Mopac

What is your religion Goldtop? 

See OP

You mean whether or not how one experiences reality is ultimately real?

Reality is real by definition. 

You have certainly expressed your opinion.

And you are making it very clear to me that you do not practice righteous discernment. 

I don't believe you. I don't believe you know my faith either.

Not sufficient for him. That is really what he means to say.

If someone doesn't want to believe that anything is ultimately real, no amount of evidence will convince them.

If you are talking about what you see in certain protestant churches by "inerrency", we have a technical word for that called "biblialotry".

The story of Noah is certainly intended to be in the bible, so I will not call it an error.

He is practicing his religion.

See OP

That almost seemed like.a backhanded insult. :p

Really, you don't know my faith at all.

So until I get the impression that you do, how can I believe what you are saying? 

I will happily help you to understand to the best of my abiliilties.

Your vain rhetoric doesn't really impress me either, I'll have you know. 

You don't really understand my faith, and as long as you presume to know better, aren't likely to ever get to that point.

I am not on DDO. I tried a long time ago, but their create account feature was broken.

Guess that means debate art gets me. DDO dropped the ball.

What are you here to do?

Perhaps you would be willing to demonstrate through your actions how it is I am supposed to love?

You call me a slave for loving The Truth.

What makes life for you? There you may find your idolatries. There you may find what it is you are in fact a slave to.

I would rather be a slave to God than a slave to passion. A slave to the lusts of mind and flesh.

Goldtop likes to project his hatred on to people like me, which I think is rather unfortunate because the only reason I am here is out of love. I certainly don't like to argue or even debate. I am here for the sake of educating others. I don't get off on being the object of so much hatred.

The sexual abuse of children is obviously not accepted in The Orthodox Church. And I don't know any pedophile priests. This is not an issue in The Orthodox Church.

You are simply spreading mindless libel.

I prefer to not look at people as being bad. I prefer to look at people as being deceived. That being the case, they can always get better.

I'd say that "secular rationalism" is going to be the very downfall of western society.

Secular rationalism quite naturally came out of protestantism, which quite naturally came out of scholasticism, which quite naturally came out of the excommunicated Roman Catholic Church.

Blessed are the pure in heart, they will see God. The Scholastics mistakenly believed that you find God through being a know it all smarty pants. It doesn't matter how educated and smart you are, if your heart is polluted by idolatries you put before The Truth, your intellect will be skewed.

A so called "advanced" society that lacks real spirituality will destroy itself and screw a great deal up around it before it does.

It is better to abide in The Truth than to war against it. Quite naturally.

Not everyone has empathy and compassion.

Everyone knows deep down that The Truth exists.

Some people, not all people, naturally love others. 

All Christian Morality comes from loving God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. It is the purifying of the heart and ridding oneself of idolatries.

Without this, the morality you claim to be Christian cannot be, it is simply an emulation based more on an arbitrary sense of aesthetics than anything else.

You don't really understand my religion, you just think you do.

If you say that The Ultimate Reality doesn't exist, you have certainly adopted a futile position.

I don't care if you respect me. You should respect God. 

I don't really believe you understand my faith to make such judgement calls. 

I will tell you this, Orthodox do not see morality the same way western philosophy does. Our morality is entirely based around purifying the heart and getting rid of idolatries. It is very God centric. So we have very alien ways of approaching this.

All good things come from God, and though you are confused by the actions of heretics who use the Lord's name in vain, I am not. I know my faith, and evil is the furthest thing from it. We do not kill in the name of God. We do not call crusades. In fact, we suffer the evils of governments who oppress us with no revolt. 

God knows what is on your heart, I do not. You say you do not believe my God, but I know that my God is written on the hearts of all. You do not recognize my God. But whether you acknowledge it or not, my God is closer to you than your breathe.

All the priests at my parish are married. I don't think pedophilia is an issue.

None of this is applicable to The Orthodox Church and what it teaches.

What do we really teach? The Truth sets you free. There is certainly no compulsion here. No power grab. We are a nation of priests.

The joke is that everyone can't even agree that The Ultimate Reality exists.

If they can't agree on that, there is nothing we can all agree on.

No matter your reasons, I wouldn't discourage you from doing these things.

The law of God is even written on the hearts of those who do not know God, and that is what scripture says.

It can certainly be a good thing. What makes it good? 

I know that charity in the Christian sense comes from loving God. For some, it is an aesthetic choice. Would it be the same for them? I don't think so. Some do it for the sake of utility. Is it the same for them? I don't think so.

Detached from God, these "moral principles" are not really Christian.

The letter kills, the spirit gives life.

That is The Roman Catholic Church, and they have not been Orthodox for over a thousand years.

In fact, it wouldn't be a stretch to call them heretics. The church has never accepted their doctrine that The Pope is King of all Christians. They have altered the faith quite a bit.

Religion =/= institution

We have a continuity of governance.

We call the Orthodox Church Noah's arc.

Considering it is the only institution that is 2000 years old(arguably older too if you respect our claims as the continuation of Israel), that seems appropriate.

And just like all the nations from that time are gone, Orthodoxy will remain long after all your governments collapse, and your societies destroy themselves.

Lord have mercy.

The Onion without a doubt is the most reliable.

Pride leads people to do silly things like judge the creator of all creation .

No, God is clearly the righteous judge.

Plot twist

Brutaltruth blocked me which means he doesn't think theists should be allowed to express their opinions.

Lul

It was the last thing I thought I'd become, because on the surface it looks very off putting and foreign. However, I eventually realized that it is in fact True Religion.

It was a process, for sure.

@blockedtruth

The fact that you are having an experience is proof that there is some form of existence. If there is some form of existence, there has to be a way things truly are. Existence as it actually is.

The Supreme Existence, the way it actually is, that is what we call God.

@brutaltruth

The fact that you exist and have an experience is evidence of God.

You can keep me blocked all you want though. It makes you look bad, not me.

I don't see it.

All these atheists talk of created gods, but they can't even approach God, The Ultimate Reality, who cannot be created.

Obviously you can't totally know God. If you did, you would know everything about everything. That is certainly beyond the capability of man.

Denial of ultimate reality is certainly an idiotic position. I am unrepentant for holding this viewpoint.

If you would answer the OP, that would be a contribution to this topic. I'm not really interested in your flame bait projecting.

Let me be clear. I am not talking about either of us as individuals. I am talking about the underpinning of the respective outlooks.

Humanism is certainly built off of pride in humanity. And that is where its morality comes from.

Morality in Orthodoxy does not come from a pride in humanity, it comes from loving The Truth. After all, how can you condemn another when really you are even guilty of the same things? We have all been wrong, and unintentionally even. So we show charity to one another. Not only for that reason, but because purifying the heart in order to see The Truth naturally makes one a more charitable person as attachments and passions go by the wayside.

Love of God accomplishes what love of humanity attempts to accomplish, and by making love of humanity the end all be all, it actually doesn't really work in itself.

Love of God is superior to love of humanity.

Every ethical thing that one can attempt as an end itself is accomplished as a by product of loving God. Be it the way we treat other people, being good to the environment, being happy with life, or competence in the work place. All of these things come from loving God. Humanism and reason cannot do any of these things.

But let me make this clear, I am not talking about us as individuals. I am talking about the underpinnings of these respective outlooks.

And everytime I correct those who perpetuate this misrepresentation, they persist in repeating it.

I do not use a dictionary to prove God. That is silly. I use a dictionary to prove that atheists are arbitrary and in denial of reality. It works too, because it is obvious that the atheist is simply refusing to talk about the same thing I am talking about.

But there are several people, including those who frequent this forum, who have come to realize something through this simple use of the dictionary.

No, I use the dictionary to prove that people like you are unreasonable. I believe posterity will rule in my favor overwhelmingly.

I don't care if you are the greatest sophist in the world, no argument stands against God.

No matter how many times that straw man gets repeated, it doesn't become any more true.

The Orthodox Church didn't call Crusades, that is all on Rome.

Who sacked Orthodox Churches during said Crusades, btw.

And even if a few wicked priests slip through, the church is constructed in such a way that no lasting damage can be dine by them.

You can mock me, my beliefs, and my church all you want, but know that I still see your worldview as juvenille. As for what you think of mine, you don't even understand it to judge it.

And to be frank, I don't believe for a second you dominate anyone. Maybe in your little constructed fantasy land, but certainly not in the real world.

You can't prove that The Ultimate Reality was invented by man. In fact, your assertion is idiotic and not worthy of consideration.

That isn't what I said.

But I mean, look at you. You talk about dominating people. I certainly didn't accuse you of that, you freely gave that info away.