You are very refreshing. I had thought that we had lost our cult status when certain members of our church decided that we should join the mainstream of other religions by repudiating doctrines that the religious world had a hard time accepting. Since that time, our church has lost its "distinctive flavor" and is looking more and more like the rest of the religious world.

I find it rather ironic that the very church we try to warn the rest of the world about (Roman Catholic), laughs at most of the Protestant world as following the doctrines of the Roman Catholic church (knowingly and unknowingly) and points out that ONLY the SDA church truly is Sola Scriptura (Bible Alone). The rest of the Protestant world keeps Sunday (a creation of the RC), believes in the Trinity (another Catholic creation with Mary recently being mentioned as one of the Trinity), and a multitude of other things including ceremonies. If we are really a cult, then we have lots of company.

We have been teaching for over a hundred and fifty years that the entire Protestant world will unite with Catholicism (and many other offshoot "cults") and become indistinct from one another. This is currently going on now like I have NEVER seen it in my 67 years. It is as common to see a priest, along with other "charismatic" religionists, speak in "unknown tongues", do faith healing, have communion together (god wafer), and a bunch of other ungodly things. Even the OP calls the Law of God as Holy, but is rejecting the fourth Commandment of keeping the Sabbath holy. He nor anyone can show the Sabbath being done away with, yet feels perfectly comfortable disregarding the commandment altogether. It is only one step away from doing the same that The RC has done--namely, removing the commandment about worshipping idols. I grew up in the RC church and I know the kind of pressure put upon us to do as others are doing--namely, genuflecting whenever faced with a statue of a "holy" person or icon or any representation of things in heaven.

I am proudly a Seventh Day Adventist and I know that my church has its shortcomings. I have tried every way possible to disprove the teachings because they did not agree with the garbage I was taught growing up. In every single case, I have found myself proven wrong--joyfully. As an evangelist, I have found BEAUTIFUL people in all walks of life in every religion--including, of course, RC's. Even among non-believers and downright rude and crude people (including people who have killed other people), I have found precious souls. Many times, I have led people to attend other churches than the SDA. Some are simply not ready to receive the in-your-face truth. Some still need milk and cannot commit to a complete change in the life that true Christianity demands: "Be ye perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect." "Faith without works is dead." "Not one jot or tittle" shall change or be taken away from the Law. I believe what God says implicitly. Man's customs and traditions just do not cut it for me. For me it is "thus sayeth the Lord" or nothing. I have tried to disprove Ellen White just as I did the Bible. Again, in every single instance I was proven wrong. She CONSTANTLY points to the Bible and the Bible alone as the foundation. She has consistenly shown that HER WRITINGS are NEVER to be used in any Biblical debate. The FINAL authority is always the Scriptures and any SDA who tries to use HER as the authority without understanding the Scriptures are, in a word, a cult. This can be said of any church or body of believers or of any individual. Blanket statements by anyone on anyone are just simply ignorant. Our battle is "not with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers and wickedness in high places..." If just one person was persecuted unfairly by these blanket statements, then the person making those statements (even ignorantly) can be held responsible for that person's blood. That's scriptural.