Mopac

The only argument atheism has is to make God into a god. That is why we are having this striving about words. There is no argument against God, so God must be made into a conception.

The theological equivilent is to deny the divine nature of Christ and only accept the fleshly nature. 

The problem with denying the incarnation it misses the entire point of what is being said. 

The aversion is to the word "God".

You are in error when you turn my God into a conception. The Ultimate Reality is not a conception. I am not talking about a conception.

Reality having a mind is not relevent.

The Ultimate Reality is God.

The Word has to take flesh, Ramshutu, otherwise God is not with us. Then we can't even talk about God.

But we can talk about God, and God is present through His Word and Spirit.

Orthodox theology is apodictic, that is, self evident truth. You do not understand our theology, so it looks like nonsense to you. That is my point.

And it is done this way for a reason. It is the same reason Jesus taught in parables.

The idea is, God gives grace to the humble but resists the proud. If you approach the faith as if you know better, you will blaspheme things not knowing that you are in fact making yourself into a fool.

For example, if you were to say "God doesn't exist", you would in fact be saying that there is no truth or that nothing is real. 

I don't expect you to understand our ways based on conversation you have over the internet. If you really were interested I would recommend you to an Orthodox Church. I do however think that if you get anything at all, it is that there is a lot more to our faith than you understand.

Also, maybe the only form of Christianity that you have been exposed to is technically heretical. 

But hey.

Since you are confused by religion, lets make it simple. 

The Ultimate Reality is God.

The Ultimate Reality exists.

This is not philosophical conclusion. This is not a conclusion that was arrived at through logic. This is not even up for debate. It is apodictic truth.

And if you disagree, I challenge you to think of anything greater than The Ultimate Reality. You can't. Without it, nothing would exist.

And that is what God intended for the universe. For it to exist.

The One True God breaks your razor.

A word is a concept.

You are needlessly arguing. This had nothing to do with mine or anybodys conception. 

The Ultimate Reality is God.

You know The Ultimate Reality exists.

God exists.

I am actually speaking to you Orthodox theology in a very plain way. Maybe if you are not perceptive or willing enough to understand, someone else will.

If not, I am a fool for Christ's sake.

The Ultimate Reality is not a concept, nor is it fallible. 

You refuse to acknowledge The Father through The Son, so The Holy Spirit is not in you. You are denying Jesus Christ in The Flesh, which means that the truth is not in you, and you are speaking from an anti-Christ spirit.

To those with wisdom, understand!

Cream and sugar dilutes that raw black coffee taste I love.

No Ramshutu.

As I said before there is a certain level of absurdity involved in expressing The Uncreated through the medium of creation. That which is not conception through words.

It has to be this way, there is no other way.

You're a Christian, right? 

The conception is the spoken or written word itself, not The Word that is before words, The Word that these spoken or written words represent in creation.

The Ultimate Reality

Or shortened...

God.

The word is as the flesh to the spirit. The flesh is creation. The spirit is The Uncreated. The Spirit takes the form of flesh, the flesh did not create the spirit. The spirit of God is Truth, The Ultimate Reality, the essence of what TRULY IS. So when I say God, I am not talking about a conception of God. I am pointing to The Ultimate Reality.

And it should be apparent that God necessarily exists.

No, Ramshutu. I am using a conception to point to you what is beyond conception. You are staring at my finger.

Surely there must be some protestants who must know Jesus Christ.

None of you know Jesus, but that is to be expected. Stick around for a bit, and maybe, no guarantees.

There is a certain level of absurdity that is unavoidable when you are using the medium of creation to communicate what is fundamentally uncreated. That is all we have to work with. 

And this is a great mystery of the two natures of Christ, fully man and fully divine. The Word is God. This is The Word before words, before all creation. It is the true essence of what The Ultimate Reality is. The Word becoming flesh is the word that is used to convey this. The word you are reading. That is, God taking the form of creation, becoming incarnate.

And the light shines in the darkness, but the darkness comprehends it not.

The letter kills, but the spirit gives life!

Believe that He is who He says He is.

The Ultimate Reality comes as a person, in the form of The Word of God. The Son of God, to the glory of The Father, enlivened by The Holy Spirit of Truth.

Jesus Christ, Son of The Living God speaks, "I Am That I Am, The Eternally Existing One"

You have to believe that God is what God is.

For

Any imagination or conception you can make about The Ultimate Reality is not The Ultimate Reality.

We know better than to guess, because God's divine essence cannot be known, just as The Ultimate Reality cannot be known.

Knowledge is not God.

You don't really know Jesus, but stick around and maybe, no guarantee. 

If you do come to know Jesus, you will know He lives.

Oh no, Jesus is very much alive.

You don't really know Jesus, but stick around and maybe, no guarantee.

A conception of God =/= God

A conception of The Ultimate Reality =/= The Ultimate Reality

You are still trying to fit God into your box, because you think you know what you don't 

"Show me that God has a mind or superpowers or The Ultimate Reality doesn't exist!"

You are asking a ridicilous thing, though you don't know.

I don't need a logic or argument, when we say God we are speaking of The Ultimate Reality.

I don't need an argument to back this. 

You really don't umderstand my faith or my God. You are talking nonsense. Maybe you should stop thinking you know anything. Stop wasting your time debating heterodox jobbers, they don't understand their God. 

You are superstitious.

In other words, until what I say conforms to your own conception and superstitions, you will simply make pretense that you are talking about my God.

You can imagine I'm sure what that looks like to me. That is, after all what this topic is about. Your vain imagings.

Don't get confused because we use conceptions to communicate.

The spirit of what I am saying must incarnate into the flesh of a concept for us to communicate.

The Ultimate Reality. What that truly means. What that truly means is certainly not a concept, and you agree.

This is what we recognize as God. The Absolute Truth. Supreme Being.

You know as well as I do that reality as it truly is cannot be a conception.

The Ultimate Reality is not a conception.

That is what God means. The Ultimate Reality. Definitions establish what we are talking about.

You have absolutely no argument without making God a strawman.

I don't eat meat, and neither does my spouse.

Monastics in the Orthodox Church are usually vegetarian.

I don't believe it is necessary to eat meat to be healthy.

Learn Russian through the Russian Orthodox Church.

Super serious. This may be the best way to do it.

Also, screw the USSR.

This is the big one.

"And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."

Central then is the question... who is Jesus Christ? 

The proper understanding of who Christ is happens to be central to the entire faith if Christianity. Everything points to this. There are a lot of ideas about who Christ is, but it is only the proper understanding that reveals the nature of salvation and life eternal.

Central to Christology is the incarnation and what it means. Also central to Christology is The Trinity.

This is the gospel. The good news. 

Anyone want to take a shot at this before I explain the Orthodox position?

Who do you say Jesus Christ is?

Your conception of God is not God.

You are clearly confused.

The Supreme and Ultimate Reality is God. That is what the word "God" means. 

The absolute truth is God, that's what it means.

You are talking nonsense.

There is nothing rational about denying absolute truth.

I got a hold of some. Made guac over the weekend and put it on everything.

The last 2 days I've chopped one into my instant ramen(I recommend Soon, they are delicious and vegan), and holy snap these things are hot!

My guts might hate me later...

...and on that, what am I doing to myself by subjecting myself to all this high scoville food? Is it healthy? 

As I explained in the post I referred you to, there never was a faith vs works debate in Orthodoxy because to us they are united in faithfulness.

They don't exist independently of eachother.

See post #4

How much worse off you are without Christ.

Shouldn't be hard to connect those dots.

If works don't save you independent of the grace of God that is.

I certainly do not hate you, Goldtop. And Jesus loves you.

Pelagianism is a heresy.

I understand what you think will happen.

No government can claim to have lasted for even close to 2,000 years, uninterrupted and maintaining its continuity. The church isn't going anywhere, certainly not through bad education.

And even if this frustrating truth leads to the killing of us, as it has every time in history, we will still survive. There will always be a remnant. We will outlast our persecuters, because they have no ground to stand on, and we have the rock to stand on.

The Church isn't going anywhere, and those who make The Church its enemy will be shamed in the end.

I'm sorry you get that impression which certainly is rooted in some type of misunderstanding.

The ultimate reality always was, allways is, and always will be the ultimate reality.

Certainly, demons can grant people the ability to work wonders. 

It is even written in scripture

"For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.

Jesus loves you.

You'll have to kill us all off first.

The church isn't going away.

We certainly believe in miracles. In fact, there are many miracles attributed to saints even up into modern times.

I think a better way of putting it is that on the day of resurrection, we might find that there are some in the church that we didn't think were in the church.

We never really had the faith versus works debate that happened in the west because we see both united in faithfulness.

How can you say you have faith if you aren't doing the works of faith? Or as Saint James the just put it, "I will shew thee my faith by my works."

We Orthodox understand the process through what we call synergism. We are saved by the divine grace of God, but we have to work with it. We have to cooperate. Faith and works is united in faithfulness, cooperation with divine grace. The work we do is purification of the heart. That is, to abide in The Truth. The True Vine.

You've probably heard the saying that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

We have long understood that even demons can perform miracles, and so we consider it a big mistake to place your faith in miracles. If you have faith in the miracles themselves, it is like coming to Jesus because its like a never ending fish fry! If you feed them, they will come, right?

When it comes to those outside of the church, the official position of the church seems to be "God knows the hearts of men, it is not for us to judge"

Likewise, the parable of the fishing net shows that not all who are drawn into the church are good fish.

Really, God knows. Lord have mercy.

God created the universe to exist.

And this is completed in the incarnation, because God's presence in creation gives it its existence. 

If it is not accepted that God is the Ultimate Reality, there is nothing else to discuss. This is the root of the atheist's superstition. We can't really talk about God meaningfully without this elephant in the room being addressed.

Once we accept that God must exist, then we can talk more about what God is and isn't. Then Christian theology such as The Trinity and the incarnation can be explained. 

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Those who are outside the church only get parables. Christianity is a mystery religion.