there are some people living today that are closer to Neanderthals in their mtDNA sequencing than they are to some other modern human beings. Someone might be found to be only 22 substitutions away from our Neanderthal, but 24 substitutions away from his own next-door neighbor. Interesting isn’t it? If Neanderthals are classed as separate species because of these differences, which one of our modern human volunteers should be classify as a separate species? Perhaps the one who was only 22 substitutions different from the Neanderthal? Or, maybe his next-door neighbor who is 24 substitutions away from his neighbor as well as 22 substitutions away from our Neanderthal friend? I mean, some of us might have neighbors that look like Neanderthals (or maybe we might look like Neanderthals compared to our neighbors), but can a different species really be assumed based on a difference of 20-some substitutions in a particular hypervariable region of DNA?

That means that there are a few modern humans who differ by 24 substitutions from a few other modern humans—two substitutions more than the Neanderthal individual. Would not logic demand that those few modern humans living today should also be placed in a separate species? To state the question is to reveal the absurdity of using such differences as a measure of species distinctions.

Lubenow, Marvin (1998), “Recovery of Neandertal mtDNA: An Evaluation,” CEN Technical Journal, 12[1]:87-97.

A subsequent paper published by Pääbo and his team in May of 1999, show that the range (1-81) for chimp/bonobo substitutions (in certain regions of mtDNA) are even wider than previously thought. In other words, if one chose a chimp at random, this chimp might be as many as 81 substitutions different from the chimp swinging on the branches right next to him. This is interesting because this same chimp might be only 78 substitutions different from a given modern human. This more recent paper also points out that the range between humans (1-35) is also wider than was reported in the first paper. The range between humans and the Neanderthal sequence was also altered in the updated paper to (29-43).

This second paper seems to make it even more clear that substitution differences in a given variable region cannot be used to absolutely measure the boundary between different species. In fact, using this method of reason, it seems like some chimps might be more closely related to certain humans than to certain chimps within their own species. Since this clearly is not the case, this logic seems flawed. Evolutionary conclusions therefore cannot be effectively supported using this these methods.

Of course, there is an additional problem that some humans from certain ethic groups are more closely “related” to Neanderthals than they are to certain other living humans from other groups. The question remains as to who should be classed as a separate species?

Maryellen Ruvolo (Harvard University) points out that the genetic variation between the modern human and Neanderthal sequences is within the range of other single species of primates. She goes on to say: “there isn’t a yardstick for genetic difference upon which you can define a species.”

Further confusion comes from the comments in the Cell article that seem to indicate that Neanderthals are more closely related to the ancestral “chimpanzee” than modern humans are. This might not have been the actual intention of the authors, but one could easily get confused by the wording of the article. The fact of the matter is that the single specimen of Neanderthal mtDNA was actually farther away from chimp mtDNA than humans are from chimp mtDNA substitutions. Clearly then, Neanderthal DNA is no closer “related” to chimp DNA than human DNA is.

Add to all of this the fact that the popular notion that mtDNA mutations can be used as a molecular clock has been called into question by the journal Science. As it turns out, former ideas about the timing of this clock might be in error by as much as “20-fold” – (or even 100 fold based on other studies). The famous “Mitochondrial Eve” once thought to be around 100,000 to 200,000 years old, might now have to be revised to as young as “6,000” years old.

D. Melnick and G. Hoelzer (Columbia University) tested the assumptions of mtDNA based phylogenic relationships and concluded:

“Our results suggest serious problems with use of mtDNA to estimate ‘true’ population genetic structure, to date cladogenic events, and in some cases, to construct phylogenies.”

If that isn’t an understatement of the problem I don’t know what is?

Jonathan Marks (Yale University) declared mtDNA determined relationships to be highly biased:

“Most analysis of mitochondrial DNA are so equivocal as to render a clear solution impossible, the preferred phylogeny relying critically on the choice of outgroup and clustering technique.”

In August of 2002, Gabriel Guitierrez et al., from the Universidad de Sevilla, Spain, published a paper in the well known journal, Molecular Biology and Evolution entitled, “A Reanalysis of the Ancient Mitochondrial DNA Sequences Recovered from Neandertal Bones.” Consider some of their conclusions:

Recent reports analyzing mitochondrial DNA sequences from Neandertal bones have claimed that Neadnertals and modern humans are different species. The phylogenetic analyses carried out in these articles did not take into account the high substitution rate variation among sites observed in the human mitochondrial D-loop region and also lack an estimation of the parameters of the nucleotide substitution model…

The computation of pairwise distances between 171 randomly selected sequences and the Neandertals rendered 1.6% of human-human comparisons larger than the smallest difference between Neandertals and humans. Likewise, 27% of the comparisons are lower than the largest human-human difference. This result suggests that Neandertals sequences are not so different from those of extant humans, in contrast to the NSG claims…

The main conclusion can be extracted from our analyses: the phylogenetic position of the ancient DNA sequences recovered from Neandertal bones is sensitive to the phylogenetic methods employed. It depends on the model of nucleotide substitution, the branch support method, and the set of data used.

In fact, Guitierrez et. al. went on to show that depending upon the mtDNA region(s) chosen Neaderthals could be clustered with modern humans while certain ethnic groups could be isolated out as separate “species” groups. This only highlights the subjective nature and definition of “species” using mtDNA-based phylogenies.

Although the molecular data appears to be very objective and precise, John Marcus states that the interpretation of the molecular data is just as subjective as is the interpretation of the fossils. Not only is the molecular evidence unfalsifiable, but

‘… the scientist must always choose which piece(s) of DNA he is going to use to do his comparisons. Very often a particular piece of DNA will not give the “right” answer and so it is dismissed as a poor indicator of the evolutionary process’.

Kenneth A.R. Kennedy (Cornell University) comments:

‘This practice of forcing the paleontological and archaeological data to conform to the evolutionary and genetic models continues in reinterpretations of dates based upon the molecular clock of mitochondrial DNA as well as radiometric samples… .’

The misinterpretation of the mtDNA data is seen in the work of Pääbo and his associates in that the Neandertal fossil evidence contradicts their interpretation of the mtDNA evidence.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v12/i1/mtdna.asp#f47

These same problems are not likely to be restricted to the determination of hominid “species” and phylogenetic relationships but are likely to affect the determination of different animal species as well – to include the numerous “cryptic species” that are being discovered today…

For further discussion of this topic see:

http://www.detectingdesign.com/earlyman.html#Neanderthal

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


Recent Comments by Sean Pitman

Liberty & Health Alliance – An Appeal for Action
God gave rational empirical “scientific” evidence to believe Noah’s message.

Many of the amazing discoveries of medical science in our day, to include the gift of vaccines and an understanding as to how the human immune system actually works, are not opposed to the Scriptures or the Spirit of Prophecy (Ellen White did not opposed the use of vaccines). They are amazing gifts from God that should not be ignored or disregarded.

In this same line, Barbara O’Neill has made numerous false and misleading claims regarding various medical therapies – particularly regarding the treatment of serious conditions like cancer. She does get some things right, but the things she gets wrong significantly overshadow the things she gets right and have significant hurt people. For example, she wraps people who have cancer (which she falsely claims is caused by fungal infections, promoted by antiobiotics and other pharmaceuticals – Link) in towels soaked in baking soda as a means to treat their cancers when such treatments do not help cancer patients in the least. (Link). Yet, she she makes a lot of money peddling these and other such worthless “therapies” to the gullible. She speaks with great confidence and assurance about things that she doesn’t remotely understand since she has no medical training. It’s not the GC or Church leadership or physicians like me making money off of “Big Pharma”. Rather, it’s the snake-oil salesmen like Peter McCullough and Barbara O’Neill, and others like them, who are making quite a lot of money selling their worthless natural remedies and conspiracy theories to their worldwide audiences. Consider that her Misty Mountain Health Retreat near Kempsey charged clients as much as $2,450 per person for a one-week stay and $8,800 for two people for two weeks. Her estimated net worth today is ~$51 Million (Link). Clearly, she’s done very well for herself…

It’s not like I’m opposed to natural remedies that actually work, of course. I’m just opposed to those who promote “natural remedies” just because they’re supposedly “natural” when they don’t actually do what they’re claimed to do by those who have no understanding of medical science who make money selling their “remedies” to the gullible and the desperate. If you want to see some natural remedies promoted by someone who actually does known what he’s talking about, look up the YouTube videos put out by the well-known pulmonologist Dr. Roger Seheult.


Liberty & Health Alliance – An Appeal for Action
While recommending the vaccines, the vaccine statements clearly left the decision to vaccinate, or not, to the individual. They had nothing to do with government funding (yet another conspiracy theory). These statements were issued in an honest effort to save lives, not to make money. The “medical minds” at the BoT Symposium generally support anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists like Peter McCullough who are known for promoting misleading or downright false claims regarding the pandemic and the mRNA vaccines.


Liberty & Health Alliance – An Appeal for Action
Pastor E.L. has also written (FB Post) an excellent explanation in defense of the affirmation statement and our denomination’s position on vaccines.

“The assumedly troublesome wording commonly highlighted concerning this issue is a misreading of intent in context, without trying to understand the sense in which it can be understood as harmonious with the rest of the statement which strongly affirms individual conscience. A charitable reading first attempts to understand what someone says in a sense that is harmonious, rather than immediately assuming they intend to contradict themselves.

The trajectory of the context in the Reaffirmation Statement suggests that when it asserts, “Claims of religious liberty are not used appropriately in objecting to government mandates or employer programs designed to protect the health and safety of their communities,” this is likely because the church has not established a doctrinal position on vaccines that would require uniform adherence among its members. If it had, such a stance would then necessitate the church to defend it as a matter of religious liberty.

The issue of vaccination is multifaceted, and adopting a definitive for or against position within church doctrine would infringe on the rights of those who hold opposing views. Instead, the document consistently emphasizes that this is a matter of individual conscience and underscores the church’s support for such personal discernment. Accordingly, it states: “We recognize that at times our members will have personal concerns and even conscientious convictions that go beyond the teachings and positions of the Church. In these cases, the Church’s religious liberty leaders will do what they can to provide support and counsel on a personal basis, not as a Church position, even at times assisting members in writing their own personal accommodation requests to employers and others.”

In essence, while the church has not elevated this issue to a doctrinal level requiring institutional defense, it remains committed to supporting individual religious convictions to the greatest extent possible. Personal convictions are respected and defended, even though the church as a whole has not taken—and could not reasonably be expected to take—a uniform doctrinal position on the matter.

To draw an analogy, Seventh-day Adventists could not argue that wearing head coverings in the workplace is a religious liberty issue because it is not a doctrinal requirement within the SDA faith, even though it is mentioned in the Bible. Instead, they could only frame it as a matter of personal conviction if they interpret the biblical instruction as still applicable today. While individual SDAs who support head coverings may personally view it as a religious liberty concern, the distinction lies in the fact that religious liberty claims are typically based on doctrines that a religion universally requires of all its adherents.

In contrast, Muslims can assert that head coverings are a doctrinal religious liberty matter because it is a doctrinally mandated practice within Islam. This highlights the difference between personal convictions and doctrines that are formally upheld by a religious institution when speaking of “religious liberty.”


Liberty & Health Alliance – An Appeal for Action
Pastor Wyatt Allen (one of the founders of the Liberty & Health Alliance) wrote in a FB Comment:

Two things your article lacks are compassion and understanding. The first would lead to the second. Should I have more time tomorrow, I’ll try to be more specific and why I make this claim. Though anybody reading it would see the lack of compassion. I think the lack of understanding essentially boils down to misrepresenting what we’re saying. COVID and the mandates might be passed. But unless we learn from our mistakes during this time (do you say the church made no mistakes?) we will be unprepared to help in the next crisis. And when we are unprepared to help in a meaningful way, it really does hurt people. Actual people. As a minister of the gospel, I have seen the tears, I have heard the pleas, I have witnessed the freedom being ripped away. We can theorize and write articles all day long about Liberty. But until we actually stand up for it, all that comes across is coldness.

My response:

You seem to suggest that I’m opposed to religious liberty and that I don’t care for those who suffered. How can you know this? I mean, I am a strong supporter of religious liberty and have experienced personal serious attacks on my own religious convictions. While in the army I was brought up for court martial twice for refusing orders to work on Sabbath in ways that I thought were opposed to God’s commands regarding the Sabbath. I was threatened with jail time, the loss of my career, and financial damages. So, you see, I’m very much aware of how it feels to be personally threated for my own religious convictions. I also understand why someone who is opposed to vaccines would blame the Church for a lack of support during the vaccine mandates.

It’s not that I don’t understand. It’s that I think that such efforts to blame the Church and the Vaccine Statements are misdirected since these Vaccine Statements repeatedly and specifically support individual choice in this matter. Recommendations regarding medical interventions, like vaccines, do not undermine personal religious liberties or the Church’s support for such liberties. The claims of the Liberty & Health Alliance to the contrary simply do not make sense to me. Even if the Church had no vaccine statements at all, I fail to see how this would have helped anyone during the vaccine mandates.

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Additional responses to other comments from Wyatt on FB:

Wyatt Allen: You’re also asking Charles Downing (not sure of his medical background) to explain to me that the “so-called vaccines” have too many adverse reactions. You see, right there you’re showing your hand. The reason why you’re so passionate against the Vaccine Statements of the Church is because you truly believe them to be harmful and evil. While I sympathize with why you feel this way, consider that I feel the very same way for the opposite reasons. I saw ICUs filled with the very sick and the dying during the pandemic, the significant majority of whom were the unvaccinated. Several of my own workers who refused to get vaccinated ended up in the ICU and two suffered permanent injuries so severe that they can no longer work full time. Many more from my own church and community ended up in the ICU for the same reason. More than a dozen of my own family friends died because they didn’t get vaccinated. My brother-in-law, the well-known pulmonologist Dr. Roger Seheult saw many many more die while holding their hands in his ICU in S. Cal – even some who were young and vegan and otherwise healthy. So, yes, we are both very passionate about this topic. It’s one of the reasons why I try to force myself to be as objective as possible when I talk about this topic.

The reason why I disagree with you and Charles here is because I think you have a misunderstanding of the risk/benefit ratio for the mRNA vaccines and vaccines in general. You don’t understand the nature of VAERS (which is maintained by the NIH and the CDC by the way) since you don’t seem to understand the difference between correlation and causation. The VAERS database is used to sort out this difference. The claim of Charles that the spike protein produced in response to the mRNA vaccines sends the human immune system into “overdrive” and “taxes” and “weakens” it is false. This isn’t how the human immune system works. The spike proteins are broken down into small pieces called “antigens”, which are then presented to T- and B-cells so as to educate them to know what to attack in the future. This process happens every day and does not tax or weaken the immune system in the least. I mean, consider that a C19 infection would produce far far more spike proteins throughout the entire body for a much longer period of time. The mRNA vaccines, in comparison, are self-limited and are largely localized. Charles’ claim that the vaccines have produced a 40% spike in cancer rates and “turbo cancers” is also a false claim based on the claims of conspiracy theorists. I’m an anatomic and clinical pathologist with a subspecialty in blood disorders. I diagnose cancers every day. That’s what I do. I can tell you that there has been no increase in cancers associated with the mRNA vaccines. Beyond this, there is no mechanism by which the mRNA vaccines could produce such a spike in cancer rates. As far as Charles’ claim that the vaccines were not “thoroughly studied”, this is also a false statement. The mRNA vaccines went through all of the standard steps for vaccine testing and approval – to include double-blinded placebo-controlled animal and human trials with great success. There were no increased deaths, much less “25 deaths”, and the “adverse reactions” were minor and not beyond the expected rate in the 70,000 human volunteers. Also, the mRNA technology itself is not new, but has been studied now for over 30 years. It’s just that all of the necessary technological information came together at just the right time for the mRNA vaccines to make it to the general public soon after the pandemic hit. That’s just the nature and usefulness of the mRNA technology which Charles doesn’t seem to understand.

Conrad Vine Continues to Attack Church Leadership

Dr. Peter McCullough’s COVID-19 and Anti-Vaccine Theories

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Wyatt Allen: I’m not sure what important question(s) of yours I failed to answer? Please do point these out to me again so that I won’t inadvertently skip over something that is important to you.

Regarding your current question, of course I make mistakes all the time. In my job as a pathologist I try to be extremely careful to limit my mistakes, but mistakes do happen since we are all human and subject to error. I often wish I had a “redo” button available to me so that I could go back in time and fix some of my mistakes.

I know that you believe that your argument (regarding all vaccines I think) is based on the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy – and I respect that even though I don’t agree with you here. However, you are promoting your anti-vaccine position since you have presented numerous arguments against vaccines. I think these arguments are based on mistaken concepts and ideas, but, again, this is the reason for personal and religious liberty as long as these liberties don’t interfere with those of another.

I also understand that you want to plead for those who cannot effectively plead for themselves. I’m trying to do the same thing. I think that the misinformation presented by you and many others (particularly those like Dr. Peter McCulough) have caused untold injuries and deaths to many who would have been saved by being vaccinated. I also have no doubt there were those who misused the Vaccine Statements of the Church regarding mandates. While this shouldn’t have happened, again, I fail to understand how this is the fault of the Church? The Church has published many statements that have been misused. The same is true of many of the statements and claims found in the Bible itself. Is this the fault of the Bible? Should the Bible be rewritten because some of its language is confusing and difficult to properly understand by the many who have misinterpreted and misused it?

You keep repeating that the Vaccine Statements “exalt peer-reviewed scientific literature to the level of the Bible” – and that if I don’t see it this way that I should read them again. I’ve read them dozens of times and I still don’t see how you could possibly make this amazing, even shocking, claim. None of the leaders of the SDA Church would ever think to suggest such an idea – verbally or in writing. Certainly, no Christian physician or scientist would promote such a concept either. So, where are you getting this idea? The Vaccine Statements themselves make no such claim – not even close.

_______________

Wyatt Allen: The claim that the Vaccine Statements elevate peer-review literature equal to the Bible simply isn’t true. This claim is particularly shocking to me. I’m not sure how anyone could interpret these statements in this way? These statements are not statements of Fundamental Beliefs or doctrinal statements at all. They are simply general *recommendations*, not decrees or anything like that, regarding advances in medical science. That’s it. They specifically note that they are not to be considered doctrinal or in any way binding regarding the conscience of the individual – that the final decision is and should be with the individual regarding such issues.
Yes, words do matter, but in this case, I fail to see how your claims regarding the Church’s Vaccine Statements are valid or helpful moving forward since I fail to see how these Statements undermine individual religious liberty.

________________

Weston Greenwood: One can do both you know. I also advocate for both. I strongly believe the mRNA vaccines were a miraculous gift from God that saved millions of lives and prevented many many more hospitalizations and long-term injuries. At the same time, I’m also a strong supporter of personal and religious liberty – particularly for those who disagree with me. In the same way, the Vaccine Statements promote the benefits of vaccination while, at the same time, noting that one is perfectly free to disagree – and that this decision should take precedence.

________________

Weston Greenwood: The Church did bring this to a vote via the delegates at the last GC Session. It’s just that this vote went against you.

Liberty & Health Alliance – An Appeal for Action

Again, if an employer bases his/her decision to mandate vaccination on the Church’s Vaccine Statements, then that employer is misusing these statements – which isn’t the fault of the Church.

And yes, just because the Church does not stand in the way of someone who wants to get vaccinated, and even encourages this, doesn’t mean that it, therefore, stands in the way of someone who doesn’t want to get vaccinated. Claiming otherwise makes no sense to me.

________________

Wyatt Allen: You’re essentially saying that, “Any outsider who reads the ADCOM statement will see it as binding”.

If someone does read it that way, they aren’t reading it correctly because that’s not what it says. It says that while the SDA Church, as an organization, is not inherently opposed to vaccines and recognizes their usefulness, it remains with the individual and individual conscience as to the final decision to get or not to get vaccinated – that it is not an issue of morality, is not a matter of salvation, and is therefore not doctrinal. That’s what it says. Those who read it otherwise for the purposes of enforcing mandates based on such Statements are clearly misusing them. And, obviously, such misuses are not the fault of the Church.

Also, contrary to your claim, the Church has not elevated peer-reviewed literature published in scientific journals to the level of Scripture. That’s a completely false and completely unfair claim – particularly directed at medical professionals like me who recognize the usefulness of vaccines while, at the same time, recognizing the final authority of the Bible in all questions of faith. It’s just that I don’t see where the Bible speaks against vaccines anywhere in its pages. The same is true for the Spirit of Prophecy.


Conrad Vine Continues to Attack Church Leadership
I think that there can be a reasonable combination of the best of modern medicine as well as the best of healthful living and natural remedies such as exercise, sunlight, vitamin D, “forest bathing”, good sleep, vegan or at least a vegetarian diet, etc…