The Levitt Letter

Recently, an anonymous Seventh-day Adventist wrote an objectionable letter to the Zola Levitt Ministries (http://www.levitt.com/). This letter was published (Adventists Are Now God's Chosen People!?) in the December 2007 Levitt Letter and Dr. Jeffrey Seif rightly responded to the objectionable contents.

Embarassed and offended by what this anonymous Adventist wrote, I called Zola Levitt Ministries (25 Nov. '07) and left a message for Dr. Seif apologizing for what this guy wrote. Not satisfied with only a phone message, I decided to write Dr. Seif an apology email responding to the comments of the letter.

I am including both the letter and Dr. Seif's response below, and then I am following with the email I sent Dr. Seif. I have made minor editorical changes.

Adventists Are Now God’s Chosen People!?

Dear Jeffrey,
God has rejected the Jews because they rejected Him. I am a Seventh Day Adventist and our prophet Ellen G. White was told by God that the Jews would never be a Nation again and that Old Jerusalem would never be rebuilt. The Adventists are now God’s chosen people, “Spiritual Israel.” The Jews can come to Jesus by becoming Adventists.

You seem to be afraid of the Muslims, but it’s the Catholics you need to worry about. The Pope is the antiChrist and Sunday is the “Mark of the Beast”! The Muslims are nearest to the Adventist faith because they have a prophet, don’t eat pork, and go to church on Friday like we do. The Adventist Church in Europe turned all of their Jewish converts over to Hitler and most died in the ovens. God said they would—read Lev. 26. I’m afraid to put my name to this for fear the Jews may try to kill me.

Dear Whatever-Your-Name-Is—
I believe that your letter is loaded with an inordinate amount of fantasy. Saying that the Jews may try to kill you is absolutely absurd, as are other statements, like “Sunday is the ‘Mark of the Beast.’” I don’t want to sound cold. Honestly, however, I think your thought process leaps beyond the pale of reason. I would strongly encourage you to invest your energies in realworld pursuits; as a theologian, you are out of this world.— Jeffrey Seif

The Levitt Letter, December 2007, page 23.
http://www.levitt.com/newsletters/2007-12.pdf

From: bakupulu@hotmail.com
To: staff@levitt.com
CC: bakupulu@hotmail.com
Subject: Please Forward to Dr. Jeffrey Seif
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2007 13:48:40 -0800

Dear Dr. Seif:

At the outset, I want to apologize for the outrageous and reprehensible comments made by the Seventh-day Adventist who wrote the anonymous letter printed in your December 2007 newletter. To state or imply (and the author certainly did imply it), much less believe, that the mass murder of millions of Jews by the Nazi's is anything but an evil event in history, is shameful and unacceptable.

As an Adventist layman I am grieved and shocked to have read such comments made by someone ostensibly from my denomination. Such beliefs and comments do not come from the heart of a Christian (Matt. 12:35,-37; James 3:10).

The author's comments proceeded from being grossly and crudely stated, to comments that are flat out wrong, to those comments that are evil. I want to address some of these indiviually as they occur in the letter (below).

Adventists Are Now God’s Chosen People!?

Dear Jeffrey,

God has rejected the Jews because they rejected Him. I am a Seventh Day Adventist and our prophet Ellen G. White

The latter comment is a true but misleading and crudely stated comment. The official Adventist position is that, while we believe Ellen White had the gift of prophecy like that manifested in the New Testament church like Paul mentioned in Corinthians, Ellen White does not have normative authority. Her own writings, and the denominations statements, make it clear that "the Bible is the standard by which all teaching and experience must be tested." (http://www.adventist.org/beliefs/fundamental/index.html)

Yes, it is true that there are those who have (unfortunately) treated her work as though it is equal to Scripture, but that is a problem within the denomination, not the position or desire of the denomination. An important and recent discussion on this topic can be found in Dr. Graeme Brandfor's new book More Than a Prophet: How We Lost and Found Again the Real Ellen White. I was one of the editor's for the published book and the entire book can be read online at http://www.sdanet.org/atissue/books/bradford/index.htm.

was told by God that the Jews would never be a Nation again and that Old Jerusalem would never be rebuilt.

In short, Ellen White was not speaking of whether or not it would be rebuilt in the sense of a political solution to a political problem. She was responding to those who thought they were forcing prophecy to be fulfilled in the 1850s by speeding up Jesus' return (in the 1850s) by rebulding Jerusalem. (http://www.whiteestate.org/issues/faq-unus.html#unusual-section-d2)

The Adventists are now God’s chosen people, “Spiritual Israel.”

The official Adventist position, and mainstream teaching, is that salvation is not through denominational affiliation (including ours) and the majority of true Christians exist outside the Seventh-day Adventist denomination. Our official 27 Fundamental Beliefs state that "The church is the community of believers who confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour" and "The universal church is composed of all who truly believe in Christ ..." (http://www.adventist.org/beliefs/fundamental/index.html). Official Adventist teaching does state we are the "remnant," but not in the sense that "we are the saved" or that "we are the true Spiritual Israel," or that we are better than other denominations, but merely that we have a special job to do, namely:

"The universal church is composed of all who truly believe in Christ, but in the last days, a time of widespread apostasy, a remnant has been called out to keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. This remnant announces the arrival of the judgment hour, proclaims salvation through Christ, and heralds the approach of His second advent." (http://www.adventist.org/beliefs/fundamental/index.html).

The Jews can come to Jesus by becoming Adventists.

Wrong. You come to Jesus by coming to Jesus, not to any denomination. However, any and all are welcome to our denomination. We are willing to accept all the help we can get.

You seem to be afraid of the Muslims, but it’s the Catholics you need to worry about. The Pope is the antiChrist and Sunday is the “Mark of the Beast”! The Muslims are nearest to the Adventist faith because they have a prophet, don’t eat pork, and go to church on Friday like we do.

I have respect for all Muslims who behave decently. I am willing to live in civic and neighborly harmony with them. However, strictly speaking, those who are closest to Adventists are those whose beliefs are closest to our 27 Fundamental Beliefs (http://www.adventist.org/beliefs/fundamental/index.html).

I am not saying those who are closest to Adventists (because they hold views similar to our 27 Fundamental Beliefs) are by definition somehow closest to Jesus. Those who are closest to Jesus are those who have the closest personal, living relationship with Jesus Christ of the Bible, not those who automatically adhere to the tenants of any church.

The Adventist Church in Europe turned all of their Jewish converts over to Hitler and most died in the ovens.

Like many churches in Europe at that time, much of the European Adventist Church did not live up to its Christian calling by resisting the Nazis and helping Jews. While this was not the position of the mainline SDA Church, nor something that the denomination as a whole wanted, much of this did occur. It was cowardly and evil. While words are not enough, it has been acknowleged and apologized for (http://www.adventistreview.org/article.php?id=92).

God said they would—read Lev. 26. I’m afraid to put my name to this for fear the Jews may try to kill me.

Like I said at the outset, the author's comments and the implications that they contain are unacceptable. In my opinion and experience, this guy is a nut and does not represent the typical Adventist, much less the official Adventist Church position. Frankly, I hope this guy is not really an Adventist at all, and is someone who is playing a sick practical joke.

Further information can be found at the official Adventist Church website (http://www.adventist.org/) and the Adventist Biblical Research website (http://www.adventistbiblicalresearch.org/). Respected and representative scholars are Dr. Jon Paulien (http://revelation-armageddon.com/ and http://www.thebattleofarmageddon.com/) and Dr. Samuele Bacchiocchi (http://www.biblicalperspectives.com/).

Weight Training Gains

Okay, I have been lifting weights for about a year now. One of my buddies at work started me on it by nagging my to get back in the gym. Well, after 10 years of sedentary married life and being very weak and too fat (I am also 5'6" tall), I have brought up my 1 rep max in each of the following:

Flat Bench Press = 315 lbs x 1

Deadlift = 365 lbs x 1

Squat = 535 lbs x 2

Not that the squat of 535 (two times) was not done free weights (I am too nervous for that yet), but was on the Hammer Strength Power Squat machine. I have been training as a powerlifter (though I am nowhere near their level of strength) not as a body builder. I am interested in maximum strength, not so much size and symmetry.

I made these gains following two different linear periodized routines, both of which I got from The Iron Dungeon (http://www.impulseadventure.com/weights/). One is a 6-session routine while the other is a 14-session routine. These routines were for bench press only, but I used the same percentages and repetitions, etc and applied them to deadlifts, squats, etc.

I just started doing Charle's Poliquin's 1-6 routine(http://www.wannabebigforums.com/archive/index.php/t-34687.html) and it is wearing me out, but I have been getting stronger as the routine claims.

For example, I was doing my first day of 1-6 deadlifts, and my max deadlifts increased from 365 to 370 to 375 lbs all in one session. I know this won't automatically mean longterm gains in themselves, but it is working.

My summer goals are to get my bench press up to 405 lbs, my deadlift to 500 lbs, and my (free weight) squat too 450 lbs. I now this is a lot to hope for, but I am gonna try anyway.

Science versus Intelligent Design

Science versus Intelligent Design

I belong to a newsgroup called SDANet (http://www.sdanet.org/). In two posts to that newsgroup, I made the statement that “one must do mathematics and philosophy before one can do science.”

My purpose in those two posts was to drive home the point that scientists have certain philosophic assumptions before they even engage in scientific inquiry. In fact, the process of science itself is founded on certain assumptions about the world around us.

In this article, I want the reader to realize the scientific community disregards Intelligent Design as “religion and not science” because it violates their a priori philosophic presuppositions about what they believe science is. These scientists confuse their philosophy of materialism, methodological naturalism, scientism, what-have-you with science itself.

The purpose of the current article is twofold.

First, I want to point out how certain philosophic assumptions are embedded as the foundation of the Scientific Method. From this illustration, I hope the reader realizes the truth of “one must do mathematics and philosophy before one can do science.” I am not attempting to analyze or critique every philosophy of science (e.g., materialism, methodological naturalism, etc), but just to illustrate that philosophic presuppositions come before the scientific process itself.

The second part of this article is to illustrate errors with one common approach to scientific inquiry, namely Methodological Naturalism. Methodological Naturalism can be summed up (albeit a bit simplistically) as the assertion that only naturalistic causes are to be used as explanations of phenomenon that scientists investigate.

Methodological Naturalism is the philosophic assumption (i.e., it cannot be demonstrated to true by scientific investigation itself) that is very commonly used as an argument against Intelligent Design advocates. In other words, the scientific community argues that “since (we assume) science can only appeal to naturalistic causes, and Intelligent Design by its very nature does not restrict itself to naturalistic causes, then Intelligent Design advocates are not doing true science; rather they are doing religion in disguise.”

Please note, again, this is what the scientific community presupposes ahead of time what “science really is.” It is a position that is argued for and is not demonstrated through scientific investigation. Indeed, the scientific community cannot, and does not, justify Methodological Naturalism experimentally or through scientific investigation, but by appeals to what they consider sound reasoning.

Part 1: Presuppositions Embedded within the Scientific Method

Here I attempt to illustrate how using the Scientific Method is based upon certain inherent assumed views about the world around us. I am not attempting to prove these true or false, but to make it clear that scientific inquiry is based upon certain presuppositions.

Someone might disagree with my examples of the inherent assumptions in the Scientific Method and offer alternative ones. But this still illustrates that one has some philosophic presuppositions about the world before they even engage in scientific endeavors.

There are a number of ways the Scientific Method can be outlined, but one reasonable representation of it is as follows:

Observation --> Hypothesis --> Test Hypothesis --> Conclusions

All of these steps of the Scientific Method are based on the following philosophic assumptions.


A. The External World Objectively Exists – “The external world exists, whether you know it or not, whether you like it or not.” If the world was merely illusionary and a figment of my imagination, it would be erroneous to investigate why certain phenomena occurred as it is merely my imagination.

Please note that one might not know the external world was imaginary and one might try to investigate this (illusory) external world anyway.

But it would still be faulty to do so because if the external world is a truly product of your imagination, there is no real need to investigate why things happened. They did not truly happen, you merely imagined it.

However, the assumption that the external world truly exists is why scientists make hypotheses to explain certain phenomenon, and why they need to test their hypotheses, i.e., we test our hypotheses because our explanation may not actually be correct, despite what we think.

In short, Reality is what you bump into when your beliefs are wrong.

B. The External World Is Governed by Consistent Laws – there would be no point in investigating the behavior of the world if the rules governing the universe were randomly changed without warning. Any discovery made today would be invalid shortly thereafter.

C. The Correspondence Theory of Truth – a true statement or true hypothesis is one that accurately describes the way the external world really is. Scientists are supposed to be in the business of determining what really is going on. Ultimately, I would argue that most scientists are not looking for an erroneous model that works, but what really is going on.

Again, Part 1 is not intended to prove the exact specifics of the philosophic assumptions embedded in the Scientific Method. It was intended to illustrate that all scientists, whether they know it or not, whether they like it or not, operate on certain a priori presuppositions about the world around us. They also operate on certain a priori philosophic presuppositions of what “science really is.”

Part 2. Problems with Methodological Naturalism.

One of the common assumptions about what “science really is” is called Methodological Naturalism. Methodological Naturalism asserts that only appeals to naturalistic causes are legitimate in scientific inquiry. Often they also claim to restrict this to repeatable naturalistic causes.

The first flaw with this approach to define what “science really is” is that it first assumed and argued for, not proven. One cannot demonstrate through scientific investigation and appealing to only naturalistic causes, that the only proper approach to science is Methodological Naturalism. I know of no experimental study that demonstrates the truth of the Methodological Naturalism assumption. I know of no scientists who propose Methodological Naturalism on anything other than (what they consider to be) sound logical grounds.

Regardless of whether or not their arguments for Methodological Naturalism are sound, it still demonstrates that it is philosophically argued for.

The second flaw with Methodological Naturalism is that before scientific inquiry even begins, it limits itself to only certain conclusions allowed as the product of this scientific investigation. Rather than employ the Scientific Method and then use inference to the best explanation, Methodological Naturalism rules in advance that certain conclusions are not permitted, despite the weight of the evidence and the reasonableness of the conclusions.

This is roughly equivalent to homicide investigators being told that, before the investigation even begins, they are not allowed interpret the evidence such that they conclude a woman committed the crime.

To illustrate further, suppose you placed a closed box in front of a biologist and asked her explain what is going on inside the box.
When the box is opened, the biologist clearly sees an Oreo cookie inside a glass of milk.

What would be the most reasonable way for the biologist to explain how the Oreo got in the glass? Would she restrict herself to Methodological Naturalism and only appeal to naturalistic causes? Or would she infer an intelligent cause for this phenomenon and conclude someone was putting her on?

Or, more to the point, here is a more realistic illustration. What would happen if a NASA satellite truly did intercept an electromagnetic signal from a star-system that is 500 light years away. This signal consisted of 1,000 prime numbers in the sequence, i.e., 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, … etc.

Would it be appropriate to insist Methodological Naturalism is the only way NASA is permitted analyze the data? Must NASA therefore assume purely naturalistic causes for this sequence of numbers no matter the weight of the evidence to the contrary? Or would it be more appropriate to make an inference to the best explanation and suspect an intelligent cause for this sequence of numbers?

In both cases listed above, I suspect that scientists would assume intelligent causes rather than purely naturalistic causes. This is where Methodological Naturalism falters and Intelligent Design comes in. Any school-child would figure out someone put the Oreo cookie into the glass of milk. Also, once human sources were truly ruled out, any astronomer or cryptographer (or school-child) would be reasonable to raise the possibility of the signal being originated by an intelligent source outside our solar system.

However, it is very reasonable to ask, What is an appropriate algorithm for determining Intelligent Design? How can one reasonably infer Intelligent Design in an observed phenomenon? The method is based upon spotting a phenomenon that is (1) a low probability event and is, (2) specified in advance.

(1) Low Probability Event: Any event, no matter how low the probability (assuming not zero), will occur if given enough time. If I take a deck of cards, and throw them into the air, the exact order and location of how they fall on the floor is a low probability event. One would not be reasonable in inferring Intelligent Design from this. Given enough time (1 million years?) to throw the deck of cards into the air, you could replicate this event if you were patient enough.

(2) Specification in Advance: Any event specified in advance that is not of sufficiently low probability does not suggest Intelligent Design. For example, if I were to tell you the sun will rise tomorrow, you would not be impressed. If I told you there would be an earthquake in Los Angeles area in the next 50 years, you would not be impressed. Yes, I specified it in advance, but it is not exactly a low probability event.

However, both (1) and (2) combined can be used to indicate Intelligent Design.

For example, were NASA to intercept an electromagnetic signal that was a random string of 1,000 numbers, this would not imply intelligent design. Sure, the exact order of a random string of 1,000 numbers is a low probability event, but such things occur in nature (e.g., white noise).

Also, if NASA intercepted a string of the first 4 prime numbers, 1, 2, 3, and 5, they likely would not call SETI and announce contact with space aliens. Yes, it is a numeric sequence specified in advance, but the sequence is so short that it is not of sufficiently low probability to infer an intelligent source.

However, a string of the first 1,000 prime numbers is both a very low probability event, and also shows specification in advance. There is no known natural phenomenon that produces the prime numbers, much less the first 1,000 of them! I think by this time the NASA would feel confident in calling SETI and the President to report their findings. (Assuming of course, they *truly* ruled out a human source for the signal.)

In parting, I hope that I made it clear that the furor over Intelligent Design is not a conflict between empirical science and religion. It is a conflict between worldviews and what evidence is allowed to inform the discussion.

The author is deeply indebted to the folks at Stand to Reason (http://www.STR.org) and Dr. William Debski for man of the ideas and illustrations in this article. Any limitations are errors are mine alone.

Hung Gar Kung Fu

I am also starting to re-train myself in Hung Gar kung fu, the martial art I learned when I was much younger. I am doing this for a few reasons. First, because I did not give it the time it deserved when I was younger, and this is something I want to do for myself as I approach the ripe old age of 40. Second, I want to be able to protect myself or my family if, God-forbid, something bad happens. Third, I learned such valuable lesson from Hung Gar, especially perseverance and martial virtue, that I want my son to learn the art when he is old enough. I hope to be able to take him to Sifu Bucksam Kong's Hung Gar school.

Currently, I am re-learning the Hung Gar set (sort of like a karate 'kata') Gung Gee Fook Fu Kuen from Sifu Wong Lam's resources. If you are interested in learning more about Kung Fu, including Hung Gar, you can check out the Wing Lam Enterprises website and forums by checking my links to the right.

I have also started training in Shaolin Iron Palm and hope to incorporate Tiger Iron Palm in a couple of years. After just a few months of training (on the beginner Mung bean bag), I can already tell a difference in the increased strength and dexterity of my hands.

Lastly, I have also just started the practice of Zhan Zheong qigong. I will more into this later.

Weight Training Again

Well, I have started weight training again after letting myself get seriously out of shape. I started using a periodized weight training routine that I found on the Impulse Adventure Iron Dungeon website (see links). Since then, my strength has increased dramatically. For example, I have gone from being completely sedentary to bench pressing over 315 lbs in about 5 months! (I am only 5'6" tall.)

I will also be going on a nonlinear periodized weight training routine and will publish some book reviews on the topic.