/lit/ - Literature

>>18577266
You're nitpicking. Because you're on this website, you're probably the type of guy that's looking for meaning and attempting to find it by larping as a trad orthodox. Nothing's going to change, and you're still going to be the miserable end to an unbroken line of men stronger and more free than you could ever be.

>>18577266
>>18577378
have sex and repent

>>18577378
BASED

>>18577266
>so how are they going to hell for not following Christ
Short answer: Christ is not an alien.

>>18577416
But unmarried sex requires penance, anon

>>18577460
well he obviously is implying that one should first be married

>>18577378
what is wrong with you

>>18577266
I'm sure they're already getting accustomed to welcoming new walking memes into the cult. If you ever decide to actually become a Christian just read the Bible and learn how. Pro tip, there is no praying to Mary or saints in there, because the Bible doesn't teach Satanic paganism.

>>18577494
>ackshually Christianity was discovered in the year of our lord 1500

>>18577515
>the church believed in ever virgin Mary before Jerome

It is a bit crazy how the mere mention of Orthodoxy, especially conversion to Orthodoxy, really just sets some people off.

>>18577641
Nowhere near the mention of Protestantism, which catches it by far the hardest from the most.

>>18577553
>he doesn't realize the Esaias connexion
>>18577266
Žižek is surprisingly the only one to have a very appealing condensation of theodicy, that I've found easy to spread.
>Back to the topic of shoah, this brings us to the third position above and beyond the first two (the sovereign God, the finite God), that of a suffering God: not a triumphalist God who always wins at the end, although "his ways are mysterious," since he secretly pulls all the strings; not a God who exerts cold justice, since he is by definition always right; but a God who - like the suffering Christ on the Cross - is agonized, assumes the burden of suffering, in solidarity with the human misery. It was already Schelling who wrote: "God is a life, not merely a being. But all life has a fate and is subject to suffering and becoming. /.../ Without the concept of a humanly suffering God /.../ all of history remains incomprehensible." Why? Because God's suffering implies that He is involved in history, affected by it, not just a transcendent Master pulling the strings from above: God's suffering means that human history is not just a theater of shadows, but the place of the real struggle, the struggle in which the Absolute itself is involved and its fate is decided. This is the philosophical background of Dietrich Bonhoffer's deep insight that, after shoah, "only a suffering God can help us now" - a proper supplement to Heidegger's "Only a God can still save us!" from his last interview. One should therefore take the statement that "the unspeakable suffering of the six millions is also the voice of the suffering of God" quite literally: the very excess of this suffering over any "normal" human measure makes it divine. Recently, this paradox was succinctly formulated by Juergen Habermas: "Secular languages which only eliminate the substance once intended leave irritations. When sin was converted to culpability, and the breaking of divine commands to an offense against human laws, something was lost." Which is why the secular-humanist reactions to phenomena like shoah or gulag (AND others) is experienced as insufficient: in order to be at the level of such phenomena, something much stronger is needed, something akin to the old religious topic of a cosmic perversion or catastrophe in which the world itself is "out of joint." Therein resides the paradox of the theological significance of shoah: although it is usually conceived as the ultimate challenge to theology (if there is a God and if he is good, how could he have allowed such a horror to take place?), it is at the same time only theology which can provide the frame enabling us to somehow approach the scope of this catastrophe - the fiasco of God is still the fiasco of GOD.
This, alongside John 13:27. I don't think the Orthodox claim to have a monopoly on gnosis though.

>>18577665
This, watch.
>>18577266
Become Protestant.

>>18577677
Yes I do, he was born of a virgin, but that status was not perpetual.

>>18577693
You are like a little baby.
OP, become Gnostic.

>>18577693
based

>>18577266
I'm Catholic but there is evil in the world because God allowed free will. Sentient beings have the right to chose to follow God or go against Him.

The universe is created by God but it is separate from God. It flows from God but creation will only flow back to God if it is guided by the Holy Spirit. Evil exists because some beings chose not to flow back from God.

>>18577693
Where do I start with Calvinism?

>>18577693
Those look unread.

>>18578618
>you are “free” to choose between following Yahweh
>OR be condemned to burn in eternal hellfire
Epic choice and freedom bro!!! Seriously it doesn’t make any sense why God would allow evil to exist via free will when that free will is completely superfluous. Also the Creator-Created dualism and Christian linear history is cringe.

>>18577266
>theodicy
Prot here.
Regarding the problem of evil? God created everything including man and it was good. Evil itself is not a creature or substance, it's man twisting his will away from God.

Evil cannot be explained (rationalized) fully—there is no good reason for it. There is no “why” to it that can be answered by giving it a good reason or purpose. If a good answer could be provided as to why evil exists, then we would have made evil far less evil and in fact a contributor to some good. We would, with such an answer, be justifying evil.

But evil has no justification. And were it justifiable, because it was needed to contribute to some greater good (i.e. if evil were somehow necessary), then there would be no need for Jesus Christ, because evil would simply justify itself as being needed to contribute to what is good. But that cannot be, for evil itself is completely unjustified—it is what ought not be, and, indeed, has no good reason to be. Evil is what Jesus Christ has overcome.

>>18578618
>God allowed free will
Disproved by science.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Wegner#The_illusion_of_conscious_will

>>18577266
> It's fair to say the vast vast vast majority of people in human history never came across the Church Fathers apologetics, so how are they going to hell for not following Christ when they never knew?
Prot again.
Salvation is by grace, it comes freely as a gift from God to us, not dependent on our works or deeds. Plenty of scripture supports this, although Orthos/Catholics want to run a treadmill and exchange good deeds to earn it and maintain it. From the Reformed view grace is free and sovereign, it's undeserved mercy on us. It is free to remain within our church despite all our church’s problems and schisms and denominations. It is free also to operate outside the church in incognito ways. What the ultimate scope of grace will be we cannot say.

I find it funny that we have anxiety regarding the idea that God’s grace might prove to be all too free and too merciful and that hell, instead of being overpopulated with so many people, might some day prove to be quite possibly empty...or nearly empty.

>>18577266
Read Bulgakov and Florensky.

>>18578783
>Evil cannot be explained (rationalized) fully
But it can.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_effect_(psychology)
"Evil" is a label one puts on an outgroup competitor to legitimate one's violence.

>But evil has no justification. And were it justifiable,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
Everything is justifiable.

>>18578649
>You're free to commit crime
>But you'll be put in jail
>Epic freedom bro
The fact you face consequences from using your freedom poorly doesn't mean you don't have freedom in the first place.

>>18578812
>The fact you face consequences
Implies that god cannot express his love, except through threats of dire punishments.

>>18578793
>muh ''science''
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis

>>18578817
>Implies that god cannot express his love
Except for the most perfect expression of love which was to die for you on the cross so that you don't have to suffer the just punishment for your sin.

>>18578809
>>18578793
Are you a teenager?

>>18578809
Why do leftists try to talk about things they don't understand? Read the Enneads.

>>18578830
>Except for the most perfect expression of love which was to die
Except that being a God he cannot. He is immortal.
Which makes it a weird act of sadomasochism, putting a show of punishing oneself to forgive those, who transgressed according to his own plan due to his omnipotence and omniscience.

>>18578837
>God
>cannot

>>18577266
Religion reaches it's highest profundity and transcendent character precisely when it is realized that you are not the center of the universe. God is. It is folly to assume that we occupy an especially prestigious or favored place in the mind of the Omnipresent. It is when you understand this that you realize man's exposure to evil is entirely besides the point. To love God is to live your life to glorify God.

>>18578837
>He is immortal
So are you, or at least your soul is. Why do you think you go to Hell instead of just ceasing to exist entirely? As long as God exists then He sustains all things He creates.

>>18578837
I highly recommend reading Maximos the Confessor

>>18578840
Can an omnipotent God create a stone, that he won't be able to lift?

If he can't create it, then he is not omnipotent.
If he can't, then he wouldn't be able to lift it. Meaning, he is not omnipotent.

>>18578849
What's heavier an infinite amount of feathers or an infinite amount of rocks?

>>18578849
>If he can, then he wouldn't be able to lift it
typo fix

>>18578849
You need to be 18 years or older to post here. You faggot, get off this fucking site. These are legitimately the arguments I heard among classmates in middle school. Holy shit.

>>18578849
This is the single worst argument against omnipotence, because it ignores God's capacity for self-limitation - which, not incidentally, is precisely the case of the Incarnation.

>>18578841
> It is folly to assume that we occupy an especially prestigious or favored place in the mind of the Omnipresent.
The incarnation disproves this idea.

>>18578812
>follow my dogma verbatim
>any slight deviation from my will and you are damned for eternity
Yeah real hard “choice”. If you aren’t supposed to break from Gods plan then why would God even bother giving man free will to do anything other than to act out his will, especially since He is supposedly all good, why give man freedom when that freedom essentially only creates sin and evil? Why would an almighty God of Goodness bother with this retardation? It’s more like a Master telling his Slave he’s “free” to leave servitude whenever he wants but if he does he will be lynched on the spot, it’s an illusory and paradoxical sense of freedom.

>>18578849
>Can there exist a rock God can't lift?
No, that's illogical and makes no sense.
>Can God create a state of affairs that logically can't even exist?
No, that's illogical and makes no sense.
The question presupposes an impossible state of affairs.

>>18578870
>Walk along this path and you'll reach a fantastic party
>Don't stray into the forest or you'll get lost and probably die
>"wtf I have to follow your path to get to the Party!? How do I have free will if I can't go into the forest!"
Your arguments aren't getting any better. Also the Bible describes Christian life as slavery to Christ. It's part of the paradoxical nature of Christianity in that the full freedom of man can only be attained by emptying yourself out and fulfilling the will of another. That's the whole point of the incarnation where the Son comes down, empties Himself for us and rises back up as a result of doing the will of the Father.

>>18578870
>Yeah real hard “choice”.
Yeah it's not a hard choice, it's foolish to reject God and pursue evil.

> why would God even bother giving man free will to do anything other than to act out his will, especially since He is supposedly all good
God gave man a certain nature with certain parameters, because of this somethings are good for man, and somethings are bad. A plant needs sunshine and water, man needs physical food and spiritual food. Starving yourself of spiritual food and then complaining that you are sick and tormented is foolish, indeed, why would you do that?

>>18578881
Why would God create the forest in the first place when he knows it only leads to ruin? Why wouldn’t he make man like the perfect little golem he wants them to be that follows every order no matter what? That’s what he wants right?
I agree Christianity is slavery to Yahweh because as the Jews are a race of slaves of course their idea of God is one of Master and Slave. The submissive devotional nature of Abrahamic religions exposes the effeminate metaphysical nature of their Tradition, which makes sense given that the Semitic folk pre-Abraham were farming and merchant peoples connected to Mother Earth and other fertility deities. Like the woman transcends through devotion to her husband, children, and family the Christian can only gain “salvation” through Christ rather than of his will like the more masculine spirit would. Everyone is One under Christ just like everyone is One as Children of Mother Earth etc... many feminine qualities that I think are suitable maybe for Semitic peoples in spirit, but not so much for others. I think the “pagan” religions generally everywhere have a truer sense of freedom under their Gods than under Yahweh the Jealous God.

>>18577266
You can't convert to Orthodoxism. You must be born one.

>>18577266
>It's fair to say the vast vast vast majority of people in human history never came across the Church Fathers apologetics, so how are they going to hell for not following Christ when they never knew?
No if they followed one of the Prophets of God:
I said "O Messenger of Allah, how many Prophets were there?" He replied "One hundred twenty four thousand, from which three hundred fifteen were jamma ghafeera."

>>18578931
The one problem you have is that it's historical fact that Jesus was resurrected. So whatever grudges you have against it have already been made irrelevant by the fact Christianity is historically proven to be the correct religion by the fact of Christs resurrection and ascension. Why do you think all the pagans converted so quickly? Because it's impossible to refute.

Note that the pagan anti-Christians tried to argue Jesus was a magician, they never argued the resurrection and miracles didn't happen at all. Why? Because it was widely known to be fact because of the immense amount of witnesses.

>>18578931
> Why wouldn’t he make man like the perfect little golem he wants
>why would God make a pot of clay this way and not THAT way?
Because he's God, and he wanted to make man in his image which means we have certain freedoms (and duties) other creatures don't.

>Why would God create the forest in the first place when he knows it only leads to ruin?
Because through his Son the forest is ultimately redeemed and the people will either enjoy mercy (good) or justice (good). So in the final analysis good wins, and everything will be in its rightful place.

>>18577266

>>18578945
I agree Christianity is a religion based upon a human historical event (Christ’s crucifixion) and not on a cosmic prehistory like most pre-Abrahamic religions were, and I think this has done a lot to damage to the Traditional spiritual conceptions of things like cyclical time, eternal history, etc... for the worse. But I digress.

>>18578982
You mean Christs resurrection. The historical fact that Christ was crucified, died, was buried then rose again.

>>18578945
Pagans converted so quickly because they didn’t believe in proselytizing to anyone, whereas Christians fanatically converted anyone they could, so not being used to these things pagans were susceptible to the overzealous fearmongering. Another thing superior in paganism imo is the respect for other peoples Gods, having to do with the idea of the non-dual nature of the spiritual and material worlds being apart of the greater whole eternal cosmic order, foreign Gods were just manifestations of this order in a way suitable for those people, so there was no need for dogmatizing and persecution.

>>18579016
It's not true though. Christianity is. There's no point complaining that you like respect pagans had for other false religions. It's all a big LARP.

>>18578982
>I agree Christianity is a religion based upon a human historical event (Christ’s crucifixion)
The historical event sets it everything else because the Vertical actually pierced the Horizontal ontologically, visibly, spiritually and truly.
>and not on a cosmic prehistory like most pre-Abrahamic religions were
they were groping in the dark, hoping and speculating for what Christians actually received.

>Traditional spiritual conceptions of things like cyclical time, eternal history, etc... for the worse.
false, pagan teachings. time is not cyclical it has a beginning and a final end, just like all created things will come to an end, time will also cease to exist. We will not have an ''afterlife'' like the pagans think, with continuous moments after moments, the Christian view of the life eternal is something far grander and more mysterious.

>>18578982
>I agree Christianity is a religion based upon a human historical event (Christ’s crucifixion)
The historical event sets it above* everything else because the Vertical actually pierced the Horizontal ontologically, visibly, spiritually and truly.
>and not on a cosmic prehistory like most pre-Abrahamic religions were
they were groping in the dark, hoping and speculating for what Christians actually received.

>Traditional spiritual conceptions of things like cyclical time, eternal history, etc... for the worse.
false, pagan teachings. time is not cyclical it has a beginning and a final end, just like all created things will come to an end, time will also cease to exist. We will not have an ''afterlife'' like the pagans think, with continuous moments after moments, the Christian view of the life eternal is something far grander and more mysterious.

>>18579023
I know I’m talking into the wind because Christians will do anything to hold on to their paradoxical and hypocritical religion. Eastern Orthodox can keep sucking off Saints like the pagans they know they are, it’s just ancestor/hero veneration in a Christian mask. Or how about the mass idolatry of the Church with statues and paintings of Christ everywhere, clutching their wooden crucifix as if it were Christ’s hand itself, things expressly forbade by early Christians. Your main holidays are pagan holidays. This is clearly the pagan spirit Christianity, at least among Europeans, cannot shake. Christianity could not exist in Europe without paganizing itself because it is so foreign to the genuine spirit of western man.

>>18579016
>Pagans converted so quickly because they didn’t believe in proselytizing to anyone, whereas Christians fanatically converted anyone they could
Nice sterilized version of history. Christians were persecuted by pagans for the first 300 years and forced to pay tribute to pagan gods and engage in ''polytheism'' and emperor worship or face martyrdom. Our priests and church fathers were fed to lions for sport. They had to practice in underground catacombs and hide their beliefs for centuries....

I've seen a lot of people accept orthodoxy as of late, because it's based to be a contrarian or whatnot. Most of the time their reasons for converting are dumb, and are mostly based on trend hopping. The same trend hopping that makes gullible children into trannies.

>>18579057
>Christianity could not exist in Europe without paganizing itself because it is so foreign to the genuine spirit of western man.
There was nothing special about european paganism...
You know early Christianity spread all over the world? to Africa, Asia, India, middle-east, not just Europe? Yet despite all these variant races and cultures the Catholic-Orthodox Church maintained quite homogenized practices and beliefs for the first 1000 years...So there's nothing special about the pagans in Europe celebrating easter or using incense and icons and statues because the ''pagans'' in Africa and India were doing basically the same

>>18579067
Ignoring that Christians constantly disrupted the spiritual order by slandering the Gods as demons and obstructing rituals (akin to allowing chaos to rule), paying tribute is not the same as forcing conversion, the Pagans did not care if you worshipped their Gods or not as long as you did not fuck with their rituals, as Christians constantly did. Campaigns of conversion are almost unique to Christianity and Islam.

>>18579072
Orthodoxy presents the benefits of the ancient Catholic faith, with an explanation of how scripture came to be, minus some of it's practical innovations and modern problems the RCC faces.

>>18579082
Yes I know Christianity is all about quantity over quality and to convert as many dregs as possible.

>>18579085
total gibberish

>>18579057
>On Being a Pagan
lmao you fucking LARPer. Odin isn't real.

>>18579102
That’s because you’ve been mind raped by Yahweh. The Golem can’t comprehend anything but his own slavery. Sad!

>>18579057
Oh shit did this nigga actually fall for Vargs shit?

>>18577378
FPBP AND /THREAD
LARPers need to die already

>>18579104
Have you read it? I don’t agree with him on everything but everything he says about Christianity has plenty of canonical and biblical sources to back it up, he doesn’t even condemn Christianity in the book but rather sets out to show the different worldviews between paganism and Christianity and clearly states his book might even reaffirm your Christian beliefs anyway.

>>18579098
>Yes I know Christianity is all about quantity over quality and to convert as many dregs as possible.
False dichotomy.
Christianity wants to save people, all people, and turn sinners into saints, as many as possible. That's quantity and quality.
If you are looking for a bourgeoisie mystery cult and gnostic secrets you aren't a real seeker of truth.

>>18579107
Varg is an atheist. Which is what pagans accused Christians and Jews of being originally too funny enough.

>>18579118
I can tell he's being disingenuous on that page alone. Christians still condemn creating idols of God and worshipping them, that's literally idolatry. Christianity has never been Iconoclastic, the earliest Churches which predate Constantine have Christian imagery carved into them. The idea that Christianity took anything from paganism is simply a myth that Pagans like to use to cope with the fact that Christianity is the legitimate heir to Neoplatonism. If you like paganism then you should be a Christian, since Christianity contains the fullness of truth and that means everything that is true in the best of pagan thought while repudiating all the bullshit like worship of lesser spirits.

>>18579122
But never straying from Church dogma makes you a “seeker of truth”? Let me guess because Christ is truth you don’t need to actually challenge or explore your spiritual ambitions whatsoever.

>>18579057
>Early Christianity crystallized its rejection of images in its disdain for ''pagan'' idols
This is retarded revisionism. Who wrote it? The early Church had no problem with iconography and statues. The iconoclast controversy really erupted in the 8th century, mostly for political reasons, and didn't last too long.

>the Eastern churches long remained enveloped in hieratic and impersonal imagery
lol no

>>18579133
>Christianity taking anything from paganism is a myth
If you’re being serious then you are either completely ignorant or being a disingenuous obscurantist. I’m thinking it’s the latter.

>>18579143
>Let me guess because Christ is truth you don’t need to actually challenge or explore your spiritual ambitions whatsoever
True striving and spiritual growth happens in Christ and through Christ and for Christ. All other paths are in vain.

i want to believe in christ but the doubt that springs from my suspicion that it's nothing more than a coping mechanism prevents me from doing so. yes, I'm aware that it would be ideal to take a leap of faith but the shadow of my doubts and suspicions invariably arrests this

>>18579221
Try it and see.

>>18578628
The Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms will give you the theologically vocabulary you need.
Then read an exposition of the confession or go ahead and get a systematic theology like Bavinck's one volume The Wonderful Works of God.

>>18578945
>The one problem you have is that it's historical fact that Jesus was resurrected
Bahaha when are you talking about? The story is so full of holes it wouldn't float in a bath tub. Christards really are genuinely stupid.

read Barth.

>>18579248
>""Bahaha"""

>>18579258
Refuted by Erich Przywara

>>18577266
The problem is that Christian theology was infected with Platonism and the idea of God as wholly transcendental and "out there." Basically, "The Form of the Good."

But God is more immanent, as Spinoza shows, but also has mind.

Boehme describes the logic of the most clearly in The Signature of All Things and Hegel and Fichte expand on it systemically.

God creates reality, something outside Itself to know Its self. God includes light and darkness, all possibilities. Salvation is something that becomes, as all things become. God, pure potentiality and actuality is, as all things, defined by what it is not. The opposite of something is nothing. The two are a contradiction, and bring forth synthesis, Becoming.

>>18579369
that problem appears if you autistically subscribe to certain theologians and place their speculations above revelation. That's not necessary, you can treat Thomas or Palamas or Van Til as interesting speculators not dogmatic absolutes.

>Boehme describes the logic of the most clearly in The Signature of All Things and Hegel and Fichte expand on it systemically.
Boehme introduces so many new ideas and words that he obfuscates the bible far more than any autistic 200 IQ theologian ever could.

>>18579369
Why in the world would you accept Spinoza over Plotinus? Anyway you're mistaken by saying Platonism sees God as "wholly transcendental" since obviously the World Soul is still one of the three hypostases of God and is immanent in creation being roughly analogous to the Stoic Logos. There are whole books of Christian theology written about reconciling the immanence and transcendence of God. See especially Palamas essence/energies distinction and Karl Rahners immanent and economic Trinity.

>>18577378
uh oh larpers mad

>>18579505
I was really just thinking of the Timaeus.

I don't take Spinoza over Plotonius, I take Hegel. Hegel keeps what holds in Spinoza but radically changes the role of God.

I take Hegel because his view of God is built up with logic and systematized. I don't doubt the power of revelation, Boehme found his truths in mystcism and they are the main influence on Hegel.

My reason for rejecting Plato is that the Theory of Forms is not an appropriate solution to the problem of identity. Aristotle began to being it down almost immediately with reductio ad absurdum, and modern semiotics makes it seem quite naive. It's a wonderful contribution nonetheless, but Identity Philosophy dealt with the problems it wants to solve way better.

>>18579740
>I take Hegel because his view of God is built up with logic
Big yikes.

>>18579505
>See especially Palamas essence/energies distinction and Karl Rahners immanent and economic Trinity.
Thank you anon, I will read these. I'm especially interested in Neoplatonism at the moment. Is it best to just start with the Enneads and work my way through it? I've already read most of Plato's works and the important parts of Aristotle

>>18579740
>I was really just thinking of the Timaeus.
Even in the Timaeus there are 3 aspects of God: World-Soul (immanent), Demiuge (immanent-transcendent), and Form (transcendent). Did you actually read it?

>>18579765
The World Soul is very clearly not God in the Christian sense seeing as how it is created by the Demiurge.

Neither the Demiurge or World Spirit worked their way into popular Christian theology the way the Good did. I suppose they had an influence on the role posited by the Holy Spirit.

>>18579740
>I take Hegel because his view of God is built up with logic
Hegel is also completely wrong because of it. God transcends logical categories by the simple fact that any category after being itself is a created category and God is uncreated. If you don't acknowledge the analogy of being then you're automatically going off on the wrong path. God is necessarily entirely different to created being by the fact He is uncreated, and perfectly simple without composition.

>My reason for rejecting Plato is that the Theory of Forms is not an appropriate solution to the problem of identity
The theory of forms isn't supposed to address identity, that would be the essences of things that exist within the things themselves. Forms are what explains why there are a diversity of things in the first place and why we can say there is that thing and this thing and not just a huge lump of undifferentiated matter. Essences exist because of the Forms which are potentialities of universals that exist in the mind of God. On this Aristotle and the Neoplatonists are in agreement, since both of them agree that Forms exist in the mind, but the Neoplatonists just say that they exist specifically in the mind of God and it's noesis that allows the rational mind to connect distinct particulars to the universals they contain in their diversity.

>>18579761
>Is it best to just start with the Enneads and work my way through it?
Yes, start with the Enneads, the abridged Penguin edition is perfectly fine with a very solid introduction. The only real important Ennead it's missing is the Ennead on Act and Potency which is obviously important for how it ties into Aquinas, but it's not a huge deal when you're starting out. I also highly recommend Theophany by Eric Perl which is generally considered to be the best introduction to Neoplatonism. There's also another book called The Structure of the Intelligible Universe according to Plotinus by Armstrong which is another very good overview of the three primary hypostases.

Tl;dr
God knows who's in his church.
You're judged based of your heart and according to what you know so an orthodox Christian will have less excuses for blowing it dogmaticly then your protestant granny.
You're supposed to live as an example and bring people to the true church when you can

>>18577378
WE WILL OVERCOME

>>18577378
OP BTFO

>>18577378
Orthobros... we got exposed

>>18577266
"The Fall broke everything"
See: The Doors of the Sea by David Bentley Hart, it's a very short read.

>>18577378
cringe

>>18577378
How come we don't find you commenting this in "let's convert to islam" threads?

>>18581514
>"The Fall broke everything"
Everything except any physical function of the universe, meaning all human observations of it are uniformly applicable throughout time and thus evolution, etc. are all true in contradiction of scripture and the church fathers, right? Wouldn't want to look stupid lol.

>>18581644
In a moral sense, insofar as all of Creation possesses free will. I'm oversimplifying because I'm responding to what is most likely a shitpost on what is definitely one of the three dumbest boards on 4chan(nel). To simplify the entire book into a slightly longer sentence, "The effects of the Fall have had ramifications on all of Creation, not just humanity, and this is the origin of Sin."

>>18581692
The tradition understanding is that it also introduced death into the world.

>>18579133
Christianity was in competition with Mithraism in Rome. This is probably why they adopted statues and shit to appeal to Romans.

The bible is very obviously against graven images

>>18579856
Right, and the Theory of Forms is still hopelessly naive in view of modern semiotics. Forms aren't eternal, they change and are constructed by culture and language.

>>18577266
Woah boasted this earlier, did my realize how many replies I'd get

>>18583004
yeah

>>18577436
u wot

>>18577436
Ancient Aliens(history channel) begs to differ, sweaty

>>18577677
Interesting analysis from Zizek there, but he puts too much emphasis on a mythic, highly unconvincing narrative. Reminds me of Gilad Atzmon's analysis that Elie Wiesal's Holocaust theology amounts to a pathology of racial narcissism. The Jews, as Plato's purified golden race, have been spiritually reborn (through fire) as demigods, replacing YAHWEH.

>>18578783
>>18578618
Tbh I'm less concerned with individuals doing evil because of having free will. That's fine.

The theodicy I'm concerned about may not be theodicy I guess. More the problem of the fate of the unheard, or the issue of limbo in general.

>>18577266
No you can't join Orthodox Church in a way you wish for.

You can join some Antiochian one or something that is international, but you will not be acceded to the proper esoteric and mystical connection that separate Orthodox Churches have with their Ethnicity.

I really suggest you don't convert because you will be disappointed and we don't need converts.

>>18577266
God doesn't judge everyone in the same way. Christ said that he will have more mercy on the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah than on those who have refused the Gospel. So I don't know what the pagans' fate is, I hope they are saved in ways that only God knows. What I do know is that God is merciful and wants everyone to be saved. Furthermore, I recommend that you research the miracles approved by the Catholic Church and remember that miracles always confirmed what the true Christian Doctrine was.

>>18578849
Can a fish water apple book?
You can put words in any order you like, the question is inherently illogical because it doesn't make sense

>>18581960
>Forms aren't eternal, they change and are constructed by culture and language.
So you're a relativist? Reality is defined by culture and language rather than culture and language being shaped by reality? I think you've got things backwards in the typical way moderns do.

>>18578849
So you're a middle school student?

gods not real m8