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The great lent is coming up. To those who aren't familiar, it is the 40 days leading up to pascha.
For us Orthodox, the great lent starts the monday after next.
I will not be posting here during lent, and I may just decide to stop posting here all together. I don't really think spending my breaks glued to a phone is what I care to do anymore. Besides that, I don't really think there is anything more here for me to do.
The Truth is God. It hurts me to see people so carelessly blaspheming God as if this sort of thing doesn't really effect the world. It does. And while there is likely nothing I can say that would persuade the one who has thoroughly rejected God, you are making a huge mistake. Your way is foundationally cursed. You may mock what I am saying and reject it, but it would really be better for you if you repented.
I do love you. That is why I spent so much time repeating myself. I hope somebody got something out of it.
It's not about me. Forget me. Go with God.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
If you all know how it will play out, I won't waste our time then.
I tried to warn you all. What else can I do?
You have made your choice.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
Would you say that these absolute truths and the evidences that allow you to believe them have a reality that ties them all together?
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@keithprosser
If you believe that there is ultimate reality, I wouldn't call you a nihilist.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
So you believe that there are absolute truths because you have been convinced that they are a reality? Evidence has proven to you that absolute truths exist?
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@Discipulus_Didicit
So why do you believe these numbers and formulas are absolute truths?
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@keithprosser
Here is another dandy from Nietzche, which kind of hammers in my point that there was a time when it was understood that atheism is fundamentally a denial of truth...
"Even we knowers of today, we godless anti-metaphysicians, still take our fire, too, from the flame lit by the thousand-year-old faith, the Christian faith which was also Plato's faith, that God is truth; that truth is divine." ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
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@keithprosser
In a certain sense, in an ultimate sense, a Christian is a nihilist. For to the Christian, in the end, the world is nothing, and God is all. This is the precise opposite of the nihilism here where the world is everything and God is nothing. That is a nihilism that proceeds from the abyss, and the Christian's is a "nihilism" that proceeds from abundance. The true nihilist places his faith in things that pass away and end in nothing. All optimism on this foundation is clearly futile. The Christian, renouncing such vanity places their faith in the one thing that will not pass away, The Kingdom of God.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
Do you believe that The Truth exists?
Do you believe The Ultimate Reality exists?
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@keithprosser
The whole point is Jesus Christ.
Everything else comes from that.
The Word of God.
But you don't really know Jesus, because it is all theological mumbo jumbo to you!
Theology is the study of God. Consider now that we acknowledge The Ultimate Reality as God. That being the case, there may be more depth and truth to our theology than you are aware of!
I do my best to make it very plain for all of you. Fundamentally, it is Truth worship. I am telling the truth, and doing my best to make it simple for everyone.
But as long as you think you no better, my words are in vain because when I say "truth", you will interpret that as what you think I think is the truth and not what I really mean! The Truth.
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@keithprosser
Saint Paul knew what he was talking about, Keith.
You would junk 1 Corinthians 13?
1 Timothy 1:5?
You, like many so called Christians may be looking after a god in your own image.
And there was a time, at the beginning of my Christian walk that I thought the same as you! But I later came to realize that Paul is really top notch. In fact, now I would even tell people that if you really want to know what Christianity is about, study Paul's letters. The guy truly was a brilliant theologian.
And there is a consistency in the whole Bible that maybe isn't obvious to you. Ponder these quotations from the prophets, and realize that the point of it all is not these outward displays, but that which is done in the heart, in Spirit and Truth.
Micah 6:8
"He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?"
Hosea 6:6
"For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings."
Think about those who say, "Oh, I can't wait until Jesus comes back and fixes everything!
Amos 5:18-24
"Woe unto you that desire the day of the LORD! to what end is it for you? the day of the LORD is darkness, and not light.
As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him.
Shall not the day of the LORD bedarkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?
I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies.
Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts.
Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols.
But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream."
Isaiah 1:12-20
When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts?
Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it isiniquity, even the solemn meeting.
Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.
And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.
Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil;
Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.
Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:
But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it."
Zechariah 7:8-13
"And the word of the LORD came unto Zechariah, saying,
Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying, Execute true judgment, and shew mercy and compassions every man to his brother:
And oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor; and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart.
But they refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they should not hear.
Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law, and the words which the LORD of hosts hath sent in his spirit by the former prophets: therefore came a great wrath from the LORD of hosts.
Therefore it is come to pass, that as he cried, and they would not hear; so they cried, and I would not hear, saith the LORD of hosts"
Ezekiel 18:21-24
"But if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die.
All his transgressions that he hath committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him: in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live.
Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord GOD: and not that he should return from his ways, and live?
But when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and doeth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doeth, shall he live? All his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned: in his trespass that he hath trespassed, and in his sin that he hath sinned, in them shall he die."
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@keithprosser
Yes, it is easy to get confused if you don't see The Orthodox Catholic Church as the legitimate Christian church.
Really, what matters is what the church teaches not if it is biblical. The Church is not based off the new Testament, the church wrote and compiled the new Testament.
And by the church, I don't mean the baptists, who did not even exist 500 years ago let alone 2000.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
This seems like the appropriate thread.
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@Vader
You're mother's basement.
I know I got the most posts here, but I think it is worth noting that this is literally the only thing I do on the internet except maybe look up stuff on occasion.
I don't know why I'm even here. I don't like to debate. I think I might be here so that some big point gets proven... to somebody... i don't know. I would like to think I am wildly chucking seeds in the air that may hopefully grow. Maybe there is some fertile soil out there.
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@keithprosser
@n8nrgmi
N8nrgmi is right in that once saved always saved is not biblical.
And it also isn't what The Church teaches. Salvation is a lifelong process. The idea that there is a single moment of salvation in a person's life and then they no longer sin is also not what The Church teaches.
The Christian life, however, is a life of repenting from sin.
And I think it is important to note that good intentions do not cover up sin. A sin is a sin whether or not it was intentional or not. The Methodists might disagree with me on this point, but they aren't The Church.
And there is no man without sin. We all miss the mark. That is a foundational belief of Christianity.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
A definition of "religion" found in merriam-webster's collegiate dictionary is...
"a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith"
So what is your religion and why do you believe it?
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@disgusted
"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. "
Guess who wrote this?
If you said anything other than Friedrich Nietzsche, you'd be wrong.
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@Mercies
Earlier in the thread sometime, I did point out this interpretation, which is the church's interpretation.... the correct interpretation, eh?
Really glad to see another Orthodox Christian here. It's kind of a desert here.
If I am ever off as far as explaining what the church teaches, don't be shy to correct me! I try my best, but I make mistakes.
Hope you stick around, I really don't want to be the only rep here.
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My personal answer.
Divine Revelation.
I've been on pretty much every end of the spectrum. In fact, even right before becoming Orthodox it seemed like the last place both I or anyone else would expect me to go.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
Why do you believe your religion is right?
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@keithprosser
I wouldn't want to live in the Victorian age either, but at least they had the sense to know that an atheist was denying absolute truth. Even the faithless preferred to call themselves deists, because they knew God existed! The nihilism that came out of academia during that time has a lot to do with the wars of the century that followed. The rejection of God? No, this is not an advancement. This is a trick of the devil, who has fooled otherwise intelligent people to think that the contemporary man, totally detached from true humanity and even reality itself is somehow an advancement.
Well, when the virtual reality is unplugged, and people are not distracted from their chains, finally noticing they are there after being told they were free their whole life, it will be too late. The boots will crash down, and there will be no mercy. It will be too late to repent.
The only position that involves no logical contradictions is the affirmation of an absolute truth which underlies and secures all lesser truths; an absolute truth can be obtained by no relative, human means.
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@keithprosser
Logic and reasoning has no weight to a nihilist.
The real issue here has a more foundational root.
The nihilist does not believe in absolute truth.
And well, Nihilism has been the spirit of the age for quite some time now.
Even people who don't identify as nihilists are influenced by this spirit.
People in fact so uprooted from the source of these things that now we have atheists today who don't even realize that atheism is nihilism 100 years ago, people knew this.
But we live in a very anti-intellectual age. That is what nihilism does to a people.
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@keithprosser
This fetishization of logic is a western theological development.
The Ultimate Reality is God. Is this not something that can only be known through revelation?
The Ultimate Reality is God, and I doubt you could think of anything else more worthy to be called that.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
I don't know what you are talking about.
A little bit of faith is necessary to understand a theology. After all, if you dismiss everything, how are the pieces going to fit together to form a consistency?
Theology =/= God
And there is only 1 God, The Ultimate Reality. There is no god that is this.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
Maybe if you didn't have a habit of making implications, you wouldn't be reading so many implications into what I was saying.
Your "direct quote" is a paraphrase, you trying to make sense of what I am saying.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
Faith is integral to understanding the truth are certainly words you came up to make sense of what I am saying. But truly, you do have to have faith in something to get anywhere. You have to have faith to believe anything, even that there is some reality to what you experience.
And I don't think you understannd that denying God undermines every single thing you say, because you are openly professing to not believe in THE TRUTH.
If we have any discussions at all about what you believe, this elephant in the room can not be ignored. There is nothing reasonable about denying The Ultimate Reality or even simply not believing it exists. This above everything else you think you know should be what you are more certain of than anything. That God exists.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
So let me get this straight.... you are judging my grasp of how science works based on what you saw written by someone else who you allegedly say doesn't know how science works?
I already told you, I don't watch videos, that isn't going to change.
I am an Orthodox Christian. Why do I need to talk about these other traditions when you yourself don't even believe them? It is a waste of time.
Why don't you tell me why you reject The Ultimate Reality? If you don't believe that, it matters little else what you don't believe.
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What is the intent of the one who is questioning me?
As I have said before, the state of the heart has a great deal to do with one's intentions.
That is part of what makes up an individual's Nous. Their intentions.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
If the desertwisdom link you sent me in PM is any indication of how well you understand how the scientific method works I am extremely hesitant to listen to anything you say about science or scientists.
I would say that this isn't sound judgement. Discernment is something that naturally improves with a clean Nous.
There are hundreds of religions that claim their god is the absolute truth which use the saim faith-based justification that yours uses and which you think are wrong. Hundreds. All I want is for you to tell us why you think they are wrong
If there are allegedly hundreds of religions that claim as you say, It would not be useful for me make a statement that may apply to many of them but not all of them.
There is One God, One Ultimate Reality. God is not a created thing.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
"Other religions" is a fill in the blank. You could literally put anything there.
A religion is a
"a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith"
Wouldn't you say that a good scientists holds to the scientific method with ardor and faith? I would.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
I can't know, because your question is absurd.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
Understanding the truth is not the same thing as abiding in the truth.
The faith is abiding in The Truth.
Without faith that puriifying the heart is meaningful, why would you even attempt this work?
And it is an easy thing to have faith in.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
This question is too vague. It seems to me that you have a *fill in the blank* approach to this subject.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
Your conceptions of how the rest of the world works is truly hilarious. I bet you picture me as a pot smoking hippie living in my parents basement wasting away my life in endless hedonistic rituals, possibly of a satanic
I know you want me to be the bad guy really hard, but nothing I said implied this was an exhaustive example.
I think an apology would be nice, though I don't expect it.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
What is their religion?
I think that really matters, because Truth Worship is not the same as any other religion. Do they worship the truth? They say this, but how do they do it? Is smoking dope and laying in a hammock really loving truth with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength?
What am I saying?
Love God by cleansing the Nous.
Is there anything that can be said against this? Surely this is reasonable and very believable. It is hard too, it isn't a passive endeavor. It is something that is lived.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
Which child is going to learn from their good parents?
The child who has faith in their parents or the child who rebels against their parents?
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@Discipulus_Didicit
If you are not practicing your religion, how can you even say you have faith?
The truth here is apparent.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
Faith without works is dead.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
I never said any such thing.
You aren't going to trust me, because that would take faith, which you seem to be averse to.
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You have to lean an awful lot on your own understanding to come up with these things, because The Church does not accept any of these formulations and never has.
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@disgusted
See post above yours, that is your answer.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
Faith is integral to the scientific method even. The idea that faith is an inherently bad thing is something that came out of the destructive nihilistic worldview defines our age. A nihilistic worldview that fundamentally comes from a denial of absolute truth.
And just as there are many people who culturally identify with a religious group but don't understand their faith, so there are a many who do not truly believe there is no absolute truth while they identify with that which spawned from nihilism.
As God is The Ultimate Reality, and atheism is the rejection of God, atheism is fundamentally rooted in nihilism. If there is no God, that makes me god! And indeed, Satanists understand this and embrace it.
It is folly.
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@EtrnlVw
That is all very unnecessary.
If you identify with what defiles the image of God, you are identifying with death. This will not survive the flames of God's glory.
And the flames of God's glory is hell to sin, but unspeakable joy and contentment to righteousness.
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@keithprosser
I don't think it is right to laugh at what is more appropriately responded to with tears. I am not here to be amused.
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@keithprosser
Context is very important, Keith.
Specifically to this world...
Specifically to this world...
"Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever."
And
"From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?"
So it is very specific to a certain theological context. Tradesecret mentioned "the god of this world", a reference to this scripture...
"Therefore seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not;
But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.
But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:
In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake.
For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."
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@keithprosser
It is very consistent with what the church teaches.
It is confusing for you because you aren't really interested in believing what the church teaches, you are more interested in maintaining your belief that what the church teaches cannot be true.
And the proof of this is that Truth Worship sounds cool to everyone. The Ultimate Reality? Sounds cool to everyone.
As soon as it is attached to Christ, oh heavens no! Anything but that!
Try it out as a scientific experiment, you'll see. I've done it
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@Wylted
Eris is literally the Greek word for strife.
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