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Understanding. Maybe start by not framing the effort of the LGBT community as "demanding acceptance" or other confrontional characterizations that only harden and polarize. Rather seek to understand. Listen. And listen some more. Get acquainted. Learn. Try to turn the temperature down in the dialog.

And your comment confirms my point. Political parties are an artificial construct. There are not just two to choose from. Candidates can run under a variety of party designations, including making up a new one or as the generic "independent" candidate. Generally a politician that runs as an independent does so because they cannot in good faith embrace the whole of what each party stands for, or some particular part(s) that may be repugnant to their ideals. As between the two main parties, not fully Democrat nor fully Republican. It is not about honesty, integrity or whether Ben is lying or not. I know him to be an honest man of integrity. What I simply said was that in order to be electable most candidates will choose one or other of the two major parties rather than remain independent, start their own party or decide to run as one of the distinctly minor or fringe parties. That he does not want to split the conservative vote simply confirms that going from independent to any party is to avoid splitting the vote in a close election which has indeed cost candidates the election. Why did he not stay independent as he has been for many years? Because it is very hard to get elected as an independent. And splitting the vote is only one reason. Other reasons are that, if you join one of the two major parties, you also gain their nationwide political infrastructure, manpower and financing. As an independent candidate for president, you would have to build all of that. That is a huge undertaking that in the time left before November 2016 is very challenging if not impossible. So I stand by my statement that to be electable Ben "switched" (that was not my word but the one who started this thread) parties, or really just joined the one closest major party to his ideals. Why do that? If he expects to be elected he pretty much has to.

Integrity and politics simply don't mix. This switch is ironically among the first compromises of integrity one must make on the way to the White House. Then come political funding and lobbying, which is really trading political favors for campaign funding. And, once you are elected, there are a plethora of other issues you simply have no control over. In short, he shouldn't run. You don't change US politics. It changes you.

When can we get a "don't like" or "thumbs down" button? Why is it that when people cannot respond effectively to an issue that they devolve into personal insults and character assassination?

I am not at all surprised by your post. Your consistent anti Adventist posts (while claiming to be faithful to the church) are one of the reasons I quit visiting here. "Because of his association with sinners, Jesus was accused of being a glutton and a winebibber; but the very ones who made this charge were themselves the guilty ones. Satan’s method of misrepresenting the character of God is to attribute to him his own characteristics, and thus do wicked men falsify the messenger of the Lord. Those who accused Jesus, and who had said that John had a devil, knew that they were bearing false witness; but they were filled with jealousy, because, though they had so long been the acknowledged leaders of the people, they were set aside, and the people thronged to hear the words of another."

JoeMoe, How goes it with you? I hope well. I'd like to take a look at your claim that relying on the Bible alone is akin to circular logic. Who is the Bible's real author? Isn't it God Himself? Doesn't that make the Bible true because God cannot lie? So, how can relying on God's word be circular logic? Isn't being "open minded" really another term for disbelief in God's word? It seems to me that it is for any time we take the plain word of God and say we reject it in favor of a source that is purely human in origin we are indulging in disbelief. There's no other word for it.

The meaning of a symbol isn't derived from absolute historical accuracy associated with such symbol. For example, Christmas is celebrated in tandem with pagan festivals. Most Christians know that the history behind the actual celebration is a bit different, but it doesn't make it meaningless in context that they interpret it and what they celebrate. They don't celebrate the pagan aspect of it. Meaning is a multy-fasceted concept. The same goes for Sabbath. Sabbath is literally rest, but it's obviously a symbolic rest. My Sabbaths are the most stressful time of the week due to amount of church duties I have to perform on top of getting my family there with all of the expectations that such "getting there" implies. That fact doesn't automatically mean that the Sabbath loses its meaning. There are more than one meaning for any given symbol, and the applications of such meaning will differ from person to person. Evolution is a scientific theory, and the implications of it are scientific, and not necessarily philosophical or religious. The larger point is that we find meaning, and that's what makes it work for us... whether such meaning exists or not in reality.

And exactly 70 years ago, my class at Sligo Adventist Elementary School in Takoma Park, Maryland put on an elaborate program for our parents and the community, commemorating the Great Disappointment. I was in the fourth grade, and I remember it clearly. We each had paragraphs from Ellen White's writings in Great Controversy which we had memorized and which we recited on the program. It was a big event -- remembering what our early pioneers had experienced in looking for Christ's actual return to take place on October 22. Are we as dedicated in our watching and waiting, now, as we were then?

A man in Topeka, Kansas decided to write a book about churches around the country. He started by flying to San Francisco and worked east from there. Going to a very large church, he began taking photographs and notes. He spotted a golden telephone on the vestibule wall and was intrigued by a sign which read: "$10,000 a minute." Seeking out the Pastor he asked about the phone and the sign. The Pastor explained that the golden phone was, in fact, a direct line to Heaven and if he paid the price he could talk directly to God. The man thanked the Pastor and continued on his way. As he continued to visit churches in Seattle, San Diego, Chicago, Greensboro, Tampa and all around the United States, he found more phones with the same sign and got the same answer from each Pastor. Finally, he arrived in Texas. Upon entering a church in Dallas, behold, he saw the usual golden telephone. But THIS time, the sign read: "Calls: 35 cents." Fascinated, he asked to talk to the Pastor. "Reverend, I have been in cities all across the country and in each church I have found this golden telephone. I have been told it is a direct line to Heaven and that I could talk to God, but, in the other churches the cost was $10,000 a minute. Your sign reads 35 cents. Why?" The Pastor, smiling benignly, replied, "Son, you're in Texas now... It's a local call."

That is just an absurdly idiotic idea. You really had to scratch through the bottom of the barrel to come up with that one... That you would jump to that conclusion really say more about you than me....

And I would guess that those of us who need to watch our intake of refined carbs might benefit.