Here is a little blurb from the Seventh Day Adventists. It seems that just like Armstrongism, they cannot wrap its head around alternative views and scientific data when it come to bible stories.
It is either you believe and teach a literal 6,000 year old earth or you are out the door. Obviously critical thinking is not a well used tool at the "university."
La Sierra, a Seventh-day Adventist university, has teachers who do not believe in a young earth. This upsets the General Conference so much that the teachers who believe in an old earth are to be fired.
3 comments:
There is also a theory that the references to the sabbath in the creation narrative were back-edited into the Torah during the revisions and complilations of all of the manuscripts during the Babylonian captivity. That was apparently a very prolific period in terms of preparation for the rebirth of the nation of Israel. Public reading of scripture became a very important part of the restoration and continuation of Israel.
Most sabbatarians have taken this sabbath reference as proof that the seventh day sabbath preceded the law of Moses, and is eternal in nature. It does not bother them that there was great conceptual expansion of all things spiritual including the sabbath immediately following the life of Christ, or that nearly identical language was used describing the perpetuity of both circumcision and the sabbath throughout the Old Testament.
Most sabbatarians would never consider the possibility that there could be progressive dispensation, mostly because that would mean that the most recent dispensation takes full precedence over the ones to Noah, Abraham, and Moses.
The Cliffs Notes on this topic are that for sabbatarians, questioning the creation narrative or exploring it as an allegory will automatically raise questions regarding the sabbath. They preserve their faith by taking the steel trap door approach.
BB
Young Earth is a terrible theory. It relies on an idea that somehow God created the Earth with a deceptive "patina" , ie. with the appearance of age.
It also requires light to have already been "in transit" from far away stars and galaxies, so as to create "red shift", and again apparent age.
Dinosaurs are either tried to fit to be contemporaries of mankind destroyed at the flood, or fossils as "Satanic Deceptions" planted to fool mankind.
All of this is silliness.
Applying "Occam's Razor" which implies that the hypothesis that has the fewest assumptions is usually the correct one , it tells us that "young Earth" is a ridiculous theory.
COG , to its credit, does allow for "old Earth" and has no problem with it. Additionally, COG philosophy has no problem with the "Big Bang" or expanding universe as well.
I feel that their is an over literalism about the 6,000 years idea by applying too much emphasis on a metaphor... "A day is as a thousand years to God" and then trying to fit this into some kind of prophetic construct requiring there to be only 6000 years for mankind before a 1000 year "Sabbath".
Nowhere in scripture does it say that there is only 6000 years for the era of man. It is poetic, and implies that there is a plan, and that it will work out on time, but those who are overly literalistic with the scriptures will force some bad ideas, like young earth, by doing so.
I much enjoy the writings of Hugh Ross, who takes an excellent scientific view of the Bible as a believing Christian. He allows for an ancient regional flood of the Black Sea as narrative for the Flood and the destruction of the "known world" of that time at around 10 to 20 thousand BC. as an example.
The Bible is not a hard core scientific document, nor is it a hard core historical document either. That is not its purpose. It is a saga, and a spiritual revealer of truth, in a dispensational manner. Its purpose is to guide lives in the present with unique revelation that could not be discovered through reason. God figured we can find out about the other physical stuff on our own time!
I know many COG ministers who agree. True science and the Bible are not in conflict. Both have areas of uncertainty and lack of answers that we do not currently understand.
I enjoy science and inquiry greatly. I also enjoy the scriptures. There is still mystery in both, and that is what makes both areas so fascinating!
Luv,
Joe Moeller
Cody, WY
I have never met an Armstrongite that understands the difference between a scientific hypothesis and a scientific theory. That's ok, though, because I no longer understand the difference between a religious hypothesis and a religious theory.
Bad PK
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