@Paul Giem: The response of long-agers to short-age arguments seems …

Comment on Adventists are virtually silent by BobRyan.

@Paul Giem:

The response of long-agers to short-age arguments seems to be to try to exclude the arguments, rather than to meet them. That makes me reluctant to consider long-agers to be experts on the relationship between origins science and religion, or even, since the two definitely interact, on origins science itself.

I am reminded of a statement from well known atheist evolutionist, Colin Patterson, who stated that evolution appears to convey “antiknowledge” – the people who choose to “believe in it” as their new religion have even less objective ability to evaluate facts than those that do not.

What is amazing – is that an atheist evolutionist “would even notice”.

And as you point out above – the key to the evolutionist argument is to flee when the Biblical text is brought up. Imagine if we had some other doctrine – other than the doctrine on origins – where the best response to it by those who opposed it was to “flee the text of scripture”.

(Actually I think there is an example of just such a situation but I will not go into it now).

in Christ,

Bob

BobRyan Also Commented

Adventists are virtually silent

@Courtney Edwards:

One wonders when should those who cradle truth jump into the fray of controversy, as against displaying restraint.
Should Adventists speak out against, or in support of issues made popular for discussion in the public forum by the religious right?…issues like abortion, gay marriages,stem cells research, ordination of gay pastors etc.? or should they remain “silent”?

One need only look on the example of Jesus for direction. When it came to the act of desecrating His Father’s house, Jesus spared no effort in chasing out the offenders. But when it came to the fact of exposing Tiberius Ceasar as the “Great and terrible dragon” of Daniel and the Revelation, who would “trample His saints underfoot”, Jesus was “silent”.

In the 1800’s God directed Seventh-day Adventists to “be very active” on the subject of prohibition (Christian morals on alcohol vs the right to privacy) and slavery (related to Christian doctrine on the value of human life).

Turns out we have the SAME issues today in the form of abortion (the value of human life) – and gay marriage (Christian morals vs the right to privacy).

At this time in earth’s history four factors are driving earth to an end-time scenario – calling for an end to the restraint. The first two are mentioned in Lev 18 – where God declares that He will “end” a nation – even a pagan non-Bible aware nation for crossing these two lines.

1. Gay agenda issues
2. Abortion

And two other items that both go directly after God – the Creator Himself – are covered in Rev 14:6-7.

3. Evolution as the right answer for the doctrine on origins.
4. Editing/deleting the 4 commandment Creation memorial Sabbath.

3SG 90-91 makes it clear to Adventists just how God views this issue of sinful man going after the Creator directly in the form of the argument for evolutionism housed inside the Christian Church.

This denomination above all others – has “no excuse” for engaging in such a thing. And so – having more light on that subject than most – we will also suffer more condmenation than most if we ignore what we have been told. With priviledge comes responsibility my friends.

Thus it should not surprise us to be seeing signs in nature that the wrath of God is just around the corner.

in Christ,

Bob


Adventists are virtually silent

@Denver Fletcher:

Just to provide one example, since I anticipate the demand: Darwin himself expected the fossils to show millions of “intermediate” forms showing the gradual transition of one species to another. That was a necessary consequence of his proposition used as the title of his book, “On the Origin of Species”.

We are, of course, still looking for a single transitional form.

Good point!

If they HAD found zillions of links (some successful and bazillions not successful long term) then what a parade of “our science predicted it” we would see them having today!

And when the prediction fails? well then invent some other twist and turn (punctuated equilibrium) so that “evolutionism explains EVERY result” no matter what it is!!

Hint – a theory that can be bent to explain everything – explains nothing.

Another “inconvenient detail” that Christians are not supposed to “notice”??

Denver Fletcher said:
The entire search for a “missing link” is a philosophical error, precisely because it assumes the truth of the proposition and lays blame on the evidence. It goes like this:

“we *know* evolution is true, because it must be true in order for us to reject God, so if we can’t find the link it isn’t because there never was a link, but because the link is “missing”.”

Atheist evolutionist Colin Patterson appears to confirm your point –

Patterson – quoting Gillespie’s attack on Christians accusing them of “…holding creationist ideas could plead ignorance of the means and affirm only the fact,”

Patterson countered, “That seems to summarize the feeling I get in talking to evolutionists today. They plead ignorance of the means of transformation, but affirm only the fact: ‘Yes it has…we know it has taken place.'”

“…Now I think that many people in this room would acknowledge that during the last few years, if you had thought about it at all, you’ve experienced a shift from evolution as knowledge to evolution as faith. I know that’s true of me, and I think it’s true of a good many of you in here…

“…Evolution not only conveys no knowledge, but seems somehow to convey anti-knowledge , apparent knowledge which is actually harmful to systematics…”

“Can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing…that is true?

I tried that question on the geology staff at the Field Museum of Natural history and the only answer I got was silence. I tried it on the members of the Evolutionary Morphology seminar in the University of Chicago, and all I got there was silence for a long time and eventually one person said “I know one thing – it ought not to be taught in high school”

How sad that an atheist evolutionist can be so candid about these inconvenient details but some SDA theistic evolutionist among us cannot.

Denver Fletcher

You know how many times those “links” have been invented since they do not exist.

indeed the hoax history for fossils is rich with decades long frauds used to prop up the myth of evolutionism “as if” it were not the junk-science that it is.

The horse series “manufactured” by Othaniel Marsh is a good example of a “conveniently arranged” fossil “sequence” that even evolutionists admit “never happened in nature”. (And yet curiously – still on display in the Smithsonian). Apparently for evolutionists – some “good stories” are just too good for the telling to let inconvenient facts get in the way.

Denver Fletcher said:
The reality is that every species, EVERY SINGLE ONE, that we find either alive or as fossils, appears fully formed, fully functional, with no “junk DNA”, no “vestigial organs”, and no transitional components, let alone entire transitional forms. From an evolutionary perspective, the fossil record is almost nothing but missing links.

Again – Colin Patterson seems to confirm the salient point above.

Colin Patterson said:
Yet Gould and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional fossils. As a palaeontologist myself, I am much occupied with the philosophical problems of identifying ancestral forms in the fossil record.

You say that I should at least show a photo of the fossil from which each type of organism was derived. I will lay it on the line- there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument. The reason is that statements about ancestry and descent are not applicable in the fossil record. Is Archaeopteryx the ancestor of all birds? Perhaps yes, perhaps no there is no way of answering the question. It is easy enough to make up stories of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favoured by natural selection. But such stories are not part of science, for there is no way of putting them to the test. So, much as I should like to oblige you by jumping to the defence of gradualism, and fleshing out the transitions between the major types of animals and plants, I find myself a bit short of the intellectual justification necessary for the job “

Denver Fletcher said:

Stephen Jay Gould, a brilliant man, noticed this but, unwilling to abandon his atheism, proposed instead that evolution happens so fast that it leaves no evidence. He borrowed a concept from atheist cosmology and called this punctuated equilibrium. A neat sidestep but totally untestable. He thus leapt from the frying pan into the fire. But his argument about what the fossils actually show is incontrovertible. He was at least honest enough to acknowledge this publicly, for which honesty he was pilloried by his peers and mercilessly mocked.

Yes – and now his view is the politically correct rock for evolutionists to hide their defects in evidence.

Denver Fletcher said:

It is quite simple to test the proposition “There is a God”, and I expect everyone who claims to be a Christian to have already done so. Are we not instructed to do so? If they have not, then I cannot help but wonder from whence comes their conclusion that there is one?

For the longest time the atheists were stuck on that point because the Christians kept pointing out the “elephant in the Atheist living room” namely – the existence of life. Something that just can’t be “manufactured in the lab” nor is it seen to “happen on its own in nature”.

Basically no amount of wishful imaginative thinking will enable science (real science) to show the tendency in nature for “birds coming from reptiles” or “abiogenesis”. It is not happening now, it never happened and it never will happen.

The same could be said about monkeys compiling an updated version of the encyclopedia. (Hopefully some evolutionists will “notice” that detail)

in Christ,

Bob


Adventists are virtually silent

@Dez Pain:

And if you take away the theories in evolution, which are the basis for volumes of other theories, you aren’t left with very much. Try it. You’re an intelligent person. Read the texts, and put a line through everything that is surmising, guesswork, and supposition. Then see what you can do with what remains. Lots of evolutionists who do this end up believing in creation. Dez Pain(Quote)

Atheist evolutionist Colin Patterson stated that sentiment this way –

A 1981 lecture presented at New York City’s American Museum of Natural History

Colin PATTERSON:

“…I’m speaking on two subjects, evolutionism and creationism, and I believe it’s true to say that I know [u]nothing whatever about either[/u]…One of the reasons I started taking this anti-evolutionary view,well, let’s call it non-evolutionary , was last year I had a sudden realization.

“For over twenty years I had thought that I was working on evolution in some way. One morning I woke up, and something had happened in the night, and it struck me that I had been working on this stuff for twenty years, and there was not one thing I knew about it. “That was quite a shock that one could be misled for so long…

It does seem that the level of knowledge about evolution is remarkably shallow. We know it ought not to be taught in high school, and perhaps that’s all we know about it…

about eighteen months ago…I woke up and I realized that all my life I had been duped into taking evolutionism as revealed truth in some way.”

Patterson – after quoting (antiChristian arguments by) Gillespie accusing that those “‘…holding creationist ideas could plead ignorance of the means and affirm only the fact,'”

Patterson countere

“That seems to summarize the feeling I get in talking to evolutionists today. They plead ignorance of the means of transformation, but affirm only the fact: ‘Yes it has…we know it has taken place.'”

“…Now I think that many people in this room would acknowledge that during the last few years, if you had thought about it at all, you’ve experienced a shift from evolution as knowledge to evolution as faith. I know that’s true of me, and I think it’s true of a good many of you in here…

“…Evolution not only conveys no knowledge, but seems somehow to convey anti-knowledge , apparent knowledge which is actually harmful to systematics…”

And let us not forget Patterson’s most direct comment on your point –

Colin Patterson – 1981
“Can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing…that is true?

I tried that question on the geology staff at the Field Museum of Natural history and the only answer I got was silence. I tried it on the members of the Evolutionary Morphology seminar in the University of Chicago, and all I got there was silence for a long time and eventually one person said “I know one thing – it ought not to be taught in high school”

Some evolutionists complain because I embrace the principles of objectivity and critical thinking such that I do not just limiting my points to quotes from Christian Creationists to make my point.

But that just makes my prior point about evolutionism being a form of “antiknowledge”.

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