Becoming a monk

Author: Mopac

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@ludofl3x
You are welcome to discuss monasticism at any time.
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@Vader
You said AMEN!!!! FALSE ATHIEST!!!!
And it is so that I doth say unto you.....

"Thank God I'm an atheist".
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@Mopac
You sound like a bigot.
But of course I'm not one.

But to a Bigot, everyone else is a bigot.
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@Salixes
The measure you use to judge will be used to judge you.

You judge unfairly, so that is how you will be judged.


I do not judge you. We will all be judged by the light of truth.


Deb-8-a-bull
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I reckon i could be a monk for like three days.  

We will all be judged says you.  
I can't argue that.  

But I think of it this way Pacmo.   
if a person tortures and kills a bus full of kids. When he dies he will be at the same place / state as the kids he killed.  
 
Be it a Christian a Muslim,   a atheist  or a chicken.   
I " suspect " that the same thing happens to all of us upon death. 
Same Same.   
Well It's just a guess.   Crazy right? 


WHICH BRINGS ME TOOOOOOO  
Imagine the great viewing pleasure that would be. 
  ( FILMING CLOSEUP OF THEISTS REACTIONS WHEN UPON DEATH AND COMING TO THE REALIZATIONS THAT ALL AND EVERYTHING IN LIFE THAT THEY IN RELATION TO GOD AND RELIGION MENT ABSOLUTELY NUFFINK.
Like Not a thing.

OUCH HEY ?

We need to film that shlt. 
When i die i will stand around for days watching  ( THEISTS REACTIONS ) 

Did i just say that out loud. 


 




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@Mopac
The measure you use to judge will be used to judge you.


The measure of course being the whole of decent civilised society and the law of the land which deem you to be a hateful bigot.

And despite the perceived size and influence of your imaginary friend, He is well and truly outnumbered.

If you wish to keep up your disgusting bigotry you should join an isolated clique some place full of perverted radical social misfits.

Oh, hang on.
I almost forgot.
That's where you're going anyway.

Just remember to keep looking over your shoulder.
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@Mopac
Is this a permanent "career"? Because I heard that sometimes Orthodox faithful spend like maybe two or three weeks living in a monastery for the sake of the experience and drawing closer to God. Is that what this is?
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@Swagnarok
Is this a permanent "career"? Because I heard that sometimes Orthodox faithful spend like maybe two or three weeks living in a monastery for the sake of the experience and drawing closer to God. Is that what this is?
I think that I can appropriately answer these questions for you.

It is more likely that they draw closer to each other, in fact extremely close which of course creates a situation of having hypocritical homophobics.

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@Salixes
You sound like a bigot.

But of course I'm not one.
No sir. You are both a bigot and a racist, and I can cite your comments to that effect.

A new site doesn't erase your racist and bigoted comments from the old site.

Your zero reply threads are now up to 8. Has it even been a month?
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If and when mopac goes Monk. 
I am putting my hand up and  am willing and able to feed Moe Moe.
Tuesday dinner,
Friday breakfast.
Friday lunch. 
And every second Saturday lunch. 

So ummmm yeah, 
If we the religious forum posters rally around mopac , i reckon we could keep him. 
 
Please guys put your name down as a  volunteer " FEEDER " 
Select day and dinner breakfast or lunch. 

Good game. 
Good game.

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@Swagnarok
Is this a permanent "career"? Because I heard that sometimes Orthodox faithful spend like maybe two or three weeks living in a monastery for the sake of the experience and drawing closer to God. Is that what this is?


I intend on becoming a full time monk. I will be visiting several monasteries over the course of lent. Eventually I will settle at one.

That is, at least the plan. It's not really an easy thing to explain. Why would anyone want to live that kind of life? Especially in todays world where you can pretty much have whatever you want. We live in a very rich and prosperous age. It's something you really have to want to do. It's something you really have to be called to do. It's not for everyone. I feel like it is something I was made to do. 

There is really nothing in this world I want for myself. So in a way, I am giving myself more fully to the church. I care a great deal about the emerging Orthodox Church in America, and I want to be a part of its mission here.







Deb-8-a-bull
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It Looks like we are going to need build one of these monasteries joints To house him. 
Owning a monk is a lot of work. 

Google.   Low budget Monasteries. 
 

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Lent 
Your going to do that " don't eat certain things at certain times thing " hey? 
Yeah nice. 
Nice. 
Look I don't know a great deal about your God but one thing is for certain.
He lovesssssssssssssss it when he looks down upon us and sees you guys not eating. 
Loves it. 

Again, it's ummmm. 
Its common sense FULL STOP

Well there is one thing he enjoys more then you guys fasting. 
And its coming up.
Yes , Palm sunday.  
LOVES IT. FULL STOP
As a matter of fact.  It blew his mind the first time god seen masses of you guys with palm branches. 

Again, God looks down and sees you guys gathering for him. 
Ya doing the not eating thing for him.   
He lovessssss the bring a tree branch to church day . 

His practically spitting on his fingers , rubbing his nipples.  

Yeah its a big couple of months ahead for old God. 



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@ethang5
You are both a bigot and a racist, and I can cite your comments to that effect.
You may be able to quote comments out of context to make them fit into your wonton view but actually I was talking to my grandmother about that just last night as she was swinging through the trees. Anyway, I threw her another banana and said: "Gee, I'm looking for a guest motivational speaker to talk to my (80%) Indian workforce."

I reckon I could spare a few cedis to get you down here and talk to the lads. I'm sure it would rock their turbans off.
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@Salixes
You may be able to quote comments out of context to make them fit into your wonton view...
Oh Sal! I'm going to cite the whole thread in its entirety so there will be no mistaking the context.

You are a racist and a bigot, you sided with hari, a virulent racist who was banned for his racism. Never thought your racist comments would come back to haunt you did you?

Your compulsion is going to cost you.
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@Deb-8-a-bull
"God was the reason of true faith and good behavior and of the knowledge of technology among people.

While people continually felt God above them, before them, and around them, in the same way air and light is felt, they attributed and dedicated all their technological works and handiwork to Him, their Lord and Creator.

When the feeling of God’s presence became dulled and spiritual vision darkened, that is when pride entered into tradesmen and technologists, and they started to give glory exclusively to themselves for their buildings, handiwork and intellectual works, and began to misuse their work that is when the shadow of cursedness began to fall on technology."


~St. Nikolai Velimirovich

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"Even if we perform upon thousands of good works, my brethren: fasts, prayers, almsgiving; even if we shed our blood for our Christ and we don’t have these two loves [love of God and love of brethren], but on the contrary have hatred and malice toward our brethren, all the good we have done is of the devil and we go to hell. But, you say, we go to hell despite all the good we do because of that little hatred?

Yes, my brethren, because that hatred is the devil’s poison, and just as when we put a little yeast in a hundred pounds of flour it has such power that it causes all the dough to rise, so it is with hatred. It transforms all the good we have done into the devil’s poison."

~ St Kosmos Aitolos

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"He who is master of possessions, is the slave of passions. Do not estimate gold and silver only as possessions, but all things thou possess for the sake of the desire of thy will."
~ St. Isaac the Syrian

"According to thy mercy, pour out upon me, who am miserable, at least one small drop of grace to make me understand and be converted, that I might make at least some small effort to correct myself. For if thy grace does not illumine my soul, I will not be able to see the carelessness and negligence that the passions have produced in  me through my apathy and recklessness."
~ St. Ephraim the Syrian


"Do not imagine this a victory, holy Sopatros, to have denounced a devotion, or an opinion, which apparently is not good. For neither—even if you should have convicted it accurately—are the (teachings) of Sopatros consequently good. For it is possible, both that you and others, whilst occupied in many things that are false and apparent, should overlook the true, which is One and hidden. For neither, if anything is not red, is it therefore white, nor if something is not a horse, is it necessarily a man. But thus will you do, if you follow my advice, you will cease indeed to speak against others, but will so speak on behalf of truth, that every thing said is altogether unquestionable."
~ St. Dionysius the Areopagite




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@Mopac
I'm sorry to hear about your wife, good luck in your spiritual journey.

I haven't seen you in a while from my inactivity, but I figured you would be happy to know that I've decided I will convert to Orthodoxy.
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@triangle.128k
That's great to hear! I cannot stress enough the importance of finding an Orthodox Church to go to. Have you found a church to attend in your area? 
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@Mopac
There's 3 churches within a reasonable driving distance, the one I'm going to is OCA.
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@triangle.128k
That's great to hear. I'll keep you in my prayers.

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From Chapter One of Nihilism by Eugene (Father Seraphim) Rose

    What is the Nihilism in which we have seen the root of the Revolution of the modern age? The answer, at first thought, does not seem difficult; several obvious examples of it spring immediately to mind. There is Hitler's fantastic program of destruction, the Bolshevik Revolution, the Dadaist attack on art; there is the background from which these movements sprang, most notably represented by several "possessed" individuals of the late nineteenth century  poets like Rimbaud and Baudelaire, revolutionaries like Bakunin and Nechayev, "prophets" like Nietzsche; there is, on a humbler level among our contemporaries, the vague unrest that leads some to flock to magicians like Hitler, and others to find escape in drugs or false religions, or to perpetrate those "senseless" crimes that become ever more characteristic of these times. But these represent no more than the spectacular surface of the problem of Nihilism. To account even for these, once one probes beneath the surface, is by no means an easy task; but the task we have set for ourselves in this chapter is broader: to understand the nature of the whole movement of which these phenomena are but extreme examples.

    To do this it will be necessary to avoid two great pitfalls lying on either side of the path we have chosen, into one or the other of which most commentators on the Nihilist spirit of our age have fallen: apology, and diatribe.

Nihilism

    Anyone aware of the too obvious imperfections and evils of modern civilization that have been the more immediate occasion and cause of the Nihilist reaction  though we shall see that these too have been the fruit of an incipient Nihilism  cannot but feel a measure of sympathy with some, at least, of the men who have participated in that reaction. Such sympathy may take the form of pity ror men who may, from one point of  view, be seen as innocent "victims" of the conditions against which their effort has been directed; or again, it may be expressed in the common opinion that certain types of Nihilist phenomena have actually a "positive" significance and have a role to play in some "new development" of history or of man. The latter attitude, again, is itself one of the more obvious fruits of the very Nihilism in question here; but the former attitude, at least, is not entirely devoid of truth or justice. For that very reason, however, we must be all the more careful not to give it undue importance. It is all too easy, in the atmosphere of intellectual fog that pervades Liberal and Humanist circles today, to allow sympathy for an unfortunate person to pass over into receptivity to his ideas. The Nihilist, to be sure, is in some sense "sick," and his sickness is a testimony to the sickness of an age whose best  as well as worst  elements turn to Nihilism; but sickness is not cured, nor even properly diagnosed by "sympathy." In any case there is no such thing as an entirely "innocent victim."

    The Nihilist is all too obviously involved in the very sins and guilt of mankind that have produced the evils of our age; and in taking arms  as do all Nihilists  not only against real or imagined "abuses" and "injustices" in the social and religious order, but also against order itself and the Truth that underlies that order, the Nihilist takes an active part in the work of Satan (for such it is) that can by no means be explained away by the mythology of the "innocent victim." No one, in the last analysis, serves Satan against his will.

    But if "apology" is far from our intention in these pages, neither is our aim mere diatribe. It is not sufficient, for example, to condemn Naziism or Bolshevism for their "barbarism," "gangsterism," or "anti intellectualism," and the artistic or literary avant garde for their "pessimism" or "exhibitionism"; nor is it enough to defend the "democracies" in the name of "civilization," "progress," or "humanism," or for their advocacy of "private property" or "civil liberties." Such arguments, while some of them possess a certain justice, are really quite beside the point; the blows of Nihilism strike too deep, its program is far too radical, to be effectively countered by them. Nihilism has error for its root, and error can be conquered only by Truth. Most of the criticism of Nihilism is not directed to this root at all, and the reason for this  as we shall see  is that Nihilism has become, in our time, so widespread and pervasive, has entered so thoroughly and so deeply into the minds and hearts of all men living today, that there is no longer any "front" on which it may be fought; and those who think they are fighting it are most often using its own weapons, which they in effect turn against themselves.

    Some will perhaps object  once they have seen the scope of our project  that we have set our net too wide: that we have exaggerated the prevalence of Nihilism or, if not, then that the phenomenon is so universal as to defy handling at all. We must admit that our task is an ambitious one, all the more so because of the ambiguity of many Nihilist phenomena; and indeed, if we were to attempt a thorough examination of the question our work would never end.

    It is possible, however, to set our net wide and still catch the fish we are after  because it is, after all, a single fish, and a large one. A complete documentation of Nihilist phenomena is out of the question; but an examination of the unique Nihilist mentality that underlies them, and of its indisputable effects and its role in contemporary history, is surely possible.
We shall attempt here, first, to describe this mentality  in several, at least, of its most important manifestations  and offer a sketch of its historical development; and then to probe more deeply into its meaning and historical program. But before this can be done, we must know more clearly of what we are speaking; we must begin, therefore, with a definition of Nihilism.

    This task need not detain us long; Nihilism has been defined, and quite succinctly, by the fount of philosophical Nihilism, Nietzsche.

    "That there is no truth; that there is no absolute state of affairs  no 'thing in itself This alone is Nihilism, and of the most extreme kind. " (The Will to Power, Vol. 1, in The Complete Works ofFriedrich Nietzsche, New York, The Macmillan Company, 1909, Vol. 14, p. 6.)

    "There is no truth": we have encountered this phrase already more than once in this book, and it will recur frequently hereafter. For the question of Nihilism is, most profoundly, a question of truth; it is, indeed: question of truth.

    But what is truth? The question is, first of all, one of logic: before we discuss the content of truth, we must examine its very possibility, and the conditions of its postulation. And by "truth" we mean, of course  as Nietzsche's denial of it makes explicit  absolute truth, which we have already defined as the dimension of the beginning and the end of things.

    "Absolute truth": the phrase has, to a generation raised on skepticism and unaccustomed to serious thought, an antiquated ring. No one, surely  is the common idea  no one is naive enough to believe in "absolute truth" any more; all truth, to our enlightened age, is "relative." The latter expression, let us note  "all truth is relative"  is the popular translation of Nietzsche's phrase, "there is no (absolute) truth"; the one doctrine is the foundation of the Nihilism alike of the masses and of the elite.

    "Relative truth" is primarily represented, for our age, by the knowledge of science, which begins in observation, proceeds by logic, and progresses in orderly fashion from the known to the unknown. It is always discursive, contingent, qualified, always expressed in "relation" to something else, never standing alone, never categorical, never "absolute."

    The unreflective scientific specialist sees no need for any other kind of knowledge; occupied with the demands of his specialty, he has, perhaps, neither time nor inclination for "abstract" questions that inquire, for example, into the basic presuppositions of that specialty. If he is pressed, or if his mind spontaneously turns to such questions, the most obvious explanation is usually sufficient to satisfy his curiosity: all truth is empirical, all truth is relative.

    Either statement, of course, is a self contradiction. The first statement is itself not empirical at all, but metaphysical; the second is itself an absolute statement. The question of absolute truth is raised first of all, for the critical observer, by such self contradictions; and the first logical conclusion to which he must be led is this: if there is any truth at all, it cannot be merely "relative." The first principles of modern science, as of any system of knowledge, are themselves unchangeable and absolute; if they were not there would be no knowledge at all, not even the most "reflective" knowledge, for there would be no criteria by which to classify anything as knowledge or truth.


Mopac
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    This axiom has a corollary: the absolute cannot be attained by means of the relative. That is to say, the first principles of any system of knowledge cannot be arrived at through the means of that knowledge itself, but must be given in advance; they are the object, not of scientific demonstration, but of faith.

    We have discussed, in an earlier chapter, the universality of faith, seeing it as underlying all human activity and knowledge; and we have seen that faith, if it is not to fall prey to subjective delusions, must be rooted in truth. It is therefore a legitimate, and indeed unavoidable question whether the first principles of the scientific faith  for example, the coherence and uniformity of nature, the transsubjectivity of human knowledge, the adequacy of reason to draw conclusions from observation  are founded in absolute truth; if they are not, they can be no more than unverifiable probabilities. The "pragmatic" position taken by many scientists and humanists who cannot be troubled to think about ultimate things  the position that these principles are no more than experimental hypotheses which collective experience finds reliable  is surely unsatisfactory; it may offer a psychological explanation of the faith these principles inspire, but since it does not establish the foundation of that faith in truth, it leaves the whole scientific edifice on shifting sands and provides no sure defense against the irrational winds that periodically attack it.

    In actual fact, however,  whether it be from simple naivete or from a deeper insight which they cannot justify by argument  most scientists and humanists undoubtedly believe that their faith has something to do with the truth of things. Whether this belief is justified or not is, of course, another question; it is a metaphysical question, and one thing that is certain is that it is not justified by the rather primitive metaphysics of most scientists.

    Every man, as we have seen, lives by faith; likewise every man  something less obvious but no less certain  is a metaphysician. The claim to any knowledge whatever  and no living man can refrain from this claim  implies a theory and standard of knowledge, and a notion of what is ultimately knowable and true. This ultimate truth, whether it be conceived as the Christian God or simply as the ultimate coherence of things, is a metaphysical first principle, an absolute truth. But with the acknowledgement, logically unavoidable, of such a principle, the theory of the "relativity of truth" collapses, it itself being revealed as a self contradictory absolute.

    The proclamation of the "relativity of truth" is, thus, what might be called a "negative metaphysics"  but a metaphysics all the same. There are several principal forms of "negative metaphysics," and since each contradicts itself in a slightly different way, and appeals to a slightly different mentality, it would be wise to devote a paragraph here to the examination of each. We may divide them into the two general categories of "realism" and "agnosticism," each of which in turn may be subdivided into "naive" and "critical."

    "Naive realism," or "naturalism," does not precisely deny absolute truth, but rather makes absolute claims of its own that cannot be defended. Rejecting any "ideal" or "spiritual" absolute, it claims the absolute truth of "materialism" and "determinism." This philosophy is still current in some circles  it is official Marxist doctrine and is expounded by some unsophisticated scientific thinkers in the West  but the main current of contemporary thought has left it behind, and it seems today the quaint relic of a simpler, but bygone, day, the Victorian day when many transferred to "science" the allegiance ahd emotions they had once devoted to religion. It is the impossible formulation of a "scientific" metaphysics  impossible because science is, by its nature, knowledge of the particular, and metaphysics is knowledge of what underlies the particular and is presupposed by it. It is a suicidal philosophy in that the "materialism" and "determinism" it posits render all philosophy invalid; since it must insist that philosophy, like everything else, is "determined," its advocates can only claim that their philosophy, since it exists, is "inevitable," but not at all that it is "true." This philosophy, in fact, if consistent, would do away with the category of truth altogether; but its adherents, innocent of thought that is either consistent or profound, seem unaware of this fatal contradiction. The contradiction may be seen, on a less abstract level, in the altruistic and idealistic practice of, for example, the Russian Nihilists of the last century, a practice in flagrant contradiction of their purely materialistic and egoistic theory; Vladimir Solovyov cleverly pointed out this discrepancy by ascribing to them the syllogism, "Man is descended from a monkey, consequently we shall love one another."

    All philosophy presupposes, to some degree, the autonomy of ideas; philosophical "materialism" is, thus, a species of "idealism." It is, one might say, the self confession of those whose ideas do not rise above the obvious, whose thirst for truth is so easily assuaged by science that they make it into their absolute.

    "Critical realism," or "positivism," is the straightforward denial of metaphysical truth. Proceeding from the same scientific predispositions as the more naive naturalism, it professes greater modesty in abandoning the absolute altogether and restricting itself to "empirical," "relative" truth. We have already noted the contradiction in this position: the denial of absolute truth is itself an "absolute truth"; again, as with naturalism, the very positing of the first principle of positivism is its own refutation.

    "Agnosticism," like "realism," may be distinguished as "naive" and "critical." "Naive" or "doctrinaire agnosticism" posits the absolute unknowability of any absolute truth. While its claim seems more modest even than that of positivism, it still quite clearly claims too much: if it actually knows that the absolute is "unknowable," then this knowledge is itself "absolute." Such agnosticism is in fact but a variety of positivism, attempting, with no greater success, to cover up its contradictions.

    Only in "critical" or "pure agnosticism" do we find, at last, what seems to be a successful renunciation of the absolute; unfortunately, such renunciation entails the renunciation of everything else and ends  if it is consistent  in total solipsism. Such agnosticism is the simple statement of fact: we do not know whether there exists an absolute truth, or what its nature could be if it did exist; let us, then  this is the corollary  content ourselves with the empirical, relative truth we can know. But what is truth? What is knowledge? If there is no absolute standard by which these are to be measured, they cannot even be defined. The agnostic, if he acknowledges this criticism, does not allow it to disturb him; his position is one of "pragmatism," "experimentalism," "instrumentalism": there is no truth, but man can survive, can get along in the world, without it. Such a position has been defended in high places  and in very low places as well  in our anti  intellectualist century; but the least one can say of it is that it is intellectually irresponsible. It is the definitive abandonment of truth, or rather the surrender of truth to power, whether that power be nation, race, class, comrort, or whatever other cause is able to absorb the energies men once devoted to the truth.

    The "pragmatist" and the "agnostic" may be quite sincere and well meaning; but they only deceive themselves  and others  if they continue to use the word "truth" to describe what they are seeking. Their existence, in fact, is testimony to the fact that the search for truth which has so long animated European man has come to an end. Four centuries and more of modern thought have been, from one point of view, an experiment in the possibilities of knowledge open to man, assuming that there is no Revealed Truth. The conclusion:  which Hume already saw and from which he fled into the comfort of "common sense" and conventional life, and which the multitudes sense today without possessing any such secure refuge  the conclusion of this experiment is an absolute negation: if there is no Revealed Truth, there is no truth at all; the search for truth outside of Revelation has come to a dead end. The scientist admits this by restricting himself to the narrowest of specialties, content if he sees a certain coherence in a limited aggregate of facts, without troubling himself over the existence of any truth, large or small; the multitudes demonstrate it by looking to the scientist, not for truth, but for the technological applications of a knowledge which has no more than a practical value, and by looking to other, irrational sources for the ultimate values men once expected to find in truth. The despotism of science over practical life is contemporaneous with the advent of a whole series of pseudo religious "revelations"; the two are correlative symptoms of the same malady: the abandonment of truth.

   
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Logic, thus, can take us this far: denial or doubt of absolute truth leads (if one is consistent and honest) to the abyss of solipsism and ir  rationalism; the only position that involves no logical contradictions is the affirmation of an absolute truth which underlies and secures all lesser truths; and this absolute truth can be attained by no relative, human means. At this point logic fails us, and we must enter an entirely different universe of discourse if we are to proceed. It is one thing to state that there is no logical barrier to the affirmation of absolute truth; it is quite another actually to affirm it. Such an affirmation can be based upon only one source; the question of truth must come in the end to the question of Revelation.

    The critical mind hesitates at this point. Must we seek from without what we cannot attain by our own unaided power? It is a blow to pride  most of all to that pride which passes today for scientific "humility" that "sits down before fact as a little child" and yet refuses to acknowledge any arbiter of fact save the proud human reason. It is, however, a particular revelation  Divine Revelation, the Christian Revelation  that so repels the rationalist; other revelations he does not gainsay.

    Indeed, the man who does not accept, fully and consciously, a coherent doctrine of truth such as the Christian Revelation provides, is forced  if he has any pretensions to knowledge whatever  to seek such a doctrine elsewhere; this has been the path of modern philosophy, which has ended in obscurity and confusion because it would never squarely face the fact that it cannot supply for itself what can only be given from without. The blindness and confusion of modern philosophers with regard to first principles and the dimension of the absolute have been the direct consequence of their own primary assumption, the non existence of Revelation; for this assumption in effect blinded men to the light of the sun and rendered obscure everything that had once been clear in its light.

    To one who gropes in this darkness there is but one path, if he will not be healed of his blindness; and that is to seek some light amidst the darkness here below. Many run to the flickering candle of "common sense" and conventional life and accept  because one must get along somehow  the current opinions of the social and intellectual circles to which they belong. But many others, finding this light too dim, flock to the magic lanterns that project beguiling, multicolored views that are, if nothing else, distracting; they become devotees of this or the other political or religious or artistic current that the "spirit of the age" has thrown into fashion.

    In fact no one lives but by the light of some revelation, be it a true or a false one, whether it serve to enlighten or obscure. He who will nor live by the Christian Revelation must live by a false revelation; and all false revelations lead to the Abyss.

    We began this investigation with the logical question, "what is truth?" That question may  and must  be framed from an entirely different point of view. The skeptic Pilate asked the question, though not in earnest; ironically for him, he asked it of the Truth Himself. "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me."(John 13:6) "Ye shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you free."(John 8:32) Truth in this sense, Truth that confers eternal life and freedom, cannot be attained by any human means; it can only be revealed from above by One Who has the power to do so.

    The path to this Truth is a narrow one, and most men  because they travel the "broad" path  miss it. There is no man, however,  for so the God Who is Truth created him  who does not seek this Truth. We shall examine, in later chapters, many of the false absolutes, the false gods men have invented and worshipped in our idolatrous age; and we shall find that what is perhaps most striking about them is that every one of them, far from being any "new revelation," is a dilution, a distortion, a perversion, or a parody of the One Truth men cannot help but point to even in their error and blasphemy and pride. The notion of Divine Revelation has been thoroughly discredited for those who must obey the dictates of the "spirit of the age"; but it is impossible to extinguish the thirst for truth which God has implanted in man to lead them to Him, and which can only be satisfied in the acceptance of His Revelation. Even those who profess satisfaction with "relative" truths and consider themselves too "sophisticated" or "honest" or even "humble" to pursue the absolute  even they tire, eventually, of the fare of unsatisfying tidbits to which they have arbitrarily confined themselves, and long for more substantial fare.

    The whole food of Christian Truth, however, is accessible only to faith; and the chief obstacle to such faith is not logic, as the facile modern view has it, but another and opposed faith. We have seen indeed, that logic cannot deny absolute truth without denying itself; the logic that sets itself up against the Christian Revelation is merely the servant of another "revelation," of a false "absolute truth": namely Nihilism.

    In the following pages we shall characterize as "Nihilists" men of, as it seems, widely divergent views: humanists, skeptics, revolutionaries of all hues, artists and philosophers of various schools; but they are united in a common task. Whether in positivist "criticism" of Christian truths and institutions, revolutionary violence against the Old Order, apocalyptic visions of universal destruction and the advent of a paradise on earth, or objective scientific labors in the interests of a "better life" in this world  the tacit assumption being that there is no other world  their aim is the same: the annihilation of Divine Revelation and the preparation of a new order in which there shall be no trace of the "old" view of things, in which Man shall be the only god there is.



Dr.Franklin
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@Mopac
do you think nihilism coincides with atheism

or can you have meaning in life as an atheist

are nihilists the real counterpart of Christians not atheists?
Mharman
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@Salixes
That is your opinion. I have my own beliefs as far as religion goes. Why are you entitled to your opinion, but a priest can’t be entitled to his?
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@Dr.Franklin
The Truth is God.

Atheism towards God is denial of The Truth.

Therefore, atheism is nihilism.


Otherwise, how could it be that only a fool in their heart denies God?


That is why I maintain that most atheists don't really understand what atheism is, because they tend to be superstitious concerning God. It is better to take the atheist as confused rather than a knowing denier of Absolute Truth.


Sure enough, there are atheists here who have admitted that The Ultimate Reality exists. They aren't really atheists, though they may not know it yet. Their problem is moreso that they can't detach their own superstitions and misconceptions concerning God from their conception of God.

Of course, they would likely be crucified by many of their peers if they were to admit that God exists. 





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@Mharman
He is a troll that wants religion banned

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@Mopac
I agree