Wishing Doesn't Make It So

I choose pastrami over haystacks

2011-03-09T10:09:00.000-05:00

Foodwise, being a cultural Jew beats being a cultural Adventist.

Evolution Made Us All

2011-02-13T12:22:00.002-05:00

Evolution Made Us All from Ben Hillman on Vimeo.

Southern Adventist University: Faith and Science web site

2010-09-07T09:37:00.000-04:00

Julie Hambridge,
Day Five: Creatures of the Sea and Sky, 2009

While I was researching something for the previous post, I encountered Southern Adventist University's Faculty Statement on Creation. The statement is six years old, but after the summer's General Conference session feels as fresh as a daisy, if you support additional clarity in Fundamental Belief #6.

The only faculty signing this statement are all from the School of Religion. No one from the biology department signed it, which is meaningless unless they were also asked to sign it—and didn't.*

However, SAU constituents should not fret. The biology department has something better than words. They have an Origins Exhibit, where visitors can view exhibits on the cell, the geologic column, and intelligent design.

These items are part of SAU's Faith and Science web site.** You'll also find creation art, papers on origins, and information on how evolution and spiritualism are related {PDF).*** More, too. Keep looking.

For what it's worth, it's a great site, if you can ignore the content. I can't find anything similar from any other NAD SDA institution. A statement here, a class there, but nothing that pulls it all together like SAU.

*Note the religion department web site vs the biology department web site. Why does the biology department have the uglier one?
**Which I would have noticed earlier, had I not been hiding under a rock.
***Without mentioning Alfred Russel Wallace, a serious oversight. If one, in fact, considers the two things to have any relationship whatsoever.

Experimentally

2010-09-06T17:50:00.000-04:00

By the end of the month, all North American SDA colleges and universities will be back in session. Via the grapevine as well as some online research, I've learned that some of these institutions will be highlighting creationism throughout this academic year.

If you're familiar with such events—whether through your union paper, alumni magazine, professional society, personal network, or direct experience—please send them to me. I'd like to feature each one here on this blog. And should you personally attend any of these events, I'd love to have you post your thoughts here.

Richard Dawkins: If Science Worked Like Religion

2010-05-06T11:28:00.005-04:00

The Edenic Ideal

2010-04-25T20:00:00.003-04:00

Three years (!) on, I begin to deliberately choose to read some of today's leading atheist writers (Dennett was an honest mistake, really!). Christopher Hitchens' God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything is the latest. I've read Hitchens elsewhere—Slate, Vanity Fair—but not in book form. Truth be told, he's all over the place here, but then he comes out with stuff like this*:

Christianity is too repressed to offer sex in paradise—indeed it has never been able to evolve a tempting heaven at all—but it has been lavish in its promise of sadistic and everlasting punishment for sexual backsliders, which is nearly as revealing in making the same point in a different way.

It's not new to say that Christianity (and religion in general) spends a lot of time talking about sex. Even when they're being positive, they're being negative. For example, here's this from Epikos (a not-SDA church affiliated with Mission Catalyst, and any good Seventh-day Adventist would agree with this statement of belief in its entirety):

10. Sex is good. God invented it as an expression of love, for our enjoyment, and to enable us to participate in the miracle of human life. To protect this most wonderful gift and the people He created to enjoy it, God insists that sex be shared exclusively in the context of a loving marriage covenant. Sexual activity in any other relationship hurts and demeans people and relationships. Marriage is intended by God to be a permanent, loving covenant between a man and a woman. (Revelation 19:6-8; Genesis 2:18, 21-24; Exodus 20:14; Matthew 5:27-28; Proverbs 6:32; Colossians 3:18-21)***

The first sentence is good. I can even live with the second sentence, although it makes me want to say "How do you know that?" But the rest? Should have a giant red line drawn through it.

SDAs believe that even if the Edenic Ideal is impossible to achieve here on earth, it can't hurt to try (diet is another area in which one might achieve the Edenic Ideal. But not nudity. Because that would be wrong.). Part of that Edenic Ideal involves no sex outside of marriage (because Adam and Eve didn't), and part of it is about no sex with a person of the same sex as you. Because, as Pastor Bob Botsford reminded us in the other night's Larry King interview with Jennifer Knapp, God didn't create Adam and Steve.**

Grrrr. This is the end of this post. I wrote more, and I'm too chicken to publish it, even anonymously.

Grrrr. It makes me want to have that drink.

*If I were a drinker, Hitchens is the sort of person I'd have a drink with, just to hear him talk. Part of it is the accent, and the rest of it is his brilliance (even when he's just plain wrong).

**Crazily enough, Ted Haggard was the sanest person in the entire program. I know!

***Look them all up. I guarantee it's educational.

The Wheel of Power!

2010-04-24T18:07:00.000-04:00

No one can withstand its brute force!

Hat tip to James McGrath at Exploring Our Matrix.

Now on Twitter

2010-04-06T21:52:00.003-04:00

A while back someone (I think it was Gin & Tonic for the Soul) encouraged me to start using Twitter. So I did. I can't say I'm a devoted user, but I do from time to time.

I put a Twitter thingy in the sidebar, and you can follow @verawishes. If you want.

Happy Easter

2010-04-04T00:41:00.001-04:00

It's a different kind of Easter for Gin & Tonic for the Soul.

How we're related to chimps

2010-02-15T11:10:00.001-05:00

I read Signs of the Times

2010-01-03T14:23:00.003-05:00

From the January 2010 issue of Signs of the Times:

Q: What does the Bible say about the kind of clothes Christians should wear?

A: Paul said that women should dress modestly and avoid the use of "braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes" (1 Timothy 2:9). And Peter said that a woman's beauty should not come from "outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be...the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight" (1 Peter 3:3, 4).

There are a couple of telling points about this Q&A session. First, the question specifically asks about Christians, which presumably includes men, women, and everything in between. Yet the answer covers women only. A simple rewrite of the question would make a big difference (especially considering that the New Testament doesn't address men's apparel or jewelry*).

Second, the question addressed clothing, but the author didn't resist including the braided hair and jewelry bits. Yes, they're there. No, they're not particularly relevant.

Bonus point: As much power and influence "a gentle and quiet spirit" might have,** I'm grateful for my female forebears*** who exercised their powers of kicking ass and moving things along.

*We are ignoring the Old Testament bits about cross-dressing and fabric made of mixed materials, as well as New Testament advice on women covering their hair.

**Because a gentle and quiet spirit has more power than a first glance might reveal.

***And the men who worked beside them, or at least stayed out of the way.

Believer Beware

2009-09-09T08:57:00.004-04:00

I hadn't thought of Mike Warnke in a long time, until I read a recent post at Unreasonable Faith.

I read The Satan Seller growing up. Listened to Bob Larson and a few other speakers eager to tell teenagers how rock music leads to Satanism or was just plain bad for you (twice during my youth I tossed all of my rock music). I believed the reappearing Ouija board stories (even thought my father once threw one away that never came back). Only one adult during that time had anything critical to say: my geometry teacher, who thought that backward masking was rubbish.

Should have listened to him.

I read Adventist World

2009-07-31T12:38:00.003-04:00

The latest issue of Adventist World carries an article called "Creation Wonders: Why special creation matters." It's an excellent brief overview of why it's necessary to believe in special creation in order to be a Seventh-day Adventist.

The article is part of Adventist World's ongoing series on the fundamental beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Unusually, this article uses four authors:

John T. Baldwin is professor of theology in the Theology and Christian Philosophy Department at Andrews University. Leonard R. Brand is professor of biology and paleontology at Loma Linda University. Arthur Chadwick is professor of geology and biology at Southwestern Adventist University, and Randall W. Younker is professor of Old Testament and biblical archaeology at the same university.

Here's one of the things two theologians and two scientists need the SDA church to know (emphasis mine):

Additionally, the chronological material in Genesis 4, 5, and Matthew 1 are only compatible with a time since creation of a few thousand years, not millions of years (deep time). But why does it matter how long ago it was? Why do we care about time? It matters a great deal, and the reason involves our response to modern scientific interpretations of geologic time and what it says about the nature of God and of the Bible. Deep time and the theory of the evolution of all creatures go hand in hand. Our choice is between deep time plus evolution of life forms, or a recent biblical creation week.

Sigh. There's that clear black-and-white choice again.

In a nutshell, here's why special creation matters to the authors:

If Genesis 1 and 2 can't be read literally, then the Bible cannot be trusted. And if we can't trust the Bible on this issue, how can we trust the other parts of the Bible?
God is love. If God used evolution in his creation process, then he is a cruel God who, instead of the comparatively gentle method of creation described in the first two chapters of Genesis, used a method that resulted in "more than 3.8 billion years of trauma (predation), disease, death, mass extinctions, suffering, countless regional geologic catastrophes of all sorts."
The acceptance of deep time requires "requires the denial of a historical, literal Fall*, a global flood, and a historical Adam through whom sin and death passed to all humanity, and ultimately involves the denial of the need to accept Jesus as Savior through His life and death on the Cross*."
No special creation makes God a liar. God himself wrote the fourth commandment in which he describes himself as the creator of the heavens and the earth, and he did it in six days.

They sum up with the following:

Special creation preserves the integrity of Scripture, safeguards the loving, praiseworthy character of God, establishes the reality of the atonement and redemption, and the soundness of the seventh-day Sabbath.

If one is to believe in and worship a god, one would vote for the loving one (or at least I would). The idea that God is a loving God is deeply comforting to many people, and I have no interest in asking anyone to give up that idea. Keep it. I'd rather you have that one than some of the alternatives.

But the God of the Bible is not the God of warm fuzzies:

By the seventh chapter of Genesis, God has wiped out much of creation with a global flood. Note that not everything created during creation week was destroyed—he preserved light, the sky, sun, moon, stars, and a few animals and humans. Vegetation, nearly all animal life, and almost all of humanity—gone.
During the history of the Israelites, he repeatedly asks them to commit genocide and punishes them when they don't follow through.
If one reads Revelation literally (and Adventists like to read part of it literally and part of it figuratively), God intends to throw anyone who doesn't believe in him into the lake of fire where, some believe, they will burn forever and ever (which, in spite of our other faults, Adventists do not believe).

Perhaps we need to accept that God has a dark side?

*When did we start capitalizing fall and cross?

I read the Adventist Review

2009-07-30T21:06:00.007-04:00

The July 23 issue of the Adventist Review contains an article called Creation and the Certainty of the Second Coming. The article's primary recommendation is that it asks a lot of questions. Many of them are bad, leading questions, but in the current environment one can't help but think that even bad questions are better than no questions. Written by E. Edward Zinke*, the article begins thusly:

Who are we?

Are we the result of a lightning strike in a rich prebiotic soup that formed in ancient tidal pools? Did we evolve from there to self-replicating nucleic acids, then to a primitive cell, on to chimpanzees, and finally to humans? Are we here because the principle of the survival of the fittest guided our proud ancestry? Are we explained and defined by the theory of evolution?

If so, what does that tell us about God, ourselves, and the future?

If our origin is to be explained on the basis of evolutionary process, what does that say for God and His role and influence in the universe? What part, if any, would He play in history and in our lives? Does He know or care that we exist? Is He simply an inanimate powerful force, or a computer-like mastermind? Is He also a person? If so, how does He relate to us?

If He exists, did He initiate the first spark of life and then somehow guide the process of evolution to its intermediary and currently the highest stage of life—called human (a hypothesis called theistic evolution)? If so, why did it take Him billions of years of “tooth and claw” to bring evolution to its current stage of human development? Is His problem one of limited love, limited power, or limited intelligence? If He is a God of love, why did He use the cruel process of the survival of the fittest to create humanity? Could it be that He is a God of love doing the best that He can with finite power? Or is it that He is a God of power and of love, but just not very smart—a little slow, but doing the best He can? And if He is a personal God, a God of love, why did it take Him so many millions and billions of years to get around to telling us about His love?

And that's just for starters! Makes me think of the old days (You may notice that I've left a glaring error in that post. I've left it there on purpose, to remind me of where I used to be.)

In all these questions, there's bound to be a burr in the saddle. Once one starts asking questions, where does one stop?:

What implication does theistic evolution have for the way God acts in the world? If God either cannot or does not behave in the way that the Genesis Creation account describes, then what does that say for other reports of His activities in the rest of the Bible? Did God bring about a worldwide flood and guide Noah’s ark to safety? Did God, Sinai, and Moses actually cross paths? If we have a problem with the miracle of the biblical Creation** account, why would we not also question the miracle of the bodily Resurrection**, the literal, visible Second Coming**, and the creation of the new earth?

So here's my question: How can a people—a movement, if you must—that believes in the direct intervention of God in human history have so much trouble in believing in theistic evolution? Science can neither prove nor disprove the theistic part, but it has plenty to say about the evolution part. The stones themselves cry out. It's written all across creation, in the very fabric of the universe. It's right in front of you, if you have eyes to see and ears to hear. Keep looking. Keep listening.

*"E. Edward Zinke, a theologian and businessman, was a member of the staff of the Biblical Research Institute at the General Conference from 1971 to 1986. He served as president of Ann’s House of Nuts, an international food company, until 2008, when he and his wife sold the company. He serves on the Board of Trustees of Andrews University, on the Biblical Research Committee, on the Sabbath School Lesson Committee, the Faith and Science Council, and is Vice Chair of the Ellen G. White Estate. He was cofounder, past president, and IS current treasurer of the Adventist Theological Society. He is also active at Spencerville Adventist Church, teaching an adult Sabbath School class."

**When did we start capitalizing creation, resurrection, and second coming?

I read Adventist World

2009-07-16T21:06:00.006-04:00

The latest issue of Adventist World carries Angel Manuel Rodriguez's column "Bible Questions." This month's question is "Is it true that some Adventist scientists and theologians no longer believe that God created everything in six literal days?." (It's almost like they're writing just for me these days. Wheeeeee! I'm special!)

In the interest of time (mine, not yours), I'm going to skip over what's wrong with his first two points in favor of the third. What the reader really asks is this: "Is it true that some Adventist scientists and theologians no longer believe that God created everything in six literal days? If so, what can I do to protect my children?" (words in italics mine)

Because this is what Rodriguez says:

Space does not allow me to say more about the tragedy of Adventists who are evolutionists. But I do want to address the concern expressed in your communication about what Adventist parents should do in this situation. I agree that having teachers in our colleges and universities arguing and supporting the idea that natural evolution is the best alternative for the understanding of origins is outrageous. They not only violate the meaning of the biblical text, but also violate the trust the church placed in them by calling them to teach our young people.

Your alternatives are few. Remember, you are paying for your children to obtain an Adventist education; and if the school is not providing what you’re paying for, you have to make a decision. This is what I suggest: Visit our colleges and talk to the teachers about their views on natural evolution and their interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2. If you are unsatisfied with their answers, discourage your son or daughter from attending that school. Most teachers in other Adventist schools stand by what the Bible teaches. You may also want to inform the school’s administration about your findings.

There are several pitiable groups of people here. One is the parents. Imagine the shock! Imagine the horror! that their children might be exposed to the evolutionists among us! To you I say: Rather than setting your children up for grave disappointment later, consider allowing them to learn more about how the natural world works. "God did it" isn't science, and it isn't an explanation.

Then there are the aforementioned Adventist scientists and theologians. If there are more than a handful of them who believe that evolution is true, Angel Manuel Rodriguez represents why it's not safe for them to talk about it in the classroom.

Finally, there are the Adventist students. The church as an institution and as a living, pulsing, breathing body cannot afford to continue its policy of refusing to engage with biological evolution. Somebody—and I don't know who—has got to stand up and describe how it's possible to both be a Seventh-day Adventist and also believe that evolution is true. It's got to be someone who matters and someone who can make their voice heard.

Because, you know, the numbers aren't looking so good. I'm not one to imagine that changing this one thing is enough to stem the tide of young adults headed out the door. But changing this one thing might be the beginning of a larger change.

As always, you're welcome to ask me why I care.

I read the Adventist Review

2009-07-11T15:45:00.005-04:00

Here's the kind of letter I would write to the Adventist Review if I could write under my own name:

I feel so frustrated with our church leadership. I am referring to Mark A. Kellner’s editorial “Darwin’s Dead, but Jesus Lives!” (May 14, 2009).

Church leaders keep pretending that there really is no problem between the current interpretation of the Bible and what science is finding. They wonder why so many young people are leaving the church. Part of the problem is that the church’s schools teach the young about how to do things scientifically (math, physics, chemistry, geology, biology), but then the church asks them to ignore the huge gap between the current theology and science. What the church is doing is creating the “God of confusion” for many young (and old) who just can’t reconcile the two.

I didn't write it, but Micheal Godfrey did, and his letter was printed in the July 9, 2009 issue of the Adventist Review. It's the first letter of its kind I've ever read in the Adventist Review. May it not be the last.

It's just the kind of question Bettina Krause ought to have asked in this episode of Intersection:

But there weren't any questions like that. Even Cliff was soft and squishy, and that's saying a lot.

But let's head back to the Adventist Review, where Stephen Chavez reveals a stunning lack of familiarity with basic evolutionary theory:

When a summer heat wave or a particularly threatening virus comes along, “at-risk” portions of the population are urged to take precautions—the young, the elderly, the feeble.

Why? If society is governed by the principle “survival of the fittest,” why be concerned about the weak, the marginalized, the infirm? Why not just let nature take its course?

The same with the current preoccupation with the health of the planet: you can hardly go a week without hearing about how this or that ecosystem is being threatened. Hey, isn’t that what evolution is all about? Evolve or die?

Turn the page, and you can read Jan Paulsen's recent statement on origins again.

Where to Start

2009-06-25T07:34:00.002-04:00

I've been guilty of asking friends to read this blog to gain some understanding of where I'm at. One (apparently) skipped the homework, (apparently) jumped to conclusions, and then recommended a therapist.

There's always been a sidebar section called "Getting Started," but I've just added links to the section called "Some Favorite Posts." It's not the whole blog, but it's good place to start.

The pitfalls of blogging anonymously

2009-06-22T17:22:00.003-04:00

My biggest regret* about blogging anonymously is that I'm unable to share more about myself. I'm constantly editing—no place names, no personal references, no talk about where I work or geographical location or the weather. Nothing about where I grew up, or went to high school or college, how recently I did either, and who was there with me. Little about my family. Does my paranoia show?

Some moments I fantasize about the day I'll begin a post with the words "My name is [insert real name here]." What comes next will inevitably be bittersweet—there is no happy event that will push me toward disclosing my identity, but I'll also be glad at last to tell you the fuller story of who I am, where I came from, and how I got here. Still edited, but a different kind of editing.

Because I also imagine that being able to share more about me means that you'll feel more comfortable sharing more about you and your experiences. Being able to share more about our lives means better connections, and I can always use a few more of those.

Just so you know.

*"Regret" may not be the right word. Can't think of anything closer.

I am almost

2009-06-21T21:12:00.002-04:00

I am
two spies short of trusting and
a slingshot shy of killing giants.
I am
tailgated by Baalish priests and
stuck in my own moat of unbelief.
I am
without an Eli to calm the dark and
whisper, "Go back and listen again."
I am
skin away from Davidic lures and
walking knee deep in floodplains.
I am
the eleventh leper who overslept and
the would-be mason that never went.
I am
wandering in a manmade desert and
my mind can't find the well.
I am
hands full of dirt without divine spit and
tugging on your robe like an idiot.
I am
standing underneath the cliff and
it's raining demonic pigs.
I am
up too high in the sycamore and
just one boat away from overhearing.

I am
almost.

Zach Kincaid

The Return of the Blogger aka Vera

2009-06-21T18:54:00.004-04:00

So many things about which to blog. They're all sitting in folders, virtual and physical, waiting for the day in which I would take them up and write again. That day has now arrived.

The tiny statement that pushed me over the edge* comes from a recent Spectrum blog post by Bonnie Dwyer, in which she talks about Jan Paulsen's recent statement on origins. Here's the line:

With a six-day creation and evolution acknowledged as being necessary parts of an Adventist school curriculum, the statement stakes out new ground.

I've previously mentioned the two official church statements on the matter—An Affirmation of Creation and Response to an Affirmation of Creation—and it's worth quoting—again—from the first:

Creation is a foundational pillar in the entire system of Seventh-day Adventist doctrine—it bears direct relationship to many if not all other fundamental beliefs. Any alternative interpretation of the creation story needs to be examined in light of its impact on all other beliefs. Several of the Faith and Science Conferences reviewed alternative interpretations of Genesis 1, including the idea of theistic evolution. These other interpretations lack theological coherence with the whole of Scripture and reveal areas of inconsistency with the rest of Seventh-day Adventist doctrine. They are therefore unacceptable substitutes for the biblical doctrine of creation held by the church.

Any questions?

*And here you thought it would be the David Assherick dustup. You're not far from wrong, but other considerations prevented me from commenting on that in a timely fashion. That won't keep me from commenting on it in an untimely manner.

"Go back down the mountain...

2009-05-01T09:38:00.003-04:00

"Go back down the mountain, my heart," Suukmel advised serenely. "Listen to Isaac’s music again. Remember what you thought when you first heard it. Know that if we are children of one God, we can make ourselves one family in time."

"And if God is just a song?" Ha'anala asked, alone and frightened.

Suukmel did not answer for a while. Finally she said, "Our task is the same."

Mary Doria Russell, Children of God (Ballantine Reader's Circle)

EGW shows up in the strangest places

2009-02-18T22:35:00.003-05:00

All you SDAs know exactly what I thought when I saw this post title over at Pharyngula:

SOP for prophets

UPDATE: Ellen G. White is held to be a prophet in the Seventh-day Adventist church. She had visions; wrote books, articles, and countless letters; and was a co-founder of the Seventh-day Adventist church. The term "spirit of prophecy" is often used among Adventists to refer to her or to her writings. And it's sometimes abbreviated to SOP. I didn't even think twice when I read the headline—it took the article to clarify its meaning.

Some habits die hard.

Courage Campaign

2009-02-09T10:00:00.003-05:00

"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

Watch it. Sign the letter. Tell your friends.

May you enjoy a peaceful holiday season

2008-12-25T13:17:00.001-05:00

The ancients watched the winter solstice
The sun shrinking from the Earth
The shortest day, the longest night and then the new year's birth.
But what the ancients couldn't know
Now clear to those with eyes to see
That summer here is winter there
And day to you is night to me.
It all depends on where you stand
Six billion different points of view
I'll honor yours if you honor mine
And then with grace we'll see this through.

Harold Ramis, quoted in The God Factor: Inside the Spiritual Lives of Public People, page 213

I am often asked by...

2008-12-17T15:37:00.003-05:00

I am often asked by believers why I abandoned Christianity and how I found meaning in the apparently meaningless universe presented by science. The implication is that the scientific world-view is an existentially depressing one. Without God, I am bluntly told, what's the point? If this is all there is, there is no use. To the contrary. For me quite the opposite is true. The conjuncture of losing my religion, finding science, and discovering glorious contingency was remarkably empowering and liberating. It gave me a sense of joy and freedom. Freedom to think for myself. Freedom to take responsibility for my own actions. Freedom to construct my own meanings and my own destinies. With the knowledge that this may be all there is, and that I can trigger my own cascading changes, I was free to live life to its fullest.

This is not to say that those who are religious cannot share in these freedoms. But for me, and not just for me, a world absent monsters, ghosts, demons, and gods unfetters the mind to soar to new heights, to think unthinkable thoughts, to imagine the unimaginable, to contemplate infinity and eternity knowing that no one is looking back. The universe takes on a whole new meaning when you know that your place in it was not foreordained, that it was not designed for us, indeed, that it was not designed at all. If we are nothing more than star stuff and bio mass, how special life becomes. If the tape were played again and again without the appearance of our species, how extraordinary becomes our existence, and, correspondingly, how cherished. To share in the sublimity of knowledge generated by other human minds, and perhaps even to make a tiny contribution toward that body of knowledge that will be passed down through the ages, part of the cumulative wisdom of a single species on a tiny planet orbiting an ordinary star on the remote edge of a not-so-unusual galaxy, itself a member of a cluster of galaxies millions of light years from nowhere, is sublime beyond words.

Michael Shermer, How We Believe, 2nd Edition: Science, Skepticism, and the Search for God, pages 236-237