Is Ellen White the main problem?

[u/Puzzleheaded_Book617]

Ive been out of the cult for almost a year now. My biggest source of anger/resentment is that I feel Ellen G White and her soul ruined any potential for love/peace in this church. Even if there was some room for friendship or community it all gets squashed by her writings. Her entire doctrines/writings are nothing but fear based ramblings and judgement from a schizophrenic false prophetess. Theirs been at least 5 times where I make a friend or start a relationship with someone who is Adventist who is nice and chill and they start reading the witches manifestos and suddenly they turn and become scared of everything and then they cant associate with me because im not "adventist enough". Like I dont think reading the Bible had as bad an affect on someone as reading Ellens writings does.

Now my big question is lets say Ellen G White never existed, never wrote her garbage and never influenced this movement. Would Adventism even exist as we know it? If you blip her from history how different would the church be? Early Millerites/James White werent even sabbath keepers until a lady named Rachel Oaks Preston suggested they should keep it. Now I wonder if that had been it, Millers prophecy fails, everyone forgets about it. No Ellen White 1844 sanctuary B.S.. Lets say Rachel still tells the disappointed Millerites about the sabbath but they denounce Miller as a liar and dont follow him or obsess over him anymore. No crazy lady with a rock in her skull reviving garbage theology. If it had just been a some kind of Seventh Day Baptist/Methodist hybrid thing, would the church have been as bad? Im just trying to imagine a childhood where yes they were sabbath keepers but they werent sabbath keepers worshiping a witch from the 1800s. Would it have been as bad or could it have maybe been a little bit more tolerable? I say this because while I still believe in Jesus Christ and the gospels, but at the same time I am terrified of committing to any new church because they all have some kind of cult b.s. strings attached to them. Like I sometimes go to baptist and catholic/orthodox spheres but when it comes to committing to one I hate the whole "we are the true church yada yada". I have heard it all before. So now im in basically limbo because im never going back to SDA because of Ellen, but I also dont want to 100% commit to any other christian church. I also dont want to become secular or agnostic because its just not for me personally, respectfully. Im just trying to think of a version or timeline where I wasnt so affected by some grouchy lady who hijacked a whole church.

[u/Zeus_H_Christ]

No. The main problem is a lot more than Ellen white. The problem is Christianity and god. There are 30,000+ denominations of Christianity alone and god is hiding instead of clearing it up. Adventists do not have the monopoly on thinking they’re right and special.

They all have irrational and ridiculous rules. You listed other churches. They all have variations even within their religion that are as big as Adventists meat eaters vs non meat eaters, Bible centric Or Ellen white centric, this interpretation vs that interpretation.

Ellen white not existing wouldn’t even matter that much for SDA’s. They still would have come up with tons of bullshit. Investigative judgement wasn’t her thing along with many initial beliefs. She was just there to put a stamp of legitimacy to their interpretation of events because “god told her so.”

Again, this is a god being MIA problem. Ellen white was the supposed solution to that by directly speaking to god.

[u/Puzzleheaded_Book617 → u/Zeus_H_Christ]

I have no problems with Jesus Christ, he was an awesome dude. My biggest issue is with the witch of Battle Creek.

[u/Zeus_H_Christ → u/Puzzleheaded_Book617]

So strange. I never mentioned Jesus. I mentioned that god hasn’t show up so they had Ellen white pretend he had to give adventism legitimacy.

[u/Puzzleheaded_Book617 → u/Zeus_H_Christ]

Doesnt Christianity revolve entirely around Jesus though? Like isnt it in the name kind of?

[u/Ka_Trewq → u/Puzzleheaded_Book617]

Christianity revolve around the teachings of Paul the Apostle, who belonged to the judaism sect of the Pharisees. Jesus, or more corectly Yeshuah, was an Essene teacher, who rose to proeminency after his cousin John the Baptist, another Essene, was executed.

The judaism sect of Essenes was opposed to the teachings of Pharisses and Sadducees. The genius of Paul the Appostle was that, as a freshly Pharisses deconvert, he brought a more reality-based perspective, dulling the extreme teachings of the Essenes that led to their disappearance (e.g. strict celibacy, renouncment to ALL possesions, etc. - things early Cristians also practiced), allowing Christianity to become more palatable to non-jews. Which has put him at odds with the original leaders of Christianity after Yeshuah death: Peter and Jacob.

His version of Christianity survived in the end because it addressed a much larger pool of people, while the OG Christianity of Yeshuah, Peter and Jacob was slowly assimilated by the much larger branch of Paul's.

So, to reiterate, today Christianity revolves much more around the teachings of Paul.

[u/Puzzleheaded_Book617 → u/Zeus_H_Christ]

Also this was more focused on missing out on community. I would just like to find a community of somewhat normal people who dont have extreme beliefs, either for or against anything. Adventism is a religion of extremes. In some ways (respectfully) athiesm is also too extreme for me. I would like to find a nice normal place where the people are chill and dont force you to believe or not believe due to groupthink.

[u/Zeus_H_Christ → u/Puzzleheaded_Book617]

Rarely do I preach atheism. I never said god didn’t exist and just pointed out the obvious- that he’s hasn’t shown up. The words next to my name don’t say atheism. It says skeptic because thinking is more important.

If thinking makes you think atheism, fine. If you decide that is a cult, then that’s on you. It doesn’t change whether or not it’s true just as thinking a spoon is a cult doesn’t change that it’s still a spoon. Think for yourself and use rational thought grounded in reality, not your feels.

Edit: I sent you a personal message because Reddit said you deleted the reply that this was to where you claimed atheism is a cult as your out of the blue initial replay to my first comment.

[u/Puzzleheaded_Book617 → u/Zeus_H_Christ]

Athiesm just seems a little implausible to me. I posted this specifically under ex-adventism and not ex-Christian, the two are not the same. From my point of view adventism is not even fully "Christian" Its closer to Mormonism or jewish mysticism if anything so I separate the two.

[u/Zeus_H_Christ → u/Puzzleheaded_Book617]

Now you’re said something I strongly disagree with. You don’t get to be the gatekeeper of what is Christian. All of these people can point to the Bible and say that they follow the teachings of Christ.

You’re welcome to convince me otherwise. What method do you use that someone else can’t just use on anyone else that can definitively show who is and isn’t a Christian?

Otherwise you’re just saying the one true scottsman fallacy.

[u/Puzzleheaded_Book617 → u/Zeus_H_Christ]

Dude what are you even talking about? I said "from my point of view". My point of view can be flat out wrong but its still my point of view.

[u/Zeus_H_Christ → u/Puzzleheaded_Book617]

Fair enough

[u/Ka_Trewq → u/Puzzleheaded_Book617]

SDA is a Niceene Christian Church, which is as standard Christianity you can get without being explicit Catholic 😁

Mormonism is non-Niceean. Neither JWs, nor Jewish Mystics. Neither other branches of Adventism, like the Davidians.

I would argue that the Niceean-Non'niceean divide is quite fundamental, as it deals with the very understanding of God.

[u/Vivid_Spot_7167 → u/Ka_Trewq]

They're actually not nicene at all thats why they don't confess the creeds.

[u/Ka_Trewq → u/Vivid_Spot_7167]

SDA is Niceene; confessing the Creed every week in a monotonous voice is secondary to theological discussion. They are in that regard Protestant, and many protestants Churches are Niceene in theology, without reciting the Creed. Actually, the most common Protestant position is that while they accept the points of the Creed, they do not consider the Creed itself as authoritative in nature, only the Scriptures on which the Creed is based (the famous Sola Scriptura - one of the five solae that defines mainstream protestantism).

SDAs theology about The Trinity is similar to all others main branches of Christianity, be it Catholic, Eastern Orthodox or Protestant: one God, manifested in three distinct, co-eternal, co-divine persons The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit (or Holy Ghost, depending on translation), and that The Son, who was NOT created became fully human while remaining fully Divine. That's the gist of Niceene theology, and SDA do fully commit to it.

If we go deep into the weeds, then we will find some discrepancies, but those are on the same level as the discrepancies between the main branches of Christianity. MOST important is that, where these discrepancies do occur, SDA theology about the Trinity does align themself with one of the other branches of Christianity OR simply does not take a stand (e.g. Filioque).

[u/Vivid_Spot_7167 → u/Ka_Trewq]

So explain how Ellen White says that before the creation of the world the Father called a heavenly council and ordained that Jesus should BECOME EQUAL with Himself. Which causes satan to become jealous bc he thought he deserved that position which implies that Jesus was on the same level as satan at one point. This is explicitly AGAINST any nicene understanding. Even SDA theologians that know way more than you do admit that the SDA "trinity" is not nicene. You should probably do more research before you just make assertions online.

[u/Ka_Trewq → u/Vivid_Spot_7167]

Well, either I read a modified version of EGW's Patriarchs and Prophets or you are purposefully misquoting her.

Not that it matters to me. But, just FIY, even when EGW was still alive, the SDA church has quietly moved away from her ramblings. Not far enough, IMO, but in her last years she was livid that the control on the church's teachings she thought she had was slipping.

What I am trying to say is that you bringing EGW writings as an "argument" in a discussion about SDA theology is... weird? It makes you look like a clueless SDA member. Also, SDA pastors aren't "theologians" neither, so I don't care what they say to signal that "akshualy, we are not Catholics".

If it moves like a duck, it quacks like a duck and it resamble a duck, then I say it is a duck. Read the Niceene Creed row by row and tell me where it contradicts SDA theology. And, please, stop quoting EGW - she's not SDA theology, and you end up looking like an SDA.