| Author |
Message |
Asurprise
Registered user
Username: Asurprise
Post Number: 3352
Registered: 7-2007
| | Posted on Friday, May 02, 2014 - 2:37 pm: |     |
Yes, causing people to lose eternal life in Heaven with God is infinitely worse than any crime on this earth - as hideous as some of those crimes are! 
(Message edited by Asurprise on May 02, 2014) |
Psalm107v2
Registered user
Username: Psalm107v2
Post Number: 896
Registered: 10-2008
| | Posted on Friday, May 16, 2014 - 5:49 pm: | |
Resjudicata,
You bring up a lot of "sabbathisms" from my youth. I remember my family and church saying we weren't "legalistic" like the Jews. But the unspoken rule was if it's fun, or entertaining you can't do it on Sabbath.
Though I hate winter, I remember being happy for early sunrise so I could sleep and do my "lay activities" after church to avoid all the hassle of trying to keep the Sabbath holy. |
Resjudicata
Registered user
Username: Resjudicata
Post Number: 58
Registered: 4-2014
| | Posted on Friday, May 16, 2014 - 6:01 pm: | |
Well, I am glad I left.....but I am not PROUD of how I left. My sister and I left at the same time - left EVERYTHING - with literally no return address for almost two years. I am not going to say that I had any particular doctrinal beliefs, all I knew was that I was sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. So I did whatever it took to leave it all. I am not like most of the writers on here: I never set foot in an Adventist college and immediately disappeared into a gigantic state university. I had no Adventist friends to speak of after I left (still don't). I had a very successful career and my sister and I about three years ago began asking each other: "What was that all about, anyway?" So we have spent a lot of time talking about it and mulling it over and comparing notes.
God bless you, thank you for your kind comment. |
Flyinglady
Registered user
Username: Flyinglady
Post Number: 10137
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Friday, May 16, 2014 - 7:40 pm: | |
Like you, Resjudicata, I had/have no sda friends and I still don't.
I, also, had a very successful career, thanks to LLU.
I thought I was the only sda to ever leave the sda church here where I live. When God told me where to go to church He made sure I met two other former sdas who attended there. After I met then we had no other contact.
So I had only me and God when I left. God taught me the Bible and what it meant when I read the NT. It was a beautiful experience.
Diana |
Resjudicata
Registered user
Username: Resjudicata
Post Number: 59
Registered: 4-2014
| | Posted on Friday, May 16, 2014 - 8:03 pm: | |
I am just amazed how much I have learned from ex-SDAs. It is like I am starving for it or something. It was a part of myself I kept completely buried for 33 years, and when it was the right time, I could take it out and finally look at it again. My sister is the only "real life" SDA I keep in contact with. And finding Proclamation magazine....wow! What an eye-opener! "Resurrection: 24/7." Doesn't get any better than that. I also believe the cruel, dark Adventist "Matrix" really sets you up for an eye-popping experience when you comprehend that Resurrection for the first time. Night and Day.
And these people on here and all the other wonderful ex-SDA sites.....wow. It's like coming home, although "home" is way better than you remembered it.....cuz.....it ain't the same home anymore. Everyone has this uncanny way of explaining the Covenants and the Resurrection, probably because of all that Adventist misery, they just can't hold it in.
I am rambling now, so I better shut up. |
Resjudicata
Registered user
Username: Resjudicata
Post Number: 64
Registered: 4-2014
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 20, 2014 - 4:42 pm: | |
Confession time:
As I wrote previously, I somehow managed to get sucked into a SECOND cult, after leaving the one I was born in - Seventh Day Adventism. I joined "The Way International" around 1985 during a particularly shiftless period in my post-Adventist life, but only stayed in it for 2 years, and probably would not have stayed that long, but for a girlfriend. Thankfully, I escaped after a really superficial relationship with the organization, and never held any sort of leadership position, nor did I ever seek one out. Thank God! The leadership of The Way was renowned for incredible sexual abuse of its members, and today I am so happy that I never achieved any sort of leadership, nor did I involve myself in the sexual shenanigans of the group.
I have been struck lately by the honorable way that so many of you took very courageous stands against Adventism, some of you losing careers over those courageous stands. And furthermore, most of you studied yourselves into finding the True Gospel. I had just finished reading this article out of Proclamation:
http://www.lifeassuranceministries.org/proclamation/2013/1/mirra.html
and was thinking intently about the cowardly way I left Adventism: "In the Middle of the Night, leaving no Return Address." I essentially did the same thing with "The Way International," and never really analyzed the impact of Adventism on my life until this year - 33 years after leaving. This year, I have experienced the Resurrection for the first time and it has made an incredible impact on me. Just as I was exulting in finding the Truth about the Gospels for the first time, I received very disturbing news about the SECOND close call I had with cults. I have realized it was a HUGE mistake to leave Adventism without confronting its doctrines and replacing them with the True Gospel. Today, I am very grateful and somewhat alarmed at the SECOND very close call I managed to escape from in the Nick of time. Here is the latest news:
http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_25783953/victor-barnard-called-girls-brides-christ-and-he
http://www.startribune.com/local/256845191.html
http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/story/25354168/victor-barnard-timeline-of-a-cult-leader
http://www.startribune.com/local/minneapolis/255833281.html
http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/story/25279632/victor-barnard-the-history-of-a-cult-leader
There is a Karl Kahler that is mentioned in the last story in the list. He is a reporter for the San Jose Mercury News, and wrote "the book" on the sudden disintegration of "The Way International" after the death of the cult's founder, in a book called "The Cult that Snapped." I met with Karl and several other ex-TWI members in Monterey, California about 10 years after I left. Many of them just happened to have settled in the Bay area after escaping the clutches of TWI. I was attending a Nationwide Capital Murder defense symposium there, and met several ex-leaders of the cult, during the after hours of the seminar.
I would very much urge anyone leaving Adventism to do a thorough "inventory" of yourself and your belief system and make every effort to find and embrace the True Gospel of Jesus Christ. I am a living example of the extraordinary danger of falling into a SECOND abusive cult!
(Message edited by Resjudicata on May 20, 2014) |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 14824
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 20, 2014 - 4:43 pm: | |
Resjudicata, what you said above reminds me of Fearless Phil, when he first joined us. He had been out of Adventism for decades, as I recall, and he joined the forum and began to "unpack" with other formers for the first time.
What I've discovered is that when people leave a cult, they almost have to process with others of the same background because their foundational worldview was skewed in ways "normal Christians" have no way to understand. They may know that the things a former says are "off", but when they correct it, they don't understand the underlying assumptions that render the explanation unhelpful.
I know one person who had been out for years and had been attending a Bible church for 14 years. She stumbled onto FAF, and as she came on Friday nights, she began to realize her assumption about Michael the archangel was wrong and why; she began to understand the real New Covenant reasons the Sabbath was "over"; she discovered that her understanding of the Trinity and the person of Christ had been skewed. She had so many A-ha moments, and she came to the place after a few years, where she realized she was finally in a position to be able to lead a Celebrate Recovery group at her church with a biblical worldview instead of an unconscious Adventist one.
Colleen |
Resjudicata
Registered user
Username: Resjudicata
Post Number: 65
Registered: 4-2014
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 20, 2014 - 4:51 pm: | |
"Unconscious Adventist one."
That would be me for 33 years! The biggest impact I noticed was that there seemed to be "a wall" between everyone else and me at the various evangelical churches that I attended off and on. They seemed to be able "to get" something that I could never put my finger on. "The Wall" just blocked off everything. I despaired for so many years for no reason, and now I realize it was the direct result of never having examined my Adventist belief system. When a Bible Believing Pastor would give a truly Gospel-oriented sermon, I know now that I processed it through my "Adventist filtering system," and therefore, was blocked off from "getting it." I was incapable of hearing the truth and accepting it, because of my unexamined Adventist belief system. I would not advise anyone to try the same thing. |
Thalarian
Registered user
Username: Thalarian
Post Number: 19
Registered: 7-2006
| | Posted on Friday, June 06, 2014 - 9:33 am: | |
When I left the SDA church, think was in my early 20's. Could not resolved some of the comments by EGW and the Bible, after studying the bible I realized that adventist doctrines conflicted with Biblical Doctrines especially salvation and faith.
Also another thing that drove me out of the church was the hatred that adventism had against any who was disabled/handicapped.
As a teenager going to school in Collegedale came across a bible teacher in church, a women who stated that Ellen G. White created a doctrine that stated that God would force all those who were disable into the fires of hell. (Could not find any biblical evidence that God would deny the disable entrance into heaven). |
Resjudicata
Registered user
Username: Resjudicata
Post Number: 88
Registered: 4-2014
| | Posted on Friday, June 06, 2014 - 10:06 am: | |
Thalarian,
I was fascinated by your post and I am so very sorry that you were treated that way. I did some research to find the source of the disturbing behavior you described, and I think the basis of Ellen White's theory must be that many disabled people physical and mental ailments were caused by masturbation:
http://www.ellenwhiteexposed.com/criticc1.htm
For Ellen, just about every defect was caused by this. I am so very sorry and horrified that you were treated the way you were. |
Asurprise
Registered user
Username: Asurprise
Post Number: 3409
Registered: 7-2007
| | Posted on Saturday, June 07, 2014 - 10:35 am: | |
Thalarian; what a horrible thing for that "Bible teacher" to say! I never heard that as an Adventist, but then there were a lot of things I never heard of, such as what Ellen White said about Jesus in the first chapter of a book I'd never heard of either; called "Spirit of Prophecy" volumn 1." |
Leighpinski
Registered user
Username: Leighpinski
Post Number: 241
Registered: 8-2010
| | Posted on Friday, July 04, 2014 - 5:29 am: | |
Thanks for sharing your story Resjudicata! |
Islander
Registered user
Username: Islander
Post Number: 18
Registered: 4-2014
| | Posted on Friday, July 04, 2014 - 10:46 am: | |
EGW somewhere says the "retarded and mental imbelcils"will at the resurrection be as if they never were. She seems to have taught that a lot of folks would be as though they had never been. Abortion is a non issue with SDA's because EGW never mentioned it. She had a lot to say about food and what Adventists will refer to as health but her visions never led her to predict GMO's, artificial color and flvor, high fructose corn syrup, hydrolized this or that and other factory "foods". I went to a SDA sponsored "health seminar" a few years ago. Even though the instructor was a nurse she had no clue about health. She was only stuck on the pork ban and at one time said ham was the highest meat in fat content. Actually ham is very low in fat. Duck and lamb are considerably higher. But, back to the disabled... if EGW didn't comment on a particular subject then to most Adventists its a non issue. |
Thalarian
Registered user
Username: Thalarian
Post Number: 24
Registered: 7-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, August 17, 2014 - 9:18 pm: | |
@Resjudicata,
Thank you for the link. Yes have heard and read about the so called masturbation theory that ellen white adventists like to use.
In my case I was born with BIRTH DEFECTS, one month premature and according to my mother was not breathing for almost 4-5 minutes until doctors were able to get me breathing. (from the life I have had, often times I wish they had not bother with forcing oxygen into my lungs and allowed death to take me).
So because of that birth defect, am treated as a lost soul bound for the fires of hell which somehow gave these SDA's permission to commit abuses upon my person...
@Asurprise: Closed Adventist Communities tend to become extreme in thier belief systems. Often times those beliefs can and often times end up being cult-like. Which can be dangerous, it is in that environment that often times crimes like abuses will happen while under the protection of religious freedoms. |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 14905
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Monday, August 18, 2014 - 12:35 pm: | |
Thalarian, the wicked teaching of Adventism that the disabled (especially the mentally disabled) are not able to understand the gospel and thus are facing a future of annihilation, that they would be as if they never were, is not from God; it is, quite truly, from the pit of hell.
Jesus came for ALL mankind. His blood is for ALL of us! His promise of a future with glorified bodies is for ALL of us! We only need to believe in Him.
Colleen |
Islander
Registered user
Username: Islander
Post Number: 30
Registered: 4-2014
| | Posted on Monday, August 18, 2014 - 4:26 pm: | |
We have several very disabled people in almost each Lutheran or United Church of Christ congrration I attend ( I altetnate ). Most of the folks are very enthuastic and love Jesus and truly know they are His. It is an inspiration. Especially the one man who sings praise songs with such guesto. And, Thalarian, it took the midwife a very long time to get one of my children up and going after birth. He didn't breathe and he had asperated stool while still in the womb. I may be one of the few people who believe in his worth and stick by him during thick and thin. He currently is serving a very long prison sentence. He though is a child after God's own heart. He doesn't know if he did what he is serving time for because he was under the influence. I though know I am his mother and will do all in my power to make his life the best I can. Some people are just dealt a tough hand right from the getgo. My son started in special ed at age three. Don't ever give up. I really mean that. I hope you have special folks in your life to whom you are important. My son has one, me. Even one is a hundred percent more than zero. |
|
