Comment on Panda’s Thumb: ‘SDAs are split over evolution’ by Sean Pitman.
My answer: it wouldn’t affect my faith whatsoever. I spend time daily with God and I KNOW that He can be trusted, regardless of what modern science has to say. I would remain a steadfast believer of scripture, a devoted Christian, and a proud Seventh-day Adventist.
Even if God has directly appeared to you, visually, and audibly talked to you, such overwhelming empirical evidence would be great for you, personally, but what about when it comes to sharing your faith with someone else? You can’t transfer your own personal experience with God to someone else. What then can you do? You must appeal to something that both of you share – i.e., access to the same empirical evidence.
You yourself appeal to empirical evidence to support the superiority of your own beliefs compared to those of others – like those of Hindus, Buddhists, Later-day Saints, etc. You do in fact believe that your own beliefs are superior based, not just on your own metaphysical experience with God, but on actual empirical evidence.
This is the very same argument Jesus prefered to use in supporting the superiority of His own claims to be the Son of God. He referred to commonly known and appreciated empirical evidence to support a rational belief or faith in Him and His claims. He pointed to the miracles that He performed in God’s name. He also pointed to historically-fulfilled prophecy to support His claims. These are appeals to the weight of empirical evidence to support a rational faith that has general appeal to candid minds who are honestly searching for the truth…
I can hardly believe that Seventh-day Adventists actually belittle the faith of other believers in the name of “present truth.†How very strange. I’m keenly disappointed that most individuals here, including you, condone rather than condemn Sean Pitman’s belief system and actions.
Just because I think that my own faith position is more rational than that of other faiths doesn’t mean that I think any less of the people who don’t believe what I believe. Again, some of my best friends are agnostics and atheists. They just don’t claim to be SDAs at the same time nor do they expect a paycheck from the SDA Church to teach their own ideas contrary to the Church’s clearly stated fundamental ideals.
I haven’t been asked this question, but I agree 100% with the good Professor’s answer. The strongest evidence I have that my belief in God and the Bible is real is my own personal experience with God. He has answered prayers many a time and I have sensed His presence at many critical points in my life. If I were to discover that when the Genesis account says “the waters covered the whole earth†(my paraphrase) should be historically interpreted as a local event, that would not change my faith in God or His word one iota.
But it would change your faith in the SDA interpretation of God’s Word. And, after a point of continued falsification of those elements of “God’s Word” that can be tested, upon what would you base your faith in the Bible as really being God’s Word vs. any other self-proclaimed source of Divine Authority?
You do realize that God most certainly answers prayers for Hindus, Muslims, Latter-day Saints, etc… right? An answer to prayer is not, however, evidence that the individual’s view on this or that Holy Book is really valid. Your answered prayers, and mine as well, seem to be very good evidence of the existence of a God or God-like presence in the universe. However, evidence for the existence of God, by itself, is not evidence for the Bible being the true Word of God, much less the SDA interpretation of the Bible being the most valid interpretation.
You guys seem to be placing your own own internal feelings of reality above what your intelligent mind is telling you about reality. This is essentially no different than the basis of faith that my LDS friends have – a feelings-based faith.
If that works for you, great. But, this isn’t what the SDA Church, as an organization, is based on and it is not what it has asked from its paid representatives. It has asked for a rigorous scientific defense of its position on origins for obvious reasons for most thinking people.
I’m sorry, but my faith is too important to be put in the hands of science.
Evidently your faith is too important to you to subject to any kind of rational test or empirical evaluation. This is the very definition of blind faith – empirically blind faith. Your faith is, in essence, a non-falsifiable position that is impervious to any additional information. Such a position is a conversation stopper… “Don’t confuse me with the facts. My mind’s made up.”
Well, for those whose minds are not already made up, the “facts”, the empirical evidence, play a very important part in establishing the credibility of the Bible vs. all other claimed sources of Divine origin and authority…
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.â€
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.â€
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,â€)
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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