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It is a choice to be charitable!
What is this topic about?
God is Love.
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@ludofl3x
If you don't believe me, then don't. My personal life is nobody's business.
If I wanted people to know who I was, I wouldn't be so ambiguous about myself.
I am an honest person. If you don't believe I am honest, I don't know what to tell you.
Charity believes people are honest about the things they say. What can I say? Show me some charity. Or don't, if that is the kind of life you want.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
I will cooperate a bit more, but you have to understand something very important.
The usefulness of the information you get is going to be contingent on how much you presume to understand what is being said, and your willingness to see it in a different way. In other words, you have to be sincere and open minded, charitable and willing to ask questions for the sake of clarifying rather than to debunk, and the humility to respect me as being more knowledgeable about my own faith than you.
So basically, you will get in what you put out. If you ask the wrong questions, you won't get good answers. If you presume to know and start attempting to debunk me, you are arguing against something you don't understand while at the same time spreading disinformation.
There is only so much that can be revealed through debate. The revelation really comes in the living of it, not the intellectualization of it. So understand that even if your heart is pure and you ask all the right questions, there is only so far you can go without living it.
1) Jesus is part of the Trinity that makes up god.2) God is The Truth3)Just need verification on whether it is possible to have a personal relationship with God and the list will be completed.
You have no hope of understanding us with a list of facts. Just on the upfront.
1) It would be more accurate to say Jesus Christ is one of The Trinity, because God is not divided into parts. Neither is God made up of parts.
2) God is The Ultimate Reality, His Word is The Truth, His Breathe is The Spirit of Truth. These 3 hypostasis share 1 common ousia. What that means is that God is One with his Word and Spirit. They are all divine. It is One God, not three Gods. Know that this is one of the mysteries of the faith, so if the meaning isn't apparent to you, that is because it is something to be experienced moreso than intellectualized.
Just as thanksgiving can only really be known through being thankful, so The Trinity is revealed by worshipping God in Spirit and Truth. To worship God in Spirit and Truth is to worship God in Trinity.
3) The personal relationship we have with God is our life. When we fall into idolatry by loving the transient things of this world more than God, we are not loving God. It is like loving the things that someone gives us, but hating the one giving the gifts.
When we love God, it is a process of examining our actions, behaviors, thoughts, influences, and passions that abide in our soul, and purifying ourselves of that which is not in accordance with walking The Eternal Way of Truth. It is walking that Eternal Way of Truth that expresses a knowing personal relationship with God. Someone who walks this Eternal Way abides in Christ Jesus, who is The Truth. In doing so, they are strengthened and purified naturally by that Comforter, The Spirit of Truth.
And so by God's grace, through unity with Christ Jesus share in His divinity by the sanctifying power of The Holy Spirit.
We can have a personal relationship with God because God is incarnate, and God is with us. It is God uniting creation to divinity in the hypostasis of The Son that sanctifies creation itself.
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@zedvictor4
You always go back to the "You are the way you are because of the way you were raised" argument.
The religion I was most exposed to growing up was satanism, witchcraft, and the like. I grew up on the south side of Chicago in the ghetto. Yeah, some form of Christianity was there, but like the other stuff, it didn't appeal to me. I developed my own custom personal religion you could say. Just like you! I even debated online back then, but I was debating as an atheist. I thought I was pretty good too, because according to the handful off people who would vote, I was a winner and I became very popular.
I changed. It only happened after years of learning charity and humility. The charity to listen and the humility to say, "I don't know, maybe" Instead of "I know better than to say I know."
In otherwords, I needed to go through a purification process before God would be revealed to me. When I was haughty and judgemental, I could not receive it.
But even after I realized I was a Christian, I didn't have a church. After finding frustration everywhere in evangelical/protestant churches, I just threw my arms up in the air and said, "Oh well, I guess this is just how it has got to be. I better concentrate on being a good Christian", and so I just volunteered to help do charitable things with churches.
I found Orthodoxy much later on. Now I actually can recommend people to a church instead of just handing them a bible, a team Jesus jersey, and then telling them to figure it out. I never in good conscience could recommend any protestant and evangelical churches because 1, they are far too varied and inconsistent, and 2 they often times preach glaring heresies from the pulpit, and just by resding the bible I could discern this.
No, I wasn't raised in a church or anything. When I was younger, I was thoroughly pagan. Not much different than all you around here whose lives revolve around entertainment. Ya'll have videogames, movies, trolling on the internet. My life was sex, drugs, and rock n' roll. Most of my life I was a musician. Not a very Christian environment at all.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
So you believe God exists, but you think the ontological argument is stupid?
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So you are attempting to disprove The Ultimate Reality's existence by imagining it away?
Even sounds delusional.
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@Barney
@Singularity
I think refraining from obvious logical fallacies such as bare assertions which are common place on this board should be included in the guide as well.
Not all assertions are logical arguments, so it would be a misidentification to call such statements fallacies.
And since you have falsely accused me of making this "logical fallacy" I see this as an attempt to censor me.
Ours is a revealed faith, and our theology is not understood through logical arguments. It is impossible to come to understand our faith in such a way. In fact, it is impossible to understand the faith without living it.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
You don't know what you are asking.
And to be frank, I don't respect your approach.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
If you refuse to accept that God is The Truth, how can I meaningfully answer your question?
This is not a topic about Christianity, it is a topic about what the word "God" means, and how it is superstitious to say that God doesn't exist in light of what the word means.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
Job is actually a very old and long poem. That might explain why you find it less of a chore to read. In a way, it was written to be beautiful.
Even though poetry doesn't always translate the best, some of that is still retained. Job in particular is noted as being a particularly hard book to translate in a lot of places. So much so that the septuigant version is a bit shorter due to difficulties in translating.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
This is not a topic about Christianity. You are not sincerely trying to learn anything, you are simply trying to construct a straw man argument to take down.
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And now with post 121 you see my other point. He avoids at all costs making any statement that is not a truism because it hurts his proto-ontological script.
It's got nothing to do with lack of security. I am very confident in the position I represent. Some of your questions are a reflection of a deeper superstition, and that is what I am addressing.
If you are removing weeds, simply chopping them will not do the trick. As long as the root is still there, the weeds will just grow again.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
As I have told you before in the past I have been to quite a few Orthodox Church services. One thing they definitely agreed on is that Jesus is part of the Trinity that makes up god. Did they get that part right?
Simply going to the orthodox church doesn't mean you learned anything. Were you a catechuman? Were you ever baptized? Chrismated?
Certainly We believe in The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit. You however, do not know what that means so it wouldn't be profitable to discuss it. Instead, if you want to learn Christianity, learn from a presbyter.
It is impossible to understand any of this stuff without first purifying the heart, and most of our discipline is aimed at purifying the heart. If you are not putting the faith into practice, even having the right ideas in your head won't profit you.
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@MisterChris
I'll agree that there is an ultimate reality, but I don't think it is necessarily knowable. Even if we could deduce that a God exists, I'm not sure that we could say for certain that an earthly religion is correct.
God is incomprehensible, but not totally unknowable. If that was the case, it wouldn't even be possible for us to discern anything.
Correct or orthodox religion is always a personal relationship with God. As Christ's parable of the fishing net shows us, even if you belong to the right church (the net), that doesn't mean that you got it. Some fish are thrown out. Likewise, the story of the good Samaritan shows that even someone belonging to the wrong religion can be justified before God.
We are to judge rightly, not based on appearances.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
If you don't think my answers are straight, perhaps it is because I am addressing the folly that leads you to ask questions that aren't useful.Yeah, read post 119. He actually gave a straight answer this time. You see what I mean now right?
We are instructed not to not answer foolish and unlearned questions. So if I don't answer your question directly, it would be better to think, "Why is he answering in this way?"
The answer should always be that I am addressing your faulty thinking rather than the question that comes from the faulty thinking. If you find that strange, the precedent for that can be found in scripture.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
I can not teach Christianity to someone who thinks they already understand it. In fact, that is my biggest obstacle here. People already think they understand Christianity when they don't.Teach us then. Let's start simple, how about you tell us five facts about God? I will even fill in the first two for you.1) God exists2) God is ultimate reality3)4)5)Fill in the other three yourself to teach us a bit about Christianity, then you won't have to whine about how everyone is ignorant of Christianity anymore!
Points 1 and 2 are the same thing.
You aren't interested in being taught anything. If you really are, I suggest you find an Orthodox Catholic Church and learn the proper way, not over the internet.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
If you don't believe there is ultimate reality, say...
"There is no ultimate reality"
If you do, then whether you acknowledge this as God or not, that is what God is.
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@EtrnlVw
I'm not saying God is contingent on anything, I'm saying God IS the Observer, the Ultimate Observer=the Ultimate Reality. Everything else is contingent on that first.
After clearing that up, I wouldn't contradict you on this.
If God is not conscious, please explain what God is then. What precedes the consciousness (observation) of God?
I am not saying that God isn't conscious. I am saying that whether or not God is conscious, what makes God is not the consciousness of God, but the fact that God is The Ultimate Reality.
Do I believe God is conscious? Sure, but tying consciousness to God confuses the issue. It isn't what is essential. Certainly there are those who have conceptions of God that are not conscious.
God is not a conception though, and words are always going to be inadequate when it comes to describing God. Let us remember that if The Ultimate Reality was totally comprehensible, it wouldn't be what it is.
But to be clear, I don't think we really disagree as much as it appears on the surface.
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@SirAnonymous
God is not a concept, God is The Ultimate Reality.True, but that's a very different concept of God than the Christian conception of God. However, consciousness is not the sole obstacle here. Power, knowledge, emotion, consciousness, grace, personality, personhood - all of these things and more have the same logic. Most people don't think the Ultimate Reality has those things, so your argument is invalid
I can not teach Christianity to someone who thinks they already understand it. In fact, that is my biggest obstacle here. People already think they understand Christianity when they don't.
These words you are using, you don't even know what the church means by these things. The scriptures are written in Greek. All of the ecumenical councils and dogmatic formulations of the church were done in Greek. What is the national church of Greece? The Orthodox Church.
If you really want to learn, go to an Orthodox Church. Come as a child without any preconceived notions. Be charitable when you don't understand. Be humble enough to become a student. Listen to the priest. Follow his direction. If you are faithful, it will eventually click.
This topic is not about Christianity. That is a whole different layer to this onion. This is a topic about God, The Ultimate Reality. More specifically the foolishness of denying this God.
Even the pagans recognize this God.
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@3RU7AL
Well, I didn't make it up. In fact, I just finished a really good book by fr. Thomas Hopko called "The fulness of God" where he uses this expression.
He is a native English speaker. I'd like to point out that most of Church's writings over the millennia are in Greek, and sometimes these concepts we use don't translate well.
For example, we use the concepts of ousia and hypostasis to describe The Trinity. Words like "substance", "person", and "essence" are translations that I don't think really capture what these words mean.
I don't really want to get polemical, but The Orthodox Church practices historical Christianity. The Christianity you are exposed to is not orthodox. What that means is, whether or not it is even truly Christianity at all is debatable.
Unfortunately, this creates a confusing situation for people who want to learn the faith, because to be blunt, heresy is a great deal more common in evangelical/protestant churches than sound doctrine. The Roman Church is... I mean, they haven't been orthodox for over a thousand years now. It isn't like they have corrected course since then either. In fact, both Vatican 1 and Vatican 2 pretty much sealed the deal as far as reconciliation between our churches is concerned.
Protestantism was in itself a reaction against a Roman church that deviated from orthodoxy. They never got to reconnect with the true church though, because historical circumstances made that impossible.
What can I say? I found the Orthodox Church through studying the historical church, and I realized that the Orthodox Church has best preserved the faith. The fact that they are the original church simply reinforced what were already my observations based on the doctrine they teach.
Have you ever heard any Christian talk about theosis or deification? Well, this is what the church has always understood salvation to be. Never even heard of these concepts in any other church, yet this is how the church fathers understood things.
The Christianity that you and most people in the west are exposed to is corrupt and unenlightened besides. They have something, but it isn't complete. It isn't catholic. What they are missing is the true church.
But that all said, heresy is bad theology. Someone can have bad theology and practice good religion. Unfortunately, bad theology tends to lead to bad religion. Are there real Christians among the heretical churches? Undoubtedly, and they will be reunited with us in the world to come. But The Orthodox Catholic Church is the definitive Christian Church, and that is my witness. Take it or leave it.
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@SirAnonymous
There are plenty of people who do not believe in a conscious God. Greek philosophy is full of many examples. Some forms of Hinduism have examples too.
It is not what makes God.
Is God conscious? That depends entirely on whether or not you see creation itself as an expression of the mind of God. If you don't see that, well, I don't know what to say. It wouldn't be profitable to debate this.
Consciousness is not what makes God who He is.
It is not what makes God.
Is God conscious? That depends entirely on whether or not you see creation itself as an expression of the mind of God. If you don't see that, well, I don't know what to say. It wouldn't be profitable to debate this.
Consciousness is not what makes God who He is.
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@EtrnlVw
The Ultimate Reality is not contingent on an Ultimate Observer. Observation is not what makes God. If the reality in question is contingent, it isn't The Ultimate Reality.
If you are saying that God is contingent, I would say that this is not the Orthodox understanding.
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@BrotherDThomas
You aren't fooling anyone. We all know you are a clown.
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@3RU7AL
Well, I assure you that even in contemporary Orthodox literature written in English, you will find those two words even "Ultimate Reality".
If I remember correctly, because it has been nearly half a decade since I read it, but I think the catechism of the Roman Catholic Church does refer to God this way, as The Ultimate Reality.
This is not a modern innovation. I was able to discern that God was The Ultimate Reality after studying the bible for years. After finding nothing but frustration in this regard in protestant churches, I found that this always how the historical church has understood God. I have read an awful lot of the church fatjers, saints, and theologians that have lived in the last 2000 years. I see the consistency.
The point is, I am not expressing my opinion, but what the church itself professes.
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The purpose of the Mosaic Law was to direct people to SANITY in an insane world. It is supposed to train someone's heart to love The Truth.
When that intention is lost, what you have is following of the law because it is the law, and so the spirit behind it is lost.
The purpose of the law is to direct people to love God, who is The Truth, and your fellow man as being made in the image of that God. The law also had the purpose of setting aside a people to be pure.
It isn't that the law is bad, quite the contrary. It is just that God is the one who saves, not the law.
You don't need to know The Truth to know how to love The Truth.
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@3RU7AL
Well, it can be demonstrated through Church history that the Roman Catholic Church is in heresy, and is not represenative of the ORTHODOX(or true) Christian position if there is any difference between what we teach.
But even The Roman Cathllic Church recognizes that God is The Ultimate Reality.
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@ludofl3x
You aren't willing to put in the efdort to confirm what I say because you have your mind made up.
I'm feeling pretty secure. The things I speak of are very simple. It is not arrogant for me to say that the biggest obstacle to understanding these things is heart of the hearer.
What can be said? Our faith is not about logical proofs. It is about living in a manner appropriate to someone who loves The Truth. That being the case, Orthodox Christianity is a beacon of love and sanity in an unloving and insane world.
I'm feeling pretty secure. The things I speak of are very simple. It is not arrogant for me to say that the biggest obstacle to understanding these things is heart of the hearer.
What can be said? Our faith is not about logical proofs. It is about living in a manner appropriate to someone who loves The Truth. That being the case, Orthodox Christianity is a beacon of love and sanity in an unloving and insane world.
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@3RU7AL
I see.So as long as everyone agrees with you, there will be no strife or confusion?Because everyone who DISagrees with you is evil and loves strife and confusion?
Me?
Try all of human history. It is this nihilistic individualist philosophy that is the aberration.
What you all don't realize is that this is no accident. There are legitimately evil forces at work creating this confusion, because the end goal is to eradicate Christianity. This can not be done if we are engaged honestly.
Mopac uses the word "God" differently than most Christians.Mopac doesn't believe "The Bible" is literal and infallible.
Most Christians you know. What you don't realize is that none of the "Christianity" you are exposed to has been around for more than a couple hundred years at most.
My understanding of God is in line with the mind of The Church. We have always understood God this way, and every heterodox confession can be traced back to its deviation from orthodoxy.
To protestants I say, the fulfillment of your schism with Rome is reunion with the church Rome broke away from. The Orthodox Catholic Church.
The Bible is not intended to be seperated from the church. That being the case, what you should believe about it is what the church teaches.
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@ludofl3x
We in the Orthodox Church know what we believe is true because ours is an experiential faith.
The scriptures don't say in vain, "he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him."
You can see how this is a reasonable statement if you accept that God means "The Ultimate Reality".
If you don't believe The Truth exists, no amount of appealing to truth is going to convince you. You have to first believe, and then faithfulness will lead you into knowledge.
When you get stuck on the existence of God, you are getting stuck on the question, "Prove to me that it is true that there is truth!". It should be plain to see that this is an unreasonable request. It is unreasonable for many reasons.
Something is only proof if it is accepted by the hearer, and that leads to a change of mind. All someone has to do is stubbornly refuse to ever change their mind and they wouldn't be lying when they say, "There is no proof!", as for them it is not proof.
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@zedvictor4
NTURTTGgTSLacks panache.And NOUMENON's not much better.You can see why the choose GOD.G.O.D. could be something like the Genesis Originating Data.G.O.D. Would look good on the side of the Data Delivery Vehicle. D.D.V.NTURTTGgTS would just look stupid.
Both are a product of an arbitrary sense of aesthetics and an aversion to the word "God".
The point here is to create strife and confusion, not a common understanding.
The way to see God is to purify the heart, not embracing absurdity.
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@zedvictor4
The Ultimate Reality is not contingent on anything.That's easy to say.But impossible to prove.
If we are talking about The Ultimate Reality, it cannot be subject to another reality. The Ultimate Reality is the source of all existence. It neither came to be or changes. If this was the case, time would be lord over God. This is nonsense. God is Lord over time.
These are things that can be inferred from contemplating what ultimate reality means, and understanding the implications.
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I'm not trying to convince people of anything. Fools don't learn. They think they understand things already. Arrogance is an essential ingredient to foolishness. After all, no one has a problem with stupid people who are humble.
Obviously, I am of the opinion that atheism is an idiotic position because I only recognize The Truth as God.
Atheists on the other hand have gods, they are simply in denial of them because they are uneducated. Examine the life of an atheist, and you will find their gods in the things that they prefer to reality. The things that motivate them and make life worthwhile for them.
Atheists are simply pagans who lack self awareness.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
So God isn't conscious then? God is incapable of thought, action, speech, etc.?
I didn't say that God wasn't conscious. I said that consciousness is not what defines God. The Ultimate Reality is God.
If God is conscious, His thoughts are certainly higher than our thoughts.
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@BrotherDThomas
We all know you aren't a real Christian, Thomas.
If 6 million Jews dying being slaughtered during the holocaust makes impersonating and defaming Jews in bad taste, how come the 50+ million Orthodox Christians who were killed last century doesn't make impersonating and defaming Christians in bad taste? It does. Know that your encouraging people to remain ignorant and suspicious of us leads to deaths.
Perhaps you don't care about all the Christians who are being slaughtered every day because they think Christians are like you.
You are very special on this forum Thomas. You have the honor of being called a total piece of shit by me. If you had any decency, you'd stop masquerading as one of us.
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@disgusted
What matters is what the church teaches, because the bible can not be meaningfully seperated from the church.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
Reality + consciousness = godMopac believes that reality exists and that it is conscious, thus he believes in God.There are people that believe reality exists but do not believe it is conscious, thus these people do not believe in god.Pretty simple concept. It has been explained to Mopac enough that he definitely understands it by now, he just willfully ignores it because his proto-ontological apologetics fall apart if he does not.
God is The Ultimate Reality, not "reality+consciousness".
Etrnlvw does not express the orthodox, or correct position.
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@SirAnonymous
Whether or not people are using it correctly is irrelevant. So long as they don't mean the same thing by "reality" or "Ultimate Reality" as you do, your argument is invalid.
I don't argue, I explain what I believe, and watch people argue over the meanings of words.
I am not surprised at all, this is to be expected in a world gone insane.
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@SirAnonymous
The Ultimate Reality is God.
The existence of God is a given.
You are arguing about the characteristics and qualities of God, not the existence of God.
You are missing what is essential. Whatever The Ultimate Reality truly is, that is God.
If you don't get this, you only confuse yourself by pondering things like consciousness and personhood.
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@EtrnlVw
You are describing the nature of created things, not God. Created things are contingent on observation. You are in effect saying the universe is bigger than God, as Merriam-webster defines the universe as "the whole body of things and phenomena observed or postulated"
This is not panentheism, this is pantheism.
The Ultimate Reality can not be a contingent existence. If God requires observation to exist, that means observation is a greater reality. If observation or any reality for that matter is a greater reality, then that greater reality would be The Ultimate Reality.
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@SirAnonymous
But consciousness is still a characteristic of God. This is where my logic applies. Either the Ultimate Reality doesn't have consciousness, in which case people agree it exists but it isn't God, or the Ultimate Reality has consciousness and people don't agree that it exists. Let me make this a little clearer.P1: The Ultimate Reality doesn't have consciousness.C1: People agree it exists.C2: It isn't God.P2: The Ultimate Reality does have consciousness.C3: It is God.C4: Not everyone agrees it exists.If P1 is true, then C1 and C2 are true but C3 and C4 are false. If P2 is true, the C3 and C4 are true and C1 and C2 are false.Your argument requires that C1 and C3 are both true, which requires both P1 and P2 to be true. However, they are contradictory, so your argument isn't valid. As a result, you have not established that this is true:
Whether or not The Ultimate Reality has consciousness, it is God. EtrnlVW ties consciousness to God, but not every conception of God has consciousness. I would like to reiterate that God is not a concept, but The Ultimate Reality.
So this is not my argument.
But this is exactly the problem. When most people say the "Ultimate Reality," they don't mean God. When most people say God, they don't mean the Ultimate Reality. Your argument only works if the other person agrees that the Ultimate Reality is God. In other words, your argument only works if the other person already agrees with you
Most people using language incorrectly does not change what we mean by what we say. Arguing over the meanings of words is a way to avoid understanding us.
I don't have to argue. All I have to do is assert what I believe, and then people will argue about the meanings of words which obscures the simplicity of what I am saying.
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@SirAnonymous
When we say, "God", we mean The Ultimate Reality.
That is why it is nonsensical to dispute that God is The Ultimate Reality.
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@SirAnonymous
Here is the thing.
The Ultimate Reality is not an understanding. It is not a conception. It is not a theory. It is reality as it truly is.
Reality as it truly is. How I understand or make sense of that is truly irrelevant. God exists, and God is true. Let all be wrong, let God be right.
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@SirAnonymous
it just means reality as it exists independent of our own personal observations. If God is proposed as omnipresent, which God is, it means the reality God observes is the Ultimate Reality....meaning there is nowhere something exists where the Creator is not aware. Basically everything that exists, exists within the Reality of God, God encompasses all that exists. There is no reality which exists independent of God, out of which all things originate. The Hindu description of Brahman is a great example of what we mean by an Ultimate Reality.God exists both within creation and independent of creation. All things exist within the Creator. So this reality as it exists within God is considered the "ultimate" as opposed to a fraction of it or a piece of it and nothing is outside of that, God observes all things at once at all times everywhere.Basically in a nutshell it's the conscious reality of God we are proposing that would be the ultimate reality. Since nothing exists outside of that or independent of that it is the ultimate, sounds cheesy I know lol, but it's actually legit.Is this your understanding of the Ultimate Reality? If not, in what ways is your understanding different and/or similar to this?
We wouldn't say The Ultimate Reality exists within God, we would say The Ultimate Reality is God. By definition, this can't exist inside anything because it is all encompassing. We wouldn't say that consciousness is what defines God either, it is REALITY thst defines God.
I'd like to note that the fact that God exists should be a given. There should be no dispute about this. It is when you get into statements about God that there is real debate.
Debating the existence of God is something uneducated people do. And communists. Why communists? Because communism is in itself a secular religion that is innately intolerant towards competing religions.
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@EtrnlVw
@SirAnonymous
What characteristics does it have?Consciousness, awareness to start with. That's what makes it the Ultimate Reality, it's reality as it is observed independent of our own observations.
What makes it the ultimate reality is that it is what is ultimately real. Real in the truest sense of the word.
The Ultimate Reality is not contingent on observation. Consciousness and awareness is not what make something real.
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@SirAnonymous
Reality as it truly is.
What else needs to be said? It should be obvious that there is a certain level of incomprehension that cannot be overcome.
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@EtrnlVw
Anyone who says there is no Ultimate Reality is insane.
Point blank.
That is what God means. There is no connection to be made. If someone refuses to accept our understanding of these concepts, is it any wonder that they don't understand? Is it any wonder that they are superstitious?
I can't make anyone believe in God. My purpose here is to make evident that the atheists rejection of God is not due to lack of evidence, but the impurity of their own hearts, lack of charity, hubris, and an irrational aversion to being taught sound doctrine.
Is it not evident that these people have made up their minds and are willfully ignorant?
I know what I am doing. I won't be here much longer.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
Our faith is expressed in typology, allegory, parable, and the like.
That being the case, how can I answer these questions in a way that will satisfy you? I can't.
The issue is not one of explanation. If that was the case, I would be understood when I speak clearly.
Our religion is Truth worship. You can't reconcile the way it truly is with your perception of it. Why? You don't want it to be true. If what I am saying is true, you have been made a fool. You have been tricked by the godless and wicked into denying reality itself, something even you know is stupid.
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