Adventist Media Response and Conversation

Saturday, April 13, 2013

And a fool shall led them

This blog has often addressed the foolishness of one of the Atoday.com bloggers, Stephen Foster. But this time I would like to address a comment from another Atoday blogger and the brother of Stephen Foster, Preston Foster. Here is what he wrote in the comment section of the article Post Script: Jack’s Last Words on Old Earth Creationism
  
"How is it logical to supply Bible reproof texts about Jesus that validate that He is the truth, if the Bible itself is an unreliable source?
If the Bible's account of creation is not reliable or is an analogy, would not the rest of the Bible, particularly an account of the immaculate conception, the virgin birth, and God as Man be more suspect?  Jesus believed the 10 Commandments (and came to fulfill them for us, then to die in our place for our transgression of them).  

As Stephen Foster pointed out earlier, the 10 Commandments begin, "And God spake all these words saying . . ." (Exodus 20:1) and continue "Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work.  But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God . . .   For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it" (Exodus 20: 8-11).

Which part of that is fallible?  If any part of it is fallible -- and the law defines sin, what, then, is sin (or is there sin at all)?  This is not a slippery slope, it is a ski jump."

This is so revealing about the kind of people that fundamentalist are. First line why quote the Bible if it is an unreliable source. This presumes that to be reliable the Bible must be 100% accurate but we know it is not. It presumes that the Bible is a dictation of God, which it is not. It presumes that of the many writers all had the same level of understanding which they did not. And it presumes that one cannot draw conclusions from what is written if not everything written is completely accurate. All these presumptions are errors.
Next line:  "If the Bible's account of creation is not reliable or is an analogy, would not the rest of the Bible, particularly an account of the immaculate conception, the virgin birth, and God as Man be more suspect?"
This is kind of an amazing statement as the Bible says nothing about the immaculate conception. That is a Roman Catholic doctrine:
 "The Immaculate Conception is a dogma of the Catholic Church maintaining that from the moment when she was conceived in the womb, the Blessed Virgin Mary was kept free of original sin and was filled with the sanctifying grace normally conferred during baptism.[1][2]  See Wikipedia
Though he does not know too much about what he is talking about his point is that if the creation myth is not accurate then there can be nothing supernatural, there can be no miracles even by God's direct action in coming to humanity. Is there really any logic to such a position? Not really it is the same thing as his first line where his presumptions are assumed factual, logical or reality.


This is the kind of dialog that is presented by the fundamentalist Adventist. There is an immense divide in the Adventist church. Where some of the most foolish philosophies are embraced and propagated. The question is, can those who don't know what they are talking about be persuaded that they in fact don't know what they are talking about. The answer is likely no. This would explain why religion seems to always divide, Denominations split and form a new group and it splits the presumptions remain and the self evaluation disappears as the traditions become set in concrete.


We will never find the answer in our knowledge because even those who self evaluate cannot see themselves clearly enough to overcome all of our presumptions. Yet I still feel that we should be able to see obvious foolishness, is that really too much to ask?

1 comment:

Andrew said...

No. It's not to much to ask.