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My prostate cancer got worse cuz I was in denial for about 9 months after my first warning. I eventually returned to me senses and aggressivle (and successfully) treated it. Been cancer-free for 7 years now.

Dear folks, would u pls to double-check the accuracy of this facts-based news about the Nepal Earthquake in Adventist Review? http://www.adventistreview.org/church-news/story2578-adventist-leader-in-nepal-tells-of-panic-and-pain It says "In Nepal, all Christians worship on Saturday because it is a nonworking day unlike Sunday, when the country works." "So far no Adventist has been killed,” Pokharel told the Adventist Review on Sunday. “However, many Christians were buried while they were worshiping on Sabbath and died.” Opps... wait a minute...It seems too good to be true... "No Adventists were injured" is different than "No Adventists were killed". None injured means such a total protection. However, since all Sunday keepers escorted to be allowed to worship on Saturday due to their policy and rules, those non-Adventist Christians were worshiping the same Living God as Adventists on that Saturday. Then the big earthquake came in the middle of the Saturday worship hours. To be honest, most of the construction- infrastructure of Adventist churches/schools/hospitals in Nepal considered the poor building materials since the church members and missionaries have no enough money for the most building projects for the better constructions. In other words, the other protestant churches are well-built and much stronger churches. Here's the huge gap of human logic... How come the Adventist Review made a statement that ""So far no Adventist has been killed,” Pokharel told the Adventist Review on Sunday. “However, many Christians were buried while they were worshiping on Sabbath and died.” When Adventists fully survived, I think the non-SDA churches deserved the same, and not buried alive since they are also worshipping the same God as Adventists' especially since they have a much better churches' construction. Unfortunately they are buried alive and killed while worshiping the same God as Adventists'. (Btw, we have the same Jesus too, right?) Nevertheless the Adventist Review still need to keep the accuracy and the real fact of each news. We don't quite sure if this is just as the 'phony' news or the real facts even yet.

Strept throat when I was 21. I thought it was my usual common tonsillitis that I would get over. But it went into the joint of my jaw and I had reduced jaw movement. I could barely get a finger between my front teeth. I thought I had tetanus - lockjaw.

Herein lies one of the fruitless points (pointless fruits) of religion (yes, I mean Christianity also). It is the jump in human logic that perceives that 'our people are special recipients of god's protection and grace, therefore what we believe is especially blessed by god'. Then god allowed satan to use the earthquake to bring calamity only to the 'pagans' and 'apostate Christians'? To wake up Nepal? When are the religious going to realize that natural disasters just happen because they are of nature - the pressure of tectonic plates that just give way? That the reason people may survive could be because of earthquake preparedness smarts and building structural conditions?

This was really sad to hear. I've known Ron for many, many years. He also officiated at our wedding. Worked with his brother Elliot at Faith for Today. Will be praying for the family.

Legerity physical or mental quickness; nimbleness; agility. Break up their drowsy grave and newly move / With casted slough and fresh legerity. William Shakespeare, Henry V, 1600 Nabokov's own tricky legerity discourages solemn praise; he makes his acolytes and exegetes seem ridiculous as they compile their check lists of puns and chase his butterfly allusions. John Updike, Picked-Up Pieces, 197 "....this enchiridion of arcane and recondite sesquipedalian items will appeal to the oniomania of an eximious Gemeinschaft whose legerity and sophrosyne, whose Sprachgefühl and orexis will find more than fugacious fulfillment among its felicific pages.” NY Times, August 26, 2008 - By BRUCE WEBER - Books - Print Headline: "Laurence Urdang, Language Expert Who Edited Dictionaries, Dies at 81"

Thank you, Stan. You are a very kind man is what I think!

​Trusting this was humour?

God is Love! Jesus saves!

I think that the following explanation of this passage is very plausible: for the source and the full argument see: http://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/200/what-is-the-meaning-of-encircled-in-jeremiah-3122 (scroll down to the comment made by Amichai)

And that is where we differ....

​praise GOD!

Pretty sad actually if the only, or even primary, distinction of concern between public vs. Christian run schools is evolution vs. creation. It would seem that the point of the article in question was missed.

Yes I do, and I went through Public School and still believe in Creation. Again is your Faith so weak?? Besides it was our Schools, AUC and Andrews that my brother started believing in evolution, so how do you explain that?????????? They didn't teach that subject, but yet that's what happen!!!!! So please don't presume to know if I have children or grandchildren!! Besides if you've been reading my posts for the past number of years you would've known that!

​Ellen White's concern was when power was being exercised by a few men, who were acting as a conscience for others. She said that in such circumstances Satan will seek to overpower these individuals but that it is much harder when decisions are considered my many people. This is why the GC is Session, with delegates from all over the world, considering issues has the highest authority, following the principle in Acts 15. Sometimes an individual or committee may make a mistake, but when the whole world church meet together, Satan cannot deceive everybody, so there is safety. Different people will view things from different perspectives and you get a more balanced outcome. The great danger is in entrusted doctrine to a few people.

Why should there have been any discussion as to whether or not the lady is a Sikh should be published? It's beyond me that anyone should have a problem with that. So what if she is a Sikh? To quote Hillary Clinton, what difference does it make?

​You have been missed my friend

Yes, I knew she was sick. I think we were all endeared to her when we saw the movie about his life. Faithful servant

Right, Kevin. We must never surrender our consciences to any human authority. That would amount to creature-worship. When in history has the majority ever been right? When has Satan not attempted to hijack the church--every church--in every age? Rasell, please recall that some years after Ellen G. White made the statement that she regarded the word of the General Conferece to be "the voice of God on earth," she issued a new statement that she could no longer regard the General Conference as the voice of God on earth. As long as men insist upon excercizing their strict control over the church, the Holy Spirit will not be given freedom to hold the reins in His own hands. But TM 300 tells us that eventually the Lord will take the reins into His own hands. That means that men who are used to controlling everything will be set aside.

Seems like "Adventist LIves Matter....More"

The REVIEW Article does contain some internal statements that seem to conflict with each other: As the REVIEW article was posted a few hours after the earthquake, I will suggest that it is simply an example of incomplete information. There are some 8,600 members in the country. The total situation is not known. In the quote above, Pokharel makes two different statements, probably at two different times. Probably later in the week we will have more accurate information. Later we may have more information that tells us some were injured and some were killed.

I think journalistic sloppiness has been around for a very long time. And certainly low integrity propagandists are also nothing new. I think perhaps what is different now more than ever is the saturation level. It used to be that we were limited to maybe a newspaper, news magazine or two and no more than three TV news sources and a few local radio stations. And even then, there was a limiting factor of personal resources and time to access even those relatively few news sources. The resources necessary to produce and broadcast/distribute were a major limiting factor as well. Now any idiot with a computer can start a rant on the internet and label it news, or truth or whatever and with a push of a button it is available to potentially a worldwide audience instantly, with no editorial or peer review checks and balances. And just as easily others of similar ilk and mindset can with a quick cut and paste repeat it over and over. And for the news/info consumer there is a flood of this sort of thing to sift through for a few kernels of reliable stuff. Far too many show no less intellectual integrity (discernment/wisdom/rationality, etc.) on the consumption side either, just lapping it all up, passing it on without bothering to think, check it out or caring that they play into the hands of the propagandists.

The problem with religion today in any context is that people are traditionally raised with "loosely defined philosophical concepts". For example, in the above "spiritual walk" is a bordering a platitude. The concept has very loose definition, and can mean a 1000 things to a thousand people. Yet, it's exactly the type of language that you end up hear from pulpit over and over and over until it either becomes a full-blown platitude to the point where it loses any shred of meaning all together and loosely refers to "those God-related things you do". Religion can really benefit with a language revamp, but that's exactly the core of the issue. Once you actually begin defining these things, then religious concepts break down, because now you have to explain in a way that makes sense in our everyday human language, and think whether calling any given concept "spiritual" is really justifiable even from religious perspective. You have to actually think about what you say, instead of simply reciting some verse and think that it contains some hidden meaning behind the layers of metaphors. That's why pastors have it rough. The congregation generally follows the script, while pastors have to read and study, reconcile the problems, come up with rationalizations (I'm not using this terms detrimentally), and come up with a script that makes sense. But it's very difficult to keep feeding "the script" to the modern society, when our precision of language demands better explanations and clarifications. "Invite Jesus into your heart" may have appealed to the generations who were brought up to internalize certain metaphors. It doesn't work so well with this generation, which is being brought up with even basic logic of computer programming generation, fact-checking requirements in schools, and generally more access to information. They can see through the language being a platitude that triggers some response in older generation without any adequate and consistent explanation by anyone in the church. For religion to survive in any shape or form, it either has to re-define the semantics of its vocabulary to be consistent with facts, or it has to keep the modern vocabulary our of its doors, clinging to the traditional metaphors that don't translate really well into our present understanding of how things work. Unfortunately, church leadership is largely the older guys who still joyously sing hymns about fountains filled with blood, and speak largely in vague terms, allowing the congregation to fill the void with whatever they think it means and confirm with some "amen". The sad thing is... the church is slowly dying with people who think they are doing a favor to God and to religion with their basic inability to confront the semantics of the language they are reciting.

It is not unknown for a SDA pastor to be hired as the temp. pastor while the Protestant congregation is looking for a new pastor. When this happens the SDA pastor only preaches on Sundays. Lay members of the congregation will be in charge of the other activities of the church.

Some denominations do not worry about the personal beliefs of their pastors as long as they do not teach and preach anything inconsistent with official Church doctrine. My sister-in-law, an Adventist, was offered a pastoral position at a Methodist Church. They were fully aware she was an Adventist and would not have required her to become a Methodist.

There is certainly grounds to debate whether or not The Great Controversy Project is the best way to reach people in our society today.

How soon exactly is this Sunday law under penalty of death thing going down again? I remember it being just around the corner for the last thirty years or so, and I remember picking up a Signs of the Times magazine from around 1906 or something that had a bunch of imminent Sunday law articles in it. What's it going to take for people to admit that it's not actually coming anywhere in the foreseeable future?