Mopac

Orthodoxy believes in the doctrine of synergy. We are co-workers with God, or we resist God and his grace. We have thst choice. Either way, God is sovereign over all things, and knows all things. God did not dictate the choices we make, even though God, being outside time and preeternal can see clearly all that happens in time.

God is The Ultimate Reality.

The Ultimate Reality is God.

That is our God. That is what God means. 

If you say this God doesn't exist, you have adopted a foolish and self defeating position.

Now understand that if you don't believe that this is the case, that The Supreme and Ultimate Reality is what is meant by God, you are simply striving over the meanings of words, and you have no hope of understanding Christianity.

I don't need you prove anything to you. If you dismiss something before understanding it, you have shut yourself off. I have little to do with this. You ask for proofs of things you don't understand. Being thst Christianity is apodictic in nature, the proof is in understanding what is being said.

It is not fitting for a creature of God to make demands from The Uncreated Creator of all creation. Truly, God gives grace to the humble, but resists the proud. The Mystagogy will be hidden from the proud, as even the image of God within them has been made obscure through the defilement of their own nous.

In other words, you have no idea what I am talking about.

And you won't, because you think you know something when you are really in the dark.

Being that Christianity is both in essence apodictic truth, and a mystery religion, you can not be expected to understand it. Being that you think you know, you won't. 

The Ultimate Reality is not a conception, nor is it circumvented by defining. It is being transcendent of beings. 

You do not know what you are talking about.

It is the truth that there is no truth! Prove to me that it is true that there is truth!

If there is no Ultimste Reality, there is no reality. This is not an extraordinary claim, it is apodictic truth.

Because to say "The Ultimate Reality doesn't exist" is a denial of truth and reality itself. It is impossible for there not to be an Ultimate Reality.

That being the case, even softer forms of atheism that do not outright deny God inherit the ridiculousness of this position. To even doubt the existence of Ultimate Reality is foolish. It is not even a position that is reasonable to entertain.

And for your information, scripture comes from our tradition, it is not the basis of our faith.

My humility is not the issue here. I speak of things I am certain about. You do not believe I can be certain because you don't believe it is possible.

You say God doesn't exist. I told you that God is The Ultimate Reality.

You say God doesn't exist? You are playing the fool. You can't flip this around. You are the one being arrogant.

At least until you repent of your wickedness, this will be the case.

You, because you resist proof by denying how I define things. The proof can not come without accepting the defining. Apodictic truth!

You can't even make one step.

You can't turn this around, you are acting the fool.

It has nothing to do with me, it has everything to do with you. You have adopted an unteachable attitude.

You are wise in your own eyes, but very much in the dark. As you are too haughty to ever admit this and learn something, you will remain in the dark. 

You don't know what you are talking about. 

You don't really know what you are talking about, dude.

The proof of your foolishness is that you expect something to be proven to you when you won't even accept what it is that is being discussed.

I am talking about cabbage, and you insist that it is an orange. You are not being reasonable. You are playing the fool.

Saint John of Damascus said..

"What He is, by essence and nature, is altogether beyond our comprehension and knowledge."

And surely, anyone who understands what "The Ultimate Reality" means, and contemplates it for any length of time will freely admit this.

What we do know of God has been revealed to us to whom it has been revealed. The Church certainly has this Revelation of God.

I have also been very consistent in telling you that you have no idea what I am ever talking about.

The churchh will tell you that the essence of God is unknowable, but that doesn't mean that things cannot be known about God.

For example, that God exists. This is a certainty. A certainty that you can't admit, because you refuse to accept anything other than a straw man god, one that doesn't exist.

It actually is, because a catechuman is someone who is being educated in the faith.

Unless, you know, you aren't really trying to be educated, which is the impression I get.

Come and see. Become a catechuman.

I can think of several reasons.

But let me start by quoting Saint Paul's epistle to The Romans...

"And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;

And the verses that follow the above in Romans...

"Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things.

I will be a fool for the sake of Christ.

Lord have mercy

Lord have mercy

Lord have mercy

1st Corinthians 1:24

"Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God"

From The Wisdom of Solomon chapter 7...

"Wherefore I prayed, and understanding was given me: I called upon God, and the spirit of wisdom came to me.

I preferred her before sceptres and thrones, and esteemed riches nothing in comparison of her.
Neither compared I unto her any precious stone, because all gold in respect of her is as a little sand, and silver shall be counted as clay before her.
I loved her above health and beauty, and chose to have her instead of light: for the light that cometh from her never goeth out.
All good things together came to me with her, and innumerable riches in her hands.
And I rejoiced in them all, because wisdom goeth before them: and I knew not that she was the mother of them.
I learned diligently, and do communicate her liberally: I do not hide her riches.
For she is a treasure unto men that never faileth: which they that use become the friends of God, being commended for the gifts that come from learning.
God hath granted me to speak as I would, and to conceive as is meet for the things that are given me: because it is he that leadeth unto wisdom, and directeth the wise.
For in his hand are both we and our words; all wisdom also, and knowledge of workmanship.
For he hath given me certain knowledge of the things that are, namely, to know how the world was made, and the operation of the elements:
The beginning, ending, and midst of the times: the alterations of the turning of the sun, and the change of seasons:
The circuits of years, and the positions of stars:
The natures of living creatures, and the furies of wild beasts: the violence of winds, and the reasonings of men: the diversities of plants and the virtues of roots:
And all such things as are either secret or manifest, them I know.
For wisdom, which is the worker of all things, taught me: for in her is an understanding spirit holy, one only, manifold, subtil, lively, clear, undefiled, plain, not subject to hurt, loving the thing that is good quick, which cannot be letted, ready to do good,
Kind to man, steadfast, sure, free from care, having all power, overseeing all things, and going through all understanding, pure, and most subtil, spirits.
For wisdom is more moving than any motion: she passeth and goeth through all things by reason of her pureness.
For she is the breath of the power of God, and a pure influence flowing from the glory of the Almighty: therefore can no defiled thing fall into her.
For she is the brightness of the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God, and the image of his goodness.
And being but one, she can do all things: and remaining in herself, she maketh all things new: and in all ages entering into holy souls, she maketh them friends of God, and prophets.
For God loveth none but him that dwelleth with wisdom.
For she is more beautiful than the sun, and above all the order of stars: being compared with the light, she is found before it.
For after this cometh night: but vice shall not prevail against wisdom."

What you get is directly proportional to what you are putting in.

Christianity in essence is apodictic truth.

That being the case, you won't get your proof by asking for proof.

That is because you do not accept that The Supreme and Ultimate Reality is God.

Atheism is by nature the embrace of arbitrariness. It is fundamentally a nihilistic position, a denial of The Truth.

That being the case, I am certainly justified in believing that someone who adopts such a patently self defeating position is deserving of mockery. Despite this, I have not resorted to mockery.

So what else can you do? You, in your total contempt for truth, think you can alter what it is I believe, alter what my religion is saying simply by changing the meanings of words. I repeat, my religion is older than your English language. Not only do you not know what I believe, but you shut yourself off from being capable of doing so because you reject the whole matter outright.

So you, very foolishly reject that which you not only do not understand, but aren't interested in understanding.

This all being the case, we are engaging in a futile conversation. 

Christianity in essence is apodictic truth.

That being the case, in order for it to be proven, it must be understood.

The Orthodox Church is The Church. We know the God we worship.

You don't even know what you want proof of.

And that is the point.

In fact, if you knew, you wouldn't be asking for proof.

There is a flesh and a spirit to Christianity. The flesh is what you see on the outside, the stories, the symbology, the scriptures, the holy tradition, the liturgies, icons, etc. To be aquainted with this is part of the catechisis of the faith. The spirit is the Mystagogy or hidden meaning behind all these things.

What can I tell you to help you? The Church worships The Truth as God, and so our faith is Truth Worship. If the catechisis is a stumbling block for you, you will not see the mystagogy behind it.

As it is written

"And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables?

While Christianity in the west, in particular many protestant churches, are very much emotional in their character, Orthodox Christianity(real Christianity) looks down on emotionalism and instead sees disspassion as a state to strive for.

It is no strange thing for the pre-eternal God, who is not circumvented by time, to see everything that happens in time before it happens. It is no strange thing that God can know what it is that we have freely chosen without having dictated what we chose.

It is God's will that we can choose to embrace Him or reject Him. And it is better for us to accept Him, because to reject The Truth is to choose death over life. And as God has conquered death by death in the crucifixion and resurrection, to choose death is to die eternally.

There is no true separation from God, who is omnipresent.

The God of The Old Testament is the same God of The New, a God you do not know. You have not the spirit to guide you through scriptures that are not your own to interpret.

If you reject God, who certainly did create everything and out of love gave us the freedom to make that choice, you are choosing hell. Embracing delusion over The Truth leads to torment. Whether you think this is right is irrelevant, because this is reality. You can't reject reality and substitute it in your mind with what you wish it would be instead and not expect to have cognitive dissonance.

The Truth is God. Choose to abide in The Truth. It is better for you.

The defiled intellect is not only overcome by the world, it takes pride in its weakness. To be a slave of the world is to be tossed to and fro by the passions. 

"Blessed are the pure in heart, they will see God"

You have a lot of work to do.

My religion is designed specifically so that people like you are closed off from it. 

The benefits of a mystery religion is that we get to laugh at people like you who think you are mocking one thing while you are really admitting something else.

You don't get to define the terminology of my religion, which is thousands of years old, even older than the language you speak.

You can't turn the disputing of words thing around. I have no good reason to accept your newspeak, which was specifically formulated to negate the meaning of my religion. Neither do you have much room to lecture me about civil discourse when the very title of this topic(started by you) is blasphemous and inflammatory.

If you categorically reject everything I say, it is impossible for you to understand what I am saying.

You have to believe in order to come to know.

Yet, even my plainspeak is lost to you, because you have no intention of understanding me. 

I say The Truth is God, and you ask me to prove it. You are simply quarreling over the meanings of words. If you don't believe that God exists, you are wrong. This is not a matter of opinion. Not only are you wrong, but you are also deserving of mockery.

These are not your concepts to define, and to think you have any hope of understanding my faith in this matter is not only foolish, but illogical, and the very antithesis of reason. You cannot make a pretense of reason while operating in this manner.

No, you don't. The way you respond, the questions you ask, and the inappropriate calling of logical fallacies give you away. 

You are very much in the dark. It is very obvious to me.

Yet you don't even understand what I am talking about, and haven't ever, because you are trying to refute things before you understand them.

So while you feel awfully smug, I'm sure, to me you look like a fool.

The Orthodox Church has never accepted the very western idea that God can be reached through knowledge and reason. That is scholasticism.

Our way is superior.

Pascha, and so God became incarnate to deify the universe, uniting in The Word both the divine and fllesh. Conquering death by death through the resurrection.

If you believed me, we wouldn't have these issues. Since you won't believe me, you can't understand.

This is the answer you get from me. If you don't like it, I will not answer your question.

If there is truth at all, The Truth exists. If there is no truth at all, you would not exist to question whether there is truth.

The Truth is God. So because you know The Truth is reality, you know God is reality.

There is nothing else you can be more certain of.

Knowledge has to do with the mind's ability to apprehend something.

The Truth is ultimately real, actuality. It cannot be circumvented by the mind.

I am sure you will find instances where knowledge of things is brought about by discovery or revelation.

When the intellect is cleansed of its defilements, The Truth is revealed. The Truth is not knowledge. The Truth is not apprehended with the mind.

Knowledge =/= God

Blaming God, typical fall back of the wicked.