Ask an idiot

I find it ridiculous the idea that anybody would want to be persecuted.

It brings you closer to your god, isn't that what you want?

2 Timothy 3:12  
Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,
Luke 6:22
“Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man!

Desiring to be persecuted is not the same thing as being persecuted for desiring righteousness.

Not sure why you'd refer to an atheist as a "theologian". "Biblical scholar" is a much more appropriate term. Theologian involves one who interprets the explicit ideas and underlying themes in a sacred text(s) to try to decipher what God wants the believer to understand. An atheist is usually going to nitpick the text simply to find contradictions, which is all well and dandy for Biblical scholarship at a secular university but not for theology. In theology you always assume that there is some kind of coherent explanation consistent with the claim that everything it's saying is Divine Truth, that any confusion reflects error or insufficiency on your part rather than on flaws in scripture, and that an explanation that would seem to discredit the faith is not a good explanation. They always put the pieces together to craft something logical enough for the believer to digest. That's what the job entails. Somebody whose first instinct is to throw his (or her) hands in the air and cry out "Bah, it's all nonsense that illiterate bronze age shepherds dreamed up in a drunken stupor!" cannot be a theologian by definition.

And, I mean, I don't know. It is possible, of course that somewhere in the world there might be an atheist who's simply fascinated enough with the Bible, and the two religions stemming out of it, and especially the theology deriving from such, that they're both willing and competent enough to participate in the discussion as something resembling a theologian. Maybe that's what this woman is. I don't know who she is, but what she was saying in the video didn't seem to give off that vibe at all. So I'd be very hesitant to call her by such a title. Giving people a title that suggests credibility to advise the Christian ecumene on the tenets of the faith, just so they're in an ideal position to tear down the faith down from the inside, is insanity. It's like ordaining a Satanist to serve as a Baptist preacher.

Believe it or not, Orthodoxy has a different way of understanding theologian.

That might be an accurate way to describe a western theologian though.

As far as scripture is concerned though, the bible in particular, we consider it our book. We wrote it. We compiled it. The bible belongs to The Orthodox Catholic Church, and so no one really has a right to interpret it outside the church. 

"Despite there being no strong or even compelling circumstantial evidence to suggest that David and Jonathan were homosexual lovers I'm just going to make that claim anyway because hey why not? The best way to discredit the Apostle Paul and OT prohibitions against gay sex is to make stuff up out of thin air! Why won't those gall-danged Christians believe in my interpretation of the Bible? It's just as good as theirs!"

"Despite the vision that Peter had, and the various epistles of Paul, both of which strongly suggested otherwise, obviously the OT prohibitions on such things as eating shellfish, getting circumcised, and wearing clothing made from two different fibers still apply because that 'interpretation' of mine is the best way to point out Christian hypocrisy where in fact none exists! The fact that rules governing sexual norms still apply while these do not is something that I'm completely unable to grasp because I lack nuance and am Biblically illiterate! I spent two years at a community college and took one or two Bible classes that I jacked off on my laptop in the back of the room during the whole time so clearly my opinion on Christian theology is as good as that of Thomas Aquinas!"

How much of your bible was dictated by your god?

Lol

Seems you don't understand what actual mocking is but okay.

So anyway we have established

1) You believe that - in your words - "everything that can be observed or postulated put together" should not be called God but you would call reality God, which means that your God must be defined by some characteristic that cannot be 'observed or postulated' (post 76)

2) You claim to know that I believe in God deep down despite never having asked me whether I believe in anything that cannot be observed or postulated, probably because you are more interested in a competition than a conversation.

Cool. Any other questions?

I am unware of anyone making those remarks here.  

However Ms Stavrakopoulou's qualifications are a rather more than "two years at a community college and one or two Bible classes".   What's your point?

Awww thanks. Now I feel warm inside =)

I don't see any competition here.

Some people call the universe God. They are called pantheists. I would say that this is a conception of God. The Ultimate Reality is God, not whatever we can conceive The Ultimate Reality to be.

You're the one claiming to know what is in everyone else's head better than they do, not me. (Post 52)

When did I claim to know what is in your head at all?

Post 52 is not an example of me telling you what is in your head.

You already told me what is in your head. You believe you are an atheist.

Yet you believe the ultimate reality exists, because if there is only one reality, that reality is by definition the ultimate reality.

Now, you don't know God, but you believe God exists, even if you don't know that you believe God exists. That isn't an example of me knowing what is in your head better than you, it is an example of me telling someone who says they are a hippopotamus that they are in fact a human being.

Look again at what I said. The Ultimate Reality is God. Now look at what you are saying. How is what I am saying not a natural interpretation? 

Maybe the one who is taking this as a competition is in fact you, because I am not trying to feed my ego.

I've never unblocked you. I don't need to in order to tag you in a post.

I fully understand what you believe. You're no different than any other theist in that you believe something you can't actually know to be true, and that no amount of proof that you can't know what you believe you know can change your mind. It's call cognitive dissonance.

For whatever reason, you seem to believe that if someone disagrees with you, they must not understand you. I guess that's just another part of your psychosis.

It seems that to be an atheist by your reckoning one would have think that there was no 'reality' at all.  I'd say that was a very high bar to set for 'atheism'!   I'm fairly sure even Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens would be God-believers by your standards!

I will ask you to create in you mind a category for people who believe in a real universe but not in a god-like God - and then put me (and other self-identifying atheists)in it.

@BT

You say I can't know, but I certainly do know.

Why do you say I can't know? Because you think you know.

And not only are you haughty, but you have me blocked. Your brazen mannerisms are a reflection of your immaturity, weakness, and yes, even cowardice.

You are too full of pride to have a real conversation.

I already do. The strife loving, willfully ignorant, and prideful.

Pagans. Yep, pagans. Polytheists in denial.

There. I unblocked you.

I had you blocked because of your relentless harassment.

Because you insist that reality is "God," yet you can't prove it even to yourself. Look at the debate(if it can even be called that) between you and Discipulus. Every time he asks you how you know reality is "God," you dodge the question and simply insist that reality IS "God." Beyond using a dictionary to define "God" into existence, you've never once actually explained how you know your god exists. Being that your god is empirically unperceivable, and that humans cannot know that which they cannot empirically perceive, it only stands to logic that you can't know.

Oh, and by the way, before you brazenly call me a coward, perhaps you should remember that I challenged you to a formal debate over this exact matter, and I won. A coward would never formally debate you at all, much less challenge you to one. A big reason why I blocked you is because you have given undeniable evidence that no amount of proving you wrong will ever change your mind, therefore you're a waste of time to speak to.

I cannot prove anything to someone who holds the truth arbitrarily.

The Ultimate Reality is God. Can you think of anything greater or more worthy of being called God? Of course you can't. 

And the church understands this as being God. And because I knew that you have no respect for the church, I used a neutral source. A dictionary.

What fo you do? You prove that you are being arbitrary by rejecting a definition that contradicts you.

You aren't standing on anything. You think I am standing on what you are standing. I am not. 

Exactly, and you insist that I am not because I believe in something that cannot be observed or postulated despite never having asked me whether I in something that cannot be observed or postulated. You claim to know me better than me. That's what I said. Glad we are on the same page there.

Any other questions?

You have never, and probably will never, prove that statement. No one has any reason to believe you.

Definition of God courtesy merriam-webster...

"capitalized : the supreme or ultimate reality"

Definition of definition courtesy merriam-webster...

"a statement expressing the essential nature of something"

Or

" a statement of the meaning of a wordor word group or a sign or symbol"

Or

"the action or the power of describing, explaining, or making definate and clear"

---------

You may now make a fool of yourself by arguing with dictionary, and prove yourself as superstitious...

Definition of superstition courtesy merriam-webster...

"a notion maintained despite evidence to the contrary"

Or you can do the right thing. 

You have a bad habit of implicating me in things I don't say or even imply.

So would you say that the universe is the ultimate reality?

Irony? Nah hypocrisy.

How much of your bible was dictated by your god?

Nah, it is pretty easy. You said that you do not consider, in your words, "everything that can be observed or postulated" to be God, which means that your God is characterized by something that cannot be observed or postulated. You insist that I believe in God therefore you are insisting that I believe in something that cannot be observed or postulated. Very simple concept.

We can extrapolate further from this. You never asked whether I believe in anything that cannot be observed or postulated but you insist that I do, therefore you are making baseless assumptions about what is actually in my head.

Any other questions about what I believe or are we done here?