Ron: Until you can harmonize what you read in the …

Comment on LSU Faculty Senate supports biology department by Sean Pitman, M.D..

Ron: Until you can harmonize what you read in the Bible with what we observe in science, the premise of this web site has no reasonable foundation. You can’t expect a few biology teachers to do what the whole denomination has been unable to do in the last 166 years. And not just Adventists, but the whole Christian world. Don’t you think Catholics and Baptists and Lutherans would like to disprove evolution too? Of course they would. Until you can, I think is unethical to ask our faithful God fearing Biology teachers to teach something that has no scientific foundation.

There are plenty of very well-educated scientists who do in fact question the modern Theory of Evolution and who consider the idea that a God or God-like intelligence is the most scientific conclusion to many phenomena that we see in the natural world.

In fact, the significant weight of available evidence strongly supports not only the need for very high level outside intelligent input for many features of both animate and inanimate things within this universe, but for a recent origin of life on this planet.

But, beyond arguments for or against the ToE or Creationism, I have a very hard time understanding how it is remotely “unethical” to ask teachers to be able to support the clearly stated position of their employer before taking on the job. If they cannot do this, in good conscience, what would be most ethical is for them to not take on the job – to work for an employer who is in fact willing to pay them for their position without any ethical conflict.

Remember, it isn’t “unloving” for an employer to expect to get what the employer is paying for with the employer’s own money. Anything else, on the part of the employee, is robbery of the employers time and money…

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

Sean Pitman, M.D. Also Commented

LSU Faculty Senate supports biology department

John Testerman: These young people, and there are a lot of them, need good role models in our schools, professors such as those at La Sierra, who are both good Adventists and good scientists, which means willing to follow where the evidence leads.

You seem to be advocating a form of schizophrenia. In other words, the SDA statement of fundamental beliefs is really irrelevant according to your argument here. In other words, it being a Seventh-day Adventist isn’t really based on what you believe as long as you are a good person and believe in God? How is that different from any other religious groups? – to include non-Christian religious groups?

SDAism isn’t based on blind faith. If your science and your religion are diametrically opposed, something is wrong with either your science or your religion. Useful religion is not schizophrenic like this. While you are correct in the seeming suggestion that a belief in a literal 6-day creation week is not a matter of salvation in and of itself (knowledge isn’t what saves a person – the motive of love does that), you are incorrect to think that this knowledge or understanding isn’t important. It is very important as far as the basis of the Gospel’s “Good News” or a solid hope in a very real and very bright future for us all…

Truly, if I became convinced of the scientific validity of mainstream evolutionary theories, I would immediately leave the SDA Church. I might still believe in a God of some kind, but certainly not the SDA view of God – – not even the Christian view of God.

I really don’t think you understand the implications of the ideas in play here…

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


LSU Faculty Senate supports biology department

Richard Gates: May God be merciful to those professors who are so much “wiser and better informed” than the rest of us, and keep His Laodicean Church in the path to reformation and conversion.

Pastor Richard Gates, R.N.
(Retired GC Mission Aviation Bolivia/Peru)

Thank you Pastor Gates for your words of encouragement. Also, would you have happened to know my parents Tui and Faye Pitman? They were also missionaries in Bolivia/Peru in the early 1970s when I was just a small boy. And, my brother was born in Bolivia…

Sean

DetectingDesign.com


LSU Faculty Senate supports biology department

Ken C Johnston: But the University has the right to teach Creationism in counterpoint to evolution as well and I support that right. I think it would be great if students took both courses and made up their own minds. In fact I would support Creationism being taught at public universities as well, in counterpoint to evolution.

This would be great if you weren’t talking about a Church school. The whole purpose of having a Church school is to educate the Church’s young people from the biased perspective of what the Church thinks is true and important to contribute to the world’s understanding of reality. This is not to say that the Theory of Evolution (ToE) shouldn’t be taught at all in SDA schools – quite the contrary.

The ToE should be taught to the highest standard possible in SDA schools, but SDA education should not end here. The SDA science teachers hired by our schools should also be able to go beyond the mainstream ToE and present its many overwhelming pitfalls and problems as well as the significant weight of evidence favoring the SDA perspective of a recent arrival of life on this planet as well as the subsequent world-wide Noachian catastrophe. If a professor cannot do this in good conscience, that professor shouldn’t be working at an SDA school… it’s as simple as that.

This being said, living in a free civil society where one always has the right to leave any church organization without any fear of civil reprisals or penalties of any kind is vital. No church should ever take on political power to coerce anyone to support any doctrinal beliefs whatsoever.

However, if one freely chooses to represent a church organization in an official paid capacity, that person should actually teach/preach what the Church is paying him/her to teach or preach. No one should expect to get paid by any organization while going around publicly undermining what that organization stands for as “fundamental”. It just doesn’t work that way. Such thinking leads to chaos and fragmentation – not continued strength and viability.

It’s a matter of simple practicality on the part of the organization and a matter of simple ethics (one’s responsibility toward one’s employer) on the part of the individual representative…

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


Recent Comments by Sean Pitman, M.D.

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.