Mopac

The parable was intended to demonstrate that human beings can discern the distinction between truth and falsehood.

Are you kidding? That guy is the living embodiment of Poe's Law.

Sounds like, "There is no reason to life, it is all blind luck"

Still, doesn't respect the subject matter, but ok.

If we are so stupid, how come you can't explain what we believe to our satisfaction?

Making an atheist secretary of religion sounds pretty USSR.

Just saying

Then you are telling a different parable.

I think it is a good idea. I mean, if all it takes is for one person to vote and decide on a debate, might as well. It is not like votes are a measure of veracity anyway. Of course, I think it would be better to do away with debate wins and losses all together, because the desire to "win" a debate acts as an incentive to stick to one's guns even after realizing one's position is flawed.

But since I doubt anyone would be down for that idea(especially those who see gaming the stats as their entertainment), I think voting periods should have a greater minimum length.

Why nominate an epistemological nihilist as secretary over the religion forum? He doesn't even respect the subject matter.

The measure is truth.

Imagine I have 3 cups turned over, and ask you to guess which one of these cups has a coin under it. You say that the coin is under a cup, and point to one. I show you that there is no coin under the cup, and then reveal which cup has the coin under it.

You can certainly tell that you picked the wrong cup, you were mistaken. You missed the mark. 

Much in the same way we discern that the wrong cup was chosen, we can discern our own sin and correct course. As God is The Truth, the measure is truth.

You can infer that Ultimate Reality exists very easily.

The fact that you are having an experience is scientific proof that there is some form of existence.

If you have ever been wrong, have been surprised, have learned anything, etc. This proves that the reality you experience is not reality as  it truly is. 

The Ultimate Reality is reality as it truly is in its completeness. It is reality in the truest sense of what that means. It is ultimately real, not real in a relativistic or contingent sense. Truly a singularity.

The Ultimate Reality is what we call God. That is what God means. The Supreme Being, that is, being in the sense of existence. The Supreme Existence.

God by necessity must exist, because if there is no Ultimate Reality,  nothing is ultimately real! As there is clearly some form of existence or reality, God must exist.

In fact, you can be more certain that God exists than even the existence of what you think is the self.

Depends on the context to get specific, but to speak broadly in a way that hopefully accounts  for all that.. The perfection of God.

The Ultimate Reality is God.

That being the case, I see it as no strange thing to acknowledge that God by necessity exists.

The way of negation already has a name, by the way. It is  called nihilism.  The problem with nihilism is yes, it can be used to negate everything including itself. Nihilism is self defeating. 

Nihilism in the truest sense being the denial of absolute truth or ultimate reality negates itself. After all, if nothing is ultimately real and there is no absokute truth, nihilism itself cannot be true.

The doctrine of negation is very destructive.

That said, The Orthodox Church does put a lot of emphasis on Apophatic theology.

Sin literally means to miss the mark.

So to admit we have sin is to admit that we do not see things the way they  truly are, our understanding is not perfect, and we make mistakes.

The purpose of the law of Moses and the whole covenent was to raise up a nation of priests with The Law of God written on their hearts. 

God's essence is unknowable, but we know God through the uncreated energy that fills all things.

Let me put it another way. You don't need to know The Truth in order to know how to direct yourself towards it. 

I think it is pretty obvious that The Truth must precede your existence, because if there is no truth in you existing, there can be no you.

It is not only perfectly reasonable to take God as axiomatic, but it can not be reasonable not to. What is reason bereft of truth? It is a wicked thing, because the spirit that brought us reason is The Spirit of Truth. 

There are 3 types of believers according  to Saint Basil the great..

Those who are motivated by fear of hell. These are like slaves.

Those who are motivated by promise of heaven. These are like mercenaries.

Then there are those who are motivated by their love of God, and these are as children of God.

Before the foundations of the world, before anything in creation, Christ became death so that we can live, and on the last day we will rise with Him in eternity, death itself being cast into the lake of fire. The First is The Last. The Eternal God who is with us. The God of Salvation. The God of Truth.

Neither of you have an orthodox understanding of our God, so I find these statements from both of you to be presumptuous...

"Unfortunately neither Spinoza's nor Kant's solutions are compatible with the modern concept of "YHWH"."

"So they can't make a case for the current interpretation of the Biblical God?"

Neither of you understand the "modern concept of "YHWH""(Which in itself is a puzzling string of words), nor do any of you understand the Orthodox interpretation of the biblical God.

But I am still interested in hearing 3ru7al's take on Spinoza and Kant proving God.

It is no strange thing to refer to the day of judgement as the second coming. On the day of resurrection, you as well as everyone will meet Christ face to face, and even your most private thoughts will be laid bare at the dread judgement seat. There will be no hiding, no lying, no excuse. 

It is best to prepare in this life while you can through strugglimg with your passions, overcoming delusion, adopting a humility befitting of a creature of God, and abiding in The Truth.

The resurrection we believe happens in eternity. That is, it is not a temporal resurrection. If it was, we would not believe that the saints who passed on from this world are with us. 

In our eschatology, there is simply no room for reincarnation, because reincarnation is a temporal phenomenoand the resurrection occurs in eternity as The Light of God's Truth reveals all as it truly is in God. Falsehood  and death are melted away and vanquised by The Life that is The Truth.

We do not worship a corpse as God. We worship God, The Ultimate Reality in Trinity, that is, in Spirit and in Truth.

That sounds like it could be a very Hindu opinion.

Poe's Law on D Thomas.

To awaken to the fact that living in the world is like building sandcastles that inevitably get washed away by the tide. How investment in this crumbling world is an excercise in futility, and ultimately little more than vanity. How a life in this world, no matter how well lived leads to the grave. How one's work for the future generations will be inherited by a people that did not work for it and may not appreciate it. How there is no end to the suffering, the disappointment, the failure, the chaos, the strife, the death, the wars, the sickness, the hell. To look at this world and see very clearly that faith in this world is faith in the abyss.

Then to open your eyes anew and see eternity. To behold The Truth. To realize that this is what your faith should be in. To love The Truth above all things. To recognize that The Truth fills creation, that to love creation is to love The Truth. To discern that you, a human being carry in you that awareness of The Truth, the ability to contemplate it, to love it, and to find healing and strength in it. To recognize that hidden in every person is the ability to be enlightened to that saving power of The Truth, that within them they carry the very image of The Truth within themselves. To love them as you love yourself, and to love yourself as the bearer of the image of God, to the glory of The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit unto ages and ages amen.

The God I am talking about is The Supreme and Ultimate Reality. I could not deny this God's existence, in fact, because ultimately it is real. What else can be said to be real? Like this? Not like God.

Eternal life is to know The Only True God, and the one sent, Jesus Christ.

 

Unfortunately the word "religion" even has been stigmatized among Christians. I however, like the word.

I think maybe Harikrish is offended that I understand the word "Hinduism" to be a blanket term for the various religions of India. This is how the inventers of the word refered to what they saw as the diverse and eclectic paganism they found in India. Even today, you will find diverse and eclectic paganism in India!

There is no say, "orthodox" Hinduism. Rather, it is really the religion of India, which is very diverse. It is diverse because it isn't one religion, it is many different religions. They are tied together of course by the place of their origin and development... The rich and ancient culture of India! These Indian religions very rarely are of much interest to anyone other than Indians and the occasional Californian. On the rare occasion that they do, we aren't talking Hinduism anymore, we are talking about something like Buddhism. 

What you call intellectual is simply creation. The Ultimate Reality is God, not an explanation.

Why is The Ultimate Reality God? Because that is what we mean by God. Can you think of anythingg else more worthy to be called God? Of course you can't,  but it matters little. This is what we mean by God.

There is nothing even comparable to God. I tell you, God can not be circumscribed, not even by the mind. I believe in The Incomprehensible God. The One True God. The Supreme and Ultimate Reality.

As you are a nihilist, it would be foolish of me to try and prove anything to you. It takes an awful lot of denial to come to the nihilistic conclusion. 

Besides, if I did prove something to you and you believed it, you would cease to be a nihilist.

Yet, here you are identifying yourself with the doctrine of negation. I don't want want to talk about you.

Nihilism is atheism, pure and simple. The denial of absolute truth or ultimate reality 

 "That there is no truth; that there is no absolute state of affairs  no 'thing in itself This alone is Nihilism, and of the most extreme kind. " ~ Fredrich Nietzsche

If you can't avoid attacking me personslly while you are complaining about me allegedly attacking you personally, you should  probably just keep it to yourself.

This introduction seemms pretty good.

Your username is the real nihilist, dude. 

So to you I say that I do what I do for no reason.

Also, there cqn be no reasonable doubt concerning God's existence.

You have an awful lot of faith for a nihilist. Expecting answers for your questions.

You have made nihilism your identity. If arguing against nihilism is an attack on you, it cannot be helped. 

Besides, you started  this. Your question pertains to me, not the topic. You aren't doing anything different.

If it is all meaningless anyway Mr Nihilist, why do you say anything at all? Why concern yourself with what I say?

No, I am saying that if you don't believe, you have made that choice. It would be your choice to believe as well.

The fact that Jesus was thought to be crazy by the ones who crucified him is no secret. If this bit of information does not deter us, I don't know what makess you think that witnesses written by our saints who ended up being tortured and killed for their faith in Jesus will.

Your argument is as ridiculous as it is poorly informed.

Christianity is a way of life you do not know, so it stands to reason you do not have an informed opinion about it.

You are talking nonsense.

You are talking nonsense.

Christianity is a way of life you do not know.

You don't know how we portray God. You were not even aware of The Orthodox Catholic Church until recently. If you do not know what we believe and teach, why do you make yourself an enemy of what you don't understand?

I could just as easily come at you and your faith with a superficial understanding while boldly making half informed and condemning assertations bereft of any charity. It is very easy. And if I were to do this, we would not ever come to a real dialog.

Now Christ is a mystery to you, but you condemn Him. In so doing, you condemn yourself, but you do not know. On the day that Christ is revealed, you will know.

The Ultimate Reality is God.

If you say The Ultimate Reality doesn't exist, you don't understand what that means.

Hinduism is not a religion, it is a catchall term used to describe Indian religion in general(The word was invented for this purpose) . Hinduism covers everything from literally worshipping rocks to suffering from the delusion that you are God. Hinduism is so diverse(because it isn't one religion) that it is impossible to really make too broad of statements concerning it. 

There are a lot of "spiritual exercises" that bring about real effects, and teachers tend to use these effects to reinforce or prove to their students the veracity of the doctrine that is being taught. The truth of the matter is that most Hindu "spiritual exercises" do not truly bring the practitioner closer to enlightenment, but rather bring about a state of prelest. This is because the point of these spiritual exercises is not so much to purify the heart and align oneself to The Truth so much as it is to have an experience. 

Hinduism is not really a religion so much as it is the religion of India. By the religion of India, I mean that in all its diversity. Some of it very thoroughly pagan, some of it more enlightened. 

You are trying to use texts  written by believers in Jesus Christ who were tortured and killed for their beliefs to prove that they  believed Jesus was crazy.

I don't think there is anything else to say.

I will nominate the user 3RU7AL, because I think it is a shock this user has not been nominated. I appreciate this user's contribution to the forums.

I thank RationalMadman for his kind words, I am undeserving.

It is wrong to take Bishop Dimitri's list of examples as exhaustive.

It is also wrong of you to interpret Jesus' words in such a manner as to undermine The Apostolic Church. You yourself admit that you believe Jesus was a madman. You do not believe Jesus Christ, let alone the very church of His apostles. 

Nobody is ever converted through polemics. Especially not bad polemics. You would be better off placing your confidence in what you really know rather than what you think you know. If you want to talk about my faith, it should be with the humility to say, "I don't know", and the charity to listen and learn. If you are really secure, perhaps it would be better to talk about your faith. If you won't listen to me when I explain my faith, then I will listen to you when you explain your faith.