Faith Based on Evidence

I've been a faithful subscriber and humble supporter with small donations for the last few years. I cherish my involvement with Adventist Today. . . . I don't think there is anything more important than a faith based on "evidence that appeals to the reason." I believe the faith and science conference to be a landmark in the development of Adventist theology. Please let me see the reports of the conference, and sign me up in your lifetime subscriber list. Thank you for your excellent work.

L. Humberto Covarrubias MD

Via the Internet

Faith and Science Conference

The many presentations during the recent 'Faith and Science' conference addressing the age of the earth, while interesting, were, in my opinion, skewed in that they included only terrestrial data. There was a noted absence of celestial data.

Moon dust is one such example of celestial data that, I believe, provides far more conclusive evidence of the age of the earth than does geological data tainted by a world-wide catastrophic deluge.

My husband, who is now retired from NASA, worked on the first lunar landing. Since scientists could calculate the rate of dust accumulating on the lunar surface, and believing the world to be billions of years old, there was a concern that the space craft carrying the astronauts would sink into a sea of dust-possibly a mile thick when they landed on the moon. The NASA fear of a great 'dust bed' on the moon was fueled by scientists such as Lyttleton who wrote that the dust formed by erosion of exposed moon rocks by ultra-violet light and x-rays "could during the age of the moon be sufficient to form a layer over it several miles deep." (Raymond A. Lyttleton, The Modern Universe, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1956, p. 72.) Taking no chances, NASA placed great pods on each 'foot' of the lunar lander to keep it from sinking into the anticipated collection of dust.

Upon landing, as many of us witnessed via television, astronaut footprints reflected only a few centimeters of dust-consistent with the SDA position of a young earth. Recent measurements of the influx rate of dust on the moon continue to support a young moon.

Your 'Faith and Science' conference would have been balanced and, therefore, far more meaningful had the presentations centered not only on contaminated terrestrial data but also on the many aspects of pristine celestial data. In any future conferences about the age of the earth, I hope you will find presenters on both the terrestrial and celestial sides of the issue.

Mrs. Lloyd G. (Ellie) Green

Indian Trail, NC

Faith and Science Conference

In the Jul/Aug issue of AToday I paid particular attention to the report on the Faith and Science Conference . This very good report told me some things I had either forgetten or missed.

There is one important correction that you should make (page 10). The signature of copper smelting dust appears in the Greenland GISP2 ice core beginning about five thousand years ago rather than five hundred, thus confirming the time independently established by archaeologists for when humans began using this technology.

Bob Wonderly

Via the Internet

"War Can Be Moral"

I would like to comment on Hector Hammerly's letter, "War Can Be Moral," from your July/August magazine. We went to war because our government thought that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and chemical weapons. Much of the foreign advice that Bush received, came from Israel. It turned out to be wrong and therefore, Bush had to come up with some other reason to justify the genocide he had created there. That gave birth to the "moral" issue of helping the people of Iraq. The Middle East and Europe look at this war as a big mistake, with only one benefit coming out of it, and that is protection for Israel. . . . As Henry Kissinger said while working for Richard Nixon, "There is no room for human rights in U.S. foreign policy." We support Israel unconditionally. Israel is occupying four sovereign nations, breaking over 300 U.N. resolutions and breaking the Geneva Accord. It is true that Israel is a democracy, but it is not a republic. A republic protects its minorities. Hopefully, Israel will not be the example for other democracies in the world as the U.S. tries to spread its wings globally.

Barbara Gravesen

Via the Internet

Nothing to Talk About?

Why are Adventist administrators frantically promoting multiple conferences at the cost of millions of dollars to discuss whether or not evolutionary theories constructed entirely on secular science are compatible with biblical teaching? Surely, on this question there is nothing for Seventh-day Adventists to talk about? What we are witnessing is not a series of discussion (because those promoting these "discussions" have a fixed agenda), but a propaganda attempt.

Viktor Christensen Australia

Maintaining Sanity

We are current subscribers to AT and would like to get all the back and current reports available through e-mail. We live in a very isolated and anti-intellectual Adventist area. Anyone who wears a wedding ring cannot hold an office at our little church, not even pianist! I can't relate to these people, though I am a very solid, thinking, praying Adventist. You help me maintain sanity!

William Pellow Republic, WA

Via the Internet

Faith and Science Reports

We very much appreciate the Faith and Science reports that you have sent via e-mail. We have shared them with some good friends in the area. Thank you for keeping us up to date on this very important conference. We are so pleased that Adventist Today was there and for the wonderful work that you doing with the publication.

Ed and Mariellyn Hill

Via the Internet

Special Interest

As AT subscribers, we would be interested in receiving the reports from the Glacier View Conference. We are finding AT to be of special interest. Wish we had subscribed earlier. I have not checked, but assume back issues can be read on a web Site.

Glyn Grismore

Via the Internet

Faith and Science Reports

Thank you for the informative, objective and analytical e-mails on the conference. Outstanding work of timely reporting. I found one of your sentences a statement to be pondered, "Truth is truth and it cannot be parsed." I would think that the conference challenged that statement in its diversity of "truth." I also had to smile when I read, "The clergy outweighed the scientists..."

I assume by the context that was body weight and not numerically.

Ralph Weitz

Via the Internet

Couperus on G. Mc. Price

As I was reading your latest report from the 2003 Faith and Science Conference, I was reminded of a comment that Dr. Moullerus Couperus, a late dermatologist from LLU, had made at Seattle when Spectrum was honoring him and his wife, Dos, for their leadership role in making Spectrum a reality. As Dr. Couperus was accepting the honor, he mentioned his "journey" into realms that were not entirely embraced by the church at that time. He told of a meeting in Glendale when he was mentioning his perception that the world was older than had previously been held by the church. A member of the congregation stood up and said that with those thoughts, Dr. Couperus should not even be a member of the SDA Church. Dr. Price was in the audience and he stood up and said that he had spent his life trying to prove that the earth was only 6,000 years old, but now he had to admit that he now believed it to be millions of years old. That is on one of the tapes from the AAF meetings in 1989.

Betty J. Farley

Via the Internet

Church Doctrine

I have been a member of the church for 31 years. I have accepted EGW as a servant of God, with much of her work being inspired, but not all. The authority that I follow is that of all the Scriptures, with my faith being in the righteousness of Christ, and salvation through his merit only. A number of our key beliefs are not provable (such as the "Investigative Judgment"). If the church leaders place the 27 Fundamentals as conditions of church membership, [and Ellen White as interpreter of Scripture], I will have to say "So Long" and walk with God alone. I need to know if there is any validity to this statement, or anything close to it, as it will most assuredly affect my relationship with the church. I would hate to leave the church.

Paul R Ehrlich

Via the Internet

The editor responds: Adventists have long wrestled with how to speak of Ellen G. White and the Bible. I am unaware of any dramatic new developments. I know theologians who give her de facto priority over the Bible and other theologians who remind us that she herself consistently pointed to the Bible as our religious authority. My guess is this will be a reality of Adventist culture until the end of time.

JTM

Differences in Origin Surveys

One of the most significant differences between the 1994 and the 2003 survey of Adventist science faculty, is the fact that only a little over half as many of those queried in 2003 responded as compared to 1994. In the 1994 survey, 200 questionnaires were sent out and 121 responded, giving a response rate of 60.5 percent; in 2003, 205 questionnaires were sent out and only 65 responded, for a response rate of 31.7 percent. This major difference brings into question any quantitative comparisons between these two surveys. The same factors, whatever they may be, that engendered such a drop in response rate, may be closely related to some of the differences reported for the two surveys. Also the time period between the surveys would seem to be more like nine years instead of "Five", as reported by the first word of the article.

Ariel Roth Loma Linda, California

Petersen Responds:

I am not surprised about the low response to the second survey on origins. People do not respond well to surveys. When AT published the first survey, the results took a lot of people by surprise. Since that time the church has initiated a major dialog on the issues covered in these surveys. People now recognize (as is evident even with the low response rate in the second survey) that there is a considerable array of beliefs within the SDA academic community on this topic. And, to this end the survey served its purpose. We are now learning to live with what is evident.

Floyd Petersen Loma Linda, California

Seventh-day Darwinians

Clifford Goldstein is certainly an able writer, if one does not get slowed up in reading him by having to consult a dictionary. "Anfractuosities" is only the most recent of his five-dollar words. Unfortunately, either he has a very poor memory of what he writes or perhaps he uses a unique dictionary that defines words in special ways just for him.

In his response to the critique by Ervin Taylor of his "Seventh-day Darwinians," Goldstein says "I never said a word about excommunicating anyone." "Excommunicating" means "excluding someone" in my dictionary. Goldstein says he is ready to "fight" anyone that does not see things the way he does. It is clear that if you do not agree with him he wants you to "go somewhere else . . . there are plenty of other churches for you . . ." In plain English, that says, "I say that you don't belong in my church, so get out." This is clearly a call to exclude from the Adventist church those who do not adhere to the Goldstein party line. Taylor's statement that Goldstein is advocating "effective excommunication" strikes me as right on.

Goldstein also objects to being labeled as the "most visible and vocal exponent of the ATS [Adventist Theological Society] agenda." His defense is that he is neither now nor ever has been an ATS member. However, the allegation was that Goldstein is the most visible and vocal exponent of the ATS agenda, not that he is an ATS member. To use a well-worn expression: "If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and acts like a duck, then there is a strong likelihood that it is some type of duck." If you are pouring gasoline on the floor of a house [Goldstein], while someone else holds the match [the ATS agenda], you can't claim that you are innocent of responsibility when the house burns down.

James Hilton Glendale, California