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I choose 'block'....really dislike notifications...at least we got a choice!!!

Am I reading it right? Anything below the chest starts to get uncomfortable for a man by his own partner??? Why??? Our church is also a hugging zone, everyone hugs everyone else, and while I'm a hugger and it doesn't bother me, my daughter is the exact opposite, she doesn't like to be hugged or petted by anyone other than close family. We've had to go over how to thwart overly friendly people and set boundaries.

My day job, and I love doing it. http://www.adventist.ca/3dissue/messenger/84-11/

Regarding the phrase, "the wages of sin is death," I think this is often misunderstood. One version puts it like this: "Sin pays its wages: death", which I think makes it easier to understand. It's not that God says, "You sinned. You deserve death." but that sinning causes death, like smoking causes death. And that this is the case makes sense because sin is predicated on the principle of "me first" and "me apart from God", and such principles cannot by their very nature be life-sustaining.

I'm glad to hear you strongly believe eternal life is only given to folks who have developed a real friendship with God. I think this is the real issue. I think there is no separate legal issue, and thinking in legal terms is just distracting and easily leads one to errors by unnecessarily complicating things. "Be ye reconciled to God." i.e. "Make friends with God". That's the whole thing right there. And we cannot make friends with God without Christ, not because of a legal requirement, but because that's reality. No one comes to the Father but by Me. No one. Not just fallen humans, but no one.

it doesn't appear that we can "hover" above the forum topic to see the "first post" and "last post", as we could earlier. I liked that, since I didn't need to click into a topic in order to see what it was about... and if I wasn't interested, I didn't waste my time clicking in and out of it..

Ability to read contexts and clues is sometimes tricky, but I think any proposal, in any direction, to make the world conform to one person's preferences is a backward step. With male friends, acquaintances and relatives I have a range from a nod, through a handshake to a hug, and with females a similar range. Occasionally I get it wrong, but usually I can read the signs. (Most recently I think I shook my son-in-law's hand on his birthday when he was primed for a hug. Forget where we were up to in our relationship. Same with a female colleague at a meeting recently.)

Column: Ben Carson’s faith — and mine — has already touched your life http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/10/26/seventh-day-adventist-trump-carson-column/74647308/ Mark A. Kellner 10:20 a.m. EDT October 27, 2015 America's one million Seventh-day Adventists would be happy to end Donald Trump's ignorance. (Photo: Justin Sullivan, Getty Images) In what might well be a “dog whistle” statement aimed at alienating evangelical Christian voters in Iowa who like Dr. Ben Carson, real estate magnate Donald Trump last Saturday delivered a oblique judgment of the neurosurgeon’s faith: "I'm Presbyterian, boy, that's down the middle of the road, folks, in all fairness. I mean, Seventh-day Adventist, I don't know about. I just don't know about." In painting a religion as unknown, Trump seemed to suggest there must be something amiss about Carson's faith. Carson has credited his Christian faith, and Adventism in particular, for shaping his worldview and contributing to his success in life. Trump probably isn’t alone in not knowing much, or anything, about the Seventh-day Adventist Church, a Christian movement organized 152 years ago in Battle Creek, Michigan, and which claims 19 million members around the world, of which a little more than one million live in the U.S. But the church of Carson’s choice — and, since 1999, mine — has already touched the lives of multiple millions, even if they don’t realize it. Did you have cereal for breakfast? Thank W.K. Kellogg, who along with his brother, physician John Harvey Kellogg, adopted health principles promoted by Ellen G. White, a pioneering co-founder of the Adventist movement. White advocated for a vegetarian diet, and it was the Kelloggs who pressed corn into flakes that could be served with (preferably soy) milk for breakfast. (Until he entered the presidential race, Carson was a director of the Kellogg company.) Do you know an infant who received a heart transplant? You can credit Dr. Leonard Bailey, a surgeon at Loma Linda University Medical Center in California for research that made such procedures better. Loma Linda is a Seventh-day Adventist Church-owned hospital and medical school, and Bailey’s controversial 1984 implantation of a baboon heart in Stephanie Fae Beauclair, an infant whose congenital heart defect was a death sentence, advanced the procedure. Loma Linda University Medical Center also led out in proton therapy for prostate cancer, saving an untold number of lives. Its graduates include Gillian Seton, a physician who served on the front lines of the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Liberia. Another alum was the late Frank Jobe, the orthopedist who invented the “Tommy John surgery” to repair baseball pitcher’s damaged arms. The Adventist lifestyle, which encourages abstinence from alcohol, tobacco, caffeine and meat, is credited with extending lifespan. On average, studies including the famous "Blue Zone" project reveal, Seventh-day Adventists who follow the guidelines live seven years longer than the general population. Beyond medicine, Adventists maintain a large education system, from kindergarten through postgraduate training with 1.8 million students enrolled around the world. In developing nations especially, low-cost, high-quality Adventist education is often a way up to escape poverty. USA TODAY Adventism is a Protestant Christian faith, albeit slightly different from the “down-the-middle” Presbyterian religion Trump claims. Its principal difference is found in the church’s name: Seventh-day Adventists worship on what we believe is the Bible Sabbath, the seventh day of the week called “Saturday” in English, but referred to as “Sabbath” in over 100 other languages, including Spanish, “Sabado.” The Adventist part? We believe Jesus is returning soon, although we have never set a specific date. The church and its members also respect and take counsel from the writings of Ellen White, who we believe exercised the biblical gift of prophecy during her decades of public ministry. But we don’t worship White or her writings, nor do they substitute for the Bible. “Brethren and sisters, I commend unto you this Book,” were White’s final public words, referring to the Bible she held in her hands, at a 1909 meeting of Adventist leaders. (She died six years later.) Not only do Adventists rely on the Bible as the final word on issues of doctrine, but we also work diligently to protect religious liberty. We’ve been to court on behalf of Sabbath-keepers, and filed a brief supporting Samantha Elauf, the Muslim woman refused a sales job by retailer Aberchrombie & Fitch because she wore a hijab. Adventists believe religious liberty belongs to all people, everywhere. What Donald Trump doesn’t know about Seventh-day Adventism could perhaps fill a book or two. But the one million Adventists in the U.S. would be happy to tell him — or anyone else — the full story. Mark A. Kellner, a writer in Salt Lake City, worked at the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s world headquarters from 2003 to 2014, including seven years as news editor for Adventist Review and Adventist World magazines.

Did I say Paul said evil angels married humans? I can't recall, if I really did. Here's my post: I simply pointed out that Paul talked about the existence of evil angels in his time, not that he said anything about homo-aggelo intermarriage. Sorry if the way I wrote led you to view my post as pointing to that direction.

Sorry about misspelling your name. No Stinsonmarri, I do NOT BELIEVE the righteous will be removed from this earth UNTIL Jesus returns in the clouds in glory. I believe THAT will happen "at the last trump" - when the 7th trumpet sounds. I DO BELIEVE the righteous will be removed from this earth BEFORE the 7 last wrath plagues are poured out, or just as they are poured out. Maybe that's where you got confused. Because you believe the wrath plagues happen BEFORE Jesus returns. I believe they are poured out WHEN Jesus comes. Wingnut seems to believe that some of the righteous will removed BEFORE Jesus returns in glory. I do NOT believe that.

Stinsonmarri Rachel and I differ on the rapture and many other issues. But I like debating with her because she does not tell me that if I had more Holy Spirit, I would come round to her way of thinking. Instead, she has a vast knowledge of scripture, which she uses to justify her (sometimes wrong) position on a topic. At least I am left fully understanding why she believes the way she believes, because by the way she interprets a particular scripture, that would appear to be true. In turn, I try to point out "But what does the Bible ALSO say?" And so the conversation goes around in pleasant circles. We are all on a learning curve. You may be higher up on that learning curve than me. I may not recognise the error of my ways because I am so low down on that learning curve. So I ask you to spend less time praying for me, and more time pointing out scriptures relevant to the discussion which will convince me, for instance, that there is no rapture. Such as explain to me how two can be in one bed, and one is taken and the other left. This sounds (to uneducated me), a lot like a rapture or translation. And I don't believe this "translation" occurs at the very end when Christ comes with sound of trump, great glory etc. I believe this is Him coming like a thief in the night to snatch away his believers before even the first trumpet plague. I don't believe that when Christ comes, any will still be sleeping in bed. They will be hiding under that bed, screaming in terror for the mountains to fall on them to hide them from the face of Him who comes in glory like the sun, and with deafening trumpet blasts, loud enough to waken the dead. You may feel its not worth the effort trying to turn me from my errors. I appreciate the time and effort that goes into any post. But quoting scriptures on how God gives wisdom to the wise is of little help to me because I have no way of telling the wise from the otherwise, other than comparing what they say against scripture.

Stinsonmarie: I DO NOT BELIEVE IN A "SECRET RAPTURE". Please STOP implying that I do. I titled my thread "Secret Rapture" to draw attention to the FACT that there is NOT a "secret rapture" or a pre-Second Coming "rapture". You come across as very arrogant Stinsonmarie, when you imply that Wingnut and I do not pray constantly for the understanding that only God can give through His spirit. When you call us "confused" and say that only you are reading things in "HIS way". That type of verbiage is NOT helpful in a discussion of our opinions concerning Bible symbolism, or Bible prophecy.