@Ken: “But Wes, do you think it is …

Comment on The ANN Highlights LSU’s Dr. Lee Grismer – An Evolutionary Biologist by wesley kime.

@Ken: “But Wes, do you think it is something bigger than Adventism?”

What a no-brainer! What a set-up, Ken, of whom no one is better by far for either one-ups or set-ups! Something bigger? Yes, of course, by far, good grief yes: God. You are on to something big, Ken, our good friend; something big and exciting, a helluva lot more exciting than even blog quibbling, by far. But don’t even think about taking it on faith, which I don’t think you ever would, would you?

wesley kime Also Commented

The ANN Highlights LSU’s Dr. Lee Grismer – An Evolutionary Biologist
@Ken: Ken, may I speak to that? Do I “ever take things on faith?” Never. Not faith alone, anyway.

I take things on both faith and evidence working together in sync, one validating and empowering the other, like I use both my brain and heart, both my sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, one kicking in stronger than the other as the occasion demands, like when a fire alarm sounds my sympathetic kicks in, and when I see, salivate over, bit into, taste, digest lasagna (and finally, after duly processing it, dispose of it) my parasympathetic kicks in, as God engineered it – and only He could come up with a system like that!

As to “anseeing a kvestion vith a kvestion,” as good Israelites, Socrates, all good practitioners of maieutics, and all good medical school professors on teaching rounds, are wont to do, how could I object? How could I when I used to pelt my interns and residents with questions. I learned that from Dr. George Thorn, chief of internal medicine, Peter Bent Brigham (Harvard) hospital, when I was a junior assistant resident there. The trick is not to get carried away with the joy of questioning, and to make the questions have a point. I remember (60 years ago exactly) as a junior medical student on rounds, and the professor asked, “What do you think of pain in the abdomen?” I still don’t know what to think.

But the ultimate such questioner is our greatest example, Christ Himself. The most startling, and frankly rhetorical, of His questions, I think, was on the morning of His resurrection, near the tomb, and Mary Magdalene came there to grieve, and saw Him, but somehow didn’t recognize Him. “”Woman,” He asked her, whom He knew so well, “why are you crying? Who might you be looking for?” John 20:14 (paraphrased)

Your colleague in askings, WK


The ANN Highlights LSU’s Dr. Lee Grismer – An Evolutionary Biologist
@ken: Ken, interesting thread, our present one, which, as I follow it, is: First, you again expressed your hope that, as the very winsome and gentlemanly agnostic we know you to be, “I am of some use to my Adventist friends.”

So, presuming to speak I behalf of your Adventist friends, I asked you, “Is ADVENTISM…of any use to YOU”?

I assume this was the question you answered by saying, “The answer lies in Dr. Pitman’s attempt to bridge the gap between faith and empirical reality.”

I didn’t expect that. Hmmm. Are you saying that your use for Adventism is focused on one individual lay Adventist, Dr. Pittman, his own focus epitomizing an Adventism you find attractive, and not simply on the brouhaha besetting him? If so you’re on to something, something big.

Regards, Wes


The ANN Highlights LSU’s Dr. Lee Grismer – An Evolutionary Biologist
@Ken: Thanks, useful friend. We’ve become accustomed to your face. Look forward to seeing it.

But is Adventism — alas you know only the declamations you’ve witnessed here — of any use to YOU? I mean besides bemusement and the chance to offer exemplarily courteous one-upsmanship? Well, what more can anyone ask, in this collapsing world. There IS more to ask for.


Recent Comments by wesley kime

Beyond the Creation Story – Why the Controversy Matters
@Ken: Ken, re. yours of May 31, 15 12:42 pm: … those standing up for FB28 have every right to do so…until they [presumably the FBs, not the communicants, although either could be changed in a twinkling of any eye] are democratically changed.”

FB28? What’s that? You probably know better than I. Genesis 1 I can quote; FB28 I can’t. And won’t bother to check. I couldn’t even tell you where to find those FBs. I read what you say more assiduously than the FBs. (What’s FB? FaceBook?)

In the first place I think you’ve got Adventism wrong, or at least Adventism as I know it. Well, maybe you haven’t, the postmodernist kind anyway. I’m pre-catechistic, ergo prehistoric, alas. I’m that old.

FB28 or whatever it is, if it WERE changed, democratically or otherwise, dramatically or creepingly, by evolution or edict, even if expunged and expurgated in the interest of big-tent accord, which seemed on the verge of happening pre-T. Wilson, and may yet, I wouldn’t even know it until I saw it here. You’d know before I would.

With or without and despite FB28 or whatever, or EduTruth, I’d still honor Genesis 1. I’d honor it, A, by faith, because the Bible, i.e. God, says so. A validated faith validated by B, The evidence, good scientific falsifiable evidence. And C, the consummate cosmic multi-vectored syllogism. Everything fits.

Seriously, though, discussion has to start somewhere and be referenced by something, for convenience if not citizenship. But I’d prefer to start, if granted “every right,” with Genesis 1, at the beginning.


Dr. Ariel Roth’s Creation Lectures for Teachers
@Ken: “something Dr. Kime said struck a very strange chord in me: that a Chair in ID at Harvard would be a quantum leap (forward – my edit) while such a Chair would be a step backward at LSU. I’ m very sorry Wes, but for me to honestly investigate reality, such double standard is not acceptable. …[therefore] I think I’m coming to the end of my Adventist journey.”

I can, of course, dear friend, understand why, and respect that, you would see the two directions of leaping, forward and backward, by Harvard and LSU, as a double standard.

But might it also be seen as simple Einsteinian Relativity? It all depends on from whence you’re starting or observing. Two venues, Harvard vs. LSU, two vectors, not two standards. At any rate, a parting of our ways. The Chair did it. A very unlucky ill-omened Chair, from the start.

Parting — that indeed is sad, especially this parting. I grieve too. In sadness we are agreed. That’s not double speak; only you could I say that to.

For these several years you, and your courteous ways, even your questions, have been most fascinating, even endearing, inspiring to both poetic and, I now regret, rasping response. I’ve so much enjoyed your postings, always looked for them first, and appreciated your uncommon patience and politeness, and our camaraderie in the bomb shelter and on the grandstand. Too bad the Chair, our double bed, didn’t work out.

As benediction, maybe we can all get together again, somewhere. Meanwhile, the Mizpah, which I think I should be the one to deliver, seeing it was, you say, my one-liner that was the last straw, for which I’ll get heck all around, and rightly so: “The Lord watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another.” Genesis 31:49.

What the heck, have some popcorn for the road. And don’t forget your cyber plaque. You will be remembered, appreciated, thought about, prayed for. Do come back soon.

Until then, your jousting friend, W


Strumming the Attached Strings
@Phillip Brantley: Excellent! I shall quote you: “learn something from Sean Pitman.” Indeed, indeed — there’s so much to learn from that man.


Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation
@Bill Sorensen: “I don’t know if anyone has really been able to follow your thinking…”

A tad, a smidgeon, just slightly overstated maybe? Just a tad, just a smidgeon, at the cost of not a few dislikes? Well, I for one do follow it. And with great admiration. Great.


What does it take to be a true Seventh-day Adventist?
@Ervin Taylor: Out of purely poetic symmetry of rhetoric, Ervin, your trademark whimsical “…I guess someone who rejects…” is asking for — I was waiting for it! — a Pitman’s “I guess someone who accepts…” Lovely diptych, ping and pong.