See?
You’re still trying to prove it was wrong for me to use the word “never”.
Dude, please stop being a sore winner and “take the ‘W’”!
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3 reasons:
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I am not an expert on glaciology or ice core analysis.
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Experts whom I do trust have published their findings in the peer-reviewed literature, and such findings support the theory that the ice was laid down over many 100s of thousands of years.
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None of the things you shared provides convincing evidence that the standard interpretation of ice cores is likely wrong, except perhaps in details that have little relevance to the overall scientific conclusions.
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Oh, did I say 3? I’m also just plain tired of debating individual points for which you will not accept the evidence I might have to offer. Oh, and did I say this already? I am not an expert in this area of earth science.
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Mea Culpa. I’m sorry I take it back, you are never right…er…according to……what did you say?
You need some new resources, like non-fiction! But I don’t really expect that from you. It’s seems you have decided to only believe what conforms to your preconceived beliefs. That is okay, your choice. I just hope that you are not trying to ‘preach’ this to those outside the the SDA church in hopes of making them into SDA’s. To continue to preach falsehoods as truths, rather than a personal opinion, is wrong, just purely wrong.
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What I could have said was as follows:
Okay. So you’re saying the pope wasn’t getting the job done and Jesus has now left his vicarage position to you? Well, I don’t believe you anymore than I trust the RCC. I know people who call themselves Christians just as you do but who are not nearly as strident and would never insist that their perspective on their religion is the right one. And I certainly don’t believe the unfalsifiable claim that you, or anyone else, can speak for Jesus.
The fossil record shows poor planning and even worse execution given all of the extinct species. Genetics also indicates a certain sloppiness in that there have been so many deviations from the plan in the formation of mutants.
No child would come to the counterintuitiveness of fundamentalist Christianity based solely on the evidence. Which is why most of the world’s adult population rejects much of it, and nearly everyone (99.99997% or so) specifically denies Adventism with all of EGW’s additional and unchristlike complications.
Not at all as I’ve seen no evidence of its existence except perhaps in some unspecified online comments sections.
I clearly said I do believe in the existence of a man called Jesus (well, actually his real name was closer to Joshua) and I don’t have a problem with him or with anything he purportedly said or did, particularly since I have no proof of anything he said or did. IOW, if anyone has a Jesus problem it’s those Christians who accept fantastic fables and fanboy propaganda over an almost complete dearth of facts about the man who purportedly founded their religion.
Which explains why so many are so reluctant to relinquish one of Christianity’s most cherished, and least rational, fantasies. A loving god cannot possibly allow such impressive intellect as theirs to waste away for the next few eternities.
As anyone who’s ever watched a second detective story knows, to have evidence is not enough. Even if a person holds a smoking gun in his hand, this isn’t proof of his having committed a crime. We have evidence of creation but what we can say about the creator is limited to the fact that he, she or it must also exist due the the law of cause and effect. But what we can’t and don’t know is if that cause is eternal or all knowing just because we have the 2,000+ year old boasts of superstitious men who claimed they were under his influence. There are other, simpler and more logical explanations if one doesn’t do the unscientific thing of believing he knows enough, and arbitrarily stops asking questions.
What I find impossible is acceptance of your antiquated, unscientific and dogmatic thinking. In fact, you’ve now audaciously contradicted your own holy book which says that with god, all things are possible. I’m convinced that using science we might one day be able to understand everything we now ignorantly refer to as being “supernatural”, just as science has explained so many supposed miracles in the past, provided we reject the belief that science can somehow be utterly without emotion and once we gainsay the notion that science is something less than one of our maker’s divine gifts.
IOW, and as I encouraged you previously, please just accept the “W” and leave me to my incorrigible doubts about Christianity.
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your original comment, that i was responding to, suggested you had something meaningful to add to the ice core debate, which is one of several fronts evolution has sustained serious damage in over the past dozen or so yrs that i’ve followed it…here’s your comment again:
you may know that Spectrum has been covering the ice core debate for some time…Andre Reis has highlighted many of the issues in my previous comment that have led to the hemorrhage of support for the view that ice cores prove deep time (they clearly don’t)…here are two Spectrum articles i’m aware of:
as these articles show, the ice core debate has advanced well beyond any point that can be described as an annoying scuffle over “details that have little relevance to the overall scientific conclusions”…i don’t doubt that Creation Science, decades ago, as it was developing its voice, wasn’t something anyone could take seriously…but the situation is far different now…as unbelievable as it may sound, the PhD’s, and others, who are now writing for several thriving Creation Science sites, are constructing a YEC view of things that is becoming more and more invincible…far from lying for Jesus, they are showing clearly that evolution doesn’t belong as a category of science…it’s deep time uniformitarian vision, that shapes and even predetermines essentially all of its conclusions, is becoming less tenable each and every year…
Good statements, Jim; but things are the way they are because of the way they are framed. SDA colleges and universities are all faith based institutions, and that base is framed by fundamentalist interests. The problem does not start with science, but with religion and the theology which interprets and supports it. There is a long line of SDA scientists that have left denominational employment, or who chose, in the first place, not to enter it while staying SDA; but joining them in line are a number of biblical scholars forced out of employment, or choosing to leave because of fundamentalist restrictions. I survived thirty years of being harassed and “gloved up” by administrators and board members because I was bold enough to take ownership of my SDA faith. Of course, my grievance committee, must be given their due; but there was self-interest driving some of that support. What I think must be done is to examine the way beliefs and evidences are framed. For example, framing data within philosophical materialism ignores the fact that what is out-framed are aspects of human life that give it meaning, and contribute to values. Unless, music, poetry, and other arts exist, and we can include religious content, our world has no meaning. Realizing the materialism is incomplete and must be extended because of evidence from the quantum world, demands reframing of everything responsible to Newtonian physics, which in a curious way supports an equally constrictive religious fundamentalism. Physics has encountered an enigma which demands imagination and new framing which does not exclude artistic and religious insight. Every past scientific theory must reexamine the way it frames the world. Religion must do the same; Perhaps, then, the framing of the fossil record by a short time-span demanded by a religious story turned into fundamentalist dogma, and a long time-span demanded by science, can be resolved and reframed to represent the values of each perspective, each concerned with value defined living rather than knowing. And here we meet Godel’s incompleteness theory.
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I’m late to the conversation. L. James Gibson, who is mentioned in this essay, wrote a nice review of Hayward’s excellent book for BRI: Reflections-73-January-March-2021-6.pdf (adventistbiblicalresearch.org). See p. 9.
The interesting review written by Clifford Goldstein, also mentioned by Hayward, can be found here: An Errant Journey | Adventist Review.
The “heretic hunters” were defeated in the adjudication, which many of us participated in, of the La Sierra University controversy back in 2010-2011. As a faith community, we affirmed the importance and necessity of Seventh-day Adventist scientists to teach mainstream science in science class in our colleges and universities. In addition, we cautioned our scientists to be careful about opining on the meaning of the biblical text, as that subject matter is outside of their formal area of expertise.
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Hm, I don’t think the second quote says what you interpret it as saying. It recounts the creation story. No where there does it say He created humans by just speaking them into existence. And if God created Adam and Eve then He created humanity. That does not necessarily mean He created all humans directly like He did with Adam.
He created all animals, but He didn’t speak them into existence. I know of no place in scripture where it says God spoke many humans into existence. The quote you use can easily be applied to His work in creating Adam and Eve. And it does not say He “spoke” then into existence.
I think we have a lot in common on basic beliefs.
Maybe it’s our definition of “perfect” that’s splitting hairs. Perfect as in no death, suffering, sin. I think we agree on the fact that these things didn’t exist. Not perfect in the sense that Adam would never accidentally trip or call his innumerable kids by the wrong names etc.
You’re a very detailed person I can tell lol and no it doesn’t say hurricanes but it does say a mist rose from the ground at night to water the plants and later it says no cloud had come over the earth so that by logical inference means no storms at all, including hurricanes .
I don’t believe the Bible teaches the universe is 6k years old. I know following the genealogy of genesis we get near that number but that had nothing to do with age of the universe from how I read the Bible. I likely believe the universe to be billions of years old and I don’t see anything in genesis to contradict that. Even the earth can be understood to be billions of years old, “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and the earth was without form and void”. Genesis does not say how long the earth stayed in this formless condition and I see no problem with that being billions of years before He created life on it.
All that said…I guess it comes down to what does “perfect” mean. Heaven will be perfect in sense that there is no death, crying, pain, hunger, suffering, fear, heat, bitter cold, sin, sorrow etc. will we ever burn food? Maybe, who knows…but to me the biggest issue is genesis describes eden as not having sin, and that is perfect to me. Heaven will also have no sin.
I agree with taking a plain reading and The biggest issue I had with the article is the word except in evolution implies about how we understand the Bible. It Changes it completely and I think on that we agree. Have a happy sabbath!
Hello, honestly I haven’t studied the subject in some years. But yes I studied evolution and geology I’m college. I also have researched geologist who believe that the flood caused much of what we see in the fossil record, geologic column, and disbursement of animals.
I am by no means an expert or even well versed, as most people are not. But I have looked at both sides and studied the subject. The examples you site could be used as evidence of the opposite. One theory is that all the continents were once connected in one large land mass. As the continents drifted certain animal populations split and ended up on different continents. Since the time for them to travel this distance is too Long, many creation geologist believe this is evidence is massive seismic shifts rapidly after the flood. There are animals which are only found in South Africa and South America. This could be explained by the earth’s surface being broken up as stated in genesis. Now I realize genesis doesn’t get into continental drift, but from all I’ve read it sounds like a plausible explanation for why animals are found in diverse places when they couldn’t get there naturally as you stated.
The real issue is that if we accept evolution then so many doctrines change.
One of the reasons I quit taking CG seriously is because, as usual, he tries to disparage the person with his ridicule. He rarely, if ever finds something provoking or challenging when the other person disagrees with him. He just gets plain nasty!
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what do you think of Gen 10:25:
And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg; for in his days was the earth divided; and his brother’s name was Joktan.
usually this is interpreted to refer to the Tower of Babel aftermath, when the people of the earth divided into various sectors…
but what if it means what it says, which is that the earth itself divided - that Pangea split into the continents we see today…Peleg connotes sailing, and also bivouac tents…maybe people started sailing and living in improvised shelters because they were suddenly stranded by large, endless bodies of water…
You’re gracious; I will accept the W. 
I should have said as a Christian, not for Christianity. I don’t speak for the Pope, or any others except my self.
Christianity, yes, but there is a tendency to believe in God. See Vox, Dec 18, 2014: Are kids born with an inmate belief in God?
I don’t beleive in evolution, and see sin in the creation. The genetic machinery has amazing ability to correct itself, but we do not live eternally, and mutations eventually overtake us. Or other problems.
This is a statement of faith. You have evidence on which to base your faith, the success of science to explain the “supernatural” in the past. Not a bad bit of evidence. But this is an act of faith nonetheless. I accept intelligent agency as the cause for the miracle of life. But mine is a faith statement as well, based on clear evidence that such agents create complex things now, such as Beethoven and his symphonies, and no other method has been demonstrated to create such complex things.
And I will leave it at that, thanks for your gracious replies. .
Perhaps, I really do believe the flood broke up the earth’s crust and there was massive and rapid continental drift during and after the flood. I think geologist accept this but mark the movement very slowly because that’s the rate at which they’re moving today. But the flood model offers plausible explanations for so many geological facts. I believe God used rapid mountain range formation and uplifting to move the waters into the oceans we see today and leading to much of the layers in the geologic column.
Geologist assume a constant rate of movement at the current pase and that would necessitate millions of years of time. But just like an earthquake will have hundreds of tiny aftershocks, I believe the earth had major landmass shifts and the slow rate we see today is just the after effects.
Since all 8 humans were together after the flood, once they split up the land likely kept shifting relatively rapidly and land bridges disappears rapidly as well. However, none of us know exactly how it happened but I can’t wait to see it someday when God ends the mystery for us in heaven.
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I think you meant “innate” but I’m pretty sure this is the case.
(As humans with finite minds, it’s seems axiomatic that “pretty sure” is the best we can do.)
But theirs is a primal belief which pretty much assumes that its parents are its creator, so an infant’s thinking must evolve and grow or remain forever childish.
Similarly, the people who wrote the Bible believed in god, but it is clear that the picture they painted changes and evolved in going from the OT to the new.
In the two millennia since the canon was supposedly closed, humanity’s picture of has gone through countless sea changes but through it all, I’m convinced our understanding of our creator has become ever clearer.
So my concern is with people who insist that in order to understand our maker, we must get back to the Bible.
To my mind, this is like an adult who wants to go back to eating pablum.
The way I see it, to consider the canon closed is a similar categorical mistake as god is showing us a new side of himself every time we drill deeper into his, her or it’s nature.
I don’t think that understanding will be ever be finished any more than there have been any “end points” in humanity’s travel though time, but again, that’s not something I can prove anymore than you can prove that Jesus wanted his followers to see his view of his dad as a finished product, or the best and final perspective.
BTW, if anything I’ve said in any of this led you think I was an atheist you have misread me completely as I see god everywhere, all the time, and need no further proof of my maker’s existence and power than to see the buttons I’m pushing pop up as letters on my computer screen.
Yes! This exactly!!
Death before sin is a critical point. It cant be explained away .
The Sabbath is unimportant as well, if this were true.
And I’ve often wondered where the dividing line is between whatever it was that evolved into Adam.If Adam was the first true man, then his parents are not saved because they weren’t created in God’s image. Where is the point in Creation where Christ’s blood covers us? Not to mention the fact that for evolution to happen once would be miraculous, but these folk believe that it happened over and over again. Goodness!!! Talk about science!!! The mathematical probability of this event occurring over and over tends toward 0. And even more shocking is that is does not occur today (not speaking of microevolution or speciation–way different from macroevolution.). Let’s hear from a statistician!!!
I find this explanation haughty of man. The same Bible that said God created–not man evolved is the same Bible that says Jesus died for us. Folk always try to explain away God, or displace Him from His Creation. No. He has an active part in the lives of both man and creatures. He cares for us (1Peter5.77 Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you) and His creation(Matt6:26 Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?)
Soon, and maybe now, the story of the Flood will be discounted. (2 Pet 3:5-7 "5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungoodly men.)
What will differentiate being an SDA from other denominations? The Sabbath is critical esp to the last days.And some think God rested millions of years afterward??? Where is the count of the days and the end of the Lord’s creation week? If it is not according to what is written, then any day could be Sabbath, and we are fooling ourselves into thinking it is anything other than ceremonial.
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i agree with your take completely…rapid mountain range formation, from the sea bed up, is also why there are marine fossils on the tops of essentially all mountain ranges…it all makes so much sense…
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I understand the dilema. But unless I’m mistaken, a student at an sda university isn’t being taught creationism in a science class in place of evolution. Evolution basics are presented in sda universities as I understand. And if I’m wrong someone with first hand knowledge please correct me. But the authors point is that our universities should teach only what science can prove (and I would debate evolution is not provable but that’s another discussion) and if that leads to the church discarding the idea or creation as described in genesis then so be it. And that is what I object to. Even presenting both sides would be an improvement in our universities.
The main point of my thought is that if a faith based church has to discard what science cannot prove then our entire system collapses. Believing genesis does take faith, as does believing that an inanimate object suddenly became living (as evolution teaches) and so we can’t measure what the church or its schools teach by science alone because we are faith based. And anyone who wants to make it purely science based is illogical because how can a faith exist if based only on what’s provable? It will destroy all our other doctrines that require pure faith.
I’ve studied both evolution and geology and creationism. It’s funny because most scientist believe evolution but when I listen to the creation scientists they say there is no other explanation for what they see…and in the evolution scientist will say there’s no other explanation for what they see. In other words they both have evidence for their positions. And creationism isn’t completely baseless and has many many evidences in nature. Most don’t accept that science. And I’m sure you can point to holes just as we could point to holes in evolution. But I truly do believe creation science has presented a plausible explanation for genesis. Yes I’m starting from a faith perspective, but that’s what a Christian does. My faith guides me and in science I see evidence for my faith. Peer scientist doesn’t start from the perspective and that’s why pure science cannot be presented in our church because it does not “as a church must do.
Last point is that many of our great universities like Harvard, Yale etc. Began as a missionary schools but as they became more secularized they became more popular but lost their mission and are now completely disconnected from faith. That is exactly what will happen to our universities. That may not mean much to a scientist but two leaders of a church it means everything.
I think one of the main issues arising from this article is the perception of science and faith. Many see them as polar opposites - in which one must accept one view or the other. I dont necessarily see any dilemma between science and faith:
. The Bible is not a scientific text which seeks to explain the origin and history of every single creature which has lived/lives or will live on the earth. It is in my view an account of God’s relationship to men.
With reference to time, there may be missing gaps in terms of how we reckon time- what events happened at a certain point in chronological history. The presence of fossils indicates species which existed,i.e possibly dinosaurs, but these may not have been mentioned by name in the Bible. The absence of of this fact does not suggest that there are no dinosaurs at all.
If I understand the three scenarios outlined at the beginning of this article as expressed by the author, then the SDA Church ahs serious issues with itself in terms of how it relates to scientific discovery .Science is not dependent on faith for its acceptance. Science remains independent of faith and produces its findings irrespective of faith or religion or any belief system for that matter. Science is neither moral or immoraL, No such thing can be associated with it. It investigates and produces its findings. Faith then, encompasses the work of a Creator who creates and has set things in operation- whether there be fixed laws and the particular ways in which organisms behave and relate to each other and their environment . This is true in physics, chemistry , biology etc. While I believe in creation I am also open to see aspects of evolution taking place, subsequent to their original creation. Im not sure whether this has been explored by Christians or scientists but it is worth investigation.
I ll give an example. In 2018 at my home in the Caribbean, just outside of my garage, on a plot of land we cultivated a species of thyme, known commonly referred to as 'broad leaf thyme. I began to notice that in 2019 several lizards would find shelter at the base of the thyme plant. Over the next year or so, the lizards emerged almost having the same colour as the thyme with slight variations among them. The thyme is no longer there as we had to move it, but the lizards retained that feature for a number of months until we saw features in them. In the course of time another species of lizard we found running around -this time coming from a number of white stones which we also have on our compound. These are now whitish in colour. I have observed that the whiter lizards are more aggressive towards the ones which originated from the broad leaf thyme.
Could this be a form of evolution which took place?
What is key in this discourse is the attitude towards science and faith. With my faith, I recognise the work of the Creator who made the heavens and the earth and all is that is in them. In science, I find organisms, entities etc which operate under God’s power ultimately but from whom we can learn many interesting facts. It is our attitude that determines whether we learn and grow.
Andrew
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