@Professor Kent: Adam himself had very little to go on …

Comment on Panda’s Thumb: ‘SDAs are split over evolution’ by Sean Pitman.

@Professor Kent:

Adam himself had very little to go on other than a simple “Thus saith the Lord.” He failed to trust what he was told, and we will meet the very same fate today if we insist that a simple “Thus saith the Lord” is not adequate for us.

What if I told you that I was God? Would you believe me? Of course not! – right? But why not?

A stranger walking up to you from off the street could actually be God. Yet, if he told you that he was in fact God, without offering any evidence to back up his claim, don’t tell me you wouldn’t be the tiniest bit skeptical at first (as depicted in the comedy, Bruce Almighty with Jim Carrey).

Rational humans require evidence as a basis of faith outside of the bold claims of complete strangers to be “God” or this or that book to be “God’s Word.” It is circular reasoning to say, “I believe the Bible is God’s Word because the Bible says so.” And… do you have anything else to go on here? – like some evidence so as to get your faith beyond the blind-faith stage?

Also, to argue that Adam had no other evidence to believe that God was God and to trust him as God beyond God’s word for it is very naive. Adam had abundant evidence of God’s creative power and His personal care and interest for the new world and the people in it that He had just created. He visited Adam and Eve every day and talked to them face to face. Angels also visited and talked to Adam and Eve every day.

The mistake that Eve fell into was in believing the bald claims of the serpent at face value without requiring nearly the degree of evidence to support his claims that God had already provided to support His claims. The choice of Eve in falling for the serpent’s lies was so evil because of the fact that she rejected the evidence God had given her of His love and power to create her to begin with in favor of her own selfish desires to be superior to equal with or even superior to God.

Adam, as we know, was not tricked by the serpent. He trusted God’s warning regarding the true nature and identity of the serpent. However, Adam failed to trust God in God’s ability to deal with the problem of what Eve had already done. That was Adam’s sin in the face of a great deal of empirical evidence that God was in fact able to deal with very difficult problems far beyond Adam’s own capability.

So no, you are quite mistaken to say that God did not provide Adam and Eve with adequate empirical evidence for His power and character, evidence that would, or at least should, appeal to candid intelligent minds, beyond His mere say so. This is why both Adam and Eve were in fact left without any valid excuse when God asked them why they had done what they did. There was no logical reason for their actions given the evidence that they had been given by God. If God had not provided with this empirical evidence, they could have honestly said, “But we honstly didn’t know who to believe…” Yet, they didn’t not present this argument because they knew that it wasn’t true. They did have enough empirical evidence to make a rational decision on who to believe among competing options…

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

Sean Pitman Also Commented

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

One of these frequent posters claims to be a Young Earth Creationists, but believes in creation based on what he refers to as “faith.” One could get the idea that he fears that anything scientifically shown to support creation is actually bad since it would then somehow require less faith to believe. His faith, however, is more akin to the Catholic student who is reported to have said, “Faith is what you believe that you know ain’t so.”

This is not Biblical faith. Neither is it the faith of the Adventist pioneers. It certainly doesn’t build faith, it actually destroys genuine faith. This pseudofaith more closely resembles a mere superstitious belief. It is no surprise that agnostics, evolutionists, and other doubters have such an affinity for those who possess this kind of “faith” on this site. Why wouldn’t they agree with it. It doesn’t threaten them in any way. It bolsters their ranks. It confirms their unbelief since they already believe faith is unreasonable.

I couldn’t have said it better myself…

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


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

Of course it’s a good thing; I never said it was bad. The problem is when you and Pitman maintain that empirical evidence from nature is essential to validate the Bible–and that is heresy and blasphemy.

You yourself made this “blasphemous” claim when you listed off several empirical evidences, like fulfilled prophecy (based on empirical investigation of real history), as reasons why you believe the Bible to be superior to other books claiming to be the true Word of God.

Here is what you wrote:

In short, there is ample evidence to support the Bible and Christianity, including fulfilled prophecy, the lives and testimony of the apostles, archeology, the impact of the Bible on personal lives, and so forth. All of this is “empirical evidence” that goes beyond what is needed to establish the validity of scripture. The other religions are confronted with serious shortcomings on these issues, in my opinion… – Professor Kent

Now, if the Holy Spirit is enough, as the Latter-day Saints believe, to lead you into all truth without having to use your brain, why did you appeal to these empirical evidences to support your belief or faith in the superior credibility of the Bible vs. other competing options held in higher regard by other faiths? Why didn’t you just appeal to the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking directly to you as evidence enough?

So, the argument here isn’t really over the need for an empirical basis for one’s faith in the Bible before it can be considered rational. You yourself appeal to such. You admit to the need for an empirical argument as the basis for choosing the Bible over other competing options. You’ve made this argument several times now. Therefore, the real argument here is in regard to your notion that the empirical basis, or “weight of empirical evidence” for faith never changes or needs to be re-examined in any way over time – despite the discovery of new evidence and information?

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


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

You missed my overall point. The first sentence I quoted from it was: The rates at which sediments accumulate vary enormously, owing to the natural variability of the processes that produce and transport sediments. — The rates vary greatly depending on the conditions… Your argument pre-supposes that the rate has not changed, and you have not demonstrated that it has. — And frankly, it doesn’t have to be.

You misunderstand the “rate” that the author is talking about here. This rate is not the overall rate of ocean sedimentation which is in fact fairly constant at ~30 billion tons per year. I’ve already tried to explain this to you, but the variability your reference is talking about is the local variability that is indeed due to many factors of sediment transport within the oceans themselves. This local variability does not affect the overall sediment load that is consistently delivered to the oceans.

— David E. Thomas says it much better than I ever could:

…much sediment never gets to the ocean floor, but is trapped instead on continental slopes and shelves, or in huge river deltas. Over the years, some of these continental slopes can accumulate several kilometers of sediment, while others can even become part of mountain ranges in continental plate-to-plate collisions. Neither erosion nor subduction are expected to be constant processes over millions of years, and they are simply not good clocks.

Indeed, and my calculations take into account all the sediment currently in the oceans, to include the sediment on continental slopes and shelves and river deltas. The total amount of sediment, taking all of these factors into account, is only 10^17 tons. That tonnage can be explained in just 15 million years. That’s a huge problem for mainstream theories of plate tectonics and the proposed age of ocean basins. Your arguments about the variability of sedimentation for different parts of the ocean floor are completely irrelevant to explaining the total tonnage that is currently in the oceans regardless of its location.

I heard one geologist call it a “crude” dating method. Looks more related to “relative dating,” not “absolute dating.”

Again, you’re looking at local rates of accumulation over time, not the overall rate of accumulation over time. You’re confusing two separate concepts here. They aren’t the same thing.

Again, that is completely irrelevant to the point that the total amount of sediment, the total tonnage that is current in the oceans, irrespective of its location within the ocean basins, can be explained given just 15 million years… – Sean Pitman

And the paper I linked a while ago using the current rate gave the figure of 100 million years: (“At a rate of 0.5 cm (.2 in)/1000 years, it takes only 100 million years to accumulate 500 m (1600 ft) of sediment,”)

Indeed – the local rate of sediment accumulation on some areas of the ocean floor may indeed be this slow. Again, however, this is completely irrelevant to the fact that the total sediment contained by all the oceans in the whole world, to include the sediment that is on or close to the continent shelves, is far far too low for them to be nearly as old as mainstream scientists propose…

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


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