Tuesday, November 3, 2009

SDA Creationism: The Origin of Young Earth Creationism in the USA.

Last weekend there was a big Evolutionary Biology conference at the University of Chicago. Among the speakers was Ron Numbers a former Seventh-Day Adventist. (Summary of his talk on Pharyngula) He mentioned something I had not known before. According to the talk the old earth creationism ideas of day/age and gap theory were the standard positions in the United States outside of Adventism until the 1960's. At the time there was a book written called The Genesis Flood which borrowed the SDA idea developed by Ellen White follower George MacReady Price - the Noah's flood was responsible for the entire geologic column. Since most of Christianity regarded Adventism as a cult, the SDA notion of a young earth wasn't widely accepted until introduced to mainstream Christianity by the non-Adventist who wrote The Genesis Flood.

Maybe this is common knowledge and I wasn't aware due to the fact that I was on the inside of the Adventist system. I just had know idea that the SDA church was the lone reservoir of special pseudo-science for so long.
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On a related note there was a special Creation Sabbath sermon here on October, 24. I didn't get to stay and listen, but I was hoping the audio would get posted. Looks like maybe I'll never get to see what I missed.

6 comments:

perpetualstudent said...

Ron Number's books "The Creationists" and "Prophetess of Health" are both must reads. In "Prophetess of Health" he documents the plagiarism and her use of editors and secretaries to clean up her random mumblings. But he also gives her a lot of credit for her emphasis on health and other social issues.

Shawn Boonstra said...

I've been called a lot of things before, but "creepy and dishonest" is new!!!

:)

Shawn Boonstra said...

Oops - forgot "slimy liar." That was also new.

Iron Soul said...

I may guilty of speaking too strongly. I don't know you. There maybe another reason for the things you say. Willful dishonesty seemed the most likely because you appear intelligent. Ignorance is also a possibility. I'm sure there are other more charitable options as well.

Shawn Boonstra said...

I must admit that I do find it amusing when people assume there are essentially only two options if someone doesn't see things the way they do:

1. They are lying/dishonest.
2. They are unintelligent.

Odd, but even though I disagree with your conclusions, I somehow didn't mentally file you under either of those categories.

Enjoyed perusing your blog.

SB

Iron Soul said...

Shawn

Thanks for reading. I have to admit I enjoy being inflammatory and over the top when I write a blog. I'm sure I'm much milder in person. Your comments here seem to be in good faith. Though we disagree on some fundamental points, I respect that.