When truth is the last thing you want to report

 It seems every time I read an article from Adventist Today I read false information. It seems as if they have no filter at all by which they can test the truth of their articles. It seems to me it is really now all about pushing a political leftist view upon the readers of AToday.

 

Take this recent article. Abortion Is Terrible, but Abortion Laws Are Worse by Lindsey Abston Painter  14 September 2021 

“Only if you have been living under a rock would you not have heard that at the beginning of September the state legislators in Texas passed a draconian law criminalizing abortions past six weeks of pregnancy. Not only the woman who has an abortion will be treated as a criminal, but anyone involved in any way, including any doctor or medical personnel involved—and even a person who drove her to the clinic or offered her shelter. Women who leave the state to have an abortion are to be immediately prosecuted when they return.” 

Is that paragraph true? Does the Texas law criminalize abortions past 6 weeks? Are the women treated as a criminal, is everyone peripherally involved treated as criminals? Are women who leave the state for an abortion immediately prosecuted when they return?

The answer is no to all of those assertions. No one has to look too hard to see that those statements are all untrue. Pretty much a few paragraphs from an NPR article can show just how wrong the Lindsey Abston Painter’s article is.

“The law allows private citizens to sue abortion providers and anyone else who helps a woman obtain an abortion — including those who give a woman a ride to a clinic or provide financial assistance to obtain an abortion. Private citizens who bring these suits don't need to show any connection to those they are suing.”

 “Groups who oppose abortion rights have pushed for this Texas law, hoping that it will be harder for federal courts to knock it down. Instead of requiring public officials to enforce the law, this law allows individuals to bring civil lawsuits against abortion providers or anyone else found to "aid or abet" illegal abortions.”

“Anyone who successfully sues an abortion provider under this law could be awarded at least $10,000. And to prepare for that, Texas Right to Life has set up what it calls a "whistleblower" website where people can submit anonymous tips about anyone they believe to be violating the law.”

“"These lawsuits are not against the women," says John Seago with Texas Right to Life. "The lawsuits would be against the individuals making money off of the abortion, the abortion industry itself. So this is not spy on your neighbor and see if they're having an abortion."

As a fact checking website states:

“​​On May 19, Abbott signed a law stating that ‘a physician may not knowingly perform or induce an abortion on a pregnant woman unless the physician has determined … whether the woman's unborn child has a detectable fetal heartbeat.’ The law creates an exception if the physician determines a medical emergency makes an abortion necessary. Critics have noted that fetal heartbeats can be detected as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, limiting the window in which a woman can legally seek an abortion in Texas.”

“The law allows citizens, rather than the state, to sue anyone who performs or assists in procuring an abortion. Those found to have done so will, thus, be civilly instead of criminally liable, and will be made to pay “statutory damages in an amount of not less than $10,000 for each abortion.” Notably, SB8 does not allow for suits to be brought against women who recieve abortions after a heartbeat is detected.”

Reading the Facebook comments there are loads of people who praise this AToday article even though it begins with clearly false information. My point is not for or against the Texas law but simply pointing out the lack of factual information in the Adventist Today article. Most of the article is typical of political progressive arguments for abortions. So the article is trying to be a persuasive argument for the leftwing views on the subject. This points out again that the major focus of Adventist Today is the spreading of political progressive, democrat philosophies.

 

 

 

 

Emotional ruled despite the facts

I think I have finally realized why I can never seem to agree with the majority of the positions taken over at Adventist Today. It is because they work from a factually vacant but emotionally dependent perspective.

 I have been zoom attending their Adventist Today Sabbath School. The moderator and head of the AToday organization sent me a message during the class over some discussion I was having with someone in their chat area. Of course, Loren Siebold was moderating the class so there is no doubt that he was not following the chat section very well. Here was his statement to me privately: “Ron, please be careful. Being a broad church means not making attacking sorts of statements to weak believers like Stephen.” This is the way they shut people down, they like to accuse anything that for whatever reason they don’t like as “attacking”. Factually it is vacant because there was no attack. I will place the major portions of the conversation at the end but for now here is the statement (corrected for a spelling error because zoom chat is horrible): “Re: Stephen: Not sure why you can't believe a particular thing. So many beliefs in the world, now it is very likely that those beliefs are chosen by most all that believe them though there may have been a multitude of influences involved in a belief.”

  It is this kind of emotional reading into what people say that is so common over at Adventist Today. It is why after several years I am still not allowed to comment on their Facebook articles. Facebook is the only way to comment on Adventist Today Articles by the way. It is kind of humorous now to remember what caused me to be banned from their Facebook page. It was dealing with the author Lindsey Painter, (My blog about her article, Confusionof symbol over substance).it was actually going fairly well when their moderator deleted my comments and Lindsey Painter’s comments as well. I was no longer able to post comments. In all, the Adventist Today writer was provably incorrect and even places like PragerU and major Newspapers have acknowledged that Trump never said what the Leftists said he said (if you recall it was the leftist shouting about Trump making a false moral equivalency). That there were some fine people on both sides, was stated after Trump excluded the White supremacists groups. https://www.prageru.com/video/the-medias-very-fine-people-myth/

  

Here is the conversation:

Jack: Stephen, God doesn't mind if we don't believe in him.  But as I  understand it is good if He can believe in us!  So keep being believable!

Stephen: i dont believe in god whatsoever, but i like the idea of that concept being flipped...that god believes in me regardless.  i can get with that on a certain level

Me: Re Stephen: The problem with that statement is that you can only say you believe God believes in you. It has no power because you could say I believe pink elephants believe in me. It only matters if it is spoken by God of you. So it sounds nice but is meaningless.

Stephen: you're correct. ultimately it is still meaningless to me, but i like the idea

Me: Re: Stephen You like the idea, let's press that, what would you want to believe that God believes about you.? When I say I believe in God it has a completely different meaning than I believe in my daughter. It is far more than the existence of something.

Jack: I'm not sure what you are pushing for, but I'd like to jump in.  As I suggested if a fish believes in water or not is not as important as that it keeps swimming, as if water exists.  IF a bird believes in air or not (it is invisible) is not as important as that it keeps flapping and gliding.  If we believe that life was given by a Life Giver, or not is not as important as that we keep living "as if" life were given.  Does this help anyone?

Stephen: i think jack hit it on the head with why i like the idea

Stephen: if there is a creator I'd like to believe that creator was for me and not against me...regardless im going to keep living my life the best way i know how and keep updating based on new information

Loren: that’s the faith I hold.

Me: Re: Stephen. So you want to believe in God as the life giver. That is not a believe you can say that God believes about you. It would be a belief you have in what God is. It is really the start of faith, why not believe in the lifegiver even if you don't know for sure.

Stephen: i dont think belief works like that

Stephen: i cant just choose to believe anything even if it seems that way

Stephen: i cant even say I want to believe in god as the life giver, any more than i want to believe in gravity

Art: I agree. You can’t just choose to believe.

Me: Re: Stephen: Not sure why you can't believe a particular thing. So many beliefs in the world now it is very likely that those beliefs are chosen by most all that believe them though there may have been a multitude of influences involved in a belief.

Loren privately: Ron, please be careful. Being a broad church means not making attacking sorts of statements to weak believers like Stephen.
*Note: Stephen stated earlier before my part in the conversation that he was an agnostic and “technically I'd probably fall more in the atheist camp currently,  cause I'm not "looking for answers" anymore…” Plus in my portion of the conversation “i dont believe in god whatsoever”.

Stephen: in order to believe something, i need a reason. the weight of evidence/ motivation for me to accept a belief is not something i can arbitrarily choose. i can pretend i believe something for many reasons, but the end of the day i either believe or or I don't

Me: of course you should have some reason or motivation. Though I think you already stated a motivation. The one thing about beliefs is they are personal, so you can adjust them accordingly

Stephen: i need to hop off now. thank you to everyone for the conversation and affirmation. sdas arent as bad as i thought lol

 

 

Adventist Today tries to defend its leftist politics

I was noticing when I was reading some comments on the Adventist Today Facebook page, the only place you can comment…well not me but those people who are not banned for disagreeing with Adventist Today.  It was very enlightening to read what Adventist today had to say for themselves when it was pointed out that they are pretty leftist in their articles. Here is the comment:

Pastor Tom Hughes Will Adventist today ever get back to theology, spiritual issues, Church issues and stop force-feeding us with liberal politics? Adventist Today Tom Hughes
1) This piece is one of ten (and counting) published this week—even during a holiday week. We don’t have to “get back to theology, spiritual issues, church issues” since we haven’t stopped covering them. Given your social media posts espousing political stances (not just theology, spiritual and church issues), your partisanship is well-known and your disagreement with this piece unsurprising. Those are your right. What are problematic are the consequent inconsistencies in your criticisms here of AT, for example, claiming that what you do is politically balanced and neutral, denying AT the freedom you assert you can exercise, and complaining about suppression of disagreement despite your multiple comments on this thread. Neither do we mischaracterize your promotion of your views as “force-feeding” those who choose to read them. 

2. Please clarify this comment:
“it has been discussed many times but the black conferences want to keep things the way they are so that they can make sure they have female soccer tuna tees for there pastors to serve.”

This is really a  very telling comment. After all, I very much agree with Pastor Tom Hughes assessment that Adventist Today is mainly posting Liberal politic articles.  Now AT starts out with a rather strange statement about the number of articles posted in a week. As if that has anything to do with things. Let’s say that 8 of the 10 articles were by social justice warriors, how would the number of articles refute Pastor Tom Hughes' statement? It would not at all. If one were to refute the accusation they could point to the numerous political conservative articles or writers posting on Adventist Today. That they don’t, because they don’t have any is a very telling fact that Pastor Tom Hughes is correct about the liberal politics of the articles and writers.

They then followed with something that is very likely true. Political Progressives think their politics are their religion. So they think that all the political statements are just as much theology, spiritual issues, and church issues.  Here is a segment of an article which does a pretty concise job of showing the Progressivism as religion aspects:

“The government must be helmed by the progressive clergy and used as a tool to ensure progress. Social institutions must be torn down and inequality dissolved.  Past sins must be confessed and offerings given as recompense. Good American citizens, so saith the god of progress, vote and act in a way that enables unabated progress toward equality. This doctrine is well-expressed, inerrant in a creed on a commonyard sign: “In this house, we believe: black lives matter, women’s rights are human rights, no human is illegal, science is real, love is love, and kindness is everything.”

If progressives and Democrats are good, then by deduction Republicans are evil—and evil must be opposed. Therefore every Republican measure is a heartless measure intended to further inequality. Republicans are moral monsters who love fascism, cheer the victimization of the vulnerable and scramble to push Granny off the nearest cliff. Republican laymen must be ignorant boobs at best and malevolent wolves at worst.

Dogmatism leaves no room for doubt. It even leads to an almost end times-like eschatology. As Matthew Rose recently pointed out in First Things:

“The politics of gender, sexuality, race, and immigration are increasingly eschatological. Their power and appeal depend on the belief that they advance a liberating moral narrative, inspiring a secular Exodus that will lead to a secular Pentecost . . . [H]istory must progress toward greater individual freedom and social equality because any other outcome threatens the moral intelligibility of history itself. The stakes could not, therefore, be higher. Should the next emancipatory chapter fail to be written—or should a future Trump or Brexit alter its forward flow—it would not be a mere disappointment. It would interrupt a story that justifies their deepest commitments, and the theodicy in which they are engaged.”

Conservatives on the other hand, allow for doubt and question utopian thinking. Social programs may in the end lead to further inequality. No individual person is perfect and thus no institution is perfect. Government cannot bring about perfect equality, but instead only keep itself and its citizens from descending too far into authoritarian oppression. https://loneconservative.com/2018/01/11/progressivism-new-religion/

The AT comment goes on to tell us how well they know of Pastor Tom’s social media positions which I know nothing about and even after AT comments I still know nothing about even though as they say: “your partisanship is well-known and your disagreement with this piece unsurprising” Now there is a strong refutation! The accusation, predominately leftwing articles the response you are partisan. Well, wait is not that his complaint, AT can’t deal with the complaint they instead attack the one complaining.

AT continues: “What are problematic are the consequent inconsistencies in your criticisms here of AT, for example, claiming that what you do is politically balanced and neutral, denying AT the freedom you assert you can exercise, and complaining about suppression of disagreement despite your multiple comments on this thread. Neither do we mischaracterize your promotion of your views as “force-feeding” those who choose to read them.”

 Inconsistencies in criticisms, what inconsistencies, would not that be helpful to know I mean the accusation is pretty straight forward, he may have dealt comments to other people, but that is not really AT responsibility to deal with those statements, why not deal with the central issue. Now how is a comment that problematic? He is not writing an article published on AT neither is he denying AT any freedom. “claiming that what you do is politically balanced and neutral, denying AT the freedom you assert you can exercise,” OK Pastor Tom claims leftist lean to AT articles and now suddenly Pastor Tom is denying AT the freedom to be balanced and neutral. Really I am pretty sure that is exactly what Pastor Tom is asking AT for. Then it follows with more subterfuge about how AT is not claiming that Pastor Tom is “force-feeding” his views on others in the comments section. Well, that is certainly big of AT. This is all very classic way of hiding from the accusation by attacking the person making the accusation. It is not a defense, it is not even logical. It also turns out that both AT and Pastor Tom's comments were removed, as I was going to include some of them in this article, but low and behold they are gone now! Of course, the excuse will be they are against policies. Strangely suppression of other views is often done by the excuse it is just because they did not follow the policies.

Sadly logic has little to do with the articles on Adventist Today anymore. For example, the above comments come from the comment section in reference to this article https://atoday.org/why-i-reject-american-exceptionalism by Lindsey Abston Painter 3 July 2019. In which she defines American Exceptionalism as…nothing she does not define it, she does not point to any definition at all. In fact here is her most direct statement on it.:

“I don’t know how to be patriotic anymore. I love America. But I can’t believe it’s better than any other nation, or its people are better than other nation’s people. I can’t believe that God has any special interest in my country over other countries. I deny American Exceptionalism. America is not intrinsically better than the rest of the world. It’s only better if we are better. President Dwight D. Eisenhower once said in a speech, “America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.” Is America still great in light of what’s happening on our southern border?

We can infer from what she rejects as to what she thinks American Exceptionalism is. Not that that is what it actually is but apparently she rejects her own incorrect view of what American Exceptionalism is. If she had bothered to even dig as deeply as Wikipedia she would have found that the first two tenents of American Exceptionalism is what makes it important. Not patriotism people from any country can be patriotic that is certainly not the meaning. Here is what Wikipedia says:

American exceptionalism is one of three related ideas. The first is that the history of the United States is inherently different from those of other nations.^[2] In this view, American exceptionalism stems from its emergence from the American Revolution, thereby becoming what political scientist Seymour Martin Lipset called "the first new nation"^[3] and developing a uniquely American ideology, "Americanism", based on liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, republicanism, democracy and laissez-faire economics. This ideology itself is often referred to as "American exceptionalism."^[4] Second is the idea that the US has a unique mission to transform the world. As Abraham Lincoln stated in the Gettysburg address (1863), Americans have a duty to ensure, "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." Third is the sense that the United States' history and mission give it a superiority over other nations.

The theory of the exceptionalism of the U.S. has developed over time and can be traced to many sources. French political scientist and historian Alexis de Tocqueville was the first writer to describe the country as "exceptional" in 1831 and 1840.^[5] The actual phrase "American exceptionalism" was originally coined by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin as a critique of a revisionist faction of American communists who argued that the American political climate was unique, making it an 'exception' to certain elements of Marxist theory.^[6] U.S. president Ronald Reagan is often credited with having crystallized this ideology in recent decades.^[6] Political scientist Eldon Eisenach argues in the twenty-first century American exceptionalism has come under attack from the postmodern left as a reactionary myth: "The absence of a shared purposes ratified in the larger sphere of liberal-progressive public policy....beginning with the assumption of American exceptionalism as a reactionary myth.”

Thanks to Painter we have a good view of the postmodern left’s reactionary myth view. Ignore history, and facts and plead to poorly formed but emotional ideas. Somehow larger than ever illegal border entry suggests to her that there is nothing exceptional about America. I mean why would so many people try to get to this unexceptional country. But it all works as long as your publisher defends the indefensible.

More misinformation from Adventist Today.

One of the things I have been seeing is the incredible swing to the left on Adventist sites like Atoday.org and Spectrummagazine.com. Neither site now publishing anything but Progressive left wing political and religious material. It is published without any type of editorial requirement for truth to be utilized. For example there is an article entitled On Being Offended by Lindsey Painter in which she writes with apparently little regard for facts the following:

Last Thanksgiving Native Americans protested the building of the Keystone Pipeline (and DAPL). For their efforts they were hosed with freezing water in the snow, refused basic amenities and medical treatment, and the pipeline was built anyway. This Thanksgiving what are those Native Americans doing? They are cleaning up the giant oil spill on their land that they feared last year. Are they thin-skinned?

Ignoring the fact that the protestors were mostly not Native Americans the reader must also ignore the fact that the oil leak was not on Native American land and Native Americans are not cleaning it up. As CNN reported:

The spill occurred in the same county as part of the Lake Traverse Reservation. The leak location is not on Sioux property, but it is adjacent to it and has historical value, said Dave Flute, tribal chairman for Sisseton Wahpeton Sioux Tribe.

"The spill occurred about 3 miles southeast of Amherst on private land, which Walsh described as a "flat, grassy area for grazing." The company tweeted a picture of the site late Thursday.

 The county is on the top of the state second from the right on the map and Amherst is nearly to the left side of the Marshall County border. The reservation runs through portions of 5 counties. Going back to her article it sounds a lot like that the Native Americans feared a leak would happen if the Keystone XL pipeline was built and then a year later it was built and leaked. Even though this pipeline has been there for years.  This sadly is what passes for intelligent writing in the Adventist Media today. To maintain the fictions these websites write they usually ban or delete comments, because as per their rules it is not civil to disagree with their authors because to disagree or point out errors is disrespectful. Though they are quite accepting of comments that support errors are are posted by similarly misinformed people.

 

confusion of symbol over substance

Sadly I found another example of poor reasoning on Adventist Today Website in a strangely titled article which felt the need to conflate White supremacy groups with White Privilege. The article titled #Charlottesville& #Whiteprivilege. In the main the article could have come from any number of MSNBC commentators. I will only deal with one paragraph however as it shows so much about the common media’s thinking on where they tend to assign wonderful intentions to Progressive/Leftists and then use that assignation in all their subsequent views.

The paragraph reads as follows:

“I’ve been hearing a lot about “both sides” in the online discourse I’ve seen on this issue. I find it both fascinating and horrifying that a moral equivalence has been drawn between those fighting to oppress people, and those fighting to stop the oppression of people. They are not the same. Let’s please just all agree that there is no comparing the two. I repeat: white supremacy is evil. Nothing the “other side” has done is even close to as morally repugnant as that. It’s not even in the same ballpark. It’s not even in the same universe. It’s a logical fallacy. Never forget that when you draw those comparisons you are defending white supremacists. Think about that for a second. And stop it.”

First of all, there is no moral equivalency involved when saying that multiple groups behaved violently. First the definition of Moral Equivalence:

“Moral equivalence is a form of equivocation and a fallacy of relevance often used in political debates. It seeks to draw comparisons between different, often unrelated things, to make a point that one is just as bad as the other or just as good as the other. It may be used to draw attention to an unrelated issue by comparing it to a well-known bad event, in an attempt to say one is as bad as the other. Or, it may be used in an attempt to claim one isn't as bad as the other by comparison. Drawing a moral equivalence in this way is a logical fallacy.”

When you have two or three or more groups on the street fighting each other you are not dealing with comparisons between different often unrelated things. Very likely the writer of the article Lindsey Painter probably heard the term in the media and did not bother to look up the meaning. The author is assuming that the beliefs of people made their actions somehow different, even though they all may be yelling hitting and using boards as weapons. It is this assumption that I find most disturbing.

A huge problem in the media and Progressive/leftists is that they embrace symbol over substance. In this case the author says one group is oppressing people and the other is fighting oppression. That however is far from the case as these are demonstrations. One group gets a permit to hold their rally and it is granted. Now what happens at a rally? Will they hold a slave auction, perhaps gather some blacks and Hispanics and deny them jobs or housing? No they will gather as a group and listen to some speakers. They will talk and listen; it is very much a free speech event. Now it does not matter what the speech is if it does not cause violence, it is protected by the Constitution and the Constitutional Amendment which encompasses freedom of speech was not intended to cover speech that everyone agrees with but with speech that people may not agree with.  So group one is not oppressing anyone, you may not like what they say at their gathering but they are abiding by the laws of the city and state. Now the second group comes to offer their counter protest against group one. What are they doing? Are they freeing slaves, bringing jobs or housing to minority races? No they are protesting the thoughts of the other group. They if they were acting peaceable would be declaring with their speech their views. They are not ending any oppression; they are not stopping hate or showing love.  

The symbols of each group is the rally or gathering to express their views. The counter protesting group could perform their symbolism just as well on any other day, and if they abided by the laws they would also get their permit to assemble and have their speeches. So the only difference between the groups is in their beliefs. But the problem here is not the beliefs it is the violence. There is no doubt that there was violence from several groups.

If the article had just been about the evil of White Supremacy or even against the horrible beliefs of the Anifa (often violent anarchists and communists) or Black Lives Matter leadership beliefs (Marxism) there would be no need to respond to the article. Statements of emotional fantasy where if you defend the idea that multiple sides were involved in violence means you are supporting White supremacy is foolish, especially when she adds that such things are a logical fallacy, when she does not even use the moral equivalency term correctly.

To jump on the media bandwagon with their faulty reasoning does not make the faulty reasoning any better. It just means she can parrot the media’s nonsense.