Please find my reply in the thread for “La Sierra …

Comment on LSU student: ‘Apostates or Apostles’? by Sean Pitman.

Please find my reply in the thread for “La Sierra University won’t Reject Creation Teaching:” @Sean Pitman:

There’s no point talking about the same thing in two different threads.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

Sean Pitman Also Commented

LSU student: ‘Apostates or Apostles’?
@Professor Kent:

You wrote:

If I realized this deep down, I would take Noah for a fool when God instructed him to build a massive boat to escape a rain and a flood the proportions of which reason would dictate to be impossible. Why did Noah obey? Was it simple trust in God’s word, or use of his emotion-free reason?

Not if you had talked directly with God like Noah did and had hundreds of prior years of experience with God, experiencing his constant reliability and credibility.

Noah had abundant very direct empirical evidence of God’s existence and power – much more direct empirical evidence than we have today. His was not an empirically-blind faith by any means in the word of some stranger claiming to be God.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


LSU student: ‘Apostates or Apostles’?

Professor Kent:

You wrote:

“1) Do you agree wholeheartedly with Sola Scriptura and the historical-grammatical hermeneutic elucidated by the GC “Rio” document and the SDA Biblical Research Institute scholars?”

I believe that once one has established the credibility of the Scriptures to the level of having a very high likelihood of being of Divine origin, then it would be unwise to set them aside in favor of anything else…

You go on to ask:

“2) If so, do you continue to believe that those who accept a simple “Thus saith the Lord” are as duped as believers in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster?”

It depends on why they accept the Bible as their source of authority. Different people have different weights of evidence. What does it for one may not do it for another – only God can judge.

However, I do know that God does in fact desire us to make an intelligent decision in favor of His Word based on the weight of evidence – the weight of empirical evidence. He does not desire empirically-blind faith in His Word. He desires His children to have a thoughtful rational religion – not a religion based on mere emotion-driven blind faith that is devoid of any basis in empirical reality…

You realize this yourself, deep down, or you wouldn’t keep referencing consistency with historical data as one of your bases for supporting the Bible’s authority vs. other claimed sources of Divine authority. You yourself cannot help but present empirical evidences to support your own belief in the Bible’s Divine origin.

So, there you have it.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


LSU student: ‘Apostates or Apostles’?
@Eddie:

My response: Sola Scriptura.

The LDS also use the phrase, “Sola Scriptura”, not in reference to the Bible, but in reference to the Book of Mormon.

So, your response does not address the question that I actually asked: i.e., How do you determine that your “Scripture” is better than someone else’s “Scripture”? Upon what basis do you decide between competing options when you know that most are false? How do you pick the right “Scripture”?

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.