Comment on PUC Professor: The Noachian Flood was just a local flood? by Bob Pickle.
As for my beliefs on the Noachian flood: 1) What I personally believe is really none of your business or the business of church leaders,
This statement sounds kind of strange. Since when are we not to take an interest in the spiritual welfare of our fellow church members? If a member doesn’t believe in the state of the dead, or the virgin birth, or the gifts of the Spirit, or the Sabbath, or Noah’s Flood, we can’t just shrug our shoulders like Cain and say, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The shepherd looked for the one lost sheep, the lady swept her house and looked for the one lost coin.
In saying the above I didn’t say you don’t believe in Noah’s flood, but it would make a lot more sense when doing damage control to just come out and say that you do believe that Noah’s Flood was global and produced the geologic column.
Just to set the record straight on the flood issue. I view truth as progressive, as does EGW, last time I checked.
Yes, progressive, but not contradictory. God will not say something today that contradicts what He pointedly said yesterday.
How do we test “truth” today to see if it is truth? “To the law and to the testimony, if they speak not according to this word, there is no light in them.” So what God said yesterday is the way we test what is said today, to see if it came from God or another source.
Thus, the idea that the Flood was local comes from another source.
I would love to find more credible evidence to support the traditional view on the flood, unfortunately, at the moment, such evidence is difficult to find.
Again, this sounds odd. We have tons and tons of sediment laid down by water action all over the place, and the evidence is difficult to find?
I do not advocate putting human reason above God’s Word, but neither am I willing to simply assume that all past Biblical interpretations are correct beyond all revision.
We’re not talking about an interpretation of what the Bible says, are we? Aren’t we instead talking about what the Bible says?
If you know of a way that “world” (kosmos) in 2 Pet. 3:6 doesn’t mean the whole world, I’m interested in hearing about it.
Surely such a way of looking at the Bible is valid, or are you saying that on certain beliefs our dogma is sealed and any suggestion of alternatives is heresy?
The idea that the Genesis Flood was not worldwide is heresy and skepticism, and no Adventist educator should be afraid to label it as such.
Bob Pickle Also Commented
PUC Professor: The Noachian Flood was just a local flood?
I was just now reading the latest “update†at the top of this page and noted this quote:“This is not some minor point. The local Flood idea opens the door, and essentially requires, the intelligent mind to interpret the geologic column and fossil records as being the records of vast periods of time of Earth’s history.â€While I certainly believe the flood was global, I have to ask why anyone (Pitman?) would write, much less believe this total nonsense. It’s a gross overstatement. Does it open the door? Perhaps. Does it require? Get out of here!
Gary, ATS’s response, I believe it was ATS, to Alden Thompson’s book Inspiration made the very same point regarding his suggestion that the Flood might not have been global. I recall the point being made that without a global flood, one is left with the evolutionary scenario for explaining the geologic column.
ATS’s response has been out there for a long, long time. The point isn’t new. And it is logical.
PUC Professor: The Noachian Flood was just a local flood?
If you want to encourage faith in God, like your website says… allow the Lord to do the ‘weeding out’ and get on your knees and pray
Have you forgotten how God does the weeding out?
1) There is a revival of the straight testimony.
2) Some don’t like it and rise up against it.
If we have faith in God, we will tactfully, kindly, firmly, and unequivocally say what has to be said when serious issues come along.
PUC Professor: The Noachian Flood was just a local flood?
He evidently thinks of the creation week in symbolic terms or at least does not think that all life was necessarily produced during a single literal week of time.After all, the fossil record is a record of death – death that Dr. Ness does not think was necessarily the result of the global Noachian Flood, but could have taken place over vast eons of time…I don’t know about you, but this is not a minor issue.
Indeed it isn’t a minor issue. And you’ve raised an excellent point.
So we have students commenting that he believes in a 6-day creation, from what I recall, but suggesting that Noah’s Flood was a non-global event seems to contradict that position.
Recent Comments by Bob Pickle
Mandates vs. Religious Exemptions
“While the procedures were sloppy in this particular company, they do not appear to have significantly affected the overall integrity of the data.”
How do we know? a) How do we know that no other contractors were as sloppy? b) How do we know that “the overall integrity of the data” wasn’t “significantly affected”?
“Another reason I say this is because billions of people around the globe have now been fully vaccinated, giving researchers plenty of real-world data that clearly shows the safety and efficacy of the vaccines.”
Then why use randomized double-blinded trials at all if safety and efficacy can be clearly shown by just doling the real thing out to everyone?
Understand my question? The “real-world data” isn’t coming from something that is randomized and double blinded, and thus can never speak to the question of safety and efficacy like a randomized double-blinded trial can.
Mandates vs. Religious Exemptions
Sean, this article from the BMJ, authored by a double-vaccinated writer, is of interest: “Covid-19: Researcher blows the whistle on data integrity issues in Pfizer’s vaccine trial” at https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2635
The whistleblower was a clinical trial auditor, with a 20-year career in research. Her concerns about the conducting of the Pfizer trials weren’t addressed, the article states. It explains how the FDA doesn’t handle oversight issues in a timely manner, and gives examples. And all that calls into question the integrity of the Pfizer clinical trial data.
I found “How Fauci Fooled America” at https://www.newsweek.com/how-fauci-fooled-america-opinion-1643839 by professors from Harvard and Stanford also of interest. The observations made good sense.
I’m glad you aren’t in favor of vaccine mandates.
Dr. Peter McCullough’s COVID-19 and Anti-Vaccine Theories
Since you did not respond to my principal concern, I think it fairly reasonable to conclude that Jack Lawrence’s statement about the effect of withdrawing the Egyptian study from meta-analyses is at best of questionable accuracy, and at worst a prevarication, since you are unable to show how the withdrawal of that Egyptian study significantly impacts the particular meta-analysis I provided a link to.
And thus, there may really be a conspiracy out there, even if Ivermectin is not an effective treatment.
Dr. Peter McCullough’s COVID-19 and Anti-Vaccine Theories
Could you explain that? Above you said, “I have taken a look. And, I find no reason to conclude that this is not the case – as have numerous scientists who have also reviewed this study.” That can only mean that you already know what part of the study I’m overlooking. Why would you want to keep that a secret?
“… this isn’t something that interests me ….”
Certainly that can’t mean that you have no interest in making sure your links only go to credible sources.
The two links you gave to show that it doesn’t matter whether Jack Lawrence’s story is on the up and up or not:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2777389 is only about mild illness, and even admits “larger trials may be needed to understand the effects of ivermectin on other clinically relevant outcomes.” Thus, this study doesn’t refute the entire meta-analysis I linked to, even if this study’s results are reproducible.
https://rethinkingclinicaltrials.org/news/august-6-2021-early-treatment-of-covid-19-with-repurposed-therapies-the-together-adaptive-platform-trial-edward-mills-phd-frcp/ contains no data regarding Ivermectin. But I did find a news article claiming that the results about Ivermectin have not been published or peer reviewed yet.
Any explanation as to why double-blinded RCT’s in Bangladesh, India, Nigeria, presumably Iraq, and Spain would yield different results than the one from Columbia that you linked to? Each of those are listed in the meta-analysis regarding mild illness. (I said presumably Iraq because the meta-analysis called it an RCT, but didn’t include the words double-blinded.)
Perhaps part of the issue is what the Ivermectin was combined with. Comparing Ivermectin with Ivermectin + something else does not prove that Ivermectin isn’t helpful if one of those regimens is less effective than the other.
The news article about the Together Trial decried conspiracy theories. I think a good way to refute conspiracy theories is to show that there aren’t any, by proving that Jack Lawrence is legit. Otherwise, if he’s only a pseudonym, or employed or paid by a drug company, that’s not going to help squelch conspiracy theories.
Dr. Peter McCullough’s COVID-19 and Anti-Vaccine Theories
Sean, could you please address my question? I didn’t see where you answered it above.
The quote from Jack’s article at https://grftr.news/why-was-a-major-study-on-ivermectin-for-covid-19-just-retracted/ :
“After excluding the data from the Elgazzar study, he found that the effect for ivermectin drops significantly with no discernible effect on severe disease.”
Is that really true?
Here’s a meta-analysis: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8088823/
How does removing the Elgazzar study from this particular meta-analysis change the conclusion? I’ve looked at the various tables, and I just don’t get how Jack could make that statement, or how the person he’s citing could have made that conclusion.
If you think I’m misreading the meta-analysis, please cite or quote the relevant text or table, and explain what I’m overlooking.
I’m not looking for “I don’t see a problem.” I’m looking for, “Look at table X. If you remove the Elgazzar study from that table, the end result is that patients with Y disease receive no benefit at all.”
Above, you cited additional studies rather than addressing the truthfulness of Jack Lawrence’s statement as it pertains to removing the Elgazzar study from the meta-analysis I provided a link to. Those are two different issues.
Whether Jack Lawrence’s key contention is correct or not is essentially irrelevant to my question about his credibility. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t like the idea of taking Ivermectin, but whether one should take it or not is not my concern here.
If a masters student in London, whose hobby is to attack a conservative American Youtuber and who just happens to notice plagiarism in the intro of an Egyptian medical study, is so careless or ignorant as to not see that a claim about a meta-analysis is bogus, then something is dread wrong, and we aren’t being told what is really going on.
Why do I say that? Because the presumed level of astuteness that would lead to the detection of plagiarism would prevent the repeating of a bogus claim about a meta-analysis.
Perhaps the problem is that the meta-analysis I provided the link to wasn’t the same one reanalyzed by the person Lawrence cited. Still, due diligence would require that Lawrence make sure that the claim he’s repeating about meta-analyses is actually sound in the light of other meta-analyses, such as the one I linked to on the NIH website from April 2021.