h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Seventh-day Adventism - A827912
Author: Murasaki, Queen of the Lonely Hearts and Protector of Small Woodland Creatures - U203104

I think it's finally ready.

This is an interesting entry. I didn't really have time to read all of it, but I got through a lot of it. Well done. It should certainly be picked as an Edited Entry.

Since many readers of the guide are not Christians, I think you should specify right from the start that the Adventists are a branch of the Christian religion. I was able to work it out from the article, but it should be stated right at the beginning.

I understand the bit about Seventh Day, but why are they called Adventists? Is that believers in the second coming of Christ? Do all Christians not believe in that?

There are one or two spelling mistakes: "No man will no the hour".

I see there's quite a bit of new stuff.

I think you could do with putting in a few headers - "History", "Beliefs",... something like that.

A particular bugbear of mine: "Book of Revelations". Please call it "the Revelation".

A couple of things I'd be interested to read more about. You say that according to White, Miller's only mistake was to misunderstand the significance of the date. What was its significance? And did White make the point that "no-one shall know the day or the hour" or did that come later (i.e. was it a reaction to the Great Disappointment).

Also, is the president elected by the church members or decided in some other way?

Oooh, I'm so embarrassed about my spelling errors! ...Do I need to remove it from peer review? What do you suggest?
Kristy

I mean, should I remove it because of my spelling, and because it doesn't have headings?

No. You might as well leave the thread here whilst you make any changes, then pop back in and tell us. There's no need to have a new PR thread after every little alteration.

Hi Murasaki

This is a very interesting entry and I enjoyed reading it. Well done.

Don't feel embarrassed about spelling errors, because
1. There aren't very many
2. What there are don't make it too difficult to understand what you mean to say
3. There are very, very few entries in Peer Review that don't have any spelling errors
4. If this gets picked for the Edited Guide a sub-editor will deal with any errors that might remain. This is routine.

So by all means go through and try to spot them, but don't get hung up about it - it's not considered that important!

And don't take the entry out of Peer Review for that reason!

There's one point I don't think you've got quite right.

You write:
"Adventism is an evangelical Protestant belief system, which means that it preaches righteousness by faith, as opposed to the Catholic concept of righteousness by works. In other words, Adventists believe that we will be judged by God based on our hearts and minds, as opposed to the amount of good works we've done to earn our way into heaven."

I don't think that is a proper view of Catholicism - Catholics do believe in faith, as well as hope and good works. I suggest you just delete the word 'Catholic', and replace both instances of 'as opposed to' with 'rather than'.

The other thing that puzzled me is that you say that the Sabbath is observed on Saturday because that is the seventh day. Since Saturday didn't even exist in Biblical times, how do you know which is the seventh day? I have heard that the early Christians chose Sunday to distinguish themselves from the Jews, who observed Saturday. Could it be that the Adventists believe the Jews had that right all along, and therefore took the same day?

Not that it matters - I was just curious.

Anyway, it's a very good entry and I wish it well.

Bels

The article is a very good expression of the Seventh Day Adventist faith, and I'd say it deserves to go into the guide (though yes, you might want to make the statements about the Catholic church more politically correct).

In response to Bels question about knowing which day is the seventh day, it is known that the Jews kept the sabbath day (in one way or another) even when they were in exile, and when they returned from exile, and were eventually under the rule of the Roman Empire, they continued to observe the Sabbath. Thus, we are relatively certain that the seventh-day-sabbath kept in the time of "Jesus" was the same seventh-day-sabbath kept by "Moses." And there have been no day-of-the-week alterations to the Roman calendar since Jesus' time (the only calendar change altered the date, not the day). So, to answer your question, the Jewish seventh day is the seventh day.

I have a question about Seventh Day Adventism in general, that is not explained in the article. Though 7th Day Adventists don't believe Jesus did away with the Law (which is why they observe the seventh day and eat "clean" foods), their doctrine seems to completely ignore the commanded observance of holy days, festivals, and other various commandments (like the wearing of fringes with blue cords on the corners of their garments) that are given to the ancient Hebrews. Is there a particular reason for this? After all, those commands are in the same books as the dietary laws.

My main experience with SDA is with their pamphlets Awake! and Watchtower, which are liberally and eagerly distributed. Is this just a California experience? To omit this from the entry seems to leave out something readily observable by a tourist as rather characteristic of the faith.

I always got the very strong feeling from reading these that SDAs believe that the world will end very soon, instead of the mellow 'whenever God wills it' in this article.

My second experience with SDAs is the walking the neighborhood in small clusters for house visits. Is this not a main part of the religion, either? I was surprised not to read it here.

Omitting these things is like omitting the fact that if you walk down the Walk of Stars in Hollywood, Scientologists will offer to IQ-and-personality-test you and Iglesia-de-Diosers (a Brazilian church, very theatric-actually worships in old theaters) will ecstatically decry your sin with their signs.

I am afraid I am very cruel. As a child, my folks wouldn't allow me to open the door to them, so I didn't realize how cruel until I had my own place. I have surprised different groups of SDAs who came to my door with a quote from Plato about how the world will end very soon because of blah blah blah (it's not hard with Plato, even though he's not so deliciously nasty as the roman, Juvenal)....they were very into it and didn't deal well with the idea that the quote was older than Jesus.

Watchtower is not Adventist; it's Jehovah's Witness. Adventists do not usually go door to door; I believe you are thinking of Jehovah's Witnesses and sometimes Mormons, who are even more enthusiastic than we are about converting others.

Hi Murasaki! Thanks for answering my question about the meaning of Adventist in the entry itself.

I see you have put headings in using and tags. These look good, but they are not part of the normal style recommended for Edited Guide Entries. Instead, you should use and or and . These have the advantage that they look good in all three "skins" of h2g2 (Brunel, Alabaster and Classic Goo). If you don't want the trouble of changing them, a sub-editor will have to do it later when the entry is picked (as it inevitably will be).

I think this is improved by the use of headings, and breaks between paragraphs, as they make it easier to read, and that it is a promising entry, which is destined to be part of the edited guide.

However, there is still room for improvement, and I agree with gnomon, that using the SUBHEADER and HEADER tags, to make headers and subheaders, as they look better, and are designed to work well with all skins.

There are other possible improvements. One problem for me is that currently there doesn't seem to be a logical ordering of the sections. Some paragraphs seem related, but are not adjacent, for example. In particular, there are many sections about the Advertist church, that are scattered around, such as 'Who Leads the Typical Adventist Church, and Do They Have Special Powers?','Politics and the Adventist Church','What is Tithe?','Do Adventists Have a Pope?'. These I think could be included in one section, on the church, under one heading, or subheading, and with the different sections under subheadings, if neccesary.

Similarly, the bits about the second coming: 'Where Do You Go When Christ Returns?','Okay, So When is Jesus Coming, Anyway?','Does the Rapture Exist, and What Is It?' could be combined into one section, possibly under a header, or subheader, as you feel appropriate.

The main thing, in these cases is to bring the related sections together. They may not require a header to themselves, or even a subheader to themselves, although that might be appropriate in these cases. I think that having some headings and subheadings, to divide up the entry, into larger chunks, as well as the current divisions into paragraph sectinos, would be useful in providing a clear structure to the entry.

There are probably other bits that could be combined sensibly, as well.

Another possible re-organisation would be to have a header (or subheader), for the origins of Advertism. this could combined the information on the Millerites, and the latter formation of the Advertists. I think that it would be more logical to talk first about the millerites, and then talk about the formation of the advertists, as then it would be in chronological order.

There are also some things that could be improved in the content. At some points you seem to be talking more about other religions, rather than about adventism. For example, in the bit about rapture, you talk mostly about other denominations, and only talk about adventism in the last sentence, where you say adverts don't believe that. I am not sure how much of a purpose there is in saying what other denominations believe, rather it would be more useful to talk about what adventists do believe. i think in some places it is useful, for contrast, but it is worth having a look through, and considering that.

Also, at some points, you assume Adventism is true, whereas in others you talk about various tenets or beliefs or Adventism as believes. I think the later is more appropriate when talking about religion. For example, in the section 'Where Do You Go When Christ Returns?' you talk of the beliefs associated with Adventism as facts, rather than beliefs. There may be other cases, but that is one that stands out.

That'll all for now, but I'll be having another look through the entry later.

I knew Wathctower was the JWs.

I've got a couple of things to say about the Bible. Note that I'm not necessarily right, but this is as best I remember:

"This was the way Christ baptized his apostles in the Bible." - I don't remember Christ actually baptising anyone. However, he was himself baptised by John the Baptist and it was clearly a practice of the early church - and both of these would have been the full dunking.

Also, I'm not sure that use of grape juice for communion comes from a literal interpretation of the Bible. It may be the Adventist interpretation, but the Bible does not even say that communion should be part of a church service (although Jesus does say to remember him with bread and wine, so it's not that much of a leap), let alone tell us exactly what to use in it.

Silverfish - I think mentioning the rapture is fair enough. Many denominations, particularly American ones believe it, so one might have expected it to be true of Adventists as well. That said, the comparrisons with the Catholic church are probably unnecessary in the main. After all, Catholicism will not be the starting point for most people reading the article.

Thanks for all your advice, everybody! Check out my newly updated Entry, please, and give me some feedback on it. I've re-organized topics, inserted Headers, made Adventism sound more like a belief system rather than the truth (that was a good point, so I appreciate your mentioning that nuance), and edited comparisons between the Church and Catholicism.

Thank you for your clarifications. I am blushing because I am now sure the three Adventists I know must think I am an idiot. They are certainly modest and sober.

I've got some more questions. Perhaps I am misled about these other ideas about Adventists: that SDAs do not celebrate Halloween, Thanksgiving, Easter, Christmas, or Independence Day.

There was a brouhaha in the news in America where one of our circuit courts (a Federal i.e. national court that is regional in purview and is 1 level below our Supreme Court) ruled about the wording of our pledge of allegiance. Is Adventism one of the religions whose members won't salute the Flag?

Adventists celebrate holidays, including birthdays. Jehovah's Witnesses do not celebrate certain holidays (including birthdays).
Adventists even salute the flag in church (we had a 9/11 prayer service), and proudly say "One nation under God", even if it's no longer going to be recognized as an official part of the Pledge. Personally, I think separation of church and state should keep us from reciting the Pledge in church, but that's just the opinion of one person.
Halloween is fun--candy, costumes, and parties! Easter--candy, decorating eggs, hiding them (if one is around small children), etc. is definitely enjoyable! Christmas is always great, and so is Thanksgiving. Fourth of July fireworks are a big deal, too--Adventists love holidays, even though we don't have any holidays that belong only to us.

Something I meant to ask (though some posts here give something of an answer - and also convinced me you're not going to be offended by any ignorance I show): How do other churches view Adventism and how do you view other Churches? i.e. Are they wrong? Do they think you're wrong? Are they Godly? Do they need to be converted?

Personally (that means you can ignore me if you like) I don't like having prayer under a heading of "Supernatural" and would prefer something like "Spiritual beliefs". Views on Satan and heaven would seem to fit into that category as well, so you could make those subheaders. Oh, I'm still not happy with "Revelations" and Jesus having baptised people, but if you ignore me I won't mention it again.

I'm interested in what Adventists believe about Satan. Do they see Satan as being equal and opposite to God, or less powerful?

You've referred to God as 'He'. Does this mean that the feminine aspect of God is not recognised or valued?

Just throwing my opinion in:
I don't think God needs a masculine or feminine aspect, since he doesn't need to reproduce, and if he did it wouldn't be through sex. Thus, whether we call God Him or Her is arbitrary and pointless to argue about.

Also, I know many Seventh Day Adventists who do NOT celebrate Holoween or Christmas (and they make a big deal about the Christmas one).

The question here is "Why not Christmas?" Because it's the wrong day?