@Professor Kent: Sean Pitman The SDA Church is God’s appointed vessel …

Comment on Former LSU student letter reveals professor’s agenda by Sean Pitman.

@Professor Kent:

Sean Pitman

The SDA Church is God’s appointed vessel to bring salvation through Jesus Christ to the world–not salvation through 28 fundamental beliefs, FB#6, physical evidence for a young earth and the flood, and the like. Jesus is what saves and Jesus alone; the SDA Church and all it represents (“truth”) can never save a soul who does not reach out to Jesus.

Last I checked, the Church has no power to save at all. The entire purpose of the Church is not to save, but to spread the Gospel message of hope to those for whom salvation has already been purchased.

Remember now, knowledge, in and of itself, doesn’t save. However, knowledge does have the power to give people hope here and now…

When was the last time you got an empirical hug from Jesus, Sean?

Every time I see the evidence of Design in nature I know that there is a God. Every time I read the Bible and see the empirical evidence supported by historical science, I know there is a personal God who loves and cares for me. If that isn’t a “hug from Jesus” I don’t know what is…

God didn’t have to give us any evidence whatsoever. He didn’t have to tell us anything about why we are here or any reasons for sin and suffering or anything about what He plans to do about it or our bright future in Heaven with Him for eternity. He didn’t have to tell us any of that. He didn’t have to give us any evidence for the reliability of the Bible vs. other flights of fancy – like the Book of Mormon. The righteous could have been saved without any knowledge, in this life, of the Gospel hope. Yet, I’m so glad that I do have this knowledge here and now. How much better this life when one has a knowledge of the Gospel message of hope and the evidence supporting its credibility as a true story of history and of our future life…

Why is it that you don’t speak of Christ, love, forgiveness, or the cross?

I do speak of Christ’s love, forgiveness, and the Cross all the time. It is just that without evidence of the reality of these things, they’re just a bunch of just-so stories that have no more power to give people hope than a Santa Claus story told to gullible children.

I think you’re so stuck on your superior knowledge of “evidence” and so hypercritical of the simple faith of others, which you mock, that you have lost grasp of the source of your salvation. It is written, “the righteous shall live by faith.” Tell us once again that I’m teaching falsehood, Sean. Warn us all!

Faith is based on the evidence of things unseen professor. Without this evidence, one may be saved, but one will not have a solid conscious realization of this future reality here and now.

For example, did the disciples of Jesus have more or less faith in the Gospel message after they saw Him raised from the dead? Think about it…

“We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us… We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.” 1 John 1:3 NIV and 2 Peter 1:16 NIV

Clearly, it was the evidence of their senses, the empirical evidence itself, that gave them their hope and confidence in Jesus as the true Savior and Redeemer.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

Sean Pitman Also Commented

Former LSU student letter reveals professor’s agenda
I happen to know that the leaders of the local Church, the local Conferences, the Division, and the General Conference were well aware of this problem. I personally wrote letters to them all back in 2004 (and again in 2009) and received letters in return assuring me that all was well and that Mrs. White had told us that the Church would go through to the end of time. A couple of these leaders even called me on the phone and promised me that they would look into this problem. Of course, as we all know, nothing of any substance was done.

At least part of the problem, of course, was the very deliberately deceptive language that was used by the LSU administration – especially Dr. Lawrence Geraty. While president of LSU he would tell people that all the professors at LSU believed in creation and actively supported and promoted the SDA fundamental belief #6 on creation. How could he possibly say this? with a straight face? Well, you see, Dr. Geraty, together with Fritz Guy, had been largely responsible for the current wording of SDA FB#6. In their minds, the wording of FB#6 allows for the interpretation that the “days” of creation represent vast periods of time – not necessarily “literal” days as is the historical view of the SDA Church regarding the Genesis narrative – and as is clearly stated in the writing of Mrs. White and the Bible as well. This is why Geraty and Guy worked so hard to block the inclusion of the word “literal” from SDA FB#6. Because, without the phrase “six literal days”, Geraty and Guy felt that they could then hire professors who could honestly teach their students about the reality of Darwinian style evolution taking place on this planet over the course of hundreds of millions of years while still pretending to support the fundamental doctrinal beliefs of the SDA Church.

So, there you have it. Dr. Geraty would tell people that the professors of LSU were in full support of the Church’s official position on origins while not explaining what that really meant: that the professors were not in fact young-life creationists in the remotest sense of the word and that they did in fact believe and teach mainstream evolutionary theories as the “true” story of origins to their students…

I’m not sure how deliberately deceptive one can get, but in my opinion, Dr. Geraty and Fritz Guy should have been fired and disfellowshiped from the SDA Church over such deliberately deceptive words and actions. The current administration of LSU is really no better than when Drs. Geraty and Guy were president. Dr. Randal Wisbey, the current LSU president, has publicly expressed his own sympathy with long-ages of life evolving on this planet and is in full support of the positions and methods of his current teaching staff. He and the LSU board have actively opposed any effort to substantively address this issue at LSU as well. Instead, they have been producing deceptive advertisements and misdirection regarding what is really being taught at LSU against the doctrinal positions of the SDA Church in an effort to sweep this issue under the rug yet again.

At this point, I think that the Church should put out an official reprimand against what LSU did in the past and is currently doing and offer an official apology to parents, students, and the Church membership at large for not dealing with this issue decades ago…

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


Former LSU student letter reveals professor’s agenda
@Professor Kent:

We don’t need creation scientists for heroes. We don’t need their theories, their “evidence,” or their data. We don’t need 28 “fundamental beliefs,” and we don’t need fundamental belief #6 in particular.

Sounds like we don’t need the SDA Church much less SDA schools either? Do we even need the Bible? or any empirical evidence at all?

That may be true when it comes to salvation, since salvation is based on motive, not knowledge. However, this is not true when it comes to giving people a solid conscious hope in the validity of the Gospel’s message here and now…

We need but one hero, the man Jesus Christ, and what He chose to communicate to us directly. If we truly come to know Him, the Word incarnate, we can never deny Him.

It was this same Jesus who established the order and organization of the Church and appealed to the empirical evidence in support of the Scriptures as a basis of a solid faith in His own Gospel message of hope to a dying planet…

You simply can’t have a real conscious “relationship” with anyone outside of a basis in empirical reality…

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


Former LSU student letter reveals professor’s agenda
@Professor Kent:

As Geanna correctly pointed out, these gentlemen are hobbyists. There are many fossil collectors and there are many who teach about fossils, but doing these things does NOT make one a scientist. If that were the case, my 11-year-old niece would be a scientist.

Are you seriously trying to compare your 11-year-old niece to the likes of Arthur Chadwick or Leonard Brand? Come on now. You’re just making yourself look silly at this point…

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


Recent Comments by Sean Pitman

Science and Methodological Naturalism
Very interesting passage. After all, if scientists are honest with themselves, scientific methodologies are well-able to detect the existence of intelligent design behind various artifacts found in nature. It’s just the personal philosophy of scientists that makes them put living things and the origin of the fine-tuned universe “out of bounds” when it comes to the detection of intelligent design. This conclusion simply isn’t dictated by science itself, but by a philosophical position, a type of religion actually, that strives to block the Divine Foot from getting into the door…


Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull
@Ron:

Why is it that creationists are afraid to acknowledge the validity of Darwinism in these settings? I don’t see that these threaten a belief in God in any way whatsoever.

The threat is when you see no limitations to natural mindless mechanisms – where you attribute everything to the creative power of nature instead of to the God of nature.

God has created natural laws that can do some pretty amazing things. However, these natural laws are not infinite in creative potential. Their abilities are finite while only God is truly infinite.

The detection of these limitations allows us to recognize the need for the input of higher-level intelligence and creative power that goes well beyond what nature alone can achieve. It is here that the Signature of God is detectable.

For those who only hold a naturalistic view of the universe, everything is attributed to the mindless laws of nature… so that the Signature of God is obscured. Nothing is left that tells them, “Only God or some God-like intelligent mind could have done this.”

That’s the problem when you do not recognize any specific limitations to the tools that God has created – when you do not recognize the limits of nature and what natural laws can achieve all by themselves.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull
@Bill Sorensen:

Since the fall of Adam, Sean, all babies are born in sin and they are sinners. God created them. Even if it was by way of cooperation of natural law as human beings also participated in the creation process.

God did not create the broken condition of any human baby – neither the physical or moral brokenness of any human being. God is responsible for every good thing, to include the spark or breath of life within each one of us. However, He did not and does not create those things within us that are broken or bad.

“The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’ ‘An enemy did this,’ he replied. “The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?'” Matthew 13:27-28

Of course, all humans are indeed born broken and are in a natural state of rebellion against God. However, God is not the one who created this condition nor is God responsible for any baby being born with any kind of defect in character, personality, moral tendency, or physical or genetic abnormality. God did not create anyone with such brokenness. Such were the natural result of rebellion against God and heading the temptations of the “enemy”… the natural result of a separation from God with the inevitable decay in physical, mental, and moral strength.

Of course, the ones who are born broken are not responsible for their broken condition either. However, all of us are morally responsible for choosing to reject the gift of Divine Grace once it is appreciated… and for choosing to go against what we all have been given to know, internally, of moral truth. In other words, we are responsible for rebelling against the Royal Law written on the hearts of all mankind.

This is because God has maintained in us the power to be truly free moral agents in that we maintain the Power to choose, as a gift of God (Genesis 3:15). We can choose to accept or reject the call of the Royal Law, as the Holy Spirit speaks to all of our hearts…

Remember the statement by Mrs. White that God is in no wise responsible for sin in anyone at any time. God is working to fix our broken condition. He did not and does not create our broken condition. Just as He does not cause Babies to be born with painful and lethal genetic defects, such as those that result in childhood leukemia, He does not cause Babies to be born with defects of moral character either. God is only directly responsible for the good, never the evil, of this life.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull
@Ron:

Again, your all-or-nothing approach to the claims of scientists isn’t very scientific. Even the best and most famous of scientists has had numerous hair-brained ideas that were completely off base. This fact does not undermine the good discoveries and inventions that were produced.

Scientific credibility isn’t based on the person making the argument, but upon the merits of the argument itself – the ability of the hypothesis to gain predictive value when tested. That’s it.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


Gary Gilbert, Spectrum, and Pseudogenes
Don’t be so obtuse here. We’re not talking about publishing just anything in mainstream journals. I’ve published several articles myself. We’re talking about publishing the conclusion that intelligent design was clearly involved with the origin of various artifactual features of living things on this planet. Try getting a paper that mentions such a conclusion published…

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com