@Ricky Kim: I guess where we ultimately differ gentlemen is …

Comment on Jay Gallimore comments on evolution conflict by Sean Pitman.

@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

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:

Also, there are further speculations as to the validity towards the parting of the “Red Sea” versus the parting of the “Reed Sea”, in which case the parting of the waters is a natural phenomenon and the only miraculous thing about the event would have been the timing of the crossing.

Don’t forget about the drowning of the entire Egyptian army in the shallow waters of the Reed Sea 😉

Your statement regarding Nebuchadnezzar also runs into trouble for there were more than one Nebuchadnezzar present within the lineage of kings in Babylon. Unless you were referring to a specific one for your example.

As far as I’m aware, there were only two “Nebuchadnezzars” in the line of the Babylonian kings. Nebuchadnezzar I was king of the Babylonian Empire from about 1125 to 1103 BCE. He is not to be confused with the more well-known Nebuchadnezzar II of biblical fame who reigned from 605 to 562 BCE. It is kind of hard to confuse these two kings.

Beyond this, it was completely forgotten for most of modern history that Nebuchadnezzar II is the one who actually built the famed city of Babylon and the famous hanging gardens during the time of Daniel (6th century BCE). For example, according to early Greek historians and those living during the Hellenistic era (beginning after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE), King Nebuchadnezzar was thought to have played a rather insignificant role in the affairs of ancient history. In fact, many scholars didn’t even believe that he was a real historical personage much less a prominent King of Babylon. He is never referred to early Greek literature as a great builder or as the creator of a new and greater Babylon. In fact, this honor is generally ascribed to Assyrian Queen Semiramis who was given a rather prominent place in the history of Babylonia by classical Greek historians.

The problem is that relatively recent discoveries of cuneiform records from the 6th century B.C., (unearthed by archeologists during the 1800s) have entirely changed the picture derived from classical writers. At the same time these early records have corroborated the account of the book of Daniel – which credits Nebuchadnezzar with the rebuilding of Babylon at the height of Babylonian power (Daniel 4:30).

But, what about Queen Semiramis? As it turns out, Queen Semiramis (SammuDramat in cuneiform inscriptions) was a queen mother in Assyria – regent for her infant son Adad-nirari III. Contrary to the claims of the classical sources, she was not a queen over Babylonia at all. The cuneiform inscriptions have shown that she had nothing to do with any building activity in Babylon.

The Greek historians were also silent in regards to the “Belshazzar” mentioned in the Bible. Yet, the cuneiform tablets note that Belshazzar (grandson of Nebuchadnezzar II) was the eldest son of King Nabonidus (son of Nebuchadnezzar II) who reigned with his son and entrusted the rule of Babylon to him while he was in Arabia (on a spiritual journey). Historical documents continued to reference his name only, but his son was the crown prince, heir and ruler while his father was absent

Obviously then, no one could have known and detailed the information written in the book of Daniel except for someone living during or immediately after the Neo-Babylonian age. Anyone living too many years later would simple not have had access to this forgotten information which had been completely lost by the time of the Hellenistic era. In fact, the presence of such information in the book of Daniel seems to puzzle at least a few critical scholars who do not believe that Daniel was written in the 6th century (BCE), but rather in the 2nd.

A typical example of their dilemma is found in the following statement from R. H. Pfeiffer, of Harvard University:

“We shall presumably never know how our author [Daniel] learned that the new Babylon was the creation of Nebuchadnezzar . . ., as the excavations have proved” (Introduction to the Old Testament [New York, 1941], pp. 758, 759).

It seems to me that many of your facts are either clearly mistaken or pulled out of thin air. You also pick and choose the data that you wish to present and present it as if there is no debate or any other reasonable alternative position debated among mainstream scientists or historians. You can be skeptical all you want, but at least be honest about what the currently available data can and cannot clearly support…

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


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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.