Archive for the ‘Origins Topics’ Category
Bernard Brandstater
Loma Linda University
Part 1: WHERE WE ARE: predicament and potential
Christians in the Seventh-day Adventist tradition have long assumed the importance of Creation. But I want to go further and plead for its centrality in Church life and witness. Creation should be central because major aspects of our daily existence are connected to it: how we view the world and reality, what we teach, how we worship, our task as disciples and gospel-bearers, and how others perceive us. If we give to Creation the centrality it deserves, we could see an Adventism with renewed vision and energy.
In the past we have kept Creation teaching somewhat in the background because we have been nervous about it. Presenting it convincingly requires competence in theology, but especially in science. People so equipped are rare, and we are hesitant to confront brilliant Nobel prize-winning scientists with a story that opposes them, defiantly in their face. Our biblical story of beginnings is told using simple words that dismiss their intricately devised theories. We quote fantastic miracles and an other-worldly, all-powerful God. How medieval and naive it sounds! Have we not heard of the Enlightenment ?
Continued below.<strong> Click on “Comments” if needed and ignore all the “Nic Samojluk says remarks. I have no way of deleting them! The entire documents was authored by Bernard Brandstater.
“The situation at the La Sierra University Biology Department is reviewed, including material recommended by the Biology Department. A comparison is made with the situation at Battle Creek College, and Ellen White’s response to the situation. For reference, read 5T 21-36.” Paul Giem.
Watch the video recording of Dr. Paul Giem’s lecture about the similarity between the Battle Creek College and the current situation at La Sierra University where the theory of evolution is being taught as the only credible explanation for origins.
Read also the interesting debate it generated in the pages of the Educate Truth Internet forum. I am selecting some of the comments and posting them below, but you might be interested in reading the debate in its entirety. Nic Samojluk.
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I received the following comments from Dr. Sean Pitman:
“There are no publications by creationists or intelligent design theorists in mainstream literature specifically promoting the need for intelligent design to explain various features of living things… except for one. That one paper was published by Stephen Meyer, in 2004, in the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. The title of Meyer’s paper was, “The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories” and can be reviewed here.
What is particularly interesting about Meyer’s paper, however, is the reaction to its publication by mainstream scientists. It wasn’t without passion, even anger, that’s for sure.
Dr. Richard Sternberg, the editor of the journal at the time, was subjected to harassment and discrimination in an effort to force him out as a Research Associate. In fact, NMNH officials demoted Dr. Sternberg to the position of Research Collaborator.
As an aside, note that Stephen Meyer has a new book out, Signature in the Cell that is excellent – the best I’ve personally read on the topic. I highly recommend anyone who is interested in such ideas to read this book. –
Sean Pitman
For further information on this story see:
http://www.discovery.org/a/2399
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“There have always been mad-men, but the 20th century was the bloodiest century in human history. Why? What changed? Why did the world suddenly find itself murdering millions of innocent people?
Is it possible that one specific idea influenced or provided a justification for the atrocities we know as Nazi Germany, the eugenics movement and abortion?
Is it possible that idea was Darwinian evolution?
Charles Darwin loved his wife and children. He paid his taxes and he never kicked his dog. But Charles Darwin had a big idea, and ideas have consequences.
Can we thank the advocates of natural selection for the deaths of millions of people? Or were their ideas twisted and misapplied? Dr. John West, Dr. Richard Weikart and Dr. David Berlinski present the evidence that seeks to resolve the question,
“What hath Darwin wrought?”
This 2-DVD set features the full television presentation and over ninety minutes of bonus features. …”
Read More:
https://store.afa.net/pc-10000578-65-what-hath-darwin-wrought-dvd.aspx
“In his first major initiative since becoming president, Wilson urged delegates to endorse a response to the 2004 Annual Council affirmation “that the seven days of the Creation account were literal 24-hour days forming a week identical in time to what we now experience as a week; and that the Flood was global in nature.”
Wilson also appealed to delegates to allow the General Conference to initiate a process to integrate the 2004 affirmation with the church’s current fundamental belief no. 6. This states that in “six days the Lord made ‘the heaven and the earth’ and all living things upon the earth and rested on the seventh day.” But the leadership now thinks it is too ambiguous on biblical origins.
The president said: “It is absolutely critical that we accept Scripture as it reads. Personally, and I know in the Seventh-day Adventist Church we believe, that the first 11 chapters of Genesis are not allegorical, not symbolic in some abstract way, but they represent an authentic, a true literal explanation of how God created this earth and also those events following creation, including a global flood of massive proportions.
Holding up a Bible he added: “We are facing a critical time. The devil is trying his best to undermine the very foundations of our beliefs that are derived from this Word.”
A succession of the denomination’s leading figures followed Wilson’s lead. Vice presidents Ella Simmons and Artur Stele, Ellen White Estate associate director Cindy Tutsch, and Adventist Review editor Bill Knott, all spoke strongly in favor of rewriting fundamental belief six.
Even Dan Jackson, newly elected president of the North American Division, who raised hopes in a press conference two days ago of a more tolerant approach to La Sierra University, which has been under fire for allegedly teaching evolution in science classes, said he was in “full agreement” with the change.
Ben Clausen of the Geoscience Research Institute said that Ted Wilson’s statement put science teachers in Adventist schools in an untenable position. Quoting from the statement, Dr. Clausen said that “it is impossible,” to teach students “scientifically rigorous exposure to and affirmation of our historic belief in a literal, recent six-day creation.”
He added: “There are no available models.”
With very little time set aside for debate and only a few delegates publicly opposing any modification of the church’s current statement on creation, the proposals easily cleared the floor
The process will now begin to rewrite fundamental belief 6, according to the protocol established at the last General Conference session for amending the church’s statement of fundamental beliefs. This requires that any such revision should be lodged with the General Conference at least two years before the following session.
Geraty was also responsible for drafting the original fundamental belief 6 when he taught at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary thirty years ago. He adds:
“I fear that the proposal will result in a more literalistic interpretation that will serve to exclude members who love the church, believe in the authority of the Bible, but interpret it in harmony with accepted standards of interpretation for God’s revelation in both nature and Scripture.” …”
Read More:
http://www.spectrummagazine.org/blog/2010/06/30/creation_devolves_politics
“Established in 1874, Battle Creek College had undergone some challenges in its leadership. In 1881, a new president was installed who was new to the Adventist church. A greater emphasis was placed on the study of both the classics and the sciences to the detriment of Biblical instruction.
During the summer of 1881, Ellen White wrote a testimony regarding the College to be publicly read at the Michigan Conference camp-meeting. Instead, the testimony was read at the even more public venue of the General Conference session in December of that year. Relevant portions of that testimony can be read at my earlier posted quote. (The full message can be found at Testimonies for the Church, vol. 5, pp. 21-36.)
A main concern of Ellen White was the emphasis on the sciences at the expense of the Bible. She showed a special interest in maintaining a clear teaching on creation. “In God’s word alone,” she asserted, “we find an authentic account of creation” (5 Test., 25). She displayed a willingness to both publicly rebuke the leadership of the college and to warn church members of the problems at the College. “We can give,” she memorably warned, “no encouragement to parents to send their children to Battle Creek College” (5 Test., 21). She proposed that if the College was not returned to the Biblical-centered model, that the church should “sell it out to worldlings” and “establish another school” upon the “plan which God has specified” (5 Test., 25-26).
In light of the problems and the publicity regarding them, the College closed the following year. It was re-opened, however, on firmer scriptural foundations the following year. It flourished for a couple of decades, until once again it encountered problems with the handling of science in relation to the Bible. …”
More:
http://www.memorymeaningfaith.org/blog/2010/06/our-college-today-.html
Introduction
The reader may wonder why am I associating Finkelstein with Darwin and Hitler. The reason is simple. Hitler’s meteoric political rise came at a time when the Germany’s economy was in shambles. He managed to restore Germany’s prestige and economic power, and did a lot of good. Even Americans remember him for giving Germans and the world the Volkswagen. That was the only car my dad drove until he couldn’t drive anymore. Nevertheless, the world remembers Hitler not for the good he performed on behalf of others, but rather for his genocide of six million Jews.
We could say something similar about Darwin. He opened the eyes of scientists about the fact that species do not remain static as time goes on and environments change, but rather tend to adapt to those altered circumstances. Nevertheless, sooner or later, I believe that he will be remembered by the baleful influence of his iconoclastic theory which succeeded in turning people’s reliance in God as the source of life and everything that is good and beneficial. Actually, Hitler was philosophically indebted to Darwin for his survival of the fittest suggestion, which led him to posit the superiority of the German race.
Who is Israel Finkelstein?
At this point, someone may wonder who is Israel Finkelstein. He is the director of the Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University, and co-author of the book “The Bible Unearthed,” a “truly iconoclastic and provocative work” written with the overt objective of “challenging the fundamentalist readings of the scriptures” and suggesting that the lack of archaeological evidence tends to support his notion that “many of the most famous stories of the bible—the wanderings of the patriarchs, the Exodus from Egypt, Joshua’s conquest of Canaan, and David and Solomon’s vast empire—reflect the world of the later authors rather than actual historical facts.” (John Shelby Spong, back cover of Finkelstein’s book.)
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Introduction
Did Darwin support the belief in the spontaneous generation of life? The correct answer is “Yes” and “No”.
I will try to explain. If you are thinking about Charles Darwin, then the answer is probably “No”. At least not in an explicit manner in the book that made him famous: Origin of Species, although it could be implied by his theory and the way his followers and defenders have developed his theory of evolution after his death. Nevertheless, if you mean Erasmus Darwin, or what Charles Darwin wrote in a letter to his friend Joseph Hooker, then the answer is “Yes.”
And you might wonder who this Erasmus Darwin was. The answer is rather simple: He was Charles Darwin’s grandfather. But this shouldn’t surprise anybody, since at that time everybody believed in the spontaneous generation of life. It was Luis Pasteur who laid the theory of the spontaneous generation of life to rest with his famous experiment.
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Some years ago, the Associated Press informed the public that the renowned physicist Stephen Hawkin confessed that he had been wrong about Black Holes. If this is the case, then, could it be that he was also wrong about the Big Bang?
LONDON — After almost 30 years of arguing that a black hole swallows up everything that falls into it, astrophysicist Stephen Hawking backpedaled Thursday. In doing so, he lost one of the most famous bets in recent scientific history.
The world-famous author of a “Brief History of Time” said he and other scientists had gotten it wrong — the galactic traps may in fact allow information to escape …
As times goes on, and the theory about the big Bang is carefully scrutinized by many scientists, it appears that there might exists serious questions about the Big Bang theory, which a few years ago revolutionized the thinking of science experts around the world. Listen to what a serious scientist has recently stated:
A cyclic universe, which bounces through a series of big bangs and “big crunches”, could solve the puzzle of our cosmological constant, physicists suggest.
The cosmological constant represents the energy of empty space, and is thought to be the most likely explanation for the observed speeding up of the expansion of the universe. But its measured value is a googol (1 followed by 100 zeroes) times smaller than that predicted by particle physics theories. It is a discrepancy that gives cosmologists a real headache.
In the 1980s, physicists considered the possibility that an initially large cosmological constant could decay down to the value measured today. But this theory was abandoned when calculations showed that it would take far longer than 14 billion years – the time since the big bang – for the constant to reach the level seen today.
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Sometime ago, Adventist Today conducted a survey among Seventh-day Adventists teachers and discovered that almost fifty percent of them believed in the theory of evolution. I never dreamed that I would see the day when I would read this kind of report. Of course, we are not alone in experiencing this kind of trend towards Darwin’s explanation for origins. Many other Christians are moving in the same direction, as evidenced by the following report:
As a Christian, Curt Blankespoor believes in biblical infallibility. He accepts as part of his faith that the Bible is the inerrant word of God.
“God created the world and man in his own image,” said Blankespoor, a biology professor at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich. — a Christian institution of the reformed tradition.
His faith makes the answer to why we were created easy. But when it comes to how God created the world, the evolutionary biologist supports the scientific stance on evolution.
Blankespoor is typical of many Christian professors who teach science around the United States — they are teaching evolution, often with rigor equal to their colleagues at secular colleges. This may come as a surprise because of the controversy in the United States surrounding evolution in public high schools. Those who are the most vocal proponents of teaching alternatives to evolution — such as intelligent design — are conservative Christians …
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The more we learn about life in our universe, the less plausible becomes the theory proposed by Darwin that nature is the result of natural selection and the outcome of billions of lucky conincidences which resulted in life on planet earth.
The scientific evidence is better interpreted by a common design approach instead of common descent, for which there are no scientific evidence. No scientist has ever been able to replicate in the laboratory the theory of common descent.
Dogs continue to be catalogued as dogs, in spite of all the breeding that goes on. The same can be said about the Galapagos finches, the Great Britain moths, and the rest of of the major forms of life.
More than 500 scientists with doctoral degrees have signed a statement expressing skepticism about Darwin’s theory of evolution.
The statement, which includes endorsement by members of the prestigious U.S. National Academy of Sciences and Russian Academy of Sciences, was first published by the Seattle-based Discovery Institute in 2001 to challenge statements about Darwinian evolution made in promoting PBS’s “Evolution” series …
Read more: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=48911
Introduction
When I first heard the claim that the evolutionary theory displays impressive predictive power, my curiosity reached an all time high. and I shared this with Dr. Sean Pitman, who advised me to take such claims with a grain of salt. Sometime after this, I received en E-mail from him with excerpts from a variety of sources describing some of the questionable and even fraudulent activities connected with the recent discoveries of feathered dinosaurs.
I was shocked to learn that reputable publications, like the National Geographical Magazine, did participate in this type of sensational and irresponsible reporting in spite of the fact that a leading scientist from the Simthsonian Institute warned them regarding the questionable nature of the findings. I want to share with you a small sample of what is contained in the articles listed below, which I gleaned from the material I received from Sean Pitman.
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Following the Dover, Pennsylvania defeat by the Intelligent Design supporters, some individuals wondered whether there is any hope that the ID theory might somehow get rehabilitated by anyone. Well, there is in Loma Linda University graduate who is very optimistic about this challenge. His name is Sean Pitman, and I want to cite here a major portion of his exchange with one on the opposite end of this controversial issue.
Pitman’s argument was that if you were to find a polished granite cube, you would likely conclude that such piece of rock was the product of intelligent design. He labels this as the Intelligent Alone Hypothesis, since it would be hard to attribute the production of said polished granite cube to the random activity of physical laws. He further argues that such an hypothesis deserves the scientific label because it complies with the scientific requirement that it be subject to falsifying. If someone providing evidence that the random action of natural forces can produce such a granite cube, the hypothesis would be proven to be false.
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Introduction
A few years ago we were discussing the Intelligent Design controversy in a Loma Linda University Church small Sabbath School group, and the apparent defeat suffered by the proponents of this new theory in Dover, Pensylvania, where the judge presiding on the case ruled that the Intelligent Design explanation was not a scientific theory but rather an explanation supported by religious faith.
The Predictive Power of Evolution Explained
One reporter described the new theory as an “intellectual scam that calls itself ‘intelligent design,’ or ID.” One of the SS participants asked about the teacher’s opinion regarding this apparent victory of the supporters of Darwin’s theory of evolution, and he responded: “We have to admit that the Darwin’s theory has predictive power, which is what scientific theories are expected to do.”
What was the SS teacher referring to? To answer this question, let me quote how a news reporter described this predictive power of the theory advanced by Charles Darwin:
Where to begin? Well, first of all, proponents of ID point to what they insist are serious flaws in Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. The truth is that the theory is not only an overwhelmingly powerful explanation for how life on Earth manages to come in such a bewildering array of different types, but the only such theory in science.
Like any scientific theory, it can’t explain how every aspect of every organism came to be, but each time scientists find new evidence—fossils of dinosaurs bearing feathers; fossils of the mammals whose descendants are whales; the molecular structure DNA that carries traits from one generation to the next; the mutations that can alter DNA to introduce new traits—the case for Darwin’s theory has gotten stronger.
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Introduction
If you are employed by a medical facility, and there are several of those facilities in and near Loma Linda, then you might be familiar with some of the Decontamination Chamber devices available for use by hospitals and health facilities. Some of them are state of the art, and can provide excellent service for those in contact with microbes that can pose a threat to medical workers and patients. I have no need to tell you about the importance of those technological devices designed for physical decontamination.
Intellectual Decontamination
The objective of this posting is to talk to you about intellectual decontamination, and the local availability of a decontamination chamber which is located right here in Loma Linda. If you live near Loma Linda, you might be interested in the specific benefits you might derive from the use of such a facility. It is located on the campus of the Loma Linda University, and more specificly in the Mortensen Hall Amphitheater, situated on the northeast corner of Campus and University streets. It is open to the public free of charge every Saturday from 9:45 to 11:00 A.M.
How to Determine whether You Need These Services
There is an easy way to determine if you need the services of this intellectual decontamination chamber, and it can be done on a self-diagnosis basis. If you have been exposed to the dangerous effects of the evolutionary theory designed by Charles Darwin, and you have begun to believe that he might be right in his premises and conclusions dealing with common descent instead of common design and the age of the earth and life on it, then there is a good chance that you might benefit from submitting yourself to the services provided by this Loma Linda facility.
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