Mopac

What you are describing is not really atheism then, because atheism is the rejection of ultimate reality.

There is no consistent atheist belief. Atheism in its truest form is nihilism.

What happens when you reject ultimate reality? You have materialism. That is, what matters to me ism. And sure enough, atheism even among those who profess it in ignorance tends to take the form of the embrace of arbitrariness.

Is that the view you have of me? Well... that certainly is not how I see myself. I am not infallible, and can even say that I have misspoke many times even on this forum. I am by no means perfect. I am very imperfect.

You say God is a person. I will tell you that this word is a translation, and the proper word is Hypostasis. Really if you want to get deeper into it three hypostases. We Orthodox always refer to God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Yet really, 1 Hypostasis. It's a mystery that is integral to the whole thing.

Hypostasis though, That alone right there should clear a great deal up.

Children are told to recite it before they understand it. I think there is something vile about that.

By contrast, the church teaches a creed, a declaration of belief, and every Sunday at my church they teach the kids about a different line of the creed and what it means. The kids are right there with the adults, everbody else. Even the aduots learn from what is taught to the kids! And I like that, because we are supposed to come as children.

I could go on and on about how beautiful liturgy is, which is what I feel like doing now, but that is off topic. Hah.

By the grace of God, because I am really better at messing up than making the right decision on anything. 

Logic and independently verifiable evidence isn't what really convinces people.

People might say that is what they find convincing, but I think that is naive view.

The church position on pledges and oaths as far as I know is... don't do them, because really, all oaths are like oaths to God. They shouldn't be taken lightly. That being the case, they should be avoided.

Well, I can't experience things for you.

On the whole pledge of allegiance thing, that might be considered an oath.

We Orthodox are not really supposed to make oaths. In fact, we don't even make vows at our weddings!

That said, we always pray for civil authorities.

The experience of the church.

No, I am actually using the dictionary properly. If you want, there are instructions on how to use the dictionary hosted on their website that make it clear what is subsumed, what is exhaustive, etc.

Also, Christian Scientists are heretics, I am not a Christian Scientist.

But Merriam-webster is certainly not as authoritative as 2000 years of Church Tradition, and I know from the writings of countless monastics and saints that God is understood as That which Truly Is, Was, and Forever Will Be.

So we understand God as The Ultimate Reality.

And it isn't nonsense. You trying to argue against God is nonsense, as are all arguments against God.

Fyi, trying to logically grasp God is also a very Latin thing. Scholasticism, which was rejected by Orthodoxy btw, likely has a great deal to do with the rise of protestantism and its child, secularism.

The deist says that God has no interaction with creation. Orthodoxy teaches that we have a personal, synergistic relationship with God. 

You don't get to make up the meanings of words.

We, the church, understand God as being The Ultimate Reality, which truly, if you understand what that means, is beyond defining.

Fyi "hypostases" is really the word rather than "person".

The Ultimate Reality exists

The Ultimate Reality is God

Therefore God exists.

In light of these facts, your argument is nonsensical.

A double minded man is unstable in all of his ways.

You are thinking in a legalistic sense, which is not how we think.

Playing the blame game is fundamentally in opposition to a heart of forgiveness.

You who are corrupted by the excommunicated church see the church as a courthouse. That isn't the Orthodox view. We see the church as a hospital. And this legalistic mindset would be seen as a sickness to be cured.

Ok, you can call yourself a hard skeptic.

I will call you a nihilist.

You, after all, can't admit that there is truth. You give this wishy washy assertion, "The truth probably exists.". Which is really your backdoor to revert to full on nihilism whenever it is convenient for you to do so.

The Truth exists, and if you don't "know" this to be the case, it cannot be explained away by "There is a difference between belief and knowledge " because it is only your belief that causes you to doubt what is the evident truth.

The Truth obviously exists, and nothing else makes sense. No amount of sophistry, rhetoric, or semantic perversion is going to overthrow REALITY, which is what you are doubting in the existence of.

There is nothing reasonable about your epistemological nihilism.

Some truth probably exists =/= not an admission that truth definitely exists.

The nihilist is too cool to actually believe anything.

A nihilist doesn't believe in truth, so it stands to reason that they would reject the idea that it is true that they are a nihilist.

Look, I understand it is arbitrary to you, but to the church it isn't.  The church doesn't do this. We have Church Tradition which means that these sort of things you speak of don't fly.

So rest assured, The Orthodox Church has the truth concerning scripture.

You can breathe a sigh of relief that it isn't these wingnut protestant anarchists.

You are a nihilist, it's obvious. Don't kid yourself.

When it comes to scripture, you have to understand that it belongs to the church. It isn't really yours to interpret.

Why is it important to blame someone for something?

The only way you are going to stop drugs is to stop doing them. Are you going to blame the drugs? The people handing you the drugs? Stop taking them. You have a choice. Nobody ever said it would be easy all the time, but you still have a choice.

All the people telling you otherwise, no matter how impressive their credentials, are wrong. You want to be a slave? Listen to those people. 

This legalistic attitude you are expressing here is very alien to Orthodox thinking. This is a western thing. The excommunicated Roman Church thinks like this. The protestant churches that broke from them often think like this. The dehumanizing death cult of secularism thinks like this.

And like I said, this type of thinking is alien to orthodoxy.

You don't even believe in logic, you're a nihilist. You simply don't have a working sense of discernment. 

Your appeal to rationality is absurd. 

The Ultimate Reality is The Truth. You say this only supports deism? You say this is The Truth when you yourself don't even really believe The Truth.

You also don't even really believe in Deism. You are being disingenuous.

Protestantism and all the little offshoots of it leads to secularism.

You say The Ultimate Reality leads to deism at best because you think you know everything. Well, I already know you are going to deny that, because really you argue from the position of a nihilist, which means you don't really believe in reality you just say whatever is convenient.

Anti-Christ

That is really your mentality. That is where your education has brought you. 

It's wrong though. You don't believe in wrong though, because like depression, your nihilism is self perpetuating.

God doesn't make mistakes either.

So like the free will discussion, this really has to do with moral culpability, because that is where this comes from.

Because if God did everything and there is no free will, that means I cannot be blamed for my actions.

There is a choice we all can make. To go with God or detach ourselves from God. God has given us the choice. God isn't going to force us. So lets be clear, God does not send people to hell. People choose to go to hell, and the door is locked from the inside.

Without free will, there is no "moral culpability".

And isn't that really what all this is about?

Really there is nothing to argue about, because atheist arguments don't deserve to be taken seriously.

Lack of evidence?

"Prove to me that it is true that there is truth!"

It is foolish to even doubt that God exists.

The Ultimate Reality exists.

The best argument for atheism is ignorance.

Deism is the belief that God created the universe, but does not interact with it.

Naturally this denies the incarnation. It also denies God's omnipresence.

It's probably a dualistic heresy.

The Christian God is The Ultimate Reality.

You just don't know that is the Christian God because you don't know the Christian God.

But certainly, you could. I wouldn't tell you to profess to believe something you don't understand enough to really believe. What I would tell you is that there is something real there. The thing about the faith is, if you are full of pride or lack charity, you will never get it! And that is a hint if you ever seriously wanted to look into it. I would recommend talking to a priest with the intent of being taught. Don't be afraid to ask difficult things, they are likely used to that sort of thing. Likewise, don't throw the whole thing out because you don't get an answer that satisfies you. They are human you know, but if you want to learn, it is their job to help guide you into a knowing relationship with God, with spirit and truth.

But no, there are plenty of people who believe in God who are not Christian. Orthodoxy is the correct faith though, and though the attitude of the world seems to be "anything but that!" There is a reason for this. It is the same reason that we are nicknamed the church of martyrs. The devil really is trying to destroy our church, because it isn't in the best interests of those trying to enslave us that people know The Truth. 

Anyway, I'd tell you to just keep it on your mind. Don't outright dismiss it. There is more there than you are likely aware of.

I'd like to note that I've had plenty of Muslim friends who are very nice people and make for good conversation. I don't believe in persecuting people for their faith either.

"Love perfected casts out all fear."

At least one former Muslim I knew became a Christian after talking with me, and they were Iranian. You can get killed for that sort of thing in Iran! In fact, leaving Islam is punishable by death under Muslim law.

We Orthodox Christians do not kill apostates, we pray for them.

A Mosque in Chicago.

I told you, I was really considering it for a while.

But I eventually realized that there was something very wrong with it.

This was before I found Orthodox Christianity, which I feel very confident in. 

If you really want to learn, go to an Orthodox church and talk to a priest.

I think there is good enough consensus.

And beside that, I'd like to make it very clear that it is really difficult to interpret the Koran in a peaceful sense unless you are really trying to. 

I know it might be hard to accept for those who don't want to believe that this could be the case... but the entire goal of Islam as a religious political movement is the subjugation of the entire planet.

And I did notice this while studying Islam in the most charitable way I could, that Islam cannot be seperated from the state. Islam is the state.

And really, history speaks volumes. Islam spread by the sword even in the lifetime of its prophet, who really was not as nice of a fellow as his followers like to pretend he is.

Believe me, I don't like saying this stuff either. 

I go to an Antiochian church, and there are people there who are from the Muslim world. They are all in agreement that they are not nice to Christians over there. 

Well, mysteries are not really supposed to be immediately apprehended.

Strange as it may seem, you don't have to know everything to know something.

I certainly believe I know enough to make these statements. In fact, I say these things because I know! Of course, you don't know that.

But yeah, The Ultimate Reality is the uncaused caused.

Both of you have a very different idea of what morality is than I do. 

Really, as neither of you believe in God, morality is not something either of you are capable of discerning. Morality, like most anything, becomes an arbitrary thing that is down to a personal set of aesthetics.

So really, we are in different worlds here.

The Ultimate Reality did not begin to exist, if it did, it wouldn't be The Ultimate Reality.

But it would have to be the cause of everything. There is no other alternative.

This is only baffling if you think you have to completely understand or know something in order to believe it. Nobody completely understands or knows The Ultimate Reality. If they did, it wouldn't be The Ultimate Reality.

And The Ultimate Reality is God.

Everything may be completely determined.

It would be impossible to know this without knowing absolutely everything.

It's better to work with what we got. If our decisions are determined, that doesn't really effect our experience. In our experience, we have choice.

We don't really know how it all works. If everything is determined, we don't know how it is done. We can make decisions. Somehow, it has been determined that we can make decisions. If even our decisions are ultimately determined, us believing or disbelieving this doesn't really change what is.

The Orthodox Church teaches synergism, which is that there is a collaboration between God's grace and person's will. The fact of the matter is, it is this understanding that heals sickness.

Rather than a free will, I would go with an uncaused cause.

For me, the only moral thing to do would be to take one for the team. Not shoot.

Likewise, I am in no way guilty if someone were to, as an example, torture a group of people until I do something like apostate. The people who are doing the torturing or evil, and me refusing to give in to their demands does not shift the responsibility to me.

Ah, you beat me to it.

+1

Don't drink the tap water. 

Really, I have doubts that stuff is good for drinking... or even cooking with..

Seems like more of a law issue.

Morally? 

Don't let the threat of death compel you to shoot the gun.