Comment on New NAD president: ‘I love you’ doesn’t mean we won’t deal with issues by BobRyan.
Ken said –
As you have often acknowledged if biological life is indicative of design this does not necessarily mean, ipso facto, that biblical God is the designer of our universe. Based on what we see it could be a haphazard designer who built in catastrophe and death into the equation.
It could be a haphazard God as you point out. Dawkins also points out the utter absurditity of an intelligent being deliberately choosing to create and sustain such a tooth-and-claw disease and extinction system.
However the Bible tells us of origins where there is no disease and death as God designs and creates the system. Only after rebellion do we see the “result” of the free will choice for rebellion.
You earlier noted that EGW saw life on other planets. Why isn’t there life on all planets or only one planet if there is a design to the universe? Bit haphazard of a design isn’t it? I do not see a pattern there, unless it is one of random natural selection – life adapting to harsh environments where it is able.
Neither Genesis 1 or 2 describes life as arising in a harsh environment where able. Rather the world is “formatted” as we see in Genesis 1 and all conditions are “made” to be ideal.
Ellen White claims to have seen in vision 1 or two inhabited world personally but in her descriptions of the universe as she said God described it to her – she states that there are in fact many inhabited worlds in the universe.
Many seem to have the idea that this world and the heavenly mansions constitute the universe of God. Not so. {Mar 368.1}
God has worlds upon worlds that are obedient to His law. These worlds are conducted with reference to the glory of the Creator. As the inhabitants of these worlds see the great price that has been paid to ransom man, they are filled with amazement. {Mar 368.2}
The Lord has given me a view of other worlds….an angel attended me from the city to a place that was bright and glorious. The grass of the place was living green, and the birds there warbled a sweet song. The inhabitants of the place were of all sizes; they were noble, majestic, and lovely. They bore the express image of Jesus, and their countenances beamed with holy joy, expressive of the freedom and happiness of the place. {Mar 368.3}
I asked one of them why they were so much more lovely than those on the earth. The reply was, “We have lived in strict obedience to the commandments of God, and have not fallen by disobedience, like those on the earth.” Then I saw two trees, one looked much like the tree of life in the city. The fruit of both looked beautiful, but of one they could not eat. They had power to eat of both, but were forbidden to eat of one. Then my attending angel said to me, “None in this place have tasted of the forbidden tree; but if they should eat, they would fall.” {Mar 368.4}
Then I was taken to a world which had seven moons. There I saw good old Enoch, who had been translated. . . . I asked him if this was the place he was taken to from the earth. He said, “It is not; the city is my home, and I have come to visit this place.” He moved about the place as if perfectly at home. {Mar 368.5}
Ken
With respect, I think you are taking one of those ‘leaps of faith’ when you leap from the notion of design to the transcendent biblical God. Trite to say that all designers do not see the same design. Behe of the irreducible complexity argument clearly does not support young life on earth. He just sees life evolving from a later point than chemical soup.
It is readily agreed that many in the Intelligent Design group are in fact still evolutionists. However they are believing in evolutionism in a context that is not “distinctly atheist” by choosing an I.D form of evolutionism. Logic would tell us that this is where ALL the T.E’s would be gathered – but innexplicably many of them choose self-conflicted arguments so consistently that they fail to see their blunder in this regard.
in Christ,
Bob
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BobRyan Also Commented
New NAD president: ‘I love you’ doesn’t mean we won’t deal with issues
It depends, Ken, on which verses from Genesis and statements from Ellen White you accept as literal, and how these match up to those who appoint themselves as watchkeepers in the Church. Examples include:
1 – Age of the earth. The Bible makes no explicit statements, though the chronologies (which are notoriously incomplete and inconsistent) certainly imply a short time, as Shane Hilde notes. However, Ellen White makes many unambiguous statements, including, “the world is now only about six thousand years old” (3SG 91.1). Sean Pitman says that this cannot be believed, because what she clearly meant (in his imagination) is that life on earth is only about six thousand years old. If an SDA employee believes life (or even the earth itself) is older than 6,000 years, they are labelled as thieves and liars (and immoral by some folks here).
The pausity of logic in that response is astounding.
Kent takes the statement by Ellen White that the “earth is now only 6,000 years old” and wildly claims that there is some way to bend and wrench the statement such that it really means “this planet and all life on earth are much older than 6,000 years” and that this is supposed to be something like a “valid wrenching” that we must all accept without question, or else be accused of being unfair or unkind!!
how in the world are we supposed to take that kind of post seriously?!!
in Christ,
Bob
New NAD president: ‘I love you’ doesn’t mean we won’t deal with issues
@ Bob RyanAre you trying to make a point? (Quote)
The assumption was that you were following the argument that you carefully snipped out of that post.
You were the one expressing doubt about the fact that Bible believing Christians argue that the mountains we see today came from the flood and that very little “mountain building” has gone on in the almost 2000 years since the flood.
I pointed out a key flaw in your argument which is (again) that even your own evolutionist friends do not argue for massive mountain building events in those 4000-5000 years that Bible believing Christians say the mountains were pretty much what we see today.
in Christ,
Bob
New NAD president: ‘I love you’ doesn’t mean we won’t deal with issues
The carrying capacity of moving water goes up by orders of magnitude with increase in velocity.
A mere 61mm erosion rate in North America per year would significantly reduce the landscape in only 10 million years, to say nothing of 100 million or 500 million years.
in Christ,
Bob
Recent Comments by BobRyan
Supreme Court Decision on Church Employment Case
Mack Ramsy:: : but the one thing we know for certain is that it was designed to change. There are so many back up and redundancies designed to make whatever changes that DNA faces to be profitable for the organism, or if their deleterious to ensure they don’t damage the subsequent generation (yes there are very complex methods for doing this) The immune system in fact does it intentionally.
BobRyan:
Obviously the references above to “designed” and “intention” could not be overlooked by the objective unbiased reader applying a bit of critical thinking to the topic. And so my response below merely states the obvious point of agreement on a part of that post.No wonder the application of a bit of critical thinking just then – demands that we conclude from your remarks above – that you are an example of an evolutionist that is strongly in favor of Intelligent Design. I too favor I.D.
Mack Ramsy:
Obviously the references abovI don’t believe in ID as it’s traditionally defined. I believe that God created a system designed to evolve.
BobRyan:
Obviously the references abov
In your earlier statement you claimed that system was designed with “redundancy and backup” features. That is not something rocks, gas and water could ever do – hence the term “Intelligent Design”.But perhaps you have access to more highly advanced rocks, gas and water?
Also you mention “intention” as if the immune system was deliberately designed with an end goal in view.
As it turns out – it is those “intention” and “Intelligent Design” aspects (so key to your response above) that are at the very heart of I.D. enabled science were we have the freedom to “follow the data where it leads” even if it leads to a conclusion in favor of design that does not fit atheist dogma about there “being no god”.
how odd then that you seem to later back pedal on your prior observation.
Thus you seem to be in somewhat of a self-conflicted position at the moment.
At least given the content of your statements about “intent” and “backup systems” and “redundancy” designed into the systems themselves (even to the point of “error correction” as we see in the case of nucleic polypeptide amino acid chains and their chiral orientation).
Of course all that just gets us back here
http://www.thebranch.org/videos/Creation_Calls.mov
Mack Ramsy: My language in this forum is not formal. Try not to get caught up in semantic issues.
Out of curiosity is that statement supposed to provide a solution to just how it is that something “not designed” is able to exhibit unique design characteristics such as “back up systems” – “redundancy” – error correcting mechanism and an “immune system with intention” regarding a specific outcome or goal?
No doubt the study of biology most definitely shows us that such things are present “in nature” based on “observations in nature” – and so you are right to state it as you did.
So if you are then going to double back and reject what you just affirmed – what do you have by way of “explanation” for such a self-conflicted course?
Reaching for a solution of the form – “Pay no attention to my actual words if they do not serve to deny I.D.” does not provide as satisfactory resolution to the problem as you may have at first supposed.
in Christ,
Bob
Strumming the Attached Strings
@David Read:
Erv Taylor is not “afraid” to post here – but he is “Afraid” to have well thought out views posted on AToday that do not flatter his agenda.
That was not news right?
in Christ,
Bob
Michigan Conference vs. LSU – Right Wing Politics or Truth in Advertising?
@John J.:
John J.: The fact remains, any decision direction or policy made by a church, conference, union or GCEC can be reversed or changed by those they serve.
Agreed and the fact that the constituency are not voting to reverse it – is a sign that this is not merely the views of the Administration in Michigan.
As for hierarchy – there is no doctrinal authority in the administrators.
And as for administrative hierarchy – the GC leadership has no authority to dismiss rogue teachers which is one of the reasons that this particular meltdown at LSU seems to go on and on and on. It slows at times and it speeds up at other times – but the fire is not simply put out.
in Christ,
Bob
ken:: Let’s continue shall we. You posit that Adam and Eve were producing telomerase as adults as a result of eating fruit from the tree of life. Would you agree that the production of adult telomerase was a direct result of the environment or did the gene(s) affecting production of the a enzyme as adults mutate in their progeny?
1. I never stated whether the fruit from the Tree of Life provided the telemerase enzyme or simply provided a trigger enzyme/protein that caused Adam and Eve to produce Telemerase. Either way the end result was the same.
2. The salient point is that we have a known mechanism that affects the aging of cells starting with new borns.
This is simply “observation in nature” given in response to your question about an observed mechanism in humans for the 900 year life span the Bible mentions.
BobRyan:
It is hard to “do the study” without having them under observation.1. But it is not hard to see the gradual decline in ages over time.
2. It is not hard to see the Bible declare that access to the Tree of Life was the determining factor.
3. It is not hard to see that even in humans today – the ability remains for us to produce telemerase – but we quickly lose that ability.
4. It is not hard to see what effect that has on the telomeres of infants.
The list of knowns for this mechanism are far more impressive than the “I imagine a mechanism whereby static genomes acquire new coding genes not already present and functioning in nature and that this happens for billions of years”.
Ken: Hi BobWe are making good progress!Thanks for your admitting thaf we do not have Adam and Eve or their progeny under observation to do the study.
My pleasure.
Let’s look at the empirical results of your observation. There is no physical evidence that the progeny or descendants lived to 900 years, right? Thus there is no physical evidence that the tree of life provided longevity through the increased production or activation of telermerase right?
There is evidence that a mechanism does exist whereby access to an enzyme would in fact affect the aging process of human cells.
That mechanism is observed in nature to be related to the enzyme Telemerase.
There is a ton of evidence that food contains enzymes and proteins and that the human body can produce enzymes in response to the presence of trigger proteins and enzymes.
It is irrefutably true that humans still today produce telemerase in the case of infants just before birth. Impossible to deny it – though you seem to want to go down that dead end road.
You asked about the “mechanism” that can be observed today that would account for long ages of life recorded in the Bible.
You now seem to be pulling the classic “bait and switch” asking for the video of the people living for long ages before the flood.
Nice try —
As I said before – your method is along the lines of grasping at straws in a true “any ol’ exuse will do” fashion.
in Christ,
Bob
SDA Darwinians compromise key church doctrines
Rev 21 does not say the planet has no light – it says the City has no NEED of light from the Sun.
The inconvenient deatils point to the fact that the New Earth will have a Sun and Moon but the New Jerusalem will have eternal day due to the light of God’s presence.
This is not the hard part.
in Christ,
Bob
