I hope they continue reporting the news. However in the …

Comment on Adventist Review examines LSU conflict by BobRyan.

I hope they continue reporting the news. However in the future a more comprehensive and direct manner will be needed as compared to the stepping-on-eggshells approach taken in this article. For example notice how they carefully sifted through Bradley’s public statement to the press – omitting the most objectionable and transparently revealing segments of his disclosure to the press?

There was no mention of agreement between the biology department and the published statements of the religion department leadership.

There was no mention of the openly pro-evolutionist outside speakers such as Erv Taylor in the 404 class-

There was no mention of the 2002-2004 faith and sciences conference results or the surveys that were done in 1994 and 2003.

They also do not say how many officers are up for re-election in the upcoming Mat 12 meeting of the board of trustees. The reporter never actually surveys Wisbey or any of the PUC LSU board members asking them “So do you believe that evolution is the right answer for origins” – the reader is simply left to “assume” that there is no one on the LSU board nor in LSU administrative leadership that actually believes evolution is “the right answer” for origins. And yet we know that such an assumption on the part of the reader would be totally false.

There was no mention of the fact that Paulsen has had to step up his level of interest and participation in this divisive issue – trying to get control of the origins debate.

But at least there was some mention of something.

Better late than never.

What the church leadership may be missing is that some strong statements about the problems with evolutionism gaining a foothold inside the Church, will be needed if we are ever to do anthing like “meet it” head on. Hoping that strong statements from Pastor Asscherick or pastor Doug Batchelor will solve the problem for the denomination is wishful thinking on the part of those Church leaders who are coming in late.

This Omega problem is far more devastating to the church and far more difficult to deal with than the issues with Kellogg’s “Living Temple”. Kellogg’s notions were not “the law of the land”. His teaching was not the mandate of every public school system and almost every private Christian school system, and of the government.

We recently had a presidental election in which ONE party’s candidates were asked – in public debates “Do you believe in the theory of evolutionism”. When only two candidates out of over 20 were found brave enough to publically state that they did not believe in the doctrines of evolutionism (Huckabee being one of those candidates that did not believe in evolutionism) the reaction of the press was “you realize then that you cannot be president of the United States”.

No such nation-wide support for “the Living Temple” existed at the time the SDA church was dealing with Kellogg at Battle Creek.

If our Adventist administration thinks this thing is going to go away by itself – or with some quiet hints to that effect – they are not the students of history and men of action that such a crisis demands of our leaders.

Time will tell.

in Christ,

Bob

BobRyan Also Commented

Adventist Review examines LSU conflict
Doug – when the statement is made that “rocks appear old” what you are talking about is radiometrics and asking if the creation of a perfect boisphere on planet earth would mean that as the crust formed higher density and ratio of radioactive artifacts would be produce than when the earth’s crust is not forming – but is merely sustaining life as it is today.

For example – K-Ar ratios “assume” that argon is not present at the starting event. It also assumes that decay from Potassium is the only source for Argon. It does not look at the possibility that our Creator God would have created Argon as if it was actually “needed” in the starting conditions for some reason. Just as mature plants were “needed” in the starting conditions.

Whether we are talking about fission track measurements or electron spin resonance or Thermoluminescence, assumptions regarding starting conditions have to be made.

Clearly it would be a giant leap of logic to assume that the starting conditions in a “7 day create the world” scenario are no different than what we see around us today. Yet many people are willing to leap off that cliff for reasons that are not entirely logical.

Which gets us back to your question – what do we really know about the starting conditions in a 7-day-create-the-world scenario when it comes to dating the ages of basement rocks – etc.

But one thing is for sure – for atheists – there is no other choice but to make assumptions favorable to not-the-Bible conclusions.

Why the rest choose to join them is anyone’s guess.

in Christ,

Bob


Adventist Review examines LSU conflict

@Erik:

I don’t think so. Remember, people knew how to cut down trees, start fires, build houses, clear farm land, and many other like activities which might have impacted the pre-flood forests. Surely you do not believe the entire pre-flood world was blanketed in forest, do you? That the trees had 700 rings may indicate that the particular area where they were had been clear-cut 700 years prior, and allowed to grow again.

Certainly it is “possible” – no question that they could cut down a tree.

on day 3 God makes all plant life – in a mature form on the entire planet. (recall that the land animals made on day 6 were vegetarian). So from creation week on – the entire earth had mature trees. And certainly each season brought more young trees. But it is unlikely that the humans of preflodd days — starting off with just Adam and Eve – were able to “pave the earth” (clear cut the other) within a short 1600 year span of time.

Thus a random sampling of trees at any given location should have come up with a high likelihood of having some of those 1600 year old trees. Even cow pastures today are often designed to retain a few old trees for shade.

Thus in a random sampling such as this collection event is likely to be – one would expect a few (if not a large percentage) of 1600 year old trees.

On the other hand, how do we know how many rings per year the pre-flood trees would have put on? They did not have the same seasons then as now. Perhaps they put on MORE rings per year, grew faster, and had only been clear-cut about 300 years prior. Or, perhaps they grew slower, and put on one ring every three or four years.

I agree that is is possible that they had a longer growing season and possibly fewer rings per year than we have today. But Ellen White mentioned the dying of the leaves seen by Adam – so the implication is that they had a yearly cyce that included leaves falling.

Of course, volcanic activity would certainly have been more frequent in the several centuries and more after the flood. So it is possible. But 40 layers? I think only the Great Flood could be responsible for that.

This is what I was getting at – if this is really taking place 700 years after the flood – then we have evidence that the post-flood age included periods of high instability in parts of the American continent long after the flood.

@Sean Pitman, M.D.:

This is correct. Speciment Ridge is made up of Tertiary sediments and is therefore a post-Flood formation.

Sean – thanks for sharing that. It gives one pause for reflection when considering evidence of large scale fossilized remains. Instead of trying to calibrate them all back to a 4500 year old date – it would mean that we have a scale – a gradient timeline possibly lasting 2000 years after the flood or more.

in Christ,

Bob


Adventist Review examines LSU conflict

@wesley kime:

If the 6-day Creation is not to be taken literally, how can the 7th-day Sabbath be taken seriously?

That is exactly the argument you find in 3SG 90-91 where we are told that theistic evolutionism is the “worst kind of infidelity”.

in Christ,

Bob


Recent Comments by BobRyan

Academic Freedom Strikes Again!

george:
By definition, I don’t believe in miracles or apocryphal, anthropomorphic stories about same.Why aren’t scientists observing them today if they occur?

Circular argument. If they were naturally occurring we would expect scientists to see that they are still occurring today. If they are singular events caused by an intelligent being – that being would be under no obligation to “keep causing world wide floods” as if “to do it once you must continually do it”. Armstrong went to the moon.. shall we argue that unless he keeps going to the moon so each new generation can see it … then it did not happen?

Your argument is of the form “all eye witness evidence to some event in the past is no evidence at all unless that event keeps repeating itself so we too can witness it”. Seems less than compelling.

“Could it be that science is better able to detect hoaxes and false claims?” As a rule for dismissing every eye witness account in the past – it is less than compelling. (even when that event cannot be repeated)

Evolutionists “claim” that dust, rocks and gas (in sufficient quantity and over sufficient time and a lot of luck) self organized into rabbits via prokaryote-then-eukaryote-then-more-complexity. But such self-organization cannot be “observed” today.

(What is worse – such a sequence cannot even be intelligently manipulated to occur in the lab)

By your own argument then you should not believe in evolution.


Academic Freedom Strikes Again!
@Sean Pitman:

Suppose you were at a crime scene … there is a tree limb on the ground and a bullet hole in the victim — “all natural causes”? or is one ‘not natural’? Those who say that nothing can be detected as “not naturally occurring in nature” – because all results, all observations make it appear that every result “naturally occurred without intelligent design” seem to be missing a very big part of “the obvious”.


Academic Freedom Strikes Again!

george:
Gentlemen,

What just God would allow an innocent child to be born guilty for the sins of a distant ancestor? …What if there was only One Commandment? Do Good. ‘Kant’ see a problem with that.

An atheist point of view is not often found here – but this is interesting.

1. God does not punish babies for what someone else did – but I suppose that is a reductionist option that is not so uncommon among atheists. The “details” of the subject you are commenting on – yet according to you “not reading” – is that humans are born with sinful natures. A “bent” toward evil. That is the first gap right out of the gate between atheism and God’s Word..

2. But still God supernaturally enables “free will” even in that bent scenario, the one that mankind lives in – ever since the free-will choice of the first humans on planet earth – was to cast their lot in with Satan and rebellion..(apparently they wanted to see what a wonderful result that poor choice would create). John 16 “the Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin and righteousness and judgment”. And of course “I will draw ALL mankind unto Me” John 12:32. (not “just Christians”). Thus supernatural agency promotes free will in a world that would otherwise be unrestrained in its bent to evil.

3.God says “The wages of sin is death” — so then your “complaint” is essentially “that you exist”. A just and loving God created planet Earth – no death or disease or suffering – a perfect paradise where mankind could live forever … and only one tiny restriction… yet Adam and Eve allowed themselves to be duped by Satan… tossing it all away. The “Just God” scenario could easily just have let them suffer the death sentence they chose. He did not do that… hence “you exist” – to then “complain about it”.

4. Of course you might also complain that Satan exists – and Satan might complain that “you exist”. There is no shortage on planet earth of avenues for complaint. But God steps in – offers salvation to mankind at infinite cost to himself – – and the “Few” of Matthew 7 eventually end up accepting that offer of eternal life. The rest seem to prefer the lake of fire option… sort of like Adam and Eve choosing disease and death over eternal life (without fully appreciating the massive fail in that short-sighted choice).

In any case – this thread is about the logic/reason that should be taken into account when a Christian owned and operated institution chooses to stay faithful to its Christian mission — rather then getting blown about by every wind of doctrine. Why let the alchemy of “wild guessing” be the ‘source of truth’ when we have the Bible?? We really have no excuse for that. As for science – we can be thankful that it has come as far along as it has – but no matter how far back you rewind the clock of our science history – we should always have chosen the Bible over wild guessing.


Newly Discovered Human Footprints Undermine Evolutionary Assumptions

Ervin Taylor:
Perhaps Dr. Pitman would enlighten his readers what on earth “the neo-Darwinian story of origins” might be. Darwin did not address origins.

Origins of what?? the first eukaryote??
Or “origins of mankind”??

Darwin himself claimed that his own false doctrine on origins was totally incompatible with Genesis and that because of this – Genesis must be tossed under a bus.

hint: Genesis is an account of “Origins” as we all know — even though “bacteria” and “amoeba” are terms that don’t show up in the text.

The point remains – Darwin was promoting his own religion on origins totally counter to the Bible doctrine on origins. He himself addresses this point of the two views.


Newly Discovered Human Footprints Undermine Evolutionary Assumptions

Ervin Taylor:
Here we go again.If the footprints upon close examination, are determined not to be from a hominim/hominid, I wonder if Educate Truth (sic) will announce that determination.Or if the date of the surface is determined to be much younger, will there be a notice placed on fundamentalist web-sites.If you believe the answer to these questions are yes, I have a big bridge that I would like to sell you for pennies on the dollar.

Here we go again … hope piled upon hope…no matter the “observations in nature” that disconfirm the classic evolutionary hypothesis

Reminds me of “What we still don’t know” by Martin Reese and Leonard Suskind