Yassine

I just want to make it very clear that The Orthodox Church does not act as  a worldly government, neither does it wish to. It is not really right to judge the church or Christianity based on the actions of a worldly state.

I would also like to point out that The Roman Catholic Church, which has not been Orthodox for over a thousand years, does not represent us or our ways. In fact, they attacked us during the crusades as well!

Protestantism is a reaction against Roman Catholicism, but they ditched the church along with Rome.

I would also like to point out that even Orthodox Countries have oppressed the church. The Roman Emperor meddled with the church quite abit, often times erring on the side of heretics. The Russian Tzars were not much different. 

The point being, the actions of these states must be understood to be distinct from that of the Church, because The Church is not a secular authority. It doesn't really matter how godly these governments claim their intentions.

What we Orthodox Christians are called to do is pray for the governing authorities, even if they are oppressing us. Maybe even especially if they are oppressing us. Indeed, we do this during every liturgy.

Our religion is very much not to be trouble. The only time we are trouble to governments is when they attempt to coerce us into worshipping idols or abandoning Christ. In that case even, the example we were given is to die peacefully as witnesses. Not that we seek death, but sometimes circumstances make it an unavoidable situation.

The Son is The Most Perfect Image of God. The Word of God. The Truth.

The Holy Spirit is The Spirit of Truth.

The Father is revealed in The Son by The Holy Spirit that proceeds from The Father, through The Son, and acting in us through cooperation and submission to His Will.

As Jesus Christ said, "true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him."

Worshipping The Father in Spirit and in Truth. This is The Trinity.

So if The Father is known to us by the spirit of Truth in The Most Perfect Image of The Truth, what does that tell us about The Father?

We both know that God is The Ultimate Reality. The Truth.

And so The Trinity explains how God is with us. The Trinity, One in essence and Undivided. Not three Gods. Not God in 3 parts. 

This is called a divine mystery for a reason, but it is important and it means something. As I said, it is the difference between worshipping a conception as God and recognizing that as created beings operating in the realm of creation, our relationship with God is through creation.

And it is in the hypostasis of The Son that all of creation is united to God.

It might also seem strange to you that we are a nation of priests as well. What is commonly referred to as a priest is in fact a presbyter, or elder.

But as far as tracing ordinations, every single Bishop of our church can trace their ordinations back to the apostles. When we say in our creed, "One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church", the "Apostolic" part refers to this aspect of the church.

Yep, nobody claimed it was exclusively a Muslim thing. Everyone acknowledges those groups have no go zones as well.

Intolerance and Christianity are not compatible.

In fact, we are taught a step above simply tolerating others. We are taught charity. That is, loving those who are tolerated, not simply putting up with them.

Just for clarification if a government is under a rule of a Religion it is not secular. Yassine mentioned a Caliph is secular but it isn't.

3 definitions of secular below:

@Yassine and whoever I had as a reciever wants to read this

I do understand where you got the worldly definition but when people say secular what they mean is a non-Religious government in the context of when they are talking about the government.

Secular Merriam Webster: not overtly or specifically religious

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/secular

Secular Cambridge Dictionary: not having any connection with religion

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/secular

Secular Oxford Dictionary: Not connected with religious or spiritual matters.

https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/secular

I'd be surprised if you found Muslim sources for any, as they probably wouldn't be worth noting. We remember these things because it is part of what the church does.

It is also worth noting that just because someone hasn't been glorified by the church as a saint does not mean that they weren't a saint. 

All right believing, true worshiping Christians are saints.

Yet Jesus Christ promises that the gates of hell will not overthrow the church, so there can not be a time when the church ceased to exist. The chain is not broken. 

I understand you must believe this in order to justify Mohammed, but we certainly see him as a false prophet and forerunner of the antichrist.

That might not sound nice to you, but it is what we believe. Several of the things that he taught about Jesus were condemned as heresies centuries before he lived. The writings of the apostles themselves testify against him.

In fact, if you make Jesus a mere man or prophet, you disrupt the very prophecies that He came to fulfill.

You don't understand what the trinity is. We certainly believe in one God. In fact, tritheism we recognize as a heresy. As is calling Mary a part of the trinity as your Koran claims we believe.

Acknowledging The Trinity is how we know God and recognize God rather than mistaking a conception of God as God.

Saint Abu of Tbilisi

Another good one though who was also a Turk

Saint Constantine Hagarit

Saint Ahmed the Calligrapher

Church canons are not secular laws. 

Jesus Christ appointed apostles. The apostles appointed bishops. We know what Jesus taught. We know who Jesus is. 

We do not believe in three gods, we believe in One God.

You are kind of on the side of the oppressors, so I don't expect to convince you that we are a great deal more offended at these things, and justifiably so than you can understand.

Kidnapping children, forcing them to convert to Islam, and having them fight in war is like comscription in The United States. WOW.

"Canon law" is a very Roman Catholic way of refering to the canons of the church. The Orthodox Church is not a legalistic entity.

I must again point out that the church was pushed into a position of governance under the Turks, and this arrangement in itself is not canonical. That is why today the church doesn't operate in this manner.

Of course we know why you don't agree with The Church on what Jesus taught or even about who Jesus is. It is because you believe the false prophet over The One Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.

But the fulfillment of your religion is in Jesus Christ, and it is impossible for you to understand this with a Muslim understanding of Jesus. You must have an Orthodox understanding of Jesus.

For it was said by Christ himself "this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."

You know sure as I do that The Ultimate Reality is God, and there is no other. You don't know Jesus Christ. For knowing Jesus in the  way you know Jesus is not eternal life.

Devshirme

I'm amazed you believe that the Turks simply left Christians be to practice their religion in peace without interference. That is certainly not in line with the experience of the church.

You really underestimate our faith. Christianity does not need the protection of a state to live. If this was the case, The Roman Empire would have stamped out Christianity before becoming Christian 300 years after pentecost.

Islam thrives in an environment that silences anything that disagrees with it. If The Church were truly given liberty, and Muslims were not threatened with death for converting, Orthodox Christianity would truly flourish in the middle east.

It is our duty as Christians to preach the gospel. To prevent us from freely preaching the gospel is to oppose God. It matters not if Muslims are not allowed to try to convert us. Indeed, if they tried, and found themselves being the ones converted, they put themselves in danger! And surely, The Church is no stranger to this. We recognize many Muslims who became Orthodox as saints, after being discovered, refusing to renounce their faith under threats of death that were not empty.

Ask Ramshutu. I can't debate this. It will take too long given the amount of depth I would have to go to.

If Ramshutu doesn't want to do it then simply have it open and if unitelligble people accept the debate you will get free wins and you can  use the comment section to decide a better candidate. 

Sorry about that. Learnt my lesson for accepting debates that I have no real interest in partaking in like the more recent border wall. It was a catfight turned into a debate. Rarely turns into something fruitful. My main reason is still time even if I was given a week to post arguments. 

Simply bc there is no one else that can be me for me to survive. In any other scenario, i'm dead and gone. Therefore, anything that happens to me after death i'll be the driver and have to deal with it. Arrogance and delusion are just part of the game. That's why imho it's best to realize it's a part of you in order to be its master and not vice versa. 

Mohammed and his successors were heads of a secular government. Secular means worldly. Clearly, the caliphate was a Kingdom of this world.

And there is nothing about Muslim rule that has been conducive to flourishing for us.

Preventing us from building churches and monasteries, confiscating churches, preventing us from preaching publically, killing Muslim converts to Christianity... tip of the iceburg stuff.

But as The Lord Jesus Christ said to those who crucified Him, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do."

And I hold no animosity towards Muslims. I do not believe that Mohammad was a prophet though, as his teachings concerning Jesus Christ are contrary to what the church has always believed since the beginning. 

No go zones are a fact. The arguments liberals use against them amount to "no official no go zones are documented by the government". Well no shit. Police are not going to openly admit they are afraid to go to a location without significant back up

It is most definiterly not irrelevant. There are social tensions between communities in the UK and europe and people are dieing at the hands of radicals and fanatics on both sides. Is it 'irrelevant' that young men are being motivated and radicalised to commit murders in the name of Islam? Is it irrelevant that non-Muslims murder Muslims in retaliation, as in new zealand a few weeks ago?

And all you can do is bad mouth christians! Is that supposed to help? In what way does that promote peace? Are you better than Steve or of the same vile type intolerant bigot that causes ordinary men and women to die for nothing, sacrificed as pawns by ideologically driven fanatics?

Christians and Muslims profess love and peace, but it seems that it is me, an atheist, that is the only one here working for reconciliation.

The Orthodox Catholic Church is the second largest congregation of Christians on the planet.

Despite being subjected to Muslim dhimmitude in the middle east and Africa for a good chunk of its history.

If you believe I am ignorant about something, don't think that puffing yourself and acting condescending will impress me that you know better. 

I know it is hard for you to understand, because the state and church are so intertwined in Islam, but this is not how the Christian Church is. You mock us because governments can and have bullied the church around, but because of how our church is structured it always reverts back to normal. The Turks could not genocide our church out of existence, neither could they, despite their meddling in church affairs, corrupt our faith. The Soviet Union could not genocide our church out of existence, neither could they, despite their meddling in church affairs, corrupt our faith. We are not like The Roman Catholics, who can have their whole church corrupted by one bishop, as they have when they altered the creed of the church. We are not like the protestants, who lacking real holy orders and unity find themselves being corrupted into abominable heresies at the whim of their surrounding culture.

Our is The Church of Jesus Christ and the apostles, the very Church that Christ promised the gates of hell will not overcome. When you say that the church fell away or died and needed to be replaced by Islam, you are calling Jesus Christ a liar.

But Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the law and all the prophets. At the end of Islam is Jesus Christ.

The Church does not make secular laws. Historically, emperors and such felt that they should enforce religion on the population. This is not denial of history, I am simply not making the identity fallacy that you are likely unintentionally making.

I am the only Orthodox Christian here. You should not take the deviations of heretics as being representative of Christianity.

I'm more than happy to not use the word 'moderate' if you suggest an alternative.  There are Muslims who want to establish a world Caliphate and are prepared to use violence and force to achieve it.  There are  "muslims who actually do want to actually live in a peaceful  integrated western society." - at least in theory!  

We need labels to discuss the issue.  In the west non-muslims have adopted 'Islamist' and 'Moderate' for that purpose.  Many Muslims do not like those terms, for reasons I gave earlier.

So please do uggest term for the different sorts of Islam and their followers - they may catch on! But I  don't expect many Muslims to read my posts, so I will stick with 'islamist/ihdist/fanatical' etc for one sort and 'moderate' for the other.

I've @ed Yassine to see if we can get our resident Muslim's view!

Either way, I hope all would agree that it’s time a bunch of little asteroids hit them all.

“But Dylan, that’s a mean thing to say. Surely you wouldn’t say that we should nuke Harvard and Africa!”

Uh, yes I would. Frankly, snow and ash are preferable to these people, no matter how much of it we have to deal with once “nuclear winter” is a thing. We could even make little snowmen and think of them as democrats while we kick them apart.

The heterodox wouldn't see that way, because they deny the church or prescribe to an understanding of the church that is different than what the ancient church believed. 

I am baptized and Chrismated in The Orthodox Catholic Church. So yes, you could say Eastern Christian, though I live in The United States. I go to an Antiochan church that was planted by Lebanese immigrants.

Secular is another way of saying worldly. 

You confuse The Roman Empire with The Church. We do not kill apostates.

Muslims do kill apostates though, and this goes back even to Mohammed and his successors.

The Turks imposed on the church to act in a judicial manner through the millet system, but the church is not intended to be a worldly power.

Because of how the Orthodox Church is organized, it is able to revert back to normal after government imposition ceases. There has never been a period in history where government didn't meddle with the church, but the church survives.

Of course. God granted authority to the Roman Empire. God granted authority to the Tzars of Russia, the bolsheviks. The Caliphate. Who can give authority but God? Even Satan has no power but that which was granted by God.

Your examples of "Christians" killing apostates is somewhat silly because none of the examples are Orthodox Christians, and even if they were, the Church's official position is that we do not kill apostates or execute any type of juridical authority whatsoever. In fact, the merging of church and state even has its own heretical name in Caesaropapism. 

I find it difficult to believe that in Islam it isn't the norm for apostasy from Islam to be punishable by death, since this has been the norm since the beginning.

I agree. Bernie is pretty set in his ways and seems for real. He's just not articulate (manipulative) like a lawyer which works in his determent unfortunately. But i like how he sets the goal post at the extreme bc in an perfect society... his vision should be realized. Yang is awesome bc he paints that picture on how to get there. I'm not too sure about UBI... i remember him saying how it won't result in inflation... but that's everyone's concern. More money in the regular person's hand means the pizza place can charge more... so i have to research that again bc i do remember him saying on some program his way won't effect inflation. Idk at this point.

Other than that... yes, corporate interests and powerful people interests rule the world. Especially bc most of these people are male. I don't know how power translates to females, but to males it's like being a god in this world. I don't think any male would want to give that position up and will spend all their money to keep that power. It's sad the world revolves around the super power of money and power... but it does. People will flood anything they can to keep that power. 

I know you're religious so i won't get too into that... but it's that very power that i think has corrupted everything from religion to politics. The faster people realize what "power" to a single individual truly means... the faster we can wake up and say... "cool, if you can have that... I AT LEAST deserve a roof over my head and food" ... not asking for much or that power... just acknowledge us bc if you don't... the empire will eventually fall from within (that's my prediction anyways). Evil never wins. I think America is being more evil than good at this point. History tells us that doesn't last bc someone either domestic of foreign will get fed up with it. Most likely domestic in our case. 

We'll see. The last things i said is my speculation. But overall message is we need to work on "OUR" country. Bc guess what. If our country is great, if everyone (or mostly) is at least happy.... we won't need wars anymore, we won't need regime changes... the world will see. We are in the age of technology... EVERYONE will see. If they see a country that has figured it out... they will fight their governments, they will fight for what we have. Everyone is born to be free and happy (imho America's message)... we need to lead by that example.   

God is me bro... i wouldn't put that burden on anyone else. It's already enough to deal with my consciousness. Times infinity, are you kidding me? I get what that means. Delusion & arrogance will always be a part of the deal... bc i would choose it to be so, unfortunately. It's a bad realization. But, consciousness man... you'll find all the answers there, and if you search the platform and come to the conclusion of what that meanns... sure, you can call that god. 

The destruction of the temple and city in AD 70, for instance. The promised Messiah coming to an Old Covenant people that no longer exist in covenant relationship as specified in the (written) Torah after AD 70, for another. 

Western Christianity descends from Roman Catholicism which broke away from The Orthodox Catholic Church over a thousand years ago. 

We hope for them to return to the church. We can't compromise the faith though, so reconciliation is really the heterodox churches becoming Orthodox.

I go to an Antiochan diocese, so our Church is currently based in Damascus.

We are really off topic here, I think it would be better to make a new topic if you would.

The ecumenical councils did not innovate the faith, but clarify and reaffirm what was passed down by those ordained by the apostles and their successors.

The Roman Empire is not the church, and even after the empire became Christian, persecution of Orthodox Christians did not end. Many Emperors were not Orthodox Christians. 

The history is a lot more complicated than you know, but we certainly believe that The Holy Spirit guides the church, and tbat as Jesus promised, hell will not overcome it. The Church is the oldest continuous institution on the planet, which is amqzing considering throughiut most of its history it has been persecuted, oppressed, and slaughtered.

That is not in line with the experience of the church. Past and present.

I have been born to not submit to anyone. Under pain, under pressure... you can do anything to me i will never submit to anyone other than a lie to end my life... which i know i can do and is ultimately always in my power... god doesn't make sense. God knows i will never submit yet will punish me anyways... that doesn't make sense. When will you guys understand this is a human creation.

It isn't a language I am that good with. The church I go to has a lot of people who speak fluent Arabic, and at least one fellow from Iraq who hardly speaks anything but!

In English, Allah and illah are spelled and pronounced the same, which is unfortunate.

Islam (and by this, I don't mean submission to God, because truly that is our Orthodox faith, submission to God.) Does not know Jesus Christ. The Jesus Christ that is taught in Islam is not the same Jesus Christ that is known by The Orthodox Catholic and Apostolic Church.

An acceptable reason for killing a Muslim apostate is if they convert to Christianity, isn't it?

We Orthodox Christians have a prayer that we say to begin our other prayers that explains it well I think.

"O heavenly King, O Comforter, the Spirit of truth, who art in all places and fillest all things; Treasury of good things and Giver of life: Come and dwell in us and cleanse us from every stain, and save our souls, O gracious Lord."

When Jesus Christ, took flesh from the ever virgin Mary and theotokos, He was conceived by The Holy Spirit. It is this same Holy Spirit that we say in our creed, or statement of belief...

"And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, and Giver of Life,

Who proceedeth from the Father,

Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified,

Who spake by the Prophets;"

So we say that the Holy Spirit is what spoke through the prophets.

In the Arabic language, the difference between illah and Allah.

So does the truth of the Koran depend on how many friends a debater has ?

Since you are a Muslim you should already have the information with you to make such an argument.

I know I did say I will allow you to make the rules but there are 2 things I would like for the debate.

1) 1 week for me to make an argument/

2) 30k character limit. If that is too much just drop it down to as low as 10k. I don't think I have ever reached the 30k character limit but just to make sure if I do come close most of my argument can be submitted if not most then more than what the other character limits were able to do. 

Considering I believe Islam is a Christian heresy,

I do not believe that killing Muslim apostates is acceptable.

As long as you are threatening people with death for coming to the true faith, you are surely on the wrong side. 

Yes, I've heard that. It is somewhere I would like to see also. Are you located in Istanbul? So many of the Turkish shows I've watched have a panorama of the city. 

Ok, so you believe in God's word.

Do you believe in God's spirit?

I didn't know they did it with my girl too. Shame. The party just doesn't learn. One big reason Trump won is bc the "people" felt like they picked him. That's huge and the democrats should be an example of that... yet, they don't learn. They go as extreme as they can, they pander... they play shady games. They will lose again if they continue this way. Plus, open borders essentially? Some of the stuff they were saying is too far left for me. 

The winner of a debate is the best debater, not the one who is right.

I enjoyed it. A really good series! I actually speak and recognize a few words of Arabic (i.e., Inshallah and of course the most common greeting "Salam Alaikum")

Yes, I know.

Psalm 118:22 (NASB)

The stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief corner stone.

https://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=stone+the+builders+rejected&qs_version=NASB

2 Corinthians 3:14-16 (NASB)
14 But their minds were hardened; for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil [a]remains unlifted, because it is removed in Christ. 15 But to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart; 16 but whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.

His reputation goes before him. He has gained support. Thus, harder to win against.