Wait a minute now, I know that Dr. Ben can seem outright crazy at times, but Donald Trump has no right to call out the man's religion. I take offense because I, like Dr. Ben, was raised Seventh Day Adventist. Donald seems to be suggesting that the Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) church seems to be somehow on the fringes of American religious orthodoxy, and he says that he is "not so sure" if it is as mainstream as other religions.
I have news for Mr. Trump, he needs to study the different religions and their beliefs in America a little more closely. The folks in the SDA church are quite mainstream, and they have a health message that is way ahead of what all the other religions are pushing. (Check out this study about Loma Linda, California.) And the charitable work that the world church does is not too shabby, either. As churches go, there is a lot to like about SDA. If you check out the average income and educational level of Seventh Day Adventists (black and white) you will find that it is not too bad.
"But field, why do they go to church on Saturdays and not Sundays like everyone else? "
Well there is that whole Exodus 20:9 thing. If you study your religious history you will find that the Seventh Day Adventist actually gets it right when it comes to following the Ten Commandments and not all those Sunday worshiping churches.
But I digress.
So why is The Donald going after Gentle Ben now? Well it seems that for the first time Donald is losing to Dr. Ben in one of these primary polls. The slip in his overall numbers that all the pundits have been predicting seems to be on the horizon, and that is causing much panic in camp Donald.
So now Donald will do what he does best: attack. I just don't want him attacking the one religion in America that I have a history with. Heck he shouldn't be attacking any religion. I mean we all know how he feels about Muslims, and America being America he has been allowed to get away with that.
Gentle Ben has attacked Muslims as well, which makes it hard for him to take the high road against Trump for doing the exact same thing that he did to others.
"I’m Presbyterian,” Trump said on Saturday in Jacksonville. “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 it.”
I know about it, and trust me when I tell you that if more folks were SDA (not the Ben Carson type of SDA) America would probably be a much better place.
39 comments:
So add the SDAs to the list of things he doesn't know about, like human decency, basic civics, economics, immigration, etc. Doesn't say much about the SDAs, really.
I lived across the street from a church where they met (on Virginia Ave. in East Oakland) for a couple of years in the '90s, and I have to say, the neighborhood did look better on Saturdays...
-Doug in Oakland
I thought all you progs hated Christianity.
Like the SNL skit about The Donald, as soon as his numbers drop he says something crazy and they go back up.
On another note one of my frat bros is an Adventist as is my yawdie buddy's wife. I do dig their take on diet. I think they have it right as well as the FOI and the Hebrew Israelites.
Fun religious facts:
- There are over 40,000 individual Christian sects
- Every sect think it's mainstream
- Every sect think it's the right sect
- Everyone thinks their interpretation of religion is the right one
- Everyone thinks the other guys are doing it wrong
- Every single thing you--yes, you; whomever is reading--believe is just one of literally hundreds of thousands of gods and creation stories and religions worshiped by man over the past ten thousand years
I have no interest in watching religious people fight over who's right and who's mainstream and who's fringe. It's like the race of the Down Syndromes. Dafuq does it matter? You're all Down Syndromes.
You're an idiot Josh.
Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market-place, and cried incessantly: "I am looking for God! I am looking for God!"
As many of those who did not believe in God were standing together there, he excited considerable laughter. Have you lost him, then? said one. Did he lose his way like a child? said another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? or emigrated? Thus they shouted and laughed. The madman sprang into their midst and pierced them with his glances.
"Where has God gone?" he cried. "I shall tell you. We have killed him - you and I. We are his murderers. But how have we done this? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What did we do when we unchained the earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not perpetually falling? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is it not more and more night coming on all the time? Must not lanterns be lit in the morning? Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we not smell anything yet of God's decomposition? Gods too decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, murderers of all murderers, console ourselves? That which was the holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet possessed has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off us? With what water could we purify ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we not ourselves become gods simply to be worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whosoever shall be born after us - for the sake of this deed he shall be part of a higher history than all history hitherto."
Here the madman fell silent and again regarded his listeners; and they too were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern to the ground, and it broke and went out. "I have come too early," he said then; "my time has not come yet. The tremendous event is still on its way, still travelling - it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time, the light of the stars requires time, deeds require time even after they are done, before they can be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than the distant stars - and yet they have done it themselves."
It has been further related that on that same day the madman entered divers churches and there sang a requiem. Led out and quietened, he is said to have retorted each time: "what are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchres of God?"
Indeed!
I have no interest in watching religious people fight over who's right and who's mainstream and who's fringe. It's like the race of the Down Syndromes. Dafuq does it matter? You're all Down Syndromes.
-------------------------
Heh heh heh heh. At least now we know. Thanks Josh.
I thought all you progs hated Christianity.
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You shouldn't think, it doesn't suit you.
The FieldNegro said...
The folks in the SDA church are quite mainstream
As mainstream as religion can be in 2015.
you will find that the Seventh Day Adventist actually gets it right
Good one.
Does any religions person believe their religion doesn't get it right?
When Nietzsche declared that God was dead in the 19th Century he predicted that the 20th century would be a time of great wars between the rising ideological mass movements of his own time, and that it would be the 21st century before the existential crisis for civilization is fully recognized.
It would thus far appear that he was correct. Western thought since the Enlightenment has attempted to compensate for the loss of the old faith by replacing the discredited Christian worldview with new faiths and new pieties. As these have become increasingly difficult to justify within a framework of rationality and a belief in inevitable “progress,” Western intellectuals have increasingly retreated into the irrational. This is illustrated by the curious phenomena of the present efforts by Western intellectual elites to embrace postmodernism, with its accompanying moral and cultural relativism, while simultaneously embracing the egalitarian-universalist-humanist moralistic zealotry popularly labeled “political correctness” and espousing with great piousness such liberal crusades as “human rights,” “anti-racism,” “gay liberation,” feminism, environmentalism and the like. Such an outlook, which combines extreme moralism in the cultural and political realm, complete moral relativism in the philosophical or metaphysical realm, and at times even falls into subjectivism in the epistemological realm, is fundamentally irrational, of course. That such an outlook has become so deeply entrenched indicates that Western intellectuals are desperately working to avoid a full confrontation with the crisis of nihilism.
Pareto argued that civilizations die when their elites lose faith in their own civilization to such a degree that the will to survive no longer exists. Western political and cultural elites presently exhibit abiding contempt for the legacy of their civilization, as demonstrated by their attachment to anti-Western ideologies such as “multiculturalism” and support for political policies, such as permitting mass immigration into the West from the Third World, that ultimately mean the demographic overrun and death of Western civilization. The presumption of present day elites is that dramatic demographic alteration can transpire without consequences of significance, or that the overthrow of Western civilization itself may even be desirable. The prevalence of such attitudes once again indicates that cultural nihilism has become rather deeply entrenched. Yet this nihilism has been thus far masked by liberal-humanist platitudes of escalating silliness.
Nietzsche's vision told us that, as horrific as the wars of the 20th century, man can survive the death of God, but that on a societal level, the death of the soul will be catastrophic.
"So now Donald will do what he does best: attack. I just don't want him attacking the one religion in America that I have a history with."
What do you care about SDA? You don't believe in religion or God. In fact, over the years that I have known you on FN, you have made it clear that SDA messed you up and you were finished with it. So now, you are an SDA again? What changed your political heart?
Field, "Heck he shouldn't be attacking any religion. I mean we all know how he feels about Muslims, and America being America he has been allowed to get away with that."
You should practice what you preach. You and your minions and atheistic disciples have been attacking religion since the birth of FN. I know, because that's how long I have been commenting on your sorry ass blog with your sorry ass resident ID's like PX, PC, and Lilac.
Field, when it comes to religion such as SDA, you ought to STFU because you have made it clear you are an atheist and enjoy making fun of Christians.
FYI: I am an SDA and I know Dr Ben Carson is a devout SDA and leads a God-centered life. He is a 'perfect' model of an SDA....On the other hand, YOU are not...Now think on that.
Josh is a nihilist.
Go figure.
Blogger Josh said...
JOSH, "Fun religious facts:
- There are over 40,000 individual Christian sects
- Every sect think it's mainstream
- Every sect think it's the right sect
- Everyone thinks their interpretation of religion is the right one
- Everyone thinks the other guys are doing it wrong
- Every single thing you--yes, you; whomever is reading--believe is just one of literally hundreds of thousands of gods and creation stories and religions worshiped by man over the past ten thousand years"
Brother JOSH, are you sure about those 'fun facts'? I mean, the figures seem awfully low. Some how I thought there were over 2.5 billion Christians in the world. That means there are 2.5 bil Christian religions. I mean, every human being has a religion, which is his/her own.
However, everyone believes there is a Source of power, mystery and is Creator of Life. Life and the Perfect Laws of the Universe is no accident.
All religions aren't the same.
It's Muslims who are currently stabbing and running over Jews in Jerusalem and then celebrating by passing out free candy.
In India, it's Muslims vs Hindus. In southern Thailand, Muslims vs Buddhists.
The world is a messy, violent, complicated place, but as a rule of thumb, in most corners of the planet it boils down to: Muslims vs [Your Team Here].
Anonymous said...
However, everyone believes there is a Source of power, mystery and is Creator of Life. Life and the Perfect Laws of the Universe is no accident.
12:13 AM
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Indeed! Yes!!!
Anon12:15am and Josh, you guys are looking at religions in the wrong way. It saddens me to read comments like yours that is so far removed what religion is about that it would be a waste of time to talk to you.
Josh's soul said...
...21st century before the existential crisis for civilization is fully recognized...
...loss of the old faith by replacing the discredited Christian worldview with new faiths and new pieties.
...embracing the egalitarian-universalist-humanist moralistic zealotry popularly labeled “political correctness” and espousing with great piousness such liberal crusades as “human rights,” “anti-racism,” “gay liberation,” feminism, environmentalism and the like...
...The prevalence of such attitudes once again indicates that cultural nihilism has become rather deeply entrenched...
Nietzsche's vision told us that, as horrific as the wars of the 20th century, man can survive the death of God, but that on a societal level, the death of the soul will be catastrophic.
11:38 PM
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Deep! Food for much thought.
Well, if GOD is dead, then we the people killed him. Humans are the murders of all murderers.
With the death of GOD, so goes virtue and the IDEAL, which mankind so desperately needs to measure himself by. But humans have always be self-destructive. Killing GOD is the end of man's salvation.
Now why would humans want to do that to themselves?
Most people who have stopped believing in God still believe in some sense that they have a soul, that even without God somehow their essence will transcend death. When this is lost, so shall be life's meaning. As the conscious part of creation, it is we who must impose our beliefs on the universe. If we say the universe has meaning, then it does. If we insist on God's existence, he is.
"Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market-place, and cried incessantly: "I am looking for God! I am looking for God!"
Nah, but I've heard plenty of other colloquial nonsense bereft of all points save: You betta believe in God!
Like the one about the soldier who was a Christian, in a brigade of atheists, and all those mean, cruel, hedonistic atheists were constantly picking on the poor lad. "If your God is real, go drive that jeep" they shouted. So, the Christian gets into the jeep, it starts right up, and he drives it. After parking it, he opens the hood to reveal no engine in the jeep. But how did it start and move?! GODDUNNIT!
"However, everyone believes there is a Source of power, mystery and is Creator of Life. Life and the Perfect Laws of the Universe is no accident."
That is most certainly not the belief of "everyone." Plenty of people, many of whom are mainstream scientists who actually have knowledge of the topic, don't view universal laws as "perfect," don't view life as some "mystery," and don't believe in some great "source" of power. Some people understand singularity. I mean, if one doesn't, one doesn't. I won't break balls on that front. I passed physics as it was mandatory to do so, but I looked at quantum mechanics and my first thought was, "WTF is this shit now?" So I'd never rib someone who didn't grasp the topic. However, many do, and many understand that from singularity arose the expansion of the universe, and the material necessary for stars, which after supernova created the materials necessary for planets and for life.
...
The ironic thing about nihilism is that so many attempt to ascribe such meaning to it. Kinda self-defeating, but anyway. I don't reject moral principles. I'm not a morally ambiguous person. I'm a moral objectivist. I believe in the one commandment to rule them all: Do not harm others. Though as far as not subscribing to a religion, yeah, sure, "nihilist1" People love to fucking label others, so why not? I was a far-right conservative loon only last week. Now I guess I'll be a progressive secular hedonist nihilist looking to lead Americans to immoral salvation.
Though as to the meaning of life, I have a simple question: What's the meaning of a shark's life?
Far as I can figure, the shark's there because his parents had some fishy sex, as did theirs, as theirs, etc, etc. Who's vain enough to inject some "meaning" into it? Is this universe and world and life really, really all for you!? 1 of over 7 billion people, one planet of literal trillions, in one galaxy of billions, in one universe of potentially thousands or more -- an expanse we cannot comprehend with our minds. But, little ole you -- there was a plan all along! Your life has great, deep, powerful meaning. The universe is here to host you!
I understand some people have that burning need to feel that way, to look up and figure out their place. I've never been that way inclined. To me, I've just tried to lead a life that makes me happy and to treat the people I care about well in what little time we all have. To the extent others need to believe in an infinity in paradise in a Jimmy Buffett song or that they were specifically placed here and have a personal line of communication with some omnipotent being, ah salute! But don't freak the hell out every time you run into someone in life who doesn't subscribe to such notions. Holy shit.
"If we say the universe has meaning, then it does. If we insist on God's existence, he is."
That is the very literal retelling of Peter Pan flying because he believed he could or Dorothy getting home through heel clicks.
What you're implying with the way that's written is that you ascribing some meaning to the universe gives it an objective purpose; a plan, a course, a thought process, a will.
Logic is nihilist now, I reckon.
Though what you mean is that if you want to delude yourself into believing something for the sake of believing it, then you can.
Sure. I don't think there's a single person who would ever dispute that.
I find it hard to keep all of the Protastant sects straight; they seem to divide like bacteria in a Petrie dish, but since my sister married into an Adventist family I am somewhat familiar with Adventists as people. For the most part, I like them.
In the 20 years that I knew them before they died, her in-laws almost always had a refugee or 2, or even a refugee family living with them; Salvadorans, Guatamalans, Peruvians, Rwandans, Congolese. They never turned anyone in need down. Her father-in-law spent his weekends garage-saling for bicycles, typewriters, and educational equipment & took them to Adventist run schools in Southern Mexico, and Honduras every Summer.
At his funeral, one of the men who spoke, from Salvador, talked about meeting him as a boy when he showed up in his RV with enough bicycles for every child there, how years later, escaping the civil war, he ended up staying with them for 6 months, how they became like grandparents to his own children. He ended by saying, "look around this church, there are doctors, nurses, pastors, teachers, a whole generation of professionals who started their lives as barefoot kids in one room houses, but made something of themselves under his guidance."
When I came home from the war, my soul bruised by what I had seen and done, they insisted that I stay with them for a while, and he told me about what he had seen and done on Guadlecanal, how he thought that he would never be a real human being again, about how that passes and you find ways to make things right again.
There are many things that I don't like about Dr Carson, but his Adventism isn't one of them. In fact, it is one of his few positive attributes.
White people shouldn't be allowed to criticize anyone or anything - EVER. White people should just shut up and die.
Plus they have really small dicks. Ha ha.
Josh's soul, are you actually Troy Southgate or are you simply stealing his work without attribution?
As if we needed more evidence of what a truly ugly (and immature) person Trump is. He's the second-grader who picked on everyone who was at all different: the ugly girl ("Look at that face!"), the handicapped kid, the stutterer, etc. etc. God help us if he comes within a grab of the White House!
FLASH: The New York Times officially recognizes the perils of Driving While Black!
It's real, people.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/25/us/racial-disparity-traffic-stops-driving-black.html?_r=0
Josh, what do your black friends think about your views? Are they the Uncle Tom/House Negro types?
I am waiting to see how the Black folk rise up in the 2016 elections and demand something. The educated whites gave up a long time ago, the weasels, the Black folk must be realizing just how Obama has given their jobs and benefits to immigrants, both legal and illegal. It is the blacks and STEM workers who are hit the most, and they must rise up and do something.
"Josh, what do your black friends think about your views? Are they the Uncle Tom/House Negro types?"
1) Depends. Believe it or not, not all black people I know are exactly the same. Shocker, I realize; especially when on this "black blog" black people literally make the case that a black person must be 100% identical. But it depends. The guys with whom I grew up in Suitland probably wouldn't listen to my views. They'd instantly dismiss me for being white, no matter what my view was on anything. They would tell me that I can never understand "their" (black) culture 'cause I'm white, while simultaneously feigning expertise on the whole of white culture and on anything else about which they choose to speak. The older heads have more sense. Practically every black person I know from Tommy Sotomayor's community does agree with me, at least outside my religious views. Though I'm sure you'll appoint yourself the arbiter of just how "black" they are. (And, please, don't take my word for it. Check out his web presence and the literal tens of thousands of black males who, if they visited this blog, would be said to be wearing 'digital blackface' by the blog's proprietor.)
2) The only views I've expressed here are to do with religion, so I take it that you're assuming that every black person ever is religious and thus wouldn't take too kindly to Josh the skeptic. While this might be your experience, it's not mine. I know dozens of black skeptics who aren't the least bit religious. And they're not immoral nihilists. And, yeah, whatever it makes me in your book is your problem, not mine. I don't need prove any negative whatever; and to the extent you can't help but label someone who seeks evidence before believing a thing, perhaps you need to ask yourself some questions instead of asking them of me.
PB&J: What do people in general think about your boxing up of their individuality into a gift-wrapped collectivist gift? How do the black people y'all call "uncle Toms" and "house negros" feel about your collectivist mindset which attempts to force all individuals to be exactly the same?
And how long can some of you folks--I can't say it's you personally, as I don't know fuck-all about you save what you just typed--keep getting mad at white people for stereotyping blacks when white racists are just doing exactly what you're doing in assuming all blacks are a mass-produced clone?
JOSH, " I know dozens of black skeptics who aren't the least bit religious. And they're not immoral nihilists."
Yeah, Field is one of them with one exception: he is immoral when it comes to religion and politics.
"And how long can some of you folks--I can't say it's you personally, as I don't know fuck-all about you save what you just typed--keep getting mad at white people for stereotyping blacks when white racists are just doing exactly what you're doing in assuming all blacks are a mass-produced clone?"
12:41 PM
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Perfect! You nailed it. No doubt, you DO have insight into a myriad of problems both Black and White. That's why I personally am glad you have returned to FN. We sorely need your input. It helps people to think and grow. Bottom line is there are some things, which you have clearly referred to, that Blacks do to their own people that surpasses any white racist.
I guess those Blacks like to deal in double standards but hate it when it's done to them. Looking at it this way, one can assume that Blacks of that sort think and act like a white racist in order to feel good about themselves.
I've been in a few places growing up and as a younger man, almost all of which have been very poor. I didn't start making good money until a few years ago. Other than that, I've lived around the piss-poor in America. And I know one thing: Living around those white-trash rednecks, I never heard, a single time, one of them insult a black person. Now, I heard some very off-color jokes, and some stuff that would probably be considered blatantly racist around here. But I've never heard or seen any of those guys diss a black person to his/her face or speak about someone's skin. When I came up around black people, however, that was the thing. Even the old-ass mothers would make fun of the kids! "Damn, he crispy black!" "Oh, this nigga roasted." "Goddamn sellouts" and on and on. And this certainly transcends the 'hood or PJs or ghettos. Some blacks of middle-class upbringings, who went to good schools, who had both parents, who never wanted for anything, etc, are the fucking ring leaders of calling other blacks uncle Toms and house negros and throwing around those nonsensical "coonin'" claims.
It's like this shit is religion or something. You didn't have to grow up a certain way; you don't have to have been falsely arrested or pulled over or followed or treated poorly by any white racist. So long as you have X amount of melanin and open yourself up to the ideology, in flows the airborne osmosis of victimhood, and now a damn black guy who grew up with white parents in a white school in a white neighborhood can adopt some slang, preach about experience, and have license to call other black people sellouts and coons.
And if we want a great snapshot of irony: The same folks on this blog who tell me I don't know WTF I'm talking about and that I can't understand literally do this shit every single day: Decide what "black" is and shove people into boxes. If that's the type of "education" being pushed, I'm ready to unlearn.
Josh, is your purpose in life seriously to just come onto a black blog and whine your ass off?
Can you explain the significance of continually referring to this as a "black blog"? You're about the 20th person since my time here to say such. The inference I'm drawing: "This is 'black,' you're not welcome."
Apparently black folks are supposed to be immune from questions in a safe space.
But if that's not it, then, by all means, elaborate.
Though I don't suspect anything even resembling coherent thought to spring from the keyboard of an anon troll. In fact, it's probably a little unfair if I did suspect such.
SDA Blacks are some of the most accomplished Blacks I know. Chump is just ignorant.
I wonder how long before folk realize Trump is really an atheist.
On the real I believe Barack is an atheist. Becoming more acceptable it seems. We'll have our first openly atheist president in our lifetime.
I think Carson is especially popular with Evangelicals. Trump wanted to erode that type of support by raising questions in people's minds about Carson's religious beliefs. Trump didn't come out and say anything bad about the SDA Church. His comment amounts to, "Gee, what's that?" Is that some kind of cult? Trump is pretty funny. I think my favorite line was after Rand Paul talked about Trump making fun of people's looks in a debate, Trump said to Paul, "I never criticized your looks. And believe me there's plenty of material there."
If atheists become popular enough on Tumblr and Twitter, Obama will certainly be an atheist.
Man of the people, that's for sure.
The man flips more than a hamburger fixed by a bad cook. Whichever way the wind starts blowing, Obama'll ride that shit like Aladdin.
PS
Unrelated: I just realized earlier today that, per The Field Negro standards, one literally cannot be racist toward Obama. Racism = power + privilege. Right? There's no more powerful and privileged spot than being POTUS, so folks need to can it. One cannot be racist toward Obama. It's impossible. He, however, can be racist toward everyone.
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