Mopac

You may feign civility, Merlin but your heart is full of abomination, and your denial of The Truth is far more insulting than any rude things I might say to these two here, especially since you, being just as wicked in your nihilism feign rationality. 

There is nothing reasonable about your denial of Ultimate Reality.

 

"Why" isn't really a bad question, I might be hasty in that judgement. There are plenty of good why questions.

But why did God create anything? The simple answer is because it was God's will to do so. 

Right-o, keep to the subject.

I don't think you two are misinformed, I think you two don't care.

Nihilists. True blue atheists you two are. Complete and utter fools. That is why my engagement with you two is kept to a minimum. You had your chances. Kind of blew it.

I don't take either of you seriously, I think you're idiots. Losers.

Ultimately, I think it is better to learn from the people who believe it than the people who don't. In the case of Orthodoxy, I would advise finding a priest. Maybe an older one with a good reputation.

Such negative attitudes towards marriage. Why so cynical?

Meanwhile, the orphans keep multiplying. It's like, hey, lets sculpt our entire worldview around how to better destroy society.

Blindness. I don't get it.

I believe what I am saying, and there is nothing Christian about killing people for their beliefs. 

You need to understand something. We are not Roman Catholics. The Roman Catholic church broke away from us because The Pope thinks he is the king of all Christians, and really, probably the world. They were excommunicated. They even persecuted us Orthodox. They give Christians a bad name. And so do the hundreds of churches that broke away from them.

So you are very mistaken.

I studied Islam with the intent of maybe becoming a Muslim. I read the Koran in its entirety half a dozen times, and was actually being guided by commentaries and such which tried to convince me that all this really horrific sounding stuff was very contextual. I was able to give it the benefit of the doubt. I thought, ok, maybe this could be a religion of peace.

Then, like I said, I read the hadith, and it all of a sudden became a lot harder to give that benefit of the doubt.

Now, even if you were to give it that credit, Islam is utterly incompatable with western society, which is decadent, pagan, and abominably offensive to the Islamic mindset. It is very hard to detach Islam from government.

I have friends who are Muslim, they are nice enough.

I am not a Muslim, and I treat Muslims with love and respect. I believe my religion is superior.

"Why" is a question that can have any number of answers, because causality is a great deal more complicated than "this happens because of that"

The Word of God is Truth.

If something doesn't exist in truth, it doesn't exist.

That is why it is written

And also why it is written

Orthodox Christians do not believe in holy wars or crusades.

The weapons of our warfare are spiritual, not carnal.

And fyi, the Roman Catholics, who are notorious for this sort of thing... they were killing Orthodox Christians during the crusades. 

And unfortunately, we get blamed for a lot of things the Romans did/do. We don't do inquisitions or any of that heinous business.

Well, if you think you have it all figured out...

..believe what you want to believe.

It is at least plain to me that you are not exercising righteous judgement. 

You don't really know me or my faith.

At least one of these things I am here to help educate people about.

Shame is a Roman Catholic thing. We Orthodox don't see church as a courthouse, but a hospital. It is a very different mentality.

There is nothing about atheism to be educated about. It isn't a system of beliefs. It is a belief at most and a lack of belief at least. 

And to question the existence of, or even to outright deny The Ultimate Reality is not a position that deserves to be taken seriously. It really deserves mockery. It is an idiotic position.

And rather than call the atheist stupid, I say they are fundamentally misinformed about God. My God is The Truth. Are you going to say it is true that there is no truth? Are you going to say it is reality that there is no reality? I would hope not. What atheist does? A real atheist. A nihilist. So lets be clear that atheism is a position based on superstition, not belief in God.

I don't care about your evil suspicions. 

None of your business.

How is that for an answer?

You are not my confessor.

I certainly tried to give you informative answers.

You know, the most charitable benefit of the doubt type readings of the Koran might give the impression that... sure, uh.. maybe this is a religion of peace...

It becomes a lot harder after you read the hadith.

God is literally, not figuratively, The Ultimate Reality.

That is what God means.

What atheist accepts this?

Well, by not accepting this, they are not actually disputing God, but a strawman or really, a false idol god.

Oh, you don't believe in that god? Neither do I. I only recognize The Ultimate Reality as God. You say this God doesn't exist? Well, I can't help but think that makes little sense.

In the book you pretend to be an expert on.

"Why" is rarely a good question. Why did God make anything?

It is what it is.

Woah, I'm not arguing for God's existence. See, the west had this scholastic movement in the church that lead to this kind of thing, but we Orthodox never fell for that sophistry.

God exists. There is nothing to argue or prove. If you deny God, you are either ignorant or crazy. We understand God as The Truth, so how can one be in doubt about this? It's not a sane position.

I never said that atheists were into bestiality or rape, I said, to rephrase that they have no good reason to not live like animals who are simply motivated by their desires.

You are not a rapist because you don't want to be. And that is my point. Arbitrariness is the standard of the atheist. It really comes down to personal whim.

What did I consider to be moral?

Whatever satisfied my own personal set of aesthetics of what good was, like anyone else who has a morality based on arbitrary standards. If you are wanting me to give you specific things that are good and bad, that isn't how we understand morality.

See, if I were to say, "such and such is bad", that wouldn't be true, because there is something else attached to it that makes it bad. In general, what is bad to the Orthodox is idolatry. To the atheist, idolatry is the norm and it isn't even acknowledged as being a thing. They would lack the discernment to even see idolatry.

After all, if you don't believe in gods, how can you see them?

To be frank, I think most Americans live a life of bestial enslavement to lust, and this is based off of observation.

The people who are in this are blind to it though, they see it as normal.

Oh no, atheists have plenty of arbitrary reasons for doing anything. What I am saying is there is no consistent set reason to do anything because the standard is... as I pointed out, arbitrary. There is no consistent "atheist" way of doing things.

Atheists don't know what God is, and the ones that do are nihilists.

"And God said, Let there be light: and there was light"

I'm not sure I understand the question.

Have I ever been wrong? All the time.

Have I ever rebelled against something I didn't understand only to realize later that what I was rebelling against was the truth? Sure, you could say that was a good chunk of my education. Being haughty and having to learn things the hard way.

I do my best to follow God. 

Sure though, sometimes even posting here, I am not as charitable as maybe I should be, and I know it. I usually feel bad about it later, even though sometimes it is very satisfying to insult someone at the time of me falling short.

Well, I am not trying to trap you. Maybe you should explain what you think that means.

How do I understand it? Very simply, everything in all of creation came into being by God's Word. God said "Be", and there it is.

What is meditation to you?

When you said that the way I view Jesus is very different than how others view Jesus, my response was not specifically aimed at you, I was trying to tell you that the wrong views that you have heard are not the right view. If you want to take that personal, go ahead, but really, you would not be talking about the same thing.

So you are saying that you don't believe The Word of God? I thought you said you were Jewish? Or am I mistaken in assuming that you are a Jew who believes in God?

Purify the heart. Cleanse the nous.

Or....

Would the one who compelled you to shoot be the murderer?

We need some law whizzes in he'ah.

We Orthodox practice an acetic lifestyle and fast more than half the year. I myself don't eat meat or use animal products. I recycle more than I throw away by a considerable magnitude.

I think we are doing our part for the environment.

Atheists have no good reason to not live a bestial life of enslavement to lust and swine like indulgence.

Atheists are deluded. They think they have no gods when a simple observation of their habits and motivations reveal that they in fact have many gods.

Atheists are a myth. There are only pagans in denial.

I haven't really even tried to be perauasive yet. Why would I bother when you haven't even acknowledged that you received what I said?

Not an ounce of curiosity in you, eh? 

I am simply saying that the Jesus you acknowledge is not the same Jesus I believe in. It isn't the Jesus that Orthodoxy accepts either. You are effectively accusing us of worshipping a man as God, which we both know is a terrible superstition.

I am here to educate. You can either make use of the opportunity, or go on believing what you want.

The judge banged his gavel and said l, "Prostitution is illegal... unless I can watch it!"

Which is why prostitution is ok as long as a camera is present.

I never did understand why prostitution is illegal, but pornography is legal. 

I am simply trying to give you a basic understanding of something so that we can discuss it meaningfully. 

If you have it made up to harden your heart, just know that it is your God you reject, not me.

Morality to us Orthodox is about what brings us closer to God.

That being the case, it is likely very alien to what you think of when you think of morality.

If God is The Truth, what is moral in the Orthodox sense? Illuminating the Nous. Purifying the heart. 

If you were humble, you would ask the rightful interpreters of scripture to teach you about it.

Instead, you lean on your own understanding.

The church simply doesn't believe the things you say, and it is our scripture, not yours. You are arrogant if you think you can overthrow 2000 years of tradition.

Your words are backed with no authority. You are like a little yappy chihuahua.

In this case, it doesn't really matter what you believe, what matters is what you are professing to believe.

That, you don't believe in the truth.

Is that how most atheists understand atheism? No, that is why they have been deceived into their position.

Well, it doesn't really matter how people who are mistaken believe, because the truth isn't arbitrary.

I can see you don't like it when other people tell you what you believe, and define your faith for you. Well, has it occured to you that maybe this little point here is so integral to the whole thing that it makes the difference between pagan delusion and True Religion?

So if you simply refuse to be corrected on this, it becomes easy to dismiss the whole thing without ever having to get understanding about it.

That certainly is not righteous judgement.

Of course there is reality to freewill.

We certainly can perceive it. We experience it. Sure, we can find all sorts of ways to intellectually sweep it under the rug, but it is there.

You can always say that certain things and even variables unaccounted for led to a certain action. How can you argue against this? Likewise, how can you argue against the fact that we clearly have the ability to choose, as proven by our personal experience.

The point is, it is an absurd debate.

So what is beneficial? What is useful? What is good? At the very least, if nothing else can be controlled in an individual's life, they can at least choose to make peace with it or make war with it. It is better to make peace with it. Waring with it leads to suffering.

You can choose to accept proof or not.

It is not useful to deny freewill. 

You can change the way you think. Change your attitude. Change your life even. Maybe hearing that causes someone to act on it. Does it matter?

While this is a big mystery, the important thing here is that we at least have the subjective perception of free will, and it is silly to deny that there is reality to this. People are more capable of being cured of their ailments than often yimes is thought.

The Soviets in Russia saw themselves as being part of something bigger than themselves, and they murdered more people even than the Nazis, who also saw themselves as being a part of something bigger than themselves.

Belief that something beyond your own life matters is really not that hard for anyone to do. Even the pagans will sacrifice their lives for their loved ones. Their family. Their country. Some ideal.

At some point or another, every atheist must grapple with the absurd. How do many deal with it? Not much has changed in the last couple centuries. They decide that they can arbitrarily decide and make life's meaning.

And that is what atheism is to the core. An embrace of arbitrariness. If there is no truth, truth is whatever I make it out to be. Whatever is convenient. Whatever works for me.

But the thing is, in the end, none of this will be fulfilling. The Truth is what liberates oneself from vanity. The Truth is the only salvation from this world of suffering. 

Without it, people can go on living their lives constantly entertained and amused by media, eating more in a day than some in the world eat in a week, and living their lives satisfying every impulse and pleasure while saying to themselves, "I'm a good person, and I don't live a hedonistic life. Look, at how they are living, they are the amoral and selfish, not I".

Meanwhile the world outside is falling apart, the love of self is magnified, the love of many is waxing cold, and people through covetousness masquerading as compassion call for the looting and robbing of others to solve all these problems piling up.. problems that are primarily the result of a real spiritual sickness.

And if a real awakening doesn't happen soon, and I mean a mass awakening, people might wake up to find themselves in a land where they are no longer free to abuse the liberty they once geld dear. They may find that what they thought was liberty was in fact slavery to vice, and it was this vice that fooled them into denying the truth. These idols chosen in preference to The Truth will not save, and will lead those seduced by them into perdition.

God is The Truth.

If sin means to fall short...

Well, quite naturally I fall short of The Truth. I am wrong. I guess incorrectly. I am surprised. I learn. I am surprised.

Reality is the check.

The atheist denies my God, knowingly or not, and in doing so, they are denying reality and truth itself.

My position has and always has been that most people are atheists because they don't know any better.

If we use "unimpeded" in the definition of free will, it certainly is a ridiculous thing to believe, because the fact that I can't choose to jump to the moon and back handidly disproves freewill.

It's not the same Jesus though. We don't worship a man as God, even you and the Muslims would agree that this is an error.

Our beliefs are not supported by texts, but The Holy Spirit, The Spirit of Truth we certainly believe inspired the authors of scripture. Scripture itself though is a part of church tradition. 

So Jews and Muslims are not even really looking at the same thing. So it actually is a very relevant to point out that we are not talking about the same thing.

The Jesus Christ that we recognize in Orthodoxy is The Word of God, which obviously existed before a historical figure could walk the Earth.

My God is The Ultimate Reality.

Understanding that, what is an atheist?

Someone who doesn't believe there is truth.

What am I supposed to believe? It's an invalid and abominable superstition. 

There is no shortage of wickedness to gaze on in this world. 

I gather from your response that you assume determinism. That may have something to do with our disconnect. Until you can establish determinism there is no reason to accept that we don't make "choices".

This is the fundamental problem with the freewill/determinism debate. It is really an absurd argument.

What determines our choices?

We certainly have an experience of choice, even if what we choose is largely determined by prior and current experience.

You can choose to accept that you don't have any control. 

I am not really trying to formulate a stereotype of atheists. Obviously, there are many types of atheists.

I am of the opinion that atheism tends to be a position of ignorance rather than a knowing denial of God. What atheist denies my God? There are atheists that claim to, but they nearly always deny a god I myself don't believe in.

But truthfully, atheists are consistently arbitrary. They lack the discernment to make moral judgement calls. Morality for the atheist is what conforms to a personal sense of aesthetics. 

There is nothing unusual about people being nice to others, especially those who are nice to them. What is unusual is blessing your persecutors. 

In other words, you see Jesus as simply a man at best.

Well, we Orthodox Christians do not see Jesus as being a man, but The Word of God.

Not that a man is The Word of God, but The Word of God as it is. The very Word of God that everything came into being from.

Yeah, the thing that freaks me out the most about atheists in the west is that they sound exactly like the Soviets who killed millions of my brothers and did everything they could get away with doing to destroy the church.

The Soviet Union may be gone, but the effects of KGB meddling in the education system, media, and culture of the people here didn't stop its momentum with the dissolution of The Soviet Union. 

And I am seriously concerned for the well being of my people in the future of America because this place is filled with useful idiots hell bent on bringing about a socialist revolution right here in the states. 

The nihilism that naturally accompanies the atheist mindset is fundamentally anti-human, and I don't think many God deniers are aware of the implications of their worldview.

If an atheist government is put into place, they will persecute the church, I have little doubt. It is not really uncommon to hear the atheist refer to religion as a mind virus. This is the same outlook that atheistic and communist countries tend to have. 

So who do you say Jesus is?

Imagine if everytime an event was recorded that had a similarity to another event, we immediately assumed that the later event must be an untrue copy cat story.

I wonder how many so called skeptic bobbleheads will say, "Oh this must be it!"

No wait, I'm lying, I don't care.