@OTNT_Believer As for our evolutionary “friends” outside the church, I find …

Comment on Panda’s Thumb: ‘SDAs are split over evolution’ by Inge Anderson.

@OTNT_Believer

As for our evolutionary “friends” outside the church, I find your approach an embarassment. None of them that I know see one shred of credible evidence in the stuff you peddle. In fact they love your approach because it makes it that much easier to ridicule creationists in general. They have a tendency to paint all of us just like the loudest, most outlandish of us.

H’mm … are you saying that you and your evolutionary friends have read all the material on the www.detectingdesign.com web site, as well as Dr Pitman’s book, Turtles All the Way Down? That, at least, would be included “in the stuff” you see Dr Pitman “peddling.” Of course, there’s a bit more on various web sites where he entered into debate with evolutionary scientists over the last ten years or so.

But if you and your evolutionary friends have thoroughly examined the material on his web site as well as his book and found “not one shred of credible evidence,” I’ll take your word for it.

As it is, your statement sounds like the use of hyperbole used for effect in attack on the person of Dr Pitman (as opposed to his arguments).

A more useful post to make your point would be a demonstration that some of the evidence he presented in favor of a short chronology is clearly wrong.

You do realize, don’t you, that the argument is over a short chronology or a long chronology, because there is little, if any, room for the Creator to do anything even close to what Genesis proposes in a long chronology? So, a “belief in God,” while holding to a long chronology is irrelevant. The Seventh-day Adventist church is founded on a straightforward reading of the Bible — generally literal, unless the context indicates that it must be read metaphorically or as a fable/parable/prophecy.

I rather suspect that most of the Sadducees found the approach of Jesus and the approach of Paul “an embarrassment.” So that is hardly an indictment of Dr Pitman.

Inge Anderson Also Commented

Panda’s Thumb: ‘SDAs are split over evolution’
@krissmith777

Thank you for your reply. I believe Sean has answered most of your points as I would have, except maybe better. 😉

However, there is one left for me to reply to:

Inge Anderson Wrote:
“May I assume by what you write above that you believe that Ellen White was just a woman who suffered from a head wound with subsequent delusional thoughts of being a “messenger of the Lord”?

No, you may not assume, since I have no such opinion about Ellen White. I cannot make such a judgement of her since I am not a psychiatrist. Whatever Ellen White was is between her and God; I am in no place to say.

I do beg your pardon.

I made that apparently unwarranted assumption because that is the most common way to explain Ellen White’s visions by those who do not recognize her to be inspired.

Perhaps you have other ways of explaining her “non-inspired” status (in your eyes), or perhaps you even recognize her to be inspired?

At any rate, I won’t quote her at length (Bob Ryan has likely done so already), but you probably know that Ellen White explained the Flood and accompanying geological activities in unequivocally global terms.

If you do accept her writings as inspired, how do you harmonize your beliefs with her writings?

If you don’t accept her writings as inspired, just saying so is sufficient explanation.

Thanks much.


Panda’s Thumb: ‘SDAs are split over evolution’
@krissmith777

Another “proof text” to claim that the flood was global is Genesis 7: 18: 20 which says: “The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than twenty feet.” — Now, though this would look conclusive since it says it covered the mountains, it isn’t so clear cut. According to Strongs, the Hebrew word “har” which is used for “mountains” also means “Hills,” or even “hill country.” In this case, the passage can simply be understood as saying that the flood waters elevated over the hills by over twenty feet.

Fair enough. So you really think it was a local flood within some mountain basin? A flood that covered the little hills by a depth of twenty feet?

So you believe that God told Noah to spend 120 years building a huge boat to save all the animals because he was going to flood a land basin?

And God flooded this land basin for a year, while the ark floated around, and then he dried up the basin and let Noah out?

OR … ?

That there were giant (nephilim) on the earth before the flood and giants on the earth after the flood hardly qualifies as evidence that the flood was only local, IMO, any more than the fact that there were lions on the earth before the flood and lions on the earth after the flood. 😉

Also, another indication from the Bible itself that the flood was local is Genesis 8: 11 when the Biblical writters say that the dove Noah had sent brought out an olive branch. This is significant for a reason: It was nearly a year since the flood had started, and since the Bible clearly says that everything in the flooded area had died, that indicates that the olive tree that it was taken from would have been outside of the range of the flood. Also, olive trees cannot grow so fast. The only way this can be harmonized with reality is if the tree were outside of the flood’s reach.

Ah … I see … So the dove could fly outside the flood’s reach, but Noah couldn’t travel outside the flood’s reach in 120 years? Neither could the animals survive without going into the ark? H’mm …

You know, we once had a neighbor (atheist) who insisted he was smarter than the God of the Bible. Now I wonder … maybe someone told him a story like this?

Another detail: Genesis 8: 1 says that a wind was used to cause the waters to recede which would have been pointless if the flood were global because the water that got blown away would simply have been replaced my different water that wasn’t there previously.

Except, of course, if there had been some tectonic activity (as creationists believe) that raised up mountains where water used to be. And maybe the “wind” was of such force that it helped carve the landscape we see today.

May I assume by what you write above that you believe that Ellen White was just a woman who suffered from a head wound with subsequent delusional thoughts of being a “messenger of the Lord”? And then she wrote stuff that deceived a lot of people …? [I assume you do know that she wrote some stuff about a terrible global flood with hurricane-force winds that no ship could withstand –not even the ark built by God’s direction, except that angels protected it.]

OR …?

Just trying to understand …


Panda’s Thumb: ‘SDAs are split over evolution’
@ Professor Kent:
Sean asked a fair question:

Why not at least tell me what you would tell a Latter-day Saint or a Hindu or a Muslim as to why the Bible is superior to what they consider to be the true “Word of God”? – something that might have a chance at convincing someone who is sincerely and honestly looking for the truth?

I, too, am interested in your reply.


Recent Comments by Inge Anderson

Northern California Conference Votes to Act Independent of the General Conference
Sean, while I don’t currently have time to address all the issues in your post, one thing concerns me greatly – that, as head elder, you would recommend that your church members should use their tithe as a tool of political action.

If your recommendation were followed by others, hundreds of thousands of people would be justified in not turning in tithe at all because they believe that the General Conference is out of line, being manipulated and controlled by a very small number of people. (But that’s another story.) And, really, anyone who disagrees with something done in the conference or the GC would be justified to withhold or re-direct tithe, following your reasoning. I do hope that you will decide that you “just cannot go there.”

When Jesus commended the widow who gave her last two coins, the “church” was as corrupt as it ever was or will be. Yet God recognized the gift as given to *Him,* and He blessed her and millions of people since then.

When we return our tithe to the Lord, I believe we must do it in faith, letting go of any control of how it is used. If administrators misuse it, they must answer to God. When we don’t return to God what already belongs to Him, we must answer for it. The way I see it, since the tithe already belongs to God, it is not ours to manage.

Offerings are another matter. If you feel your local conference is out of line, you are free not to send them the usual percentage for the conference budget and send it elsewhere.


God, Sky & Land – by Brian Bull and Fritz Guy
The direct URL for Cindy Tutsch’s article is http://ssnet.org/blog/2011/09/does-it-matter-how-long-it-took-to-create/


God, Sky & Land – by Brian Bull and Fritz Guy

Lydian: There is something else I would like for someone to tell me—

Where in the world is the GRI in all of this? I have searched the internet and find virtually nothing there that would attract anybody to what it has to say–if it has anything to say.

Good question.

There are a number of Adventist sites that deal with science supportive of the biblical world view, Sean Pitman’s among them.

It seems that the only Adventist university that has a site supportive of a biblical world view in science appears to be Southwestern Adventist University.

Their Earth History Research Center features research papers as well as material quite understandable to lay persons. I recommend clicking through their links to see what is there.

Perhaps this is where we should look (and perhaps send our dollars) instead of the GRI. You will see that Ariel Roth, former director of the GRI (when it was more supportive of a biblical world view) is part of the Earth History Research Center.

May God abundantly bless the efforts of all who are connected with this project.

PS Currently http://ssnet.org is featuring an article by Cindy Tutsch entitled, “Does It Matter How Long God Took to Create?”


The Heroic Crusade Redux

Professor Kent: This is but only the faith of Sean Pitman’s straw man. This is not the faith of the Adventist who accepts God’s word at face value.

Sean is correct in his characterization, because that seems to be the kind of “faith” that has been championed here by a number of individuals who have faulted Sean for presenting evidence in favor of creation having happened just thousands of years ago.

If you accept the interpretation of evolutionists who believe (by faith) that life began on this planet some billions of years ago and then “by faith” believe that God created the world a few thousand years ago, you are essentially asserting “faith” in what you intellectually recognize as being a falsehood. That’s a good sight worse than a child’s “faith” in Santa Claus, because the child doesn’t “know from evidence” that Santa Claus doesn’t exist.

I do accept God’s Word at face value, and because I accept it at face value, I know that all the evidence, rightly interpreted, will support the historical account in God’s Word. It is an intellectually consistent stance, whereas asserting belief in both evolutionism and biblical creation contravenes all rules of logic and intellectual integrity.

If you really do believe that the Genesis account is a true account of history, why do you characterize Sean’s presentation of scientific evidence to support the Genesis account as being anti-faith??


La Sierra University Granted Window to Show its Faithfulness to Church’s Creation Belief
This is encouraging, IMO.

However, the survey of students probably presents a more favorable picture than is realistic, since a significant percentage of the students may not even know what the Adventist position on creation is — considering the kinds of homes they are coming from. But even if they all knew, a 50% rate of believing that SDA views were presented is pretty dismal. That’s a failing grade, after all ..