| Author | Message | ||
| Alison1 Registered user Username: Alison1 Post Number: 124 Registered: 10-2010 |
I came across a new website http://leavingsda.com. I checked it out and it seems legit to me. Coud this be added to the other websites that are on the site. Colleen, interested in what you think and everybody else, too. | ||
| Rain Registered user Username: Rain Post Number: 104 Registered: 9-2011  |
Wow. I've been browsing through the site and it's got some really useful information. For example, when you leave, expect X to happen. Before you leave, make sure and do X or you'll have a hard time. All of the information might not be for everyone, but it's useful. I might use some of the advice when I officially bail in a few years (or sooner, if I'm forced to "come out," which is seeming more likely every day). | ||
| Philharris Registered user Username: Philharris Post Number: 2782 Registered: 5-2007  |
This website appears to be the work of one person. Since this person claims to be an atheist I'm not sure anyone in search of the true gospel of Jesus Christ should make use of this person's website. While he/she may know what is wrong about the SDA church that doesn't make it a good source for finding a Christ centered fellowship. I see this as a case of how do you know how to ‘sort out the good from the bad’ if you only know there is something wrong with what you are leaving? Phil | ||
| Rain Registered user Username: Rain Post Number: 105 Registered: 9-2011 |
Oh. I didn't catch that. I did think that the repeated advice to lie to SDA friends and family was a little odd. It's really sad how being in one extreme (SDAism) can make a person swing to another (atheism). I still think that some of the author's advice is decently practical, though. | ||
| Philharris Registered user Username: Philharris Post Number: 2783 Registered: 5-2007 |
There may be pratical advice in this website...But... remember, most of what Satan said to Eve in the garden was true. Unless you are mature how do you know how to sort out the good from the bad? Those who led me into the real gospel knew next to nothing about Adventism but they sure knew God's truth. Phil | ||
| Pnoga Registered user Username: Pnoga Post Number: 503 Registered: 1-2007 |
Rain, it makes perfect sense to come from an extreme cult like Adventism to Atheist. After you get bit with the finding truth and rationalizing it goes further once you leave the SDA church.You soon begin to question, and test all your beliefs to see wether they are so. I will admit at this stage in my journey I now consider myself an Atheist. I still come here because I enjoy the articles and posts. I still have family members that are in the SDA church. I'm not here to debate the existence of god or not. Just wanted to explain how one can go from one end to the other. It's not a sudden change that's for sure. ;-) | ||
| Pnoga Registered user Username: Pnoga Post Number: 504 Registered: 1-2007 |
Again, I don't post much because this site is about helping people discover truth about the SDA church and come out. I have no intentions of trying to convince anyone of anything. Peace to all. | ||
| Grace_alone Registered user Username: Grace_alone Post Number: 2123 Registered: 6-2006  |
Funny that this should come up ~ I have a young friend whose family just left the LDS (Mormon) church and considers herself an athiest as well. These churches that, in a round about way, encourage their members to either stick around or completely give up on God are absolutely the most wicked of all, in my opinion. I think there's such a fear of being deceived again. Paul, your story isn't over yet. Sorry ~ didn't mean to veer off the subject! Leigh Anne | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 14149 Registered: 12-2003  |
Leigh Anne, glad you said what you said. Paul, it's good to see you here. Leigh Anne's right. And Dale Ratzlaff also says agnosticism is built into Adventist doctrine. It teaches you that it is absolute truth, and if you no longer subscribe to truth, there is one outcome: you no longer believe in God. EGW taught that if you stop believing in her testimonies, you'll eventually stop believing the Bible. She's right...because Adventists are taught to read Scripture with an SDA filter. If that filter falls off, what's left cannot be true anyway, by definition. People believe that Sabbath is God's day, that Sunday is the pope's deception, and that if one wants to be saved, he'll keep Sabbath. When living Adventist becomes too hard to do right, people leave...but they have no framework for evaluating what they've left. They still have an SDA worldview, even though they aren't Adventist anymore. There's no choice but to be agnostic or atheist then...it's built into one's worldview. Paul, your story isn't over yet... :  Colleen | ||
| Hannah Registered user Username: Hannah Post Number: 28 Registered: 9-2012 |
Colleen is right, Paul, your story is not over yet! And I will be praying that at some point you will ask God to reveal Himself to you in a very personal way, and I know that He will. Our God is quite real, and He loves you so very, very much! I hope you will give Him the opportunity to show you that. | ||
| Gcfrankie Registered user Username: Gcfrankie Post Number: 905 Registered: 1-2007 |
Paul, this does not suprise me that you are looking to atheism as I went through the same thing. The first time I left I just walked away for 20yrs and thought I was an atheist but then God convinced me to go back to the sda church for another ten years and in that 10yrs he showed me how to truely study and walk away and never look back and wonder if I did the right thing. It was not until the final leaving that I realized that I was carrying around a whole load of guilt for those 20yrs. What I am angry at is the wasted years I spent in and out of sda but I know God has forgiven me and now I just need to forgive myself for wasting all those years I could of truely spent with his son Jesus Christ. I have now been out of sda for 10yrs. Paul, may God bless you. | ||
| Pnoga Registered user Username: Pnoga Post Number: 505 Registered: 1-2007 |
Thanks Leigh Anne, Colleen, Hannah and Gcfrankie, I certainly hope that answers come my way. | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 14153 Registered: 12-2003 |
God is faithful, Paul. With prayers for you, Colleen | ||
| Psalm107v2 Registered user Username: Psalm107v2 Post Number: 882 Registered: 10-2008  |
Glad to see you are still checking in Paul! | ||
| Asurprise Registered user Username: Asurprise Post Number: 2907 Registered: 7-2007 |
Pnoga; I'm sure you've already had a lot of the evidences of God pointed out, such as for example, the hundreds of prophecies in the Old Testament that foretold the Messiah that Jesus fulfilled precisely and that the odds of all those prophecies being fulfilled in one man being astronomically impossible; the fact that it takes so much more faith to believe in evolution than creation; the fact that all the disciples were eyewitnesses of Jesus - yet were willing to die horrible deaths rather than recant believing in Him. (People have died throughout history for things they believe in, but they wouldn't die a horrible death just to convince the world of a lie, if Christianity were a lie. So even that shows that Christianity is true.) But I suspect those aren't the arguments you're looking for. Perhaps this article by Oswald Chambers would help: 12/22/12 11:43 AM My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers Page 1 of 1 http://utmost.org/ December 22, 2012 No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him . . . —John 6:44 When God begins to draw me to Himself, the problem of my will comes in immediately. Will I react positively to the truth that God has revealed? Will I come to Him? To discuss or deliberate over spiritual matters when God calls is inappropriate and disrespectful to Him. When God speaks, never discuss it with anyone as if to decide what your response may be (see Galatians 1:15- 16). Belief is not the result of an intellectual act, but the result of an act of my will whereby I deliberately commit myself. But will I commit, placing myself completely and absolutely on God, and be willing to act solely on what He says? If I will, I will find that I am grounded on reality as certain as God’s throne. In preaching the gospel, always focus on the matter of the will. Belief must come from the will to believe. There must be a surrender of the will, not a surrender to a persuasive or powerful argument. I must deliberately step out, placing my faith in God and in His truth. And I must place no confidence in my own works, but only in God. Trusting in my own mental understanding becomes a hindrance to complete trust in God. I must be willing to ignore and leave my feelings behind. I must will to believe. But this can never be accomplished without my forceful, determined effort to separate myself from my old ways of looking at things. I must surrender myself completely to God. Everyone has been created with the ability to reach out beyond his own grasp. But it is God who draws me, and my relationship to Him in the first place is an inner, personal one, not an intellectual one. I come into the relationship through the miracle of God and through my own will to believe. Then I begin to get an intelligent appreciation and understanding of the wonder of the transformation in my life. © 2012 RBC Ministries |
