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@Danielle
So you don't think anyone (including teachers, therapists, social workers, pediatricians and cops) should have to report of abuse they know is going on. I strongly disagree but appreciate the straight forward answer.
I can't speak for any of those people, but I know that Orthodox Priests are not supposed to reveal confessions, and to do so is an offense that is taken seriously enough to warrant a defrocking.
To confirm, you do not think it was criminally negligent for the Catholic Church to allow child molestation to continue by known pedophiles, correct?
If an orthodox priest were to be guilty of such an offense, they would be defrocked.
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Right, the 5th amendment applies to not incriminating one's self. It doesn't have to do with reporting other people. But what does this have to do with my question about whether or not an auditor providing spiritual guidance qualifies as justice for rape?
Priests can not reveal things that were confessed to them. That is all I am saying.
Secular authority is not the domain of the church.
Do you think if someone commits a crime, it would be sufficient to confess to their deity/priest and not have the criminal justice system involved? If not, why not?
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@Stephen
I explained to you how your use of scripture is out of context.
They are our scriptures. The New Testament was written and compiled by Orthodox Christians. It is our book.
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@Stephen
As I said, scripture's proper context is through the church. In a liturgical context. What we use it to teach.
What do we use scripture to teach? Not the things that you derive from it. We use scripture to teach the faith. The faith is not a set of historical facts. Rather, we use these stories to explain what we teach.
Never has bibliolatry been a part of our faith.
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@Stephen
It's not as big of a deal as you make it out to be.
The accounts are from different authors. It is natural that there would be some differences.
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@Stephen
This is what the church teaches. Probably the oldest account of this is in the proto-evangelian of James, which is not considered a part of the New Testament. Some of the accounts contained in this work are considered accurate by us, but we don't consider it to be scripture.
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@Danielle
#1 If I said I shouldn't have to report child molestation that I know is occurring because of my devout Pastafarianism and belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, would that be acceptable?
I believe it is everyone's right to not report things they see. Whether or not that is moral is a different question. It's not a religious issue.
Suppose someone raped your mother. The perpetrator confessed their crime to their Scientology auditor (the person who hears Scientologist confessions -- and by the way sometimes auditors are children). The auditor advises the perp to live a better life going forward. #2 Does that qualify as justice to you?
The 5th amendment guarantees the right to not have to incriminate oneself. It's not a religious issue.
#3 Why do we send people to law enforcement instead of clergy when they do wrong?
Secular authority is not the domain of the church.
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@Danielle
If someone confesses a serious crime to a priest, the proper thing for a priest to do would be to tell the one who confessed to turn themselves in. It is up to the penitant to do that, not the priest to turn them in.
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If the state were to demand that priests reveal confessions, this is absolutely a case of government overstepping its bounds. The right thing for a priest to do in this case would be to resist even to death.
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A priest who reveals things that were confessed to him is defrocked.
It is important also to note that the sacrament of confession is not simply to admit that you did something wrong, but to have remorse and repent.
If someone confessed to a serious crime and moral failing like child abuse, they are supposed to be excommunicated for a time, meaning, they aren't allowed to take communion.
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It is natural that different accounts would recall different things.
It should act as a clue, that bibliolatry is not the faith.
If you want to know the faith, the Orthodox Church is the place to look.
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@Stephen
According to church tradition, Elizibeth took John and ran to the wilderness. When Herod's troops came looking for John, they encountered Zachariah in the temple. Refusing to reveal the location of his son, they killed him.
John was said to have lived in the wilderness from that day.
We sing on the feast day of Zachariah,
"According to the Law of God you offered whole-burnt offerings in a sacred manner, wise Zachariah.
You became a luminary and a seer of the mysteries,
Bearing within yourself the signs of grace, all-wise one.
Slain by the sword in the temple of God, O prophet of Christ,
Intercede together with the Forerunner that our souls may be saved."
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It is actually common practice in the church for someone to have their name changed on ordination.
The church fathers, even Augustine himself who had such an influence on the Latin church, took Simon Peter's confession as the rock. Simon Peter is not the foundation of the church.
The Apostle Andrew's nickname in the church is "the first called", so according to tradition he was the first disciple.
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@Stephen
Your issue comes from having the protestant understanding of how scripture is to be taken, their "sola scriptura" doctrine.
We Orthodox do not have this issue, because we use the scriptures properly. If you had an orthodox understanding of how scripture was used, we wouldn't be talking about these things.
For the record, I am the only Orthodox Christian who debates on the religion forum. Everyone else is protestant. We consider them heretical.
We've also been around for thousands of years, something no protestant church can claim.
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@zedvictor4
If Jesus is GOD...How could he ascend to his father, if he is his own father....One and the same as it were?
Christ's body was brought back with Him. "His body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all."
As the church fathers write, Christs incarnation, death, and resurection effectively deifies creation. On the last day, all of it will be brought back with Him.
And Mr Mopac...How do you feel about all the gender appropriation going on here.
In the Greek, the word that is used in the case of the Marys is actually different than the word used in the case of Thomas. This is one of those instances that show maybe not the best translating in the King James.
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@zedvictor4
I will continue to refer to God as "Him", because my relationship with God is personal, and "It" is not a personal way of refering to God.
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@Jarrett_Ludolph
It isn't an argument that convinced me before I came to believe in God, bit I am sure for some it has been.
I was effectively a nihilist though. Successful arguments to me were any arguments that were subversive and undermined everything.
I was effectively a nihilist though. Successful arguments to me were any arguments that were subversive and undermined everything.
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@Wagyu
See, there is no end to all this. You are seeking things to be offended by.
But all these things you attribute to us because you find examples of them in scripture we do not do. That isn't what we are taught.
That shoul ld tell you that youbare missing something very important. That is, the broader context.
The vast majority of the old testament is a chronicle of ancient Israel screwing up. The things that were written have to be looked at through the lens of the faith.
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@Wagyu
As I said, we use the scriptures to teach lessons. To point people to our faith, which is about loving The Truth above all else, and loving those around us.
The God we worship is Truth. What happened here? People died. The ones who wrote the account attributed the deaths to divine judgement. What did they do? They broke the law, they did something they weren't supposed to do. They infiltrated area 51, and were shot by the guards.
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@Wagyu
We don't worship a book. That would be idiotic.
That is something some protestants do. It's called bibliolatry.
And the only reason we are even talking about these things at all is because you live in a society where your only exposure to Christianity is through heresy.
The ground is very poisoned. Who would be open to hearing about true Christianity when they've been oversaturated with the conflicting opinions of all these bozo heretics? At this point, why care to hear more?
Nothing I can do about that.
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@Jarrett_Ludolph
Question 1:Is the Kalam Cosmological Argument (KCA) a successful argument? Why or why not?
What is a succesful argument?
An argument that is convincing to one is not to another.
Using reason to do things like "prove" God is not really the how we think in orthodoxy. It is actually this type of thinking that is characteristic of post schism Roman Catholicism. Very much a scholastic way of doing things.
Contrast scholasticism with hesychasm.
Scholasticism is about proper education, having the right education, an a reliance on reason to see God.
Hesychasm is about examining the things that have influence over us, motivate us, and pollute us. It is about purifying the heart and nous.
Scholasticism looks outside the self.
Hesychasm looks within the self.
Very different ways of going about things.
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@zedvictor4
Our faith is relationship with God. We relate to God in persons.
That isn't to say that The Ultimate Reality is male or female.
We at the same time use expressions like "God's right hand", and "the eyes of The Lord", or "The Lord's footstool".
We are not confusing divine and human natures. We aren't saying that The Ultimate Reality has hands, eyes, feet, lungs, etc. This is simply the language we use in relating to God as persons.
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@BrotherDThomas
I'm not sure what you are asking, because so many of your "facts" are wrong.
There is One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. That being the case, denominationalism is a heresy as a denomination is by definition not catholic. There aren't three churches, there is only one.
I belong to The Orthodox Catholic Church which accepts the following councils as ecumenical...
The First Council of Nicaea in 325
The First Council of Constantinople in 381,
The Council of Ephesus in 431,
The Council of Chalcedon in 451
The Second Council of Constantinople in 553
The Third Council of Constantinople from 680–681 The Second Council of Nicaea in 787
The Fourth Council of Constantinople from 879-880
I belong to The Orthodox Catholic Church in which everyone recognizes the following jurisdictions within the church as autocephalous...
Patriarchate of Constantinople
Patriarchate of Alexandria
Patriarchate of Antioch
Patriarchate of Jerusalem
Patriarchate of Moscow
Patriarchate of Serbia
Patriarchate of Romania
Patriarchate of Bulgaria
Patriarchate of Georgia
Church of Cyprus
Church of Greece
Church of Poland
Church of Albania
Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia
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@Stephen
You will simply ask the same questions over and over again without accepting any answer you have been given.
I have seen how you interact.
But your beef here has more to do with you prefering things happened a different way. That isn't what happened. What more can be said? It is not a problem for me. It qould be better if you didn't make it a problem for you.
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And this is the prayer of Christ,
"Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee:
As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.
And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.
And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.
I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word.
Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee.
For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me.
I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine.
And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them.
And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.
While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.
And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.
I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.
They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.
As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.
And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.
Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;
That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:
I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.
Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.
O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me.
And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them."
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@zedvictor4
We refer to God in persons because our faith is relationship with God. We relate to God in person. No language is truly adequate to describe this relationship, as it is something to be experienced. It is what we call a mystery.
But while we refer to God as a He, and confess that God became a man, we hold Mary as the greatest in honor among saints, singing,
"More honorable than the cherubim, and beyond compare more glorious than the seraphim, who without corruption gavest birth to God the Word, thou the true Theotokos, we magnify thee."
Divine wisdom itself we use feminine language. Hagia Sophia.
And that is what it is, the way we express these eternal truths. It is language. But we use this language to point to a God who is neither male or female. There is no language under heaven that is adequate to express what is fundamentally experienced through the mysteries.
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@zedvictor4
I certainly do not refer to nothing as God.
And it isn't as if we believe that divinity is gendered either. The Ultimate Reality is not like human beings who have sexes. Even in Genesis, it says "God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."
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@zedvictor4
What do you mean by humanizing the God principle?
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@Wagyu
You are holding The Ultimate Reality to the standards you would hold a human.
This is patently idiotic.
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@Wagyu
You who judge Christ, know that you judge yourself. For you in no way surpass Christ in righteousness.
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@Wagyu
If you want to see God leading by example, you must look at when God became man. That is, you must look at Jesus Christ.
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@Wagyu
You pointing out these verses to allegedly prove our violence does no such thing.
Because the verses you would point out are not intended to teach us how to act.
We all have our time to die, this is a fact. Making peace with this reality is making peace with God, who is The Truth. To fight this reality is to invite delusion.
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As we sing on glorious pascha,
"Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and to those in the tombs bestowing life."
To abide in Christ is to abide in that life. To abide in darkness is to be burned by that light that exposes the darkness.
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@Reece101
I'm sure that there will be others to answer you the way you would like, and as I said, ultimately it will be fruitless. To answer you in the way you would like would not get to the root of things. It will be an endless discussion, and in the end, you will not be convinced. The people talking to you will not be convinced by your viewpoint either.
But truly, no one can escape God. We all die, and this is to humble us before God. Death exists so that we know that evil is not immortal. There will be a resurection, a death of death itself. When that day comes, the light of truth will reveal all things. A shame for those who put their faith in vanity, a comfort for those who put all their hope in Truth.
For when all things are revealed, evil will not be able to masquerade as something else. There will be no more illusion. We all will be known even as we are known by God.
Our faith is not a set of facts. It is not information. It is a mode of being. A way of life. To do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God, who is The Truth.
But truly, no one can escape God. We all die, and this is to humble us before God. Death exists so that we know that evil is not immortal. There will be a resurection, a death of death itself. When that day comes, the light of truth will reveal all things. A shame for those who put their faith in vanity, a comfort for those who put all their hope in Truth.
For when all things are revealed, evil will not be able to masquerade as something else. There will be no more illusion. We all will be known even as we are known by God.
Our faith is not a set of facts. It is not information. It is a mode of being. A way of life. To do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God, who is The Truth.
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@Wagyu
What is there to explain? The old testament is a chronicle of ancient Israel's struggle with God. It has to be looked at through the lens of the church.
That is why you are starting from the wrong place. If we go over every scripture that offends your sense of aesthetics or morality, we will end up wasting a lot of time with very little benefit.
All I can say is that the church teaches to love everyone, and we certainly do not practice a violent religion.
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@Reece101
I never said "you would be ashamed if you knew Jesus died for our sins".
But you do in fact mock what you don't understand, and if you really knew what you were mocking, you would be ashamed.
I said before, the faith is blocked off from those who lack charity and humility. If you don't have these things, you are going to be confounded by exteriors.
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@Wagyu
I certainly have not pointed you to these verses.
What does the church teach about God? That is what matters.
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@Wagyu
Another thing that might be interesting for you to know...
The word "psyche" in Greek means "soul". Psychology is literally the study of soul.
A great deal of what we do is psychology. The church understands psychology better than anyone. Why, typology is even something that contemporary psychology has attempted to adopt. Thank Carl Jung for that. Jordan Peterson is a good example of a high profile psychologist who has a pretty deep understanding of typology.
But the church as I said, understands psychology better than anyone. We have thousands of years of practice. Monasticism is taken very seriously in orthodoxy. It's all very related.
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@Wagyu
We use scripture to point people to this religion, The Eternal Way of Truth.
When it is used for any other purpoose, it is taken out of context.
Something that may come as a surprise to you, but we tend to teach the bible through a typological lense. The vast majority of protestants are oblivious to this way of looking at scripture, but it is how the church from the very beginning used scripture.
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@Sum1hugme
There is nothing real or imagined that can be greater than The Ultimate Reality. This is the God we believe in. It is what we have always believed.
Was pretty radical at a time when people called statues gods. When people called forces of nature gods. When people called the fiery ball in the sky god.
The revelation that The One True God is Truth itself has done much to enlighten the world.
Unfortunately, the west is sliding into a dark age because deviation from orthodoxy has lead the elite to adopt a nihilistic worldview that denies the existence of ultimate reality all together.
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@Reece101
You think you know what you mock, but you don't truly know. If you knew, you would be ashamed. Because you are ignorant, you are forgiven. If you truly knew, it would be worse for you.
Christ himself said it was a hard teaching. But it isn't for you to know, you are not with us. Rather, you even stand against us. Mystagogy is not for those on the outside. What you get instead are parables.
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@Wagyu
At the core, our faith is Truth worship. We worship The Truth through purifying the heart and nous. Abiding in The Eternal Way of Truth, we become living icons of The Truth. That is the goal. Salvation to us is being made divine through union with God's virtue.
That God became man so that man may become divine.
That is what the church fathers teach. Salvation is theosis.
Only the Orthodox Church, the original and only true Christian Church keeps the apostolic faith that was handed down from the beginning.
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@Reece101
Without humility and charity, it is impossible to come to know these mysteries. As long as you think you know better, the door will be shut.
That is how it works.
But know this, you will forever be mocking what you don't understand. If you knew what you were mocking, you would certainly not behave the same way.
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@Reece101
It is certainly a mystery. One not for those on the outside.
For you, there is kerygma. Mystagogy is for those in the church.
For you, there is kerygma. Mystagogy is for those in the church.
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@FLRW
It is certainly an idiotic and insane position to deny ultimate reality.
Nihilism is a self defeating position.
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@Stephen
The measure you use to judge will be used to judge you.
I am not interested in having a discussion with you about scripture. You do not respect the authority of the church, and you are anti-Christian. There will never be an end to these fruitless discussions.
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@Sum1hugme
It is what we believe, whether you accept it or not.
But our faith is not an understanding so much as it is a way to abide in. The Eternal Way of Truth is our religion. That is a way of life.
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Not one of you has a clue about what we believe. You only debate your own imaginations.
Stupidity.
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