| Author |
Message |
Yenc
Registered user
Username: Yenc
Post Number: 145
Registered: 6-2008
| | Posted on Monday, July 05, 2010 - 2:54 pm: |     |
Doc, Maybe your new sect could be supported by fish, who would be expected to bring their offerings of coins in their mouths, or ravens bringing bread and flesh vegemeat. |
Flyinglady
Registered user
Username: Flyinglady
Post Number: 8293
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Monday, July 05, 2010 - 3:00 pm: | |
Hey, I used to talk to my son's cat when I had him, before sending him to my son. I would tell him my son was going over seas. That cat would want to sleep in my son's old bedroom. My son is in the Air Force and was in Texas. He left from Texas and I lived in Virginia. Fang, the cat did this every night he was in the house, as he was in indoor/outdoor cat. When my son returned to Texas, that cat would stop sleeping in my son's room. Three times my son was sent oversears with the Air Force for three months. Each time I would tell the cat the Big Boy was gone overseas and we needed to pray. When my son returned to Texas I would tell him the Big Boy returned. Really, I do not know how that cat knew when my son left the USA and when he returned, but he did. I know I told him.
Diana L |
Grace_alone
Registered user
Username: Grace_alone
Post Number: 1717
Registered: 6-2006
| | Posted on Monday, July 05, 2010 - 3:19 pm: | |
LOL Doc!!
Hec, not sure if you're serious but I'll answer as if you are. It could be both. Snakes slither on the ground, and figuratively "eat dust". Also, God is telling Satan that he's dust. I wouldn't look too far into it, as the main point is that Satan deceived Adam and Eve and God cursed him.
I truly believe that Satan has also used Ellen White to glorify himself and deceive generations of people. Notice all the credit and emphasis he gets throughout her writings. All the little biblical details she added or changed which diminish Christ's role and gave Satan all this power. Look at all the heretical doctrines arising from her writings which cause so much fear and shame. Jesus said "Fear not!" and "Let not your hearts be troubled". People can't just read the Bible and understand it - Ellen taught them they have to read into it and use her suggestions - the doctrines will fit better. Little details and proof texts become the focus, taking away the big picture and the main purpose.
The Bible is clear ~ false prophets are cursed! The serpent isn't the only one...
 Leigh Anne |
Sunnimoreno
Registered user
Username: Sunnimoreno
Post Number: 110
Registered: 10-2008
| | Posted on Monday, July 05, 2010 - 6:21 pm: | |
hey doc, the adventists in the Philippines have their talking carabaos. you might want to include that in your new sect. lol |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 11370
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Monday, July 05, 2010 - 6:46 pm: | |
Doc, of course--they found a way to cross from Narnia! I think you should have no trouble find a few select people with the spiritual maturity to appreciate your last-days revelation. In fact, your premise of pre-fall talking animals seems far more plausible than, say, the eschatological significance of the Halebop comet (sp?).
Love your comments!
Colleen |
Yenc
Registered user
Username: Yenc
Post Number: 148
Registered: 6-2008
| | Posted on Monday, July 05, 2010 - 7:46 pm: | |
I'm 99% sure it's "Hale-Bopp" named after 2 astronomers. |
River
Registered user
Username: River
Post Number: 6404
Registered: 9-2006
| | Posted on Monday, July 05, 2010 - 7:54 pm: | |
Doc, your getting outright funny.
I'm with Leigh Anne, God put a curse on the serpent plain and simple.
I never knew in my life that it made a hoot whether the serpent had legs, wings, flew, crawled, swam or what.
Plain and simple, to me the Bible states what it states, and it is folly to add you own conjectures about what the stupid thing was or looked like.
As Phil so aptly, put it is the first promise of the savior to come.
These first accounts are the Holy Spirit speaking out of the pages of a book to me, thundering across the ages with ageless wisdom, and thats pretty neat that he left a record and a word in a book to lil' old me, an insignificant piece of dust.
To try to insert conjecture that detracts from Gods message is just plain foolish to me.
To think he loved us, who are living here today,enough to lesve messages and word of his acts over the century's is just more that I can take in. He wanted me to know how much he loves me.
I used to write my girlfriend, who later was to become my wife, love letters from afar, I wanted her to know how much I cared for her, that that was my daily task, and those love letters meant more to her than any other thing in that was going on in her life, and yet it doesn't hold a candle to the love letters God has written to us.
I didn't write to her all the details of my every day existence in the military, I skipped all that and wrote her my hearts existence for her.
Thats what God has done for us, and his letters speak messages into my heart today of his love and care for me.
Oh, how much Adventists from its inception is intended for people to miss what God has for us today.
Oh foolish foolish Ellen white clan for refusing to listen to the wisdom of her Pastors and deacons who served God humbly in that little Methodist church. Refused to take instruction to the point where they had to eject her and her clan from their presence. What a sad indictment.Turning the letters of love from God to us to foolish fables.
I so appreciate those two Pastors who took me under their wing and taught me the first principles of the love of God to usward.
Had I rejected their teaching and care, I might have end up and Adventist, or JW, or Mormon or any amount of sad and foolish people who are still wrestling with that old serpent who may take them down to hell.
What stupidity, what gall, what foolishness?
Adventists unconcernedly wreck havoc of the word every single day on places like carm, and here and ignore the loving messages to them from others who have been in the presence of the Lord.
River |
Lucybugg
Registered user
Username: Lucybugg
Post Number: 262
Registered: 2-2007
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 06, 2010 - 12:24 pm: | |
I've always wondered why the talking serpent didn't cause Eve to hip-hie on out of there. I think that would be my reaction..... |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 11372
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 06, 2010 - 9:11 pm: | |
River, you are so right about the need to have and the frequent resistance to the truth of the words of Scripture. It is Scripture that defines reality and truth; people often attempt to cobble together ideas about Scriptural passages without actually deeply studying or meditating on the word, and it results in confusion.
I know this to be true; I have done this very sort of rationalizing and analysis so often. Yet Scripture really does clarify reality. The smallest details, like prepositions and adjective phrases, are significant and determine meanings that we might miss with cursory reading.
We have to treat Scripture as if every word is significant...which every word is!
Colleen |
Stevew
Registered user
Username: Stevew
Post Number: 9
Registered: 2-2010
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 07, 2010 - 6:46 pm: | |
Wow! I had no idea this topic would create such a massive discussion! River, in answer to your question on the 3rd as to why we continue to send our kids to the SDA school..
They've gone there since they started school. I am only very new to questioning my SDA upbringing and haven't yet decided that it's bad enough to pull my kids from the school. This is the same school my wife went to as a kid, and my dad used to be the principal! I went right through SDA schools from Grade 2, and as someone else said here, there's nothing wrong with the educational side of things....I may just need to keep an eye on what Ellen-isms are taught. Thankyou all for your input.
Steve |
River
Registered user
Username: River
Post Number: 6405
Registered: 9-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 07, 2010 - 10:10 pm: | |
To the one who said there was nothing wrong with the educational side of things.
Are Adventist schools then not a part of overall Adventism? Do Adventist schools allow teachers other than committed Adventist?
Do your kids think Adventism is normal, no matter if you are questioning it?
I got news for you, once you begin reading the book of Galations without your Adventist blinders on, you are on your way out of Adventism, and in fact done left, even if your body hasn't made it all the way out.
Those seeds have already been planted in these children, the seeds you grew up with.
Now you will be placed in the task of learning how to pull those weeds that have been planted in the fertile minds of little children.
How is an Adventist school going to help you do that?
If Adventist schools are all about just education, then why do mostly just Adventist attend these schools?
These are questions I would imagine you are going to face seems to me like.
Seems to me like what formers have the hardest time in getting down in their heart is that there is nothing innocent about Adventism. It is set up to lead you, your wife, and your children away from Jesus and his cross, away from his glory.
Ellenism's are buried in Adventism, its based on her, and every where you look there is deception of the most dangerous kind. Her thread of deception is inexplicably woven through out Adventist life.
When someone says, "Oh, there nothing wrong with this part of Adventism, or that part of Adventism" It makes me set up and take notice.
River |
Stevew
Registered user
Username: Stevew
Post Number: 10
Registered: 2-2010
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 07, 2010 - 11:29 pm: | |
Fair comments River. As I said, early days for me. Maybe I'm more 'brainwashed' than I'd like to admit....yet. |
Christo
Registered user
Username: Christo
Post Number: 229
Registered: 2-2008
| | Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 12:57 am: | |
Steve,
One of the key effects of sda programs, whether schooling, seminars, bible workers, or convocations, is that they try and usurp spiritual leadership away from the family, and centralize that leadership in the churches direction.
The family is not community property, but belongs to God, and his appointed stewards, the parents. The husband and the wife belong to each other, and the kids belong to the parents. When anyone is touched by the Spirit to discern the blasphemy of sda,and realize the grace, and love of God, there is going to be processing that is not always a healthy experience for the family.
If anyone in the family gets hooked on an unbiblical notion promoted by sda, it is going to cause division. This kind of division is not healthy for marriages, or families. I think that kids see through the bs pretty good, and if you offer, encourage, and pay for this bs, then sometime down the line, when they really need to listen to you about something, because you want them to learn from someone else's mistakes ,not their own, perhaps your own, or someone you witnessed, they might just not see your credibility, because after all look at the pile of bs you put them through.
I used to think it didn't matter because I thought everybody I knew was on an honest search for God, and certainly the people I know would never harden their hearts. When people build their life on the rock of Sinai, and Moses it does harden hearts.
I've known bible workers, and pastors in sda, that came across as so nice and concerned about my life, and family, but when the truth of atonement with God through Christ crucified fills the heart of anyone in your family, they will try and extinguish your life in Christ, and replace it with life in their non gospel.
They will allow themselves to be used for the propagation of their belief system, even if it involves destruction of the family.
You see everyone in this system is involved in this mutual blackmail system, and everyone is trying to protect something dear to them, their friends, family, kids, relationships, marriages, careers, etc.
The core teachings of sda, do not accept the love of Christ. When you try and oil the gearbox in their cranium, with the love of Christ you are experiencing, the collective social system will start throwing gravel in your gearbox, and you or your family might not notice it until damage has been done.
A strong Christ centered family could overcome this, but truthfully, a strong Christ centered family would probably not feel comfortable participating.
The Bible tells us that the son of the bond woman is always at war with the son of the free. When that war hits home, you will quickly find out how many people in this system, are not Christ centered as once thought. Their love waxes cold. If they sweep any one of you up, you yourself, your wife, one of your kids, they will become at war with whoever of you are children of promise. It is written, so take heed.
I would say that you are not brainwashed, but scarred. Not as a coward is scarred, but scarred out of concern for the health of your family, and children. That bond woman, and her son are vicious, but will smile all the while.
God does not have the spirit of fear, but a spirit of assurance. With sda, like Chicken Little, the sky is always falling. But if you, and your family can stand on the rock of ages, Jesus Christ, the rock on who his church is built, not with temples of sticks, and stones, but in the fleshly temples of your hearts you and yours will be just fine. If you abide in him, he abides in you.
Chris |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 11378
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 11:47 am: | |
Chris, your post is really profound. You are exactly right, and your explanation of how the children of the bondwoman react to the children of promise is exactly so.
And Stevew, it takes quite a while to begin to see the big picture of Adventism. The pervasive shape of the great controversy worldview that colors all of the curriculum of an SDA school. It's in the social pecking order of the kids who reflect the subtle but powerful hierarchy of doctors, medical professionals, conference workers, etc. It's in the food—the lunches and parties and bake sales that favor vegetarianism or veganism, and kids who eat meat are quietly categorized by those that don't as slightly less noble. It's in the Sabbath-honoring that results from getting out of school early on Friday, of never scheduling trips or fund-raisers or anything "secular" on Saturday—of all of life being automatically planned around the assumption that everyone does (or should) honor Sabbath.
Moreover, I discovered to my deep surprise that SDA education isn't necessarily superior. The Christian schools in our area are as good as and frequently superior to the SDA education, and we have some of the best-known SDA schools here. I was frankly shocked to see how good the education was at the Christian high school where our sons went and where I taught. Additionally, the Christian teachers were so much more interested in and concerned about the students that I found it simply paradigm-shifting.
Anyway, all this is to say, when you're too close, you truly cannot see the bigger reality. It takes time. But just know that the SDA school does not trump other schools necessarily. The school issue has been the most difficult for some of the people I know who have transitioned out of Adventism, but when those people have acted on the conviction that Adventism can't be endorsed even indirectly and have pulled their kids from the schools, they have been as surprised and pleased as I was—and some of these people have put their kids in the local public schools.
God know where your kids need to be. Ask Him--He'll make it clear, and He'll also reveal the timing.
Colleen |
Hec
Registered user
Username: Hec
Post Number: 1122
Registered: 3-2009
| | Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 8:32 pm: | |
I spent my my entire working life working for the education branch of the SDA organization. I did pretty much anything can can be done in a school from teacher to principal. I know that the main purpose of SDA schools is not educational, that's a secondary purpose. The main purpose is to "make disciples". There is a form that every principal has to fill out at the end of the school year and the main emphasis on that form is how many students were baptized that school year. If a school does not baptize kids, it is frowned upon and one way or another the teachers and/or principal will be moved or terminated. Of course they will not say that was the reason for termination, but everyone knows that if you "don't produce fruit" you will be cut down and burned. There is even competition between the school and the church on how many children they baptize. Sometimes if one of the elders have studied with a child, they will argue about who gets the credit for baptism, the church or the school.
Are your children safe in SDA schools? Yes, the best place for them to be if you want to make SDAs out of them, otherwise, as River would say, hightail out of there.
Hec |
Grace_alone
Registered user
Username: Grace_alone
Post Number: 1719
Registered: 6-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 8:45 pm: | |
Hec, I believe that's called "indoctrinate and protect".
Leigh Anne |
Flyinglady
Registered user
Username: Flyinglady
Post Number: 8305
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2010 - 9:40 pm: | |
I went to sda schools grades 1-12. We were told we had the best educational system and I believed it with my heart and soul. My first year of college was spent in a public school. What a different picture of life. WOW!!!
I was so susrprised that I had to take psychology. I was not acquainted with it b/c in sda academy we did hot have it. A public school student got "A's" and I just barely passed with a "C". How surprised I was. Not only surprised, but schocked. SDA education is not better then public school. At least not where I was living.
Diana L |
Joyfulheart
Registered user
Username: Joyfulheart
Post Number: 704
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Friday, July 09, 2010 - 12:13 am: | |
I may be stepping on toes here - and that really isn't my intent. I have no idea how kids can get a maximum impact education with 3 (or more!) grades being taught in the same room. The teacher's ability / time to provide age/ grade appropriate instruction is divided by two or three or four (or more). I've seen really great teachers do it - and it has to be very difficult at best.
We differentiate instruction according to learning styles and abilities - and it's hard enough with only one grade.
Not all Adventist or even Christian schools are great educationally. One SDA teacher I know has 7 kids in her room in a K-4 classroom. Small class size - yes, but I know for a fact that at least one isn't learning and the teacher who is working with small groups all day doesn't have time to help the kids that need help. That tacher is also the principal who has to deal with discipline and other issues. I don't know how she does it.
I wholeheartedly believe (based solely on what I saw in the six years I was in the church)that parents have been taught to believe that if they are not in Adventist schools their salvation is at stake.
There were at least two services every year where children did the whole service including a sermon. The pastor then gave a real sermon telling parents who did not have their kids in the SDA school that they were badventists.
One thing I don't think I've ever seen discussed here is the total influence on gymnastics in the school. The gymnastics stars of the school were treated like heroes. I've never seen schools so focussed on gymnastics as Adventist schools. (Ellen White?)
Finally, (then I'll shut up) I don't know how parents get talked into sending their kids to boarding school for four years of high school when they don't have to. When I came into the church that was the first thing I really couldn't understand. Now I think it is really important to the church that they get the kids away and isolated in order to infuse them with more indoctrination. The kids from families that weren't really great Adventists could be rescued in the boarding school. I know lots of kids from my former church liked boarding school, but two I know of also needed to come home and were further isolated because of it. There weren't any other teenagers in the church because they were all away at academy.
I'm sure there are fabulous and not so fabulous tachers in Adventist schools! I'm sure there are wonderful and horrible teachers in public schools.
I just never got why everyone thought the Adventist system was so superior. I always felt inferior as a public school teacher in the Adventist church. |
Flyinglady
Registered user
Username: Flyinglady
Post Number: 8308
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Friday, July 09, 2010 - 12:47 am: | |
I do have to say that my son's first grade teacher was very good. It was a multigrade sda school. My son did 1st & 2nd grade that year. It was his 4th grade teacher that caused me to take him out of sda school. Looking back I see that it was God's hand b/c He did not want my son in that school. I am so thankful and I was thankful then. At the time my sda friends told me, You know what Sister White says about having sda kids in sda schools. My reply was, that women is not a good teacher and is not treating my son as she should. Two years later those sme people told me, "I wish we had taken out kids out when you took your son out". All those people put their kids in local public school. Fairfax County public schools, at that time, were very good schools.
But my son did get ignored by his former classmates when I took him out. He was only at church every other week b/c he was at his Dad's house. This, in addition to being in public school.
So, yes some sda teachers are very good.
Diana L |
1john2v27nlt
Registered user
Username: 1john2v27nlt
Post Number: 23
Registered: 5-2009
| | Posted on Friday, July 09, 2010 - 12:11 pm: | |
The Value Genesis study showed that having kids in SDA schools would produce church members for the ongoing church life - tithe payers, workers, etc. And that was what SDA parents (and the denomination) want.
The caveat all through the VG study was this: with the EXCEPTON of BOARDING ACADEMIES. I reread the book a couple of times because I thought I was simply negative & biased because of the experience my children had in boarding academy. However it is there in the VG book & very strong. At that age teenagers need 3 things - support from living at home, local school in local community, & local church family. Boarding academy deprives a teen of all 3. Additionally it is a huge financial drain on the family.
I used to ask, now that this is known, why does the SDA system still promote boarding schools? What is the point of the VG study if the findings are totally ignored?
It is because maintaining the system is more important than the individual. Numbers are what counts, including tithe numbers. |
Joyfulheart
Registered user
Username: Joyfulheart
Post Number: 706
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Friday, July 09, 2010 - 11:33 pm: | |
What is the Value Genesis study?
I totally agree with the findings - and your interpretation of them. Maintaining the system, is more important than the individual and the SDA school system does just that.
By the way, paying for the school required humungous offerings beyong the tithe and MAP and all the other strongly suggested offerings. I always wondered how the church could support schools with so few children. |
Flyinglady
Registered user
Username: Flyinglady
Post Number: 8311
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, July 10, 2010 - 8:24 am: | |
Joyfulheart, as I am sure you know, some sda schols have had to close for lack of students. The school my son attended closed not long after all those parents pulled their kids out of it. As far as I know it has not re opened.
Diana L |
1john2v27nlt
Registered user
Username: 1john2v27nlt
Post Number: 24
Registered: 5-2009
| | Posted on Saturday, July 10, 2010 - 12:10 pm: | |
The Value Genesis study was a 10 year study/book by Roger Dudley which followed students for 10 years to see what effect SDA education had in keeping young people in the church.
I no longer have my book as I got rid or all denominational books this spring.
What really got me was that the book itself stated that the 3 things teens need is what I quoted above - local school, community, church family & home - at that age.
Now it is impossible for any student to work their way through any of our schools - this came in a letter from the boarding academy I went to. No parent can afford it as our parents did no matter how sacrificially. So conferences, & members are having to subsidize the students to a huge degree.
And it isn't even worth it for boarding school students - the church sponsored study/ book proved it.
~J9 |
Yenc
Registered user
Username: Yenc
Post Number: 153
Registered: 6-2008
| | Posted on Saturday, July 10, 2010 - 12:23 pm: | |
I never attended a boarding academy, but my youngest sister did for 4 years, and she has been totally atheistic, worldly, and money-hungry ever since. I attended a day academy where about 1/3 of the students were black. As the years went by, the percentage of black students increased until it was 100% black. But the white churches quit supporting it generously, and the black SDA churches didn't have the financial resources to keep it going, so it eventually closed and the property (beautiful location in the Oakland hills) was sold.
One of my worst school experiences was the year I attended a one-room multigrade school with only 8 students! At age 10, I was the oldest. Our teacher was ignorant and physically abusive. And the worst part was that I kept telling my mother of various incidents, and she didn't believe me until she saw it for herself one time when the teacher didn't know anyone saw her!
I still say that in academics, schools vary, whether they are SDA or public schools--some are better, some worse. But the crucial factor is the false doctrines SDA schools teach that are integral and central to the system and the daily instruction. And on the other hand, public schools also indoctrinate their students--in evolutionism, in disparaging Christianity and promoting a godless ethos. I suspect that there are some very good Christian schools that promote the gospel, have good academics, and a balanced curriculum; if I had school-aged children now, I would certainly check out whatever was close enough geographically. |
Nowisee
Registered user
Username: Nowisee
Post Number: 457
Registered: 5-2009
| | Posted on Friday, July 23, 2010 - 3:14 pm: | |
The motto of the sda school I attended from 1st grade to 12th: "Educate for eternity."
I had a couple very good teachers--but I had more very bad teachers. 8th grade teacher was warped and abusive--would go through our desks after school, finding the silly little notes 8th graders write and then bring them to the parent/teacher conferences and castigate us in front of our parents. He told us under no circumstances could we ever draw at school. One time I brought a drawing from home to show someone. He saw it and took and locked it in his closet--getting up my nerve, I pleaded for it back, telling him I drew it at home. He would not listen. He was very severe.
And I never learned any geography--I always got good grades, so I know it was because I was never taught.
Weird memories. |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 11469
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Friday, July 23, 2010 - 3:36 pm: | |
Nowisee, YES. I had a weird sixth grade teacher; And my sister had his wife. I've often thought, in the years since, that they must have been pretty dreadful parents...
That restriction against drawing is just unbelievable. I think a lot of teachers came from abusive backgrounds themselves (they were generational Adventists, after all...) and they had no idea how to nurture students. I have heard many stories of abusive treatment of students from former Adventists from all over the country, so it's not just a geographical phenomenon!
And those boarding schools...my first experience with boarding academy was when I taught at Gem State Academy. While on the one hand I know many students were actually better off in academy than in their homes, that is more of a statement about the homes than of the schools. It's not natural or biblical, so far as I can see (!), to put teenagers together in dormitories with minimal adult supervision for nine months out of every year.
Just think about it...but it is a great method of making sure kids don't meet and marry non-Adventists...
Colleen |
Yenc
Registered user
Username: Yenc
Post Number: 235
Registered: 6-2008
| | Posted on Sunday, July 25, 2010 - 3:04 pm: | |
I was shocked three or four years ago to learn of the sexual abuse of kids by teachers at MBA and some other boarding academies. The teachers got away with it for quite awhile because of a "conspiracy of silence" by the faculty protecting the school from scandal, and the kids were scared to speak up for fear of retaliation. |
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