2.3 Wiki rules discussion

[RC_NewProtestants]

2.3 There is a specific Creation & Evolution forum, which would provide greater opportunity for discussion if the interest is to debate evolution without God’s involvement versus intelligent design. Therefore, the topic of atheistic evolution is not to be discussed/debated in the SDA forum, nor is the topic of theistic evolution to be discussed/debated in the SDA forum.

http://www.christianforums.com/t5674237

The part in red has not been discussed and is the subject of this thread:

 

[TrustAndObey]

I agree with the part in red.

However, I do want to state that I think you (RC) are the only Progressive I know so far that believes in theistic evolution, and it is not my intention to censor you.

I don't see you post much about the subject honestly (I couldn't see what you had posted for a while though), but would you be willing only to discuss it in the forum created for that topic instead of this one?

Basically my question is, since you are the only one that ever talks about it, would you feel like the rule was set up just for you if it stays the way it is (with the red included)?

 

[RC_NewProtestants]

It should be open for discussion, I disagree with the part in Red. Number 1 all of us agree that evolution takes place. The statement as written is far too broad as it would encompass macro as well as micro evolution.

Number 2 dealing with Theistic Evolution is not something that is only thought of by me. In 2006 Adventist Today put out a book:
Understanding Genesis: Contemporary Adventist Perspectives

You may not know Adventists who hold to this but they are not that scarce in Adventists Colleges and Medical institutions. It is a mistake to ban important and/or controversial ideas from the forum as even if you don't have previous experience dealing with them it does not mean that they will not have a future impact upon yourself and those you will talk with. The idea that we must protect ourselves from controversy is an error in logic as hiding from information rarely does anyone any good.

Editorial Reviews
Book Description
In his The Creationists: The Evolution of Scientific Creationism, the distinguished American historian, Ronald Numbers documented in detail the essential role that a devout Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) believer, George McCready Price (1870-1963), played in creating the initial set of modern fundamentalist arguments to support a so-called ¿Flood Geology¿ as a means of explaining the geological column, a position that the scientific community totally rejects. In recent official pronouncements, the SDA Church continues to endorse an essentially literalistic interpretation of the Genesis creation narratives and a geologically recent (<10,000 years) creation and worldwide flood. What may not be known outside of the Adventist subculture is that there has been for many decades major criticisms and exceptions voiced by a number of moderate and progressive SDA theologians and scientists to many aspects of the traditional Adventist understandings promulgated by fundamentalist and conservative elements within the SDA faith tradition. Understanding Genesis: Contemporary Adventist Perspectives is a volume of papers written by SDA theologians and scientists, most of which hold faculty appointments at Adventist colleges and universities in North America. The various chapters provide a spectrum of views on a variety of topics, including non-fundamentalist interpretations of the Genesis creation and flood narratives, a consideration of theistic evolution or progressive creationism, the validity of the evidence dating the geological column and human prehistory, and other related topics.

 

[TrustAndObey]

You may not know Adventists who hold to this but they are not that scarce in Adventists Colleges and Medical institutions. It is a mistake to ban important and/or controversial ideas from the forum as even if you don't have previous experience dealing with them it does not mean that they will not have a future impact upon yourself and those you will talk with. The idea that we must protect ourselves from controversy is an error in logic as hiding from information rarely does anyone any good.

Assuming we don't have any previous experience with this subject is incorrect. I can only speak for myself, but I've talked about this subject until I am sick to death of it honestly.

I'm sure most people in this forum have discussed it at other times as well. That doesn't mean we want to discuss it here when there's a forum already set up to talk about this very thing.

BRB...phone

 

[djconklin]

Number 2 dealing with Theistic Evolution is not something that is only thought of by me. In 2006 Adventist Today put out a book:
Understanding Genesis: Contemporary Adventist Perspectives

In the last line of the review it states that it covers a "spectrum." This does not imply that they condone the view. In light of the fact that it contradicts Scripture it is a heresy. I'd rather not have us waste time and energy dealing with it.

 

[Adventist Dissident]

RC

I have to agree with the rule.
I was on a Creation Ministry and this subject is not respected by Creationist or evolutionist . This is a compromise position.
There is a place to discuss this info on the main forum. You can post there

 

[RC_NewProtestants]

This is what the previous wiki statement rule said:

2.3 There is a specific Creation & Evolution forum, which would provide greater opportunity for discussion if the interest is to debate evolution without God&#8217;s involvement versus intelligent design.

It would seem to be adequate to limit evolution debate but not so broad as to prevent the subject from being addressed.

As for DJ's comment, even if the book only covers the topic as a spectrum, it is still within the spectrum of Adventist belief and subculture.

Calling things heresy is of little value as many of the Adventist beliefs would be called heresy by other churches. Heresy only has power when there is an authority which wants to stomp upon divergent views. I am a proud heretic as were most of the Reformers.

By the way DJ I know the Editor and I know what he believes on the subject.

Icedragon wrote:
"There is a place to discuss this info on the main forum. You can post there"

I have never posted a thread on this subject only responded to questions others asked of me on this subject. With the above as a rule I could not even respond to such questions and others could not even dare to ask such questions. Further we could not even talk about how after the fall it came about that lions have teeth for ripping and killing or how it is that certain animals have the symbiotic nature like those fish that clean the death of predator fish. We could merely say God created those fish to do something that were there not predators with such teeth they would have no need to do.

You have to be careful what you limit, rules limiting discussion rather then the way one discusses should be avoided.

 

[TrustAndObey]

Calling things heresy is of little value as many of the Adventist beliefs would be called heresy by other churches. Heresy only has power when there is an authority which wants to stomp upon divergent views. I am a proud heretic as were most of the Reformers.

But this is the Adventist subforum. It doesn't really matter what other churches say about us as they are not allowed to debate with us in here.

The whole reason for subforums like ours is so we can discuss things with like-minded individuals. If we want to debate there's GT or many other places to do so.

RC, I really have no desire to censor your opinion, but I agree with Ice that there's a place to go discuss this without upsetting anyone in here.

Evolution is definitely not something the majority of Adventists believe in.

I vote to keep that discussion out of this forum.

I see creation throughout my college textbooks and although our opinions differ, *I* chose the Adventist church BECAUSE of our beliefs on that subject and many others.

I think that particular subject would keep a lot of people from posting here and I think it should be banned. Seriously, some of us have been hammered with this subject to no end.

 

[honorthesabbath]

I too would like to add that NO discussion of evolution should blacken our SDA forum.

If the pope wants to agree that 'evolution is the better answer'--then let him--but we of the remnant church refuse this garbage in all it's heretical blubberings.

As has been mentioned, this discussion already rages in another forum, if you want to get into that frey, then go there, but don't drag it in here.

When God tells us to stay 'faithful'--it is the faith that HIS word is true. The creation story is TRUTH. Why parley with the devil as Eve did? Look who won that faithless debate!!!

 

[TrustAndObey]

I have never posted a thread on this subject only responded to questions others asked of me on this subject.

Well there you go! If they're not allowed to ask you questions about it, you won't have to answer -OR- you could direct them to the forum about this topic and get in a full-blown debate with them there. It definitely doesn't have to mean that you back down if it's something you really believe in.

I think we're just asking that this not be a place for those full-blown debates at all.

Is this something you just won't compromise on? I have a feeling this is the only one that really rubs you the wrong way since it's the only rule you've posted about so far.

 

[reddogs]

Since one has to accept some things in the Bible by faith, their isnt much to debate when it comes to creation. You accept it or you dont, and the rest is all "mans wisdom" and mans conjectures, only God knows all the details.........

 

[Sophia7]

Calling things heresy is of little value as many of the Adventist beliefs would be called heresy by other churches. Heresy only has power when there is an authority which wants to stomp upon divergent views. I am a proud heretic as were most of the Reformers.

By the way DJ I know the Editor and I know what he believes on the subject.

Icedragon wrote:
"There is a place to discuss this info on the main forum. You can post there"

I have never posted a thread on this subject only responded to questions others asked of me on this subject. With the above as a rule I could not even respond to such questions and others could not even dare to ask such questions. Further we could not even talk about how after the fall it came about that lions have teeth for ripping and killing or how it is that certain animals have the symbiotic nature like those fish that clean the death of predator fish. We could merely say God created those fish to do something that were there not predators with such teeth they would have no need to do.

You have to be careful what you limit, rules limiting discussion rather then the way one discusses should be avoided.

I agree that we need to be careful what we limit. I disagree with the portions in red that were added to the rule above. We shouldn't censor others when we don't want to be censored ourselves.

 

[TrustAndObey]

Since one has to accept some things in the Bible by faith, their isnt much to debate when it comes to creation. You accept it or you dont, and the rest is all "mans wisdom" and mans conjectures, only God knows all the details.........

That's true. Most people don't have a degree in science (and even a lot that do have a degree still believe in creation).

This topic never has a good outcome that I've ever seen in all my years of message boards and Christian chat rooms.

I've never seen anyone change their mind from what they originally believed and it has always appeared absolutely fruitless to me.

There will always be people saying they have a childlike faith that won't discuss it at all, and then there are those that take everything scientists have said as gospel truth.

I really don't think we can allow atheists to come in here and constantly hit us with this topic and if that means censoring, which I normally do not agree with, I think for the good of this forum this topic really should be banned.

The more I think about it, the more I'm in favor of banning it. Mainly because it isn't totally censored on this site.

That's my two cents.

 

[Sophia7]

That's true. Most people don't have a degree in science (and even a lot that do have a degree still believe in creation).

This topic never has a good outcome that I've ever seen in all my years of message boards and Christian chat rooms.

I've never seen anyone change their mind from what they originally believed and it has always appeared absolutely fruitless to me.

There will always be people saying they have a childlike faith that won't discuss it at all, and then there are those that take everything scientists have said as gospel truth.

I really don't think we can allow atheists to come in here and constantly hit us with this topic and if that means censoring, which I normally do not agree with, I think for the good of this forum this topic really should be banned.

The more I think about it, the more I'm in favor of banning it. Mainly because it isn't totally censored on this site.

That's my two cents.

The consensus that we had reached in the wiki was to disallow discussion of evolution without God's involvement. That means that atheists would not be able to "come in here and constantly hit us with this topic."

 

[TrustAndObey]

The consensus that we had reached in the wiki was to disallow discussion of evolution without God's involvement. That means that atheists would not be able to "come in here and constantly hit us with this topic."

I agree, I originally agreed that I thought the topic should only be banned for atheists in our forum. I'm not trying to be a hypocrite, I swear.

But, upon prayful consideration, I realized that if we're going to allow non-Adventists to debate in here, there is going to be ALL kinds of theories about God-assisted evolution.

Micro evolution is one thing, but macro evolution is very anti-biblical in my opinion (and I'm not alone here).

I will say this, and it won't be popular, but I'll agree to micro evolution and even macro evolution discussions if we don't allow non-Adventists to debate in here.

I can hold my own in an evolution debate, trust me, I've done it for YEARS. I just don't think it's something the general consensus wants in this forum and I am not compelled to fight for it.

I have a list of 10 websites I could go to if the mood strikes me to ask a "hey, if we evolved, tell me how........" question. I really don't have to bring it in here.

 

[Sophia7]

I can hold my own in an evolution debate, trust me, I've done it for YEARS. I just don't think it's something the general consensus wants in this forum and I am not compelled to fight for it.

The reason that I am arguing against censoring this topic is that this debate goes beyond evolution. We shouldn't prohibit discussion of something just because only a minority of members here believes it. The same thing could be and has been done to us at CF.

 

[TrustAndObey]

The reason that I am arguing against censoring this topic is that this debate goes beyond evolution. We shouldn't prohibit discussion of something just because only a minority of members here believes it. The same thing could be and has been done to us at CF.

And Sophia, I think it's great that you're willing to fight for something you don't believe in for the sake of not censoring, and I totally relate to that actually.

We do have to go with the general consensus though. If it turns out to be something I can't live with, I will leave.

If all of CF were to vote on Adventists, we'd be out of here. In most of their eyes we're a cult. Thankfully we're just voting for this forum though.

When we were censored from talking about annihilation, it was something I really had a problem with because we have CLEAR scripture that addresses that subject.

Macro evolution is pure speculation in my opinion. There isn't any scripture as clear about evolution as there is about annihilation.

I don't know. I don't like this subject. It is a subject of ENDLESS debate.

 

[woobadooba]

I don't think we need to debate the issue here. Either we agree with it or not.

I don't agree that it should be permitted to be discussed or debated in the SDA forum. Period.

It seems to me that we've reached a consensus here, since only Sophia and RC want it in here, and the rest don't.

 

[DarylFawcett]

I am totally a creationist myself, however, if we can't stand up to being challenged on it here, as we will be elsewhere, then I have a problem with that, therefore, for that reason alone I am against the addition to this rule in red.

 

[RC_NewProtestants]

It is pretty simple really if Adventist can't discuss things that they have to deal with and think about because they are controversial then the point of a discussion forum is lost.

Why not simply put what you really want in the rule:
"Only the literal six day view of creation and the literal flood water covering the entire earth shall be allowed in the Adventist Forum."