Comment on New NAD president: ‘I love you’ doesn’t mean we won’t deal with issues by wesley kime.
Dear Ken, Thank you kindly, good friend. Being seriously old and retired from the lab (research and clinical) and from writing no-nonsense pathology reports (I was a pathologist too), and since you brought it up, and since I like a cheekiness as much as the next professor, I’d rather talk about Sean and whether he’s a scientist than Evo vs. creationism, theistic or otherwise. But, sh—h-h-h, not too loud, or Sean will hear us talking behind his back and shush us up.
Let us proceed,. The title of this polemic as personal profile is, “ERGO; moveOn.org”
As I hear him, Sean is indeed proceeding from a premise, unashamedly, no question. Like a scientist should proceed, must proceed, always proceeds, they all do, or should. That’s the scientific method. Having a premise per se is scientific per se, nor anti-scientific per se. It doesn’t take a PhD in philosophy of science per se to know that. Ergo, Sean’s a scientist, per se. His proceeding from a premise is not the question. To always and always make it the question is to spin the prayer wheel, just setting it spinning in the breeze. Like Evo never got started. So let’s moveOn.org (as a neologistical generic verb)
The question is not whether he proceeds from a premise – the Bible, no bones, even dinosaur bones, about it — but whether you like his premise. You don’t. Is that the real question, whether you like his premise? Ergo – fill in the blank. MoveOn.org.
No, the question is how he proceeds. He proceeds like a scientist by demanding scientific evidence, i.e. data (which gets him guff from the Purer-higher-Groundless-Faith crowd). Ergo, Sean’s a scientist with thick skin, like a scientist has to have. Moving right along—
No, the question is where he gets his evidence. Same literature, same universally available and accepted data as Evoeans. He can give references, plenty of references, footnotes, no less. How scientific can you get, footnotes! Ergo, Sean’s a scientist who knows his literature and knows the data and how to present it. Move it, Sean.
So the next question is, what conclusion does he move to from the data? That there is evidence for Intelligence, he concludes. That the evidence is not inconsistent with a 6-day creation. Or a Noachian flood, smashing tectonic plates and all. Ergo, Sean knows how to come to a conclusion from evidence, and present it. Next move, the pivotal question.
Pivotal question: do you like his conclusions? You don’t? So what do you conclude? There’s only one allowable conclusion? Ergo, Sean can’t be a scientist, his science can’t really be science, he is closed-minded, his premise is just a myth, he left his lab coat and ID array at the door? He’s the one who should be fired? Now he’s getting guff from the science, er, community. Ergo, the conclusion turns out to be more crucial than the premise, after all. (Oh no!) Ergo-Ergo, Sean is a scientist with thick skin who wants and finds scientific evidence for or against his premise, weighs it, comes to creditable conclusions, but the wrong conclusions, and gets guff from both sides, and is no scientist. Ergo, he MUST be a real scientist. Galileo (he always gets into it) got guff from only one side. Ergo, Sean is twice the scientist.
Oh, we forgot to work “bias” into it. Ergo, wrong vocabulary? Ergo, skewed?
But seriously, your move.
Happy ergos, W
wesley kime Also Commented
New NAD president: ‘I love you’ doesn’t mean we won’t deal with issues
Dear Ken, I noted your venturing, “…human centric, isn’t it?” Indeed it is. “For God so loved the world that he gave His own son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but…”(you know the rest), John 3:16. God Himself could not be more human centric, nor He who died for humanity. And believing thus is God centric, Bible centric. And SDA centric. To me, and I say this unashamedly, it would seem eccentric not to thus centered. Yes, we’re enjoying our Sabbath.
New NAD president: ‘I love you’ doesn’t mean we won’t deal with issues
Loud Cries from the Bigger Tent, an Allegory (allegorical is big nowadays): “You accuse me of accepting theistic evolution? You lie! (By the way, what IS that?)”
“You accuse me of denying the Bible? How do you know what I believe, just from what I’ve proclaimed! Don’t tell me what I believe. I can’t believe you said I deny the Bible — I’m a believer possessed of fuller, more transcendent faith than you.”
“You accuse me of scoffing off the 6-day creation of Genesis 1? That’s abuse, that’s persecution; you’ve hurt me. Better a millstone be tied around your neck. I believe in the 6 days as much as you do! Only they’re allegorical, those days. And I see a broader meaning to Genesis 1 than what we’ve been taught (or what EGW says).”
Moral: the Third Angel’s Loud Cry in the Broader Tent is “Broader Meaning,” not deeper understanding.
New NAD president: ‘I love you’ doesn’t mean we won’t deal with issues
Look, if indeed there is not one shredy-shred-shred of evidence for Creation, only for Evo, as is being touted, paradoxically, by both extremes, the sober Bible believer and the whimsical whatever, faith takes over, of course. But if indeed there is evidence for Creation, didn’t God provide it? Does not such evidence devolve upon God’s Creation itself – its rocks, flagella, creatine, DNA? If so, why forfeit it? Might we not have to answer for ignoring what God has given us, like talents? Or is evidence itself of random origin, like all Evo?
Recent Comments by wesley kime
Beyond the Creation Story – Why the Controversy Matters
@Ken: Ken, re. yours of May 31, 15 12:42 pm: … those standing up for FB28 have every right to do so…until they [presumably the FBs, not the communicants, although either could be changed in a twinkling of any eye] are democratically changed.”
FB28? What’s that? You probably know better than I. Genesis 1 I can quote; FB28 I can’t. And won’t bother to check. I couldn’t even tell you where to find those FBs. I read what you say more assiduously than the FBs. (What’s FB? FaceBook?)
In the first place I think you’ve got Adventism wrong, or at least Adventism as I know it. Well, maybe you haven’t, the postmodernist kind anyway. I’m pre-catechistic, ergo prehistoric, alas. I’m that old.
FB28 or whatever it is, if it WERE changed, democratically or otherwise, dramatically or creepingly, by evolution or edict, even if expunged and expurgated in the interest of big-tent accord, which seemed on the verge of happening pre-T. Wilson, and may yet, I wouldn’t even know it until I saw it here. You’d know before I would.
With or without and despite FB28 or whatever, or EduTruth, I’d still honor Genesis 1. I’d honor it, A, by faith, because the Bible, i.e. God, says so. A validated faith validated by B, The evidence, good scientific falsifiable evidence. And C, the consummate cosmic multi-vectored syllogism. Everything fits.
Seriously, though, discussion has to start somewhere and be referenced by something, for convenience if not citizenship. But I’d prefer to start, if granted “every right,” with Genesis 1, at the beginning.
Dr. Ariel Roth’s Creation Lectures for Teachers
@Ken: “something Dr. Kime said struck a very strange chord in me: that a Chair in ID at Harvard would be a quantum leap (forward – my edit) while such a Chair would be a step backward at LSU. I’ m very sorry Wes, but for me to honestly investigate reality, such double standard is not acceptable. …[therefore] I think I’m coming to the end of my Adventist journey.”
I can, of course, dear friend, understand why, and respect that, you would see the two directions of leaping, forward and backward, by Harvard and LSU, as a double standard.
But might it also be seen as simple Einsteinian Relativity? It all depends on from whence you’re starting or observing. Two venues, Harvard vs. LSU, two vectors, not two standards. At any rate, a parting of our ways. The Chair did it. A very unlucky ill-omened Chair, from the start.
Parting — that indeed is sad, especially this parting. I grieve too. In sadness we are agreed. That’s not double speak; only you could I say that to.
For these several years you, and your courteous ways, even your questions, have been most fascinating, even endearing, inspiring to both poetic and, I now regret, rasping response. I’ve so much enjoyed your postings, always looked for them first, and appreciated your uncommon patience and politeness, and our camaraderie in the bomb shelter and on the grandstand. Too bad the Chair, our double bed, didn’t work out.
As benediction, maybe we can all get together again, somewhere. Meanwhile, the Mizpah, which I think I should be the one to deliver, seeing it was, you say, my one-liner that was the last straw, for which I’ll get heck all around, and rightly so: “The Lord watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another.” Genesis 31:49.
What the heck, have some popcorn for the road. And don’t forget your cyber plaque. You will be remembered, appreciated, thought about, prayed for. Do come back soon.
Until then, your jousting friend, W
Strumming the Attached Strings
@Phillip Brantley: Excellent! I shall quote you: “learn something from Sean Pitman.” Indeed, indeed — there’s so much to learn from that man.
Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation
@Bill Sorensen: “I don’t know if anyone has really been able to follow your thinking…”
A tad, a smidgeon, just slightly overstated maybe? Just a tad, just a smidgeon, at the cost of not a few dislikes? Well, I for one do follow it. And with great admiration. Great.
What does it take to be a true Seventh-day Adventist?
@Ervin Taylor: Out of purely poetic symmetry of rhetoric, Ervin, your trademark whimsical “…I guess someone who rejects…” is asking for — I was waiting for it! — a Pitman’s “I guess someone who accepts…” Lovely diptych, ping and pong.
