-->
@Discipulus_Didicit
I don't think you are wrong about God, I know you are wrong. I know this very clearly. That is why I can't believe that your lack of belief in God comes knowing God is.
The Ultimate Reality is God.
Why is this distinction between reality and ultimate reality important?
We are not talking about a reality or realities. We are talking about THE Reality. The very reality that makes any other reality possible. It is a way of identifying the subject matter with precision, not an attempt at woo or confusion.
And yes, this is what we accept as being God, and Orthodox spirituality cannot make sense without this understanding, because Orthodox Spirituality is about purifying the heart(Nous). You cannot purify your heart towards a false god, because idolatry is by nature a defilement of the heart.
The problem with spirituality in western thinking is that it is more concerned with formulating and getting things down into precise terms, logic, reasoning, etc.. It is a type of attitude that was inherited from Rome. Latins think like engineers.
Orthodoxy understands that you can build a tree of logic off of faulty premises and every conclusion you build off of this will technically be logical. We are more concerned with purifying our intentions and making our vision clear than to intelectualize everything.
The western church, both Roman Catholicism and the thousands of reformation churches have descended into heresy and chaos because they don't really get it. Secularism is really the natural progression of the wests dropping the ball.
So you have to understand, I am an Orthodox Christian. I would say that it is probably not very likely that your exposure to Christianity has been through Orthodoxy. We are very different.
And we are also the original church descended from Jesus and the Apostles, who have been very faithful in keeping what was passed down to us.
So if I sound different than the Christians you are accustomed to, that is why.