Comment on Jay Gallimore comments on evolution conflict by Sean Pitman.
1) There are no extra-biblical evidence that the Exodus ever occured, or at least in the massive of a scale. For if there were, there would have been at least some evidence of it in Egypt or at least in its surrounding countries.
The Biblical Exodus, as described, involved the movements of tent-dwelling people. This sort of movement isn’t going to leave much archeological evidence. What this means is that the lack of positive evidence doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
For a long time the higher biblical critics didn’t believe that Nebuchadnezzar existed or that he was the primary builder of Babylon – due to a lack of evidence. Then came the day when the walls of Bablylon were actually discovered – with the name of Nebuchadnezzar stamped on every brick.
This same thing has happened over and over again. The Bible has proven itself to be the most reliable historical textbook in history.
2) From the human genome project it is quite evident that the human race has its origins in Africa. Where they began to spread out to various parts of the world.
There are competing theries here. The African origin has not been conclusively demonstrated by the genome project at all. There are numerous theories for the origin of the human race from all over the place – such as China or even Northern Europe.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18093-chinese-challenge-to-out-of-africa-theory.html
As we know, an Ice Age did occur which set itself upon the Northern part of our world. Now, as the Ice melted-various floods would have occurred-in the Northern parts of the earth. Interestingly enough, all records of flood stories come from these Northern parts of the world. That is to say, that a global flood is quite questionable.
This claim is also mistaken. Flood legends and myths come from all major societies and cultures in history – north and south and in between. They simply are not limited to the northern part of the world like you claim:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_myth
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Sean Pitman Also Commented
Jay Gallimore comments on evolution conflict
@Ricky Kim:
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
As others have already noted, Epicurus, though perhaps quite brilliant in many other ways, evidently didn’t understand the concept and risks (to God) of providing us humans with real moral freedom… which includes a real freedom to rebel against God’s will…
Hence the source of evil – human freedom in rebellion against a good God who never desired us to rebel in the first place, but gave us the freedom to do so…
Yet, you argue that God’s foreknowledge should have given him the heads up – that he is responsible for the choices we made because of his own foreknowledge. You write:
In this paradigm, [G]od is completely and totally responsible for everything that happens in this universe.
Consider the limitations of this argument. If God changed everything that would happen, in the beginning, so that it would match His will instead of how He knew things would naturally develop if He did in fact create creatures with access to true moral freedom, that would be a form of removing true freedom. If God didn’t create you, for example, because of his foreknowledge that you wouldn’t always be perfect, and would rebel, on occasion, from what you knew was right (as we all have done), that would have been a form of altering true freedom.
Since only God knows if he is actually playing the game fairly, our true freedom is really only known, for sure, by God. It really only matters to Him, ultimately, if we are really free or not. The best we can know is that God has told us we are in fact free to make moral decisions and that he will not interfere with those decisions with the use of his powers of foreknowledge or by any other power of force to change our actions, outside of our own will, to match his own will.
That’s a big risk for God because it means that he is actually setting himself up for the potential for his creatures, you and I, to rebel against his goodness and his ideal for us and our lives…
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Jay Gallimore comments on evolution conflict
@Professor Kent:
To those you are conversing with, understanding and practicing “truth†seems to transcend everything else (in my opinion). Unfortunately, many contributors to this website have a knack for strongly expressing their views and pejoratively labelling those who disagree with them.
This may be true of a number of contributors (you are no stranger yourself to strongly expressing your views against those who don’t agree with you). However, not all in this forum, certainly not the staff of EducateTruth, wish to entertain or express pejorative statements against anyone who is sincerely searching for the Truth… regardless of his or her current position along the path. This particular sentiment of yours is strongly supported by EducateTruth.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Jay Gallimore comments on evolution conflict
@Ricky Kim:
I guess where we ultimately differ gentlemen is that we don’t see eye to eye in matters pertaining to scripture because I don’t necessarily see it to be inspired.
Indeed. And, your arguments might carry more weight if you got most of your facts right. So far, most of your arguments and claims have been quite easily falsified. That doesn’t cause you the briefest pause when coming to your conclusions? – that most of what you thought was true really isn’t true after all?
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
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.
