@Gary Komruliak, MD: I was just now reading the latest …

Comment on PUC Professor: The Noachian Flood was just a local flood? by Sean Pitman.

@Gary Komruliak, MD:

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.”

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!

Get out of here? Ok, you tell me how one would rationally explain the fossil record as representing a short period of time (i.e., less than 10,000 years) given that there is no reasonable evidence of a global flood within recent history? – that there is only evidence for a local or relatively small regional flood in the Black Sea area?

Why do you think someone would argue that there is only evidence for local floods; not any worldwide Flood? – as Dr. Ness has consistently taught his students for many years now? What does that idea suggest to students regarding the origin of the fossil record within the sedimentary layers of the geologic column?

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

Sean Pitman Also Commented

PUC Professor: The Noachian Flood was just a local flood?
@Professor Kent:

Just a trivial matter: a circle is two-dimensional; a sphere is not.

Kind of like when Erv wrote in his comment that we now know that the world is “round” – instead of “spherical”? 😉

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


PUC Professor: The Noachian Flood was just a local flood?
@Ervin Taylor:

As others have noted, Sean continues to miss the point.

Anyone who has read any of the literature on the “Myth of the Flat Earth” is aware that a number of Greek intellectuals in the Hellenistic period had come to the view that the earth was a sphere and even made some calculations of its diameter–one of which was very close to the modern value assuming that modern estimates of the units of distance used by these Greek writers is correct. Medieval scholars who could read these works–mostly in Latin translations but some in Greek–also knew the world was not flat.

But this is not the point. We are talking about ancient Hebrew writers. Only the strained and special pleading by individuals such as Sean and other fundamentalists dispute the view that these writers viewed the world as essentially flat and fixed in space.

The ancient Hebrews (before the 3rd and perhaps even the 6th century B.C.) may or may not have believed that the Earth was flat. And, some biblical authors may have been of different opinions or educational backgrounds. The author of Job, for example, claims that the Earth was suspended in space “on nothing” (Job 26:7 NIV). Also, when Isaiah described God sitting above the “circle of the Earth” (Isaiah 40:22) was he talking about a spherical Earth or a flat circular plate? Clearly Solomon had exposure to shipping and sailors – – and sailors who do much sailing quickly realize that ships disappear over a curved horizon – suggesting a spherical Earth.

In short, I think modern people don’t give the ancients as much credit as they deserve when it comes to figuring out such problems. Regardless, however, the point remains that it is possible for certain, if not all, biblical authors to have believed in various errors like the “flat Earth”. So what? – as Erv puts it:

So they were wrong. What is the problem? Only if you insist in Biblical inerrancy would this be a problem.

Well, those like Erv try to use such errors to argue that the Bible, and religion in general, really has nothing to do with science or empirical reality. Therefore, all that is really left to support religious belief in the statements of this or that “good book” or “prophet” is “faith” – faith that is not, or at least need not be, based on any kind of empirical reality whatsoever.

What Erv fails to realize is that the rational credibility of “faith” in the Bible or a particular biblical interpretation must be based on some kind of universally available empirical evidence. If one is able to discredit what the Bible says about physical reality, one is also able to discredit what the Bible says about metaphysical realities as well – realities that are not subject to testing or even the potential for falsification.

So, what does a believer in the very real credibility of the Bible, like me, do with obvious errors in the Bible regarding physical reality? – like Joshua’s request that the Sun and Moon stand still relative to the Earth? Did Joshua not realize that it was the Earth that moved relative to the Sun? Probably not. Does that therefore falsify biblical credibility? Hardly. We all often use the same language today – the language of perspective appearance instead of known reality.

However, Erv tries to use the same argument when it comes to the Genesis account of the literal days of creation and the worldwide Noachian Flood. He suggests that because there are, or at least probably were, misunderstandings of the true nature of physical reality in the minds of the biblical authors, that they most likely got this part wrong too.

That’s a problem, in my book, because the author(s) of the Genesis account were so specific about what was seen. From the author’s perspective, the Earth was in fact created in just six literal days, each of which certainly seemed to have been divided by “evenings and mornings”. Now, it would be very hard to misinterpret “evenings and mornings”. Even a little child could get that much right. It just doesn’t take too much intelligence or experience to correctly report such an empirical observation.

The same thing is true of the worldwide Flood. Internal consistency is important when it comes to interpreting the author’s account of this story… and what it has to say about biblical credibility on the nature, and even existence, of God. According to the author, the Flood had to have been worldwide in distribution and effect or Noah would not have needed to build an ark over 120 years of time to save land animal and human life. All God would have needed to do is tell Noah where to move. No need to save animals in an Ark to repopulate the planet if the Flood was going to be nothing but some local Flood.

Such arguments simply make the story internally inconsistent and therefore impact the overall credibility of the Bible and of Christian faith in general.

So, if anyone misses the main point here, it’s Erv…

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


PUC Professor: The Noachian Flood was just a local flood?
The Flat Earth?

@Ervin Taylor:

The Hebrews also believed that the world was flat and fixed in space. We now know that the world is round and moves in space.

This isn’t a likely statement. We actually know that the ancient’s believed in a spherical Earth – not a flat Earth.

It must first be reiterated that with extraordinary few exceptions no educated person in the history of Western Civilization from the third century B.C. onward believed that the earth was flat. A round earth appears at least as early as the sixth century BC with Pythagoras, who was followed by Aristotle, Euclid, and Aristarchus, among others in observing that the earth was a sphere. Although there were a few dissenters–Leukippos and Demokritos for example–by the time of Eratosthenes (3 c. BC), followed by Crates(2 c. BC), Strabo (3 c. BC), and Ptolemy (first c. AD), the sphericity of the earth was accepted by all educated Greeks and Romans.

Nor did this situation change with the advent of Christianity. A few—at least two and at most five–early Christian fathers denied the spherically of earth by mistakenly taking passages such as Ps. 104:2-3 as geographical rather than metaphorical statements. On the other side tens of thousands of Christian theologians, poets, artists, and scientists took the spherical view throughout the early, medieval, and modern church. The point is that no educated person believed otherwise.

No one before the 1830s believed that medieval people thought that the earth was flat. The idea was established, almost contemporaneously, by a Frenchman and an American. One was Antoine-Jean Letronne (1787-1848), an academic of strong antireligious prejudices who had studied both geography and patristics and who cleverly drew upon both to misrepresent the church fathers and their medieval successors as believing in a flat earth, in his On the Cosmographical Ideas of the Church Fathers (1834).

The American was no other than our beloved storyteller Washington Irving (1783-1859), who loved to write historical fiction under the guise of history. His misrepresentations of the history of early New York City and of the life of Washington were topped by his history of Christopher Columbus (1828). It was he who invented the indelible picture of the young Columbus, a “simple mariner,” appearing before a dark crowd of benighted inquisitors and hooded theologians at a council of Salamanca, all of whom believed, according to Irving, that the earth was flat like a plate. Well, yes, there was a meeting at Salamanca in 1491, but Irving’s version of it, to quote a distinguished modern historian of Columbus, was “pure moonshine. Washington Irving, scenting his opportunity for a picturesque and moving scene,” created a fictitious account of this “nonexistent university council” and “let his imagination go completely…the whole story is misleading and mischievous nonsense.”

Historians Jeffery Burton Russell and Christine Garwood have also destroyed the long held view among modern scholars that scientists and philosophers of the Middle Ages and early Christian church believed that the earth was flat. After an extensive review of the letters, papers, books of all the major thinkers throughout these periods, Russell and Garwood made the surprising discovery that apart from a few isolated individuals, no one believed in a flat earth—indeed, the common consensus throughout this entire period among virtually all scholars and churchmen was that the earth was spherical. Russell and Garwood then ask, from where did this flat earth understanding of early Christian and medieval thought come? They were able to trace it to the early 19th century when anti-religious sentiment was high among many scholars and intellectuals.

Also, there are several passages in the Bible that seem to suggest that the biblical writers did understand the Earth to be spherical. Isaiah writes about God sitting enthroned above the “circle of the Earth” (Isaiah 40:22). It is also interesting to note that the biblical writers emphasize the infinite distance of the east from the west (since this would not be true of the north from the south) – indicating an understanding of the spherical nature of the Earth and of the magnetic poles of the Earth (Psalms 103:12) – as well as some sense of sea or oceanic navigation (which both give very good clues as to the spericity of the Earth. The biblical authors also talk about God hanging the Earth in empty space (Job 26:7) and clearly had the ability to compare the Earth to other planets (especially the moon) as well as the Sun as being round or spherical (i.e., not square with “corners”).

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


Recent Comments by Sean Pitman

Liberty & Health Alliance – An Appeal for Action
While recommending the vaccines, the vaccine statements clearly left the decision to vaccinate, or not, to the individual. They had nothing to do with government funding (yet another conspiracy theory). These statements were issued in an honest effort to save lives, not to make money. The “medical minds” at the BoT Symposium generally support anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists like Peter McCullough who are known for promoting misleading or downright false claims regarding the pandemic and the mRNA vaccines.


Liberty & Health Alliance – An Appeal for Action
Pastor E.L. has also written (FB Post) an excellent explanation in defense of the affirmation statement and our denomination’s position on vaccines.

“The assumedly troublesome wording commonly highlighted concerning this issue is a misreading of intent in context, without trying to understand the sense in which it can be understood as harmonious with the rest of the statement which strongly affirms individual conscience. A charitable reading first attempts to understand what someone says in a sense that is harmonious, rather than immediately assuming they intend to contradict themselves.

The trajectory of the context in the Reaffirmation Statement suggests that when it asserts, “Claims of religious liberty are not used appropriately in objecting to government mandates or employer programs designed to protect the health and safety of their communities,” this is likely because the church has not established a doctrinal position on vaccines that would require uniform adherence among its members. If it had, such a stance would then necessitate the church to defend it as a matter of religious liberty.

The issue of vaccination is multifaceted, and adopting a definitive for or against position within church doctrine would infringe on the rights of those who hold opposing views. Instead, the document consistently emphasizes that this is a matter of individual conscience and underscores the church’s support for such personal discernment. Accordingly, it states: “We recognize that at times our members will have personal concerns and even conscientious convictions that go beyond the teachings and positions of the Church. In these cases, the Church’s religious liberty leaders will do what they can to provide support and counsel on a personal basis, not as a Church position, even at times assisting members in writing their own personal accommodation requests to employers and others.”

In essence, while the church has not elevated this issue to a doctrinal level requiring institutional defense, it remains committed to supporting individual religious convictions to the greatest extent possible. Personal convictions are respected and defended, even though the church as a whole has not taken—and could not reasonably be expected to take—a uniform doctrinal position on the matter.

To draw an analogy, Seventh-day Adventists could not argue that wearing head coverings in the workplace is a religious liberty issue because it is not a doctrinal requirement within the SDA faith, even though it is mentioned in the Bible. Instead, they could only frame it as a matter of personal conviction if they interpret the biblical instruction as still applicable today. While individual SDAs who support head coverings may personally view it as a religious liberty concern, the distinction lies in the fact that religious liberty claims are typically based on doctrines that a religion universally requires of all its adherents.

In contrast, Muslims can assert that head coverings are a doctrinal religious liberty matter because it is a doctrinally mandated practice within Islam. This highlights the difference between personal convictions and doctrines that are formally upheld by a religious institution when speaking of “religious liberty.”


Liberty & Health Alliance – An Appeal for Action
Pastor Wyatt Allen (one of the founders of the Liberty & Health Alliance) wrote in a FB Comment:

Two things your article lacks are compassion and understanding. The first would lead to the second. Should I have more time tomorrow, I’ll try to be more specific and why I make this claim. Though anybody reading it would see the lack of compassion. I think the lack of understanding essentially boils down to misrepresenting what we’re saying. COVID and the mandates might be passed. But unless we learn from our mistakes during this time (do you say the church made no mistakes?) we will be unprepared to help in the next crisis. And when we are unprepared to help in a meaningful way, it really does hurt people. Actual people. As a minister of the gospel, I have seen the tears, I have heard the pleas, I have witnessed the freedom being ripped away. We can theorize and write articles all day long about Liberty. But until we actually stand up for it, all that comes across is coldness.

My response:

You seem to suggest that I’m opposed to religious liberty and that I don’t care for those who suffered. How can you know this? I mean, I am a strong supporter of religious liberty and have experienced personal serious attacks on my own religious convictions. While in the army I was brought up for court martial twice for refusing orders to work on Sabbath in ways that I thought were opposed to God’s commands regarding the Sabbath. I was threatened with jail time, the loss of my career, and financial damages. So, you see, I’m very much aware of how it feels to be personally threated for my own religious convictions. I also understand why someone who is opposed to vaccines would blame the Church for a lack of support during the vaccine mandates.

It’s not that I don’t understand. It’s that I think that such efforts to blame the Church and the Vaccine Statements are misdirected since these Vaccine Statements repeatedly and specifically support individual choice in this matter. Recommendations regarding medical interventions, like vaccines, do not undermine personal religious liberties or the Church’s support for such liberties. The claims of the Liberty & Health Alliance to the contrary simply do not make sense to me. Even if the Church had no vaccine statements at all, I fail to see how this would have helped anyone during the vaccine mandates.

________

Additional responses to other comments from Wyatt on FB:

Wyatt Allen: You’re also asking Charles Downing (not sure of his medical background) to explain to me that the “so-called vaccines” have too many adverse reactions. You see, right there you’re showing your hand. The reason why you’re so passionate against the Vaccine Statements of the Church is because you truly believe them to be harmful and evil. While I sympathize with why you feel this way, consider that I feel the very same way for the opposite reasons. I saw ICUs filled with the very sick and the dying during the pandemic, the significant majority of whom were the unvaccinated. Several of my own workers who refused to get vaccinated ended up in the ICU and two suffered permanent injuries so severe that they can no longer work full time. Many more from my own church and community ended up in the ICU for the same reason. More than a dozen of my own family friends died because they didn’t get vaccinated. My brother-in-law, the well-known pulmonologist Dr. Roger Seheult saw many many more die while holding their hands in his ICU in S. Cal – even some who were young and vegan and otherwise healthy. So, yes, we are both very passionate about this topic. It’s one of the reasons why I try to force myself to be as objective as possible when I talk about this topic.

The reason why I disagree with you and Charles here is because I think you have a misunderstanding of the risk/benefit ratio for the mRNA vaccines and vaccines in general. You don’t understand the nature of VAERS (which is maintained by the NIH and the CDC by the way) since you don’t seem to understand the difference between correlation and causation. The VAERS database is used to sort out this difference. The claim of Charles that the spike protein produced in response to the mRNA vaccines sends the human immune system into “overdrive” and “taxes” and “weakens” it is false. This isn’t how the human immune system works. The spike proteins are broken down into small pieces called “antigens”, which are then presented to T- and B-cells so as to educate them to know what to attack in the future. This process happens every day and does not tax or weaken the immune system in the least. I mean, consider that a C19 infection would produce far far more spike proteins throughout the entire body for a much longer period of time. The mRNA vaccines, in comparison, are self-limited and are largely localized. Charles’ claim that the vaccines have produced a 40% spike in cancer rates and “turbo cancers” is also a false claim based on the claims of conspiracy theorists. I’m an anatomic and clinical pathologist with a subspecialty in blood disorders. I diagnose cancers every day. That’s what I do. I can tell you that there has been no increase in cancers associated with the mRNA vaccines. Beyond this, there is no mechanism by which the mRNA vaccines could produce such a spike in cancer rates. As far as Charles’ claim that the vaccines were not “thoroughly studied”, this is also a false statement. The mRNA vaccines went through all of the standard steps for vaccine testing and approval – to include double-blinded placebo-controlled animal and human trials with great success. There were no increased deaths, much less “25 deaths”, and the “adverse reactions” were minor and not beyond the expected rate in the 70,000 human volunteers. Also, the mRNA technology itself is not new, but has been studied now for over 30 years. It’s just that all of the necessary technological information came together at just the right time for the mRNA vaccines to make it to the general public soon after the pandemic hit. That’s just the nature and usefulness of the mRNA technology which Charles doesn’t seem to understand.

Conrad Vine Continues to Attack Church Leadership

Dr. Peter McCullough’s COVID-19 and Anti-Vaccine Theories

_____________

Wyatt Allen: I’m not sure what important question(s) of yours I failed to answer? Please do point these out to me again so that I won’t inadvertently skip over something that is important to you.

Regarding your current question, of course I make mistakes all the time. In my job as a pathologist I try to be extremely careful to limit my mistakes, but mistakes do happen since we are all human and subject to error. I often wish I had a “redo” button available to me so that I could go back in time and fix some of my mistakes.

I know that you believe that your argument (regarding all vaccines I think) is based on the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy – and I respect that even though I don’t agree with you here. However, you are promoting your anti-vaccine position since you have presented numerous arguments against vaccines. I think these arguments are based on mistaken concepts and ideas, but, again, this is the reason for personal and religious liberty as long as these liberties don’t interfere with those of another.

I also understand that you want to plead for those who cannot effectively plead for themselves. I’m trying to do the same thing. I think that the misinformation presented by you and many others (particularly those like Dr. Peter McCulough) have caused untold injuries and deaths to many who would have been saved by being vaccinated. I also have no doubt there were those who misused the Vaccine Statements of the Church regarding mandates. While this shouldn’t have happened, again, I fail to understand how this is the fault of the Church? The Church has published many statements that have been misused. The same is true of many of the statements and claims found in the Bible itself. Is this the fault of the Bible? Should the Bible be rewritten because some of its language is confusing and difficult to properly understand by the many who have misinterpreted and misused it?

You keep repeating that the Vaccine Statements “exalt peer-reviewed scientific literature to the level of the Bible” – and that if I don’t see it this way that I should read them again. I’ve read them dozens of times and I still don’t see how you could possibly make this amazing, even shocking, claim. None of the leaders of the SDA Church would ever think to suggest such an idea – verbally or in writing. Certainly, no Christian physician or scientist would promote such a concept either. So, where are you getting this idea? The Vaccine Statements themselves make no such claim – not even close.

_______________

Wyatt Allen: The claim that the Vaccine Statements elevate peer-review literature equal to the Bible simply isn’t true. This claim is particularly shocking to me. I’m not sure how anyone could interpret these statements in this way? These statements are not statements of Fundamental Beliefs or doctrinal statements at all. They are simply general *recommendations*, not decrees or anything like that, regarding advances in medical science. That’s it. They specifically note that they are not to be considered doctrinal or in any way binding regarding the conscience of the individual – that the final decision is and should be with the individual regarding such issues.
Yes, words do matter, but in this case, I fail to see how your claims regarding the Church’s Vaccine Statements are valid or helpful moving forward since I fail to see how these Statements undermine individual religious liberty.

________________

Weston Greenwood: One can do both you know. I also advocate for both. I strongly believe the mRNA vaccines were a miraculous gift from God that saved millions of lives and prevented many many more hospitalizations and long-term injuries. At the same time, I’m also a strong supporter of personal and religious liberty – particularly for those who disagree with me. In the same way, the Vaccine Statements promote the benefits of vaccination while, at the same time, noting that one is perfectly free to disagree – and that this decision should take precedence.

________________

Weston Greenwood: The Church did bring this to a vote via the delegates at the last GC Session. It’s just that this vote went against you.

Liberty & Health Alliance – An Appeal for Action

Again, if an employer bases his/her decision to mandate vaccination on the Church’s Vaccine Statements, then that employer is misusing these statements – which isn’t the fault of the Church.

And yes, just because the Church does not stand in the way of someone who wants to get vaccinated, and even encourages this, doesn’t mean that it, therefore, stands in the way of someone who doesn’t want to get vaccinated. Claiming otherwise makes no sense to me.

________________

Wyatt Allen: You’re essentially saying that, “Any outsider who reads the ADCOM statement will see it as binding”.

If someone does read it that way, they aren’t reading it correctly because that’s not what it says. It says that while the SDA Church, as an organization, is not inherently opposed to vaccines and recognizes their usefulness, it remains with the individual and individual conscience as to the final decision to get or not to get vaccinated – that it is not an issue of morality, is not a matter of salvation, and is therefore not doctrinal. That’s what it says. Those who read it otherwise for the purposes of enforcing mandates based on such Statements are clearly misusing them. And, obviously, such misuses are not the fault of the Church.

Also, contrary to your claim, the Church has not elevated peer-reviewed literature published in scientific journals to the level of Scripture. That’s a completely false and completely unfair claim – particularly directed at medical professionals like me who recognize the usefulness of vaccines while, at the same time, recognizing the final authority of the Bible in all questions of faith. It’s just that I don’t see where the Bible speaks against vaccines anywhere in its pages. The same is true for the Spirit of Prophecy.


Conrad Vine Continues to Attack Church Leadership
I think that there can be a reasonable combination of the best of modern medicine as well as the best of healthful living and natural remedies such as exercise, sunlight, vitamin D, “forest bathing”, good sleep, vegan or at least a vegetarian diet, etc…


Conrad Vine Continues to Attack Church Leadership
You opted not to get vaccinated during the pandemic, for whatever reason, but did not advise others to do the same. That’s fine. I think you probably increased your own risk a bit, but that’s far better than giving medical advice to others when you don’t know for sure that you’re right – especially for those who were at higher risk than you. It’s also good that you supported others who did choose to get vaccinated.

As far as SDA hospitals and organizations, I agree that there has been some drift from the ideal. I’m not happy that so many non-SDAs are hired to work in and to be leaders. I’m also disappointed that there isn’t a lot more emphasis, direction, and teaching with regard to healthful living. There are some who are doing this, like Dr. Roger Seheult. However, there does seem to be a lack of an organized or official emphasis on how to living healthful so as to avoid having to use so many medications for chronic conditions that are largely self-inflicted. Now, I do sympathize that quick fixed and pills are what most patients want. Most doesn’t want to give up their back health habits, so doctors often just give up and give their patients what they want. Still, this does not excuse the lack of effort along these lines in our hospitals and medical schools. Also, more should be done to spread the Gospel Message in our hospitals as well…