@Professor Kent: Professor Kent July 17, 2011 at 11:08 pm What …

Comment on The Reptile King by Nic Samojluk.

@Professor Kent:

Professor Kent July 17, 2011 at 11:08 pm

What Professor Kent Believes

1. The 28 SDA Fundamental Beliefs. All of them.
2. SDA FB #6, to include the proposed modification that the creation week was 6 contiguous 24-hour periods.
3. That the Bible is God’s word, which can be trusted at faith value ahead of human reason and science.
4. That a few LSU biologists in times past have been disrespectful of SDA beliefs.
5. That all SDA employees should treat SDA beliefs with respect.
6. That the LSU and SDA Church leadership has made a sincere effort to address the LSU situation.
7. That the LSU biologists have not indoctrinated theistic evolution in the past 1.5 years.
8. That there is evidence for a recent supernatural creation, but also prickly and difficult contradictory evidence that cannot simply be swept under the carpet.
9. That the evidence supporting a recent supernatural creation is not supported by “overwhelming evidence” unless one cherry-picks the evidence.
10. That it is appropriate for SDA biologists to teach the basics of evolutionary theory as well as the evidences that oppose it and support fiat creation.
15. That 3SG 90-91 declares theistic evolution to be the worst form of infidelity.
16. That the majority of non-SDA Christians are theistic evolutionists; that many of these individuals have deep respect for the Bible and love their Savior; and that some among them will be in heaven, just like the many of us who are guilty of a diverse range of sins–all of which are very serious.

I disagree vigorously with the methods of Educate Truth and can articulate where I believe inappropriate conclusions are made and judgments rendered.

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Thanks for sharing your convictions with us. I am surprised, though, about your strong disagreement and criticism of Educate Truth, since most of your beliefs are shared both by Sean Pitman and Shane Hilde. Could it be that your perception of what Pitman and Hilde stand for is perhaps inaccurate?

You do state that “the LSU biologists have not indoctrinated theistic evolution in the past 1.5 years.” By this you seem to imply that said teachers did teach theistic evolution before that, which you seem to condemn with the support of the writings of Ellen White.

You state that “That the LSU and SDA Church leadership has made a sincere effort to address the LSU situation.”

So here is my question to you: Do you really believe that this “sincere effort to address the LSU situation” would have taken place without the work done by Educate Truth?

Are not these efforts to implement the necessary corrections the direct result of what Pitman and Hilde have been calling for?

Can you be humble enough to acknowledge what is patently evident to every honest observer?

The work of E.T. may not be perfect, but credit should be given where credit is due.

I am convinced that had not been for the work of these men of God, the situation at LSU would have never been addressed by the church.

Recent Comments by Nic Samojluk

A “Christian Agnostic”?
@Sean Pitman:

Sean PitmanNovember 23, 2011 at 8:57 am

“How do you know? You said that you considered God’s existence to be “likely”. Isn’t the word “likely” a statistical/scientific term based on at least some ability to actually demonstrate the odds of a hypothesis being correct?

This is my problem here. How can you say that something is “likely” when, at the same time, you say that you have no empirical evidence for what you say is “likely to exist”? – no more evidence than you have for mythological fairytales?

You see, it is your use of the phrase, “likely to exist” that doesn’t make sense to me since it appears, at least to me, that you’re being inconsistent with yourself.

If you have no positive evidence for God’s existence, and if everything that you do know appears to you to have a mindless natural cause, how then can you say, one way or the other, that the “first cause” was “likely” an intelligent God-like being vs. some other mindless natural process? Upon what basis do you make this claim?”

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Sean,

Thanks for this impeccable logic. I appreciate the clearness with which you demonstrate the role evidence plays in providing support for our faith.

Faith without evidence places us at risk of becoming victims of charlatans and those who have been deceived by the Devil.

Sure, there is evidence for and against a belief in God and Creation, but the weight of evidence favors the biblical teaching that God is the one who created everything that exists.

We do owe our existence to him alone and he is entitled to our worship. The moment we credit Nature for our existence, we fall prey to the artful deceptions of the one determined to destroy our faith.


A “Christian Agnostic”?
@Sean Pitman:

Sean PitmanNovember 15, 2011 at 7:01 am

“@Nic Samojluk:

I think that Bob’s answer was superb, yet ten bloggers voted his comments down. Is the voting system rigged somehow?

The voting is not rigged. It is just that people tend to vote from the hip for or against a comment, before actually reading it, based only on who wrote it – not what was actually said in the particular comment at hand.

This also happens on Talk.Origins – and pretty much all discussion forums. I did an experiment once where I re-posted a comment from a well-known evolutionist under my own name (on Talk.Origins). There was no end to the ridicule against the comment based simply on the assumption that I had actually written it. When I pointed out that I had not actually written the comment, that it was written by one of their own, the attempts at back-peddling were quite hilarious

I’m sure the same thing would happen here as well. That is why the allowance of “voting” for comments is really only a curiosity feature “just for fun” and really has little meaning aside, perhaps, from keeping track of how many people from opposing camps are actually following a particular thread.”

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Thanks, Sean. You are so right! Perhaps I should pay less attention to the number of votes posted next to bloggers’ comments!


Back to Square One…
What happened to all the postings dated November 9, 10 and 11?


A “Christian Agnostic”?
@BobRyan:

BobRyan November 11 2011 at 6:11 pm

In this case we are talking about complex houses not just a cube – complete with embedded nano-tech capable of self-repair – self-healing, auto-paint-updating etc.

Something like this…


v=GVqJdAqTD4Q&feature=related

When your fellow atheists and agnostics view that in a moment of objectivity – they respond something like ABC News did when it reported on it…

And in this case – those houses would be found all over Mars. And the observing agnostic friend might be tempted to claim “well then complex houses of that sort must occur naturally in the rocks and sand of Mars — err… umm… somehow, because there are sooo many of them”.

For the rest of us – it would be a sign of Martians – very smart ones.

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I think that Bob’s answer was superb, yet ten bloggers voted his comments down. Is the voting system rigged somehow?


Back to Square One…
@Eddie:

Eddie,

I must be a prophet. As I predicted, my previous responses directed at you were deleted, probably before you had a chance to read them. It would be foolish for me to repost them.

Since you are already familiar with my own web site, you will find the same material I used to answer your comment there. Look for my most recent entries and let me know what you think. Use my own web page for answering instead of Educate Truth.