LSU student writes about controversy
Interesting that Smith put the label “True” over the picture of Darwin and “Faith” of the picture of the Bible – instead of the other way around…

It is also interesting that the SDA position on origins is referred to as “faith” while the evolutionary perspective is referred to as “science”. Evidently Smith, along with many professors at LSU, do not realize that even theistic evolutionism is a faith-based position – as are all scientific theories. All beliefs or ideas about what is or isn’t true require leaps of faith – be they religious beliefs or scientific beliefs.

Beyond this, all useful beliefs about the world in which we live require at least a component of empirical evidence – even religious beliefs. Without any empirical evidence to support one’s faith all that is left is blind faith. Such a faith cannot distinguish a belief in God from a belief in Santa Claus or Dawkins’ Flying Spaghetti Monster…

In this sense then, all searches for Truth, even religious ones, can be done in a scientific manner and therefore be true “sciences”. Likewise, all sciences also take on a form of religious faith since all notions of truth require leaps of faith that cannot be absolutely known to be true.

This is why the very same data can be interpreted by different well-educated people to mean very different things – with all honesty and sincerity on both sides.

The problem here is that the SDA Church has one interpretation and mainstream science a completely different interpretation when it comes to origins. The SDA Church, even if wrong, should expect those it employs to represent its stated goals and ideals, to actually do so on the Church’s dime. It doesn’t really matter is Smith or anyone else within the employ of the Church thinks that the Church is clearly mistaken. It is still morally wrong, a robbery of the Church’s time and money, to take money from the Church while doing other than the Church is paying the employee to do…

That’s the bottom line here…

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

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.