| Author |
Message |
Pheeki
Registered user
Username: Pheeki
Post Number: 456
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 12, 2005 - 10:26 am: |     |
Jeremy...you really must get a sign on over at www.carm.org and help Ric b. I have had enough of the SDA on there...I have been posting nearly daily for over 2-years trying to help them understand the Gospel. I have grown weary and Ric b is nearly alone over there now. Please help him if you feel led.
thanks. |
Dd
Registered user
Username: Dd
Post Number: 303
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 12, 2005 - 11:37 am: | |
What is the secret to following the threads on carm.org? I can't seem to follow them or figure out how to post... |
Chris
Registered user
Username: Chris
Post Number: 556
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 12, 2005 - 11:50 am: | |
Who is "Jon" over on CARM? He seems to be doing a pretty capable job.
Chris |
Pheeki
Registered user
Username: Pheeki
Post Number: 457
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 12, 2005 - 12:20 pm: | |
Colapse the topics...at first it seems weird but you get used to it.
Jon is a former SDA and he does do a great job! |
Loneviking
Registered user
Username: Loneviking
Post Number: 306
Registered: 7-2000
| | Posted on Thursday, January 13, 2005 - 7:55 am: | |
Sorry Pheeki, but it's a battle you can't win. At best, you can inform others and maybe shut them down. We formers over on Christianity.com have had some success in letting the moderators know that SDA beliefs are NOT evanglical. At least a couple of SDA type threads have been closed.
SDA's and words---how true. They talk about 'thought inspiration' and how the words aren't important but the thoughts are. Then, you put them in a corner and make them think about how you are to know what the 'thought' meant. Then, they usually go into a word study---or else flee to E.G.White. It's so circular. E.G.Whites writings are (allegedly) secondary to the Bible. But the inspiration and interpretation of the Bible were both set down for SDA's by E.G. White. How convenient! The Bible agrees with E.G.White because she made up an approach to the Bible that is identical to her own writings.
And word studies? Come on, the words aren't important so it doesn't make any difference which word was chosen. I love to bring them back to revelation and point out that the word 'eternal' in Revelation is interpreted by SDA's to mean 'forever' for the saved, and until annihilation for the lost. So much for consistent study. |
Melissa
Registered user
Username: Melissa
Post Number: 680
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, January 13, 2005 - 9:06 am: | |
This conversation hits my Bible study last night. The guy teaching it is a PhD from Duke with a degree in physical chemistry. He told us a bunch of "boastful" sounding things and said the purpose was that most evolutionists say that 'intellingent" people believe in evolution ... and since "others" considered him intelligent, he didn't want to be confused with someone who believed in evolution. He made two points that I thought applied to this discussion. The first is that evolutionists believe in evolution, even when all their evidence gets disproven, for one basic reason...they've made their conclusion and are trying to find evidence to support their conclusion, rather than finding evidence and reaching a conclusion. He quoted an evolutionist scientist who has written in a book that he has to remind himself when he is studying nature that there was not a creator because sometimes it would be easy to think there was. That had parallels to me with adventism's roots. They believed something happened in 1844 ... and rather than observing the evidence and then making a conclusion, they made their conclusion absent evidence and came up with a theory to support their conclusion. And like evolutionists, they WANT to believe their conclusion is correct, so they are very close-minded to any evidence that would "appear" to conflict with their conclusions. I thought that was a great parallel which could probably be used in several situations.
The second statement that we talked about was the power of God's word. He went to Genesis and talked about the power of God's word and how it created the universe. He was using it in a frame of reference for creation/evolution, so he had pictures from the hubble telescope of the different galaxies and constellations. He said the more magnification they put on the telescope, the more they find. And the same is with an atom. The more you break it down, the more you find. They used to think the atom was the tiniest unit, but once they could break it down, (and I forget the word he used) they are more than just electrons, neutrons and protons. He said it showed the infiniteness of God in both directions, in vastness and smallness. And with the pictures he was showing, you truly got an idea of how powerful God's word is. As mentioned here, he talked about the word becoming flesh, Jesus. And he talked about how the vastness and greatness that God must be to create such a universe came down to be like you and me in physical form ... the word.
He said the discussion of evolution in this class would not be point by point because as Bill said above, it's a battle you can't win. When the mind is closed to any ideas but those that confir with their conclusion, any point by point discussion might be interesting to the observer, but will change few minds among the participants. I thought of my countless of hours of debate with B and the hours and hours of scripture study I've done to talk to him...to have him dismiss everything I've said as not thorough enough, out of context, or not really meaning what it says. And if I'd only understood about arguing with evolutionists, maybe I'd have never begun this battle. I guess it's not that we should discuss with others, because you never know who's learning something in the background, but we should go in understanding the potential realm for "success".
I thought it was quite ironic that a discussion on evolutionists and how they hold to their theories even when their evidence continually gets disproven would hold so many parallels to adventism. B seems to think they corner the market in promoting creationism. I also left with a new sense of awe and vastness for "the word". He had some great practical examples. My favorite was that of an aquarium. He was trying to explain to someone how the earth "could" have been created, if we think in aquarium terms. When we buy fish, they put them in a plastic bag. The fish can live in that bag a couple of hours before they run out of oxygen, so you have to be careful about that. Another thing about aquariums, is that our water has fluorine and chlorine, so you really need the water to set a couple of weeks for that to evaporate. And there's a bacteria that can grow to help with fish waste so in theory there should be some time for the bacteria before you add fish, etc. In a similar way, God created our earth, our environment that was safest for us and our needs. He reminded us that God's word was written for us, so we would understand how we got here...not to explain every detail of all that had come before and what God's been up to all this time. The way he described it, he asked how any of us were arrogant enough to think we could comprehend "God" in our brains. I'm sure I can't describe it well enough, but MY picture of "the word" really expanded beyond boundaries I had before the class. |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 1254
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, January 13, 2005 - 4:14 pm: | |
So cool, Melissa! Don't you love it when one of those "spiritual windows" opens up and you see things you never saw before?
God is so amazing! |
Lori
Registered user
Username: Lori
Post Number: 5
Registered: 11-1999
| | Posted on Saturday, January 22, 2005 - 11:29 am: | |
Do you remember being taught that in the last days we would not be able to tell one season from another? Where did this come from??? I have been unable to locate it in Scripture (other than in the days of Noah) or in EGW's writing? Does anyone know???
Thanks! |
Tracey
Registered user
Username: Tracey
Post Number: 153
Registered: 9-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, January 23, 2005 - 9:00 pm: | |
Melissa,
That was really interesting the parallels of evolutionists to SDAism.. (finding evidence that supports the conclusion rather than finding evidence and drawing a conclusion) I appreciate this post. God is soo amazing. Thanks for Coming down Lord, We so needed it!
It also reminds me not to talk about it with C. We are on good terms by the way.
(but of course.)
Tracey |
Melissa
Registered user
Username: Melissa
Post Number: 690
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Monday, January 24, 2005 - 6:16 am: | |
B and I also typically remain cordial, Tracey. Part of me thinks it would be much easier if I didn't have to see him again at all ... but that's not going to happen with our son...and we work at the same place. But I do see glimmers at the end of the tunnel...and I'm hoping it's not a train....  |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 1294
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Monday, January 24, 2005 - 10:33 am: | |
Lori, I don't remember being taught that interesting idea that we wouldn't be able to tell one season from another, but certainly it's not in Scripture. Aside from that, I don't know a reference for it.
Jeremy--is there an EGW reference for this idea? |
Chris
Registered user
Username: Chris
Post Number: 591
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Monday, January 24, 2005 - 11:41 am: | |
I was poking around online at the James White library at AU and couldn't really come up with anything. However, I remember as a kid whenever we'd have a mild Winter or something my Mom would say, "Well Sister White said that the seasons would get out of kilter right before the end". Not sure where that comes from.
Chris |
Helovesme2
Registered user
Username: Helovesme2
Post Number: 101
Registered: 8-2004
| | Posted on Monday, January 24, 2005 - 11:50 am: | |
Anybody notice what God promised Noah? Genisis 8:22 says, "While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease."
|
Chris
Registered user
Username: Chris
Post Number: 592
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Monday, January 24, 2005 - 11:54 am: | |
Oooh, good point, Helovesme! |
Lori
Registered user
Username: Lori
Post Number: 6
Registered: 11-1999
| | Posted on Monday, January 24, 2005 - 12:11 pm: | |
I think it is odd that I can't find it anywhere--my Mother says it at least every other month!! She mentioned it last week since the temperature, here in the South, was in the 70's for a good portion of the week. However, I countered her with....it's still very obvious what season it is--there are no leaves on the trees and there are no "buds" either.
She didn't skip a beat. Her prompt reply was: Well it took forever for them to fall off!!
Following on its heels was a dietary tip! Related to poultry...how diseased it is and how very soon every one will have to stop eating all meats before the end of time.
Me: "Where exactly is that in the Bible?"
Her: "Well, I don't know."
Me: "We both know where it is...it's in Ellen White's writing?"
Her: "Well, I believe in EW because she was the first and only person to say that smoking was bad for your health. Everyone else thought there was nothing wrong with it. That's why I believe that she was inspired by God."
Me: "Mother....EW didn't write about smoking until later in 1800's....smoking has been around since before the 1500's. Physicians in the 1700 were saying that smoking was unhealthy...furthermore anti-smoking information hit a peak around 1888 which means EW would have been very well informed about what alot of other people said about smoking."
Her: "Well......"
If anyone should run across any reference to a lack of seasons, in EGW or Scripture please post it for me.
Thanks! |
Lori
Registered user
Username: Lori
Post Number: 7
Registered: 11-1999
| | Posted on Monday, January 24, 2005 - 12:14 pm: | |
Helovesme2,
Excellent observation...and an obvious contradiction if EW wrote something about "no seasonal difference".
Thanks for sharing that!
|
Carol_2
Registered user
Username: Carol_2
Post Number: 233
Registered: 2-2002
| | Posted on Monday, January 24, 2005 - 12:26 pm: | |
Yes, Lori, I was told something like that also....it's got to be an EGW idea from somewhere. I can remember being scared (I feel like I've spent SOOO much of my life being afraid,) when one winter, when I was in my teens, it was unseasonably warm. Any little thing like that and I knew probabation was just about to close and I was lost!
You name it! The energy crisis in the 70's.....what a good excuse to make everybody close their business on Sunday to save energy, might as well force them to go to church at the same time.
When Carter became president, he was known as a Christian. I was certain he was going to enact the Sunday laws.
The bicentennial, 1976, cannot remember why.....I was just turning 15 that year, but something was intertwined with the bicentennial and the Sunday laws were certain to be enacted....
Every single time we had Revelation Seminars at my church I had to go and hated it! It terrified me, but I was made to feel like if I didn't go and memorize everything being taught.....if I didn't have a perfect understanding of all that nonsense, I'd have no chance whatsoever.
My girls dean in academy would terrify us with stories. She was a mean, hateful, unhappy woman....every night at our dorm worship we'd leave the room scared or crying.......Jesus was coming soon and we weren't ready! How did some of these people ever get into jobs watching over children????
Sorry for rambling...I could go on and on.....but won't. |
Tracey
Registered user
Username: Tracey
Post Number: 154
Registered: 9-2004
| | Posted on Monday, January 24, 2005 - 12:30 pm: | |
I was also taught that we would know the Lord was soon to come back by the seasons and the weather being out of sorts. it was a sign like the wars, rumors of wars, kinda thing. I never looked it up for myself though. Wasn't that big of a deal cuz I already believed He was soon to come back.
Tracey
Tracey |
Jeremy
Registered user
Username: Jeremy
Post Number: 289
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Monday, January 24, 2005 - 4:44 pm: | |
I couldn't find anything about it on the EGW cd-rom, but I remember something about the cold places would turn hot and the hot places would be cold at the end of time, or something like that. It may be one of those things that people say EGW said, but that she actually didn't.
However, I did come across something else at the White Estate web site. Here is the paragraph they quoted from:
quote:"In vision I saw two armies in terrible conflict. One army was led by banners bearing the world's insignia; the other was led by the bloodstained banner of Prince Immanuel. Standard after standard was left to trail in the dust as company after company from the Lord's army joined the foe and tribe after tribe from the ranks of the enemy united with the commandment-keeping people of God. An angel flying in the midst of heaven put the standard of Immanuel into many hands, while a mighty general cried out with a loud voice: 'Come into line. Let those who are loyal to the commandments of God and the testimony of Christ now take their position. Come out from among them, and be ye separate, and touch not the unclean, and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters. Let all who will come up to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty.'" (Testimonies for the Church, Volume Eight, page 41, paragraph 1.
So, according to Ellen G. White, Christians (non-sabbath-keepers [commandment-keepers]) are the "enemy"!
Jeremy |
Praisegod
Registered user
Username: Praisegod
Post Number: 215
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Monday, January 24, 2005 - 4:54 pm: | |
Jeremy said, "So, according to Ellen G. White, Christians (non-sabbath-keepers [commandment-keepers]) are the "enemy"!"
We could have a whole little subsection just to definie other "Christians." Let's see, the "world", "sunday-keepers", "non-Adventists", "apostate Protestants" and then just the term "Christian" said like you're saying it with quotes around it--if that makes any sense whatsoever. I'm sure there are many more.
Praise God...
|
Jeremy
Registered user
Username: Jeremy
Post Number: 290
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Monday, January 24, 2005 - 5:00 pm: | |
...Gentiles, Babylon/Babylonians, heathens (or as EGW says, "worse than heathen"), nominal Christians, and like you I'm sure there are many more.
Jeremy |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 1301
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 25, 2005 - 10:45 am: | |
Thanks, PraiseGod and Jeremy. I've moved your terms into "The Document" for definitions. Excellent additions! (Don't you especially love that one, "apostate Protestants"? Maybe it grates on me because I heard it said with such smugness when I was in grade school.)
After all, Adventists are the "keepers of the flame", the inheritors and completers of the Reformation, don'tcha know? (Yes, I admit it--Garrison Keillor stirs to life my father's Minnesotan legacy to me every once in a while--don'tcha know!)
Colleen |
Jdpascal
Registered user
Username: Jdpascal
Post Number: 6
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 25, 2005 - 4:02 pm: | |
I have heard the name "Philistines" used in refering to the people living around the adventist ghetto near the adventist college where I grew up.
It wasn't so much the adults that used it but the kids. Now where would they get the idea to call their "non-adventist" friends that? |
Susan_2
Registered user
Username: Susan_2
Post Number: 1394
Registered: 11-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 25, 2005 - 6:44 pm: | |
Colleen, I was at the church today for a function. I went to the church library and checked out a book called, "Christian termonology". It is a paperback and like a dictionary it explains Christian words, phrases and terms. By reading the little I so far have, I can let everyone on here know the meanings of the words in this book and the meanings given these same words by SDA's are very different meanings. |
Lori
Registered user
Username: Lori
Post Number: 8
Registered: 11-1999
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 26, 2005 - 5:58 am: | |
Thank you all for looking and sharing what you could concerning the "undiscernable seasons". It likely it came from some "fictional truth book" like "The Appearing"--do you remember that? There was another fictional end time book with a young woman on the cover (yellow background)...her name was the name of the book...I think it began with a "S".
Or, it could have been in one of those "Friday Night Adventist Academy Horrors Films" they showed to scare you into keeping the Sabbath forever.
Or, it could have been an early EGW publication that isn't in view any more.
It doesn't really matter. The text that Helovesme2 shared completely nullifies the concept.... |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 1308
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 26, 2005 - 8:46 am: | |
Lori, I think that yellow book was entitled, "Sonlight", or some such thing. I don't think I actually read it, but I remember seeing it!
Colleen |
