It Can Be Documented?
by Andy Hanson
by Andy Hanson, October 26, 2014
The following is a quote from God's Final Message and Your Role, Ted Wilson’s closing address at a 10-day International Conference on the Bible and Science in St. George, Utah, on August 24, 2014. (1)
The claim that a particular day in our present seven-day weekly cycle is the same twenty-four hour time period that was called the Sabbath by Old Testament Jews, is magical thinking. (2)
If one is interested in documenting the geologic history of our planet, I recommend The Rocks Don’t Lie by David R. Montgomery.
If one believes the literal account of human history as recorded in the biblical genealogy (Noah’s flood occurred about 2349 BC, and the Tower of Babel around 2242 BC), I suggest researching the civilizations of the Indus Valley, (3) South America, (4) and/or Egypt. (5).
In terms of astronomical evidence, I know of only one creation scientist who proposes that there is astronomical evidence for the young earth model. Barry Setterfield has proposed that:
“The speed of light and rate of radioactive decay have and continue to decrease. This provides evidence for the creation of the universe as being a rapid expansion as stated in 16 verses in the Bible in both the Old and New Testaments (God spread out the heavens). It also refutes Big Bang theory, since this expansion took place at a rate vastly faster than the BB theory could possibly allow. It also discredits the claim that red shift is evidence the universe is billions of years and provides for a young universe.”(6)
This theory has been abandoned by almost all other creation scientists (7) and is classified as “woo-woo” science by credible scientific authorities. (8)
Note:
A friend asked me why I would waste my time questioning the qualifications of the GC President to speak authoritatively about “scientific evidence” that supports Adventist doctrine. He argued that religious faith is conservative and based on tradition, and the rational testing of faith might be viewed as misguided or worse. When I tried to explain my idealistic motives, he said the only thing I could hope for was to avoid the fate of Isaiah.
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2 See my 2013 Adventist Today blog, Samoa, the International Dateline Shift, and the Seventh-day Sabbath. https://www.atodayarchive.org/article/1937/opinion/hanson-andy/2013/samoa-the-international-dateline-shift-and-the-seventh-day-sabbath
3 In the vast Indus River plains (located in what is today Pakistan and western India), under layers of land and mounds of dirt, archaeologists discovered the remains of a 4,600 year-old city. A thriving, urban civilization had existed at the same time as Egyptian and Mesopotamian states — in an area twice each of their sizes.
https://www.ushistory.org/civ/8a.asp
4 3500 BC: The peoples of the New World have, by this date, domesticated a much greater range of plants than have those of the Old. The largest and most numerous villages are to be found on the coasts of Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, due to the Pacific Ocean currents that produce a rich harvest of marine foods. By this date these communities are shifting to a more agricultural economy, and their populations are growing. The inhabitants of some of the larger villages are beginning to construct ceremonial platforms, a feature which will be very prominent in later South American civilization.
https://www.timemaps.com/history/south-america-3500bc
5 By about 6000 BC, a Neolithic culture rooted in the Nile Valley. During the Neolithic era, several predynastic cultures developed independently in Upper and Lower Egypt. A unified kingdom was founded in 3150 BC by King Menes leading to a series of dynasties that ruled Egypt for the next three millennia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Egypt
6 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdTlOVTDbNU
7 Even at the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) in the USA, Gerald E. Aardsma (1988) said there was no discernible trend in the data presented by Norman and Setterfield.
8 A Scientist's Perspective by Eric Ayers
Barry Setterfield gets full credit for imagination. His hypothesis that the speed of light is slowing exponentially with time is much more creative than the usual woo-woo that masquerades as science in the Biblical-literalist literature. But creativity |refreshing as it may be| is not sufficient; in science, a hypothesis must be supported by the data. There is so much that is wrong with everything Mr. Setterfield is proposing that it's difficult to know where to begin; so in the interest of economy, I will deal only with the core of his argument.
His entire hypothesis rests on the idea that the speed of light has changed wildly over the history of the universe. He argues that the speed of light would have had to be fast enough in the past that light from a visible object millions of light-years away could reach earth in just 6,000 years. If only we had a way of measuring the speed of light thousands of years ago. . . And we do!
Supernova 1987A was surrounded by a ring of gas that had been ejected from the star before it went nova. When this ring of gas was hit by the ultraviolet ash from the supernova, it began to fluoresce. We can (and did) measure the time between the supernova explosion and when the ring began to glow. By measuring the angular size of that ring and the distance to the star (168,000 light-years) we can use simple trigonometry to calculate the distance from the star to the ring. Distance divided by time gives us speed. According to Mr. Setterfield's hypothesis, that speed would have to be at least 28x the currently accepted speed of light, but the observed speed, as measured by an event 168,000 years ago, was within measurement error of the speed of light now.
And with that, we're done. There's no need to respond to the rest of Mr. Setterfield's arguments, or marvel at how “miraculously" he makes the entire history of the cosmos fit within Ussher's chronology. Consequently, there is no need to poke holes in the rest of his work. His hypothesis, and everything dependent on that hypothesis, is disproven.
Notice this quote from Augustine:
Often a non-Christian knows something about the Earth, the heavens. . . the motions and orbits of the stars, . . . and this knowledge he holds with certainty from reason and experience. It is thus offensive and disgraceful for an unbeliever to hear a Christian talk nonsense about such things, claiming that what he is saying is based in Scripture. We should do all that we can to avoid such an embarrassing situation, lest the unbeliever see only ignorance in the Christian and laugh to scorn.9
These words, written some 1,600 years ago, are no less relevant today.
Bio:
Dr. Eric Ayars earned a B.S. in Physics from Pacific Union College and a Ph.D. in Physics from North Carolina State University. He is a Professor of Physics at California State University, Chico, and an ex-Adventist.
9from De Genesi ad litteram; the Literal Meaning of Genesis, an unfinished work
How ironic that the very same preacher will appeal to astronomy where he things it supports his understanding of the Bibel while dismissing it as heresy where it does not. The same thing happens with archaeology and many other fields of study also.
I am the son of a pastor and the father of a pastor. I hold no absolutely animosity toward this profession. Some of my best freinds and favorite relatives are (or were) preachers 😎
Eric Ayers. When was he at PUC? Likely a student of Dr. Nielsen and probably post-Mahlon Kootsey?
Dr. Kootsey was a student at PUC in physics when I arrived as a declared math-physics major.
I don't know about astronomy proving the seventh day of the week is the Sabbath and the sequence has not changed. I suspect that it has been consistent for at least the last 3500 years otherwise the Jews would be keeping Sabbath on a different day.
I do not know how celestial mechanics could prove the continutiy of the weekly cycle prior to the Neo-Babylonian Empire. The Jews did not maintain accurate records of celestial observations. The Babylonians did.
I am not saying our reckoning of the Sabbath is wrong, only that I highly doubt it could be demonstrated from celestial mechanics.
I have seen one book that attempted to demonstrate many Old Testament events from celestial mechanics. Perhaps Ted Wilson has read this book or knows someone else who has read it? After hearing of it for many years I finally saw a copy. With less than a half-hour of reading I had found gaping holes that should be obvious to anyone who has a grasp of the science it claims to explain and explot. The author brags about the precison of his calculations but nowhere offers any support for his starting assumptions. I politely returned the book to its owner with no comments.
It was a round world when the Hebrews and everyone else assume it was flat. Do you really think that makes no difference in tracking the Sabbath and its observation as a pure linear, syncopated, historical event? Super Ego preservation is the underlying motivation for holding such an indefensible premise as a seven day creation. If the vain arguments for it were applied to any of the Roman or Greek myths, or just about any other cockamamie dream, even the creationists would quickly counter with powerful arguments. I must admit, creationists are a fun source of entertainment while riding the whirligig round and round, stretching the rules of logic to fit a dizzy outcome in the face of mountains contrary evidence.
Adventist Naturalism: If creation didn't take place during six literal 24-hour days, then the seventh day Sabbath makes no sense.
No. If the Biblical evidence that God hallowed a particular day of a weekly cycle, as a reminder that He has both created the natural order and freed us from the natural order, is dependent on traditional SDA creation theory, then the seventh day Sabbath indeed makes no sense. But isn't it troublesome that, in order for one doctrine – the Sabbath holiness – to make sense, we need to make it dependent on another doctrine – creation nonscience?
From the Fall, through the Flood, through the stories of Abraham, Jacob, Moses, etc., we are introduced to a God who nonsensically disrupts humanly perceived natural orders and humanly established laws to reveal Himself. He arbitrarily and promiscuously establishes holy places, sacred objects, irrational rituals to reveal, to those He calls to covenant relationship, who He is, who we are, how He wants us to relate to Him, and what He wants us to be. And in trusting obedience to those calls, reasonable, rational expectations are constantly upended, and a God is discovered who cannot be confined to parochial, theological lockboxes.
Instead of trying to build a brick wall behind chain-link naturalistic theology that is more dependent on propositions than relationships, Adventists should be using the symbol of the Sabbath to point toward a living God who is no more bound by His past revelations and actions than He is by the natural order that He created or the natural laws by which He sustains it.
"Adventist Naturalism: If creation didn't take place during six literal 24-hour days, then the seventh day Sabbath makes no sense."
There is an earthquake rumbling under the Seventh-day part of the SDA structure. Nathan, you have identified a major threat and Mr. Wilson is in agreement and has devised a necessary strategy to retrofit the girders in the face of a threatened "shaking time" so the building doesn't crash down on your head. This threat wouldn't exist if the founders of the church had the foresight to invent a better name. If they would have just have chosen Ellen Church of the Last Days, for example, the present controversy wouldn't even rattle a teacup in the cupboard of dogma.
But it is a crisis of its own making. Judaism, and its adherence to the seventh day Sabbath, hasn't come crashing down because Jews don't hold to Adventist creationism. Seventh Day Adventist is a great name for the Church. The Church simply needs to let its identity evolve; to find deeper meanings in the Sabbath gift rather than hawsering it to a divine magic show that had to take place in six literal, consecutive earth days.
Christianity didn't come crashing down with the dismantling of geocentrism, or the discovery of naturalistic explanations for physical phenomenon that were once thought to be the product of divine intervention in a chaotic world. The world needs the Sabbath truth more than ever as an antidote to the rise of naturalistic pagan faiths which not only deny a Creator, but reject the notion of human freedom. I treasure the seventh day Sabbath far more as a symbolic gift from God than I did when it was a law – a naturalistic product of the divinely enacted creation week by which I was bound.
Nathan, you have just illustrated my assertion of ego as the fundamental root of belief. Tenacious belief presumes there are no alternatives because the believer has decided there aren't any. He is fortified by the assumption that ultimate wisdom has blessed him above all others. Challenges are threats to being, with contradictory ideas transformed into personal attacks.
I respect your ". . .treasure the seventh day Sabbath far more as a symbolic gift from God…" but beyond you and a handful of others, it is nothing more than ego projection in stubborn defense of a pipedream.
"The world needs the Sabbath truth more than ever. . ." is a statement of ultimate egoism. Do you really know that? Of course not. If you could convince the world to endure Sabbath, you would have an awesome reflection of yourself and you would feel confirmed in a way not now available. You would be "right."
The people I know who left the SDA church found no value in keeping Sabbath and dumped it immediately after the first Friday of their exodus. Sabbath keepers, SDA's, live in a tiny soundproof chamber, with Mr. Wilson as the deaf and dumb tour guide spouting the church history as a last ditch attempt to preserve Sabbath and its logo (he's not wrong). No one in the world outside gives a hoot about it or has any interest in what goes on inside.
Nathan, Sabbath keeping is a self-imposed stricture without ultimate reward or punishment. You like it, you defend it, and you will honor it. OK
“But it is a crisis of its own making. Judaism, and its adherence to the seventh day Sabbath, hasn't come crashing down because Jews don't hold to Adventist creationism.”
Since when did creationism become “Adventist creationism”? With great respect and admiration for Judaism and the Jewish people, I don’t think we want to follow the path that they’ve tread relative to the truths with which they were entrusted by the living God.
“Christianity didn't come crashing down with the dismantling of geocentrism, or the discovery of naturalistic explanations for physical phenomenon that were once thought to be the product of divine intervention in a chaotic world.”
Of course Christianity was never based, built, or founded upon any physical phenomenon for which naturalistic explanations have ever been discovered.
“The world needs the Sabbath truth more than ever as an antidote to the rise of naturalistic pagan faiths which not only deny a Creator, but reject the notion of human freedom.”
Naturalistic paganism is a direct and inevitable result of the failure to remember, i.e. recognize, the Sabbath for what it is.
“I treasure the seventh day Sabbath far more as a symbolic gift from God than I did when it was a law – a naturalistic product of the divinely enacted creation week by which I was bound.”
The Sabbath was a divinely enacted gift from God before it was a law. The Sabbath remains a divinely enacted gift from God while it is a law.
he idea that the "The Sabbath was a divinely enacted gift from God before it was a law. . . .[and] Sabbath remains a divinely enacted gift from God while it is a law." This pair of statements clearly preserves your pride in knowing something only four or five in the whole world know, Steve. Otherwise it is blabber ricocheting in the Adventist sound proof chamber where it is stuck forever. Suppose for a minute you could afford every commercial media station in the world to trumpet these and any other collection of laudatory Sabbath words, do you really think the universal effect would be the generation of a mighty awakening followed by a massive Sabbath keeping frenzy because of your estimation of yourself a mouthpiece for God?
I have no fuss with you or anyone who values Sabbath for themselves. However ludicrous mandates emanate from over inflated egos. In addition, I see wild proclamations as the last vestige or failure.
Here is a quote from J. David Newman's post Sabbath post below. " But for many others it [Sabbath] is a welcome break from the duties and stresses of life. It is a joy and a blessing." I encourage you to parrot your version of that outlook. No inane projections there. Just a personal testimony. And a good one without jurisprudence.
Bugs,
From a Biblical perspective, could you (and would you) please explain what is incorrect or inaccurate in the isolated statement?
Jesus said that the Sabbath was made for man. How’s that not a gift? I understand that you may consider the Bible to be bogus (or whatever) Bugs; but since that is the reference for the statement, and you have claimed that only “four or five” people know this, please explain how this is so erroneous.
Or are you perhaps just joking again?
If Bugs-Larry considers the Bible to be a collection of religious proverbs and allegories and fables, then why bother to ask him to explain anything from a Biblical perspective?
The most likely response would be something that is itself a proverb or allegory or fable 8-).
Jim, your presumption apparently is that you know more than I do whether or not "the Bible to be a collection of religious proverbs and allegories and fables." But you don't. Yours is a presumption lodged in belief. Neither of us know for a fact what in the Bible is myth, allegory, metaphor, or an accurate transmission of information. The "Bible perspective" conveys nothing but a manufactured opinion based on the presumption that a source, Christ, adequately reflects accurate reporting of His words. It is an outlook you and most others here employ as a faux measure of categorical superiority.
So what do now is what you have always done, that is to pretend. That can be called faith. "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Heb. 11:1. (see, I can utilize Scriptural convenience at my whim)!
I don't pretend to know the actual boundaries between fact and myth in the Scriptures. However, aping your recitation affinity for Scripture, I have conveniently cited Paul's permission to develop opinions (using very elastic words, "hoped for, and "things not seen.)" Since we neither know the facts and nor can create by believing, they really don't matter, for you or me.
You are licensed, thanks Mr. Apostle Paul, to believe what you want and maintain your practice thereon. I am clear about my understanding, are you about yours?
I do not presaume to know more about the Bible than do you. After all you earned a theology diploma and were a pastor and chaplain for some time.
It does however appear that at this point in my life I believe a lot more of what I have read in the Bible than do you at this point in your life.
So I guess the question is not so much about how much we know as about how much we believe?
Yep. With qualifications, first, because of this statement of yours: "So I guess the question is not so much about how much we know as about how much we believe?"
It seems a strange musing to me. Is quantity the value? Does it follow that If much belief is good is much more better? Or is it a quality problem? One has a better belief measuring instrument than another perhaps?
In truth, it is much more simple than that. You choose, have chosen, what you like. Me too. What you and I "know" about the Bible is drawn from common knowledge, warts and all. We, you and me, really don't know how much of what we believe isn't really "true." But that is alright since belief isn't dependent on factual "facts."
Redundantly, faith is what we like. Metaphor is all we can have and we adorn it with decorations that please ourselves. Quality and quantity of belief doesn't exist and obviously can't be measured.
Metaphor rules.
I sense a termite in the pile, here! Are you just toying with me, Jimbo?
I agree with you that this is primarily about choice. The degree to which our choices are conditioned by past experiences is an interesting question. For this latter reason (among others) faith is often NOT simply a matter of what pleases us.
I would argue that it requires greater faith to make choices that do not please us. In the Bible there are many examples. To name just a few, consider Jesus' prayer to the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane, and consider Paul's list of fait stories in Hebrews 11. Yes even Jesus (aka Love Guy) chose to live His eartly life by faith in His Father.
Paul introduces this list by explaining that these people were honored for their faith because they chose to please God rather than themselves. Which brings us to the bottom line regarding our life goals. The normal thing for humans is to make choices that please ourselves. Christian teaching calls for a radical change – the choice to please God rather than ourselves. Such a choice we can only make by the transforming power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit.
Stephen, there is nothing "wrong" with your statement (other than what I enumerate below). However, you are entitled to know, in the face of my critique, where I am coming from and why I pounced on you like I did!
I view Sabbath keeping as a burdensome and unnecessary ritual self-imposed by Adventism. Because, that was my experience and a major motivation for my voluntary evacuation of the Ellen ship (I am guilty of interjecting flippant humor on occasion)! Extending from that is my perception that Sabbath keeping is a major impediment to the growth of Adventism and throttles a positive mix of "believers" in the milieu of the world. The world of professional and technical positions aren't amenable to the Adventist version of Sabbath keeping. Millions and millions of working people, leaders executives, and politicians don't and won't buy into the argument I that grew up with, that stubborn refusal to labor on Sabbath is the ultimate commitment to God. They are not Adventist candidates. And the church is not therefore what it could be. Outside of the medical field where Sabbath breaking is countenanced, there are virtually no Adventist leaders anywhere.
Specifically, In my case, life blossomed ASK (After Sabbath Keeping). I happily ignored it a as I traveled through a lifetime of professions (funeral plan salesman, construction contractor, mobile DJ business [yeah they danced while I was spinning CD's], Church America as a private ministry aimed at Christians without a church connection where I performed several hundred funerals, weddings and baptized a bunch of babies. As with myself, I wanted my two children to participate fully in the world. My son is a captain for Alaska Airlines, my daughter after raising two kids, has a sixteen year old who is a national gymnastics champion in the top twenty five in the country and she is now in school training as a dental hygienist.
I was emphasizing the degree to which defenders of Adventism major In minors, of which seems to me to be a good example. Of the more than the estimated two billion Christians in the world, only four or five attempt to keep Sabbath, OK, actually a few million. They read the same Bible but scads of them don't see what you do.
I won't delve into the issue of what Jesus actually said considering he wrote nothing and there was a major gap between his life and the accounts of it, with lots of contradictions.
I have no issue with your or anyone who finds Sabbath a blessing. However, conjuring an applicable mandate from Christ's words is ego affirming, but that is all.
Bugs,
You’re conveniently having it both ways. I understand and have acknowledged your doubts about the Bible’s veracity and all that.
But since you maintain that such a relative few people believe what we believe, please tell me how what we believe about the Sabbath being “a divinely enacted gift from God before it was a law” is misinterpreted—given the common source from which our beliefs, along with those of the comparatively many others, are derived.
Since when has the majority, even a large majority if you prefer, become the gauge of anything other than popular preference?
You’ll recall that early-on I had sensed that you’d been traumatized as an Adventist at some point and in some manner. You speak of “enduring” the Sabbath, of the Sabbath “as a burdensome and unnecessary ritual,” and “a major impediment to the growth of Adventism” (which, one would think, should ‘work’ for you and/or your purposes), and referenced “gruesome details from [your] childhood Sabbath experience,” and of “life [blossoming] ASK (After Sabbath Keeping); all of which sounds exactly like trauma to me, my man.
But here’s how you try to have it both ways Bugs: we use Jesus’ words and you claim that doing so is somehow “ego affirming, but that’s all.” Yet as we reference them and ask you to comment about the accuracy of our interpretation of what Adventists and other Christians consider authoritative—the very words attributed to Jesus in the Bible—you then hilariously say that “I won't delve into the issue of what Jesus actually said considering he wrote nothing and there was a major gap between his life and the accounts of it, with lots of contradictions.”
Ah, the old’ “heads I win, tails you lose” routine is the ultimate non-starter.
Oh, and by the way, I don’t consider “[myself] a mouthpiece for God.” Dude, God has much better sense than to use me to speak for Him!
Here’s a bit of 'trivia' to which you apparently have not been privy Bugs. The Chaplain of the United State Senate and a former Mayor of Philadelphia, PA, are/were both Seventh-day Adventists; and fellow alumni of Pine Forge Academy and Oakwood University.
Stephen,
I am not sure when you attended Pine Forge Academy. I think that Pastor Oliver Cheatham went to the staff of Pine Forge from the Lake Region Conference? Would this have been during your sojourn there? Or perhaps my memory is failing me and I have the wrong man?
Faith Process 101
The power of thinking creates a Bible of veracity. Religion is about building mental images that fit a pleasing template. You create what you "like." The building materials selected are deemed most suitable for the supporting structure with its picture window through which you view the world. Since it is an imaginary structure, the girders are equally so. Facts, data, information, and all other components are purposely flexed and molded, without regard for their source, to suit the builders paradigm. Since the ego is heavily invested in the enterprise its defensive function becomes a valuable asset, where the contractor conveniently creates offensive missiles to defend against challengers, but built with the same imaginary materials supporting his air house.
There is more to the house that belief builds! Depending on the builder, of course, since one is his own architect, a pedestal is sometimes chosen to provide a "birds eye view" through the picture window where one can properly interpret the scene. And that is where unmanageable euphoria blossoms into a feeling that everything visual endorses the project, no matter how small it is.
.And the last element is the marshalling of supportive evidence of God's imprimatur, always lurking inside the house of belief, nowhere else.
This is a rather narcissistic view of reality. I can choose whatever I like to believe. Choose my love and then love my choice.
Important choices do have actual consequences both for ourselves and for those around us. Ignoring those consequences when making our choices and simply choosing whatever pleases us is the essence of narcissism.
Many psychologists believe that narcissistic tendencies are a consequence of emotional trauma in early childhood. Since I cannot get the satisfaction that I need from my interactions with significant others, I withdraw into the world of self-pleasing where I was born. I create my own emotional womb where I can be content simply sucking on my thumb or whatever else gives me gratification.
And I can distance myself from the pain of the hostile unfriendly world around me.
We all are born with narcissitic tendencies, and in this life we never completely outgrow them. At any stage in life painful experiences urge us to withdraw into our personal private wombs.
The claims of the Gospel are a redical departure from narcissism. Jesus Christ intentionally came from the most pleasant place imaginable (heaven) to the nastiest place possible (earth). He submitted Himself to the full gamut of human pain and suffering. He calls us to follow His path, to deny ourselves, take up our own crosses of pain and suffering, and follow Him. A totally unnatural choice that requires supernatural faith.
Jim, I think you have lured me, a poor, helpless, ex preacher guy, into a dark room and convinced me it was daylight! You are a preacher, judging by this and other posts, and I just figured it out! And without portfolio, absolutely unauthorized, uncertified, and not aided by your display of a worldly, secular, non-preacher degree!
"Like" has a broad meaning. Embrace could be another one. In faith terms no one opts for what doesn't please them. Especially you. Especially me. Self-interest is primary.
Don't forget, there is a singular, basic problem underlying self, to the exclusion of all others and that is: death. Avoiding it is the ultimate goal and religion Is the hopeful prescription for its cure. Remove death/cure as the motivation for belief and it has no function. The end. Narcissism, unless you define it as survival instinct, isn't the belief motivation.
". . . faith is often NOT simply a matter of what pleases us." Yes it is. Not dying is what pleases us. Happiness is not a requirement for "liking" a belief. And the hope of forestalling it is the only reason for opting for religious beliefs. Religion exists only for that end. A person, because he adopts whatever tenets he thinks will fix the mortality problem, believes what "pleases" him/her, disregarding comfort level issues.
The claims of the Gospel are only viable if there is some purpose or reward for observing them. Death is the catalyst that makes them viable. Would you actually spend SS Class lecturing the non-clergy about the courtyard of the heavenly sanctuary if you didn't ever die? If your engineering firm suddenly had no problems to solve would they continue your parking place? Would you go to work just for the love of it if paychecks were halted? Subscription to Christ's ethic is worthless without the paycheck of eventual immortality.
There is a cost/benefit evaluation embedded in belief. It has nothing to do with narcissism.
Not a preacher, just an engineer. I am the son of a pastor and the father of a pastor. Nothing more and nothing less.
In your calculus is there no allowance for altruism? No allowance for doing something for others with absolutely no expectation of a payoff?
Should there be no life after death neither you nor I would ever know about that. I take it that you only like to bet on sure things? Whereas I have more tolerance for risk?
You sure are right about the likelihood of religion being of much interest if people didn't die, Bugs.
But of course we all do die.
So one way or another we are all taking comfort where we can find it. Religion. Atheism. Non-religious spirituality. Our descendents outnumbering the grains of sand on the shores of the world. Or like some kind of rosary, fingering the beads of one's own memories of encounters with those proffering possibilities in the form of testimonies about assurances that extend past the grave.
I'm glad you are hanging out here, Bugs. It is good to keep fingering our historical experiences in light of your own. Shared history helps make common sense of the future, even when the history doesn't feel common, only shared.
Bugs. Your world view is so different from Nathan and mine we might as well be talking in foreign languages. For you and many others the Sabbath was perceived as legalistic rite with little or no redeeming value. But for many others it is a welcome break from the duties and stresses of life. It is a joy and a blessing.
J. David, I congratulate you on your appreciation for a weekly event that adds satisfaction to your life. I rejoice on learning a person has found a religious experience that celebrates a resonance with life and celebrates his coneption of God, not to mention the benefit of stress relief! Happy Sabbath!
Indeed, David … And I'm pretty sure Bugs would be right there with us were it not for misdemeanors by the church during his youth with regard to efforts in justifying why Sabbath remains relevant still.
Bugs is right that the Sabbath has no salvific benefits.
Joseph Bates and for that matter Rachel Oakes Preston brought a point of view regarding Sabbath that promised assurance of Divine verity based on a principle that was and remains incompatible with the Gospel and Revelation, as in the last book of the bible. I'm referencing the Law of God. After all, we do nothing because of the Law; Rather, the Law reminds us of our utter incompacity for becoming worthy of salvation and thus our need of a Savior, as Paul explains.
It is no wonder that in 1892 Ellen White was calling for a spirit from 'forty years ago' because there was still so much to learn, and so much, much more to unlearn. That old time spirit was the spirit of embraching one another, differences and all, because the people always trumped the differences. Besides, differences were how we learn. And by 1892 it was becoming increasingly obvious that people wanted the differences to disappear more than they wanted to be with each other. And Ellen White sensed the obvious, for differences to disappear, people would have to be sent packing. And she would have none of that. Nor should we, it seems.
I like your theory of inclusion, Bill. Embracing each other has power, in my way of thinking, that reveals and affirms the God of love. I've mentioned this before, but I once had an attendee at church who told me he went to a Sunday church for fellowship and my Adventist church for doctrine. Ouch!
Without recounting gruesome details from my childhood Sabbath experience I can affirm that you have stumbled into some negative issues. In anticipation of that, however, I think you have crossed a bridge a bit too far by suggesting a wildly conceivable scenario where we would share Sabbath enjoyment if the "misdemeanors by the church during his [mine] youth" could have been avoided, or more currently, absolved!
I think I would enjoy your acquaintance and Nathan and J. David, too! Perhaps wider inclusion is appropriate at this point. As I review the contributors to this from with whom I have been engaged, I think I would enjoy a face-to-face with all of you!
Bugs,
I’m sure I would enjoy spending a conversation over dinner or lunch with you, too. Inclusion is very attractive, though it seems less of a challenge with some, like you. Is it odd to you that the less we sometimes know of one another, the easier it is to be comfortable with someone? Yeah, me too.
And, yes, you are right about Sabbath blessings being more elemental than the absence of legalism masquerading as somehow beneficial in the present. Castor oil for an upset childhood stomach still tastes like castor oil. I do not recall ever waking up Sabbath morning, let alone watching the sun set on any given Friday feeling in need of a cure. Indeed I often watched the sun set on a Sabbath evening anticipating exhaling on the surface after swimming the length of the pool under water. One’s Christian experience (is there such a thing?) fortunately is more than a childhood experience, no matter how much we might want to reclaim some of our youth at our point in like.
Thanks again for all you do for all of us sharing your comments here. About dinner … Denver area Larry Boshell?
Haven't lived there for three years, will probably be there next summer in RV. So, we can keep in touch.
I'm not in Denver, just wondered if you were … I pass through Denver from time to time. I spend most of my time in Berrien Springs MI and Santa Cruz CA.
Oh! I live now in Mesa AZ.