Comment on PUC Professor: The Noachian Flood was just a local flood? by David Read.
Kent, I’m in the “use science to back up my arguments” camp.
Regarding the “weight of the data” issue, the uninterpreted data have no weight. Darwinists interpret the data one way, creationists another. After the interpretation process is finished, the “data” seem to each side to confirm its belief system, and do confirm it to an extent. (With very few exceptions, neither camp is trying to “dupe” anyone, but honestly believes that its interpretations approach truth better than the other side’s.) Both creationists and Darwinists need faith, and will always need faith, to make up for areas where the data don’t support their respective interpretations.
In sum, I regard the origins debate as primarily a religious/philosophical dispute rather than a scientific one.
David Read Also Commented
PUC Professor: The Noachian Flood was just a local flood?
Sean, thanks for that learned essay. I knew that all educated people in the Christian era have understood that the earth is spherical, but I didn’t know alot of those details.
Actually, several scholars were very critical of Columbus’s plan to reach the far east by sailing west, but the nature of the criticism was that Columbus had grossly miscalculated–and underestimated–the circumference of the earth. That criticism was well founded. In fact, Columbus would have run out of food and water long before he reached the far east, but luckily the New World got in his way.
PUC Professor: The Noachian Flood was just a local flood?
Kent:
I was fascinated by the Cope/Marsh feud, which had a direct bearing on the discovery and naming of dinosaurs fossils in North America. Chapter two of my book “Dinosaurs-An Adventist View”, entitled “Bones of Contention” is primarily about the Cope/Marsh feud. If you haven’t already read my book, I think you would enjoy it. It is available at Amazon.com and the ABCs.
This has been a shameless plug. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.
PUC Professor: The Noachian Flood was just a local flood?
The election of the day before yesterday was further evidence that there are two Americas; the heartland is one kind of country, but the Northeast and West Coast are like a different America altogether, with completely different values.
Likewise, there appear to be two Adventisms. There’s the Adventism for whom the creationist/EGW narrative of earth history is mandatory and non-negotiable, and then there is the West Coast/Northeast Adventism, which casually suggests that it is time to think seriously about substituting theistic evolution, a figurative creation “week”, and a local flood for the creationist/EGW narrative. At a minimum, this “blue state” Adventism insists on official pluralism–that there be no official Adventist narrative of earth history, and that all views are equally “Adventist.”
I just don’t see how there is enough common ground to hold these two Adventisms together. They do not share a common respect for the prophetic authority of Ellen White, and they do not share a common biblical hermeneutic. Seriously, what is suppose to bind us together? Vege-links?
Recent Comments by David Read
The Reptile King
Poor Larry Geraty! He can’t understand why anyone would think him sympathetic to theistic evolution. Well, for starters, he wrote this for Spectrum last year:
“Christ tells us they will know us by our love, not by our commitment to a seven literal historical, consecutive, contiguous 24-hour day week of creation 6,000 years ago which is NOT in Genesis no matter how much the fundamentalist wing of the church would like to see it there.”
“Fundamental Belief No. 6 uses Biblical language to which we can all agree; once you start interpreting it according to anyone’s preference you begin to cut out members who have a different interpretation. I wholeheartedly affirm Scripture, but NOT the extra-Biblical interpretation of the Michigan Conference.”
So the traditional Adventist interpretation of Genesis is an “extra-Biblical interpretation” put forward by “the fundamentalist wing” of the SDA Church? What are people supposed to think about Larry Geraty’s views?
It is no mystery how LaSierra got in the condition it is in.
The Reptile King
Professor Kent says:
“I don’t do ‘orgins science.’ Not a single publication on the topic. I study contemporary biology. Plenty of publications.”
So, if you did science that related to origins, you would do it pursuant to the biblical paradigm, that is pursuant to the assumption that Genesis 1-11 is true history, correct?
The Reptile King
Well, Jeff, would it work better for you if we just closed the biology and religion departments? I’m open to that as a possible solution.
The Reptile King
Larry Geraty really did a job on LaSierra. Personally I think it is way gone, compromised beyond hope. The SDA Church should just cut its ties to LaSierra, and cut its losses.
As to the discussion on this thread, round up the usual suspects and their usual arguments.
La Sierra University Resignation Saga: Stranger-than-Fiction
It is a remarkably fair and unbiased article, and a pretty fair summary of what was said in the recorded conversation.
