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Good morning, I am a Spanish 26 years aged girl. In my environment, catholicism was the predominant faith, but in the last 3-4 decades the faith has faded quite much in my country owing to mass media. I was interested in religion and spirituality when being a child. In my late teenagehood I was getting prepared for the confirmation sacrament and assisting a course which was a requierement for doing the sacrament, but my faith lessened and found some information about incoherences of the catholicism, so I quitted the course and stopped being willing to do the confirmation. I assissted a sect for 1 year when being 17 years old. Next, I was switching from deist to atheist and then back from time to time. I became to be interested in the New age since last year but I am not very fervent of that spirituality and do not do many practices because I heard about stories of people being attacked by demons when doing those practices. Even a man who recommends meditation and yoga, admitted that a person can be attacked by demons when meditating if some factors take place. I watched some videos about people switching from the New Age to Christianism (in some cases catholicism and in other cases protestant religions). Then, I attended a mass, visited some churches (catholic) and felt a little well. The downside of the catholicism are its incoherences and the fact that (at least according to me) people do flagellate psychologically a bit ("we are sinners", "my blame"). I do not mean we are perfect or gods, and people also have bad features, but I think that the catholicism use these facts to flagellate psychologically people. Another feature that I dislike about the catholicism is that in that faith people encourage to deny oneself and commend entirely to God. I even have heard from a Catholic man that personal development is bad because it is done from the self and not by commending to God and he reccommended to convert oneseff. I think but we do not have to be excessively self-centered, but consider that we should take importance about us and take care and attention about us, at least partially, and commend to God but not denying ourselves. I may be too self-centered. I also have heard and read about catholic people that we do not deserve the wells and skills we have but they have bestowed to us by generosity of God. In my opinion, all people deserve a mininum of material elements which able them have a somewhat good quality of life. Are believes and attitudes written in the second paragraph part of the Adventist faith? I would thank know that.

Hello and Welcome Alepte I am glad to see you are searching for truth and wanting to know God better. Most Adventists, no matter what flavour they come from would concur that it is eternal life to know Jesus. (John 17;3. I think you could be right that we have many ways of looking at God and I think that is, as Gregory has stated, we do have a very wide variety of members, and non members. I think you were asking above re The Book Of Enoch, so I thought for this post I could share our "official" belief about the Bible. This is a short summary of said belief, but its a good place to start: I hope this helps you a little, and that if you have more questions or thoughts, that you will feel free to come back and share with us again.

HOPE and be FREE!

In The Garden Alone: Part 2 We live in a world of constant turmoil and trials. But, it has been my personal experience that God will give us the strength we need; and He will look after all those things that we are unable to do ourselves. I wrote this poem a few years back while reflecting on how best to manage a very difficult time in my life. And I think I have used it in an article for this web site last year. But this Sabbath, I would like to present this poem again, in a slightly different light and context. I have re-worded it to suit the subject matter for this devotional. I have had a number of people ask me lately how to cope with the times we are living in today. There is so much propaganda in the so-called "news" of today that many are sincerely struggling to decipher what is truth. World events seem to be closing us in tighter and more aggressively than ever before. The only place I have managed to find truth that I can count on for all situations is in God's Word, the Bible. The examples of Jesus and how He has lived His Incarnate Life here on planet Earth will help anyone to cope with anything. One of my friends at Church told me a short while ago how that when they pray; they do it "as if Jesus was right beside me when I pray." And we got talking about the subject again earlier today, and came up with the related idea that it might be one step better, to also act as if Jesus was standing right there beside us, when we encounter difficult people anywhere. Or, during the very worst trials of our life, how do things change for us when we act as if Jesus was/is right there beside us as we respond to what is happening? We all have many little remnants or fragments of experiences that we sort of just tuck under the rug because we find them to be embarrassing, or shocking, and many times, we have no idea what to do with such things in our life. But we can learn from one of the parables that Jesus talked about, and we can respond to world or personal events, with the "everlasting gospel, and it's everlasting principles. According to the everlasting gospel of Rev 14, there is hope among the fragments. If your heart has been broken by grief, by worry, by fear, or by anything else; just make art with the pieces. Gather up every one of those fragments and bring them to Jesus. Jesus will use those fragments to further your testimony of "Christ in you the hope of glory." and that is "the everlasting gospel." We are all born by the anguish we bear, and when we are friends with Jesus; He turns that into the love we want to give. And the only reason we can give such love, is because we ourselves have received the same love from Him. As part of the "everlasting gospel, Jesus is calling His Church today, to "gather up the fragments that remain, that NOTHING be lost." (John 6:12). Jesus doesn't want anyone you know to be "lost," and we need to smarten up when we deal with people we do not like or whom we disagree with. Bring THOSE fragments to Jesus! Read Full Text Here

Gustave: I gave you the facts according to the Bible. That means the reformer's view on the differences between the Law of YAHWEH also the Sacrificial Law. Ron made it very plain when he stated: "I am responding from the viewpoint that the Scriptures (in the original manuscripts) found in the 66 books of the Bible are God's word and are authoritative above all man-made theories and doctrines." What you fail to see is that both the Commandments and the Sacrificial Law were given to Moses by YAHWEH. The only difference is the Sacrificial Law, HE told Moses to write down and place it on the side of the Ark of The Covenant. The Commandments which you and man want to call Moral are in error. They are not just Moral, they are Natural Laws, and Statutes. They are not what men want to think are the digit 10. This word is "accumulation," which means the following: Late 15c., "that which is heaped up, an accumulated mass," from Latin accumulationem (nominative accumulatio) "a heaping up," noun of action from past-participle stem of accumulare "to heap up, amass," from ad "to," here perhaps emphatic (see ad-), + cumulare "heap up," from cumulus "heap" (from suffixed form of PIE root *keue- "to swell"). Meaning "act of heaping up" is from c. 1600. Etymology Online The Commandment especially in the Sabbath section proves that all that spoken in Creation are there. You apparently do not seem to understand that man concept or ways or not THE WAYS of YAHWEH. All of the reformers proved that and you as well. THE HOLY SPIRIT will leave all into truth if they continue to stay on the path. The reformers brought a lot of truthful things to the table until they chose to go off the path of truth. What I showed you who the little horn is, the papacy under the Catholic Church. I showed you that Constantine worshipped Mithras and felt that he was leading the Christian to accept all of Mithras and his truth, which by the way was a lie. I gave evidence that Paul saw iniquity with the Greeks and Roman who is Japheth children are the only true Gentiles no other ethical group from Ham or Shem. Again, men made up an error about anyone who is not a Jew is a Gentile. Not true because they have not read Gen 10:5 it is plain who the Gentile is. The books Paul wrote were only to the Gentiles, except the book of Hebrews. You see your belief is historically traced from the Bible and history. They go hand and hand, history proved the Bible was correct! 2nd Thessalonians proved that the papacy will be "taken out of the way." Because there will be "a falling away first." This is taken place now which YAHSHUA said it would be the beginning of sorrow. What happened since 2016 was it what Paul spoke about. Many people of all faith changed, hatred came back with a vengeance. The earth is dying and the Time of Trouble is at the door. The beast has not been revealed yet, he will be revealed after the Time of Trouble comes to an end. The papacy you believed will become powerful even more so during the Time of Trouble. She will take over Jerusalem that has become Babylon with many different religions (uncage birds the Bible called them) in the city. This is the one who the 144,000 (they are the ones with the power and preaching the two witnesses, the Bible), will deal with, the Gentile in Revelation Chapter 11. Matt Chapter 24 Finally, the reason why the Papacy state they are above the Bible is so you do not read as you should. Neither do you accept that the Commandments is all The Spoken WORD of YAHWEH! Many today are so delusional that they believe all kinds of lies (conspiracy theories), that they will put their lives on the line. Many are power hungry and will do anything deceitful and bold to have it. They don't care nor listen to the Bible and then they called themselves Christians. It is clear that refuse any type of rules or laws, saying people are forcing them against their will. So, if refuse to accept practical manmade laws; how easy to think you can change ELOHIYM'S Laws- think again, it will never happen. Blessings!

Hello Gustave, I am responding from the viewpoint that the Scriptures (in the original manuscripts) found in the 66 books of the Bible are God's word and are authoritative above all man-made theories and doctrines. I am not a Seventh-day Adventist. I think you have laid out your position clearly, and your viewpoint seems to have the support of the Council of Trent, Justin Martyr, and Martin Luther. Yet I do not find your viewpoint convincing because many of your points are man-made theories and doctrines that lack support within the Scriptures. The concept of categorizing God's instructions into categories called "natural law", "moral law", or "ceremonial law" would make sense to those who are content with man-made theories. But those categories are not described anywhere in the Bible. And those who teach such categories cannot agree regarding which category each passage of Scripture should be placed into, which shows rather clearly that it is not the Bible that specifies the categories, but that it is just a man-made system. Furthermore, the idea of using such categories in order to set aside some of God's instructions is not found in Scripture -- it is a man-made theory that has been superimposed on top of Scripture without God's permission and it directly opposes a substantial part of what God himself said in Scripture about his own instructions. In spite of the best of intentions, those who teach the categories of natural, moral, and ceremonial law also end up teaching things that are contrary to the word of God and contrary to the teachings of Jesus. I plan to respond to specific parts of your post later, as I have time.

Hi Alepte, Welcome to the forum. I am one of those people Gregory referred to above as someone having a long-term relationship with SDA's; but I hold several minority views. I won't get into those minority views now, since you are searching I don't want to Say anything that would confuse or discourage you. Like Gregory says, faith is a journey; not a destination. I myself was raised a devout Catholic - so much so I almost became a priest. As I read the Bible, I - like you - began to see discrepancies between scripture and Catholic doctrine; so I eventually became and SDA. As I continue to study, I also see discrepancies between my understanding of Scripture and Adventism. I have also come to the conclusion that spirituality is more about a proper relationship than about correct theology. If we truly love and trust Jesus, any questions we have on theology will be clearly answered by Jesus in the Kingdom; and because we love and trust Him explicitly, we will believe everything He tells us. In my humble opinion, not all theology is salvational. For example, Catholics worship on Sunday; and SDA's worship in Saturday; which is in accordance with the Commandments. Does that mean that if you don't worship on Sabbath that you will go to hell? In my opinion - NO! Some of the most devout and loyal Christians I know worship on Sunday. SDA's believe that pork in unfit for human consumption as stated clearly in Leviticus. Does that mean that people who eat bacon with their eggs in the morning will go to hell: NO! Do you love God with all your heart. strength and mind? Do you believe His is the only Name under heaven by which we may be saved? THAT is the essence of salvational truth, no matter what Christian sect you belong to. May God bless you with wisdom and discernment on your journey to His Kingdom!

I figure that in the Seventh-day Adventist religion there are more ways of thinking about God, of having the relationship with God, and more ways for interpreting the Sacred Book than in other religions, leaving aside the basic doctrinal issues and questions. Am I right?

Another question I have is what you think about repetitive prays (which are acceptable and even encouraged to be a way to communicate to God in catholicism).

I also would like to know if you believe that Jesus had siblings and if you accept the Book of Enoch and which gospels you accept (canonical and not-canonical).