John Turner asked how many Seventh-day Atheists (non-believers who are still in the SDA church) there are. I honestly, don’t have any idea. I’ve now heard from four who are at varying levels of hiding in the closet. Only one do I know personally. However, there were a few professors I talked to in the seminary who essentially told me they are existential Adventists, meaning that they don’t necessarily believe it, but choose to pretend to.

I would suspect that there are quite a few. Most Adventists probably believe the church’s whole message without ever giving it any thought. Some have studied it out and do truly believe it. I’m sure there are also quite a few who just go through the motions while not believing any of it, just to keep the peace in their families. Out of the million SDAs in the US, it’s probably close to half that are actually active members, out of that 500,000 I’m sure that a few thousand are actually atheists. At an Adventist Forum meeting I went to when I was in the seminary the guest speaker was openly agnostic, obviously an atheist, and still an active member of the church.

Since John would like contact with more people in his kind of situation, I have created a group on Atheist Nexus called “Ex-Adventists and Seventh-day Atheists.” This could serve as a great place for Seventh-day Atheists to help each other. It will also hopefully help them figure out exit plans to finally get free of the church with the help of those in the same boat and those who have gone before them. It’s also be the one place on the web where atheists can continue the Linkette vs. Big Frank debate without getting strange looks.

Oh, obviously Linkette is the only logical answer.