Mopac

The Ultimate Reality is God.

By The Spirit of Truth, it is The Divine Word made flesh.

And so The Father is revealed in The Son, by The Holy Spirit which proceeds from The Father and through The Son. 

If you do not see The Father in The Son, you do not see by The Holy Spirit.

Not human sacrifice. Self sacrifice. Becoming less in order that Christ be magnified.

To be a living sacrifice.

It was precisely Israel's faith in Moses, who placed his faith in the God of Abraham, that allowed them to escape the sorceries of the Egyptian pagans and be consecrated as a people set apart to reveal God to the nations.

And so God has been revealed as The Ultimate Reality.

The written word "God" being in itself the flesh of The Divine Word. It is through The Incarnate Word that The Ultimate Reality is witnessed, and if you deny this, The Holy Spirit is not in you.

The Divine Word of God is Truth, The Holy Spirit is Truth. God is One with His Word and Spirit.

To the glory of The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit.

Those who abide in The Eternal Way are of the true nation of Israel. God knows those who are His.

Before we adopted the name that originated from pagans mocking us for our practice of chrismation, we simply identified our faith as "The Way".

Orthodox Christianity is The Eternal Way.

The Ultimate Reality is God, and no sophistry of man can undermine this.

At the start, most Christians were Jewish. Even Jesus and his disciples were Jewish.

The Church sees itself as being the successor to ancient Israel. Who are the people who call themselves Jews today? Descendants of those who rejected Christ.

I'd also like to point out that the books of the bible that account the history of the ancient Israelites make it pretty clear that this law was unenforceable, as idolatry was a problem that plagued the Jewish people throughout their history, it even being seen as the primary reason Israel was conquered by the Abyssinians and Babylonians.

That explains the existence of the universe.

The Ultimate Reality is God.

If paying lip service to Jesus was all that was required, Christ himself wouldn't have said, "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven."

You are right to say that The Truth is not contingent.

It isn't enough to simply confess your sins, there has to be an honest effort to do differently. Repentance is what I am talking about.

So the idea that you can just sin wildly and that is ok because you admit it is neither biblical nor what the church teaches.

This post is mainly aimed at doubting Thomas over here, not Supadudz, who probably already knows this.

I think what they believe is moreso that the reality they experience is all that is real. 

Sure, you could say everyone believes reality exists. We believe that God is written on the hearts of all. That being the case, not everyone acknowledges God as being God. This in no way diminishes the fact that The Ultimate Reality is God whether anyone chooses to acknowledge this or not.

It should be obvious. The church not only wrote the New Testament, but even determined what is canon.

We know what we use the scriptures to teach. It seems silly to believe anyone else. It's a matter of respecting the opinion that logically has the greatest authority on the matter.

To better answer your question, it is simply a matter of accepting that the scriptures belong to the church, and interpretation outside of the context of the church ignores what should be obvious. That the bible is inseparable from the church.

The church is not a building. If that was the case, I would be making a silly claim.

I am talking about the Apostolic Church, that is, The Orthodox Catholic Church.

Sure, but I think it is worth noting that removed from the church, the bible isn't being studied in the proper context.

The Ultimate Reality obviously exists, there is no pretending.

I don't believe because I care about living.

I think this argument can be useful for identifying God, because The Ultimate Reality is really all that can explain the universe's existence.

Good religion is not about deluding oneself into coping with reality. Good religion is about accepting reality, and making peace with it.

If making peace with reality is a cope, what isn't?

If you do not believe that God's Word and Breathe share in his divinity, then naturally it couldn't be said that Christ is God made flesh, because The Word is not divine.

But you are expressing a lot of positions that do not simply contradict what the church has always believed, but what is the testimony of scripture.

It is very necessary that Christ is God, as this ties up a line of prophecy that began when the ancient Israelites demanded a human king like everyone else. 

The scriptures make it clear that Jesus Christ was born of the virgin Mary. She was not impregnated by Joseph. The church knows that Mary herself was a descendant of David through her parents Joachim and Anna. Joachim being from the tribe of Judah and a descendant of David. Anna was from the tribe of Levi.

I think it is important to note that The Catholic Church has always been the Christian Church. The thing that makes it somewhat confusing these days is that The Latin church which goes by the name "Catholic" actually broke off from the Catholic Church over a thousand years ago, and have officially been in schism for about a thousand years. Since then, they have made further innovations which make reconciliation nearly impossible. We have never accepted Papal Supremacy as a doctrine.

Alright, I'll be nicer to the clown.

Actually, I already mentioned to you that there were several other giants, and the one you are mistaking for the Goliath that David killed is acknowledged to be the brother of that Goliath. The book of omitted things, or Chronicles as it is in most English bibles, is less ambiguous about this.

I don't care what you believe about our scriptures. 

What do you really believe?

Nah, I realized that used properly, the argument works.

My gut reaction towards proving God with logic is that questioning the existence of God is in itself ludicrous and wicked if you recognize that The Truth is God.

How dare anyone be so arrogant as to deny The Truth.

So what I believe completes the argument is the invocation. In that invocation, The Trinity is simultaneously witnessed while at the same time the Oneness of God is confessed.

See post 8, and may Christ be your wisdom.

I don't believe he does. He is only saying whatever he thinks might sound convincing. He doesn't believe a thing he says. He sees a goal, and from that point his intent is to reach that goal by any means necessary.

You are the first person I have ever heard in my life insinuate that Jesus murdered John the baptist.

Come on, you're a troll disguised as the Alex Jones of antichrists, armed with your skeptics annotated bible, and a zeal only matched by trolls disguised as bible thumping autists who are impervious to conversation.

No one takes your conspiracy theories seriously, you're a crank.

You probably know it too.

Based on what you have told me so far, I think you might profit by looking into some church history on the subject of arianism. 

You are obviously some troll's caricature of a TOTAL ASSHOLE. Definitely not a Christian by any true sense of what that means.

I don't doubt you or your father's sincerity. I think it is very important to believe the same Jesus Christ as the apostles taught. Would we agree on this?

It is the teaching of the apostolic church that God's Word and Breathe share in His divinity.

Does that make sense? Do you believe that God's Word and Breathe share in His divinity?

No, both you and Stephen are deserving of mockery. Ethan is right to laugh.

No one believes you are a real Christian, and Stephen has gone mad in his vain imaginings.

You are both here to be clowns. To call you two clowns is a great deal more respect than either of you give to this subject matter or those who debate you. 

Humility.

Charity.

Strive for these virtues and everyone will have a better time.

I think you truly do have it backwards.

"All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field:

No, it isn't.

It is The Ultimate Reality that gives existence to the universe.

Therefore,

The Ultimate Reality is God.

Am I doing it right?

I'm not the brightest cookie.

The next step of course would be to pray....

Father God, by the power of Thy Holy Spirit, this Word, The written Word of "God" be sanctified and rightly proclaimed to be the very incarnation of Divine Truth in The Flesh, and let it be recognized that you and and your incarnation are One, that no confusion be there between divine nature and created nature, but let them be demonstrated to be united in that divine hypostasis of Your Incarnate Word.

May all who are worthy partake of the transcendent bread of life. May all those who do not discern the body be put to shame.

To the glory of The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit who are blessed now and ever and unto ages of ages amen.

Somewhat relevant Byzantine style chant in English.

Right on

Ethang says that you aren't a Christian for being a libertarian. I don't think the two are mutually exclusive.

But Christianity is Trinitarian, it always has been. 

What do you believe about Jesus?

It seems very American in spirit.

WITHOUT starting fires. Lol.

Basically, the tiniest government that can possibly work. I don't think libertarians are against law enforcement so much as having laws to enforce! The bare minimum.

Well, we all are familiar with the parable of sorting the sheep from goats, eh?

Bull shit cannot be The Ultimate Reality, because bull shit comes from bulls. Never mind all the things that bulls need to exist and produce colon loaf.

If it requires something else to exist, it cannot be God.

That is why an explanation cannot be God.

I think the ideal is to get as close to anarchy as you can without setting everything on fire.

Oh, but not like communism which is like... government enforced anarchy... 

....

Libertarians like the smallest government possible.

Wasn't that like the whole point of the feature to begin with?

Yeh

You get more likes

Libertarians can't be Christian?

Can't you like your own posts?

Edit: sure can

Noumenon can't be God!

I dispute that an explanation could be God, because explanations are contingent on the existence of an explainer.

The Ultimate Reality can not be contingent. In that same way, God can not be a conception, because a conception requires a thinker.

An explanation is inherently a conception. A conception is inherently an object of the mind, or noumenon. Noumenon can't be God.

Someone who loves God will be thankful for what they have. Dwelling on ones past losses is an unhealthy fetter.

You know The Ultimate Reality exists, and even knowing what that means you can discern rightly that God is to a great extent incomprehensible.

But we know God exists because of The Truth that is incarnate and witnessed in creation. We know that to a certain extent, we all have the ability to discern between right and wrong, truth and falsehood. It is built into us. The truth is, this sense can be trained and honed.

The orthodox discipline, and the historical Christian discipline is centered around purifying and honing this sense. We don't do this alone. Isolation very easily leads to pride is the root of much spiritual delusion. Even hermits take wise council and partake in eucharistic liturgy.

The law of Moses was created as a guideline. If the intent of the law is lost, all you have is the law itself. Fulfilling the law by letter is in itself not what makes someone righteous.

The law of Moses is a type and shadow of God's Law, which is Truth, and governs the universe. That is why we say Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of The Law and The Prophets, because Christ is The Divine wisdom that The Law is a shadow of.