Ellen White a false prophet?!?!

[Woody]

Gail. The Anti crowd is definately 'misinformed' , hurt and angry. But for the most part I believe that they are sincere. Have you ever been hurt by someone. I mean REALLY hurt? Have you ever lashed out in anger? I think that is what we are seeing in some cases. But, for the most part ... the Anti crowd is sincere and they are honestly searching for truth after being hurt by certain SDAs. But they are pretty closed minded to returning to the group that hurt them. Would you blame them?

[Gail]

I'm pretty sure the outfit that puts out these videos are not ex-Adventists at all.

[Guest truthseeker007]

Thanks all of you for your contributions. I agree with Redwood that many of the critics of the SDA church are sincere, but there are also many many false stupid lies about the church. I am trying to pick the criticism that seems rationally justified to present to people. I think for about 80 percent that the SDA church is truly God s church. Maybe there is only one way to find out, just do something and see whether the Lord will bless our intentions.

Has anybody ever seen the next video? i think it is a beautiful representation of the SDA church:

http://video.google.nl/videoplay?docid=-...fDFDA&hl=nl

By the way, i recently visited a mormon forum, just because i was curious. They are also talking there the same way as we talk here. Very strange, because to me it is obvious that their church is false. How do you feel about the SDA church compared to other churches? Do you feel like it is just one of many Christian churches or is it THE church?

[Woody]

Truthseeker .... like many have suggested ... perhaps it would be best for you to focus your energies on your personal faith rather than the faith of all the different churches. Don't worry if one is THE church. That is mostly arrogence. Those that 'think' they have arrive are usually lacking the most. So. Just get to know Jesus. Let Him be your focus. Focus on the life of Christ. And once you know HIM ... the nonsense of these other churches will be made clear to you without having to do a whole lot of research into them.

[Gail]

Truthseeker .... like many have suggested ... perhaps it would be best for you to focus your energies on your personal faith rather than the faith of all the different churches. Don't worry if one is THE church. That is mostly arrogence. Those that 'think' they have arrive are usually lacking the most. So. Just get to know Jesus. Let Him be your focus. Focus on the life of Christ. And once you know HIM ... the nonsense of these other churches will be made clear to you without having to do a whole lot of research into them.

This is good, Redwood. I would add that in the last days the Bible tells of only 2 groups- those who are faithful to God and those who prefer to remain rebellious and Godless. The Bible gives a description of His people.

I believe that both groups will be comprised of a mix of people of all churches. I think you will find that most Adventists would agree with that.

[Kevin H]

Redwood: Thank you for your recent posts. These are hurting people, and people who are a victim of different traditions: Fundamentalism, the rejection of the 1919 Bible Conference, the rebellion at the 1923 General Conference, and other trends in church history, and being seduced by the evangelical movement.

However, even if your criticism is correct that is not true that the misrepresent Mrs. White because "in their arrogance they wouldn't want to admit that they were wrong" (and I tend to agree with your criticism of that statement) never the less they have a strong track record of 1. Misquoting Mrs. White. 2. Quoting Mrs. White but mixing it with others quotes that Mrs. White's comments may not be in agreement with. 3. Rip her quotes out of context (such as with the so called "denial" quotes to her copying) and 4. Focus on what she sees as side issues where she says there may be problems instead of her central issues.

Still, we have to be careful when criticizing them. Yes, you can tell that these people are hurt. They appear very fearful of God and reaching out to traditions. They tend to have a hypercritical attitude that seems to give some rest to their soul that God will let them into heaven, first by being one of the chosen few who is a part of the "remnant church" with a prophet they could use to criticize other denominations, then changing to joining the tried and true majority understanding with a prophet they can use to criticize Adventists.

One thing I like about the doctrine of the Investigative Judgment and its emphases on growth is that we are all in this together. We are all growing and at different levels of growth. We are to study the Bible and worship according to the dictates of our hearts. I feel uncomfortable with churches that call themselves "full gospel" as the only full gospel has been the life and person of Jesus Christ. Once you start moving to Peter, Paul and John you have three new perspectives on the gospel with strong and weak points and contradictions and it becomes looking through a glass dimly. The issues are we going to use the aspects of the truth that we know to continue studying, question our position and willing to continue to grow, or will we use the aspect of the truth that we have against the rest of the truth, maybe build a whole new theology on one aspect at the expenses of other aspects of truth.

A Seventh-day Adventist teacher, pastor, as well as working in other forms of work to be a "tentmaker" instead of depending on the church for support, Felix Lorenz, while a strong Adventist, has spent his retirement years pastoring non-Adventist churches who could not afford a pastor (He's now in his 80s and pastors a United Church of Christ/Disciples of Christ church in Dearborn MI), tells how once as a disk-jockey at a Christian radio station he played a song by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and commented that there are many fine Christians in the Mormon Church, and lost his job. He tells how another time he was pastoring and noticed that the church down the street had a pastor where week after week sermons listed on the church sign were titled "Latter Day Sinners" "Jehovah’s False Witnesses" "Seventh-day Apostates" etc. and how sad that there is a trend in religion to want to focus on being better than others.

To hit a little closer to home: In the 1800s we were concerned that Sunday Laws was a way of going back to the old European enforced religion in contrast to the Roger Williams and Thomas Jefferson's liberty of conscience. However as time went on this concern eventually evolved into making the Sabbath into a threat "Unless you keep the Sabbath you will be guilty before the judgment seat of God" and the Sabbath, instead of remaining a sacrament, a reminder in the face of evolution about creation, a symbol that we want to take the whole Bible seriously, yet still having Adventists a supporter of liberty of conscience and encouraging Bible study and worship God according to the dictates of our conscience, we have twisted the Sabbath into a legal threat just as horrible as the proposed Sunday laws only instead of being in trouble with human judges, you will be in trouble with the divine judge.

We all need to be fair to what we understand. We need to be willing to learn to study more. We all have things we need to learn and unlearn. Much of Adventism is to keep us in the right ballpark, but it would be a forcing of the will for God to spell out all the minute details through a prophet. Mrs. White grew when she was alive and would continue to think about her visions and get more visions, she would grow and change. While at the Seminary in a class the professor read to us from her correspondence: how she once wrote some parenting information and guidance in letters to some parents. Latter she wrote them and told them to disregard her counsel, as it did not work. Once she wrote a strong statement supporting Usher's chronology of the 6,000-year-old world. As she was expanding it into Patriarchs and prophets, she came across her old statement, crossed it out, put her initials by it, wrote an article on what ever age you choose for the age of the earth just make sure it is fair to the Bible (this was so shocking that the professor refused to read it in class but sent us to the White Estate vault to look it up and read it for ourselves.) And Mrs. White expected us to continue to grow. Her writings were to balance between keeping us in the right ballpark yet limited to where we were as a people and where we were in our level of Bible knowledge at the time.

On our side we need to study how Mrs. White expected us to use her and what visions did and did not do for her. On the critics’ side, they need to be fair to the facts.

Let's not forget: Mrs. White went from being a closed door Adventist to a very interdenominational ministry where she would preach Sabbath in the Adventist Church and Sunday in Baptist and Methodist and other denominations of Sunday keepers. And when she preached in these Sunday keeping churches she did not preach about the Sabbath, but about how much Jesus loved them and about health. When she went to Europe a Seventh-day Baptist friend took her for a day at the London museam.

The facts about the older, interdenominational Ellen White does not meet either Adventist tradition, nor the traditions of the Adventist critics.

[Gail]

Thanks, Kevin!

Your last points also reflect my experience of most Seventh-Day Adventists, that they are generally open-minded towards those of other denominations or non-Christians. That is one thing I love about the church members!

[LifeHiscost]

Anyway ... I happen to disagree with you. I find that the Anti-SDAs are quite sincere but also quite hurt. I do not find that they 'lie'.

Two particular Bible principles have been very helpful in calming my own spirit when it appears the party/s promoting negative views is in question.

"Love....is ever ready to believe the best of every person...." 1 Cor 13:7

"And it shall be in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh" Acts 2:17 YLT

And one more that helps me realize that, even though we're in the devils domain, our Father in heaven always sees people in their full potential and is wanting that any should perish.

"And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’" Matthew 25:40

"The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance." 2 Peter 3:9 NASB

Regards!

[John317]

I agree with you, Gail. I have read a lot of the material put out by some of these groups, and I have found some important errors in their writings regarding Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, and Muslims, as well as SDAs. Much that they say is true, of course, but there is also quite a bit that is ill-informed. It's best to check their information and verify it before accepting it as true.

[LifeHiscost]

Gail. The Anti crowd is definately 'misinformed' , hurt and angry. But for the most part I believe that they are sincere. Have you ever been hurt by someone. I mean REALLY hurt? Have you ever lashed out in anger? I think that is what we are seeing in some cases. But, for the most part ... the Anti crowd is sincere and they are honestly searching for truth after being hurt by certain SDAs. But they are pretty closed minded to returning to the group that hurt them. Would you blame them?

Redwood, When people lash out at others because they have been hurt by them, it reveals far more about the ones who lash out than it does about the ones who instigate the altercation or misunderstanding. The people who use the devils means to advance the kingdom of God, are not following the gentle Savior, and that means using anger or force against any who disagree, no matter how wrong the theology presented to begin with.

"...who being reviled -- was not reviling again, suffering -- was not threatening, and was committing himself to Him who is judging righteously..." 1 Peter 2:23 YLT

Regards!

[John317]

I'm in agreement with your position that Ellen White was a prophet of God. I certainly share those same beliefs.

[John317]

Good advice here, Redwood. I agree.

[John317]

>>It is a bit like reading all the criticism of the Bible before one reads the Bible or while one is just becoming acquainted with Christ.<<

Upon this point I would expand: a chain is no stronger than its weakest link, one ought to be apprised of that (or those) link(s). The same might be said of a collection of dogmas and/or doctrines – ‘fundamentals’, if you will.

Two points at issue:

1) How reliable are the books that we are talking about, which put Ellen White and her writings in a negative light or present her as a false prophet? Can those books be trusted to give us the truth about her? It would be one thing if they could be trusted to do that, but after many years of study of these issues and reading such books, I've concluded that they can't be. Therefore, the books that you are suggesting we trust to determine the strength or weakness of a link are themselves weak and defective.

2) Even if we assume that those books are good and useful, it doesn't mean they are good for everyone irrespective of their experience and knowledge. For instance, a first and second grader is not ready to read books that assume an 8th grade education. In the same way, to paraphrase Paul, those who have not yet been established in the milk are hardly ready to start eating the meat. The meat will only make them sick and throw up because their stomachs are not ready to digest the meat. First the milk, then the meat.

[John317]

...While at the Seminary in a class the professor read to us from her correspondence: how she once wrote some parenting information and guidance in letters to some parents. Latter she wrote them and told them to disregard her counsel, as it did not work. Once she wrote a strong statement supporting Usher's chronology of the 6,000-year-old world. As she was expanding it into Patriarchs and prophets, she came across her old statement, crossed it out, put her initials by it, wrote an article on what ever age you choose for the age of the earth just make sure it is fair to the Bible (this was so shocking that the professor refused to read it in class but sent us to the White Estate vault to look it up and read it for ourselves...

I liked your post and agreed with virtually everything you said; certainly with the main thrust of it.

However, I have some questions about the above paragraph.

Do you have a reference for the letter Ellen White wrote to parents and then told them to discount? Also, could you give references for the "strong statement" you are referring to, as well as to the "shocking" article Ellen White wrote about being "fair to the Bible" when it comes to the age of the earth?

Thanks again for what I believe is sound and solid counsel in your post.

[Woody]

I would also like to see that reference. Thanks.

[John317]

Yes, I think that they could be very informative and enlightening, as I'm sure you agree.

[LifeHiscost]

By the way, i recently visited a mormon forum, just because i was curious. They are also talking there the same way as we talk here. Very strange, because to me it is obvious that their church is false. How do you feel about the SDA church compared to other churches? Do you feel like it is just one of many Christian churches or is it THE church?

I believe the Seventh Day Adventists carry the message for this present time, without which many will be more easily deceived if it is not felt to be of significance in Jesus' plan of salvation. But as to the "true church", it represents only a small portion of the Body of Christ, of which there are numberless people from many different Christian religious persuasions, who will be included in our Lord's grand harvest of those who have accepted the righteousness of Jesus as the final arbiter of their eternal destiny.

"I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd." John 10:11 NASB

Regards!

[cardw]

Ellen White was a person who thought she was a prophet. This idea that early Adventists where these enlightened, insightful people is simply a myth. Simply read their early publications.

Ellen White very clearly called everyone who didn't follow William Miller's message either a member of the nominal churches or dwelling in the synagog of Satan. One can very easily see that Ellen White had a vision that instructed the early post Millerites to only preach to the Millerites because they had received the former rain. They were preparing for the latter rain because they had already set another date.

All of this mess became Early Writings with very extensive editing and rearranging. Because Ellen White has another vision that states that everyone can be preached to and she denies that she ever had a vision the restricted who would got the message.

The other problem is when she states that she was shown all the lives of the reformers as being these gentle preachers of the message and does exactly what you are doing and white washes (no pun intended) the history to make it look different than it was. She makes Calvin look like a colporter going around sharing gentle Jesus when he practiced torture and killing to bring people to his way in Geneva. The torture was so bad they had to restrain the prisoners at night to keep them from committing suicide. This alone should be enough evidence that she was making this up from either a conscious need to or subconscious methods. She does the same thing with Luther.

Wake up you guys. You can't defend the idea that she was a prophet. There are simply too many problems and it requires too many mental gymnastics to make some sort of nonsense out of it.

Sure, the anti Ellen White crowd can overstate their case and can use exaggeration and sometimes they don't have a full understanding of Adventist theology, but the truth is she either maliciously or innocently or somewhere between falsely claimed she was a prophet.

Just because she said some good and wise things does not make her a prophet. She began with a movement that was based on a false prophecy and she continued to promote and claim things that are simply not true.

And beyond that, many of her ways of dealing with problems are harmful and the whole hypermoral stance that she takes, particularly in the Testimonies, creates a shame based religious practice, which, I believe, is the model behind many of the cultic groups that come out of Adventism. Messages to Young People and Adventist Home are some of the worst advice on how to raise children. They contain methods of manipulation and fault finding.

And before you claim that its not fair to mention the Testimonies because they take her out of context you need to remember that this same prophet instructed that these be put together and sold to all the members.

And finally.. There are 86 cults listed as coming out of Adventism and they are cults because they strictly follow a version of Ellen White. And the latest one at Strong City is heavy influenced by Ellen White and her methods. This should tell you something.

[John317]

Ellen White was a person who thought she was a prophet.

Many people say the same about Jesus, that he merely thought He was the Messiah or that God has sent Him on some special mission. What you are saying, then, means that Ellen White was under a grand delusion. There is no way anyone can say she was a good woman if she was a false prophet.

What anyone has to decide is whether the Bible is God's word or not. If Jesus is not who He claimed to be and who the NT says He is, then it is a false book, full of lies, and should be ignored, at the very least.

If Ellen White merely thought she was a prophet, for whatever reason, then she should be totally ignored and her books deserve to be thrown into the fire because they would be doing great harm by misleading people and giving people false hope.

Quote:

Ellen White very clearly called everyone who didn't follow William Miller's message either a member of the nominal churches or dwelling in the synagog of Satan. One can very easily see that Ellen White had a vision that instructed the early post Millerites to only preach to the Millerites because they had received the former rain. They were preparing for the latter rain because they had already set another date.

Yes, everyone who knows the history of the Millerite Movement and the early Adventists knows that they had lots of wrong concepts. So did the disciples of Christ and the church of the first century. No age of the church has been without its wrong ideas. Ellen White herself speaks to the issue you raise, in 1 SM 61-65. And the issue has been discussed at great length in dozens of books and articles for the last 150 years.

Quote:

All of this mess became Early Writings with very extensive editing and rearranging. Because Ellen White has another vision that states that everyone can be preached to and she denies that she ever had a vision the restricted who would got the message.

Where did she ever write that God showed her in vision that her error about the "shut door" was correct?

Quote:

The other problem is when she states that she was shown all the lives of the reformers as being these gentle preachers of the message and does exactly what you are doing and white washes (no pun intended) the history to make it look different than it was. She makes Calvin look like a colporter going around sharing gentle Jesus when he practiced torture and killing to bring people to his way in Geneva. The torture was so bad they had to restrain the prisoners at night to keep them from committing suicide. This alone should be enough evidence that she was making this up from either a conscious need to or subconscious methods. She does the same thing with Luther.

No one denies that both Calvin and Luther did some pretty bad things by our standards. Calvin was responsible for the death of a great scientist simply because he disagreed with what that scientist wrote regarding the land of Palestine and other religious issues. Luther was cruel to a close friend of his because they disagreed over the Sabbath. Ellen White doesn't deny these things. David and Solomon did some terrible things too, as did Abraham, Noah, Lot, Moses, Elijah, Peter, and Paul. None of those things make what she said any less accurate or right. The fact is that although all these people, including Calvin and Luther, did some very terrible things in their lifetime, God chose them to do things to advance His kingdom.

Despite their defects, Luther and Calvin were great men and did a great work. If anyone wants to focus just on the thorns, it's his loss. When you take a course on the history of the Christian church-- or the SDA church-- you read and discuss these things. They are not new by any means. The problem is that what you mention is only part of the story-- and only part of what we should know about these people. That includes Ellen White and the Millerites. It's a good thing God doesn't see just the evil but He takes into account the entire life of a person, including repentance and faith toward Him.

Quote:

...There are 86 cults listed as coming out of Adventism and they are cults because they strictly follow a version of Ellen White. And the latest one at Strong City is heavy influenced by Ellen White and her methods. This should tell you something.

Think also of all the cults and evil things that came as a result of the Bible and Christianity and Christ. The same can be, and is said, about Him. Does that make it true?

The fact is that the people you are talking about are not obeying what either the Bible or Ellen White say.

Do you believe that there is a real war between Christ and Satan? I ask this because it seems obvious to me that there is a mighty struggle going on over the minds and hearts of people, and everything in this spiritual struggle is not in plain sight.

[Woody]

Quote:

Ellen White was a person who thought she was a prophet.

VS.

Quote:

" I know that many have called me a prophet, but I have made no claim to this title." EGW SpM 481

[John317]

Quote:

Ellen White was a person who thought she was a prophet.

VS.

Quote:

" I know that many have called me a prophet, but I have made no claim to this title." EGW SpM 481

VS.

"I have had no claims to make, only that I am instructed that I am the Lord's messenger; that He called me in my youth to be His messenger, to receive His word and to give a clear and decided message in the name of the Lord Jesus." (1 SM 32).

Read 1 SM 31-37 where she says clearly that her work "includes much more" than the name prophet signifies. See top of page 36.

[Woody]

My head is spinning ... there are just too many VS around here.

[cardw]

Quote:

" I know that many have called me a prophet, but I have made no claim to this title." EGW SpM 481

This illustrates the disinformation around Ellen White. This is a form of Newspeak as identified by George Orwell. The full concept that she puts forward is this...

Quote:

Read 1 SM 31-37 where she says clearly that her work "includes much more" than the name prophet signifies. See top of page 36.

So this allows her defenders to state that she never claimed to be a prophet, when if fact she is claiming to be "much more" than a prophet, which includes being a prophet.

This is a form of intellectual dishonesty called disinformation, whether intentional or not. These kinds of tactics are used over and over in the discussion about Ellen White by her defenders. This is why I came to the point where I realized that if I was going to honest, I could no longer defend the idea that Ellen White was a prophet.

Quote:

No one denies that both Calvin and Luther did some pretty bad things by our standards. Calvin was responsible for the death of a great scientist simply because he disagreed with what that scientist wrote regarding the land of Palestine and other religious issues. Luther was cruel to a close friend of his because they disagreed over the Sabbath. Ellen White doesn't deny these things.

Again, this is a form of disinformation. She may not have denied any of these things, but she promoted a view of their work that was highly softened and spun to make it appear that they were these gentle souls sharing the good news.

Let me ask all of you this question...

What would she have to do that would be the deal killer for you?

What action, writing, etc. would tell you that she wasn't a prophet?

In my experience with this once someone has made their mind up that she is a prophet, no amount of evidence will change their mind and all defenses of her, no matter how spurious, are accepted as true.

[LifeHiscost]

And before you claim that its not fair to mention the Testimonies because they take her out of context you need to remember that this same prophet instructed that these be put together and sold to all the members.

And finally.. There are 86 cults listed as coming out of Adventism and they are cults because they strictly follow a version of Ellen White. And the latest one at Strong City is heavy influenced by Ellen White and her methods. This should tell you something.

And I'm sure you give credence to this as it's biblical.

"But some of them said, "By Beelzebub, the prince of demons, he is driving out demons." Luke 11:15 NIV

"It is enough for the student to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If the head of the house has been called Beelzebub, how much more the members of his household!"

Matthew 10:25 NIV

Regards!

[cardw]

Quote:

What anyone has to decide is whether the Bible is God's word or not. If Jesus is not who He claimed to be and who the NT says He is, then it is a false book, full of lies, and should be ignored, at the very least.

On the one hand Ellen White can be human and we need to excuse her for anything one assigns to her humanity. This allows her to be "mistaken" and still be a "true" prophet. This same type of reasoning goes for the Bible, the Koran, and other holy books. You will find the same types of justification for religious truths throughout history.

The fact is that there is no way to determine what God wants because there is no definitive way to prove that its from God or not. The appeal always comes down to belief or faith. Once belief or faith is the evidence, then there is no rational way to evaluate whether its actually true or not.

Quote:

Yes, everyone who knows the history of the Millerite Movement and the early Adventists knows that they had lots of wrong concepts. So did the disciples of Christ and the church of the first century. No age of the church has been without its wrong ideas. Ellen White herself speaks to the issue you raise, in 1 SM 61-65. And the issue has been discussed at great length in dozens of books and articles for the last 150 years.

And still, all the kings horses and all the kings men couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again. If you start with a wrong assumption then everything from that point on is on the foundation of error. I feel the same about the Bible that I feel about Ellen White. They both need to be subject to rational and empathetic criticism and from that we can evaluate what is true by its results, not its so called authority.

Quote:

Where did she ever write that God showed her in vision that her error about the "shut door" was correct?

Dale Ratzlaff writes in his article on the Shut Door the following...

Quote:

"Very early next morning Joseph Turner called, said he was in haste going out of the city in a short time, and wanted I should tell him all that God had shown me in vision. It was with fear and trembling I told him all. After I had got through he said he had told out the same last evening."

1 the above reference makes it patently evident that Joseph Turner, upon hearing the details of EGW’s first vision, which taught the shut door, said it was the same thing he had said the evening before. This is evidence that EGW at least agreed with Turner. But what did Joseph Turner teach? In The Advent Mirror, of January 1845, is found a long article by A. Hale and Joseph Turner which “explains” the parable of the ten virgins, giving arguments in favor of the shut door of mercy. Here is just one excerpt:

"But can any sinners be converted if the door is shut. Of course they cannot, though changes that may appear to be conversions may take place. The state of mankind before God, would be very much as it has been in cases where communities have been given up of God to destruction.…But to think of laboring to convert the great masses of the world at such a time, would be as idle as it would have been of the Israelites, when they were down by the Red sea, to have turned about to convert the Egyptians."

You can read the whole, well thought out, article here...

Dale Ratzlaff on the Shut Door

This sets the method and the tone of how Ellen White is made into a prophet. I don't believe it was malicious, but was born out of a need to make sense of their commitment to the erroneous Millerite doctrine of the second coming and the emotional high that came from that. It may not appear to be ego driven because its hidden by religious devotion, but this appears to me to be the result of their inability to admit that they had been dead wrong.

And once this course has been set, there is very little that can change their direction because there is real danger of them experiencing a break down of their identity. If you look at the Strong City cult and its history you will see many of the same factors driving their commitment to Wayne Bent. You will read how Wayne Bent uses many of the same arguments for his Messiahship as the defenders of Ellen White use to keep her being a spokeswoman for God. Wayne Bent, being a former devout Adventist Preacher, would certainly know the play book.

I'm not trying to be mean or disrespectful. I did not come to my conclusions lightly nor without a LOT of research. I was a true believer and it was my attempt to prove her to be a prophet that convinced me that she wasn't. And, as others have accused me, I did not reject her or the Bible because I wanted to do sinful things or "get away" with things.

I simply don't need authority and fear to motivate me. I am far more satisfied to be motivated by love and empathy. I don't need a Bible or Ellen White to tell me that it is better.