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@zedvictor4
If they take issue, I would probably find them obnoxious. Spend some time with a cow. Tell me this isn't a creature that isn't asking to be eaten.
But the reason I eat fish on days like Pascha has to do with the fact that Jesus ate fish. I went years without eating any fish or meat. I was convinced that it would be good if I made certain exceptions.
I wouldn't say I eat as healthy as I could. I eat a lot of carbs. There was a time when I fried a lot of stuff. I'm eating Soon Ramens with spinach, mushrooms, and peppers chopped in it for lunch today. That is a lot of sodium. Don't know how healthy that really is, but it is tasty. I recommend Soon Ramen if you can find it.
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@Deb-8-a-bull
You don't have to join the Orthodox Church to become a catechuman. That is, be instructed in the faith. To ask questions.
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@PressF4Respect
The One God that I recognize is The Supreme and Ultimate Reality. This is The One True God.
I believe that God became incarnate, sanctifying all of creation.
I believe that it is God's Spirit that fills all things and gives life to all creation.
I believe that in becoming incarnate, God became even death so that by death, death is conquered.
And so I believe in the last day when all of creation will be made manifest by the light of The Truth, that death itself will perish as all of creation is united to God in eternal life.
And I believe that Eternal life is this... to know The One True God, and the Word of God incarnate, Jesus Christ.
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@Deb-8-a-bull
You want true religion?
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"For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell;
And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven."
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@BrotherDThomas
I said...
"If evolution is a reality, of course God did it."
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"For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known."
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We come to know God through The Son, and by The Holy Spirit for in that The Father is revealed. Even deists can discern that God exists, and they can only do this because God is with us. If God was not with us, it would not be possible for them to witness that God exists.
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@janesix
Would you be willing to explain what spiritual alchemy means?
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Screw China, we should stop all trade with those commie bastards.
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Lets wu wei this into action.
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The Ultimate Reality is God.
You can go with that? Sure.
What we don't have in common is our relationship with God.
Deism is simply the belief that God exists. This is nothing spectacular.
Sure, you could say that someone who can admit God exists and nothing else is functionally the same as an atheist. Just as you can say that a Christian who does not practice the Christian discipline is functionally the same as an atheist.
But here is the thing. A Deist is the opposite of an atheist. Deism is the belief that God exists. Atheism is denial of God's existence.
My religion is love of The Truth. You know The Truth exists. Great. Love of The Truth is where the walk is.
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@zedvictor4
I don't eat animal products.
On certain feast days I eat fish and such.
Most of the time I am vegan.
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@SkepticalOne
If you take self declaration as proof of identity, but then we are treading into dangerous ground.
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@SkepticalOne
It is hard to find atheists who openly admit that they do not believe in the existence of Ultimate Reality. Many of them make it clear that they believe there is Ultimate Reality. That being the case, when atheists deny The One True God, I can't help but discern that they don't understand what they are denying.
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@SkepticalOne
I don't care that atheists are here, they should be.
But since there are so many people who tell me to lesve, I just don't see it.
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As a vegan, my go to response is that I am not a vegan because I love animals, but because I hate plants.
That is really a joke though. I eat the way I do as an ascetic practice, not because I think eating animals is wrong.
That said, people eat way too much meat anyway. It would probably be better for people and even the environment if they ate less meat. You don't really need to eat meat everyday.
Meat is addicting too, it makes you think you aren't eating if you don't eat it! That is what it seems like at least.
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@Tradesecret
Takingnpart in the liturgy and seeing it in practice is not the same thing as reading.
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@chustave0
Jesus Christ loves you.
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@Tradesecret
The Orthodox Church is certainly not authoritarian or legalistic. It is all about Jesus. Everything points to Jesus. Every practice that is done. The Kingdom of God is preached, and The Way is shown.
Your viewpoint is in fact typical, but it is ahistorical. It is a very protestant viewpoint on the church, and it is necessary to justify these churches lacking communion with the Apostolic Church.
Believe it or not, we do love those belonging to hetetodox churches and pray for them. So I said, we even work with them. We pray the good ones will be united to the church at the resurrection. God knows those who are His.
But know this. The Church has always since the very beginning distinguished itself from groups claiming a different Jesus by Apostolic Succession. All of our bishops have been ordained by other bishops who trace their ordinations back to the Apostles. The Church has its Holy Orders.
Protestants are largely uneducated about the church. They don't really know the church. But if we have maintained for the last 2000 years that we are the very church founded by Jesus, the apostles, the ground and the pillar of the Truth, it should at least make you wonder what it is about, yeah?
And what I would say is that the best way to learn is to observe the liturgy(in a language you understand is ideal), ask questions, read recommended literature.
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@SkepticalOne
Israel, and by that I mean the church, must be set apqrt for its holy purpose, that is, to preserve and teach the mystery of Hod and salvation, being the ground and pillar of truth.
But we are called to love everyone, even as Jesus loved sinners.
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I don't know.
But I do know that those who truly have happiness can find peace even in adverse situations.
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@SkepticalOne
Not at all, it is very clear from the tribalism I see even in my own time that people struggle with this.
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@SkepticalOne
The story of the good Samaritan shows that we are supposed to be neighbors even to those who do not share our faith.
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There is only one church and we are all in communion and yet you would not let people outside of the Orthodox church take communion. Sorry that is a divided church. put whatever spin you want on it - but you don't change the effect of it.the protestant church along with the catholic and the orthodox are all part of the One True Church. You can deny this or even dispute this - but it does not alter the facts. the protestant church has always been part of the catholic church. the orthodox church and the catholic church were always part of the church and both churches along with churches in Africa, Europe, and Asia made up the True Church.
The fact is you have an ahistorical idea of the church that none of the church fathers accepted. Schism means cut off. Get is it? Scissors schism. They come from the same word. The Roman Bishop cut Himself and his church off from Orthodoxy after falling into heresy and violating that which was determined inalterable in the ecumenical councils. The protestants broke away from Rome and never came back to Orthodoxy(likely because the Church was isolated from the west and under Turkish rule).
There is. only one Church, The Orthodox Cstholic Church. If you are not in the church, then you are not with the church. Thus, the church is not divided, because the heterodox are not recognized as being in the church.
there were factions - even before the church split. There were the European and the Eastern churches. Factions existed - and whether you want to call it pre-denominationalism, it amounts to the same thing. Different factions.the Orthodox church is a faction and it is a denomination - Protestantism is not a denomination. There is no denomination called Protestantism. Yet, there are factions. factions are by the way - not a bad thing. factions demonstrate God's unity over variety. A reflection if you like of the Trinity. A oneness and a many - covenantal aspect which reflects the Trinity in the church
Protestantism isn't a denomination, it is a mentality of disobedience. That is what defines it. Protest ism. Sure enough, there are 30,000 something protestant denominations because the protestants have a problem with real unity. If they hsve unity, it is superfucial or compromising to the faith. . The Orthodox Church is very diverse, but we are all in communion. We all have the same faith. Heresies eventually get weeded out. If they don't, the heretics make their choice to seperate from the body. It isn't that they divide the body of Christ. No, there is one church.
But we certainly don't, and I should speak for myself here, I certainly believe we are supposed to love each other. I have many evangelical/protestant friends, and we can come together to do good works. However, good works is not the faith. I can not lie and say that they have found the true church.
But God knows who among the heterodox churches willl be united post resurrection to the Orthodox Church. There is one church though, and its Holy Orders stretch back to the apostles. This one church has been faithful to the ecumenical councils and practices a form of Christianity that would be recognizable to the early church. We have a timeless connection with the church throughout all ages that heterodox churches cannot hope to replicate, nor will they because they are all destined to fade away as their members get bored and start their own churches. Ones that are more effective at marketing to those under the sway of the spirit of this age!
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@SkepticalOne
The law was given for a nation. The spirit of the law was to direct those under it towards love of The Truth and love for their neighbor.
The Church is not a secular government. We do not make laws. The Church respects the free will of man as a sacred thing, and so the use of coercion is very intentionally avoided.
Evangelicals/protestants do not represent the Orthodox position, and so they do not represent the church or what is properly Christian. The confusion caused by their denominationalism makes teaching proper orthodox Christianity very difficult as everyone already thinks they know what it is all about before they really do.
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@chustave0
After reading you last 5 comments, I can't help but think you are projecting.
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@chustave0
I have been nothing but respectful towards you. I don't believe your hatred towards me is justified.
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Open communion is not loving, because it is written that those who do not discern the body bring condemnation on to themselves.
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@Tradesecret
The Orthodox Church is not a denomination. Denominationalism is a protestant thing. Even nondenominationalism is a denomination. There is one church, the Orthodox Catholic Church.
Predenominational.
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@Tradesecret
The body of Christ is not divided. This is how things were done since the beginning. I know it isn't an easy thing to accept, especially since protestant churches can only justify themselves by promoting an ahistorical idea of what the church is, but there is only one church, and we are all in communion.
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@chustave0
So you can't tell me what " hare krishna hare krishna krishna krishna hare hare hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare " means.
That is what I am getting out of your posturing.
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@Tradesecret
The Orthodox Church only allows Orthodox Christians to take communion. Everyone can partake of the body, but the blood of the New Covenant is only for those who belong to the church. We also do not take communion at non Orthodox Churches.
Indeed, open communion is a very recent development in protestant churches, because if you go back a hundred or even maybe 50 years ago, nobody practiced open communion. It is a very recent development.
But the Orthodox takes communion very seriously, as it is a mystery of the church.
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@Deb-8-a-bull
The age of the Earth, the process by which God does things in the world... none of this stuff is really that important to know.
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This is the church and religion forum.
If anyone is out of place here it is the atheist. Yet for some reason, so many atheists want the board to themselves. Strange indeed.
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@ludofl3x
Why would it be mentioned in the bible? It isn't important.
Yet we both understand that animals came before people.
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@chustave0
Prejudice is not the excercising of righteous discernment.
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@ludofl3x
The bible is intended to be a witness to The Truth, it is supposed to point to The Truth.
Evolution can not exist apart from The Truth.
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@chustave0
You do not know me, yet you have already judged me. I have been nothing but kind to you. What is the reason for this?
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Sitting still and/or moving a snail's pace in a car for over an hour in direct sunlight with no air conditioning and the windows down on a 100 degree Texas summer afternoon while listening to the radio.
Mopac'n
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@chustave0
"These are the things that ye shall do; Speak ye every man the truth to his neighbour; execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates: And let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbour; and love no false oath: for all these are things that I hate, saith the LORD."
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@chustave0
"If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?"
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@chustave0
I am very secure in my faith, thank you.
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I was not homeschooled, but in my experience, homeschooled kids tend to be better educated in just about everything than those who go to public school.
That is just my personal observations about those I know who were homeschooled.
Public school must be a failure, because I remember back when I was in highschool there were kids there who didn't even know how to read. You shouldn't even be in highschool if you can't read.
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@zedvictor4
Different cultures have different symbols which they use to communicate the same things. You mistake the symbol for what the symbol represents and so cannot discern when two are talking about the same thing using different languages.
No doubt the OP and I believe differently, but we may have more in common than what is immediately obvious. Finding this commonality will allow us to see what we share in common and where we differ.
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@Our_Boat_is_Right
I do not believe I am capable of making anybody believe anything.
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@chustave0
I am more interested in finding a common understanding than fighting against a straw man, which is what I would be doing if I were to challenge you.
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