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The line from the post was from a Dave Clark 5 song of the 60s! Checked out the words and was a bit amused to see the word "drag" in it. How weird in this discussion. OK, OK, small minds amused by small things! The Dave Clark Five - Over And Over I said over and over and over again This dance is gonna be a drag https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ji1MMXoAVk

The average Social Security benefit for retired workers in 2017 was $1,369 per month. That comes out to $16,428 in annual benefits for a single person or $32,856 per year for a couple — about $25,000 less than the U.S. median household income of $57,617. https://retiredinamerica.com/2018/04/05/best-places-in-every-state-to-live-on-a-fixed-income/

"stone age" is about right as that was more than 50 years ago. In the early 2000s, I was in line to see John Mayall (John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers). I heard someone near me in line say, "Boy am I glad to get to see John Mayall before he dies!" Time passes by. Hard to imagine Mick Jagger is 76. Bill Wyman passed his 80th several years ago. Keith Richards looks like "death warmed over" sometimes. Someone said that "for every cigarette you smoke, Keith Richards gets 20 more minutes of life!" Good times!

I tremendously enjoy this forum as it allows for an exchange of ideas beyond what often occurs in church. I lean towards Bravus' view, but I'm unable to square it with scripture. Fortunately I am not the one who is charged with judging private sin.

What a blast from the past! I actually saw the Dave Clark 5 live back in 1966. They were one of my favorite bands; and their song "Glad All Over " was one of my favorite songs back in the stone age of British Rock and before the 'Stoned Age".

5 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Michael Jordan On April 16, 2003, basketball superstar Michael Jordan played his last NBA game, retiring from his position as a shooting guard with the Washington Wizards. Here are 5 things you probably didn’t know about the great basketball player nicknamed Air Jordan... Jordan Not Making The Varsity Team is Only Half True If you love MJ, you probably know Michael Jordan was cut from his varsity team, that he went home and cried, and that he mentally villainized his friend Leroy Smith, who made the team over him. Well, Jordan was a 5-10 sophomore at the time, and he just didn't make the varsity team. He played on JV that season and put up a number of 40-point games. The following summer, Jordan grew four inches, made the varsity team, and averaged more than 20 points per game. So the story is true, but not in the way that it's normally told. He Appeared as Part of a Cartoon Series ProStars was a 1991 Saturday cartoon program that featured three sports stars fighting evil villains, helping children, and and often protecting the environment as well. The hero characters in the show were Michael Jordan, Bo Jackson and Wayne Gretsky. These three men were chosen to represent the pinnacle of American professional sports in the early 1990s. The cartoon only ran for one season and featured clips of Jordan, Jackson and Gretsky at the end the program explaining the lesson to be learned. Jordan is the First Billionaire Athlete Jordan is currently worth 1.39 billion dollars, according to Forbes, far and away the richest athlete in professional sports history. MJ made most of his money off his partnership with Nike and his Jordan Brand, which dominates the basketball shoe market. Jordan's big investment was buying a majority stake in the Charlotte Hornets for $175 million. Now, that share is worth $780 million. It is no surprise that MJ's killer instincts translate over to business. Jordan Donated His 2000-01 Salary to 9/11 Charities Jordan has the reputation of being cold and heartless, which might be why this is a lesser known fact about him, but MJ gave $100,000 to help children who lost their parents in 9/11, and $900,000 to other organizations involved with relief. When asked about it, he said, "obviously our country has changed forever, but nothing has changed more than the lives of the families of the victims of this tragedy.” “The Flu Game” May Have Been Inspired by Some Poison Pizza. Game five of the 1997 NBA Finals was played between the Chicago Bulls and the Utah Jazz, and it is famously called “The Flu Game” because Jordan appeared visibly sick throughout the entire game. However, it turns out that this game may be less of a “flu” game and more of a “poison pizza” game. Apparently, Jordan had room service ordered to his room the night before the game, and he was the only one who ate the pizza. He became ill during the night.

Sinned against heaven

I agree. I belong to a small group of people over 60 years old. It's not that we want to isolate ourselves from other small groups; it's because as old people, we have different worldviews and concerns than younger people who are still "immortal". Young people would be welcome to join our group, but I doubt they would stay long. They would probably get tired of listening to us talk and pray about our maladies and our kids and grandkids. As far as LGBTQ+ people, I find most of them to show more love and concern for others than the general population. Outside of their sexual orientation, I find them to be a great group to hang out with. I have several friends and acquaintances who are gay (and/or that I suspect to be gay) including some Christian friends; and not one of them has ever hit on me. They respect my affirmed heterosexuality and don't "judge" me for it. The least I can do is return the favor. I can love and respect them without affirming or celebrating their gayness. I can accept them without condoning their behavior. I don't feel like any less of a man because I'm comfortable around gay people. That being said, I would probably never go to a gay bar or a gay club; or preside over a gay marriage.

Gustave: I do not believe you should "back out of the conversation." You have said that you have a "thick skin." Well, you can expect to receive vigorous, frank responses to your posts. If you are willing to engage on that level, continue on. You might even receive new insights. :)

Gustave, I hae seen Sabbath School classes for people of cultural and racial groups. Such people as immigrants may have unique adjustments to make living in our society. In addition, their cultural/racial background may he given the some variations in the nature of "Church" to include Sabbath School classes. It is O.K. for them to meet together in a common study and worship.

Gustave, if you cannot see that you are the very kind of person who makes a safe space necessary, you really need to back out of the whole discussion. You are seeking to invalidate people's very lives, and then questioning why they feel a need for a place to worship where those attacks will not occur?

In SDA congregations today establish a Sabbath School class based upon a group of people that want to get together as a group in group study and not upon isolating that group from the rest of the congregation. In my experience with such, sometimes the class has been established on the basis of a person who wanted to be the leader in a class, and intended to enlist people to attend. In such cases, I have seen such classes fail due to the fact that there a group of people did not exist who wanted such a class. However, which such a group existed, I have seen that class work out well.

5 Things You Didn't Know The RMS Titanic_2 On April 15, 1912, the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank, killing over half her passengers and crew. The supposedly unsinkable ship suffered from some design failures and planning mishaps that all led to one of the worst maritime disasters in history. Here are five things you didn't know about the sinking of the Titanic... The Lifeboat Situation Was Even More Screwed up Than the Typical Titanic Story Lets On We know that the ship was carrying only enough lifeboats to help maybe half of the ship's population, if that. But the story is even worse when you look at the details and the excuses made after the ship sank. Not only were there fewer lifeboats because people thought the ship was unsinkable, but the number was also cut because the full complement of lifeboats that the Titanic could carry gave a cluttered impression. In other words, aesthetics won out over safety. The mechanism that lowered the boats to the water may have been too weak to lower a filled lifeboat, too. And worst of all, an inquiry after the sinking found bizarre excuses like not needing more lifeboats because the route was so well-traveled that there was little collision risk (one would think more boat traffic would increase collision risk). Also, wrap your brain around this one, the Titanic should have had fewer lifeboats because more people supposedly would have rushed to what few lifeboats were there, filling them all to capacity and saving more people. Never mind that the boats that the Titanic did have wouldn't have saved everyone even if they were all filled. Way to pass the buck, people. Planet Alignment and Tidal Effects May Have Played a Role One of the many different influences at work that year was a rare alignment between the Earth, sun, and moon. On January 3-4, 1912, the sun, moon, and Earth were all very close to each other in terms of orbit. The Earth's perihelion -- the point in its orbit where it is closest to the sun -- occurred on the 3rd, and the moon's perigee -- the point in its orbit when it is closest to the Earth -- occurred on the 4th. What's more, that particular perigee was the closest in nearly 1,400 years, and it was just before a full moon. Astronomers at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas, realized that the tidal effects of that series of astronomical events might have contributed to calving of glaciers in Greenland. Icebergs that formed there and then headed south could have reached the Titanic's course by April. One Little Key Might Have Prevented the Collision A number of factors contributed to the sinking of the ship, of course, but being able to spot icebergs ahead of time, so the ship could turn away, would have really helped. And the ship did carry binoculars that lookouts could have used. However, the binoculars were all locked away -- and the one key that could have given the crew access was carried by a crew member who was dropped from the ship's crew in England. It's not guaranteed that the binoculars definitely would have made a difference, but they would have been another tool that could have had a positive effect. The Bulkhead Design Gave New Meaning to the Term "Cutting Corners" Bulkheads serve a number of purposes, but one of those is to contain leaks due to hull breaches. Ships are supposed to have several separate compartments forming the bulkhead. If a part of the ship's hull is pierced and the bulkhead in that area takes on water, the design of the bulkhead is supposed to contain the leak to that one compartment. However, the builders or designers (or both) of the Titanic decided that the common walls separating the bulkheads did not need to be full walls. They were partial walls, with enough cut away so that, if one bulkhead began to fill with water, then the water could simply spill over into the next bulkhead, akin to how you can fill an ice cube tray by pouring water into one cube space and letting the excess water flow into the adjacent spaces. The Rudder Was a Problem, Too Talk about overconfidence. Rudders help ships change direction and move about, and the rudder on a ship needs to be sized properly to move the bulk of the ship when needed. Unfortunately for the Titanic, the rudder on the ship was too small to move the mass of the ship quickly in an emergency. Whether this was generally poor planning, overconfidence that the Titanic would never face a problem, or both is unclear, but the result was that the ship couldn't maneuver fast enough to avoid problems.

?? I said over and over and over again ... ?? It seems this always gets back to feelings somehow, that because someone is emotionally bound up in some belief about how they are that you can change the Bible ( Forgot! Kinship says that the Bible doesn't say that!). So, if you are not going to give in to it, you must suffer. Well, well. Everyone must suffer for some desires of the flesh. it is our life in this world until we are remade in the image of Jesus. This is part of that picking up your cross and following Him. Paul talks on similar themes a lot. He says we are scarcely saved. Jesus suffered everyday of His life on earth denying the temptations of the flesh and the temptations of Satan. But He did it. We do not know what His private temptations were, but we do know that He knows all of our temptations. The good news is, by Jesus abiding in us, our characters, desires, thoughts, feelings, motives become like His. We live His life. Eventually, no matter what our "cross to bear" is, we become like Jesus. There is a statement in Christ Object Lessons to the effect that if we surrender our wills to Him, He will give our wills back to us perfect. To not believe that Jesus can heal us of all imperfections is to be in unbelief. There is also a statement in the NT that unbelievers will go to destruction. Just sayin'. Did read all of this in the Scriptures and SOP.

Sorrowful unto death

OK, here is a clue! Look at the name of the SS - Kinship Sabbath School. Couldn't be that they have anything to sdakinship? You can go to their website < sdakinship.org > and see if you can find anything that suggests that they do not "affirm" homosexuality. In fact, you will find that they make a great effort to twist the Scriptures to make it appear that it is acceptable. They also try to make it appear that Ellen White was accepting of it or at least did not disapprove. There is nothing there to suggest that if you are SSA you should remain celibate. In fact, just the opposite. They even have a section for bisexuals. Now, consider if you are attracted to both sexes, then to accomplish that you have to be having multiple partners which suggests fornication. So, thank-you , but I will stick by my earlier opinion that this "sabbath school" is all about trying to support same sex attraction and behavior in the Seventh-day Adventist church. And I also still see the connection between the WO and the LGBT+ issues.

FYI, there are many SDA congregations in the U.S. that allow any group that wants to have a Sabbath School Class, to have such. In that process, that class is typically allowed to study whatever they want to study, which often is not the official lesson. I do not believe that we should think that the LSU class is dedicated to promoting the idea that the practice of homosexuality is acceptable in Christian life. Rather, it is probably simply a class where people who deal with the issue of homosexuality may associate in a Bible study environment. NOTE: I wonder how many people commenting in this thread have actually attended that class? Yes, I have not.

In Romans 1:28-32, Paul lists 20 other sins besides homosexuality that will keep one out of the Kingdom. I would venture to say that most (if not all) of us have had problems with one or more sins on this list. If everyone who had willfully committed any of these sins were excluded from fellowship, our churches would be pretty empty. "Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them." So let's not put all of our focus on LGBTQ+.

I actually have no problem with this. LGBTQ+ people need Jesus as well. There are many gays who consider themselves Christians; and who have suffered great discrimination from straight people and much personal shame for their "deviate" behavior. If a gay person can't turn to Jesus for help, who can they turn to? Every church has a SS class and worship service for liars, lusters, and gossips. Many in this demographic are even elders and pastors. I would even venture to say a majority of Christians fit into this category. Who can they turn to but Jesus for forgiveness? I would propose that it is easier for people to stop these sins than it is for a truly gay person to become straight. I'm not implying that gays should be pastors, elders, or Conference Presidents; or that our churches should sanction gay marriage. But we should welcome anyone seeking a relationship with Christ; and let the HS do the rest.

I have read some of the comments in this thread related to women. war and viewed the pink military aircraft. People who have never had any significant training in military operations and the conduct of war, attempting to interpret what they were reading. I am reminded of a time in the U.S. when people were reading a set of U. S. Army training manuals and informing the public on that basis that the U.S. expected the Soviet Union to invade the U.S. and we ought to be prepared to defend our homes and to take protective actions, on the actual land of the U.S. In actual fact those training manuals were accurately cited. However, there was not one word of truth in how they were presented to the U.S. public. The purpose of the military is to be prepared to go to war. As such, it constantly trains people in the art of war and how it is conducted. I once was assigned with a group of people who over a three (3) month period conducted a training operation in which a situation occurred in which this nation went into total mobilization and deployed to an area of combat operations. I have been assigned to other nations that were considered to be under combat threat from another group/nation. I have read the classified operational instructions as to how we located in that country would go into combat upon invasion by another nation. In such countries, I have actively practiced how we would attempt to safely evacuate U. S. citizens, and my family members, from that country. I have been assigned to a unit that had an actual, potential, country in which we might go into combat. In such a situation, we trained and prepared to do so. I have actually gone into combat in a unit that had never expected to be in combat in that nation and had not prepared in any manner to operate in that nation. The bottom line is that in this time national military forces do need to address issues of gender and sexuality. I have served in combat with a unit that had both male and female members, at a time when women had never before served in that role in which they were now serving. I had to deal with such issues while in a combat role. There are real issues that the military has had to address. As I read/view material cited above, I do not see many of the comments coming from people who actually understand the real issues and who seeming come from people who have never had to deal with them.

The OP is one case in point. For example, men who enlist in the 'honorable cause of providing rights for women' are described as beta males and white knights. Every online discussion I've ever had with MRAs is another. They start out with the reasonable position provided above as a definition, but within a very few rounds of the conversation the hate comes out. We're all human together, with equal human rights. Our society - as have almost all human societies in history - has a systematic bias against women (and against ethnic and religious minorities, people with non-majority sexual orientation and gender, and so on). Feminism is simply applied humanism: work to disassemble systematic inequality. The backlash from those who have historically benefited from systematic inequality and experience losing that unfair benefit as oppression is disappointing but not surprising.

Counterpointed by the plague of MRAs, which start out by saying they're protecting traditional womanhood and end up just straight up hating on all women.

I come before you today realizing that the time has come for me to make a definitive announcement of my plans as to whether or not I will enter the race for President of the United States. I acknowledge that this forum, Adventistan is the ideal venue in which to state my plans. With some 9,000 plus members it has clearly demonstrated that it has the ability to grow in size. Further, as I analyze its population, I sense that its members include both those followers of the current President, whom I will not name as well as those who are looking for someone new, which I am. As I consider my decision, I believe that I have the following qualification that would suggest that I run for President: · * The President needs to be decisive person who can make decision. I fit that mold. Less than 30 minutes has occurred between the time that I first considered it and the time at which I made my decision. · * My years of service in the military, to include service as an enlisted person who reached the rank of Specialist 4 and as a Commissioned Officer who achieved the rank of Major, and served in combat, demonstrates that I have better qualifications to deploy our military internationally than have other Presidents. · * My 20 years of employment with the VA gives me the background needed to understand how the government operates, how it should be reformed and to reform it. · * My formal training in Mediation qualified me to preside over a fractious government system. · * My years of service in representing employees of the Federal government in negotiations with management demonstrates that I can understand and provide for the needs of the common working person. · * Due to issues that I have with sleep, I consider that my ability to sleep during boring meetings as well as to rise early and get to work specially qualifies me for the positon over and above some who have served before me. · * I do not micromanage. I chose competent people and allow them to do their job. · * I will select persons to fill government positons from both Republications and Democrats that are representative of the U.S. population While the above are only a few of my qualification to run for President, I must say that I am lacking in some respects: · * With my advanced age, I am not longer head and shoulders above all of the others who have announced that they are running for President. I have shrunk in height from what I once was. · * I do not have the financial resources needed to purchase the office as some have had. · * I do not own a jet aircraft capable of flying me around the country in luxury. · * While I have represented people before a Federal Administrative Law Judge I have never been to law school. · * I do not want to spend the next two years traveling the country. I have visited all 50 of the States in the past and I do not need to repeat that. Well here you have it--my qualifications for and my lack of qualifications. The time has come to make a decision. I have made a decision and chosen to announce in on this preeminent forum: I will not run for President of the United States during the next election. This decision of firm. NOTE: I have announced my decisions based upon my belief that the multitude of Democrats who are expected to run for President (Presently 14, with more expected to join the race.) requires that I make a statement.

Dear Mr. Matthews, It's a great tragedy for America that you have declined to run for POTUS as a either a Republicator or Democritator. With your extensive experience in non-politics you would have been far more qualified than any community organizer or reality TV star. We believe it was the intent of the Founding Fathers of America that the presidency should not be bought by the wealthy, nor should it require riding horse back for thousands of miles just to make people think you care about them and their problems. Those of us dwelling in Adventistan sincerely hope that you reconsider running for POTUS, and if you do, know that we foresee you riding into glory and history on horseback as a great pioneer of non-campaigning and use of zero energy in order to save the world and America. Every single patriot and Green New Dealer has your back and a cartload of horse poop that can be used instead of fossil fuels to power America's future indefinitely. Sincerely, the Tater family, including Dick, Common, Frozen, Stuffed, Mashed, and Instant

Rats! And I just sent a $100,000 check to seed your campaign! Can you just tear it up when you get it? I hope I sent it to the right address in Boulder.

It's just a way for the homosexuals to "get acquainted" with one another for the "fun" that happens later. This is no different than a "gay bar", or a "gay cruise", a "gay dating website", etc. By offering it THIS WAY the leadership can "nudge" peoples view of homosexuality being more natural and wholesome ( like what's wrong with a "Spanish Sabbath School Class" ).