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@3RU7AL
What I am saying is, a double minded man is unstable in all his ways. You cannot serve two masters.
Do you love God more or your idols? I wouldn't ask you to give all your money to the church. If you wanted to do that, I wouldn't discourage you either.
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@EtrnlVw
You know, I would have been saved from a great deal of trouble had I had found the church earlier in my walk rather than going the anarchy way.
There is no Christianity without the church. Even monastics and recluses have the church.
I couldn't disagree with you more. Faith and works are very much a part of eachother. I would not discourage someone from seeking out guidance. That is why we have priests. If nothing else, it is a way to combat haughtiness.
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@WisdomofAges
The Ultimate Reality is God, there is only ONE.
Contemplate on what that means.
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The Lord God is One. Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself.
On these 2 commandments rest all the law and the prophets.
Go with Christ. Abide in The Truth. The Way.
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@janesix
I would recommend going to an Orthodox Church. I would recommend bothering the priest with all your questions. I would recommend reading the books in their library. I would recommend being charitable rather than dismissive. You have to want it to click.
There is really only so much that can be done through this environment, the internet that is.
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@3RU7AL
At least not for you, but that is because your motivation is wrong and your standards are skewed by a clouded heart.
You worship the creature rather than the creator, and as a result your heart is polluted by idolatry.
The Orthodox Church is a hospital for such sicknesses. But make no mistake, God is the physician.
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@keithprosser
You mock and scoff, but "All things were made by The Word of God; and without The Word was not any thing made that was made.", and enlivened by The Holy Spirit.
God is with us. God is among us.
And I know this for a fact, because I can see. You are blind, and won't see until your etes have been opened.
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@3RU7AL
Maybe that isn't supposed to be your motivation.
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@3RU7AL
"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls:
Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it."
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@keithprosser
Yes, because unlike you, I am not willfully ignorant about what the concept of "God" refers to.
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@keithprosser
Rational to you is rejecting God or accepting a false God.
There is nothing irrational about my beliefs, which neither you or these other God deniers understand because my plain and lucid speech has been hidden from your hearts.
Irrational people are slaughtered in the rational world order. Look at the rhetoric of atheists, and indeed, the atheists of these oppressive regimes. Belief in God is irrational!
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Funny. We Orthodox don't think we are right. We know that God is right.
And spiritual blindness is something that God heals so that you aren't stumbling around in the dark.
The church is a hospital for the sick.
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The Truth is my God and the one who claims to value truth above all things has me blocked.
A real paradigm of emotional maturity we have here.
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These anti-christs here before you are the very kind that persecute and kill my people. They are no different in the things they say. They will deny their persecutions, and look the other way when another crushes the skull of one of my brothers or sisters with a stone. They hold people like me to unreasonable standards that they themselves do not hold themselves to. In their hearts, they wish I was dead.
And what have I done? They hate me without a cause. They despise me because they despise Christ.
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@WisdomofAges
Over 20 million Orthodox Christians martyred in the last century.
By all means, contribute towards this genocidal attitude towards my people.
By all means, contribute towards this genocidal attitude towards my people.
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@WisdomofAges
Evidently you care about my religion, because it is the only thing you seem to talk about.
Well, you know, at least your perverse conception of it.
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@WisdomofAges
You really don't know anything about my religion do you? You are just vomiting out mindless vitriol.
How haughty you are.
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@janesix
I am not pushing my ideas. I am here to be hated and despised for preaching The Truth.
In so doing, the wickedness of this fallen world is exposed for what it is to those who have eyes to see and ears to hear. In fact, I try to minimize my own ideas, because they distract from The Truth.
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@janesix
Certainly.
But I am still here to educate.
Now if you think that is a waste of time, I know there are plenty here on this forum who would love to see me leave.
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@WisdomofAges
You are mighty pretentious, sir.
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@WisdomofAges
What you say I believe is not what I believe, so that invalidates your argument.
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@janesix
Now know that when I say The Ultimate Reality, I am not exaggerating. I mean exactly what I'm saying.
And this is God. If an atheist refuses to acknowledge this, they are not talking about God, but some god of their own imagining. They are being evasive because when it comes right down to it, they do have a god, and that god is themselves, and as a result, arbitrariness is their standard.
Reality is whatever they can get away with.
I have to be solid and consistent on this, because any ground I give to this delusion is harmful to the more honest people who can be reasoned with.
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@WisdomofAges
Believe what you want to believe.
It isn't what I believe.
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@janesix
Can't possibly know = impossible to know.
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@WisdomofAges
You couldn't be more wrong about me.
Why do you assume the worst about me? Maybe this is a reflection of how you in your own wickedness think about things.
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@janesix
No, you are saying it is impossible to know.
Why do you say this?
Because you know everything. Because you don't know what I'm saying, you say it can't be known because if you don't know it fhat means it can't be known.
You are projecting on to me.
And what you think I am claiming that is impossible to know is anyone's guess.
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@janesix
No, you don't make me uncomfortable. I certainly don't think I know it all either.
You are, like most know it alls, projecting yourself on to me. You say, "Your claims to knowing anything about it are false. You can't possibly know."
Well, you say that because you know better, not because you are actually agnostic.
And fyi there is actually precedent for this type of thinking in Orthodox history. When the Roman Catholic scholastics tried to introduce scholasticism to the east. Orthodoxy rejected it because it is wrong. Not surprising that when the west rejected scholasticism, they threw God out with it.
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@EtrnlVw
My position has and has always been against atheism, not the atheist. I am actually for the atheist. Otherwise, why would I subject myself to this?
Not my bag.
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@Goldtop
There is no doubt in my mind that posterity will overwhelmingly rule against you as having even a crumb of integrity.
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@WisdomofAges
Why should I elaborate anything to you? I have no indication that you are interested in listening.
Even now you are simply being dismissive. You don't deserve the truth. God gives grace to the humble, but resists the proud.
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@janesix
Existence itself is sufficient evidence for Ultimate Reality.
The idea that there is no evidence is simply another delusion perpetuated by atheists who prop up some strawman god and declare this as God.
Why?
Because atheism is a position of ignorance. It isn't valid.
Who else? Nihilists. Nihilists are a joke.
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@EtrnlVw
All you have to do is look at the behavioral patterns of people like goldtop, and it ahould be apparent that productive dialog, reconciliation, and reason are the furthest things from their minds.
Nihilists like him only believe in pretense. They want to drag everyone else down to the hell they inhabit.
Pearls before swine. Waste of time.
I'm not interested in people like that who have knowingly and willingly rejected truth and love. I am more interested in those who identify as atheists who are honest and can be reasoned with. The ones who don't have it in their head that they know what I believe better than I do.
Nihilists like him only believe in pretense. They want to drag everyone else down to the hell they inhabit.
Pearls before swine. Waste of time.
I'm not interested in people like that who have knowingly and willingly rejected truth and love. I am more interested in those who identify as atheists who are honest and can be reasoned with. The ones who don't have it in their head that they know what I believe better than I do.
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@Goldtop
Yes, we understand you are a nihilist. It is your modus operandi to drag everyone down to your miserable level, because truth and love are abominable to you.
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@janesix
Denial of God is certainly a delusional position.
It is a disservice to God denier to tell them otherwise. It is not right to lead them on to believe that such a position is even possibly valid.
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@EtrnlVw
@janesix
In other words, the only argument an atheist has is semantics.
I know what God is The Ultimate Reality.
The people who fight me on this are insisting that a salmon is a type of bush. Ni, I'm talking about a fish, not a bush. No amount of insisting otherwise will change that.
I actually know a great deal about where the atheist is coming from than I am given credit. They are coming from a position of delusion. What actually confuses matters is the theists who debate this and give the atheist an inch as if their position wasn't hopeless from the beginning. There is no chance of God not existing, the defining characteristic of God is existing. If your conception of God doesn't exist, it doesn't fulfill the definition of God.
And all atheists can do is debate straw men gods that no one believes in. To anyone with a sense of discernment they give themselves away as gaving adopted a hopelessly arbitrary and deluded position.
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I say that I accept reality as it truly is as God.
The atheist says God doesn't exist.
What is that supposed to mean?
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The fact that there is order at all in the universe is prood that there is reality. If there is reality, there must be Ultimate Reality, that is, reality as it truly is.
The God deniers don't get this because they believe in straw man god not God. And by believe, I mean that they don't believe straw man god. Unsurprisingly, neither do we.
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@keithprosser
I understand that.
And I am not talking about a god. I'm talking about God. There is a difference. These gods are mythical. There is only one God, and this God is the only true reality.
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Here is a better question than the OP...
Of what value is it to argue about whether or not these things happened at all? Some will believe it, some will not, some will say, "I don't know". Is this going to be a stumbling block for you to accept The Truth?
Remember, the bible is used by The Orthodox Church to get people to recognize The Truth as God and guide them into proper relationship with this God.
Why, in ignorance, attempt to undermine this when we live in a world where people actively seek to escape from reality? We live in a culture of virtual reality. A culture of embracing pride in ones delusion.
Not one of you try to hinder a teacher from educating a toddler in the way that a toddler must be educated. Would you crumple up the coloring books and say they are stupid because you don't understand why they are there? In much the same way, just because you don't understand the point of scripture or these other teaching methods emploted by the church doesn't mean that it is helpful to anyone to undermine and sabotage it. As I said, the point of it all is to get people to hold The Truth above all else.
Why get in the way of something so sorely needed?
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@keithprosser
That is certainly a secular skeptical academic way of looking at it.
But you operate under the silly assumption that there are other gods like God. The Existent One is not like these gods in name only.
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Why do you think I should be deleted? You don't think that is a bit intolerant?
What do you think you own this place? I post a thread and a legion of haters derails it, but you are somehow exempt from this?
Who do you think you are anyway?
Are like some kind of fascist or something? I find the idea of you working in education concerning. You clearly aren't trying to educate me. Instead you insult me and ridicule me. Hate me without a cause.
Well, I don't hate you, even if you have made yourself very ugly. I think you can do better.
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There is no need for this hatred.
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@WisdomofAges
Look, I will simplify it for you because you are clearly very confused.
Christianity is Truth worship. Our religion is built around worshipping The Truth.
Now you can go from here in one of two ways. You can presume you knoow, and in your lack of charity dismiss what I say and continue to deceive while being deceived, or you can consider that maybe I'm telling you the truth and there is something very integral that you are missing.
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Common sense tells you that children who have 1 parent wholly deducated to raising them are better off than children who have parents who are half present because they are too busy working to give their children the attention they need.
Why are you so offended at the things I am saying?
And why do you unblock me so you can say something and then block me again so that I can't respond proper?
You don't really want to have a discussion. That is what I'm getting.
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Yeah, lets just have daycare raise our children.
Raising kids is a full time + job. You can either have a good career or be a good mother. You can't do both.
That is certainly not how we are doing things. We care a little bit more for our kids than to do that. We might be poorer for it, but thankfully we have our priotlrities.
Lord have mercy.
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@WisdomofAges
None of what you say is applicable to The Orthodox Church, which is the true church that has existed since the very beginning. The Apostolic church.
That being the case, you are basically judging pascifism as a murderous ideology because a group calling themselves the pacifists decided to go on a killing spree.
I am here to clear up your misconceptions.
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