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Conflict on the Campus—1952
Back when I was a boy it was a fashion in the Adventist press to embed Bible studies in stories. Pacific Press badged theirs “Stories that Win.” And they did. Perhaps you remember The Marked Bible by Charles Lindsay Taylor, still in print in the millions of copies, or Frank Steunenberg’s Greater Love, about assassin-turned-Adventist Harry Orchard.
R.E. Finney, Jr. was another of these Bible-study storytellers, better known for a slim romance targeted at young women called Judy Steps Out. I wasn’t aware of Finney’s Conflict on the Campus until I found a copy in a local church library.
The cool cover artwork—a young man getting into a ’38 sedan driven by a rosy-cheeked young woman—caught my attention. And the title, of course. Conflict on Adventist campuses has dominated the church conversation for the last several years, and the topic is the same as it was for Red Bartlett of Valleyville in 1952: origins. But it was a gentler conflict back then, mostly in Red’s heart rather than between professors, boards, students, and administrators, and it’s entirely resolved by page 90 when Red sees that evolution isn’t the answer and the Bible is, so he can at last marry his Seventh-day Adventist sweetheart, Nan Brooks.
Red and Nan meet when she stops to offer him a ride (a lone girl picking up a hitchhiker—surely a different era) and they feel a mutual attraction. They find they go to the same high school where, over lunch, Nan gives Red Bible studies about the signs of the end. Red is impressed by her interpretations of prophecy, but to Nan’s disappointment he can’t get past what he’s learned from his teachers about the evolution of life on earth. Fortunately Nan is able to talk Red into attending a Seventh-day Adventist college (“Central College”) after graduation, where Mr. Ingram, his faculty advisor, shows Red that the Bible’s account of origins makes more sense than the evolutionary one.
One wonders what the denouement would have been if Nan’s “wide gray eyes set in a softly rounded face” weren’t a factor, but never mind that: their courteous, old-fashioned romance is a charming feature of the story. Nan likes Red, though naturally there’s never any question of his being more than a casual friend unless he becomes a Seventh-day Adventist—a different era, indeed.
The fictional Mr. Ingram instructs Red with versions of arguments we still use. The necessary First Cause, for example: “It makes no difference what you consider to have been the first step in creation, nor how far back into prehistoric time you push the event. There must have been a Creator to bring into being the creation” (56).
Another familiar argument is that so complex a design demands there be a designer. On the way Ingram/Finney mucks about unnecessarily in spontaneous generation (which he suggests is almost what evolutionists teach), but eventually he gets around to the extremely high odds against life’s adventitious origin:
“Let us consider the chance of the coming into being by chance of a single molecule of protein. … Using a molecule of simple structure, with a molecular weight of 20,000, and imagining it to be composed of only two kinds of atoms (actually, there are always at least four), let us consider the probabilities. It has been pointed out by scientists that for the chance construction of one such molecule we would have to imagine a volume of material more than one sextillion sextillion sextillion times greater than the universe of Einstein.…[and] we need not one molecule, but hundreds of millions of them exactly alike (72).
I’ll leave the verification of those figures to you scientists, but the idea that life could come about by random chemical combinations is one that troubles us non-scientists. Those who see God’s hand in the evolution of life have an answer for that, yet it seems a short step from God seeding DNA on this earth and helping it evolve, to God not being needed at all.
Then there are the missing links. Ingram says, “The thing that puzzles honest scientists about [fossils] is that they are unable to find any links between these stages of evolution, although the process is claimed to have taken fifty million years and one might well expect to find thousands of such intermediary skeletons” (75). Here, too, I’ve some sympathy for Professor Ingram, for it seems to us non-scientists that if evolution were as painstakingly gradual and extended as Darwin said it was, the ground would be littered with the fossils of those incremental steps, not to mention of trillions of dead ends.
Yet when he comes to what should be the heart of his argument, Ingram/Finney appears not to understand the basic mechanisms of natural selection, and so (though not unusual among apologists, unfortunate) addresses his own caricatures of evolutionary science. When talking about passing along qualities from one generation to the next, he reminds us, apropos of nothing in the Darwinian theory, that docking lambs’ tails for generations doesn’t lead to the birth of short-tailed lambs. He suggests that evolutionary changes would be hindrances that the creature would have to learn to overcome—as though legs suddenly sprouted out the bottom of a fish that could then figure out something to use them for. Of lepidoptera that imitate unpalatable species, he asks, “Shall we credit the moth with powers of observation that enabled it millenniums ago to see that the other moth escaped being eaten because of its strong flavor? If it could so observe and so reason, what could it do about it? In the meantime, who guaranteed its survival long enough to adapt itself to looking like the original moth? When was the transformation first complete enough to guarantee the moth its uncertain immunity? How shall we explain the reasoning powers of this ephemeral insect and also explain the stupidity of the bird of prey in not detecting the counterfeit?”
This last is silly and a little embarrassing, and all I can suggest that might make his confusion forgivable is that scientists do sometimes talk about evolution as though it were a willful process. Saying, for example, “This water creature then evolved legs and began to venture unto dry land,” might sound to someone like a decision rather than a lengthy series of genetic accidents.
The book’s title is hyperbole, for there’s really very little conflict on the campus of Central College: no secret recordings, accusations of heresy, firings, inflammatory web sites, accreditation threats, or angry board meetings. Red accepts each of Mr. Ingram’s explanations as sound, and moves on to the next. Both Red and Mr. Ingram evince a touching concern for intellectual truthfulness: Red finds Mr. Ingram “one fellow who looks as though he had a head on his shoulders,” and Mr. Ingram makes sure Red knows that he can be both intellectually honest and a believer: “Belief can only be built on a reasonable foundation and a desire” (52).
We Adventists sowed the seeds of the current controversy a century ago when we innocently partnered higher education with our conservative Biblical faith. At the time we may have thought our beliefs could stand up to scientific investigation—that honest research would always, eventually, lead back home. Conflict on the Campus is how we might have imagined it would look: capable, intellectually honest academics with simple yet compelling explanations, convincing to anyone who will listen, that our literal reading of the first few pages of Genesis was scientifically defensible.
And so we taught our children science (at least partially to do the work of physical healing, for which we were becoming renowned) and were surprised and unnerved when big moral, spiritual and existential questions raised by science began knocking on our doors. We found that when our beliefs were threatened it was difficult to have open-minded discussions. Investigation was fine as long as it confirmed our doctrines, but that didn’t happen every time. Rather than taking the contrary evidence head on and admitting its difficulty, we fell back on a few research papers and bus tours, and questioning the questioners’ faith. So here we are today, and the conflict on campus is more serious now than it was in 1952, with careers, institutions and possibly souls, at stake.
I sympathize with those of you so immersed in a scientific world that it’s impossible for you to study or to pursue your vocation without bumping up hard against the prevailing narrative. I hear your questions, but I don’t have ideal answers. I believe that God created the universe. I believe that He is quite powerful enough to have done the job in six consecutive days. I can read Genesis 1 to you to prove it. Yet when you ask complex geological, biological and anthropological questions—how to explain those layered fossil series, or the bone fragments from Olduvai Gorge, or evidence of extremely long time periods—I know just enough to know I’m out of my depth. I try to find Bible-believing scientists to refer you to, though I admit I sometimes find their offerings more polemical than convincing.
Conflict on the Campus makes me nostalgic for a time when the difficulties Bible believers face seemed easy to solve, when the question of origins could be answered in a 100 page book with room left over for courtship and a wedding. We have a lot more information now, but less peace of mind.
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Sigve Tonstad, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Religion, Loma Linda
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Any religion that must remain stuck with the world as it was when begun will eventually discover that the world has passed it by and it remains only a relic for a glass case in a museum of the past.
Elaine
"We have a lot more information now, but less peace of mind."
I grew up in the time of innocence in Adventism. There were no questions in my Academy or College classes about the nature of inspiration. I read the Testimonies with complete acceptance, endeavoring to keep its instruction (dress & diet reform [with no cheese, butter, tea, coffee, and pickles], recreation, education, and romance). I saw EGW as voice of Jesus, equal to the NT in inspiration and authority. Pastors, teachers and evangelists were all good men of God. I never heard of sexual deviance or apostasy from the faith.
I read the OT stores that permitted slavery, polygamy, genocide of the pagans, and God’s anger toward stubborn Israel, with no critical thought. “Patriarchs and Prophets,” explained all these issues to my mind. There were easy answers to be found.
None of my friends or religion classes discussed serious issues. Adventistism was the accumulation of pure truth that every person in the world should acknowledge or be rejection by God. Flat out, the Papal church was the Devil’s advocate. Only vegetarian Sabbath keepers, who have perfectly overcome all inherited and cultivated sins, will greet Jesus when he returns.
Where I am today? Still a SDA, yet my faith allows me to see flawed humanity that God permitted to author the Bible. I hold that faith and doctrine are personal and subjective to human culture, education and experiences. I see God tolerant with limited human understandings and less exacting. I see the Catholic Church as upholding Christian values in the world, unlike any other church. I see that the grand theme of the creation account revealing God as the author of all life and the Seventh day celebrates this fact.
What will the SDA church look like in two generations from now? I don’t know. I hope we grow away from an exclusive branch of Christianity due to our doctrines, into a more social active church that views a God that loves many choices in nature and in worship.
Nicely done, brother Seibold.
As this post makes very clear, the church must find a way to embrace current scientific knowledge (http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2011/08/evolution-is-fact-and-theory.html) or it will continue to be less and less relevant to those who are educated, informed and able to contribute at a substantial level. Progressive theologians are able to lead the way, integrating modern cosmology, biology, geology and quantum physics into theology, but are not given the voice or safe environment to do so. The church must understand and embrace that scientific facts are God's native tongue.
The story was 60 years old. Without change, 60 years from now the church may or may not be larger in number, but will be composed of the poor, ignorant and uninformed and the few charlatans who are willing to accept power to lead them regardless of their own inner suspicions about the veracity of their message.
I know that true believers think that a two-three year planning horizon is sufficient because of the imminent return of Our Lord and Savior. They thought this in 1852, 1952, 2002, and most likely will in 2012 and 2052. The church could really benefit from building a long-range planning department whic can create a strategy for guiding the church to create a market niche that it can dominate and remain relevant will into the 21st century and beyond. In doing so, it would be wise to consider the major trends of Islam and New Atheism. The young people in the western world are speaking loudly that intolerance and judgement of others don't fit with their views of love and acceptance of others (http://www.alternet.org/belief/151947/goodbye_religion_how_godlessness_i...).
As Islam grows throughout the world and New Atheism more and more dominates the views of the educated west, the future for competing protestant denominations is mostly eating their own young and those of their closest competitors. A religion that shapes its followers from a mold made of fear (and intolerance), will have worshipers who love their creator because they are afraid. And as more and more people learn that fear is a poison, they will leave behind any fear-based belief system (and please, read the conservatives out here, don't tell me that current fundamentalist Adventism is anything but a fear-based belief system).
We really don't have that much more information on the origins controversy than in 1952. In fact, the basic arguments were in place in Darwin's time. The fossil record is basically what it was in Darwin's day, when he acknowledged that the record from the Cambrian to the present should be matched by an equally long and populous pre-Cambrian fossil record. To explain the lack of missing links, Darwin blamed the "imperfection" of the fossil record, a remarkable act of chutzpah: if the evidence doesn't match my theory, the problem is with the evidence, not with my theory. He said, "I do not pretend that I should ever have suspected how poor a record of the mutations of life the best preserved geological section presented, had not the difficulty of our not discovering innumerable transitional links pressed so hardly on my theory." The missing links are still missing.
One thing that has changed is the mechanism of evolution. Darwin thought that selective breeding generated variety to be selected, so he thought that natural selection would do likewise. By around 1900, geneticists understood that selection does not create variety. They then came up with the idea that genetic copying errors create raw innovations to be selected by natural selection. But the idea that random copying errors can eventually lead to new and radically different functionality remains a faith-based proposition. To believe that random copying errors to the DNA of an amoeba will lead to a human being is much like believing that random copying errors to Don Quixote will lead to War and Peace:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sinSG4mYajg&feature=related.
Another thing that has really changed radically since then is that we know that abiogenesis is impossible. Darwin wrote "Origin of Species" before Pasteur had finally and irrevocably put to rest the theory of spontaneous generation. Moreover, our understanding of the simplest living organism has progressed from thinking it a blob of protoplasm to knowing that it is an incredibly complex biological mechanism, far more complex than the most complex humanly designed machine. Mainstream atheistic science cannot even agree on a "just so" story that passes the laugh test to explain abiogenesis.
Loren's article does highlight a phenomenon that concerns me, namely, that Christians are hesitant to make arguments in support of the faith because they believe such arguments may later turn out to be wrong. Only, it is inevitable that some such arguments will later turn out to be wrong, and if that is going to stop us making arguments, we never will make any arguments. And the Darwinists have no such qualms; the ground is littered with discarded Darwinist arguments and claims, including Darwin's initial claim that selection generates variety, and moving on to, "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny," "vestigial organs," "junk DNA," Piltdown Man, Nebraska Man, etc., and more are daily being made. We should not be afraid to make the best arguments that we can based upon the best evidence now available.
The church could really benefit from building a long-range planning department which can create a strategy for guiding the church to create a market niche that it can dominate and remain relevant well into the 21st century and beyond.
The church already has such a niche, and it is due mainly to developments in the other denominations. The mainstream Protestant churches have become increasingly liberal. "posted" seems to think this is the way toward growth and survival, but the numbers are in, and the opposite is clearly the case. The liberal churches are rapidly shrinking. "Posted's" theory of church growth seems to be that if society is moving toward atheism, the church should outflank society and become atheist itself so as to retain the atheists in its midst. Granted, this seems like Swiftian irony, but then there are those who seriously, unironically argue that the church should replace its biblical origins narrative with an explicitly atheistic origins narrative, so one never knows.
The fundamentalist churches, on the other hand, while maintaining a high view of Scripture, are abysmally incapable of correctly interpreting even its most basic typology. This leads to their failure to understand that the Jewish temple services pointed forward to Christ and were obviated by Christ's death on the cross which, in turn, leads to their futurist interpretations of such prophetic passages as Daniel 9:25-27, and the belief that the temple services will be re-instituted and a future anti-Christ will abolish them.
The Adventist niche consists of having a high view of Scripture while being able to correctly interpret its typology and prophetic passages. This, along with the Spirit of Prophecy, distinguishes us from every other denomination in the world today.
"...Christians are hesitant to make arguments in support of the faith because they believe such arguments may later turn out to be wrong. Only, it is inevitable that some such arguments will later turn out to be wrong, and if that is going to stop us making arguments, we never will make any arguments. And the Darwinists have no such qualms; the ground is littered with discarded Darwinist arguments and claims...." --David Read
That would be because testing hypotheses is part-&-parcel of the scientific endeavor, while Christian creationists burden their claims by identifying them as tests of faith . Once that line is on the sand, it's Christianity itself that fails when creationists' arguments prove wrong. Perhaps worse, there are victims whose faith was judged by whether they agreed w/ ideas which never should be equated w/ Christianity.
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"be reverent in behavior, not slanderers nor enslaved to much wine, teachers of that which is good" titus 2:3
wow..Posted: very succinct. People can't bear looking at stripped down truth, for we find ways of hanging desperately to comforting apron strings of old, traditional, hoary stories of flawed people before us.
Hopeful, particular arguments against Darwinism are not part of the Christian religion, much less "tests of faith." The argument about moths and camouflage that Loren deems so embarrassingly incorrect is not a "test of faith" that everyone has to believe, its just an argument that one particular tract-writer made in one little booklet.
But the point is valid that we need to be better apologists for the faith, and not confuse apologetical arguments in favor of the faith with the faith itself.
Loren, Thanks for an honest account of your internal meanderings around this difficult topic.
By the way, there are a multitude of creationist scientists to turn to. Look a wee bit harder and you're sure to run into them.
Here are two quotes from a biology class I took about five years ago from an evolutionist professor:
"Evolution is a collection of bad science."
"We don't claim that any fossil we have today is an ancestor to any living creature."
I have more in my notes at home, but these I have memorized. He was really into making corrections in textbooks by working with the publishers. He told us horror stories about errors and hoaxes that are supposed to "back up" evolution, that continually make it into textbooks.
Honestly, as Christians, do we have time to answer every question without neglecting the work we should be doing? Why not just take God at His word? Let scientists who are Christians answer the things we are unable to answer.
You touched on the bottom line, "I believe that God created the universe. I believe that He is quite powerful enough to have done the job in six consecutive days..."
I thought there was an edit option.
Added thought:
Natural selection always selects "out" DNA. We lose the DNA of the creatures who do not survive. The only thing that natural selection does is reduce genetic options.
It's simple as Christians to reject arguments that do not make sense. We can do that even if we are not scientists.
Unfortunately we have taken ancient oriental poetry and claimed it to be a God-spoken and indisputable account of the origin of all things.
Far wiser to take the Genesis story as a reflection on the power and authority of God. To demand that to be Adventist is also to anti-science is a lose-lose situation.
Chrstiane,
Absolutely. For thus of us that can't read the Bible in it's original language, we must accept on faith what the translators and interpreters tell is it literally says. Likewise, for those of us who don't have PhDs in at least three science fields, we should not think about science for ourselves. Really, it doesn't really matter what any scientists think if they don't agree with what we are taught the Bible really says. Just accept the fundamental literal truth on faith and ignore the science. It will all be shown to be wrong in the end. You can bet on that.
And of course there is never any new genetic information in DNA. The initial creation had the greatest diversity in plant and animal life. Even after the flood, the genetic pool has been on a downhill drift. Life on earth is getting simpler and simpler and will ultimately end up as single-celled creatures which will then die out completely. The final stages of this will take about 1000 years after the Advent. This is the true wages of sin. It is only because we as humans can be saved, and then resurrected perfect in mind and body that we have the hope of being something more than slime mold.
There are only two options: Either accept without questioning; or question without accepting.
This may work for those who know little of science but when there are so many contradictory explanations, why must anyone take a position which may be overthrown with the next discovery? If one adopts a position that the earth can be no older than 10,000 years, he will have little or no influence convincing somone who is much more knowledgeable on that subject.
Just as one who attempts to explain the SDA "truths" as he sees them, will have difficulty explaining them to a Bible scholar who has studied this subject for a lifetime. When some Adventists attempt to convince non-SDAs that the seventh day is the only right day to observe, using favorite Bible texts in support can be equally countered with NT texts that say for everyone to "be convinced in his own mind" and that no day was ever given to Christians to be considered holy. Be careful who you talk to!
Elaine
Marshall,
What a creative explanation! How comforting to have the certitude that one day all but 144,000 Adventists will become slime mold!
Elaine
I understand Christiane's amusement at the discovery of fudging and fiddling with real science, and the uncomfortable situation that creates for genuine Evolutionists.
However, as a Christian philosopher I am also embarrassed by the outrageous claims of some Creationists, and the unscientific assertions many non-evolutionists expect us to accept.
We are at the top of a very slippery slope when we insist our own understanding of Genesis the the only acceptable view. I know, Pastor Wilson, that we elected you to lead, but we do not all choose to follow when the way is unsafe. A belief in Literal Verbal Inspiration is okay on the freeway, but I want a clearer, wiser and more mature belief to get me around the dangerous corners on the byways and muddy tracks of my life.
There has always been a primitive and backward faction of the Seventh-day Adventist Church that has stood in opposition to high-quality literature. English teachers in our universities and academies are frequently disparaged for assigning fictional writings to students. Shakespeare's Hamlet is one of many examples of a literary work that this faction finds offensive, because the play contains bad language, depicts ideas that are not doctrinely sound, and is essentially a work of fiction. If our English teachers have to date been willing to bear the brunt of criticism for assigning Hamlet, they have not dared assign J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye and other important literary works that students in non-Adventist schools get to read.
Talented and gifted Seventh-day Adventist writers, for fear of reprisals, do not attempt to write high-quality fiction that might edify the church. We have seen that embedding Bible studies in a preachy storyline is the only safe option for a Seventh-day Adventist writer. R.E. Finney's Conflict on the Campus, which is obviously void of literary merit, is an illustration of what we can ruefully characterize as the definitive Seventh-day Adventist fiction genre.
The consequences of what this primitive and backward faction of the Church has accomplished are devastating. There has never been a Flannery O'Connor cultivated and encouraged in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Many Seventh-day Adventists who are starving for literary sustenance of a Christian nature are resigned to reading The Shack--a mediocre work--whose author is ironically celebrated throughout Christendom. If you feel called to literary ministry, the Seventh-day Adventist Church remains largely unhospitable to your contributions.
It is striking to note the commonalities between Seventh-day Adventist critics of literature and those Seventh-day Adventist critics of science. Both groups attack teachers and the material that they teach. The agitation of both groups has discouraged young people from becoming writers and scientists. Both groups, respectively, presume to know more about literature and science than writers and scientists. Both groups are profoundly impoverished in culture and intellect and frustratingly difficult to tutor. Both groups are treated with kid gloves and pandered to by Church leaders. And both groups, paradoxically, are heterodox in their theology.
I pray that the Seventh-day Adventist Church will do better in making operational its beautiful theology regarding spiritual gifts. There are many parts of the Body. There are many spiritual gifts that deserve to be cultivated and encouraged. Everyone's contributions are entitled to respect.
Phil: Many years ago, when I was at Andrews University, I wanted to do a book report in Freshman Comp. on Catcher in the Rye, which I had read in high school. My teacher winced. In hindsight I realize I'd put him on the spot. He didn't have a problem personally, but allowing that would have been awkward for him. So he kindly suggested I choose something else.
I did my report on Darkness at Noon.
Hopefully it wasn't prophetic :-).
Loren: scientists do sometimes talk about evolution as though it were a willful process
Agree with that observation, and that it is a silly, if not lethal, flaw. I hear eminent biomedical scientists, in their interviews for the benefit of magazine TV and radio, refer to bacteria and viruses having behaviours that amount to strategies for survival.
"We really don't have that much more information on the origins controversy than in 1952." - David Read - Fri, 08/19/2011 - 12:51
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David, I'm an IT Consultant, not a scientist, but to me your statement sounds akin to me saying that we really know little more about computer processing than we did in 1952...
Referring to Adventists who embrace the orthodox beliefs of the Church as "primitive," "backward," "impoverished," and other such ad hominen terminology is quite presumptuous and elitist to say the least (apologies if it seems that turnabout is fair play). Furthermore, to determine that once someone embraces evolution they are of some kind of mindset that has reached a higher truth is obviated by those of us who were once evolutionists and became convinced of the Genesis account through faith along with an awareness of the many problems in evolutionary theory that really are the giant elephant in the room.
While it may give comfort to a self-aware intellect to accept the reigning paradigm, certainly an examination of history will demonstrate that the existence of a paradigm does not in and of itself establish the existence of known truth.
Pardon The Interruption:
Never read the book.
Was Nan a SdA preacher's daughter?
Or was driving a 1938 Sedan in 1952 just another embellishment of how SdA's sacrifice material goods for the cause.
(BTW, what car do you drive Pastor Seibold? If it's newer than 1998 are you and your colleagues sacrificing enough? Presumably, you received the memo about revival and reformation.)
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Wouldn't it be nice to allow God to be God and be at peace with Him whatever you conceive Him to be, or even not be?
Remembering the gray, diesel Mercedes; gray for modesty and it kinda went with the gray suits; diesel for economy; Mercedes ... ?
Charles,
The book doesn't say what Nan's father did. It doesn't even say the car was a '38—I was going by the picture. It refers to it as a middle-aged vehicle.
My best car is a 2002 with 100K plus miles on it. Is that acceptable for a pastor?
Loren
Charles,
My take on the car is that maybe it's depicting a 'jalopy'--what old movies always show students driving.
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"be reverent in behavior, not slanderers nor enslaved to much wine, teachers of that which is good" titus 2:3
From many of your posts it's very clear that you do agree with historical SDA teachings and methodologies. You are clearly calling for change. What I have not been able to conclusively determine is what changes, concessions, admissions you want the church to make to show it truly understands the meaning of love and what God wants us to do. Here is what I think (not just from this post) that if you could make the call you would have the church do:
1. Publically admit error in the interpretation of a literal six (6) day creation and acknowledge that the earth is more than 10,000+ years in age.
2. Offer a public apology for the historical discrimination against women and accelerate initatives such as ordaining women pastors and appointing women to key leadership positions to level the playing field.
3. Accept homosexuals into the church w/o appealing to them to change their lifestyles; eventually support and perform gay marriage ceremonies.
4. Cease from pointing to the Papacy as the structure Satan used to change the original day of worship and will continue to use to bring about end time events (I think sometimes the distinction is not made between those who are purposely misleading the masses and those outstanding Catholic citizens who are giving their all in mankind's behalf)
5. Cease from teaching that there is a need to embellish any one day of worship at all.
6. Abandon the Spirit of Prophesy?
7. Continue to fund SDA universities BUT not enforce that those in its employment must uphold SDA principles if they do not believe in them and/or renounce those biblical teachings altogether.
Have I concluded correctly? If yes, where would these steps leave the church? If I have misinterpreted what you want please enlighten? thanks.
Pastor Seibold,
Regarding your car.
It depends if it has working air conditioning, if your parishoners wish they had your car or feel sorry for you and leave food at your door, or what the conference/union prezzies drive.
Never saw a conference/union prezzie drive a jalopy.
Or their kids in college.
And everyone should see the cars in the GC parking lot.
Keep the faith and the money flowing.
It's off the topic to talk about cars. But since Charles Parker is too critical on the car topic. I want to share what I see. I work for an American financial company. At my work's parking lot, there are thousands of cars, and most are in the later models. Imports. Japanese and German. I went to visit where my daughter works. In California. The parking lot hardly has any fancy cars, typical 10 year or so old cars. The nicest one on the lot may be a newer Camry.
Church employees salaries are not much (compare to what my company pays), they are not bad, I would say they are in the middle. Employees have some little perks, but pretty modest; their perks are token compared to what my company spend on employees' rah rah parties.
If I have misinterpreted what you want please enlighten? thanks. By onelson,
Start focusing on the Christian Gospel of Christ and drop the emphasis on all this peripheral stuff that has nothing to do with Christ's message or meaning. The insular obsession with being unique in the Christian world has nothing to do with "go into all the world and be witnesses".
"Witness" implies personal experience with the risen Christ, not a list of suppositions, ranging from how God created the universe, to what to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Neither is Christianity about herding the world population into a narrow tube of conformity based on 19th century North American culture and squeezing out cookie cutter adherents devoid of cultural depth or personality.
The "aha moment" comes when we realize that we go solo into that "great final exam," without any "cheat sheets" provided by the "Spirit of Prophesy" or any other human support system whether it originates in the Vatican or Berrien Springs. God meant for us to use the brains He gave us, and His Spirit to guide us through the maze.
The object of this exercise we call Christianity is not to see who was right and who was wrong when it all comes to a screeching end; but who actually made it to the foot of the cross.
"The "aha moment" comes when we realize that we go solo into that "great final exam," without any "cheat sheets" provided by the "Spirit of Prophesy" or any other human support system whether it originates in the Vatican or Berrien Springs. God meant for us to use the brains He gave us, and His Spirit to guide us through the maze."
Berrien Springs should read Silver Springs. That's what happens when one tries to be clever . There's always something that comes along to put us in our place. But to think of it, Silver Springs or Berrien Springs - it's all the same thing, especially these days when our centers of learning and progress are being pulled back under the umbrella of uniformity - one hand washing the other.
I have great peace of mind. I have no need for the mental gymnastics to wrangle the scientific evidence to fit the old theological paradigm.
Onelson, did you even read the article above? Or do you just recite your litany at any convenient opportunity? Most of your list of nonsense has nothing to do with the article Loren wrote, and in some cases you accused him of promoting exactly the opposite of what he said. It appears you just have a bunch of hangups, inherited from some paranoid website perhaps, that you trot out and accuse people of. I always wonder about people like you: do you even know anything about Jesus' life and teachings? Do you have any idea what he lived for and died for? Hint: it wasn't so we could have a checklist that gets you into heaven, as approved by a bunch of stuffed suits in Silver Spring. It wasn't for the promotion of a right-wing agenda that you got off of talk radio.
Charles, my A/C does work, but the brakes vibrate, and I need new shocks. There are quite a number of scratches and dings on the body. Plus, I leave it dirty so no one is tempted to envy me. I can assure you that my conference president drives a much nicer car than I do. I think my holiness is safe in the car department.
LGS
Sigh - nicely written Loren.
It was the pushing of books like this, combined with the discovery that the situation was much more complex than the books presented, that lead me to believe as an 18 yo that the SDA Church was being led by people who were either ignorant or stupid or dishonest.
As I got older, I realized it was being led by people who can't afford to loose face - that there is an corporate culture that does not value truth, but instead values stability and reverence for the sacred cows - and that people who did not pay homage to the sacred cows quickly got turfed out.
Furthermore most of the Church members like the feeling of belonging and being special so much that they want the leaders who maintain this culture.
Ted Wilson is just the tip. He is supported by a big base of such people.
I left once I realized that the denomination was not fixable, that the reforms of the 1980's and 1990's were being swamped by the lying and stabbing of the administrators - and that the members wanted it that way.
/Bevin
Sounds like your car is more than 6000 years old!
Maybe it really is brand new but God made it look older than it is!
Having recently celebrated the 100 yr anniversary of the LLU Medical School it is interesting to note how God and EGW led out in the establishment of LLU. (clearly a "scientific institution") I don't think God was "misguided" in that effort. Ted Wilson's nephew will become an "alumnus" of that school soon as well as several of Ted's family members.
As we move forward as a church the tension between "faith vs science" will continue until the "author" of all science returns to someday make clear what we only "see darkly" now. In the meantime we as a church body must refrain from the temptation to be so inflexible and "darn sure" of our positions that we "eat our young" so to speak. As I have observed these threads over the past couple years it seems the same "polemics" always occur and little changing of positions ever occurs. The rhetoric seems to get quite "heated" and doesn't seem to ever reach "consensis".
I don't think EGW was overly concerned about "science" or she wouldn't have supported the establishment (directly) of LLU. I do think she was "evolving" in her understandings of many issues as she moved along in years. She wasn't "static" and we as a church need to "move along" as well and not "eat our young" or our church family in the process. As someone above pointed out we "don't have all the answers" and neither does the "scientific community" of which we all belong to one extent or another.
Clearly the "process" (Christlike or not) says more about our "Christianity" than the dogmas we defend.
I believe EGW would advise us to "keep looking up as we continue to move forward" and that if it "doesn't fit within the bounds of reason, I am afraid of it, I am afraid of it..."
Thanks Loren for a "retro" look at where we have come from and where we might be headed.
All the best
Fred
"We Adventists sowed the seeds of the current controversy a century ago when we innocently partnered higher education with our conservative Biblical faith."
And what a journey it's been. Loren, I love your juxtaposition of this 1952 piece with the tumultuous political climate on some of today's Adventist campuses. The loss of innocence is palpable and leaves one a bit nostalgic. However, I think history would soon reveal that the "good old days" were nothing more than the kind of fiction Finney produced. There have always been genuine conflicts of one sort or another on our campuses.
Nevertheless, an Adventist campus is a rewarding place to work. For every challenge, there are untold spiritual successes. Today's campus - viewed without the lens of the media - is not defined by the creation-evolution debate. It is just one of many contemporary issues pressing in on our young adults. And Adventist higher education - warts and all - gives us a chance enter this time their lives and journey with them.
Here's an observation: recently, freshmen streamed onto campus for orientation. The largest group of majors, by far, were biology hopefuls. Many of them pre-med, no doubt. Not all of them will make it beyond their first biology course, but many will. If Adventist parents are concerned about a faith/science controversy on campus, it's not evidenced in the biology department numbers. In fact, I would wager that Adventist parents and their children are more mesmerized by the potential of upward mobility than concerned about the dangers of science. What continues to water the seeds of this controversy - to continue your analogy - is not the stubborn resistance of a few rogue professors but the love affair of Adventists with the monetary returns of medicine. And I would further argue that it is not the science that undergirds medical training that threatens the church, but the sociological realities that take over once graduates have entered a particular socio-economic strata.
" it is not the science that undergirds medical training that threatens the church, but the sociological realities that take over once graduates have entered a particular socio-economic strata."
Which is why the church will always exempt the study of LLU "science" from the same investigation as such schools as LSU: the church needs well-paid professionals to constantly send the tithe dollars flowing into the church's coffers. Is there another explanation possible?
Elaine
Geo S. Believer
I intended for my response to go to Elaine for whom I have had some exchanges with on different posts. I forgot to put her name at the top when I made the reply, my mistake. However, In your zeal to show what a smart mouthed person you are you ignored the part that I stated I was not just repsonding to this post. I really do not appreciate your tone or innacurate accusations. There is a lot of dissatisfaction expressed on how the SDA church operates and yes I want to know what is specifically expected or hoped for in the way of change. The points I listed are some things that I think I see are being called for and that has nothing to do with any silly right-left wing agenda form any talk radio. I don't represent or support the stuffed siuts in Silver Springs you referenced so you can redirect that elsewhere. As for Jesus, he came for all of us, especially the worst of us. He set an example of self sacrifice, self denial, healing others, love and tolerance.....courtesies that were not given back to him in return. He gave us free will and he also provided guidelines for our standard of living. I'll stop here. I don't intend to get pulled into perosnal exchanges. I reiterate I want to hear exactly what changes are expected from the church instead of merely criticizing its faults.
Pastor Seibold,
Why is it always the males that have the intellectual crisis of faith?
And, what station is your car's radio tuned to? We will find something. We just need to look hard enough.
--Robert Jacobson
Robert:
No Christian contemporary, no rock and roll, hip-hop or country. I even gave up the polka stations - dance music, you know. You'll be pleased to learn that every preset on my car radio is set to NPR.
Loren
That liberal propaganda machine?! Why am I not surprised?
--Robert Jacobson
The South West Side of Milwaukee was largely Polish in the 1950's and mainly Roman Catholic.
They bought the senior priest a new RoadMaster Buick each year as soon as the new model came out.
People stood in line to buy the trade-in.
Closer to home: Pastor M. L. Rice the President of the Atlantic Union Conference and later the Lake Union Conference invested in carrying the note for SDA doctor"s Cadillacs. He also carried the note on a number of llimo's for undertakers of the Lake Union. (His wife was a prcaticing phyician)
One day a car salesman kidded him about his "Old Caddy!" Pastor Rice replied" "Son I own more Caddies that you have on your lot." He and dad were great friends. Dad drove a beat up Chevy while he was putting his childfen through their doctorates. Uncle Sam fortunately paid for mine.
Let's face it. Greed is not the only sin!, Pride and Selfishness lag way behind self righteousness.
Tom Z
Are we really males if we have intellectual crises of faith as me and many of my sistas have? Some of you men just don't know because you don't listen to us!
Josh, you are the best. I about split at your crack on the 6000 old car.
Don
Tom et al
When I was growing up in Takoma Park there was my parents, 5 kids and my grandmother in our house so my Dad bought a black 2nd hand "Caddy limo" which was big enough to get everyone into at one time. Later we had station wagons. One memory from those days was my oldest sister Nancy Eastman Marter picking me up from school and as we were driving into our driveway I had my head outside the window yelling at my cousins next door and Nancy started putting up the "electric window" and nearly choking me to death!! She also broke my arm when she was "baby sitting" me and we got into a wrestling match and I lost. She always told me I should thank her for getting me started "early" in my orthopedics career!! :>)
Those old "Caddies" were really something.
Fred
Oooh, there *are* some hard cases hereabouts! That leaves me with one option, only, that's to give the poor possums a good stir.
Here's the audio http://www.abc.net.au/rn/backgroundbriefing/stories/2011/3294405.htm of Amos Oz talking about the dangers of fanaticism.
I have been giving away too many free up-ticks, too. No more Mr Nice-guy! The electronic record will henceforth show that I am relentless in my denunciations.
“We have a lot more information now, but less peace of mind.”
To get back to the actual focus of the article. Information is a two edged sword. In my opinion Neo-Darwinists have a lot more to lose sleep over than Creationists when it comes to information. One of the greatest peace destroyers for atheistic/agnostic evolutionists that I can think of is information itself. The amount of information in the DNA database of the cell should cause every materialist to stay up all night – and Darwin to roll over in his grave (I recommend the book 'Signature in the Cell'). Why, it's enough to even make Richard Dawkins entertain the thought that 'aliens did it!'
On the Adventist front - if one has a higher-critical approach to revelation/ inspiration, and a jaundiced view of orthodox Adventism, then there’s a whole lot more than the claims of theistic evolutionists to disturb the peace. I am not a skeptic or a dogmatist. In my humble opinion though, the Biblical and scientific information supporting the Adventist interpretation has far outpaced the information supposedly to the contrary. If it’s possible to be a glass 80% full Adventist, then I am at least that. Of course... you need to be getting your information from a lot more sources than just Spectrum magazine.
Interesting, Victor. DNA is indeed an extremely complex mechanism, and I think some have actually suggested that it came from aliens. Which I've always found laughable: you can credit aliens, but not God?
I agree there is evidence on the creationist side, but I'd like to hear more about how the scientific evidence for creation has outpaced that for evolutionary science. That claim goes against the conventional wisdom, and I'd be interested to hear you defend it.
Loren
Creationism is static, it cannot change the basic concept. All other scientific explanations continue to change with new information, which is the role of science: never static, but always amenable to new and better explanations. How can that compare with the concretization of creationism?
Elaine
Mr. Dawkins in his own words.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/post/attention-governor-per...
Adventism values unfolding understandings of truth.
Religious dogma holds to fixed, simplistic ideas and repeats them over and over. Not seeking to advance knowledge, but simply to find new ways to try to back up what has been "fixed" in time.
Science has a commitment to unfolding understandings of truth. Embracing new understandings, letting go and of and/or modifying old ones. It doesn't profess to be 100% correct for all time. Positions are argued for and "fought" over, but in the rough and tumble new information, new discoveries, new ways of understanding things emerge as our capabilities and knowledge increases.
The science model is a far more effective and authentic way to approach things, than a backward looking dogmatic religious approach. This is at the heart of the controversies that we are facing. The details will be argued repeatedly with few convinced to change to the other position. But the foundational issues are little discussed. The nature of understanding and the nature and styles of thinking have such richness of insight and areas to explore. The great philosophers were onto something!
One day, the ID and creationism will only be found in history texts, just as the discovery of Galileo was once made a laughingstock but became accepted science, creationism will be only a relic demonstrating the beliefs of ancient peoples only believed in isolated cults. It will be discussed as such ancient beliefs that man can never go to the moon, or that of flat-landers.
Elaine
"Adventism values unfolding understandings of truth."
I've heard this from others, Michaela, but aside from some cautious expressions of it among college professors, it's not been my experience of our denomination. I think it may have been true at the beginning, but no longer. I'm wondering how and where you see that happening?
Loren
Regarding information and Stephen Meyer's book Signature in the Cell, Jan Long and I are having a conversation about the feasability of that argument in the comments to the latest Summer Reading Group article. It was also discussed last year in the comments to one of Jan Long's Finding Common Ground on Genesis articles. I link to that older discussion in my comments on the Reading Group article. (Too hard to put the link here with my iPad.) Also, wasn't Signature in the Cell reviewed by someone on the Spectrum blog?
--Robert Jacobson
Elaine, But it's not exactly like that. We all know that scientific investigations are explorations of someone's intelligent guess.
The guess is held out as a possible truth, but the ensuing investigation is an attempt to prove the hypothesis wrong. If the investigation fails to prove it wrong, then the scientist poses questions for further investigation.
This implies that nothing was proven to be true; only possibly true. Each new investigation into the same phenomena, behavior, organism or other scientific observation always ends with possible "truths" and is again peppered with questions for further investigation.
Therefore, nothing is thought to be "truth" in science. It is like the mirror inside the mirror inside the mirror. It never ends.
Anyone looking for truth in science will find only more questions.
Creationism is a totally different paradigm. It is held up as truth, believed in faith. Faith then searches the creation for evidence--indeed is sure that it is there.
Creationists also ask questions, but they are more focused. ( I suspect that creationist scientists are more likely to find cures or answers to practical questions. Reason being that they are more likely to refrain from going off on useless tangents. Their faith keeps them grounded. Of course this is just my own untested hypothesis. But I digress.)
It may seem as though creationists stay the same, but if you look a little deeper you'll see that's not exactly the case. Creationism is like a maze. The destination is already there. The creationist knows that, but needs to find the evidence to get there. She asks questions too in the same manner, but for a different reason. The journey may be fun, but she knows where she's going.
Her evolutionist colleague has no idea where she's going or how she will get there. She may not even care where she ends up. She's all into the journey.
Isn't the main goal of those who side against creation to trash the sabbath?
Just a thought: "50% of observers fail to see what they are not looking for. "
You may have seen something similar. But it's a relevant point in the comparison between creationists and evolutionists. Watch the little video on the page:
http://www.articulate.com/rapid-elearning/what-everybody-ought-to-know-a...
Jim, I find it increasingly odd that those who believe in a literal 6-day creation keep banging on about how the 10 Commandments support it, and that to undermine creation is to undermine the 4th Commandment. What about the account of the commandments in Deuteronomy 5?
12 “Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the LORD your God has commanded you. 13 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 14 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns, so that your male and female servants may rest, as you do. 15 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day. (NIV)
I don't see any reference to a 6 day creation there... do you?
I'm very partial to evolution - and I love the Sabbath! Don't need any trashing of anything. Just a commitment to thinking clearly, being honourable and kind to people, and seeking increasing understanding of ideas and people.
odyss..., I believe the Exodus set was the one that Moses smashed while in a rage. They were not easy to piece together and ancient Hebrew being a bit on the difficult side (it still causes scholars to scratch their heads) resulted in the second set having some variations in wording. There were characters left over which spawned numerous addenda. The historic proof lies in the actuality of Deuteronomy following Exodus. Do not trust any Bibles that put Deuteronomy before Exodus.
In the story in Deuteronomy, God SPOKE the words; and when finished, he wrote them on two tablets of stone. The preamble also states that God did NOT make this covenent with our forefathers.
There is a third story of the giving of the Law to Moses found in Ex. 31 regarding the sanctuary, and ending with reminding them again of the sabbath, and when He finished speaking with him upon Mt. Sinai, He gave Moses the two tablets of the testimony written with the finger of God.
Did God write in Hebrew? When did Hebrew become a recognized language as a branch of Sumerian? Since the story of the golden calf is found only in Deut. 32, are these not two or three repetitions of one event? Which tables of stone did Moses break? Or were there three different occasions of the Law being given Moses, plus none are exactly alike?
Dick, if you know the exact sequence of these events, please outline them as they are most confusing.
Richard Elliott Freeman's hypothesis: The Exodus version of the giving of the Decalogue was first written by the Priests, including the Sabbath command found later in Ex. 31. The golden calf story was told by the Elohist version in Ex. 32, as was the covenant code (Ex. 21-23). The Commandments are referred to again in Ex. 34, which is found in the Yahwhist version. Then another story of the law code is given in Deuternomy, called the Deuteronomist version.
This makes more sense as this story is repeated so many times, with variations, that no one writer would surely keep repeating himself and always differently. Accepting that there were several writers and nothing was eliminated when the Torah was written, this is the only concept that makes sense, IMO.
Elaine
Elaine, although I prefer my purely speculative chronology, it would be unwise to stand it up against a version that was researched.
Dick, I certainly agree that often the books of the Bible are assumed to be arranged in chronological order, a very faulty assumption. Just as there are many who believe that Genesis was written shortly after Creation, whenever it was, and the rest follow in direct sequence. Genesis, because it is the first book of the Torah, is also seen to be written by an onlooker, who copied all the activities down, which is why it must be accepted as divine and inspired writing. When did humanity become divinity to be both inerrant and infallible?
Elaine
Good point, Ody @ Thu, 08/25/2011 - 16:17
Don't hold your breath while waiting for an answer.
Sometimes "natural selection" allows viruses and bacteria to "pick up" DNA from other viruses that are nearby, including incorporating DNA that provides immunity or defense against antimicrobials. Sometimes this looks like increasing complexity.
Neo-Darwinism has taken an inexorable move toward the primary tenets of Creationism. The broad principles weigh in favor of creationism (the devil is in the anomalous details of conventional scientific wisdom). Darwinism was originally equated with gradualism. Now abrupt appearance and catastrophism have been adopted – both of which are hallmarks of Biblical creationism. The phyla appear abruptly in the Cambrian layer and no transitional forms follow. Paleontologists answer? Species must have formed in a miraculously rapid fashion leaving no evidence (of course this is a complete argument from empirical silence). The bottom line? Paleontology has proven Darwin’s theory false. The lack of fossil evidence was the greatest difficulty with the theory in ‘Origin of Species’ and still is. The fossil record is not imperfect as Darwin postulated, macro-evolution does not fit the fossil evidence, so paleontologists developed the Equilibria theory that must be taken purely on faith.
Darwinist’s used to view earth’s geology as uniformitarian. They now view it as catastrophic (a hallmark of creationism). One of the great catastrophes that they theorize, killed off more than 90% of life on earth. Sound like the Biblical catastrophe? That’s because it was.
Darwin stated plainly that if any biological organ system could be found that could not be shown to have developed in slow evolutionary stages - then his theory would absolutely collapse (this is why the eye gave him nightmares). With the advent of modern technology our knowledge of living systems has become a veritable bottomless pit of complexity. For Darwin the cell was just a gelatinous blob. Now we know that it contains a higher order of self-replicating information technology and complexity than we would ever be capable of devising, let alone fathoming. Specified information only comes from intelligence. The neo-Darwinian mechanism purportedly capable of producing macro-evolution (natural selection/genetic mutation) has proven incapable of creating thoroughly new genetic information sufficient to create new orders of life. Darwinism is dead and has been pronounced so for decades.
Astrophysicists used to believe that the universe was eternal. A very convenient way of leaving God out of the equation - until Einstein and the big bang. We now know the universe had a beginning – a singularity, a first cause. In a desperate attempt to escape the theological conclusion, Stephen Hawking now says the universe came from nothing - willing to believe in even nothing, rather than God. The anthropic principle has increased by magnitudes. Not only is our place in the universe mind-bogglingly conducive to life – but intelligent life! We are on a planet designed specifically to make conscious observation and understanding of the workings of the universe possible – down to the finest placement of our moon producing perfect observational solar eclipses. The result? Since our intelligent/anthropic bio-sphere defies all probabilities, scientists must develop the multi-verse theory to explain it. Of course there is absolutely no empirical evidence for such a preposterous idea. Since our universe is inexplicable we must invent a multitude of other inexplicable universes to explain it?!
Secular scientists claim to know there is no God – yet they still don’t know where the majority of the universe’s matter and energy resides (dark energy and dark matter). They don’t know why the universe doesn’t just collapse into oblivion. Something unseen is holding it all together and rather than place faith in God, they place faith in invisible matter and energy that hasn’t been proven to exist. Of course at great expense they are trying to prove it does (and that life arose by chance on Mars etc.).
Finally, one of the last remaining anomalous evidences for a long age of the earth is radiometric dating (many other physical observations weigh in favor of a young earth). Even this sacred cow of materialism is beginning to be seriously questioned. C14 found in coal and diamonds, Helium found in granite – these and other new radiometric discoveries have brought the conventional age theory into question. The discovery of collagen, hemoglobin, and blood cells in fossils purporting to be millions of years old – the resurrection of bacteria in amber and salt formations, likewise of supposed millions of years in age, is the veritable icing on the cake when it comes to overthrowing the conventional view of the earth’s age, and the age of life on it.
Victor David,
I do not doubt your skills in cut-and-paste hobby,
but I'm wondering, how much do you understand of the contents of the text you sent today.
Pauli Heikkinen
Pauli,
If I could of saved some time I would have cut and pasted. But no, its all original. Thanks for the copmpliment. How much do I understand? As much as I've been able to assimilate while teaching the creation vs darwinism controversy to grown adults of every persuasion and educational level for 17 years. I understand enough to know the Biblical account is true. Of course I do admit my bias - I am a Seventh-day Adventist.
I almost forgot. Abiogenesis has been virtually disproved. Not only is it statistically ridiculous - but conventional wisdom has come to the conclusion that the primitive earth was a very inhospitable place indeed; more harsh than even the world of the Miller-Urey experiment. After all, that experiment only proved that intelligent life forms could create an environment that produced amino acids ( incapable of leading to life), and then take them out of that destructive environment and preserve them for examination. Conventional wisemen have moved the hypothetically prototypical spawn from the 'warm little pond' and stuffed it deep down into a supposedly safer geothemal vent where it still couldn't survive without a complete ecosystem - even if it was spontaneously generated like medieval maggots from meat.
Ad hominem becomes you,
Victor
So many claims for disproving long earth, but where is the reproducible model for creationism? If the SDA sponsored Georesearch Science Institute has failed to come up with a model, how can it be adopted? Only by belief; yet those believers constantly are trying to "scientifically prove" it is viable. "Show me the money."
Elaine
Victor David, how do you explain the correlations between radiocarbon dating and dendrochronology and lake varves, which show the Earth and life are at least 40,000 years old, with no Flood apparent?
Orthodox Adventist’s place their faith in Scripture – irrespective of conventional wisdom or scientific models. Adventists are a prophetic movement of The Book – not a scientific movement based on the scientific method and man’s faulty interpretation of the forensic and experimental data (plausible model or not – as though the Darwinian model is plausible).
Adventists are not the only apologists to have waded into the shallow waters of erroneous argument or bad logic to try and lend scientific creedence to their point. Darwinism’s history is littered with cover-ups, con jobs, fakery and faux pas’ galore. Its textbooks are still filled with just-so stories abandoned by honest evolutionists long ago. You don’t have to go back to the 50’s to find such examples.
Conventional wisdom, and so-called scientific fact, will always contradict Biblical truth to one degree or another. This is no surprise in a fallen world, filled with sinfully selfish beings, partially ruled by a fallen angel of the highest order. Since Darwinism (atheistic or theistic) is diametrically opposed to many of the most fundamental claims of inspiration, the answer is clear – you must place your faith in one or the other, you can’t have it both ways. Even Richard Dawkins, a modern priest of evolutionary Baal, is astute enough to recognize this.
What scientific evidence is there that the 2nd coming will occur? Our primary evidence is Scripture not observation. Although the prophet Peter (in Scripture) tells us that the universal flood of Noah is evidence to support the fiery 2nd coming claim – most do not believe in the universal flood either. Is it not ironic that many theistic evolutionists and higher critics within Adventism have come to believe in a localized flood. Do they dare to express skepticism regarding Peter’s prophesied evidence for the 2nd coming as well?
Science was not 100% in favor of the prophetic message of Noah in his day. There was no scientific model available to explain this predicted event. Rain had never been observed, and enough water to cover the earth was nowhere to be seen. On the other hand, there were some tangible evidences available to support Noah’s prophetic claims. Noah’s faith decision was not based on nothing more than voices in his head. All of Noah’s contemporaries knew that Adam was smarter than any man who ever lived (was the only man lacking a navel and a rib) - their fathers and grandfathers knew him personally before he died. For twenty years or so Noah told everyone that he was building a boat for his prophesied family that didn’t exist – even though nobody had ever fathered children at his advanced age before. Lo and behold, he miraculously begat not only one, but three sons to take on the boat. The angels guarding the entrance to Eden still remained. The ‘Sons of God’ could probably approach closer to this portal than the ‘Sons of Men.’
The men of that day knew Noah was a godly man. They were deeply convicted by his preaching (just as surely as the Pharisees were by John the Baptist’s words). But they developed an aversion to the proclamations of inspiration. They placed more credence in conventional wisdom and the scientific conclusions of their day. When the endangered created kinds walked dutifully up the gang-plank, the conventional wise-men received their last visible proof. By then it was too late – they had harbored skepticism, not faith, for too long. They believed the conventional lies. They couldn’t respond to truth even when it hit them between the eyes. The prophet’s final appeal fell on deaf ears.
Victor,
There are indeed a small proportion of the pro-darwin evidences that were shown to be wrong. Most however, have survived repeated attempts to discredit them and a LOT more evidence has been found.
All the pro-YEC/Flood evidence has been discredited, and at least been shown to be neutral.
Your arguments are the arguments of an ignorant, albeit sincere, person - knowledgeable respectable YEC scientists abandoned that approach decades ago.
/Bevin
So, Victor David, What is the answer to my question? Where is the error in the apparent correlations? The science is based on measurements, what can be observed. Why are the conclusions wrong?
"The men of that day knew Noah was a godly man. They were deeply convicted by his preaching."
Which chapter in Genesis is there any mention of Noah preaching? Again,
Adventists Assumptions.
Elaine
" 'The men of that day knew Noah was a godly man. They were deeply convicted by his preaching.'
Which chapter in Genesis is there any mention of Noah preaching? Again,
Adventists Assumptions. Elaine"
Elaine -- Not Genesis -- 2 Peter 2:5, "And did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, and he brought a flood upon the world of the unglodly;..."
Christiane
Peter, no less than all the NT writers, were adding to the original stories in
the Hebrew Bible. Which should make us wonder? Which, if any, are the correct and truthful stories? Or, do they simply get re-interpreted by a much later writer? How trustworthy is a book that is full of later additions?
Elaine
Elaine, I'm a sort of newcomer to this forum. I've posted before, but rarely. Your last post is interesting and made me realize that there is more to this discussion than meets the eye.
If we don't agree that the Bible is to be trusted, then we have no platform on which we agree. At that point, it makes posting on a Christian forum useless. There are too many levels where the discussion can lose focus.
I can find unbelievers anywhere where I can focus on building friendships--but not on arguing on an endless path toward confusion!
Victor David,
you wrote: "Noah’s faith decision was not based on nothing more than voices in his head."
That info is IMO not biblical. If you disagree, would you be so kind to tell the chapter and verse, where that kind of info is available.
Why not some vision? Writing on the wall?? Angelic visitation???
If Noah got info by "voices in his head", could it be that EGW's "I was shown" were actually "voices in his head".
Nowadays those voices in most cases can be treated with neurolepts.
In my Bible there is "God said to Noah", but one can say many things even by writing.
And God even by implanting ideas to human minds, without any sensory input.
Pauli Heikkinen
Christiane, welcome to Spectrum and the freedom to ask and answer questions. Is there a better format? Your pastor, your SDA friends?
Which part of the Bible can you trust: the OT? The NT? The two different stories of Creation; the two different stories of the Flood, and the many additions in the NT that are added to the Hebrew writers. So, who do you trust: the early writers, or those several thousand years later who changed the original stories?
Was Matthew changing the Hebrew version of Isaiah's prophecy of a young woman would conceive--when referring to a child born less than a year later; or of the conception of Jesus to a virgin, born half a millennia later? If both the OT and NT writers were inspired when writing, did the spirit of inspiration instruct them to contradict other writers?
Do all questions cease when one becomes an Adventist?
Elaine
"Do all questions cease when one becomes an Adventist?"
Elaine, Of course not. But if I felt my life's work was finding all of the answers, I would die in total confusion. I like to focus on one question at a time if possible. Unfortunately, I already have a tendency to take on too many tasks at once.
God has answered the cry of my heart for peace and a life focus. I have enough information for the journey and know where to get more if I need it (on my knees, in the creation, and in the Book). I understand that the writers of the Bible were human and fallible. But I do believe that the truth God wants me to understand as an individual still shines through, just as the Love of God shone through the human body of Jesus despite its limitations and flaws.
Just as any convicted and incarcerated innocent individual, God has been accused of things that can be "confirmed" by circumstantial evidence.
My husband often asks me if my mind ever sleeps. Deciding which questions to pursue is vital to my survival! Some of the things I consider when deciding which tasks and questions to take on are whether it is necessary, expedient, or whether or not it will take away from a more important priority.
I don't want any task that will distract me from finding new ways to treat fellow citizens of earth and heaven with love and mercy.
My faith has been established. God has answered prayers in miraculous ways in my life and He continues to bless me. He's taught me much about myself and I never cease to be amazed at the ways in which He works in my life.
The questions you bring up are interesting, but not questions I need to pursue right now.
There are times and places where these kinds of questions can be explored for those who want to.
I caution those who spend hours each day learning more about conspiracy theories (such as how to tell if your pastor is a Jesuit). Same for those who spend their lives trying to dissect contradictions in the Bible. Is this time spent taking time away from important tasks? Is it taking minds into twisted paths and muddying lenses with ... well, crap?
What happens to people who spend their time cleaning toilets all day? I think they may just dream about scrubbing toilets in their sleep.
Something to think about.
There are people whose faith needs nurturing and that's where my focus is right now.
God bless, Christiane
Christiane,
Doubts arise without outside interference. It is possible that many who comment here are retired and with more time, questions that may have long been buried can now be pursued. Many, like you, have no questions that are disturbing, and I agree that there are far too many needs around us that we should be meeting.
But, just like the planned distribution of G.C., should members simply participate without questioning the purpose and what needs they hope to answer? Should members express interest in how their tithes are spent? Or what is being taught in its schools?
These are only some of the topics discussed here and by far the majority of Adventists never read or comment here. It is like one's government: some are most interested in its laws, legislators and how taxes are spent, while others never question what their government is doing. Complacency allows leaders to operate without participation by its members.
Elaine
"But, just like the planned distribution of G.C., should members simply participate without questioning the purpose and what needs they hope to answer?"
That's an entirely different topic! Of course not. We need to be proactive about our faith and works, and know what we're participating in. That's where I put my energy.
But even in deciding where to put you energy and time demands priorizing. This Specrum site has discussed a great variety of questions affecting SDA members. There is no requirement for membership in any religious group to freely help when there are so many needs all around us. Religions have traditionally helped those in need, but with so many needs today, it is impossible for religious groups to meet them all, which is why the government assists in many cases: Hurricanes, earthquakes, etc., that all religions combined could not support.
Elaine
Very nice piece, with some food for thought - thanks.
Victor David, are you going to answer? If radiometric dating is so flawed, why is it confirmed by non-radiometric methods?
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