Mopac

We are the original church though.

We also teach real Christianity. Can't vouch for these other churches.

True enough. That is the situation we find ourselves in.

That is why things look the way they do. It is something that Orthodox Christianity at its core addresses. We have a lot in common, enough to certainly have a conversation about these things.

The unexpressible and Uncreated being expressed through the medium of creation.

It's impossible.

There has to be revelation.

I certainly believe that the septuagint is translated from earlier texts, but I mention this to point out that the Septuagint is not a translation of the masoretic text. No other reason. The masoretic text itself is not written in the original language, especially not in the case of the language of the books of Moses.

I am not trying to make this a comparison between these two texts, the masoretic and the septuagint, so much as I am making an acknowledgemment of the reality that these are both translations. In some cases, clearly translating from different texts. 

We know The Name though. That is the important thing. What have I tried to do my whole time spent on this forum? Since the start, I have pointed to The Name. The Ultimate Reality is God, The Supreme Being. The Truth. That is The One True God. I say, contemplate what this truly means, and abandon the superstition of atheism.

At least on this forum, conversation seems to be roadblocked at "Does God exist". So, this seems to be my function.

From at least my perspective, America is nominally Christian, but damn near the most overtly pagan place on Earth. As overt as a nominally Christian land can be.

The septuagint is by the way, translated from pre masoretic texts. 

He who always was, is, and will be.

There is no real conflict between the Hebrew and Greek.

The septuagint was translated by Jews. I am sure they wanted to make the most accurate translation possible.

Forever Be

I don't think there is really any conflict between the Greek and the Hebrew.

In either language, contemplating the meaning of this name reveals a great deal.

Don't we both agree that the name communicates that which always will be?

Truly, the oldest version of these scriptures that has survived is the Greek text. The form of Hebrew that the much later masoretic text is written in did not exist at the time the septuagint.

Technically, everyone is using a translation.

The church itself is an object of faith. If you do not belong to the church, you certainly do not divide Christianity, even if you say you are a Christian. 

Since you still don't understand what you are saying, let me help you a little more...

I am currently in the jurisdiction of....

Not Roman Catholic. Orthodox Catholic.

People in this topic who are scientists who have performed experiments to demonstrate age of the world = 0

People in this topic who simply believe what they read = everyone

A dilemna for one is a dilemna for all! 

Don't believe that to be the case.

If it was the case that these were a problems for us, we would not have included these books in the New Testament canon. The men who determined the canon were educated men alive in the largest and one of the most, if not the most, advanced and well educated civilizations of the era. This was a scientific civilization, that had the engineering and technology to show this. A land of great thinkers, whose philosophies underly the worldviews even of some living today.

The orthodox use of scripture is inerrent. Scripture doesn't stand by itself. Outside of the church's use of scripture, scripture is removed from its proper context.. Sola scriptura is not the position of the church. Scripture is a part of our Holy Tradition, it isn't the tradition itself.

As I said in post 267...

Answering affirmative to any of those options would reveal absolutely nothing.

I actually did, but because you don't really understand the subject matter, you missed it.

See post 267

That is why it is written "They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy."

It is the death and resurection of Christ that unites that which has passed with God.

The death of death. When the Light of Truth reveals all things and nothing to be hidden, sin itself will be abolished. That is the resurection on the last day, and what it means to stand before the dread judgement seat of Christ. Darkness will not be in the presense of The Light. There will be no shadows.

Just as darkness is not the presence of anything but the rather the absense of light, so is evil not the presence of anything, but rather the absence of good.

What is true is Good. A truth is something that is in accord with reality, it exists. A falsehood is that which is not in accord with reality, it is nothing. 

Where there is God, there is existence. There is Life. Where God isn't, there is nonexistence. There is death.

Evil has no power of its own. Rather it is the abuse of this power that has been given to all who use it to act.

It was a known absolute fact, and all the bishops of the church confirmed. What this council did above all was make known Church consensus. That the doctrines of Arius were not orthodox.

Yet you have no problem going by the New Testament canon we established I imagine.

I would say rather that your rejection of the church is proof that you aren't Christian.

Technically, it is the year  7529 Anno Mundi. That means we are in the eighth millenium.

Not 6000 years ago, y'all off by like 2,000 years.

Git yer facts right y'all ;)

What kind of proof are looking? Because to me, it seems more to be the case that you want me to prove that The Ultimate Reality is an invisible bearded man in the clouds or something. You want me to proof what is meant by a word, but you refuse to accept what the dictionary says. If I were to quote church fathers, you would discount that as evidence.

Basically, you have given me an impossible task, because I can not prove that your superstitions about God are the ultimate reality.

You accuse me of a semantic argument, but I am using the understanding of the word we use. If you enter a field of study, do you ask those who educate you to prove that the words they use refer to what they use them for? Certainly not, or you would simply remain smug in your ignorance and never master the field you entered, or even learn the basics.

What proof would you even accept? It seems to me that you habe made the choice to disbelieve. That proof isn't really something that you

would entertain. 

It seems to me, as I said that you want me to prove that The Ultimate Reality conforms to your superstitions  concerning God. Or you want me to overthrow some deeply held nihilistic assumption that words are fundamentally meaningless, and that what they are taken to mean is an arbitrary matter.

I don't know what you want. To me, it just looks like you are being incredulous and unreasonable about it.

What kind of proof do you want?

The spirit of anti-Christ. 

Because you cannot say Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, that is, that when I use the word "God", you do not see what is meant by the word. Rather, like those who crucified Christ and only saw a man, you do not see the divine word that is united to this created word. It is simply a meaningless pronouncement of syllables to you, devoid of meaning. 

The Word is who He says He is. The Ultimate Reality means exactly the essence of those words. The Ultimate Reality itself. The word "God" means The Ultimate Reality, the essence of those words. That is the God I believe. To make my God anything else is to attach to me a God I do not believe in. To refuse to accept this is to talk about a God that is not the God I believe. You are for all practical purposes, talking about something else. We can not have a meaningful discussion.

There is nothing harmful or oppressive about my faith. This is however, what those who constructed the worldview of your culture want you to believe.

It never ceases to amuse me when I see a bunch of people who have likely never performed a scientific experiment in their life boast of how they have faith in science because they believe what they read. Even greater a marvel is when those same people who have such fanatical conviction about their most deeply held beliefs point the finger and accuse others of the very sin they themselves are guilty of.

Whether the world is 7,000 years old, billions of years old, or even if it has always been around... it was God who created it and made it so.

When the machines controlled by the world elite enslave everyone and they then claim to have transcended humanity, just remember that evolution will be used to justify it. When people start being treated as another beast at the zoo or even sport to hunt down do to overpopulation, just remember that evolution will be used to justify it. 

It's already happening. As society becomes more decadent, the people become more bestial in their consciousness, and culture becomes more barbaric and unenlightened, pulling the plug on the drain will seem less and less like the moral decision to sacrifice another's life and more and more like mowing the lawn.

It doesn't really matter how old the Earth. It doesn't really matter whether evolution is science or not. What really matters is how belief in these things is being used. 

My position is very reasonable. It is that without having the charity to come to understand us, you will never do so by leaning on your own understanding.

I understand your position very well. I also do not hold it against you, because I know how much is being invested into making what we believe unintelligible. The worldview of your culture was very specifically constructed to negate Christianity. Not through anything but deceit. It is not your fault.

But charity may come in when the realization hits that your understanding of my faith in no way resembles the faith that I actually hold. In fact, that is a big red flag that there is a phenominal misunderstanding. It is a misunderstanding that has very real consequences in the world. Where does it lead? Always violence against us. It is fine, it is to be expected. The savior Himself said it was to be this way.

Once again, I point to the clue that leads to charity. You are never going to demonstrate that you understand what you are opposing. Rather, you are opposing that which you don't understand. Because the truth is not in you, it is not possible for you to have anything other than a superficial understanding of the faith. No doubt even polluted by what you hear from the heretics.

The only way out is love. It is important too. The world needs it right now. Without it, iniquity will multiply as the idolatries of men lead into ever deepening depravity.

@drafterman who has me blocked

Those who resisted the soviets were accounted as having resisted anti-Christ. Many saints were martyred in those days which were not really so distant. 

Insofar as our submission to authority compromises the faith, that is when there is issue. But those who gave the order for evil will certainly be judged more harshly. 

Those who judge a man for doing evil in obedience, can you say you do not do evil of your own accord? We have all done evil, and far worse it is to do evil in freedom than to do evil in bondage. A soldier doesn't know what evils he fights for, only that he is told that he fights for good. Lord have mercy on the soldier, and also on them that judge the soldier unjustly.

It's really a short book.

Believe it or not, an abbot had me read it.

Not religioisly themed at all. Pretty charming.

Then I prescribe this book to you, Mr. Grown up

Render to caesar what is caesars.

To God, what is belongs to Him.

Then ponder my claim, and see how a denial of my God is profession of nihilism, and that it renders your very objection to God meaningless. You have no ground to stand on.

That is the God I believe in. That is the God we orthodox believe in.

Everything about our praxis comes from this foundation.

Not simply reality. The Ultimate Reality. The Reality that is the foundation of all realities. Anything that is properly real derives its existence from The Ultimate Reality. Everything comes from this God.

It is no vain declaration to say The Ultimate Reality is God. It is to say that The Holy Name is witnessed in the Incarnate Word. To confess this is to abide in Truth. If you are unable to confess this, you have no truth in you, for you deny that The Word is One with God. You deny that there is truth in the world. You falsify everything you have to say about it.

It is no extraordinary claim that God exists. The Ultimate Reality is God.

Obedience to those who have authority over us is very much in line with the way we are taught to conduct ourselves. If you are in a work environment, do what the boss says. Work as if you were working for God, not man. If you do things this way, you can abide in peace even in bondage. 

Not simple a claim, but an identification.

We identify The Ultimate Reality as the one we call God. That is the God we are talking about. No other God. Certainly this God exists.

I could just as easily accuse you of what you are accusing me of.

The only difference is, what I am expressing is what we have always believed for thousands of years. What you are expressing comes from modern philosophy that came out of a backlash against the heretical forms of Christianity that cropped up in the west. A backlash that gave these philosophers an aversion to God! An aversion so strong that they attempted to create something to replace God.

The result of this is that contemporary atheists, unlike their counterparts as recently as the 1800s, deny God without even understanding what that means!

At least the philosophers of the 1800s knew when they were rejecting God, they were rejecting truth. A few generations of being educated by these people and now people don't even know what it means to reject God.

It is no presumption that God exists, it is a logical necessity.

 You reject that definition because it makes your position idiotic. 

But really, what is more idiotic is embracing an understanding of the word that prevents you from ever having any meaningful knowledge of a subject.

But Merriam Webster says, "Supreme or ultimate reality" and Oxford says "Supreme Being". The only way these definitions don't contradict is if you properly understand the concept as it has traditionally been understood in philosophy up until nihilists hijacked everything and said "Words are meaningless! Arbitrary! Now they mean whatever we say they mean!"

No, atheism is entirely a semantic argument. One that comes from bad language and ignorance. That is why you see so many bozo nihI'll lists running around treating every word as if they all can simply be replaced by any other word. 

Only through this stupidity can you say that The Ultimate Reality and an imaginary dragon in some garage are interchangeable.

What do you do by insisting on using an understanding of a word that only atheists use? You cut youself off from meaningful conversation. We could be talking about things like, "what is the nature of God?" And things like that. Actually use reason even. But instead we are stuck at whether or not God exists. If you deny The Ultimate Reality exists you are a nihilist. If you deny the existence of God, you are a fool.

Besides that, by encouraging this ignorance towards what we truly believe, you encourage the perception that we are simply deranged. A perception which in the last century has led to millions and millions of people being tortured, psychologically experimented on, imprisoned indefinitely, and killed.

It's no good sir

Not integral to the definition of God. God is simply The Ultimate Reality, whatever that may be.

That is the proper understanding of the concept. Certainly there are those who believe in a God that lacks the things you say are essential to what makes God.

That is what I am actually saying as an argument.

It's really the other way around. Your language has been confused in order that what has been expressed for thousands of years becomes unintelligible.

Every atheistic argument is contingent on making God something other than God.

I am not a pantheist. I do however, know the God I worship. The Ultimste Reality. Not a conception of The Ultimate Reality, but the essence of what that truly means.

When did language start getting confused? Only after the philosphers of the 1800s overturned everything, and the intelligensia followed after them. Very intentionally has language been confused, and it is done because the worldview of those causing the confusion demand it.

Nihilism is the spirit of the modern age, and it even to a greater extend permeates the post-modern age.

There is one thing that is absolutely certain. God exists. If you are in doubt about this, it is a testament to the confusion of these times, not the infallible existence of God.

I am not making any appeals to authority, nor am I even expressing any viewpoint that I prescribe to. I am only saying that these are different waysbof looking at things that people have historically expressed.

Yet even I would have no issue making the connection between the laws of nature as a type and shadow of the mind of God. 

The big point I would like to make though is that not all conceptions of God imply the type of agency to God that you do. 

If you have a conception of ultimate reality, that is your conception of God. In ascribing this particular type of agency to God, you are actually adding to the definition without realizing it.

Supreme Being refers to the most total and complete existence. When you ascribe to the concept the understanding of the words involved that you do, it leads to absurd things that even we don't truly accept. God to us is not an invisible bearded guy in the clouds. Rather, existence as it truly is. Because we relate to that personally, we refer to God in persons. Not to say our relationship is something like an invisible bearded man in the clouds!

Scholastic theologians and even naturalistic philosphers would refer to the laws of nature as the mind of God.

I don't think it is really an issue unless you have an idea of mind that is very narrowly used to refer to a human like mind. Even then, some determinist thinkers would say the human mind is no different than natural processes.

It wouldn't have been possible to prohibit slavery.

Just about every society before the industrial revolution practiced slavery openly. 

But it was Jewish and Christian thought that planted the seeds for the abolishing of slavery. Or really, more accurately, making slavery nicer. You can't get rid of slavery, it will always be there.

As I said, these laws, which were the laws of the ancient Hebrew state, addressed the reality of slavery in that culture and time.

It's not a condoning of slavery any more than the laws that allow for divorce condone divorce.