Mopac

Simply recognizing God isn't all there is. What makes the relationship?

Besides that, what many people call "The Ultimate Reality" may in fact be a conception of the mind. The Trinity effectively solves this problem.

In the words of St James the Just...

"Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble."

Yes, throwing the baby out with the bathwater, you deny The Truth itself.

Foolishness.

The Ultimate Reality certainly is God, I will not fall for these tricks of the  devil.

They do exist. They do change their minds! I might have been there once.

If someone claimed the same thing, well, that wouldn't be strange. However consider this..

The God of my religion is The Ultimate Reality. Is there any God greater? Nothing else is even worthy of being called God.

Loving this God over all things necessitates the abandoning of idols. The cleaning of the Nous.

Loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. The first commandment and greatest commandment.

And the second is like it. Love thy neighbor as thyself. Where does that come from? Recognizing that we were created in the image of God. To love others is to love God. 

If you love God, you love yourself, an image of God. You show this love for God and God's image by cleaning the image of what defiles it. You love others because they are also images of God. They might be distorted or tarnished by sin, but they are still images of God. Make sense?

And so it isn't simply a self absorbed "love of the truth". Quite the contrary, loving others comes from loving the truth.

Because the Christian should strive to be a living Icon of Christ, who told us to love others as he loved us. And Christ loved us so much as to show us how to partake in the divine nature throuhh our union with him.

Live The Truth, that is The Way, that is The Life.

And what purer religion is this? For we take care of orphans, widows, the poor, and love those around us without being pietists. The works themselves are not the faith, and indeed such a faith is empty. We do these things because we love God, who is sure and eternal.

Who could have a problem with this religion? Who could say it was a bad thing? To those who work to move people away from this good faith, it would be better if they were dead. And we don't pray for their death, we pray that they repent from their wickedness and come to The Truth.

 

Maybe you don't understand where I am coming from.

And I wouldn't consider the polytheist a believer. An atheist tends to be a polytheist in denial.

No, it is pretty obvious to this one here that sin is very influntial in the motivations of the ungodly, even to the point of being the primary motivation.

Of course, though I doubt I could convince an epistemological nihilist that anything is correct or true.

The word does not imply slavery.

Though sure, you could be an apostate slave.

It was kind of hard for people to deny that Caesar wasn't a god either given that he pulled the same stunt.

And yes, many martyrs of the faith who endured the most hellish of torments, even onto death.

What most people consider to be freedom is in fact slavery to sin.

The Christian discipline has much to do with freeing oneself from this slavery.

I certainly believe that Orthodox Christianity is the form that True Religion has taken on this planet, and that the Orthodox Catholic Church is the authoritative Christian Church. 

And this way of life is not a conclusion, it is a walk.

I am not aware of outlining any method to reach conclusions.

There is no conclusion to the Christian life here on Earth until one(with God's grace) joins the church triumphant.

Antichrist.

Without a doubt.

In fact, even if it pretended to be Jesus, I would say the same thing.

In fact, this sort of thing might actually be in the planning...

Some applicable scripture from St. Paul's 2nd epistle of Thessalonians..

The life of a Christian is one of repentance.

You are sabotaging your future. You can choose to do different. 

You'd be better off making steps to not being a loser instead of constructing a delusional internet fantasy around making yourself important.

Grow up. You are retarding your development.

I am not here to inflate my ego.

That is something losers like you do.

No one cares what you think anyway, you're a loser.

I stand corrected.

I don't do drugs.

But I had the unfortunate displeasure of being in the company of someone who was on meth the other day, and he seemed to enjoy vomiting pseudo-gnostic bullshit, which seems to be something you like to do.

Scripture is written in Greek.

The religion of the Greeks is Orthodoxy.

You are talking nonsense.

Totally not meth madness.

Nonsense

You are claiming that I made both claims.

 I am making plain what I am claiming.

I don't demand people accept anything.

Cheeseburgers ain't kosher, dude

There surely instances when the bible clarifies what is written in it.

The Church is the rightful interpreter of scripture.

The Church is the rightful interpreter of the bible.

You must be confusing me with someone who buys into the idea of, sola scriptura a purely protestant phenomena. Very naive too. What it really means is "The bible and my interpretation"

What does that lead to? Thousands of little "churches"(heresies) all claiming to be Christian with little to no connection to the historic church.

I have been very consistent. Connect the dots.

The word I used was epignosis.

That is true and experiential knowledge. 

Isn't personal experience what tends to lead one to conclusions?

You say that you worship the truth, but I have certainly given more details about this than you. I have pointed out how there is a deeper spiritual meaning to Christianity, a deeper spiritual meaning that you are wilfully ignorant of.

And that is why Jesus says

"To you it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God; but to those who are outside, all things come in parables."

And in a great way, it is like a vetting process. For God gives grace to the humble, and resists the proud.

The Church is the rightful interpreter of the bible, which they compiled, and The Church does not teach to persecute, oppress, or kill anyone.

Reformation churches base their faiths off the bible, their own interpretations. They were never with us.

If "it" was interpreted incorrectly, it is not Orthodoxy by definition.

No, there is nothing about Orthodox Christianity that spawns death and destruction. Death and destruction is certainly spawned from somewhere else!

It is considered a very big no no  for an Orthodox to partake in the eucharist if other churches.

You say you do not believe that the eucharist is the body and blood of Christ.

The priest in question is very out of line if they took part in the eucharist.

Simply attending your church is a different story. In fact, I take part and even teach bible study at a methodist church and a nonprofit organization that does a bible study. I go to an evangelical church that has a calvinist pastor, and I help out at a church that is done for the homeless outdoors.

I can do these things, but taking part in the eucharist? Big no no. We don't even believe it the same way. 

Not simlly that, but Orthodox Christianity.

Accepting it as true comes from understanding it.

It is not a dead faith though, it is something to be lived.

You don't reason at all, you are a rhetorician, not a logician.

If you really worshipped the truth, you would recognize what I am saying as being truth worship.

I don't believe you can accept what I am saying because you don't want Christianity to be what I am telling you it is. If you were to, that would necessitate a serious paradigm shift and the discarding of a great deal of baggage that you perhaps feel very invested in.

If it isn't already apparent to you, as I have said this in so many ways, I believe because I understand it. As we are talking about apodictic truth, that is all that is necessary.

I would go to the grave enduring torments for my faith. You are correct in that trying to get me to commit apostasy is a futile endeavor. I am very secure.

I would like you to repent for the sake of your own soul. I don't know why you would want me to commit apostasy.

There is nothing about Orthodox Christianity that spawns death and destruction, and if you want to know what humility really looks like, it won't take too much reading of the lives of saints to find out.

It takes humility to become a monastic and to trust an elder to monitor you and help guide you. These monastics look more humble to me than the agnostic who rejects that anyone can know, and become their own defacto guide.

Not even trying anymore, eh?

And even today you see people killing The Truth in order to justify themselves. And so in their hearts The Truth is killed by them, and buried in a tomb. But just as Jesus Christ rose from the dead, The Truth rises again. The Truth is etrrnal

If I was trying to appear wise, I wouldn't be hanging around here! 

What could be more bleedin' obvious than what I am saying?

We don't see The Ultimate Reality directly, but through The Most Perfect Image of The Truth.

Or here is another way of looking at it.

The Ultimate Reality is God.

Believe that God means that. Until you do that, The Spirit of Truth is not in you to make it so. You are not believing that He is who He says He is.

And what else am I saying? If you want to see The Truth, purify the heart. Only a clean intellect can even come close to seeing the truth. An intellect defiled by vanities has no hope.

And as I said, and maintain. The great mystery behind Christianity is that it is Truth Worship. If you believe in The Truth, well, The Church will help you into Orthodoxy, that is, true worship or correct belief concerning so.

And everything I am saying should be evident. The issue here is really making the connection between what I am saying and Christianity, which unbelievers always think they have all figured out! Anything but that!

And admitting one is wrong and turning away from error is the very act of repentance. A Christian's life is one of repentance.

Fanatics like WOA explain why people kill over religion. They are people just like him.

In the context of what I am talking about, the question is actually answered by accepting that I am speaking of apodictic truths and not merely assertions that may or may not be true.

But generally speaking, there are many different ways to check one's experience to reality, and that is a pretty deep subject, eh?

If you could get away with it, would you kill all the Jews/Muslims/Christians?

Assume they will never abandon their faith.

If personal experience was always or even commonly reliable, we wouldn't have the concept of prelest.

It is not simply experiential knowledge, it is epignosis. Experiential knowledge is a way that epignosis can be translated, but it is really also True Knowledge.

The Ultimate Reality is seen through The Most Perfect Image of The Truth, which is purified by The Spirit of Truth.

And so we experience God through The Trinity, which is worshipping God in Spirit and Truth.

The discipline of a Christian is obtaining and upkeeping an undefiled Nous. This is how we love God and even how we love as Christ loves.

Applicable concepts...

Theophany

Theoria

Theosis

That is because you presume to know the Christian God when you really don't.