Worried I'm unable to be Orthodox

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Worried I'm unable to be Orthodox Anonymous Tue Sep 5 21:40:16 2023 No.22460606 [Reply] [Original]

I've been reading A LOT of Orthodox Christian works, following a prayer rule, ect. and I do think it is virtually universally true. However, the view on masterbation and fornication (either marriage or celibacy ultimatum in the bible) seem unsurmountable sticking points for me, as I'm not convinced they are universally true. All of the explanations I've heard are either puritanical, feminist contaminated, or simply a subjective conservative temperament-based, i.e. dullards using the Lord's name in vain. This has given me humungous stress because I've had plenty of miracles and religious experiences occur. I certainly believe God exists, I just don't understand is identity, nor what he considers good/bad and why... Where do I go from here bros?? Please recommend texts that cover this issue of mine if possible!

>>	Anonymous Tue Sep 5 21:47:31 2023 No.22460621 >>22460606 Orthodox rely on sacred tradition and not the bible alone, so they don't necessarily need biblical justification for such rulings. Also if you masturbate and fornicate your judgement is clouded. T. Prottie

>>	Anonymous Tue Sep 5 21:47:38 2023 No.22460622 >unable to find God just because he can't stop fapping ngmi

>>	Anonymous Tue Sep 5 21:59:59 2023 No.22460659 >>22460606 its not orthodox but you should read c.s Lewis' writings on masturbation

>>	Anonymous Tue Sep 5 22:02:27 2023 No.22460674 >>22460622 Why would God fap?

>>	Anonymous Tue Sep 5 22:02:58 2023 No.22460677 Chemical or ligature castration.

>>	Anonymous Tue Sep 5 22:11:59 2023 No.22460699 >itt retarded christcucks

Anonymous Tue Sep 5 22:19:49 2023 No.22460717

>>22460622
I have stopped masterbating. Haven't done it in months and I feel no urge to. You are lazily misunderstanding my contention. It isn't inability to stop, it's that I'm unconvinced it's a sin. It's often been said "if it weren't for Christians, more people would be Christian". There's an unbelievable amount of anti-evangelism.

>>22460621
I'm well aware. I wasn't looking for biblical justification, I was looking simply for *justification* and "because tradition" is an insufficient argument for anyone but the already initiated; the tradition needs a rationale to be binding to people considering submitting themselves to it. I am aware of the nous doctrine, but again, that argument is fallacious given that it's assumed that masterbation and fornication are assumed to be sinful from the outset.

>>22460659
Thank you for the only helpful reply so far. Really appreciate it. May I ask, have you read his writings on this topic?

>>	Anonymous Tue Sep 5 22:31:33 2023 No.22460744 File: 53 KB, 981x949, 50fl13ykyy811-3055696442.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >Wallowing in lustful thoughts in my mind while I use my hand to simulate the natural sex act is okay

>>	Anonymous Tue Sep 5 22:36:24 2023 No.22460750 >>22460717 >and "because tradition" is an insufficient argument You're trying to convert into a church which views its tradition as being divinely inspired and infallible. They don't need to convince you, your job is to shut up and submit to it.

Anonymous Tue Sep 5 22:42:45 2023 No.22460765

>>22460750
Incorrect. People who convert must determine whether submission is warranted or not, whether the doctrine is true and God is present there. Obviously you haven't listened to many of the Orthodox saints if you think the church authority is merely authoritarian.

>>22460744
Sarcastic, pathos-based rhetoric relying on presuppositions others don't share is why you dolts save so few.

Anonymous Tue Sep 5 22:44:12 2023 No.22460766

>>22460717
This, >>22460750 you'll quickly find trying to justify all Orthodox traditions with the Bible is impossible, you're being a pseudo-protestant. Infallible tradition is binding on the conscience. Anyway masturbation itself (I.e. without fantasy or lust or porn) isn't a sin explicitly defined in the Bible, but 1 cor 10:23 clearly shows it's sin. Its also unclean per Lev 15:16 depending on how you understand the OT, so pair that with Eph 5:5 it's clearly not a good practice.

Anonymous Tue Sep 5 22:50:27 2023 No.22460785

>>22460765
>Sarcastic, pathos-based rhetoric relying on presuppositions others don't share is why you dolts save so few.
That's what masturbation is. It requires you to wallow in lustful thoughts in order to turn yourself on and reach orgasm. Also the natural sex act is the copulation of a man and a woman. Masturbation imitates this with your hand the same way homosexuals imitate it with anal penetration.

Anonymous Tue Sep 5 22:50:36 2023 No.22460788

>>22460606
because God said so and there's the example of Onan being struck down because of fornication.
it's all covered by the notion of being chaste, and you'll probably find your answer reading works on that.

you should look more into it. search about that question in theological works; you'll probably find it in treatises about chastity, married life and the like.

for a quick explanation on fornication, sex is a spiritual union. the reason so many people are broken is because they're disgracing that sacred connection by doing so with so many people, who they won't stay with.

Anonymous Tue Sep 5 22:52:39 2023 No.22460794

>>22460765
>Incorrect. People who convert...
Orthodoxy aren't trying to convert you. Orthodox churches are national, ethnic institutions that you are born into. You're either part of their ethnic tribe or you aren't. That's the reality of it on the ground.

>>	Anonymous Tue Sep 5 22:53:40 2023 No.22460798 >believing in things eithout evidence

Anonymous Tue Sep 5 22:54:28 2023 No.22460801

>>22460766
I really think you are still dumbly misreading my first post. I am not asking for biblical justification. I am asking for justification generally. Again, as I said to the last guy, holy tradition's authority is not totalitarian. This is a Western misconception. Obedience to it has its basis in love, that is where it gains its authority. I don't see how "infallible tradition" could be "binding on the conscience" to people who have not yet determined that the tradition is true or submitted themselves to it. Traditions have *reasons*. Bizarrely, no one seems to remember the reason these were instantiated.

>>	Anonymous Tue Sep 5 22:56:06 2023 No.22460807 >>22460794 This. Converting to Orthodoxy involves picking a church, which really means picking a country. People of that country will think you're a giant weirdo.

Anonymous Tue Sep 5 23:01:11 2023 No.22460821

>>22460717
You're ignoring the story of Onan in Genesis or the ritual impurity associated with loss of semen in Leviticus. These had pretty clear connections to masturbation in pre-Christian Judaism and the debate in both Christianity and Judaism has never been about it being bad or not and always being more about how serious the badness of it is on a case-by-case basis.

Anonymous Tue Sep 5 23:04:33 2023 No.22460836

>>22460794
Are we just going to pretend that the True Church has no ethical obligation to save the souls of others from hellfire?..

>>22460785
You can say that's what it is, and I do have some sympathy for your position, but you are simply offering an internal perspective, which is not super compelling on its own... Surely equating masterbation with gay sex in terms of deviation from the ideal is too far. Especially given Orthodox don't really seem to be infected with the Platonic idea that you either obtain to the ideal or you are in sin in the way Catholics are.

>>22460788
Thank you for the excellent response. You've offered my some great lines of inquiry. Why is falling short of the sexual union ideal considered abject sin when this (given the lack of Platonic influence enduring in Orthodoxy) is not evenly applied across other sorts of sins? I,e., Orthodox are not boneheaded enough to think every priest must necessarily be celebate, even though celibacy is the ideal.

Anonymous Tue Sep 5 23:08:15 2023 No.22460843

>>22460836
>Are we just going to pretend that the True Church has no ethical obligation to save the souls of others from hellfire?..
Are you going to pretend that Orthodox care about this? They don't engage in any substantial mission activity like Catholics and Protestants do. Assuming you live in a non-Orthodox nation, the only reason they're in your country is because of ethnic diaspora.

Anonymous Tue Sep 5 23:09:16 2023 No.22460847

>>22460801
You want general justification and not biblical justification? I have no idea what you're asking for then, an appeal to natural law in how it goes against the natural order of reproduction? A history lesson tracing their traditions? Yes their morality is only binding if you actually convert, but frankly I don't see why that's all relevant, people join churches like that to anchor themselves in something so they have a higher authority to govern them. Whether you think their morality fits your views shouldn't have any bearing on your conversion, you should convert if you think their traditions are valid at their root. Would you be fine with a homosexual rejecting the Bible because they disagree with its sexual ethics?

Anonymous Tue Sep 5 23:11:44 2023 No.22460854

>>22460794
>>22460807
This is a meme with little to no basis in reality. Orthodox communities are extremely welcoming, even the strongly ethnic ones, the barriers to "belonging" are not intentional, just a result of the shared cultural experience that as an outsider you ofc do not have. Everyone who says this is really just outing themselves as either knowing nothing about Orthodoxy irl, or, if they've explored orthodoxy, making insufficient effort to involve themselves in church. Also, in america at least, there's plenty of largely convert parishes in the Antiochian and OCA, which are even more accessible to those without the traditionally orthodox ethnic backgrounds. Sure, the Greeks that only go to church twice a year and view it as a cultural thing will think you're weird, but who cares lmao.

>>	Anonymous Tue Sep 5 23:12:16 2023 No.22460856 >>22460843 Also if they ever do anything in their diaspora locations as an "outreach" it's something like a "Greek Culture Celebration" where you go learn how great it is being Greek and eat Greek food.

Anonymous Tue Sep 5 23:12:44 2023 No.22460858

>>22460794
>>22460807
nta but I'm fairly involved in an ethnic Eastern Catholic community that doesn't care at all if someone from another ethnicity joins them. I could pass as their ethnicity, but I've seen several people who couldn't there--no one cares.

Yes these groups have more of an ethnic component to them than some by-the-numbers Protestant or RCC church, but I have never seen them reject non-ethnic adherents like Druze or Mandaeans do or some shit. If that guy is interested in an Orthodox church because of their theology the ethnic angle wouldn't be a reason to not go.

Anonymous Tue Sep 5 23:12:45 2023 No.22460859

>>22460821
What a breath of fresh air! This is the sensible grounded Orthodoxy I've come to respect. You have all these degenerate neurotics screeching about how evil wacking off is unilaterally. Seems far more reasonable for such things to be taken case-by-case. Ofc, with Onan, it is because he was specifically commanded by God not to waste his semen and he pulled out. This is a very particular scenario that is hard to universalize. One thing I wonder though, is whether it is any more impure when it comes to the eucharist, than marital sex?

>>	Anonymous Tue Sep 5 23:14:24 2023 No.22460866 >>22460858 Eastern Catholicism isn't the same thing. It's still connected to Rome and thus their churches can't exist as fully national/ethnic entities.

>>	Anonymous Tue Sep 5 23:16:14 2023 No.22460872 >>22460854 The conversation isn't really about whether they'll be willing to let you join -- of course they will -- but over whether they care about actually converting the people in their diaspora host nations.

Anonymous Tue Sep 5 23:16:57 2023 No.22460875

>>22460836
>not evenly applied
how so?
the non-celibate priests are married.
the ideal is celibacy or matrimony, not pure celibacy.

God instituted matrimony, and gave us a first example with Adam and Eve.
to use a nice little example, people "shackle" themselves in error and sin with these extremely intimate connections they do to others at leisure.
it's why you see people talking about having "no connection", or a "lack of love". they don't feel proper love anymore, and are usually just running on blind lust (which is why they often end in divorces when the feeling of novelty ends).

what's your infatuation with Plato? it has to do with basic theology, not any kind of influence.

>Surely equating masterbation with gay sex in terms of deviation from the ideal is too far.
they're similar kinds of perversion.
and there's no "degree" of sins, they're all equally wrong and bad.

>>	Anonymous Tue Sep 5 23:17:14 2023 No.22460876 >>22460859 >Seems far more reasonable for such things to be taken case-by-case. You can think it's reasonable all you want but you don't have any say in the matter.

>>	Anonymous Tue Sep 5 23:18:58 2023 No.22460884 >>22460859 you appear to not have caught the subtext of his post. he's basically saying there's nobody discussing if it is sinful, exclusively how sinful it is.

>>	Anonymous Tue Sep 5 23:19:53 2023 No.22460886 ITT uppity convertskii

>>	Anonymous Tue Sep 5 23:20:02 2023 No.22460888 >>22460856 >>22460843 Is this what the Catholic youtubers are telling you guys?

>>	Anonymous Tue Sep 5 23:20:40 2023 No.22460890 File: 391 KB, 1059x1636, RESIST.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>	Anonymous Tue Sep 5 23:21:03 2023 No.22460894 >>22460888 It's what reality tells us

>>	Anonymous Tue Sep 5 23:23:01 2023 No.22460897 >>22460836 and for a quicker talk on why; God designed sex for marriage, and marriage to be a holy, prized, and honored institution. this sentence should be enough to understand why it is a sin.

>>	Anonymous Tue Sep 5 23:23:12 2023 No.22460898 >>22460858 Catholics have a similarity to this situation, with how they like to distinguish between "cradle" and convert Catholics. I've never seen Protestants speak this way.

Anonymous Tue Sep 5 23:28:21 2023 No.22460908

>>22460886
Cope, faggot

>>22460875
"Infatuation with Plato" is an egregious exaggeration, but the Catholic thinking which they derived from Platonism is a rigid dichotomy where there is only hitting the mark and missing it. If you have missed the #1 ideal then there is no #2. This is there reason for enforcing celibacy across the board in the priesthood. Christ himself says points out that celibacy is the superior choice, but that not everyone is capable of it. Case-by-case application but all sins are equally bad?-- sorry, what? If that is the case, then wtf is the metaphysical justification for the Paul's advocacy of capital punishment for murders, but not for other varieties of sinners?

Anonymous Tue Sep 5 23:29:46 2023 No.22460912

So Orthodox beliefs and tradition are directly apostolic so they were followed by the apostles themselves. If you have any questions about it read the hundreds of books written about it by people infinitely more faithful and pious than your entire bloodline. This is the extent of Orthodox apologetics and evangelism warranted.

>>	Anonymous Tue Sep 5 23:35:13 2023 No.22460920 >>22460908 >Christ himself says points out that celibacy is the superior choice where?

Anonymous Tue Sep 5 23:36:09 2023 No.22460925

>>22460912
Incorrect. Apostolic legitimacy is not all there is to it. Not only does it merely put the problem further back, but if it were so, why not believe in one of the Hindu or Buddhist schools that also have massive emphasis on lines of descent? This "position" of yours comes off as parody.

>>	Anonymous Tue Sep 5 23:37:45 2023 No.22460929 >>22460908 >there is only hitting the mark and missing it. being correct or sinning. where's the issue? your stumbling block is thinking celibacy is the ideal, and not counting matrimony.

>>	Anonymous Tue Sep 5 23:38:08 2023 No.22460930 >>22460912 >So Orthodox beliefs and tradition are directly apostolic so they were followed by the apostles themselves. This isn't supported by the historical evidence on a number of matters

>>	Anonymous Tue Sep 5 23:38:56 2023 No.22460932 >>22460929 and also, where do the orthodox deviate? your only point here is discussing celibacy, as if it were superior to matrimony, for some reason you've come up with. it will most likely be msiquoting Paul, if i am to call it out.

>>	Anonymous Tue Sep 5 23:39:14 2023 No.22460933 >>22460920 Matthew 19:10-11

>>	Anonymous Tue Sep 5 23:40:49 2023 No.22460937 >>22460932 Actually, it's from an Orthodox priest discussing the issue in a bible study in exactly these terms. Merely denying the Catholic contention is an obviously weak line of defense.

Anonymous Tue Sep 5 23:42:22 2023 No.22460939

>>22460933
>Matthew 19:10-11
>His disciples said to Him
>So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.
>Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because of your hardness of heart; but it was not this way from the beginning.
>Now I tell you that whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman, commits adultery.

>>	Anonymous Tue Sep 5 23:42:26 2023 No.22460940 >>22460925 No idea what you're trying to say nor do I care. >>22460930 Wrong.

>>	Anonymous Tue Sep 5 23:43:52 2023 No.22460946 >>22460937 >actually i disregard theologians but my argument is a Bible "study" by some nobody are you serious? you've also not answered my point, and your reply doesn't even really address mine.

>>	Anonymous Tue Sep 5 23:44:33 2023 No.22460948 >>22460940 >Wrong. You're historically illiterate.

Anonymous Tue Sep 5 23:46:52 2023 No.22460955

>>22460939
Here:
10 His disciples said to Him, “If such is the case of the man with his wife, it is better not to marry.”

Jesus Teaches on Celibacy
11 But He said to them, “All cannot accept this saying, but only those to whom it has been given: 12 For there are [c]eunuchs who were born thus from their mother’s womb, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He who is able to accept it, let him accept it.”

>>	Anonymous Tue Sep 5 23:48:49 2023 No.22460960 >>22460606 >can't into brahmacharya

Anonymous Tue Sep 5 23:49:17 2023 No.22460961

>>22460946
Well you were betting I was misquoting Paul. I wasn't. I was referencing a bible study by a priest who has gone to seminary, received a doctorate, pulls in a large audience and has sold multiple prolific books on Orthodoxy. Are you not the nobody here?

>>	Anonymous Tue Sep 5 23:52:02 2023 No.22460968 >>22460930 This, most of their historical claims boil down to appealing to the magisterium

>>	Anonymous Tue Sep 5 23:53:27 2023 No.22460972 stop replying, this is a falseflagger. get better at seeing when they keep trying to make people mad with circular arguments and offensive language.

>>	Anonymous Tue Sep 5 23:55:06 2023 No.22460978 >>22460968 >This church father said something in the year 600, this means the apostles did it. He would know since he lived closer to them disregard that 600 years is the same distance between current year and the 1400s

Anonymous Tue Sep 5 23:56:46 2023 No.22460980

>>22460972
You need to take your meds. I am genuinely looking for edification. If you got mad, it wasn't my intention. If I have been arguing in circles I am sorry, it is hard to keep up with all the various repliers. I am interested in the truth of the matter here, and I am doing my imperfect best to reach it. I also don't believe I've used much offensive language.

>>	Anonymous Wed Sep 6 00:06:56 2023 No.22461012 >>22460948 I'm not, I'm very familiar with church history. You're a satanic heretic so I expect nothing else from you other than you posted already: vague claims and lies devoid of anything coherent.

>>	Anonymous Wed Sep 6 00:07:57 2023 No.22461016 >>22461012 >I'm very familiar with church history. "Church history" is not the same as the academic study of history.

>>	Anonymous Wed Sep 6 00:14:06 2023 No.22461036 >>22461016 Ok

Anonymous Wed Sep 6 00:17:06 2023 No.22461047

>>22460606
>>22460717
>It isn't inability to stop, it's that I'm unconvinced it's a sin
If you understand sin as something akin to "missing the mark", then it becomes obvious why masturbation is a sin. You're cheating what is meant for reproduction and bonding with a significant other.

Is it the worst thing in the world? No. But it's not great. I'm sure there's a lot of things that end up in that category of mediocre sin. And no, just because it's fun doesn't make it a sin (in the right doses). But I find it hard to believe that masturbation wouldn't be a sin in any dose. Plus, the more you get off, and/or the more depraved the material you get off to, the worse it is.

>>22460821
>>22460859
Let's not talk about the Old Testament, then. We could always say that it's outdated or whatever. So, here's a new challenge from the New Testament instead:
>But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
>Matthew 5:28-29
At the very least, it makes it seem like "eye-fucking", sexual imagination, and pornography are forms of adultery and are thus sinful. If you're masturbating mechanically for whatever reason, with nothing in the mind's eye, it doesn't seem as bad. Yet that's rarely the case.

>>	Anonymous Wed Sep 6 01:10:45 2023 No.22461182 You’re definitely unable to be orthodox if you bring questions like this to a bunch of fucking internet strangers rather than to a priest

>>	Anonymous Wed Sep 6 01:18:25 2023 No.22461195 >>22460606 I think Aquinas summed this up somewhere.

>>	Anonymous Wed Sep 6 01:46:38 2023 No.22461259 >>22460717 >It isn't inability to stop, it's that I'm unconvinced it's a sin This is also what turned me away from Christianity. Not being convinced why certain stuff is regarded as sinful, especially sexual stuff...

Anonymous Wed Sep 6 01:50:44 2023 No.22461271

>>22460606
you just gotta believe bro, no amount of books or arguments or gay gyer can convince you, only God can. orthodoxy is about actually going to church irl and living the gospels, not circlejerking about on imageboards and chatrooms. the Body and Blood of Christ can be found in orthodoxy, it is way better than liking anime too much or eating brazil powder.

>>	Anonymous Wed Sep 6 01:53:45 2023 No.22461281 >>22460785 Kind of hard to find a woman who isn't covered in tattoos and ran through these days. It might have been so in the ancient times but not so much nowadays.

>>	Anonymous Wed Sep 6 01:54:53 2023 No.22461286 >>22460794 Sounds like judaism with extra steps >>22460798 Evidence is overrated

>>	Anonymous Wed Sep 6 02:06:22 2023 No.22461322 >>22461281 keep casting stones brother

Anonymous Wed Sep 6 08:29:46 2023 No.22462189

I think you have kind of a naive idea about sexuality because you’re seeing it as some idealistic romantic thing focused on this ideal interaction between people when in reality it’s a compulsion in people’s lives that goes against Corinthians 6:12. People aren’t sexually attracted to what makes them feel happy and good, that’s just not how it works, people trade sexuality out for romantic ideas because it’s more self respecting, which shows that it’s not enjoyable in itself. Sexual intensity grows from what is most self annihilating, degrading of oneself or another person, which is really the same thing. A person is an island, what forces actually allow them to mend and mix themselves with another person? It’s suggestion and condescension, not lofty created ideas like love. It’s the feeling of devaluation, not worthiness, which would only separate them more by only allowing them to cooperate on what affords self respect to each other. Love is the opposite of sexual attraction, it’s based on respect and cultivated worthiness, not neediness from instinctual dependency, which is never freely chosen and constantly trying to be ignored because it interferes with a persons idea of their own freedom, which is insufferable to a living thing. Sexual attraction lies in instinct, so how could it be freely chosen or wanted? People come up with their own justifications afterwards to bear that burden, which shows that it’s not purely enjoyable in its own right. People don’t enjoy it, which is why they seek to morally or intellectually justify it. Life isn’t good on its own, that’s what people constantly lie about, what’s good about life is what people can justify to themselves, so sex gets mixed in and lied about as something that has worth, but it doesn’t, it’s the justification of it that is pleasurable, the way it can be crafted to suit someone’s sense of themselves.

Your feelings are mixed up in some sort artistic understanding because your sublimating romantic ideas and artistic need of cooperation between people for actual reality. Your lying to yourself about life and what it actually is, because you rightly live in justifications and ideas of redemption, which shows that life isn’t good on its own, neither is instinct, the only thing that is good are the ideas of worthiness or vain self satisfaction that actually allows a person to live with themselves. Life isn’t good on its good, so neither could sex have worth. If it’s pleasurable, let it be pleasurable, but then why do people have to lie about life and sex? Why are they always seeking moral or intellectual justifications for life if it’s not pleasurable on its own. Because it’s not

Wine as wine is not desired
But wine that’s good
So life only as life is worthless
let it be despised

Sir Dunking Biscuits (or something, i forgot my username) Wed Sep 6 09:23:08 2023 No.22462257

>>22460677
>sex is bad
>Chemical or ligature castration.
from jesus to castration in one brief uncomplicated conclusion

>>22460606
The thing to understand about this,
> (either marriage or celibacy ultimatum in the bible)
is that these doctrines are supposed to kettle you and turn you into rabid hater of life; it's the same impetus and pathway of christians from the earliest of examples (arguably it produces the desire to preach against others): the creation of guilt over unimportant bodily functions with a leaning toward the homosexual inclination toward lusting after children who are "pure" and then become "impure" when entering puberty, and who then require your sadomasochistic attentions to "cure them".

The only way to win this logic puzzle is to become a eunuch, as Jesus advocated, which is akin to sewing up your arsehole to suppress the action of taking a shit. In the same way, as both of these processes constitute a repression of the bodily functions, as the shit backs up in the body and bursts the internal organs, so does the pent up sexual frustration backs up into the brain and breaks the brain.

Historically,
Abstinence was a practice of the Ancient Romans designed to heighten sexual pleasure and increase fertility. To do this and not actually enjoy sex afterwards is where the brain breaks; not only has focus become all about sex but of a guilted and perverted take on sex, hating everything and lusting after everything at the same time, with no means of recourse.

>texts
I could only give you examples of men and women in the grips of cumbrained wrath. You should take comfort, however, that the jewish ethno-supremacist god you call God does not exist.

>>	Anonymous Wed Sep 6 10:15:51 2023 No.22462360 >>22460765 >why you dolts save so few. if you knew anything about God you would know we cant save anyone only God through the holy spirit can,the best we can hope for is to plant seed.

>>	Anonymous Wed Sep 6 10:24:51 2023 No.22462367 >>22461322 My body is a temple

Anonymous Wed Sep 6 10:45:45 2023 No.22462403

>>22460606
>puritanical, feminist contaminated, or simply a subjective conservative temperament-based, i.e. dullards using the Lord's name
this is Christianity in a nutshell, the long arc of its history which it works to achieve whether Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox, Russian intelligence assets have been lying to you about how "based" pretending to be Christian is, it's final form is sterility, woman priests, and ditching the original community to bring in new recruits... but you shouldn't have a problem with that since you genuinely believe in it and aren't church shopping for culture war purposes

>>	Anonymous Wed Sep 6 12:13:08 2023 No.22462572 >>22460908 you are a moralist, read the Book of Job and then come back

Anonymous Wed Sep 6 12:18:19 2023 No.22462585

>>22460606
>masterbation
I think the core of it comes down to lying to your body using your actions. When your hand makes your penis simulate sex and you think about sex thoughts you are training yourself to lie to yourself and thus dulling the intellect. It's not the physical action of playing with morning wood but of engaging in simulation (lying through action) to yourself.
>fornication
You will think about the women you have had sex with unprotected daily for the rest of your life. If you want to be a father in a successful marriage the best way to give yourself to your wife is via virginity. I was an extreme manwhore (body count 40-50 over 6 years of single life) and I have probably the brain of a heroin addict around women - to the point where I avoid them and try to work from home. I also masturbated a ton. It's profoundly disordered and you basically become a sex addict similar to having an eating disorder but it's worse because it's not pizza but an ensouled human being. Sex addiction for chads is an unbelievably toxic condition and can destroy you.

Saint John Paul II has a massive treatise on the human body

>>	Anonymous Wed Sep 6 12:21:02 2023 No.22462593 >>22462403 >Russian intelligence assets The New Yorker's comments section is on their website

Sir Dunking Biscuits (or something, i forgot my username) Wed Sep 6 13:30:56 2023 No.22462745

>>22462585
>I was an extreme manwhore (body count 40-50 over 6 years of single life) and I have probably the brain of a heroin addict around women - to the point where I avoid them
What do you think it would take to actually rid yourself of this perception?

Anonymous Wed Sep 6 14:00:47 2023 No.22462816

>>22462189
Yeah I’d have to say the genius of this is you’re not even making a religious argument but showing how basic facts of life match up with religious principles. If sexuality is a bodily health function than that proves that it’s compulsive and not enjoyable to a living being that sees itself as free. People don’t enjoy other bodily functions, they see them as annoying. Sex is different because it’s linked up to social desire. But if people all defecated together you’d find works edifying it because people just desire closeness. The real life livers that actually enjoy themselves have the maturity to just admit that ‘to live is to sin’ and that actually allows them to work on productive things and become successful through animalistic pride. It’s the weirdos that try to defend life as some happy friend time magic that don’t get anything and are always looked at as unimpressive because in the end people can instinctively tell there’s something deceitful about them. I’d rather deal with the prideful people because their honesty allows an open point of contention, than the people that try to make life itself seem warm while also being ruthlessly reductive and trying to force everyone to give in to their ‘warm’ compulsions. Mixing up what’s actually good about life with what reduces people to objects. That’s the shit that’s truly evil and tricks people that want basic social needs into basically allowing themselves to be raped by a male feminist

>>	Anonymous Wed Sep 6 14:04:45 2023 No.22462824 File: 175 KB, 781x1326, 12312324.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>22462816

Anonymous Wed Sep 6 14:05:28 2023 No.22462826

>>22460606
You're not be expected to be a saint right away, but if you can't even understand the sin of fornication, not only will you judged by this sin, you'll heap the sin of those who share it with you. And if you have a child, he'll be a bastard like every incel and misanthropist on this site, and you'll bear the curse on your head too, just for giving them that miserable existence.

Anonymous Wed Sep 6 14:12:32 2023 No.22462843

>>22460794
>>22460807
This is exactly my experience. A Greek Orthodox priest told me to go back to Catholicism and some old bitch gave me the evil eye for lighting a candle as a gesture in a church. Maybe it's different in North America with ROCOR etc, but certainly not outside of there.
>>22460888
This. The Orthodox church is not catholic by any sense of the imagination as much as they would like to think so.
>>22460606
It's obviously a sin and unnatural. Onan and the concept of fecundity in Christian theology make this clear cut, regardless of dogma.

>>	Anonymous Wed Sep 6 14:17:51 2023 No.22462861 >>22460765 This guy's a treat

>>	Anonymous Wed Sep 6 14:19:54 2023 No.22462866 >>22460798 Can you show me some evidence for that maxim?

Sir Dunking Biscuits (or something, i forgot my username) Wed Sep 6 14:21:09 2023 No.22462869

>>22462816
i.e. you believe god made you and made a mistake with sexuality and gender, this is obviously an error in your reasoning.

>(preempting the obvious response)
btw, when citing bible references of people who share in your disposition attempt not to use the words of heinously evil men guilty of murder and torture - because we understand what unrepentant guilt does to the mind.

Sir Dunking Biscuits (or something, i forgot my username) Wed Sep 6 14:22:27 2023 No.22462876

>>22462843
>A Greek Orthodox priest told me to go back to Catholicism and some old bitch gave me the evil eye for lighting a candle as a gesture in a church.
hahahaahaha wtf i love orthodox even more now

That's such a good response to a converso, "go away."

>>	Anonymous Wed Sep 6 14:50:25 2023 No.22462976 >>22462876 Yes, how very Christian of you. This was around 10 years ago after I stopped being an atheist. Not sure what Jesus would think of that, but hey at least it's amusing.

Anonymous Wed Sep 6 14:58:00 2023 No.22462991

>>22462976
Where are you now? Did you take the priests advice and become Catholic then? I love much about the Orthodox in the theological sense, but they are not the universal church. They are specific churches. Ethnic communities, for the most part. There's a place for everyone and every rite there. Even the Orthodox, if they so wish.

>>	Anonymous Wed Sep 6 14:59:09 2023 No.22462993 >>22462991 There's a place for everyone in Catholicism, I mean* Even Anglicans at this point.

Sir Dunking Biscuits (or something, i forgot my username) Wed Sep 6 15:32:27 2023 No.22463084

>>22462976
idk man, did you think it was a test? like in karate movies where the venerable master tells the disciple to go away 100 times before the disciple proves himself by some herculean tasks..?

even if not, it was an honest answer.

>>	Anonymous Wed Sep 6 15:35:16 2023 No.22463090 >>22461047 >>22462585 >crickets from OP

Anonymous Wed Sep 6 15:36:24 2023 No.22463094

>>22462189
>People aren’t sexually attracted to what makes them feel happy and good, that’s just not how it works, people trade sexuality out for romantic ideas because it’s more self respecting, which shows that it’s not enjoyable in itself. Sexual intensity grows from what is most self annihilating, degrading of oneself or another person, which is really the same thing.
how is being attracted to beautiful people with beautiful bodies inherently degrading? not everybody is a weird fetishist, even if they get too engaged in it

>>	Anonymous Wed Sep 6 15:41:04 2023 No.22463106 >>22463084 The average Desert Father behaved that way, but I wouldn't hold out too much for the average priest, let alone Babushka giving you the evil eye.

Anonymous Wed Sep 6 15:55:37 2023 No.22463136

>>22462869
I don’t think you really get the argument, there’s nothing you can do to win God over to liking you more (IE not using people sexually), so if you want to just do it or don’t. It’s not like mopey ‘ooohh I can’t have sex because God told me no’, I don’t think you really understand sexuality in a mature way and how it relates to self respect and people’s own idea of themselves, this is removed from the concept of God. People don’t want to act compulsively even if God wasn’t in the picture. Knowing God would just give you more respect for other people. But dualism lies in the fact that we do not create the sensations in which we think, and the Earth is a place of variables where God gives people over to their own attachments because he loves them. I defer to Palingenius Stellatus’ doctrine of plentitude and his argument that without Venus the Earth would cease to have its use so we can’t hate her too much (for impeding on freedom). The argument is about what’s the best way for man to live on Earth, not what’s the best way for him to seek favor from God, which would just be retarded. Knowing God would be the best way to live but that would you give a different sense of reverence when it comes to other people. That’s what also inspired Shakespeare’s argument with Venus and Adonis. The twist is that Venus represents worth and duty, not pleasure, hunting the boar represents pleasure and it leads to Earthly death through allowing yourself to be condescended. Right there is the kernel of the argument. Sex is something used because it has worth beyond its use, not something inherently useful and bound with substance. Pleasure is compulsive, so it makes a person even lower than a sinner that has the ability to choose between right and wrong. It’s about self dignity on Earth. God made people to know him and his own plans for your life are the best things to know and for a person to seek. Why would God want someone to be used as a sexual tool? If sex is argued to have substance than it opens the pathway to using people as objects. That’s the problem. You can enjoy yourself but if you really did I don’t get why you’d have to lie about it and give substance to a tool as if it has ownership over its user. You want to be morally free in your mind for some reason when you’re just trying to use people, it’s weird. Just use people and be honest about it. Seeking justification is immature and bizarre to the secular world which lies in animalistic truths and faith in brute force and the belief that they deserve to win. But why do they have to add morality to that? Isn’t victory on Earth enough? Apparently not. You don’t have moral justification and the reason you are seeking it means you don’t even have the respect of a free sinner supposedly enjoying himself but instead living in this strange neurotic limbo.

Anonymous Wed Sep 6 16:00:49 2023 No.22463149

>>22463136
I’m not just speaking to you but general principles on the Internet that are really dumb and immature. If you want to use people sexually as if they are a tool just do that, but it’s not intellectually or morally defensible
>>22463094
>being attracted to beautiful people with beautiful bodies
This is like le Reddit sexy time with the wife kind of weird. This is a really strange view of sexuality that isn’t remotely sexy to normal people. People have canines, like what do you actually think a person is? I really think you just don’t have the maturity to understand it. Look at what people actually find sexually engaging, people are ashamed of it just like any other bodily function. There’s nothing intellectually defensible about using people as a means to an end. Even if they want it.

Sir Dunking Biscuits (or something, i forgot my username) Wed Sep 6 16:13:28 2023 No.22463192

>>22463136
hrrmm that's a detailed response and I appreciate that ... I also hate to refer back to the original comment I made: how you a person who believes or comprehends in divinity (let's say: the genius of nature / creation) believes that divinity made a mistake when it fashioned the human form? Even in the abramic mythology the 'perfect human' (i.e. adam and eve in the garden) is one who is impervious to shame over sexuality until such perception is introduced, in which instance, god despises humans who are shameful over those things.

At which, then, man is at odds with creation.

>the reason you are seeking it means you don’t even have the respect of a free sinner supposedly enjoying himself but instead living in this strange neurotic limbo.
goodness no, it's a fun intellectual question - is all =D

Sir Dunking Biscuits (or something, i forgot my username) Wed Sep 6 16:24:15 2023 No.22463215

perhaps also a better way to say it is that the .... inculcation of 'Guilt' over natural functions of body can be demonstrated within all three abramic religions to be 'the primary sin' from which all else follows; which aligned with the psychiatry of repression in fostering psychopathy within the mind.

>>	Anonymous Wed Sep 6 16:25:45 2023 No.22463220 >>22463192 >believes that divinity made a mistake when it fashioned the human form This is just gnosticism and another fast track to hell.

Sir Dunking Biscuits (or something, i forgot my username) Wed Sep 6 16:30:08 2023 No.22463230

>>22463220
not sure if you're agreeing or disagreeing.

>>believes that divinity made a mistake when it fashioned the human form
...that is the logic of anybody making such a claim that "nature / god" fucked up when they made humans by creating them with a gender and inherent (integral) sexuality.

>>	Anonymous Wed Sep 6 16:33:42 2023 No.22463240 >>22463230 From what I understand, you're annoyed by it. So am I. >"And God saw that it was good." There was no mistake.

Sir Dunking Biscuits (or something, i forgot my username) Wed Sep 6 16:36:40 2023 No.22463248

>>22463240
We agree then. Although I'm not annoyed by it, i recognize that it's an impossible assertion; god/nature could not possibly have made a mistake, the assertion is made by mortal men who write books they call 'holy' which puts foolish assertions into the mouth of god.

The body, I think, is testament to divinity. There are aspects in those religions that support this also; satan refused to worship humans, satan introduced shame over sexuality, etc.

Anonymous Wed Sep 6 18:42:31 2023 No.22463627

>>22463149
>This is like le Reddit sexy time with the wife kind of weird. This is a really strange view of sexuality that isn’t remotely sexy to normal people.
... what?
>I see sexy thing that is designed for me to have le sex with it
>I want to have le sex with it
What's so weird about that? Maybe:
>Look at what people actually find sexually engaging, people are ashamed of it just like any other bodily function
is a problem with people having made this more complicated than it should be. I get that most people's sexuality is complicated in practice, but perhaps the maturity comes from cutting through the bullshit and returning to what I described. There's nothing shameful about good sex done with the right person in healthy circumstances (e.g. a loving relationship).

Anonymous Wed Sep 6 18:49:01 2023 No.22463641

>>22460794
I'm Greek living in Greece, you'll find hundreds of Albanian ex-muslim (secularized) converts here. You'll even find Ethiopean niggers from time to time
There's nothing ethnic about Orthodoxy, and there's nothing ethnic in the Bible in general. Except Israel.

Anonymous Wed Sep 6 19:03:51 2023 No.22463686

>>22460717
Orthodoxy regards tradition as sacred. "Needing the tradition to be rational" is a Protestant mindset. Your issue is actually a lot deeper than just this one point of doctrine, you fundamentally are in disagreement with the Orthodox mentality.

I V R I V S ࿇ N E M O !!GgBWHLRiayD Wed Sep 6 19:09:19 2023 No.22463703

Presupposing possession of nobility & sapience, one need only research the etymology of the term: "Catholic", in order to internalize its proper meaning, and, furthermore, to be able to sift out the Judaical, and the Protestantistic, pollutants that occlude it.

>>	Anonymous Wed Sep 6 20:44:38 2023 No.22463960 >>22462745 Just years of abstinence

Anonymous Wed Sep 6 21:11:01 2023 No.22464034

>>22463641
>There's nothing ethnic about Orthodoxy
Relative to Roman Catholics it is nationalized and determined by the movement of nations.
>>22463703
>one need only research the etymology of the term: "Catholic"
Hilariously bad prose coupled with confused and bad thoughts - is it an anti-Catholic or an anti-Christian? Pick one.

>>	I V R I V S ࿇ N E M O !!GgBWHLRiayD Wed Sep 6 21:24:11 2023 No.22464081 File: 44 KB, 273x333, mouthdefecator.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >Hilariously bad prose coupled with confused and bad thoughts - is it an anti-Catholic or an anti-Christian? Pick one.

Anonymous Wed Sep 6 22:14:39 2023 No.22464207

>>22463192
Perfection lies with freedom. The garden of Eden is the full representation of freedom and the fall of man represents the end of freedom and the beginning of its impossibility to attain. Freedom is self binding, it could only exist in the garden. Freedom can only exist side by side with restraint, it’s the full ability to do something and not doing it so you don’t become enslaved to your own ability. Eve’s sin is that she couldn’t handle the burden of freedom and allowed herself to be used by the serpent. She traded what she was for what it promised her, she’s allowing herself to become an object. Adam followed her because he basically thought oh if I just love her anyway and we’re together when whatever happens happens everything will be okay. How is God now going to have a relationship with a people that aren’t free and are bounded? It’s like if your friend became a zombie, how would you treat him? In Christianity, Earth/creation isn’t seen as divine, but fallen, the only divinity or reality that exists is the relationship between man and God, first established through the Old Testament’s covenants and then through Christ’s sacrifice for all people. Perfection is freedom and freedom is self binding. How does man set himself over against realities and give freedom to himself and to his objects? How does he make the objective world feel real? He binds it through concepts. He has many ways of coming close to this but they’re always incomplete. Thus divinity on Earth is unattainable for himself. Earth isn’t a magical, enchanted realm. It’s a feast where man is hunted and eaten by demons, because he isn’t free. If you say Earth is magical and enchanted and ‘mans body is divine’ that means you have to worship the king as a god and let people fully rule over your heart and mind. But the best way for a man to live is alone and in a pastoral environment, trying to talk to angels by asking them everyday to speak to him, being developed in every craft makes angels like you more because they like when you sing. The best thing for a man to do is form a relationship with God and pray to him, that’s the only way anything happens that has full reality. That’s all in Marcellus Palingenius Stellatus’ Zodiac Vitae. Most of the other stuff is in Weininger, Dostoevsky, Ibsen. Ibsen’s Brand is a Kantian poem about this very idea of all or nothing, Brand’s life is the example of dignity on Earth, a person that refuses to compromise or condescend himself, which is also the motto of the narrator from Notes From Underground
>>22463627
Love really has nothing to do with sex because it transcends laws of sexual attraction. Love and sexuality have nothing to do with each other. Its really not a pleasant self respecting thing in essence. In the height of sexual ecstasy the other person is completely forgotten about and just becomes an object of pleasure, objectification and brutality are the laws of sexual excitement

>>	Anonymous Wed Sep 6 22:17:49 2023 No.22464215 >>22464081 Nice self portrait faggot.

>>	Sir Dunking Biscuits (or something, i forgot my username) Wed Sep 6 22:22:37 2023 No.22464234 >>22464207 ... i feel less bad now to repeat my original comment, as you've evaded answering it directly twice: >>22463192

Sir Dunking Biscuits (or something, i forgot my username) Wed Sep 6 22:26:37 2023 No.22464259

i think, if we combine these together >>22463960 >>22464207

my point is made clearer; in fact: you remain slaves to these things for never having truly surpassed them:this is a position of being at war with your own nature, which is an act which must be contrary to the intention of creation.

If you understood the petty nature or even despicable nature of, say, drug addiction, you would never even so much be tempted.

I gave a speech earlier today you may enjoy,
>>22463192
>>22463215
>>22463230
>>22463248

Anonymous Wed Sep 6 22:55:44 2023 No.22464358

>>22464234
>>22464259
Idk it’s pretty simple to draw out what I’m saying but the ideas just kind of go past the limit of your questions, the questions don’t really make sense to my answers and I’m trying to show you a wider way of thinking beyond old 2015 boomer shit and grandpa pagan arguments. Nature isn’t divine, and creation for God isn’t a work of genius, it’s something trivial. And the idea that man’s ‘nature’ is reproductive is just a reductive urge to look for something outside yourself to basically tranquillize your feelings. Man can’t be reduced to anything, objective nature is something he creates to get along with other people easier, but you want it to basically rule over you without any pragmatic goal that normal people develop it for because you want to live out a type of psychotic spiritual act, but it’s a deferential urge that can’t really rule over anyone’s personality. People are going to do whatever they want anyway. His personality is a man’s nature, it’s what makes him not only an individual part but a universal whole involved with everything. The laws that you subject yourself too are just the imagination of someone’s personality that he created for beneficial gain for people, it’s not spiritual, and it’s definitely not useful removed from its original purpose
> sexuality uses the woman as the means to produce pleasure and children of the body; erotics use her as the means to create worth and children of the soul. A little understood conception of Plato is full of the deepest meaning: that love is not directed towards beauty, but towards the procreation of beauty; that it seeks to win immortality for the things of the mind, just as the lower sexual impulse is directed towards the perpetuation of the species
Creation is an erotic action, not a sexual one. Sexual creation isn’t an action, but a mechanical instinct, and it’s something trivial for God to maintain as proved by the doctrine of plentitude and the fact that every place you can see is packed full of life.

Anonymous Wed Sep 6 22:59:14 2023 No.22464366

>>22464207
>Love really has nothing to do with sex because it transcends laws of sexual attraction. Love and sexuality have nothing to do with each other. Its really not a pleasant self respecting thing in essence. In the height of sexual ecstasy the other person is completely forgotten about and just becomes an object of pleasure, objectification and brutality are the laws of sexual excitement
That's kind of sad because that hasn't been my experience at all. Some of the closest moments I've ever had with somebody was during loving sex. Now I'm kind of sad because you reminded me that I'm currently single. :(

>>	Anonymous Thu Sep 7 01:19:20 2023 No.22464662 >>22460717 so proverbs talks about it... >Proverbs 5:16-17 I mean Solomon is quite clearly talking about your seed here. >should your fountains be dispersed >aboard in the streets >like streams of water?

>>	Anonymous Thu Sep 7 06:00:12 2023 No.22465199 >>22460606 How does this stop you but the anachronistic ideas about icons and the pseudo-materialism (literalism) doesn’t?

Sir Dunking Biscuits (or something, i forgot my username) Thu Sep 7 07:38:28 2023 No.22465339

>>22464358
>Nature isn’t divine, and creation for God isn’t a work of genius, it’s something trivial.
Well then you have no basis in or interest in 'anything' divine but man-made imaginings of "superior things" to those real things at the expense of studying those real things. i.e. the basis for god is not study of gods works (i.e. creation, natural processes) but things made-up in the mind, removed from inquiry of real things and so incapable of producing actionable discoveries or insights about any real things.

You may say "spirit" surpasses (real world things), but if your view of spirit is a thing divorced from the real world then where is the basis that you drew this notion of spirit from? At some point along the line you 'must' have drawn that view from something in the real world, and then you must have divorced that thing 'from' the real world.

> The laws that you subject yourself too are just the imagination
You follow my reasoning then lol but I think a child, let's say, who is looking honestly at a tree with no preconceptions of mythos (or whatever) 'about' the tree is going to give me a truer report of what he or she observes, than a person with fantastic preconceptions who "see's the tree" but "reinterprets the tree (as being his or tht)," having a basis in simple comprehension of reality, in other words, is superior to anything made-up - in this regard.

> the idea that man’s ‘nature’ is reproductive
>Sexual creation isn’t an action, but a mechanical instinct
You know, I woke up thinking about this morning. I don't mean to convince you by this: but would not it follow that to attach to a simple bodily function with 'great social emotionalism' is a greater error? This seems like a massive profundity, in context (but it is early morning and it could just be my coffee).

This is where jealously, possessiveness, etc., arrives from, for instance, and heaps so much upon that simple mechanical bodily function; it is like a society which is aggrandizing the action of pissing, for instance.

I agree with you completely, it is a mechanical function - so why attach societal constructs upon it? (ha no pun intended)

>Creation is an erotic action, not a sexual one
it's a sexual mechanism - we agreed on this already.

> plentitude and the fact that every place you can see is packed full of life.
sure, but do we think that ... e.g. when pollen of trees or plants carries on the breeze looking to inseminate ..... that we're in a romance novel?

I think a lot of this can be summed up as being man and womans proclivity to make far too much of simple sex acts; at both ends of the extreme: the willing celibate waiting for marriage and the sex addict in deep suppression and others, they all demonstrate a hyper-fixation and aggrandizement (fear or worship) of a simple mechanical function... again,
1) they like Adam and Eve 'after' being introduced to shame over their normal sexuality
2) it is satan who introduces shame in that story

Sir Dunking Biscuits (or something, i forgot my username) Thu Sep 7 08:02:40 2023 No.22465369

>>22464358
contd.
> the willing celibate waiting for marriage and the sex addict in deep suppression and others, they all demonstrate a hyper-fixation and aggrandizement (fear or worship) of a simple mechanical function
i.e. it is not something they have overcome or surpassed but something they have been stymied and impeded at.

Which is quite strange, in context, as if to make-out that such minor things are impossible to ever get-over.

The position 'of' hyper-fixation, I would argue, is the position which has precluded the possibility of ever surpassing the base impulses and which has aggrandized them instead, producing several consequences we've already mentioned,

Whereas really the human body possesses a mechanical sexual function for around forty years of its life, then the mechanisms largely cease to function, it is nothing very much 'except' that it is made so much of by people who don't understand the mechanics of procreation that they're subject to: these unconscious impulses go on to form whole personalities, for instance, yet they are nothing at all.

Anonymous Thu Sep 7 08:07:03 2023 No.22465375

>>22460606
Hm, I'll chime in briefly
My supposition is that celibacy, views on masturbation etc. have a basis in energy work. For some people celibacy can help with using energy for spiritual purposes. However, if one is not on such level, then abstaining from sex can be harmful since it will frustrate him without any positive outcome due to lack of knowledge of how to work with energy. This isn't only related to Orthodox Christianity of course.
I'm personally more interested in Daoism/Hinduism/Buddhism.

Sir Dunking Biscuits (or something, i forgot my username) Thu Sep 7 08:20:55 2023 No.22465391

>>22465375
>Daoism/Hinduism/Buddhism.
I'm fairly sure that ceasing to be led by the sex drive (not pretending to but actually being) is one of the earliest points on the path to enlightenment and immortality in dharma and tao; a fundamental component in inner alchemy.

shout out to Quanzhen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quanzhen_School

Anonymous Thu Sep 7 08:34:40 2023 No.22465404

>>22465391
I'm not sure about it. Sex drive runs pretty deep so while it may be a prerequisite in some traditions, I don't think it's the first thing you can do. There's Ashtanga yoga tradition which includes things like right conduct, non-attachment. Some Asthanga teachers say that those are too hard for beginners, so it's better to start out with physical exercises ans purify oneself before moving onto the right conduct, getting rid of attachments and so on. For the same reason I think that forcefully stopping masturbation and sex as the first thing is simply too difficult and without purification one may not even understand why they're doing it.

Anonymous Thu Sep 7 08:36:07 2023 No.22465406

>>22465339
>>22465369
The argument is that you can’t know God from studying a tree, because that would be retarded. If a person wants to study a tree or something for ‘actionable results’ it’s a simple thing to do because man created simple processes to follow. If someone wants to study a tree they can just do that, or not if they don’t care, because they don’t have to. It’s not about things ‘made up in the mind’, someone’s personality is just worth more than a tree. If someone really cares about trees then it’s easy to learn about them, it just has nothing to do with God and it can’t change the importance of personality. People are worth more than ‘real things’ like the actionable results from studying a tree, a tree will never be worth more than someone’s personality. Personalism is the law when it comes to basic respect to the fact that we are both people and respect should be shown between us as the most important thing. The tree is something real and something a person can have a type off respect for if their friend really likes trees, but it shouldn’t be something he worships as higher than himself. The Earth just isn’t divine like that and we can’t know God through it, but Christianity also isn’t a priestly religion of mind and sprit, like Buddhism or something, but of communion and respect between friends. If someone wants to learn about the natural functions and processes of a tree because it interests them, that law of its natural process can be created from a common denomination of people that are interested in the same thing. These laws that are ‘of the imagination’ represent a common point between multiple personalities, and they are respected as such as it allows them to gain what their interests intend, but a part is never worth more than the whole, a tool is never worth more than its owner, the common denomination between people’s personalities that creates the idea of a natural law isn’t above the personality that created it through its own interests. If you want to know about natural things that’s fine, and a society of people with similar interests created out of a specific want of gain is great, but it will never have anything to do with God, because it’s subject to human personality and will have any claim over what personality is, a universal whole not subject or reducible to any part, as man is an end in itself not a means. Not reducible to any action. It’s not about spirit or the mind separate from matter, this is just a simple law of respect for a fellow human, he will never be forced to worship a tree as an important part of his function, because he doesn’t exist as a function of studying natural laws but an end in itself. God didn’t create him to carry out creation, a God would never need a human to ‘do’ anything for him, like studying natural laws, that would be retarded, God created you because he enjoys your personality, he doesn’t need you to study a tree for him and explain it back to him.

Anonymous Thu Sep 7 08:37:09 2023 No.22465408

>>22465339
>>22465369
>>22465406
When it comes to the sex stuff no one is interested in emotions or myths or romance or anything. It’s about respect of another person and not using them as an object or a means to an end, like pleasurable fulfillment. It doesn’t matter if it’s a natural function or something, a tool is not worth more than its owner and an owner can never reduced by the tool he uses. I haven’t made one emotional or sentimental or even religious argument really. I’m talking about basic laws of respect when it comes to fellow humans. If a person doesn’t care about that idea, they don’t have to, but they can’t pretend that their own interests are morally or intellectual defensible, which is really the same thing. Logic and ethics are one. A person can care about them and choose to respect others or not. But if they don’t then they shouldn’t seek any justification for their own actions, it’s not important to their actions and just makes them and everyone else retarded. A person should just be satisfied with their own actions and shouldn’t seek to intellectually justify their use of other people, because there is no substance to it. If you want to enjoy yourself, just do that, the argument is that most people don’t actually enjoy themselves because people have a need to justify themselves morally or intellectually, but it’s just simply not defensible to use others. You shouldn’t care if you don’t, but people still do and it makes everyone retarded. Be more conscious of your actions and what you intend to gain from them and leave other things alone if they have nothing to do with them. Because a person can never be subjected to an action, because that would make everyone retarded.

Sir Dunking Biscuits (or something, i forgot my username) Thu Sep 7 09:06:43 2023 No.22465456

>>22465406
>>22465408
>The argument is that you can’t know God from studying a tree, because that would be retarded.
>If a person wants to study a tree or something for ‘actionable results’ it’s a simple thing to do because man created simple processes to follow.
wait - Man created the tree; Man created the mechanics of the tree? Obviously not. If you recognize that the tree is 'divine' (like anything else of natural creation) then you're forced to admit that you 'ought' recognize that the tree (or anything else) is Gods handiwork that you should be studying: God did not write books but he did create trees, for example.

>. It’s not about things ‘made up in the mind’,
It is, for the same argument Plotinus made, which isn't complicated: if you aren't drawing things from reality (as observations and studies of natural processes) then they're coming from things made-up and so could be anything but are guaranteed, from that basis, to not be a true report or discovery of anything.

i.e. this is how you arrive at a comprehension that nothing whatsoever is sacred,
>The Earth just isn’t divine
vs. man-made made-up things.

>If someone wants to learn about the natural functions and processes of a tree because it interests them, that law of its natural process can be created from a common denomination of people that are interested in the same thing.
Ah, but here is the point I'm making: a consensus of a group f persons who agree that the tree is (something it is not) will not be correct because they proclaim themselves to be correct. Science (to study that tree), then, is Divine because it does't care for opinion and is just what it is; either we study and learn it on it terms, or we don't. At the very least you must admit that if anything warrants the status 'of' Divine, then it is Creation itself and I do not see how anybody could claim to believe in a god of creation whilst treating His Work with contempt or disregard.

>because (humanity) doesn’t exist as a function of studying natural laws but an end in itself.
> a God would never need a human to ‘do’ anything
as in like a circular loop, to just sit on a rock and do nothing? We wouldn't possess the capacity we do if that were the case. Again, if you believe in a creator deity then you have to believe the deity created the human intellectual capacity (i.e. practical skills, figuring things out) as well - which we have possessed from the earliest hunter-builder times.

Moreover, 'study' creates virtue by understanding things. If you contend that god is surely good and desires humans to be good, then humans cannot 'be' good if they are ignorant. This the most obvious point to me.
i.e.
>logic, ethics

>When it comes to the sex stuff no one is interested in emotions or myths or romance or anything.
Well, if you contend that sexuality is a grandiose and important thing which must have stories and social things stacked upon it, then you ought think the same thing of a pollen spore.

Sir Dunking Biscuits (or something, i forgot my username) Thu Sep 7 09:11:15 2023 No.22465469

> If you recognize that the tree is 'divine' (like anything else of natural creation) then you're forced to admit that you 'ought' recognize that the tree (or anything else) is Gods handiwork
er i mean, the other way around: if you believe the tree is gods handiwork then the tree is divine

Anonymous Thu Sep 7 09:27:19 2023 No.22465495

>>22465469
divine
devised the truth
that cannot be withheld from the pure
but purity is stained
by many impure obscurations...
hail to a banishing magic of an unexpected laughter.... or acts of kindness.... or movements of creativity....
>>22460606
>as I'm not convinced they are universally true.
UNIVERS-ally? Or
univers-city-ally?... Entity of ID
obscured on purpose. ever morphing beyond the known
it is the Heart. and you must tread alone
we all learning in this school of life...............

>>	Anonymous Thu Sep 7 09:29:43 2023 No.22465497 become sspx catholic

Anonymous Thu Sep 7 11:20:59 2023 No.22465679

>>22463149
>This is like le Reddit sexy time with the wife kind of weird. This is a really strange view of sexuality that isn’t remotely sexy to normal people.
The fuck are you on about? One of the oldest and most venerated accounts of beauty, love, etc., the Symposium, posits exactly that.
>>22464207
>Love and sexuality have nothing to do with each other. Its really not a pleasant self respecting thing in essence. In the height of sexual ecstasy the other person is completely forgotten about and just becomes an object of pleasure, objectification and brutality are the laws of sexual excitement
t. degenerate coomer who can only get off by debasing other people

Take the Diotima and the Song of Solomon pill. Sex isn't the pinnacle of love but it is close to it. With the right person and the right circumstance, it is absolutely holy. The trouble with it is that it's such a powerful drive that we end up doing it with the wrong people, at the wrong time, with no concern for the consequences (e.g. reproduction). Or even worse, we try to have our cake and eat it too (e.g. birth control).

Anonymous Thu Sep 7 13:14:41 2023 No.22465910

>>22465456
Man didn’t create the tree, man created science. In Christianity, God did write books. I’m Christianity, nature isn’t divine, it is fallen. In Christianity, one person is worth more than a million people, let along flowers in a field, a flock of sparrows, or a tree. It might be a nice and pleasant thought for a man to be virtuous and study and discover things, it might make him famous amongst other men or help people, but God doesn’t care about virtue or being good. You don’t be good or virtuous to gain God’s favor, the idea is following God’s commandments is how a person has a better relationship with him, it’s not about being good or virtuous, Christianity isn’t a moral religion. The consensus of the group of people studying a tree is science, you’re treating science like it’s some virtuous religion it’s just a common denomination of grounded ideas. Science is made up, it’s not a revelation from some infallible source wtf kek. You have a weird mystical idea of science tied in with voodoo or something that’s basically the mainstream of thought right now. Why aren’t you a public scientist talking about the mystery of mother Gaia with Neil Degrass Tyson on Joe Rogan’s show. They make the same virtuous sympathetic arguments about ‘man’s intellectual capacity’ being this strange voodoo calling. It’s pagan stuff and the only goal is to make individuals obedient. A personality doesn’t have to do anything you people say, God made him free, you can’t rule over his heart and mind. And if your science gave him everything he would just spit in your face and choose to be alone where he is free, see Notes From Underground, and Berdyaev’s Solitude and Society. It might be wise for a person to use their ‘intellectual capacity’ and be virtuous and good and study everything and it might make his life pleasant on Earth, but in Christianity God doesn’t care. You don’t really seem to have any background knowledge or basic information when it comes to my arguments and it’s making it so you can’t engage properly with what I’m saying. You keep repeating points that don’t have any connection with what I’ve already established, like you’re running on a background AI dialogue tree or something, it’s odd. The main point of contention that we won’t be able to get passed is that if nature is divine that means man has to worship the king as a god and let the people rule over his heart and mind, you can’t really seem to grasp the consequences of that or you just don’t care about human freedom, but I think what keeps being shown again and again is that you don’t want people to be free and you want to bind them and reduce them and it does come across as a sexual urge to me.

Anonymous Thu Sep 7 13:15:42 2023 No.22465915

>>22465456
>>22465910
You basically seem like any other modern scientist that wants to rape people on an island, it’s like the same arguments to me I don’t think we can get past that because you can’t grasp the actual consequence arguments but you think I’m just try to take le sexy time away from people because I’m an old boomer Christian that hates your pagan fun time. I don’t care about that stuff I’m just talking about what’s intellectually or morally defensible when it comes to dealing with other people, it has nothing God or virtue or God not liking le Reddit sexy fun time

Sir Dunking Biscuits (or something, i forgot my username) Thu Sep 7 14:05:07 2023 No.22466028

>>22465910
>Man didn’t create the tree, man created science.
there is a flaw in this assertion, as: science is not derived from opinion but is a logical faculty of the mind. Man does not create science, then, but draws knowledge from the natural world which is termed science (a word which means 'to predict, to see the future' from 'sci').

Again, if you claim belief in a creator deity and divorce him from reality then you are simply declaring made-up things (i.e. things baseless) to be superior to creation.

> In Christianity, God did write books.
demonstrably false.

>God doesn’t care about virtue or being good.
>it’s not about being good or virtuous, Christianity isn’t a moral religion.
lol I know it's not, thanks for admitting it.

Do you see, however, the impossibility of sustaining this assertion? At the most, according to you, christianity is inferior to any good person; at the worst, I would argue, it is a worship of evil, since it pours concrete into the mind and impairs the ability to learn 'basic good' - for declaring such things as this:
>>God doesn’t care about virtue or being good.
meaning that such a person is the lowest of the low in their own actions, or that they consider actual 'goodness' as being something trivial, leaving them in a default state of vice: sloth rather than diligence, pride rather than humility, etc., making them the least fit person to speak on anything.

> you can’t grasp the actual consequence arguments
I think you're becoming upset at the consequences of the conclusions I've presented here:

If the mind has been cauterized to reality, substituting it for baseless assertions, predicated upon the aggrandizement a false report, then this is simply the baseline condition of vice in that it is the polar opposite to virtue; that is: it is untrue and rests upon one or more vices which have not been corrected, i.e. a religion divorced from reality is no more really than anything made-up by a child or anybody, it only differs in that the mind is extremely hard-set.

> You don’t really seem to have any background knowledge or basic information when it comes to my arguments and it’s making it so you can’t engage properly with what I’m saying
That is very dishonest, I've given some straightforward cases and you've skirted them and refused to arrive at the conclusion because you realize it undermines any and all religions.

i.e. this demonstrates that it is not really god you're thinking of, but of upholding a socio-political convention of a religion; and far worse a religion of which 'goodness' is deemed unimportant and god is believed to not care about it. If, in the religion, it said "eat a baby," how would anybody argue against that on any moral or intellectual or virtuous grounds? There is no argument to be had, even, as "if the book said it, that means it's god," and by-passing any logic, "we're not meant to understand it,"

very primitive.

Sir Dunking Biscuits (or something, i forgot my username) Thu Sep 7 14:10:01 2023 No.22466046

>>22465915
>I’m just talking about what’s intellectually or morally defensible when it comes to dealing with other people,
Ah but you need, first of all, to approach all of those things from a position of no bias or preconceptions in order to be correct in what or who you're dealing with. If your preconception is a strong social stigma against naked breasts, reinforced not by logic but by some inherited habit introduced in the past, then a lot of things will follow from that that otherwise would not follow at all.

Perversion, I would argue, is created by this; by making sexuality itself seem illicit, which has a retarding effect on the mind. It is just interesting, as I consider it here, that the adam and eve story seems to agree with me and casts satan as the introducer of "false guilt" and has gods character disowning humans utterly, cursing them to suffer, when thy developed this shame of their natural bodies.

ANyway, don't be taking this personally now! This is a fun subject to discuss, that's all.

>>	Anonymous Thu Sep 7 14:17:17 2023 No.22466070 Look, either God is real and He gave you a law or He isn’t and He didn’t. Whether you like the law or not does not matter at all.

Anonymous Thu Sep 7 14:18:53 2023 No.22466074
File: 722 KB, 672x677, christ.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>22464662
Nothing?
No discussion this?

Op, it is clear from the Christian religious tradition and text, along with pretty much every other mystical tradition in the world that it's sinful to waste your seed.

But I too struggle with it all the time. It is a constant battle not to give in, and I am just a man.

I also wonder if they are being more specific in the text, and its "just" whores you need avoid, "the strange woman" etc.
>be satisfied the your wife's breast at all times
and so on.

I do think, if you've found love and have been given a wife from God, that it is sinful to lust after another woman in your heart, and to fantasize about being with her.

Let's be real, pornography is not something you would want anyone you care about to be involved in, in anyway, shape, or form.

>>	Sir Dunking Biscuits (or something, i forgot my username) Thu Sep 7 14:29:49 2023 No.22466092 >>22466070 i.e. "if my religion is false, i get to eat babies!"

Anonymous Thu Sep 7 14:44:21 2023 No.22466123

>>22466028
I don’t think you really have a mature understanding of the world or what’s important to people and what motivates them. People respect shows of power. This whole goodness your talking about is just your own attempt to command people’s freedom in the way you know how. I’d compare your position and character to Pyotr Petrovich Luzhin from Crime and Punishment. Or coincidentally the religious zealot Foma Fomich from Village of Stapnchikovo. Someone claiming to be good and virtuous in this way is kind of like a threatening alien that doesn’t understand actual society of people and wants to lord over them with weird alien rules. On the whole thing about Christianity being made up and similar to a child making up a story or whatever is strange considering the actual historicity of the gospels and it’s wide reaching and immediate influence on people, the historical value of that is undeniable. Not only that but it ties better and appeals more to actual society than your demands of goodness, because these arguments won people over by appealing to their base need of human freedom and mutual respect, which is the only thing Ive shown to care about, it doesn’t matter if it’s ‘evil’ or ‘good’, those sympathetic arguments are strange to me and seem inhuman. A man has to be free to make decisions for himself and be fully capable to do whatever he actually wants to do and decide what’s worthy or beneficial to him. That’s the only thing that matters because if it isn’t the case than people don’t have any existence and there’s no value to their life. IE they are reduced to a means, I’ve been making that argument the whole time. I don’t care about socio economic control like I don’t know where you’re getting that from. The whole time I’ve just been making an argument based on human freedom and how the gospels immediately appealed to people’s need for personal freedom historically. I never made an argument about social stigmas against naked women or whatever I literally made the opposite where I said it would be good if society was just outrightly sexual because then there would be an obvious point of contention over who respects people as themselves or not. The whole time when it comes to the sex stuff I’ve been making an obvious Kantian argument about not using people’s as a means to an end, you don’t have the reading ability or background information to process that and you think I’m making a type of public appeal to decency or something when I’ve been making the opposite argument the whole time where it would be better if people were publicly indecent. What’s strange is you don’t seem to have the ability to grasp what’s important about the argument and just seem to rely on a type of AI parameters when it comes to religion. Religion represents ultimate freedom, and freedom is the most important thing or else man has no existence.

>>	Anonymous Thu Sep 7 14:45:21 2023 No.22466125 >>22466028 >>22466046 >>22466123 My arguments line up with Ellul, Berdyaev, Weininger and Dostoyevsky’s religious ideas, and my commitment to people as they are is expressed the best in Ibsen and his full commitment to the rules of art

Sir Dunking Biscuits (or something, i forgot my username) Thu Sep 7 15:34:38 2023 No.22466292

>>22466123
>>22466125
>you don’t have the reading ability or background information to process that
huh - rather: I'm not taking the bait that leads away from the topic I've been trying to get you to answer directly. If we were both hooked up to lie detectors and I dismantled your assertion, yesterday or whenever, and your brain moved and you searched for something to say that did not involve "i concede" you would be shown to lying and it would be over. I take this approach. It is very easy for me to see who is and who is not interested in reaching the truth of any matter.

>This whole goodness your talking about is just your own attempt to command people’s freedom
Ah, but if I held up a religious book and said the same things you wouldn't be thinking anything was wrong with anything I was saying or doing lol

If only it were that simple though! No, I think 'truth' in more instances than not is 'inactionable' - but it does not make it 'not true' and substitutable for some lie; rather that: we have to study it even more until we find the application to render it actionable. A viceful person is utterly useless, for instance, they do not possess the mental vigor to follow orders or not flee in battle nor can be trusted with any responsibility. That is what I think about that.

To stick with the topic though,
you're advocating for an immoral god who doesn't care about right and wrong but whose religion is focused upon 'harnessing? controlling?' unlearned peoples baseline dispositions. This is what I said: you are using religion as a socio-political tool and have not recognized it; or: your opinions on religion are within the circle of the socio-political, rather than about god or anything.

>sex, stigma
Idk man, christianity came up on the back of people who hated gender itself and advocated autocastration. How do you think people from those religions will ever not develop a schizophrenic impression of sexuality? I agree with you in part that it 'ought' be some other way but it won't be. I think you're seeing religion for what it 'could' be, not for what it is and the little network of spiders that constitute the brain patterns of people locked deep into these things.

In short: you're advocating for barbarism; that people 'ought' remain unlearned and foolish, but barbarism begets tyranny - a people who cannot intellectually understand why they should do XYZ has to be policed like babies to force them into a pantomime performance to emulate XYZ.

I would argue that religion represents that pantomime, and that it cannot do anything else if it precludes comprehension and understanding of (these things); and this produces misery in the individual anyway, giving in no merit even in that sense.

>>	Anonymous Thu Sep 7 15:35:57 2023 No.22466297 File: 138 KB, 1561x933, Weininger-S&C.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>22466028 >>22466046 >>22466123 >>22466125

Sir Dunking Biscuits (or something, i forgot my username) Thu Sep 7 15:41:03 2023 No.22466324

>>22466125
>>22466123
>This whole goodness your talking about is just your own attempt to command people’s freedom
Actually, here's a better question:

Do you not believe that Virtue is real?

I mean, you said that you think when 'people' encounter Virtue they would react as if like meeting an alien, but that's not really true to stat with - although I know what you mean, in aggregate vs. a corrupt society.

Anonymous Thu Sep 7 15:43:58 2023 No.22466340

>>22466092
If you have no religious belief at all, I don’t see what moral law you could possibly have. Even self-preservative principles would be philosophically unjustified. So yes, either God exists and He wants something from you, or He doesn’t and there’s no reason to do anything in particular. Either way, what you want doesn’t really matter.

>>	Sir Dunking Biscuits (or something, i forgot my username) Thu Sep 7 15:44:32 2023 No.22466341 >>22466297 yes this is familiar and I agree with most of that; however: the soul is the psyche and a religious framework has proven to be intensely hostile towards this comprehension.

Sir Dunking Biscuits (or something, i forgot my username) Thu Sep 7 15:47:33 2023 No.22466355

>>22466340
>If you have no religious belief at all, I don’t see what moral law you could possibly have.
Come to me with a religion that doesn't define "good" as "whatever we say god says", and as an actual grasp of basic good and then you' may be taken more seriously in this assertion. Those religions do exist, btw.

Do you see how you've been trapped into adopting a circular lose-lose scenario where it's "either god of the jews" or "nihilism"?

Just saying =D

Anonymous Thu Sep 7 15:50:33 2023 No.22466370

>>22466292
>>22466297
>The founder of a religion is the man for whom no problem has been solved from his birth. He is the man with the least possible sureness of conviction, for whom everything is doubtful and uncertain, and who has to conquer everything for himself in this life. One has to struggle against illness and physical weakness, another trembles on the brink of the crimes which are possible for him, yet another has been in the bonds of sin from his birth. It is only a formal statement to say that original sin is the same in all persons ; it differs materially for each person. Here one, there another, each as he was born, has chosen what is senseless and worthless, has preferred instinct to his will, or pleasure to love; only the founder of a religion has had original sin in its absolute form; in him everything is doubtful, everything is in question. He has to meet every problem and free himself from all guilt. He has to reach firm ground from the deepest abyss ; he has to surmount the nothingness in him and bind himself to the utmost reality. And so it may be said of him that he frees himself of original sin, that in him God becomes man, but also that the man becomes God ; in him was all error and all guilt; in him there comes to be all expiation and redemption.

>Thus the founder of a religion is the greatest of the geniuses, for he has vanquished the most. He is the man who has accomplished victoriously what the deepest thinkers of mankind have thought of only timorously as a possibility, the complete regeneration of a man, the reversal of his will. Other great men of genius have, indeed, to fight against evil, but the bent of their souls is towards the good. The founder of a religion has so much in him of evil, of the perverse, of earthly passion, that he must fight with the enemy within him for forty days in the wilderness, without food or sleep. It was only thus that he can conquer and overcome the death within him and free himself for the highest life. Were it otherwise there would be no impulse to found a faith. The founder of a religion is thus the very antipodes of the emperor; emperor and Galilean are at the two poles of thought. In Napoleon's life, also, there was a moment when a conversion took place; but this was not a turning away from earthly life, but the deliberate decision for the treasure and power and splendour of the earthly life. Napoleon was great in the colossal intensity with which he flung from him all the ideal, all relation to the absolute, in the magnitude of his guilt. The founder of religion, on the other hand, cannot and will not bring to man anything except that which was most difficult for himself to attain, the reconciliation with God. He knows that he himself was the man most laden with guilt, and he atones for the guilt by his death on the cross.

>>	Anonymous Thu Sep 7 15:51:34 2023 No.22466376 File: 92 KB, 2531x604, Weininger-Religion.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>22466370

Sir Dunking Biscuits (or something, i forgot my username) Thu Sep 7 15:54:12 2023 No.22466391

>>22466370
>>Thus the founder of a religion is the greatest of the geniuses,
"it takes nothing to die for your beliefs; it is the easiest thing in the world, it takes far greater courage to live each day and implement those beliefs,"
Wu Zhi Ji Zong, School of the Military
paraphrasing

>>	Anonymous Thu Sep 7 15:58:24 2023 No.22466410 >>22463106 >but I wouldn't hold out too much for the average priest, let alone Babushka giving you the evil eye Well I can understand now why they turned you away

>>	Anonymous Thu Sep 7 15:59:01 2023 No.22466415 File: 18 KB, 400x400, t5.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] https://youtu.be/kwX-_b1PKhE?si=gO0dxBUHLdH76d1f

>>	Anonymous Thu Sep 7 16:00:13 2023 No.22466419 File: 255 KB, 1280x1751, Black_Footed_Cat-1.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] https://youtu.be/zvazc_x9gig?si=Uzbdm_FhgtU5py8H

>>	Anonymous Thu Sep 7 16:01:32 2023 No.22466425 File: 113 KB, 920x920, 1584816833131.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] https://youtu.be/_ACzX-aO04c?si=34SgWWtWEk4Sgb38

>>	Anonymous Thu Sep 7 16:02:38 2023 No.22466432 File: 258 KB, 1280x853, 1280px-Wuppertal_-_Zoo_-_Felis_nigripes_01_ies.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] https://youtu.be/koC36NcCrzg?si=3QzPGzTJ3LNmqv9D

Anonymous Thu Sep 7 16:07:25 2023 No.22466454

>>22466355
No, they don’t. Sure, religions can believe in some basic or natural good that’s not derived from a deity, but they’re wrong. If they believed the sky was made of cheese, they’d be wrong. Same thing here. If moral principles don’t come from a deity, they’re fundamentally unjustified and relative. There’s no conceivable way around this. But your whole challenge is predicated on a strawman. You know fully well that the claim is not “do what we say God says” but rather “do what God Himself says”. But yes, I do think the dichotomy is between the Christian God (not exactly “the God of the Jews”) or nihilistic moral relativity. That seems obvious to me.

Sir Dunking Biscuits (or something, i forgot my username) Thu Sep 7 16:21:27 2023 No.22466523

>>22466454
I've been talking to the other guy here about the same thing; if you're not looking at world or the universe and drawing knowledge from those observations then you're making up stuff in your head and calling it 'god', as:
>that the claim is not “do what we say God says” but rather “do what God Himself says”.
i.e. "do what we say God says" lol

But that's the faith aspect, of course; faith in a cardinal proposition which is unverifiable. It's enough for me to realize that a sincere person espousing that and a criminal espousing that for ulterior motives are indistinguishable; only that it is really the criminal who has any reasoning to evade inquiry (or a person knowingly in the wrong).

>>	Anonymous Thu Sep 7 16:29:36 2023 No.22466558 >>22466523 How exactly do you “draw knowledge” from the world? Are you an empiricist?

Anonymous Thu Sep 7 16:37:43 2023 No.22466585

>>22466341
Dude you’re just straight up lying, you say you agree with the fact that science is inferior because it establishes things bit by bit and can’t have a full understanding because of that and then you say here >>22466292 that you won’t engage with my argument because your imagining a synapse moving in the brain has more authority than what a person is trying to say. This is some psychotic shit. You reduce the soul to a psychological aspect by calling it ‘merely psyche’. You don’t really have any faith in people and you can’t respect them as they are. You really can’t come up with any arguments and engage with another person without defaulting on your prejudices. You’re not a good person to engage with. And we just disagree. You like science and goodness and virtue but only because it allows people to be used properly, that’s strange and generally shows why religion is more appealing to normal people. They want personal freedom and they don’t to be used and controlled sexually by weird reductive science types. But really Idk why you aren’t a famous scientist living courageously each day out spreading your beliefs, why aren’t you making money teaching people how to be good and virtuous while spreading the gospel of sexuality, lots of big people administrator media types agree with you and do well for themselves.

>>	Anonymous Thu Sep 7 16:51:45 2023 No.22466635 File: 128 KB, 1000x667, 1659916626018212-1.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] https://youtu.be/0SbFzvTKTzM?si=2OLZ3uaOOTyAZSAr

Sir Dunking Biscuits (or something, i forgot my username) Thu Sep 7 17:27:38 2023 No.22466751

>>22466558
>How exactly do you “draw knowledge” from the world
You study things until you understand their mechanics to the point that you can improve upon an existing mechanism.

>>22466585
>you say you agree with the fact that science is inferior because it establishes things bit by bit and can’t have a full understanding
I never said that, I said I agreed with a lot of what that person had said. Mostly the bits about humans only being able to be 'geniuses' by living in a conscious connection with the whole universe. If you deny the universe is real or of any consequence then you're far removed from consciousness and relegated to still living in the world only stuck in a child-like subconscious where you're kicked along by baseline impulses that you don't understand but are capable of understanding.

>This is some psychotic shit.
lol this is how far this religion is from reality

Did you answer any of 'my' questions, btw? Q. Do you believe Virtue is real? It seems like you're equating it as a matter of hypothetical or unverifiable ambiguous criterion, rather than simple practical (though far-reaching) states of being; sloth vs. industria, for example, in discerning the maximal extent of one state of being of an individual vs. the maximal extent of another state of being in the same individual.

>(emotional abuse)
A lot of what you said is ridiculous and off-topic. You claim 'god' doesn't care about good people; that goodness doesn't matter, then you accuse me of being bad for encouraging people to be good, that I am bad and you are good because you worship this 'thing' that primitive heathens made-up in their barbarous hellish societies. How does any of that compute? You just haven't thought these things through.

I also won the argument by default when you could't refute that earlier thing I asked you three times to answer; if you could you easily would have done, that's all I need to know.

>>	Anonymous Thu Sep 7 19:00:25 2023 No.22467036 >>22460674 Kek

>>	Anonymous Thu Sep 7 19:09:58 2023 No.22467065 File: 258 KB, 1280x960, 1693435799427130.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] https://youtu.be/y-lTmsEeyaM?si=vaJfF3WpJqi_O-ld

>>	Anonymous Thu Sep 7 19:17:29 2023 No.22467097 File: 199 KB, 1280x783, 1280px-BlackFootedCat57-1.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] https://youtu.be/90bBJdFQa74?si=_OXXL3sbqXwtMHB7

>>	Anonymous Thu Sep 7 20:05:45 2023 No.22467256 File: 140 KB, 1080x1920, 1590275285637.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] https://youtu.be/jS7-v2lpSB8?si=_LT9E5wJq16idXB9

Anonymous Thu Sep 7 21:32:47 2023 No.22467487

>>22460606
There is a great difference between believing in God, and believing God. That God exists is undeniably true. It is relatively meaningless to believe in God. Satan knows God exists with perfect certainty. And yet, Satan is still evil. The true moral test is believing God--that is, receiving His Word. If you know God exists, and yet you will not hear His Word, how do you consider yourself just? Do not think you are some great theologian. Do not think the world has been waiting for the brilliance of your intelligence. Do not think that God has any special need of you. Perhaps God has desired you for some great task. But if you refuse, he will have no trouble creating another to fill your place. Be humble and receive God's Word in simplicity. Only then will you be able to recognize the clear and plain truths that currently elude you.

Anonymous Fri Sep 8 00:12:39 2023 No.22467887

>>22465679
>Take the Diotima and the Song of Solomon pill. Sex isn't the pinnacle of love but it is close to it
I agree. There’s a whole bunch of crypto-gnostics in this thread. God declared all things good. Part of that goodness is them being fit for purpose. He created sex as a mechanism to allow the husband and wife to become one flesh also in the spiritual sense. The emotional union brought about in sex is to serve as a foundation for a deeper and unique bond between them - partly for a stable environment for children, partly for the salvation of either party. Everyone forgets that the Orthodox view is that both monasticism and marriage are ultimately paths to salvation. In marriage, my salvation is found through my spouse - in my love, long-suffering and sacrifice for her as Christ did so for the Church. Sex in the marital context creates the bond which facilitates that. God created all things for a purpose. The misuse of the things He created is sin. When you fornicate (or masturbate for that matter) you act contrary to nature and destroy yourself and the other party in the process. Sex is about giving oneself to the other - fornication and masturbation are fundamentally selfish and therefore not grounded in love. Love cannot be self-referential. I hope this also answers OP’s question. It’s not a question of the tyranny of laws and commandments fundamentally but with what order God created the world in His goodness.

>>	Anonymous Fri Sep 8 00:18:24 2023 No.22467897 File: 34 KB, 500x375, aristotle--getty.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>22467887 >Love cannot be self-referential. blocks your path try moving THIS unmoved mover

>>	Anonymous Fri Sep 8 00:20:14 2023 No.22467902 >>22467897 Which is why God is a Trinity and not a generic monad.

>>	Anonymous Fri Sep 8 00:27:07 2023 No.22467918 File: 251 KB, 896x735, 1694019234958514.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] https://youtu.be/DBYn7lKskbs?si=mzwpF1MtVDYGsArj

>>	Anonymous Fri Sep 8 00:36:06 2023 No.22467944 File: 162 KB, 884x552, neverending.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>22460606

>>	Anonymous Fri Sep 8 00:38:40 2023 No.22467951 >>22467944 Is this from On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ? In any case, I’d recommend OP reads that too

>>	Anonymous Fri Sep 8 00:55:59 2023 No.22467997 >>22460606 I've seen tons of cope about "not kill," can I covet women who are not my neighbors?

>>	Anonymous Fri Sep 8 00:59:16 2023 No.22468010 >>22460801 Falling into "The Holy Bible is the sacred word of God, but the parts I don't like are just metaphors" trap is a good road to Hell.

>>	Anonymous Fri Sep 8 01:00:34 2023 No.22468011 >>22467997 “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

>>	Anonymous Fri Sep 8 01:10:27 2023 No.22468036 File: 94 KB, 960x1282, 1649544661003.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] https://youtu.be/koC36NcCrzg?si=92kNRBgWoCGvT3wu

>>	Anonymous Fri Sep 8 04:38:59 2023 No.22468487 Bump

Sir Dunking Biscuits (or something, i forgot my username) Fri Sep 8 06:51:21 2023 No.22468657

>>22466585
no reply? 4th time? how many instances of not being able to refute a thing will it take before you admit you're in the wrong? This is exactly why we're forced to use lie detectors in these conversations because a religious person 1) will never accept that they were wrong, 2) will accuse the other person of various things; this is projection from dissonance (atrocity from absurdity): when you realize you're wrong you begin to obfuscate and attack (if you didn't you would 'lose your faith' which matters more than than the truth of a thing):

That is really the difference in mentalities between unbiased investigation which searches for the truth and any biased dogma which does not care to know the truth, 'believing' in spite of evidence that they're just right automatically in their initial opinion - like, as I said, a stubborn little kid.

e.g. reading back what you said here,
>You don’t really have any faith in people and you can’t respect them as they are. You really can’t come up with any arguments and engage with another person without defaulting on your prejudices. You’re not a good person to engage with. And we just disagree. You like science and goodness and virtue but only because it allows people to be used properly, that’s strange and generally shows why religion is more appealing to normal people. They want personal freedom and they don’t to be used and controlled sexually by weird reductive [science]
it should be obvious to you that you've swapped around 'science' and 'religion', accusing 'science' of being guilty of all the things "normal people" hate those religions for.

I genuinely wonder how you arrived at that point but it does not escape me that your method of inquiry is established in such a way as to steamroller over all evidence to your initial opinion. PERHAPS this is why the end product is so absurdly contrasted... it is like, the indentations in a rolling pin, having tried to flatten a thing and been left with a reverse impression of that thing chiseled into the pin instead.

pretty lousy analogy but accurate of the elements

>>	Anonymous Fri Sep 8 10:09:17 2023 No.22468953 >>22467902 >makes claim >gets refuted instantly >m-m-muhhh m-m-muhhh trinity okay, whatever you say

>>	Anonymous Fri Sep 8 10:12:53 2023 No.22468966 >>22460699 Oof. How will they ever recover from this scathing indictment?

>>	Anonymous Fri Sep 8 10:30:04 2023 No.22469005 >>22468953 You’re just an idiot who doesn’t understand how this resolves the issue of self-referential “love”

>>	Anonymous Fri Sep 8 13:52:56 2023 No.22469408 >>22469005 What issue? There is no issue.

>>	Anonymous Fri Sep 8 21:09:29 2023 No.22470904 bump

>>	Anonymous Fri Sep 8 21:21:56 2023 No.22470940 >>22460606 Αφορισμένο μαλακιστήρι!

>>	Anonymous Fri Sep 8 21:42:41 2023 No.22471009 File: 576 KB, 1153x823, alternate-stopped-reading-there.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>22460606 > I do think it is virtually universally true

>>	Anonymous Sat Sep 9 00:44:35 2023 No.22471480 A girl I've been dating is Orthodox and I'm considering converting, how should I go about it?

>>	Anonymous Sat Sep 9 00:50:28 2023 No.22471500 >>22471480 Speak to her priest about being catechised and eventually baptised. However, you need to convert because you think Orthodoxy is true not for her. I know it's hard to delineate that though

Anonymous Sat Sep 9 00:51:21 2023 No.22471504

>>22471500
>However, you need to convert because you think Orthodoxy is true not for her. I know it's hard to delineate that though

Yes this is something I have thought about and will need to time figure out, especially by going to church. She loves me and wants to get married asap.

>>	Anonymous Sat Sep 9 00:52:37 2023 No.22471508 >>22471504 Yeah definitely go to church with her and see how it is for yourself. How religious is she?

>>	Anonymous Sat Sep 9 00:53:40 2023 No.22471512 >>22471508 She recently joined herself, is still a catechumen. Seems fairly devout. I do really like her and want to be with her, but I also understand for myself not being an Orthodox is a hurdle.

>>	Anonymous Sat Sep 9 00:54:21 2023 No.22471514 >>22460606 two things travelling at roughly the same rate and you're worried about what's for dinner?

Anonymous Sat Sep 9 00:57:55 2023 No.22471528

>>22471512
Then definitely sit down with her priest and with her there too. If she has a spiritual father (assuming that it's not her priest) then speak together with him too. It's fundamentally spiritual question that you ask because what you do has ramifications on her life and spiritual growth as much as it does on you. You need to involve the right parties early to help you both work through this. It's truly my personal hope that you also are received into the Church and are able to partake in the sacrament of marriage with her, I'll say a prayer for you

>>	Anonymous Sat Sep 9 01:12:34 2023 No.22471569 >>22471528 Ty anon, hard to do all this by myself, guess I just need to have a convo with the priest.

>>	Anonymous Sat Sep 9 01:14:11 2023 No.22471571 >>22471569 >hard to do all this by myself You don't have to and you won't. You'll have a priest and God with you the whole way

>>	Anonymous Sat Sep 9 01:15:12 2023 No.22471575 >>22471571 And also tell her of your intention to speak with her priest and for her to come along

Anonymous Sat Sep 9 01:21:26 2023 No.22471598

>>22460606
As someone previously not at all religious newly exploring my religion + different denominations of Christianity, I'd like to ask someone more knowledgeable than me on the topic:

How does Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism differ in terms of the
>unsurmountable sticking points
go? (and anything else which may be excused in one denomination but shunned in the other for whatever reason.) What are the differences in morality/philosophy here between these two groups of Christians that are significant enough to have caused them to distinguish themselves from one another? Are orthodoxies and Catholics diametrically opposed on anything? I've debated just reading straight history of the East-West schism to get started, but I'm just wondering if there's any beginner-friendly access points that won't be too overwhelming, like works of theologists with some useful and insightful commentary on the topic maybe even in a modern light.

Thanks to any who reply.

>>	Anonymous Sat Sep 9 01:31:32 2023 No.22471626 >>22471575 What sorts of questions should I be asking with her present?

Anonymous Sat Sep 9 01:40:57 2023 No.22471662

>>22471626
I'd imagine it'd probably be a more free-flowing conversation. But definitely ask the priest about Orthodoxy per se - what it is, what it's about, what to read, study etc.

In terms of things concerning your relationship with her, ask about the Orthodox view of marriage and its role in the spiritual life. Ask about how best to approach your relationship with her in terms what you should both be striving towards. Be honest about where you are at spiritually as well.

But have a conversation with her initially about what she thinks of you talking to her priest together. Obviously speak with her peaceably and come from a place of a genuine desire to do what's best for each other. If she wants to be married asap and is devout then I think she'd be open to such a discussion with him. Of course also be willing for her to speak about how she feels should that conversation with her priest arise

>>	Anonymous Sat Sep 9 01:41:49 2023 No.22471666 >>22471662 no you don't understand, they want symbolic submission

Anonymous Sat Sep 9 01:42:38 2023 No.22471668

>>22471662
>In terms of things concerning your relationship with her, ask about the Orthodox view of marriage and its role in the spiritual life. Ask about how best to approach your relationship with her in terms what you should both be striving towards. Be honest about where you are at spiritually as well.

Honestly, the two of us are already here. She would want me to talk to her priest. She said she's ready to commit to me, it's just a matter of me becoming Orthodox. Thanks for the help again anon.

Anonymous Sat Sep 9 01:46:52 2023 No.22471683

>>22471668
If that's the case then ask the priest about the process of becoming Orthodox. Her being there is important because if you guys want to be married you should obviously be both present for important decisions. And definitely start praying for God to enliven a flame of faith for you as well so that this becomes an important step in your own spiritual journey. The heart of all of this is the salvation of you and her's souls. If it's God's will for you to be brought into His church for your salvation through your relationship with this girl then may it be blessed. Your story has been told many times before :)

Anonymous Sat Sep 9 04:37:01 2023 No.22472073

I'm a living example of the orthoLARPer meme. 10+ years of Internet porn use warped my brain and sensibility beyond reason. I want to become Orthodox but I feel so unclean that it seems as if I would be dirtying a clean place like a church if I entered and that I'd end up burdening the priest with my problems, not to mention how ridiculous it is for someone who uses hentai to talk about wanting to be a Christian.
Go ahead and laugh at me, I deserve it.

>>	Anonymous Sat Sep 9 09:32:37 2023 No.22472612 >>22460606 you dont need to have further stress from this. God will clarify and you will find the truth. god isnt vengeful and over your shoulder, you know deep within what is right, god can help you find it. Find your peace.

>>	Anonymous Sat Sep 9 11:45:22 2023 No.22472862 >>22472073 do you think you're the first depraved sinner to look to the church

>>	Anonymous Sat Sep 9 12:58:23 2023 No.22473036 >>22469005 >>22469408 btfoooooo

Anonymous Sat Sep 9 14:03:49 2023 No.22473184

>>22460717
>"if it weren't for Christians, more people would be Christian"
"If it weren't for the worldview, more people would've shared the worldview". Do you see how ridiculous this is, or do I need to elaborate?
>There's an unbelievable amount of anti-evangelism.
And evangelism is good why exactly? Look where it has led the western schismatics. They sold their faith and what they had for their "church" to the new world order. They preach body mutilation, indulgence in vices, sybaritism, connivance in pursuit of conformance to the twisted worldly paradigms of the contemporary western societies.
Dostoyevskiy saw it for what it is even back then.
“It is not a Christian religion, in the first place,” said the latter, in extreme agitation, quite out of proportion to the necessity of the moment. “And in the second place, Roman Catholicism is, in my opinion, worse than Atheism itself. Yes—that is my opinion. Atheism only preaches a negation, but Romanism goes further; it preaches a disfigured, distorted Christ—it preaches Anti-Christ—I assure you, I swear it! This is my own personal conviction, and it has long distressed me. The Roman Catholic believes that the Church on earth cannot stand without universal temporal Power. He cries ‘non possumus!’ In my opinion the Roman Catholic religion is not a faith at all, but simply a continuation of the Roman Empire, and everything is subordinated to this idea—beginning with faith. The Pope has seized territories and an earthly throne, and has held them with the sword. And so the thing has gone on, only that to the sword they have added lying, intrigue, deceit, fanaticism, superstition, swindling;—they have played fast and loose with the most sacred and sincere feelings of men;—they have exchanged everything—everything for money, for base earthly power! And is this not the teaching of Anti-Christ? How could the upshot of all this be other than Atheism? Atheism is the child of Roman Catholicism—it proceeded from these Romans themselves, though perhaps they would not believe it. It grew and fattened on hatred of its parents; it is the progeny of their lies and spiritual feebleness. Atheism! In our country it is only among the upper classes that you find unbelievers; men who have lost the root or spirit of their faith; but abroad whole masses of the people are beginning to profess unbelief—at first because of the darkness and lies by which they were surrounded; but now out of fanaticism, out of loathing for the Church and Christianity!”

>>	Anonymous Sat Sep 9 19:27:02 2023 No.22474152 >>22473036 He has no argument

>>	Anonymous Sat Sep 9 19:51:25 2023 No.22474235 Orthos are so cringe

>>	Anonymous Sat Sep 9 21:34:45 2023 No.22474572 >>22473184 >And evangelism is good why exactly? evangelism is the only reason Christianity exists, so I agree with you it ought to be curtailed

>>	Anonymous Sun Sep 10 00:16:50 2023 No.22475101 >>22474235 Explain

>>	Anonymous Sun Sep 10 00:30:35 2023 No.22475152 File: 123 KB, 500x375, the-orthodox-church-stays-in-the-dark-ages-by-leonid-15992370.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>22474572 Ok, heretic, enjoy your Pope-provided sodomy.

>>	Anonymous Sun Sep 10 00:39:33 2023 No.22475189 >>22472073 Saint Mary of Egypt was an enthusiastic literal whore from the age of 12 to 29 until her repentance and now she’s one of the most revered saints of the Church. I guarantee you aren’t as depraved as that.

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 00:56:45 2023 No.22475261

>>22475101
it attracts the type of people who see a single dark age webm edit and think the entire religion is so based. most converts dont even follow the doctrine or read its religious text, then try to bend the rules to fit their image of whats based. OP is evidence of that, among other examples youll see in religious threads. people like this go on to call catholicism backwards or cuckery without realizing the irony of it all

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 00:57:19 2023 No.22475263

>>22475152
Ivan, Russia is the world superstar of abortion and is probably going to kill a tenth or more of its young men off in its war against another Orthodox country, Ukraine, and meanwhile highest fertility group in the country are Muslims. Orthodoxy certainly won't grow by births. If evangelism is out of the question please shut up and stop soiling this website with your tourist drivel about some volcano demon from Sinai, who, by the way, isn't even your god, nor do you have any covenant with him, but were misled by cynical agents of the Roman empire charged with baptizing you so as to secure their northern flank from heathen aggresion.

>>	Anonymous Sun Sep 10 00:58:45 2023 No.22475272 >>22475261 >most converts dont even follow the doctrine or read its religious text, then try to bend the rules to fit their image of whats based Can you give an example?

>>	Anonymous Sun Sep 10 01:03:19 2023 No.22475288 >>22471598 I recommend reading "The Formation of Christendom". It does an excellent job of showing the forming east/west split without reducing it down to muh filioque.

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 01:25:14 2023 No.22475383

>>22475288
You can see the historical development of Christianity in real-time today with the current dispute between the Moscow patriarchate and the last Greek in Istanbul—it has always been [geo]political, even if you go back to the Middle Ages it's decidely non-theological issues like a Latin Rome vs a Greek East. The pope had to ennoble a new Roman empire to keep his independence from the legacy Greek-speaking one, to which the ecumenical patriarch was already subject to. The pope is not finally rid of the Greek threat until the Normans conquer southern Italy and Sicily, but that goes something like the story of the old lady who swallowed a fly, though the papal state survives and indeed outlasts the old Roman empire, going down with it is of course any political threat from Orthodox Christianity... Ah but now we're just in time for Protestant Christianity, from the Germanic speaking Christians, as the Greeks have been politically eliminated (but not before exporting Platonism to Italy...)

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 01:57:06 2023 No.22475485

>>22475383
I find this all interesting, and want to apply this knowledge, but in my instance it just doesn't help. I'm exploring my faith for reasons completely unrelated to politics or social identity. If the difference between Orthodox and Roman Catholic is entirely "non-theological," then is there even a point to me picking a denomination?

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 02:17:24 2023 No.22475548

>>22475485
I think it makes sense that conservative Catholics find Orthodoxy appealing but if you are from a Protestant background you can always find a more conservative (or indeed, more liberal) denomination of Protestantism given how decentralized it is, and there is no need to pretend to be Russian to have conservative Christianity. I don't really believe you have an apolitical interest in adopting Christianity in 2023 as a presumably English-speaking westerner, but again the denominational differences are largely political or jurisdictional between Catholic and Orthodox, and with Protestantism you begin to see much more doctrinal innovation, with later-formed Protestant groups becoming increasingly unlike their Catholic forebears. Though in our own time the Catholics have increasingly become (liberal) Protestants in spirit, so again, this is why Orthodoxy would appeal to a conservative Catholic who has written off any Protestantism as an option.

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 02:18:55 2023 No.22475559

>>22475485
>If the difference between Orthodox and Roman Catholic is entirely "non-theological," then is there even a point to me picking a denomination?
People these days often downplay theological differences as they can't conceive of groups being genuinely divided over such issues. To them, religion is merely another tool for power, geopolitical or otherwise. That attitude is inevitable in a secular/atheistic society. If you are a true religious seeker, and I think you are, then things like the Filiooque, Essence-Energies distinction vs Absolute Divine Simplicity and papal infallibility/supremacy will be of utmost importance for study and discernment because these things go to heart of how you conceive of God. For example, to say the Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father alone, or that He eternally proceeds from both the Father and the Son will drastically affect how you defend the Trinity. Likewise EED vs ADS will affect how you understand God to interact with His creation and how you also conceive of the Incarnation and the various theophanies in the Old Testament. Not only that, it will affect how you pray (see: Hesychasm) and how things will be in the eschaton. All of this is to say ignore secular approaches to the schism for the same reason that you ignore them for moral guidance. In terms of books, honestly you can't go wrong with starting with the earlier Church Fathers as both EO and RC consider them to be saints. It will help contextualise the theological debates that happened between the East and West. If you want modern Orthodox texts read Lossky and Pomazansky.

>>	Anonymous Sun Sep 10 02:24:32 2023 No.22475578 >>22475559 And also Staniloae. In terms of issues of schism per se, see Philip Sherrard's The Greek East and the Latin West

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 02:27:13 2023 No.22475588

>>22475559
All those differences (except papal infallibility) are overblown, in that the Catholic church is progressively acknowledging more and more that they are a matter of wording.
Filioque is clearly overblown since there are non-Roman churches within the Catholic church that don't say it.

The real main difference is the very fact that the Catholic church is more and more ecumenical and is willing to look past such differences, while the EO churches are more conservative and may not see things the same way. Nevertheless, I will not be surprised if the East-West schism is healed within our lifetime.

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 02:27:16 2023 No.22475589

Protestants center the scriptures while Orthodox preserve traditions and practices that contravene Da Jesus Book. Be Prot and if you truly care about God, you will struggle against what he doesn't like. You form those sorts of theological positions through reading the Bible and talking with you faith community, considering the discipline and creeds, etc. We all come up short sometimes, but if we diligently try, God will forgive us as he forgives the pride that underlies literally everything we do.

>>	Anonymous Sun Sep 10 02:29:28 2023 No.22475601 >>22475588 Are you a Christian?

>>	Anonymous Sun Sep 10 02:33:30 2023 No.22475619 >>22475588 How is the Filioque overblown? You are not Christian, clearly. Correct Trinitarian theology is what makes someone a fellow Christian in my view and Orthodox clearly have an incorrect position there as far as I am concerned.

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 02:50:30 2023 No.22475667

>>22475559
>heart of how you conceive of God. For example, to say the Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father alone, or that He eternally proceeds from both the Father and the Son will drastically affect how you defend the Trinity.
this is a fossilized debate from c.100-600 AD which reflects the indigestion of Greek (pagan/neoplatonic) theology by Hellenized messianic Judaism (which becomes Christianity as we know it) and has no relevance to the culture and practice of lived contemporary Christianity whether Catholic or Orthodox, only to seminarians for whom there is nothing else to do but preserve such information for the sake of maintaining an inward confessional unity so as to better administer to their congregations, as it could and would become POLITICALLY difficult to have neo-rabbis teaching conflicting christologies within the same church hierarchy even if from a lay perspective it was almost irrelevant

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 03:18:46 2023 No.22475748

>>22475619
>How is the Filioque overblown?
Eastern Catholic churches don't say it despite being in communion with Rome.
Rome keeps saying stuff that amounts to "it's all semantics, really". As do some Orthodox people like Kallistos Ware, although they are less inclined to ecumenism at the moment.
John Paul II and Benedict XVI have recited the Nicene Creed jointly with Patriarchs Demetrius I and Bartholomew I in Greek without the Filioque.
A joint commission by Catholic and Orthodox theologicians concluded in 2002 that the Filioque is not a "church-dividing issue" (https://www.usccb.org/resources/filioque-a-church-dividing-issue.pdf))

>>	Anonymous Sun Sep 10 03:21:00 2023 No.22475751 >>22475748 >Eastern Catholic churches don't say it despite being in communion with Rome. That's an indictment on Rome and not the theological importance of issue. Again, are you a Christian?

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 03:31:04 2023 No.22475763

>>22475748
If they are in communion with Rome, which uses the Filioque, then that indicates to me that they don't reject it wholesale, but if they actually do reject the filioque substantively rather than on some pedantic ground regarding the inspiration of the Nicene Creed, then they are not Christian. The Christian religion is not just about unitarianism. Trinitarian Christianity has its own beliefs and has its own system. I do not believe I worship a God conceived in the same way as the Mormons, or the Muslims, etc. You would know this if you were a Christian.

>>	Anonymous Sun Sep 10 03:40:12 2023 No.22475781 Titus 2:2 Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love and in endurance.

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 03:45:45 2023 No.22475792

>>22475751
>>22475763
If you don't trust my credentials read the pdf in >>22475748 that's by a joint catholic-orthodox theological commission and should carry more weight than an anon on 4chan

>I do not believe I worship a God conceived in the same way as the Mormons, or the Muslims, etc.
If the Orthodox conceived God in a way that is outside of Catholic theology, the Catholics would consider them heretics. Which they don't.

Your standard of doctrinal purity is higher than that of actual real life popes, patriarchs and theologians, who happily say the creed together and claim that the filioque is not an issue.

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 03:52:13 2023 No.22475812

>>22475792
>Your standard of doctrinal purity is higher than that of actual real life popes, patriarchs and theologians
well there's nothing more "trad" I suppose than modern laymen being master doxographers of a religion whose pastoral responsibilities largely consist of managing a half-vacant real estate portfolio

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 03:53:50 2023 No.22475814

>>22475792
I'm not a Catholic. I am Weslyan/Methodist/Holiness (whatever we are calling actual Methodists at this point). It's just worth pointing out that this matters to people. The actions of ecumenically-minded leaders are one thing, but the average believer does actually care about these fundamental beliefs. These leaders care also, but finding common ground with similarly-minded religious groups is important even if they hold to improper beliefs. It's important not to take unit/ecumenical outreach to its logical end and lose sight of true beliefs though. I'm not someone who believes the Roman church is satanic or anything, but Francis seems dangerous imo and many in the Roman church agree.

>>	Anonymous Sun Sep 10 03:55:16 2023 No.22475818 >>22460622 God is not the thing I can't find anon

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 04:01:33 2023 No.22475831

>>22475792
>If the Orthodox conceived God in a way that is outside of Catholic theology, the Catholics would consider them heretics. Which they don't.
You're not considering the possibility of bad faith actors on both sides of the fence. I'd respect a RC more if they called me a heretic rather than engage in a fundamentally atheistic and frankly satanic ecumenist agenda. And as the other anon pointed out, the laity care more than you think and if the hierarchs don't then they will need to give account for that before the Judgement Seat. S
>The road to hell is paved with the bones of priests and monks, and the skulls of bishops are the lampposts that light the path

>>	Anonymous Sun Sep 10 04:12:24 2023 No.22475860 >>22475831 >sorry, you recited the end-product of centuries of extra-biblical byzantine theology with only 96.4% accuracy, looks like it's eternal damnation for you

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 04:18:05 2023 No.22475873

>>22475860
Everything we do is fundamentally corrupted by our fallen nature. The murder of Jesus, who never sinned, allows us to be saved regardless. A right conception of God is important, else Saving Grace will be an impossibility in light of all the evil you put out in literally everything you do.

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 04:26:31 2023 No.22475889

>>22475873
But how does the hairsplitting over "filioque" impact whether or not the sacrifice of Jesus, i.e. God offering himself to himself, absolves man of his sins against God? Can you connect the two or not? Or is this the autistic screeching of late Roman theologians who had difficulty mixing henotheism and a judiciously strict monotheism, which has been preserved and reappropriated for the politically expedient purpose of enforcing pastoral territory, something hierarchs now curiously shy away from in the absence of state support for their churches?

>>	Anonymous Sun Sep 10 04:33:24 2023 No.22475903 >>22475889 It would be great if it doesn't matter, but it sure does seem from the bible that you need to approach God in a proper way in order to have salvation.

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 04:45:40 2023 No.22475921

>>22475889
Debating the correct way to conceive of God is not "hairsplitting". You're saying fundamentally different things when you're reciting the Creed with or without the Filioque. If modern clergy that want to take it that seriously then that's on them

>>	Anonymous Sun Sep 10 04:48:59 2023 No.22475928 >>22475903 And the recitation of creeds formulated under the auspices of the imperial Roman government is necessary to the sacrifice of Jesus made centuries earlier because?

>>	Anonymous Sun Sep 10 04:52:12 2023 No.22475933 >>22475928 "In this sign thou shalt conquer"

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 04:55:29 2023 No.22475937

>>22475921
>You're saying fundamentally different things when you're reciting the Creed with or without the Filioque
If you can't have multiple Gods according to the OT but you've already decided a father and son are the same God because of henotheistic pagan influence what difference does it make if the father or the son or the father and the son do something or not, and why would this difference be of soteriological import? It certainly doesn't seem like it would be and so far none of you are explaining how they connect, which indeed suggests it belongs to another domain, most obviously being the Roman pontiff not wanting to agree with the Greek one necause that would undermine his authority (and vice versa) although as has been noted, in modern times those stakes have been eliminated and now the hierarchs don't care!

>>	Anonymous Sun Sep 10 04:56:43 2023 No.22475943 >>22475933 I suppose you were always meant to clap the other cheek for the Roman bull, render unto caesar and so forth

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 05:05:55 2023 No.22475957

>>22475937
>father and son are the same God because of henotheistic pagan influence
You should read Benjamin Sommers, Daniel Boyarin and Alan Segal who are all Jews that argue that the notion of multiplicities in the Godhead was widespread during the Second Temple period. These understandings of the OT developed independently of any Hellenism. An honest reading of the Torah will indicate as such.
>in modern times those stakes have been eliminated and now the hierarchs don't care!
This whole time you've been arguing in bad faith as someone who's not even Christian telling Christians what is and is not important to their faith. I also guarantee you haven't read any Church Fathers to understand why all of this matters. It's as I said previously - all an atheist can do is engage in historical materialism and analyse things through a lens of power games because they have no concept of the Divine and why these debates matter.

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 05:08:02 2023 No.22475961

>>22475937
You clearly presupposed a view to be correct and are working back from that. The person you are replying to is pushing back on the idea that it is just hairsplitting. As I said, I personally hope it doesn't actually matter, but you could certainly pose the question of why to one of the theologians on youtube or a blog or something and see if you can get a response that satisfies you. The "why" to lay worshippers stems from the fact that this book about God that we read and believe in seems to indicate that it matters.

Personally I think the original "why" behind the split was mostly about authority, though I wouldn't put it in the same terms as you, and I obviously do not believe Christianity has anything to do with paganism (hell the etymology of 'pagan' sets it apart from Christianity). Today though, it's not quite the same and the doctrines of God in East and West have diverged quite a bit.

>>22475943
The leadership and religious position of the Roman Empire at the time of the Council of Nicaea was not the same as it had been even only decades before when the martyrs were ripped apart by its beasts in the arenas. We conquered them because we cleaved to God.

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 05:21:56 2023 No.22475990

>>22475957
>These understandings of the OT developed independently of any Hellenism
Do they really predate the Macedonian conquests? Surely you aren't going to cite, say, Philo of Alexandria...
>>22475957
>all an atheist can do is engage in historical materialism and analyse things through a lens of power games because they have no concept of the Divine and why these debates matter.
you are refusing to explain why this matters and instead retreating into mysticism... now, if it matters you should be able to explain it, even to an atheist, because there are theists on both sides of the issue and surely your opponent is not impressed by you claiming to be more pious than he is rather than offering an explanation
>>22475961
>I obviously do not believe Christianity has anything to do with paganism
yeah it would be really weird if every town that converted got a tutelary "saint" to worship for the protection of the community and some randomly chosen blessing, the main churches were built on the sites of former temples, the theologians continued the debates of the platonic philosophers about what "God" is, the savior of mankind was the slain and reborn wine god whos father is in heaven, that would be really silly if there were pagan influences an evangelical version of Judaism preaching universal salvation which made a point of dropping culturally restrictive contra-Gentile practices to better convert outsiders you're totally right

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 06:14:37 2023 No.22476076

>>22475990
There’s no appeal to mysticism. The point is that if you’re an atheist, this debate is not going to matter to you in any case beyond it being a historical triviality. If you believe in God and believe He is the source of all goodness, then inquiry into His existence is good by virtue of it concerning God. Any callousness in our approach is an insult to God Himself. Ultimately, any reason given to an atheist as to why this matters will inevitably be reduced to some degree of pragmatism or utility. If I give you any theological reason the accusation of navel-gazing will inevitably follow.

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 06:29:29 2023 No.22476099

>>22476076
Is it so impossible for theologians to have human motives? Are the Hindu pandits equally free from this error by merit of not being atheists? Does the belief in God prevent one from concocting expedient legalese? Was Jesus not righteous in his chastisement of the pharisees? You smell like an e-convert. I imagine Jesus would sooner save a hundred church ladies who are incapable of discussing this because it never mattered to them over you and your refusal to discuss it because it somehow matters too much to be spoken of to an outsider.

>>	Anonymous Sun Sep 10 06:45:28 2023 No.22476122 >>22475263 >B-b-b-b-but what 'bout Russia... Pope worshipping heretics really are desperate to infest the Orthodoxy with their sodomy and filth.

>>	Anonymous Sun Sep 10 06:50:30 2023 No.22476135 >>22476122 >real orthodoxy has never been tried

>>	Anonymous Sun Sep 10 06:52:09 2023 No.22476138 >>22476135 Says who, lol? Calm down, cucktholic.

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 07:00:17 2023 No.22476151
File: 363 KB, 1378x1476, 1678028773574424.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>22476138
wow ortholarpers are truly the easiest race to troll... I would bet my right nut you "converted" from lukewarm Catholicism otherwise you wouldn't see it behind every criticism leveled at your new personality

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 07:01:26 2023 No.22476156

>>22476099
>Is it so impossible for theologians to have human motives?
No
>Are the Hindu pandits equally free from this error by merit of not being atheists?
No
>Does the belief in God prevent one from concocting expedient legalese?
No
>Was Jesus not righteous in his chastisement of the pharisees?
Yes
>I imagine Jesus would sooner save a hundred church ladies who are incapable of discussing this because it never mattered to them over you
I don't doubt that He'd prefer them to me.
>your refusal to discuss it because it somehow matters too much to be spoken of to an outsider
There's no hiding behind some initiatory veil. It's quite literally an explication of where certain worldviews will lead someone. The point is quite simply that if someone is an atheist, it's very likely that theological debate will look like autistic and inconsequential squabbling. If you, on a personal level, do not think the debate over the Filioque is that then all power to you. But if I were to now say that getting distinctions between essence and hypostasis are extremely important because it allows us to speak of God accurately you would likely say "ok but why does that matter?".
>But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.
The debate fundamentally important because it's a question of faith. How do we understand the above passage, what is Christ saying here? I know won't agree with me, but if you have a distorted view of God, everything downstream from that will be corrupted.

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 07:22:54 2023 No.22476177

>>22476156
>it's very likely that theological debate will look like autistic and inconsequential squabbling
my goodness surely that could't actually be the case, it must be
>if you have a distorted view of God, everything downstream from that will be corrupted.
but anyway, going off of
>the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name
it would seem pretty cut and dry that this supports the Latin interpolation of filioque into the creed... the question really remains then what is the creed supposed to accomplish? Clearly one does not need to recite the entire Bible from memory to achieve the accurate description of God you are asking for, and the late Roman government demanding an orthodox abridgment of the bible be produced certainly seems politically expedient as well as of pedagogical importance. Better control of the church, better instruction of the priests, better conformity of the laity. Not everything can be covered in a summary, so charitably speaking it seems it may have simply not made it in at the time. The refusal of medieval Constantinople to submit to a subsequent Latin correction has equally strong political overtones if not stronger, and these are also apparent from the snarling in this thread by another anon who presumes criticism of Orthodoxy is entirely Catholic in origin—it is more important to them to deflect criticism than to actually be correct. I however suspect one could if he actually wanted to have this debate cite passages which do not support filioque, which is the nature of the beast called scripture. But then show us where in the Gospels Jesus demanded one recite the Nicene Creed in order to be saved.

>>	Anonymous Sun Sep 10 07:42:09 2023 No.22476202 >>22476151 >It tries to meme Cucktholic sodomites truly are ineducable.

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 07:59:05 2023 No.22476226

>>22460606
The best advice you can give anyone interested in Orthodoxy is just go to Church. Stop spending all your time reading theology and actually go to Church and participate in the community. Most people don't need to fap I promise if you spent your time doing other hobbies you'll eventually just become too tired (and too ashamed) to actually go ahead and do it

>>	Anonymous Sun Sep 10 08:08:56 2023 No.22476242 >>22476202 the average IQ of /lit/ drops every time a Christian election tourist posts, double points for accusing a non-Christian of being a different Christian denomination than he is, and triple for being angry about it

>>	Anonymous Sun Sep 10 08:12:57 2023 No.22476250 >>22476242 >Desperate cucktholic sodomite backpedals Try some more evangelism, I think you could use more anti-Christ's slaves in your "church".

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 10:33:41 2023 No.22476505

>>22475903
>>22475921
equivocating. how does conceiving of God improperly in THIS PARTICULAR WAY (e.g. does the Holy Spirit proceed from the Father alone or both the Father and the Son) lead to damnation?

bonus points: don't say "uhhh it's like... le wrong." say exactly how having the wrong conception leads to the wrong action, faith, etc., e.g. "if you think that the Holy Spirit only proceeds from the Father, then you're essentially going to be Jewish because you... (idfk, but you get the point)

Be warned, I've literally NEVER seen anybody succeed at this challenge.

>>	Anonymous Sun Sep 10 12:26:58 2023 No.22476720 >>22476226 What about when your balls start to hurt, anon?

>>	Anonymous Sun Sep 10 16:26:26 2023 No.22477234 You larpers are really huge pieces of shit

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 17:29:36 2023 No.22477468

>>22475990
> tutelary "saint" to worship for the protection of the community
I don't really see how that is tantamount to henotheism or paganism. You won't brook many arguments from my fellow protestants that the veneration of the saints in the Roman church quickly got away from actual Christian teaching and early church practice, but the Christian saints weren't conceived of in the same way as the old patron Gods. They weren't seen as Gods at all even if their veneration may have filled a similar spiritual void that the old Gods did in these villages.
>the main churches were built on the sites of former temples
How is that pagan or henotheistic? This is just what happens when places convert from one religion to another.
>the theologians continued the debates of the platonic philosophers
Again, how is that pagan or henotheistic? Few Christian groups throw out pre-Christian philosophy entirely.
>the savior of mankind was the slain and reborn wine god whos father is in heaven
What? The only greek god who died was Pan. His death is usually associated with the birth of Jesus.

>>22476505
It would lead to that in the same way as any incorrect belief could. In the Christian view, the fall has corrupted everything we do. Even the best things one can do are still underscored by selfish motivations that exist because we are descendants of Adam. Christianity's central message is that Jesus's sacrifice allows for Saving Grace regardless. There are many different conceptions of how that works, but the idea is that everyone is damned by default but through proper religious practice stemming from correct belief, people can have a place in God's kingdom regardless.

>>	Anonymous Sun Sep 10 17:32:43 2023 No.22477475 >>22475831 >what the laity thinks is more important than what church authorities think bruh, that's Protestantism. Both RC and EO are very much against that sort of thinking.

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 17:38:11 2023 No.22477488

>>22477468
This >>22476156 is the point I am trying to make with that second piece. Everything downstream from your conception of God might be corrupted. A Christian should contemplate views they see definitely heterodox and if/how they affect ritual, understanding of scriptures, etc. It is also worth pointing out again that many historical controversies which may seem like hair splitting catalyzed a lot of more meaningful divergence down the line.

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 17:42:01 2023 No.22477505

>>22477468
>It would lead to that in the same way as any incorrect belief could. In the Christian view, the fall has corrupted everything we do. Even the best things one can do are still underscored by selfish motivations that exist because we are descendants of Adam. Christianity's central message is that Jesus's sacrifice allows for Saving Grace regardless. There are many different conceptions of how that works, but the idea is that everyone is damned by default but through proper religious practice stemming from correct belief, people can have a place in God's kingdom regardless.
You've failed the challenge. To me, concerns over beliefs like the Filioque are so distant from religious practice and understanding the message of Christ and the meaning of His resurrection that it has ZERO impact on personal salvation. There is no connection to holding these beliefs and whether your faith in God will waver, whether your zeal for good works will change, etc. All you can offer is:
>uhhh but what if we hold a slightly wrong view of these beliefs
>but MUH council said these semantically empty theological concepts are le TRVTH!
It's Pharisee logic, i.e. obsessing over holding the right beliefs to the point where it gets in the way of spirituality.

Unless you can explain, with at least A LITTLE BIT of plausibility, how it impacts religious practice, then you have no business pontificating over theology. Like, give me SOMETHING. For example, I can understand how Arianism can lead to the invalidation of Christ's message by reducing him to a mere prophet (and who's to say he's the last?), or how Pelagianism leads to secular humanism and ultimately a debasement of morality (because it ignores or rejects the Fall). These theological imports matter.

But this Filioque shit? Completely fucking irrelevant and certainly not worth splitting a church. I guarantee you that none of you wannabe theologians can reasonably explain how believing or not believing in the Filioque will affect the fate of my soul.

>>	Anonymous Sun Sep 10 18:02:02 2023 No.22477549 >>22477468 >The only greek god who died was Pan. your lack of knowledge on a topic you presume to be schooling me on is remarkable... no wonder you are unable to recognize traces of paganism in your ultra-heterodox sect of Judaism

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 18:07:40 2023 No.22477561

>To me
Are you Christian? Weren't we talking about differences and the extent to which they matter? I and the Orthodox anon have been telling you that we care. Clearly it does matter to Christians.

>It's Pharisee logic, i.e. obsessing over holding the right beliefs to the point where it gets in the way of spirituality.
I'm certainly not very obsessed with theology. In my church we more or less do not talk about theology. Things center on the Spirit and experience. Regardless, this still might matter, which is why I do care.

>Unless you can explain, with at least A LITTLE BIT of plausibility, how it impacts religious practice
There are a lot of bible verses about the necessity of correct doctrine. I think Paul in Galatians 1 makes it pretty clear that if you teach false doctrine it displeases God and you will not be saved. Cutting out all the differences between East and West in the wider doctrine of God, I know that it would have a big impact on my own practice. Remember that pentecostalism emerged out of methodism. The relationship between the Spirit and the Son is implicit in so much of what we do and what the pastor says every Sunday. It might be hard to really get across how often this distinction would theoretically come into play. I can only invite you to attend different worship services, including both Orthodox and "Holiness" ones.

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 18:12:29 2023 No.22477580

>>22477561
Meant for >>22477505

>>22477549
I'm not trying to school you. I apologize if that was the impression you got, but you really seem to be speaking about my religion from the position of one who doesn't believe in it. I am trying to give a believer's perspective.

Rather than hide the ball, since I clearly do not know what you are referring to, can you just tell me? When you refer to a dead wine god from the Greek pantheon, my mind jumps to the death of Pan or the two-stage "birth" of Bacchus.

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 18:18:39 2023 No.22477600

>>22477561
>Weren't we talking about differences and the extent to which they matter? I and the Orthodox anon have been telling you that we care. Clearly it does matter to Christians.
You care too much about differences that don't matter. If you can't explain the practical import for religious practice, then you're arguing about nothing. What's worse is that the consequences of arguing about nothing have grave consequences for the unity of the Church. Is splitting Christendom over vacuous misunderstandings worth it? Does that further the plan of salvation, especially in times where we are under assault more than ever?
> I think Paul in Galatians 1 makes it pretty clear that if you teach false doctrine it displeases God and you will not be saved.
All paradoxical, empty, and vacuous doctrines are false. So if you're preaching something that does not make sense, cannot make sense, and has no implications for the world... and we can point to the disastrous consequences it has for the unity of the church... then wouldn't God be immensely displeased by that? You're equivocating on this problem in a way that is harmful to your own position.
>The relationship between the Spirit and the Son is implicit in so much of what we do and what the pastor says every Sunday. It might be hard to really get across how often this distinction would theoretically come into play.
If you can't provide an example, then it doesn't matter. Because if it doesn't actually mean anything, then there will be no practical consequences, which means that heresy is impossible. The only problem of "heresy" here is dividing the Church over contentless thoughts.

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 18:33:06 2023 No.22477641

>>22477600
>You care too much about differences that don't matter. If you can't explain the practical import for religious practice, then you're arguing about nothing. What's worse is that the consequences of arguing about nothing have grave consequences for the unity of the Church. Is splitting Christendom over vacuous misunderstandings worth it? Does that further the plan of salvation, especially in times where we are under assault more than ever?
I gave one example. Teaching the correct doctrine seems to matter a lot. Just google "why correct christian doctrine matters" or something similar and look up the verses sited by the results. There are many examples in the bible.
>All paradoxical, empty, and vacuous doctrines are false. So if you're preaching something that does not make sense, cannot make sense, and has no implications for the world... and we can point to the disastrous consequences it has for the unity of the church... then wouldn't God be immensely displeased by that? You're equivocating on this problem in a way that is harmful to your own position.
Ecumenism where not justified is only going to lead the actual Church astray if it leads to acceptance of false teaching and souls that could maybe have been saved might not be. When you have an issue that split two branches of this tradition over a thousand years ago with resulting natural divergence/diffusion in practice over that time, proper ecumenism is a tall task.
>The relationship between the Spirit and the Son is implicit in so much of what we do and what the pastor says every Sunday. It might be hard to really get across how often this distinction would theoretically come into play.
My example is mostly, "come visit a service". One of the things we believe is that the Spirit continues to grant spiritual gifts, though not in the same way that Pentecostals do. How these are granted and how they tie back to the Son are 100% part of discussion.
>Because if it doesn't actually mean anything, then there will be no practical consequences, which means that heresy is impossible. The only problem of "heresy" here is dividing the Church over contentless thoughts.
If you think there could not be any practical consequences to these sorts of differences, there are churches which pursue ecumenism vigorously. You can join one of those. Basically every mainline church in America is so inclined along with the major denominations of Europe. In some countries like Canada and Australia, the major protestant churches already merged and the roman church is also very ecumenical.

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 18:37:48 2023 No.22477656

>>22477641
>I gave one example. Teaching the correct doctrine seems to matter a lot. Just google "why correct christian doctrine matters" or something similar and look up the verses sited by the results. There are many examples in the bible.
You're equivocating from a general truism "good doctrine is important" to defend a particular doctrine. That's a dishonest argument. Why is this particular doctrine about the Filioque good, correct, important, etc.? You have no answer.
>Ecumenism where not justified is only going to lead the actual Church astray if it leads to acceptance of false teaching and souls that could maybe have been saved might not be. When you have an issue that split two branches of this tradition over a thousand years ago with resulting natural divergence/diffusion in practice over that time, proper ecumenism is a tall task.
If it's a false teaching, then sure you can explain why. Surely, you can explain how holding this false belief led to other sinful behaviors that culminated in eternal damnation. Wait, you can't? That's unfortunate.

Remember, obsessing over correct doctrine for the sake of empty formalisms is exactly what Christ chastised the Pharisees for.
>My example is mostly, "come visit a service". One of the things we believe is that the Spirit continues to grant spiritual gifts, though not in the same way that Pentecostals do. How these are granted and how they tie back to the Son are 100% part of discussion
This is a distant analogy, which again, is equivocation. And how is the Filioque involved here?
>If you think there could not be any practical consequences to these sorts of differences, there are churches which pursue ecumenism vigorously.
Ecumenism is secondary to the question about the Filioque. Obviously, ecumenism for its own sake, without taking other factors into consideration, is not a pure good. But if there's no reason to be separate, then surely the churches should be united and in harmony, correct? Surely, you can explain to me why the differences on the Filioque are so grave that ceding ground on this issue will lead to eternal damnation, right?

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 18:39:25 2023 No.22477662

>>22477580
The wine god Dionysus, who is Bacchus to the Romans, and the son of Zeus, is violently slain by the Titans, only to live again, a myth with no parallel among the Judaeans but relevant to their Macedonian and Roman conquerors. Jesus, who is the son of Yahweh, who is also associated with wine, whose worshipers would meet at night to drink wine and hold religious feasts to commemorate the body and blood of their resurrected god being sacrificed, surely must have gotten their ideas from somewhere.

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 19:10:34 2023 No.22477756

>Why is this particular doctrine about the Filioque good, correct, important, etc.?
It's important because it's biblical and the bible is a divinely inspired book about God that underpins our faith. God's hand was also in the formulation of the Nicene Creed, though denominations differ on its exact status iirc.
>holding this false belief led to other sinful behaviors that culminated in eternal damnation
I think it is worth explaining again that in Christianity, EVERYTHING people do is sinful. There is at least some divine role in salvation which is in spite of that. We Weslyans/Arminians hold to an analogy of Jesus essentially holding the door with regards to Saving Grace. It isn't that holding false belief will lead to sinful behavior and more that it might affect their salvation in spite of their inevitable sinfulness. The Good News we talk about is that you can still be saved.

>>22477662
That is what I was talking about. The myth isn't just about his death, it is about his being born again. If I recall there is a variation on that myth where he is not even killed but born again in another way. Christians here this same criticism from atheists all the time, but Jesus was never reborn like Bacchus.
Also, why would you say that rising from the dead had no parallel among the Judeans? The Judean belief that the dead will rise bodily has deeply affected Jewish burial practice even until today. Resurrecting divinities is a very common mythological trope and you could squint to find parallels in basically every tradition. Plus Bacchus never completely died in that version whereas Jesus's mortal nature actually died. If Jesus had been only divine, it would not have fulfilled the various prophecies.

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 19:17:55 2023 No.22477769

>>22477756
>The myth isn't just about his death, it is about his being born again. If I recall there is a variation on that myth
It's the same core story of "God's son God Jr. dies but comes back to life"
>Also, why would you say that rising from the dead had no parallel among the Judeans?
Because their God doesn't sire children, let alone have an association with nocturnal wining and dining to celebrate coming back to life.
Hence, to return to my original point, there are pagan influences on Christian theology and practices and it is incorrect for you to say "Christianity has nothing to do with paganism," if by paganism we mean non-Jewish religious beliefs and practices in the Roman empire

>>	Anonymous Sun Sep 10 19:20:13 2023 No.22477778 anon, discussing your struggles with religion isn't literature and you're not even pretending that your thread is on-topic. >>>/adv/

>>	Anonymous Sun Sep 10 19:26:46 2023 No.22477789 damn, the orthodox in this thread were not successfully deprogrammed from their protestantism

>>	Anonymous Sun Sep 10 19:34:05 2023 No.22477799 >>22477778 >>22477789 t. filioque trannies who want to coverup their failure

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 19:41:46 2023 No.22477821

>>22477769
>It's the same core story of "God's son God Jr. dies but comes back to life"
There are parallels, but I wouldn't say it is the same core story and Jesus is not viewed as God Jr. popularly, which is what we are getting at in this discussion.
>Because their God doesn't sire children, let alone have an association with nocturnal wining and dining to celebrate coming back to life
So the parallel is in those pieces? Underground meetings of Christians were not the same as the raucous affairs associated with the Bacchus cult.
>it is incorrect for you to say "Christianity has nothing to do with paganism
I don't see how that is true if we do not actually hold any pagan beliefs.

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 19:48:05 2023 No.22477845

>>22477756
>It's important because it's biblical
Is it Biblical? The problem originates from vagueness in the formulation of the original Nicene Creed, which is not Biblical in itself. And the problem is so vaguely defined that 1) people (like you) struggle to explain what it means or what it even is; and 2) the terms involved in the debate can be stretched to incorporate all kinds of evidence.

Both the Filioque-pro and the Filioque-cons can find Biblical evidence for their positions. So, who is right?

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 20:06:14 2023 No.22477893

>>22477845
The main verse there is this:
"But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me:" (John 15:26)
There are a lot of other bible verses that are cited on both sides, but I'm more interested in just pointing out that the debate is indeed stemming from scriptural interpretations. And it isn't hard to define that filioque, it just means "and the son" in Latin.

>Both the Filioque-pro and the Filioque-cons can find Biblical evidence for their positions. So, who is right?
The question of assurance is an old one in Christianity and branches of it. If you disbelieve the traditional things to point to for assurance (including the scriptures in themselves), then I guess you will never know until you face judgement. But if you disbelieve in those things, I can guarantee you will be judged very harshly.

>>	Anonymous Sun Sep 10 20:32:21 2023 No.22477958 >>22477821 >I don't see how that is true if we do not actually hold any pagan beliefs you can be influenced by your father without being him... errr actually in your case I'm not so sure... might be heretical to suggest a son is not his own father

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 20:35:46 2023 No.22477969

>>22477893
>I can guarantee you will be judged very harshly.
you can't... that's the whole problem, you have failed to establish the soteriological necessity of reciting the Latin-interpolated Nicene creed versus the earlier version, and since both of these variants exist for extra-biblical political purposes now largely disregarded by the churches themselves, not even your rabbis think this matters to one's faith

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 21:15:53 2023 No.22478070

>>22477893
>The question of assurance is an old one in Christianity and branches of it. If you disbelieve the traditional things to point to for assurance (including the scriptures in themselves), then I guess you will never know until you face judgement. But if you disbelieve in those things, I can guarantee you will be judged very harshly.
Idk. To me, if there's two positions that have roughly equal evidence in scripture, then philosophical methods can sort out the problem. This is how I think the Holy Trinity is justified. It's just the best foundation for the whole "story" of Christianity. But I can't even find that for the Filioque, both for or against it.
>it just means "and the son" in Latin.
There's all this talk about the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Son, through the Son, etc., and desu these are all so metaphorical and vague that I can hardly begin to care and can't see how this would affect anything else in the system. Can anybody neatly define the relationship between the three persons of the Holy Trinity? I think it's foolish to even try.

Anonymous Sun Sep 10 21:46:06 2023 No.22478136

>>22478070
>Can anybody neatly define the relationship between the three persons of the Holy Trinity?
It is a forced theological construct developed in order to make God having a son and a "spirit" comply with biblical monotheism, the latter being necessary to defining the son of God as the promised messiah in the first place. Trinities in other systems, especially Hindu and Buddhist, are much less labored even when dogmatic. Every so often someone here drops that Chesterton harrumph-quote about how intellectually superior the Christian trinity is as compared to Islam for instance, but likewise none are able to explain it this oh-so smart thing they agree with, a posture entirely ridiculous to take in an actual debate.

Anonymous Mon Sep 11 00:14:24 2023 No.22478437

>>22477958
There are common threads in just about everything. The parallels are drawn by anti-Christian bigots grasping at straws.

>>22477969
I was guaranteeing that you will be judged harshly if you reject the bible, which is the basis for the debate.

>>22478070
I would agree that attempting to define the relationship between the three parts is a fool's errand, and most bodies just call it a mystery of some sort. The Roman church usually has a pretty detailed catechism, regarding Trinity, they say: "The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life."

My own church really only tries at a concrete definition for the Spirit. The Trinity and the Son are vaguely defined while the Father is not defined at all. In regards to the Trinity writ-large, it cites: Genesis 1:1-2; Exodus 3:13-15; Deuteronomy 6:4; Matthew 28:19; John 1:1-3; 5:19-23; 8:58; 14:9-11; 15:26; 16:13-15; 2 Corinthians 13:14.

>>22478136
I wouldn't go so far as to say that it is "forced". It undeniably fits the bible well and has a basis in scripture (citations above).

>none are able to explain it this oh-so smart thing they agree with
God is just ontologically superior to us. That is the Christian view. We always can't explain everything he does or how he works.

Anonymous Mon Sep 11 02:57:24 2023 No.22478801

>>22478437
>I wouldn't go so far as to say that it is "forced". It undeniably fits the bible well
God doesn't have a son who is also God until the New Testament is written by Greek speakers, and this has to be squared with that God's demand that no Gods are worshiped before him. This is quite innovative isn't it? Not two gods—no! The Father, and the Son (and the Holy Spirit) are all the same God, three persons in one God. The ever-efficient Muslims correctly point out this is barely disguised polytheism. It's no mystery at all but a form of compliance which convinces no one who doesn't already believe. A theologian could perhaps make valid arguments for the trinity being monotheistic but they'd never be sound, even children can count to three.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 11 03:08:32 2023 No.22478817 >>22478801 With the same logic all the namss for Allah can also be polytheism

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 11 03:27:07 2023 No.22478847 >>22460606 You must understand natural law to get it. Aquinas bro.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 11 03:32:14 2023 No.22478861 >>22460606 Whatever you decide, stay away from the Russian Orthodox Church -- it's been a KGB cutout since nearly exactly a century ago and remains so to this day. Yes, that applies to churches and personnel outside of Russia' borders.

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 11 03:39:17 2023 No.22478876 >>22478817 Jesus is just a nominal reference to God? You don't sound like someone who thinks stuttering during the Nicene Creed lands you in eternal hell

>>	Anonymous Mon Sep 11 15:39:45 2023 No.22480086 >>22460794 bullshit LOL. The mere fact there is an insane amount of convert saints just makes u look like a fucking fool is insane. There is NO orthodox material that supports your point at all lol.

Anonymous Mon Sep 11 23:44:18 2023 No.22481471

>>22478801
If you think it is polytheism, you wouldn't be the first to hold that criticism. It is unlikely anyone could convince you otherwise. In our view, there are not 1/3 "parts" of God, the Father, Son, and Spirit are fully God yet distinct. God is above the confines of worldly mathematical constraints.

>>22478876
Lands you in eternal hell? Maybe in another religion, but we say that God cares most about what is in your heart. A tiny aberration of some ritual is a very small thing.

Anonymous Mon Sep 11 23:47:27 2023 No.22481482

>>22478861
The Russian Orthodox Church outside Russia specifically broke communion with the Russian Church over allegations they were a state puppet. The communion was restored by they are still a distinct body from the Russian Orthodox Church (including parishes outside Russia under that church)

Anonymous Tue Sep 12 00:06:04 2023 No.22481530

>>22481471
>In our view, there are not 1/3 "parts" of God, the Father, Son, and Spirit are fully God yet distinct. God is above the confines of worldly mathematical constraints.
this is a nonsensical thing to say, and you are only denying that three is more than one because you are required by scripture to have exclusively one god
>A tiny aberration of some ritual is a very small thing.
sounds like you missed the rest of this thread, it is apparently extremely important to properly recite points of dogma

Anonymous Tue Sep 12 00:16:52 2023 No.22481558

>>22481530
>this is a nonsensical thing to say, and you are only denying that three is more than one because you are required by scripture to have exclusively one god
It's what we believe. You might consider it nonsense, but that is what the doctrine actually is in western Christianity. The Spirit is 100% God, the Son is 100% God, and the Father is 100% God. The Spirit =/= the Son =/= the Father, and it is not quite right to say Spirit + Son + Father = God. That is what we believe.

>sounds like you missed the rest of this thread, it is apparently extremely important to properly recite points of dogma
I'm curious. What do you think we lay Christians actually do with the Nicene Creed for?

Anonymous Tue Sep 12 00:31:37 2023 No.22481613

>>22481558
>that is what the doctrine actually is in western Christianity
I'm aware, and I'm telling you there's no deeper meaning or mystery to it beyond the breathtaking levels of pilpul to square God having a son who is also God with the commandment to only worship one God
>What do you think we lay Christians actually do with the Nicene Creed for?
well i had it memorized when i was younger, and as I've said elsewhere in the thread, not even the church considers the filioque to be a major issue

Anonymous Tue Sep 12 00:53:36 2023 No.22481663

>>22481613
>I'm aware, and I'm telling you there's no deeper meaning or mystery to it beyond the breathtaking levels of pilpul to square God having a son who is also God with the commandment to only worship one God
It is what it is. I doubt I can convince the sort of person who would use a term like pilpul unsolicited of anything, to be honest.

>well i had it memorized when i was younger, and as I've said elsewhere in the thread, not even the church considers the filioque to be a major issue
At least in my church, rituals of memorization and regurgitation aren't really all that important. The creed is important because it affects the way you will conceive of and interact with God. We aren't just reciting various creeds and confessions ad nauseum.

Anonymous Tue Sep 12 01:05:17 2023 No.22481683

>>22481663
>doubt I can convince
You already admitted it was an entirely irrational doctrine because god doesn't have to obey any "worldly mathematical constraints." So it is a dogmatic claim pure and simple—there is nothing to be convinced of because there is nothing to demonstrate—and it can only be taken on faith. And because of that I have maintained elsewhere ITT that the filioque is an extremely minute issue in terms of theology and has more to do with geopolitics—because there isn't anything to actually get right here. If the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all God it is irrelevant to insert or omit the filioque because you're just saying God comes from God. The Latins interpolate God comes from God and also from God, the Greeks God from God. The Greeks won't correct this because the bishop of Rome says to, who does he think he is? Constantinople is the real city! But I digress...

Anonymous Tue Sep 12 05:56:12 2023 No.22482295

>>22481683
>If the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all God it is irrelevant to insert or omit the filioque because you're just saying God comes from God. The Latins interpolate God comes from God and also from God, the Greeks God from God. The Greeks won't correct this because the bishop of Rome says to, who does he think he is? Constantinople is the real city! But I digress...
If you retards still want to respond to this gigantic retard after this statement then you are never going to make it.
You can only pray that God removes the tumor in his brain.

>>	Anonymous Tue Sep 12 12:57:33 2023 No.22483091 >>22482295 So the Father is not God? The Son is not God? The Holy Spirit is not God? Which is it? What was wrong here? Why are you incapable of defending your view?

Anonymous Tue Sep 12 13:24:32 2023 No.22483144

>>22483091
If you care to learn then read St John of Damascus' "Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith" for an introduction to Triadology, specifically Book 1 Chapters 5-9. Afterwards, read St Gregory of Nyssa's "Not Three Gods".

To save space discussing the complexities of the theology (such as notions of hypostasis and essence) I will use an analogy that St John uses in one of the chapters. Consider a single flame. From the flame proceeds both heat and light. Their procession from the flame is simultaneous and instantaneous. Where the flame is there will immediately be light and heat. Where there is no flame there is neither light or heat. As such the light and heat are cosubstantial with the flame. However, it is evident that the light and the heat have their origin in the flame. This is the same as in the Trinity. The Father is the fountainhead or source of the Trinity. The Father, from all eternity generates the Son and spirates the Spirit. There is no time when the Son and Spirit are not. As such, the Father always has His Word and His Spirit, and is at the same time their source (this is called the monarchia of the Father - which is also why the Filioque is heresy in the Orthodox view). Hopefully this helps you begin to understand the intimate connection between the three Persons of the Godhead. Furthermore, as St Gregory of Nyssa argues, all Persons possess the same Divine Will and therefore have the will. This is because all Persons have the same Divine Essence and will is a function of essence. The Son and Spirit possess the same Essence as the Father on account of their respective generation and spiration from Him. This is why Christ is able to say that whatever the Father does He also does. It's not three Gods because they have identical operations as St Gregory argues. The manner in which the Divine operations are undertaken differ because of the hypostatic modes of willing which is why it is only the Word who incarnates and not the whole Trinity. However, all Persons will and are involved in the Incarnation. Now I know you will say that "well Jimmy, Bob and Bert can do the same thing but they're three different people, 1+1+1=3 right?". However, St Gregory further makes the distinction between counting by number vs counting by identity. But now I have entered into complex theological territory and I revert to the suggestion that you should read if you want to know and familiarise yourself with the terminology and also see why the Filioque is not mere semantics but about consistent usage of fundamental philosophical concepts.

>>	Anonymous Tue Sep 12 14:22:36 2023 No.22483298 It's okay

Anonymous Tue Sep 12 14:49:06 2023 No.22483400

>>22483144
>The Father, from all eternity generates the Son and spirates the Spirit. There is no time when the Son and Spirit are not.
at this point they become metaphors for concepts in Greek theology/philosophy being matched to Bible and made to comply with the requirment for monotheism. A father cannot eternally generate his son. Heat and light are emitted by fire, they aren't fire itself.

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/lit/ - Literature