Yassine

Rescuing fellow Christians from invasion and persecution

Conquering or retaking lands in the possession of Muslims

Fulfilling personal vows to go on a crusade

Translation:Permission please oh YES allah to behead infidels

Crusades were justified, that's right

It doesn't matter the angels, clearly states you go to war and behead people

I'm sorry but when you say the Bible is violent, the BOP is on YOU

I am certainly not defending The Roman Empire.

Monophysitism is a heresy, so the monophysite pope was not with the church.

Coptic Christians today have abandoned Monophysitism, and reunion with The Church is something that is going on behind the scenes. The so called "Oriental Orthodox" churches that decended from those who did not accept Chlacedon even use our buildings now, we are on very good terms. The schism is, as I said, being healed. Monophysitism, the heresy that expelled these churches, is no longer practiced by them.

Muslims have no business meddling with the church.

Which they did a lot. Especially the Turks.

And if you want to talk about restoring churches, give back The Hagia Sophia.

The Church is not a secular government. You say I am misinformed, but you don't even understand the basics of our theology let alone the the tradition of canons. I don't think discussing this would be fruitful, because The Caliphate certainly was a secular governmment, and it has not always been very nice. I don't think that pointing the finger back and forth making claims about things that allegedly happened in the past is particularly useful.

My position is very simple. I am an Orthodox Christian. I have more faith in the experience of the church than Mohammed,  who I believe was a false prophet.

if it was a one off i'd be inflating things, but there are loads of similar stories.   Get this straight - I am not in the business of putting Islam in a bad light. I am not Stephen.  The problem is that Islam and Muslims already have a lousy reputation with many - if not most - westerners.   One reason is stories like the ones I picked out  that make Muslims appear like a blood thirsty mob following a bizarre and intolerant ideology.

What you have said so far is that is the truth!  According to you Muslims can lose their rag over something trivial and turn into a howing mob. 

How reassured the people of Bradford will be to hear that about their new neighbours!

The thing is you are wrong.

I understand you are frustrated, but I am not being deceitful or dishonest.

https://orthodoxwiki.org/Canon_law

The tradition of the holy canons has to do with church governance, not secular governance. It is not a judicial system.

And if I were you, I wouldn't throw stones about historical revisionism, because the only nice thing the church has to say about the Muslim conquerors is that they had lower taxes than the Roman Empire.

If that is so, those preachers probably weren't saying how trivial it was. I think what was going on is that the religious conservtives were sending a clear signal to the government to not cosy up to the west and secularism because 'we own the streets'.

This isn't a spat between academics over a fine point of theology. This is a ideological clash between conservatism and progressiveness.

The canons of the church have nothing to do with secular law.

The Orthodox Catholic Church =/= Roman Catholic.

The Church is not intended to be a secular government. It is not supposed to be a worldly government. Never was supposed to.

Mohammed set the precedent that Islam is a worldly government. The Caliph that followed conquered.

Debate what?

Do you have evidence, if so present it. There's nothing to debate, evidence confirms the claim, a failure to present evidence proves the falseness of the claim.

My memory of that story involved the children choosing the name, do you have evidence that contradicts this?

Supply evidence that some "angel" lol ever spoke to Muhammad.

You don't get it the context you were spewing states that Muslims go to war and invade people.

How great, And uh oh yeah who started those wars, surely it wasn't the Seljuk Turks, A muslim country Right?

Quran 8:12 which says, “When your Lord revealed to the angels: I am with you, therefore make firm those who believe. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them.”

And oh yeah The BOP is on YOU for the second point

But what happened was thousands of people rioted in the streets and demanded her death!  There is a complete loss of perspective here. I don't believe many Muslims - even devout ones - would react by rioting to something so trivial unless something else is going on. At least I hope you agree that it was trivial. If your ideal society is one where the tiniest infraction resuts in a public lynching then I can only wish you get to live in it.

I suspect that those mass protests were not spontaneous but engineered. But I don't know enough about the internal politics of Islam to know by who or why.

I think the big difference here is that while a Christian might say that *insert sin here* might be worthy of death, our religion is to forgive and pray that God will help them before it is too late.

We have no equivalent to sharia. We are not a legalistic faith.

Islam is inherently legalistic because it is a political entity.

So no, really, I wouldn't say, "Oh no, those poor innocent fags" is the type of argument we use. They really deserve the punishment, because they are not innocent. We instead would say, "He who is without sin cast the first stone", and an honest person will be forced to admit that in some way they have gotten away with much, and have been forgiven much. Passing it forward is the right thing to do.

And truly, secular government in the west became a thing because of all the religious wars that protestants would fight. This was the way to keep the peace.

Honestly, secular non-religious government that is distinct from the church is probably the most Christian form of government. A government that respects freedom of belief.

But no, that doesn't mean that sexual immorality is anything but, and truly every single one deserves death. No one should feel sorry for an adulterer. Sexual behavior is a choice, not anything but.

And no, Sharia doesn't put up with that crap. It isn't because it is unjust either. That is my point. It also doesn't put up with the godless either, and surely, it wouldn't be unjust to chuck anyone so foolish as to deny God into a pit of alligators or whatever cruel and medieval punishment sharia prescribes.

But that is the difference between Islam and Christianity. We are a lot nicer.

Atheists not so, the idea of eradicating religion gets them off. That is why every atheist government kills believers to the extent that they can get away with it without pissing off too many people.

Something communists, fascists, and Muslims all have in common. They are all about the secular government.

The Church certainly does not condone the killing of others for their beliefs. It is built into the faith that we prefer to patiently wait in hopes that they are lead to repentance.

Mehmed II introduced the word Politics into Arabic "Siyasah" from a book he published and claimed to be the collection of Politics doctrines of the Byzantine Caesars before him.

He gathered Italian artists, humanists and Greek scholars at his court, allowed the Byzantine Church to continue functioning, ordered the patriarch Gennadius to translate Christian doctrine into Turkish [LINK]

The whole question revolves around your chosen definition of "radical Muslim".

Generally I take that to mean terrorist or supporting terrorist tactics.

By that standard, approximately 20% of Muslims can be described as "radical" or "extremist".

Many Mormons and Jews and Christians and Amish and Hindus have "controversial opinions" about the role of women in society and homosexuals and generally believe that laws should be based on their (more or less) ancient rule-book of choice.

Terrorists are bad.  I hope that's something we can all agree on.

Being a Muslim does not in-and-of-itself make you a terrorist.

Here's your STEEL MAN. [LINK]

If a person can lose their own inviolability, it doesn't sound very inviolable.

It sounds more like conditional human rights.

Gillian Gibbons and Asia Bibi were not murderers. What they actually did was not wicked or evil and a thousand things worse than that happen every day and nobody notices. Were there no rapes or murders on the day Gilliam named a stuffed toy 'Mohammed'?  No-one was defraued or paid a bribe that day? But it was Gillians trivial case that caused a mob - estimated at 10,000 strong - to gather and bay for blood.

A lesson on the principle of inviolability and the difference between Hanafi and Hanbali jurisprudence doesn't explain why there were days of rioting over a village peasant's alleged passing remark. May be to explain that we need an insight into the 'realpolitics' of the Islamic world, not its theology.

The problem is it doesn't stop people arguing about what is authorative!  If you are of one school the writings for your position are authoratative and the ones against your position are heretical, and - of course - vice versa.

Yassine says "Then you have the liberal Muslims who have zero scholarship & zero qualification" is that objective or one-sided partisan rhetoric? 

You wrote:

LOL! Radical Muslim = wanting Sharia as their law in their own country?? LMAO. 

I replied;

"And mine". 

But I can assure you that there are no laws telling Christians to go out into the world and rob rape and maim and murder anyone who isn't Christian or refuses to believe in the Christ as the god in the barbaric vile book the quran commands.

So fk off. you have no argument here.

PEACEFUL MY ARSE! “We are commanded to terrorise the disbelievers”

"Allah commanded us to TERRORIZE the Infidels"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=670qHZBM5Is

PEACEFUL MY ARSE! APOSTASY.   “he wants to leave Islam, what do we do? :KILL HIM” 2:32 onwards. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPCLY2MKRCc

There is no crisis of authority in the Orthodox Church. The crisis is only among the heterodox, and they are outside the church. If they were with the church, maybe they wouldn't be so confounded trying to appear relevant to an increasingly pagan culture.

And even though we have many different autocephalous churches, we have an amazing doctrinal consistency. An amazingly consistent writing out put. And while you could tell how heterodox churches have changed by reading their literature over time, we still have writings that read like the writings of the early church. It is obvious that we share the same faith.

Part of me always kind of cringes when we are compared to the heterodox, because it is debatable whether or not they are even Christian. They are not with the church. Jow can you be a Christian if you are not with the church? But we still hope for reunion. It will not be through the compromise of our faith, it will only be in the adoption of Orthodox Christianity.

It is idolatry because it is calling a book The Word of God when the book itself says that The Word of God is eternal, pre-eternal even, One in essence with God, being God, and that which we are saved by. The Word of God is Jesus Christ. Not the Jesus Christ you know, for you only know the human nature of Christ. You do not know The Divine, The Word of God being made flesh, dwelling among us.

United in the hypostasis or divine Person of The Son are two distinct physis or natures. To quote the Athanasian creed...

"He is God from the essence of the Father, begotten before time; and he is human from the essence of his mother, born in time; completely God, completely human, with a rational soul and human flesh; equal to the Father as regards divinity, less than the Father as regards humanity. Although he is God and human, yet Christ is not two, but one. He is one, however, not by his divinity being turned into flesh, but by God's taking humanity to himself. He is one, certainly not by the blending of his essence, but by the unity of his person. For just as one human is both rational soul and flesh, so too the one Christ is both God and human."

We certainly venerate saints, but we do not give them the honor that is due to God alone. We venerate them for the Christ that is in them, as they are icons of Christ.

Jesus Christ is not simply a saint. Jesus Christ is God with Us. 

And Saint Athanasius wrote, "That God became man that man might become God"

Salvation to us is theosis, being united to God through union with The Son. For Jesus Christ is The Only Begotten Son, existing before all ages as The Word of God, but we are united to Him through adoption as children of God. This is salvation, for even as The Prophet Isaiah spoke,

"All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field:

The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the LORD bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass.

The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever."

And it is only by and through The Word of God that there is salvation.

And truly, the name "Jesus" even means "God's Salvation".

Salvation is unity with Jesus Christ to the glory of God The Father by The Holy Spirit.

Yes I know. It shouldn't be allowed that one can bury conversations or posts that they are not comfortable with. But there you are.

This thread is done anyway.

The Myth of the "Tiny Radical Muslim Minority"  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7TAAw3oQvg&t=114s

Not as nearly as radical as the lovely Christians...

Doubtful

- Every verse in the Quran has a reason & circumstance of revelation, some are Muhkamat (absolute) which do not allow different interpretations (such as "Allah is One"), some are Mutashabihat (ambiguous) which may be interpreted in accordance with textual & circumstantial context by the qualified ulama (scholars). Some Christians love to deny it, but the Bible is believed to be infallible too, as it states in the Dei Verbum "the books of both the Old and New Testaments in their entirety, with all their parts, are sacred and canonical because written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author and have been handed on as such to the Church herself … the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings". I could bring up some Bible verses, but you already know about those.

What verses?

- Sure, fight who how & with what? Aliens? Muslims? With arms? Potatoes? Words?... When it says in the US Constitution: 'right to bear arms', it's not saying go & shoot people... These things are understood in proper context.

What's the context then

The rest is bullshit, it shows Muslim's cruelty

The difference is, you impose your values on everybody regardless of their beliefs, while in Islam this extends only to the believers.

If so, something you must clear up is why thousands of Sudanese protested in the street for the execution of Gillian Gibbons for naming a teddy bear 'Mohammed' and why Asia Bibi - a Christian - was convicted of blasphemy in Pakistan.  

Further, I do not dispute that there are 'non-extreme' interpretations of the verses trotted out to 'prove' Islam is violent.  But it isn't just Islamophobes who prefer simple, violent interpretations is it?  It seems that Muslims are increasingly influenced by the simple. literal interpreations and less by subtle, progressive interpretations. Can you comment on that?

There is no Islamic priesthood in the orthodox sense. Islam is about as anarchistic as protestantism when it comes to religious leadership.

That being the case, there is plenty of room to allow so called "extremists" to get away with what they do.

I would like to again relay this story of my Bishop who went to the middle east for his education. He was speaking to an Imam, and was telling him that there were good Muslims in The United States, even a town completely populated by Muslims with a giant mosque and everything. The response he got from the Imam was shocking. "They were not good Muslims. If they were good Muslims, they would have taken up arms and subjugated the state by now."

Whether or not this is orthodox Muslim teaching is debatable I'm sure, but the fact is that these people are allowed to act as spiritual fathers is aided by the fact that Islam is not really well organized as a religion.

The Church certainly does not condone the killing of others for their beliefs. It is built into the faith that we prefer to patiently wait in hopes that they are lead to repentance.

I am sure we are all enlightened by those two very detailed historical analyses.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrMBHZWe2S8&t=9s

The divide between creation and The Uncreated is of essence. God is certainly present in creation by His energies.

I will use a quote from a modern Bishop I think is good..

"God in his entirety is completely present in each of his divine energies. Thus the essence-energies distinction is a way of stating simultaneously that the whole God is inaccessible, and that the whole God in his outgoing love has rendered himself accessible to man." -Kallistos Ware

You are going to find examples in the Bible sure, but this type of language wasn't fleshed out entirely until the rise of certain heresies made it necessary to explain what the Church has always believed.

We are not like you Muslims who believe that your Koran was dictated by God. In fact, to say the bible is like that would be the heresy of bibliolatry, which we would consider an idolatry.

Now if you deny the incarnation, you deny all the prophets. You also deny thst God can be witnessed in the things that are made.

This is Saint Paul and Saint Timothy's letter to the Church of Colossae.

The Shia are making their Imam out to be Christ.

I am about to go on a full week vacation, I would rather not debate that now, but the majority of Muslims are mostly radical, 

Unlike nearly all of the Old Testament verses of violence, most verses of violence in the Quran are open-ended, meaning that they are not necessarily restrained by historical context contained in the surrounding text (although many Muslims choose to think of them that way). They are part of the eternal, unchanging word of Allah, and just as relevant or subject to interpretation as anything else in the Quran.

Quran (2:244) - "Then fight in the cause of Allah, and know that Allah Heareth and knoweth all things."

Quran (2:216) - "Fighting is prescribed for you, and ye dislike it. But it is possible that ye dislike a thing which is good for you, and that ye love a thing which is bad for you. But Allah knoweth, and ye know not." Not only does this verse establish that violence can be virtuous, but it also contradicts the myth that fighting is intended only in self-defense, since the audience was obviously not under attack at the time. From the Hadith, we know that this verse was narrated at a time that Muhammad was actually trying to motivate his people into raiding merchant caravans for loot.

Quran (3:151) - "Soon shall We cast terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers, for that they joined companions with Allah, for which He had sent no authority". This speaks directly of polytheists, yet it also includes Christians, since they believe in the Trinity (ie. what Muhammad incorrectly believed to be 'joining companions to Allah').

The church has never indiscriminately massacred pagans nor can the church condone this as it is against our ways. 

This makes the overwhelming majority of Christians radical, most Christians want the Bible as their law, especially in South America & Africa. Even in the US, 57% of republicans want to abolish the constitution & make the Bible national religion

LOL! Radical Muslim = wanting Sharia as their law in their own country?? LMAO.

And mine.

Islam is not a religion of peace

But the Islamic system is theocratic which means law must conform to and never contradict scripture.

note I say 'law' not belief.  What is in the quran does not only affect how an inividual Muslim feels about eating shellfish.  In a theocratic system scripture dictates social policy, education policy, health policy, gender policy etc.  In the west we can debate, for example, the death penalty.  In a theocracy there is no debate - there are just religious scholars poring over ancient tomes imposing their learned opinions. 

In the west we are so used to democracy and secularism its hard to imagine theocracy.  The real contrast is not between Christianity and Islam but between secularism and theocracy.   There are theocratically-minded Christians in the west, and they have a small political effect.   But if you imagine a US ruled by fundamentalist evangelicals with no oppostion you get some idea of theocracy.

Europe cast off the shackes of theocracy centuies ago. i believe the Islamic world can reform too, but I think Wahaabists and like-minded Muslim theocrats are a real threat who are rolling back the work of modernising Muslims such as Attaurk in Turkey.

Repeatedly quoted and requoted, the phrase is often used by apologists when radical Islam bubbles to the surface.

In this 6 minute video that myth is finally put to rest. Interesting is the fact that this person quotes the well respected Pew Research Centre as his source. 

  

The Myth of the Tiny Radical Muslim Minority https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7TAAw3oQvg&t=114s

The [Muslim] men and women I met told me they found it infuriating that they could be devout in their practice of their religion but they would only be considered “moderate” Muslims – since moderate was often taken to mean not hugely observant. Meanwhile those who had committed appalling acts of terror – and who were often far from religious in their earlier lives – would immediately be considered “real” or “full” Muslims. It was surprising to find a term that I had always assumed was favourable and benign being so roundly condemned. It may once have been useful but the phrase is no longer fit for purpose.

So 'Moderate' is taken to mean 'not hugely observant" - I think that's the same as 'half-hearted'.  I believe my post is a sober exposition of the issue around the word 'moderate' and is neither pro- or anti- anything; I just presented some background.

I've  @'ed yassine in the hope of getting his perspective.

But your answer to my rhetorical question is not too far from what I am telling you. Being a manifestation of God's will, creation is united to God by this divine energy. We see this divine energy as being uncreated and one with God. 

But you are naive if you think there is no intermediary between yourself and the divine. Are you not a creature? All your observations, are they not creation? Your purest thoughts, are they still not creation? When it comes to the divine, at best, all you have is an image. That perfect image of God is The Jesus Christ who came down, The Christ you nor the one you call prophet knew, The Christ that it is written of..

"Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:

For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:

And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.

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."

Yassine, if your argument is to simply poo poo away the church as if Satan conquered it, and then disregard the scriptures of the church as being uninspired, I will say that you are not going to prop the Koran or your prophet up above the rubble.

You have a very superficial understanding of church history. Studying church history is the reason I became an Orthodox Christian. There was a time I believed as you do, because protestantism needs to believe in the anarchy of the early church to justify its deviation from it. However, it is a false narrative. Holy orders have existed in the church since the beginning,  and those holy orders remain intact and valid only in The Orthodox Catholic Church. Textual criticism of the bible is a very controversial subject, even amongst protestants, and it is a protestant phenomena for sure.

I would also like to point out that modern atheistic secularism is largely the result of the protestants inheriting scholasticism from the Roman Catholics. Protestant churches struggle to resist the pressures of prevailing culture. You have churches with sermons filled with pop culture references, get rich theology, and even openly homosexual clergy. These people certainly aren't the guardians of the faith. They seem to believe that saying you believe in Jesus is a get out of hell free card, and that maybe they should be nice to people as long as it is easy and convenient. But good luck pinning anything down with protestants, because there are thousands and thousands of variations! They are united in their rejection of The True Church.

God is not divided in parts. God is not made up of cells. Creation is of a distinct physis or nature than The Uncreated or divinity. 

It is a mystery, one that is in a way expressed in our Eucharist. 

How distant what you call God must be if don't truly see God as being everywhere present. How can anything truly be reality without the presence of Ultimate Reality? 

If you don't believe that Christ sealed the church with The Holy Spirit, I don't know what to tell you.

"Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us."

and as is written by The Apostle John...

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The same was in the beginning with God.

All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not."

The Democratic candidates are tripping over each other trying to outbid the others, offering policies that range from perfectly reasonable (Yang’s. policy that if you devote 10% of your income to the debt for 10 years the remainder is forgiven) to the truly insane (Bernie “let’s destroy the stock market” Sanders.) 

As someone who has never had any student loan debt I can talk about this objectively. The lack of sympathy from conservatives on this issue really disgusts me. Not only were many students totally misled their entire lives about college, but this is a textbook example of the government messing everything up. No one would ever lend a jobless 18 year old fifty grand if student loans weren’t a special class of debt that cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. The totally unlimited supply of credit available to jobless and broke 18 year olds for education is the true reason that tuition has skyrocketed to the extent it has. The real solution to student loan debt is politically toxic: end student loans entirely. Colleges would be forced to lower their prices to the point that the average person can afford to pay for college with cash or by working their way through school. 

What do you guys think?

You are such an angry little thing aren't you?

I'm sorry Yassine, you are badly informed. Saint Luke wrote the Acts of tbe Apostles, not Paul. Paul did not corrupt the faith as you falsely believe. We know what we believe, and heretics are not arbitrarily identified. They are identified as such because they contradict the teachings of the Apostles, who Jesus Christ trusted with the Church that the gates of hell will not overcome. We know where these heresies originate.

We do not worship a man as God, Yassine. If this was the case, why would Saint Paul himself write, 

"Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man"

The Apostles surely vetted Paul. He was certainly Chrismated by them. He did not corrupt the faith.

As I said, if you don't believe every bishop can be traced back to the apostles, ask one of them, not me. They will show you their credentials.

Ghassanid Kingdom accepted the council of Chalcedon, so they were indeed Orthodox. They would have honored Paul.

One of the amazing things about Paul is that before his road to Damascus experience where he witnessed the riisen Lord, he was a persecuter of the Christians, and very zealously so.

There are two natures of The Son. Fully Divine, fully man. The man part is creation, because God became creation. The incarnation effectively deifies creation, uniting it to God in the fleshly nature of the hypostasis of The Son.

This is not the same as pantheism, that is, saying the universe(creation) is God. We are more accurately described as panentheists. That is, God is everywhere present in creation, but pre-exists creation. Is of a distinct nature. Uncreated rather than created. In fact, God's word even pre-exists time, being co-eternal with The Father. God is present in creation through His Word and His Spirit.

It is the incarnation of God that gives creation its reality.

Not god, God. The persistent reality is Christ. The Divine nature does not die, it is the fleshly nature that dies. For the present to exist, the past must die. For the future to exist, the present must die. But Christ is here past, present, and future, and all of creation rises along with Christ, united to His flesh. On the last day, all of creation will be resurrected, and the light of Truth will shine through all revealing everything as it truly is. In doing this, death is abolished. 

It is written by The Apostle Jesus loved, Saint John the theologian, "And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire."

The second death being the death of death. That is why we say that the divine glory of God on the day of resurrection is both the light of heaven and the fire of hell. It is both eternal life and eternal death. Eternal life because to abide in God is to abide in life. Eternal death because to abide in delusion is to abide in death. As it is written by the Prophet King David, "If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.", and so the light of Truth conquers death, for death has no dominion over The Truth. Yet all are resurrected, either to glory or shame. There is no escape from God.

Jesus Christ not only taught in parables. His entire life, from his conception in Mary the theotokos' womb through his crucifixion and resurrection was a parable. 

And so Jesus Christ fulfills all the law and the prophets. The one they point to is Him.

do you have any evidence of miracles happening to muslims in recent time? do you have any evidence of near death experiences with content that verifies islam in recent time? 

Paull was an Orthodox Christian, certainly a saint, and pillar of the church.

But if the church was a Pauline Order, Saint James the just, Bishop of Jerusalem, would not have had the final word at the first council of the church, a council that both Paul and Peter were present for.

Paul did not found many of the oldest and most important churches.  

The opinion that Paul corrupted the church is an opinion that heretics came up with to justify their existence of their sects outside of the Holy Orders of the church.

The so called "gnostics" tend to find both Paul and the Holy Apostle John the theologian obnoxious to their false beliefs.

God manifests Himself in creation through His Word and Spirit. This describes how God relates to man and how we relate to God. 

The Word is Truth. Surely, God is The Truth.

The Holy Spirit is The Spirit of Truth. Surely it is The Spirit of Truth that enlivens all things.

If it is The Spirit of Truth that comes from The Father, through The Son, and reveals The Father to us through The Son, what ellse can The Father Be?

The Son is The Most Perfect Image of The Father.

The Son is God incarnate in creation. That is, God with Us. The Truth.

We are not simply talking about prophets when we speak of Jesus Christ, we are speaking of The Word of God made flesh, dwelling among us. That through His death and resurrection, Christ conquered death by death bestowing life to those in the tombs, drawing all creation to Himself, and uniting it to Him.

Eternal life is to know The One True God, and The One sent, Jesus Christ.

You know as well as I do that The Ultimate Reality is God, and there can only be One. It should also be apparwnt that our relationship with The Uncreated is through the medium of creation as created beings. The Flesh of The Word is creation.

That is a very strange thing to claim considering in every gospel they are recorded as having been selected personally by Jesus, and the church even knows where they went to preqch and how they were martyred.

When crime happens in either place, it doesn't stay out of police reports LOL. No go zone merely means "a high crime area" that police have to use more caution entering. It is not exclusively a muslim thing and nobody ever claimed it was, though there is clearly a problem of intolerance in much of the Muslim community. Hell you can tell some Muslims that there are high crime muslim communities and they will think that high crime black areas are an excuse for that.