Protecting Progressive Adventists from truth

 

 

Adventist Today Sabbath School Class has taken its attack on truth to a new level this week. ATSS: “A New Reformation”: Adventist Fundamentalism and the Ku Klux Klan presented by Michael W. Campbell. I zoom attended this program which was going along normally, Campbell had begun with a review of Fundamentalism and had moved on to the KKK. He had actually just commented on the movie “Birth of a Nation” and he had still not acknowledged the fact that the KKK was acting in conjunction with the Democrat party. So I thought that would be a very good time to mention that I thought it should be acknowledged that the KKK was the militant arm of the Democrat Party. I thought this was a point that it should really be noted since the movie Birth of a Nation was: “It was the first motion picture to be screened in the White House, viewed there by President Woodrow Wilson, his family, and members of his cabinet.”

That movie was a technical breakthrough for movies but it was also a major turning point for the reinvigoration of the KKK.

After I made my comment in the zoom comment section I received a private message from Loren Seibold with the comment. “Quit making it political, or leave”. Of course, mine was not the first political comment in the chat section. At one point I read one comment that said something to the effect that Trump and the Republicans were doing the same things as the KKK. Someone then directed a question at me, but since I had been messaged by Seibold I told the person No I can’t answer and quoted what Seibold had said to me. I also said I honestly did not know how anyone can talk about the KKK without dealing with the politics of it. Then someone commented that it was a fair point but there had been a flip at some time between the Democrat and Republican positions. I put in my last comment which was that the flip was a myth.

Then I was dumped from the zoom meeting! Not because I continued to talk about the political realities of the KKK era because I did not say anything else about it. I am guessing I was kicked out because I quoted what Seibold had said to me. It is interesting that he did not just say something in the comments to everyone if he was afraid of political comments. If anyone has attended this zoom programs the comments can be pretty wide-ranging and they occur simultaneously with the speaker's presentation, They in no way interfere with the presentation.

I suspect that he did not address his comment to the total group in the chat room because the major emphasis at Adventist Today is Progressive politics. To carry that idea forward he has to attempt to cover up the history of Progressivism. That period of time that Woodrow Wilson and the Birth of a nation was also the time of the beginning of Progressivism (The Progressive Era). As Hillary Clinton once said in 2007: “... I prefer the word "progressive," which has a real American meaning, going back to the progressive era at the beginning of the 20th century…”

I have no idea where the connection of Adventism to the KKK was, one could go look up the presentation on the Atoday YouTube account though. I likely will not as if the presenter is not able to acknowledge the actual history of the KKK and the Democrat party how well is anything going to be.

But if you ever wonder why there is so much wrong information on the Adventist Today articles. I think it is all related to the idea that their new Woke Theology is actual Woke Democrat politics. When politics define your religion then your religion is politics. That is why the website no longer has conservative political or religiously conservative authors anymore and since the tendency is to restrict people’s comments even conservative comments in the Facebook section are few and far between. There is actually a fairly humorous article on Fulcrum7.com How Your Church Can Be More Woke

 

Facebooks laughable fact-checking

 So this is an excerpt from the Facebook Fact check on the Literature Review of the lockdowns on covid-19 mortality. Their claim is that it “Independent fact-checkers reviewed the information and said it was missing context and could mislead people.”

Those so-called independent fact-checkers are mostly supported by Facebook and Tik-Tok and some other Leftwing organizations and private donors who donated in 2016. Yes not too updated there are they and they are not at all objective. For example, here they complain about the use of the word lockdown.

“Another point of contention was the paper’s definition of a lockdown. A lockdown is typically defined as a measure that requires people to stay at home and avoid activity outside the home involving public contact. However, the authors defined a lockdown as “the imposition of at least one compulsory, non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI)”. Non-pharmaceutical interventions are measures apart from taking medicine and vaccination. This means that simply making isolation for infected people mandatory or imposing a mask mandate would count as a lockdown.”

From the original:

[We use “NPI” to describe any government mandate which directly restrict peoples’ possibilities. Our definition does not include governmental recommendations, governmental information campaigns, access to mass testing, voluntary social distancing, etc., but do include mandated interventions such as closing schools or businesses, mandated face masks etc. We define lockdown as any policy consisting of at least one NPI as described above.4]

 Neil Ferguson, an epidemiologist and professor at Imperial College London, pointed out that “by that definition, the UK has been in permanent lockdown since 16th of March 2021, and remains in lockdown – given it [remains] compulsory for people with diagnosed COVID-19 to self-isolate for at least 5 days.”

 Samir Bhatt, a professor of statistics and public health at Imperial College London, likewise expressed similar concerns about the definition used in the paper, saying, “The most inconsistent aspect is the reinterpreting of what a lockdown is […] For a meta-analysis using a definition that is at odds with the dictionary definition (a state of isolation or restricted access instituted as a security measure) is strange.”

[Actually the dictionary definition is: “b: a temporary condition imposed by governmental authorities (as during the outbreak of an epidemic disease) in which people are required to stay in their homes and refrain from or limit activities outside the home involving public contact (such as dining out or attending large gatherings)”] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lockdown

That being said, when it came to their analysis, the authors applied the usual definition of a lockdown, as Bhatt pointed out: “The authors then further confuse matters when in Table 7 they revert to the more common definition of lockdown.”

So a table that breaks down the studies by NPI suddenly becomes reverting to the more common definition by having a heading that says: Lockdown(complete/partial).  As usual Facebook fact-checks are garbage!

walter Veith flat earth and matthew korpman

 I try so hard not to get involved with the stupidity that has become Adventist Today but it is so hard to leave it alone. But they have sunk to a new low. They have become the sponsor of a new YouTube video series. Here is what they say on Atoday website:

“Walter Veith is many things… but a “Flat Earther” isn’t one of the descriptions we usually associate with the controversial professor. Watch Bible scholar Matthew Korpman react to Veith’s refusal to call the earth round!

PS: Adventist Today is excited to be sponsoring Matthew’s latest YouTube videos. His stuff is thoughtful, informative and funny. We love it!”

This video is called “Walter Veith & the Flat Earth? Bible Scholar Reacts

I was unable to see in the description any evidence that Matthew Korpman is a Yale-trained Bible scholar, but I can say that he is talented at obfuscation. Instead of allowing Walter Veith to explain himself, he interrupts the video to make Matthew Korpman declarations as if they somehow are what Walter Veith is saying. A really poor method of communications, a simple technique to distort people’s opinions though, or to make fairly out-of-context statements by breaking up the statements to appear different than they were actually stated.

In This case, Matthew is attempting to take Walter Veith to task for not answering a question the way Matthew wants the question answered. Something many of us would like to do to other people but we know that is not how the world works. The one asked the question is the one that answers it and to be objective the listener then deals with what the answer actually was rather than complain about it not being answered the way you wanted to answer it.

Walter Veith opens himself open to this a lot of times because he is a long-winded person and thinks that he can take an opportunity to guide the listener into something else Veith wants to talk about. Which is actually the case in this video.

At about the 54 minute mark of the video Veith is asked the question about the flat vs. round earth and he precedes to give a couple of Ellen White quotes. That sets off Matthew, but amazingly enough, Matthew then says nothing about what the quotes actually say. Veith uses 3 or 4 maybe but the first one is all you need.

“Any kind of a theory or hobby that Satan can lead the minds of men to dwell upon he will draw their attention to so that they shall not be engaged in giving the solemn message for this time. Do not, my brother, become entangled with ideas that have no connection with the work for this time. It is better to be teaching the truth as it is in Jesus. Better to be seeking for true godliness, heart holiness, freedom from all selfishness, freedom from all envies and jealousies. It is better to pray and humble the soul before God and let the world, round or flat, be just as God has made it. Try most earnestly, by faithful continuance in well-doing, to seek for a clear title in the inheritance in the earth made new. Better lead the flock of God to drink at the higher streams, better by precept and example seek God while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near. There is a revival needed in the church. When the teachers are drinking fresh draughts from the well of Bethlehem, then they can lead the people to the living stream. My soul is weighed down with the burden of the condition of things in New York. May the Lord raise up helpers, men whom He can teach, humble men whom He can lead to bear a clear, sharp testimony in faith.” Letter 43, 1887

I don’t really care that Matthew does not like Veith’s answer but you get no reason for not liking his answer if you ignore the Ellen White quotes he references.

Think about it, if you are being asked in 2020 by someone “is the earth round or is it flat”? You know immediately if someone asks that question they have a hobby horse of a theory that the world is flat. If those folks could be talked out of it, you would think that it would have easily have been done by now. Though with that particular question round does not even help as it could be flat and round as in a disk.

If Matthew had listened to the previous answer which was all about Ellen White as a prophet and would there or could there be another, a perceptive person could see that Veith answered the flat earth question after that to help enforce the wisdom of Ellen White as a telescope to the Bible. I am not here to support Ellen White or Walter Veith but to vilify the very dishonorable method of media manipulation that is used to entertain by presenting half-truths in a format that makes people think they have been given real information. Most people who read AToday sadly don’t pay enough attention to know they are being manipulated with false information Because after all these are good Christians they would not lie to us! Yes, even Christians lie and distort and the only protection is to question everything.

 Update: 2-4-2022

I posted a comment to the youtube page listed above stating that without using any of the information from the Ellen White quote you did not show the reason for Veith's answer and a link to my review above of his video. I checked this morning and my comment was deleted. Truth or conversation even is clearly not something that Matthew Korpman wants.