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I may be wrong, but it is my understanding that the unpardonable sin is the continual and knowingly (until death) rejection of the Holy Spirit's bidding to come to Christ.

altered consciousness in various religious experiences, and also various exercises of dance and trance activities that are none religious, is one of the reasons my son has determined that all religion is just humanly generated experiences. He remains agnostic as in, he cannot say there is or is not a God, though he leans towards atheism. i honestly understand why. I do believe the vast majority of religious experience in the world is from forms of self generated altered states.

C'mon Samie, Are you saying that the translator of the Complete Jewish Bible (CJB) was a Sunday Keeper? That would be novel - a Sunday keeping Jew. "When Yeshua rose early Sunday, he appeared first to Miryam of Magdala, from whom he had expelled seven demons ..." (Mark 16:9 CJB)

God has said a sin against the Holy Spirit is unpardonable. I was just thinking though- if one had a severe mental illness, and wasnt fully cmprehending the situation, and spoke against the Holy Spirit, would God forgive them- as they dont know what they are saying??? Just a ponderance that has been on my mind for a few days

Acts 17:30 talks about God winking at man's ignorance, IOW He takes it into consideration. It then goes on to say that He is now calling people to repentance. We cannot expect people to repent if they are ignorant (not knowing). And even healthy people can do things in ignorance. But this verse is telling me that when one becomes convicted one needs to follow up in God's direction. To avoid doing so would be rejecting the Holy Spirit. God is FOR us. Sometimes that means that if we don't believe that we are forgiven after bringing our sins to Him, say, if we can't forgive ourselves, we can trust in Him and take Him at His word.

Spiritual abuse, within the SDA Church happens. It cannot be dismissed. The first step in dealing with it, is to recognize that it exists.

I don't know how God will ultimately "handle" the salvation of babies, people with mental illness, or people throughout history who never even heard of the scriptures or Jesus, or have just plainly been "ruined" by off-balance denominational religion. I really like a concept that 8thdaypriest has been posting about for a couple years proposing that "the rest of the dead" said to be resurrected at the end of the millennium will consist of these people who never had the opportunity to make an intelligent, informed decision about God; and they will be judged on their response after being exposed to the "real" Yahweh. I agree strongly with Pam's statement above. Furthermore, in my opinion, if you are experiencing any concern about committing the unpardonable sin, you haven't committed it. The only sins that cannot be forgiven are the known sins that we refuse to confess. As soon as we say "Please forgive me for my sin of ____" (fill in the blank), God responds "What sin?" See 1 John 1:9.

Here is the link: http://ejcsda.com/news/it-is-joy-unspeakable-joy-says-elder-after-baptizing-his-eighty-two-year-old-mother-on-special-ltm-baptism-day/

JoMo: Yes, I agree with you. Privacy and confidentiality are both important. Sometimes it is important to keep baptisms secret. I am aware of a SDA baptism, here in the United States, where a decision was made that the baptism should not be public. So, the baptism occurred, but it was a private baptism and it was not public. It is well known that this person is married to a SDA and attends SDA services with their spouse. What is not public is that both are now baptized SDA members. Sometimes privacy and confidentiality must be maintained. NOTE: For those who have a need to know: The marriage is a male & female marriage. It is not a homosexual marriage. I am even sorry that I feel a need to say this.

Having been one who in my professional life spent a lot of time protecting the privacy of individuals from "curious" ones attempting to invade another's privacy, it just seemed a bit out there to want to scan and view someone's brain "while in vision" for any reason. It reminds me of the people who want to drag theirs teens into an ER to view people involved in motor vehicle accidents while drunk, or look at people on various respiratory assist devices who have been smokers, or any number of other people who had good or bad things happen to them. While many may have a benignly positive interest in seeing a "brain in vision", I suspect in today's world there would be many more looking for a way to discredit any said prophets by attempting to prove they had abnormal brain scans. So, hopefully, any future prophets (there may be some) will resist any such urging to be scanned for "scientific reasons." Keep in mind that certain prophets have been alleged to have had their visions as a result of seizure disorders and other abnormal neurological processes.

Aubrey asked below: Aubrey, my response was not directed to you. It was directed toward another person.

I can vouch for Aubrey that she has not just fallen off of a turnip wagon!

Sometimes, I just have to wonder...did you really think this was something I needed explained? </scratches my head in wonderment>

Pragmatically, once a congregation reaches "critical mass", they probably do need a pastor; and eventually a Board. The article states that "For a church to be great, we’re told, the pastor must do less pastoring, more managing and leading. ... Pastors were never meant to do all the caretaking and shepherding of the flock." In my experience, that only works when a pastor is lucky enough to have a thriving, supportive united (different from uniform) congregation that is motivated to do the work. I have been in congregations where pastors are the whipping boy of whatever group of saints is working against the pastor. I've see both liberals and conservatives (relative to me) run pastors out on a rail, for some perceived doctrinal error stated in a sermon or for stuff like supporting (or prohibiting) a contemporary song service or drums and guitars in the sanctuary, or allowing yoga classes in the church basement.

The "beloved" SDA teacher that molested my son was also just quietly transferred to another SDA school across the country by the church while my son was "shunned" (in the Amish sense of the word) until he left the church out of discouragement and ended up blaming himself for the abuse.

After I was baptized, my boss (who happened to also be an SDA minister and the company president) used spiritual abuse to bully me into doing things I didn't want to do. It was horrible. Over the course of my employment, he cheated me out of over $50K, as well as bullying me into helping him participate in Medicare fraud of well over $200K. Horrible. By the time I was convinced (by a pastor and counselor) to dump that job, I was a basket case. It was after that experience that I vowed to never EVER let anyone anywhere use spiritual abuse against me ever again. And by the way, that company folded, and my ex-boss went on to work again for the SDA church.