Religion: Real or Fake

[rah]

Mm-hmm. Leaving out your fallacious scientism, do you happen to know what theosis is? Or the nous? Theotokos? Amartia? Hesychasia? The Jesus Prayer? Troparia? Megalynaria?

EDIT: Do we believe in justification by faith or works? What's our understanding of Original Sin? How does our concept of the atonement differ from the Western one? How do we shape our hands when crossing ourselves, and what does it signify? What's the current situation of the American churches? What are the differences between the liturgies of St. John Chrysostom and Basil the Great?

ANOTHER EDIT, WHY NOT: St. John Climacus? St. Raphael of Brooklyn? St. John Maximovitch? St. Gregory Palamas? How many Ecumenical Councils do we accept? What are our sacraments? What's a phelonion? The Lenten Triodion? Who's Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia? Who's Timothy Ware?

Many more reasons why I'm glad I'm an atheist. I don't miss the days sitting around and discussing the mysteries of the divine trilogy or most of the other make believe crap. People using logic to argue things that can only be taken purely on faith.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Most of that wasn't necessarily theology (except for the 1st edit).

[Ming]

I don't miss the days sitting around and discussing the mysteries of the divine trilogy or most of the other make believe crap.

I actually do miss those days in my religious studies classes in college when we discussed many different topics... but then again, many of those classes met in a bar off campus, and we had a great time

[MOBIUS]

Mm-hmm. Leaving out your fallacious scientism, do you happen to know what theosis is? Or the nous? Theotokos? Amartia? Hesychasia? The Jesus Prayer? Troparia? Megalynaria?

EDIT: Do we believe in justification by faith or works? What's our understanding of Original Sin? How does our concept of the atonement differ from the Western one? How do we shape our hands when crossing ourselves, and what does it signify? What's the current situation of the American churches? What are the differences between the liturgies of St. John Chrysostom and Basil the Great?

ANOTHER EDIT, WHY NOT: St. John Climacus? St. Raphael of Brooklyn? St. John Maximovitch? St. Gregory Palamas? How many Ecumenical Councils do we accept? What are our sacraments? What's a phelonion? The Lenten Triodion? Who's Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia? Who's Timothy Ware?

Now you're being silly again. I couldn't give a **** about all the little things that makes your religion the same or different from all the others - I couldn't give a **** who St John Malkovich is! I care about the bigger picture such as the regular schisms and ongoing splintering of Christianity from a single movement into the dozens (hundreds?) that we have now...

I'm talking Council of Ephesus; Council of Chalcedon; The Great Schism; The Reformation...

I'm talking why there's three major competing religions just in the Holy Land alone...

I'm talking about who has ended up controlling what piece of land and why - the winners and losers - why...

All it simply boils down to is that might is right and there is no god. In the past science hadn't proved as much as it has now and it was easier to get away with **** and hoodwink the populace than it is now.

Religion is an anachronism. The buildings are pretty to look at and people should learn about the mistakes of religion so that they can follow an enlightened path away from such baseless and pointless superstitions...

[Elok]

So, you do not in fact know the first thing about Orthodoxy (ie, the living, breathing faith of today). You went around the world getting a warm fuzzy feeling while looking down your nose at various bits of architecture (together with some knowledge of church history, which you appear to understand primarily in terms of who hated whom), and claim you understand it better than I do. Is your "understanding" of all religions like that? Do you know Hindus as "those morons who kill each other over cows and built the Angkor Wat and crap," or as the folks behind the Upanishads, Mahabharata and Bhagavad Gita?

[Elok]

Most of that wasn't necessarily theology (except for the 1st edit).

The distinction between "theology" and "not-theology" can get a little blurry when it comes to us anyway. We drench everything in theological nuances--if it can't be understood to have at least three meanings, it ain't Orthodox.

[Elok]

Thank good you aren't Kid Him, and some others claim they are such Chrisitians, and then go around insulting people, which is not a Christian Act. Talk about hypocrisy.

I agree that Kid's behavior in this thread has been unbecoming, to say the least. I just didn't say it (as much) because everybody else did.

How I feel about the Catholic church doesn't change the fact that they do have a legitimate claim. Obviously others do as well.
But that's the whole point. There is no hypocrisy here.

Some here are claiming that their view on Christianity is the ONLY view, and if you don't believe in their view, you aren't really a Christian. And beyond that, the claims that unless you believe like them, you can't be moral or even forgive.
What bull****.

I will continue to attack the RCC. They deserve it. I will also continue to attack self rightious jerks. They deserve it as well.

Fair enough. I'm sorry for jumping on you like that. Please tell me if I start acting like a jackass in the future, in the nicest way you can manage so I don't just get angry and become more set in jackassitude.

EDIT: this is post 1207, how many more posts until there's a computer error and the system crashes somehow?

[rah]

The distinction between "theology" and "not-theology" can get a little blurry when it comes to us anyway. We drench everything in theological nuances--if it can't be understood to have at least three meanings, it ain't Orthodox.

Yeah, always been a touch cloudy for me too and I was never Orthodox.

[Elok]

Yeah, always been a touch cloudy for me too and I was never Orthodox.

Come to think of it, Catholics might very well have a similar deal going on, where everything's got a story. Can an RCC priest explain a statue to you for half an hour, pointing to various tiny features and explaining how everything, including the number of folds in the marble "robe," has some theological meaning? I actually rather enjoy that sort of thing.

[dannubis]

Religion is an anachronism. The buildings are pretty to look at and people should learn about the mistakes of religion so that they can follow an enlightened path away from such baseless and pointless superstitions...

That says it all, now doesn't it ?

[rah]

Elok,
Going to a catholic grammar school meant having at least an hour a day devoted to religious studies. By the time 8 years has gone by you've run out of all the simple religious concepts to discuss (including all the laughable attempts at Catholic sex education), so yes we got into a lot of REALLY REALLY obscure stuff. Fortunately that was over 40 or so ago, so most of the brain cells associated with those discussions were killed off during my college debaucheries.

[Elok]

Well, I was specifically wondering about the nature of the really obscure stuff. Just for one simple, basic example, my church's censer has twelve bells on it for the twelve apostles. And nobody ever really mentions it most of the time, it's just there that way. Same deal with icons; every little detail down to the spacing and shape of the eyes means something.

I think it's a shame if they try to teach everyone all those meanings in Catholic schools (assuming you have a similar mass of aggregate, minute traditions), because half of the fun is that all these things are there, to see and understand if you care to look and learn but okay to not see if you like. I'm sure that if I'd been taught all of those things systematically, A. my head would explode and B. I'd come to hate it. As is, it's like being in a boat on a perfectly clear lake: you can just skim across the water if you like, or you can look down...and down...and down...and just see a world of depth and complexity you had no idea was there. The old, familiar things take on a whole new meaning as you learn about them, or rather a whole pile of meanings that built up over ages and ages like a stalagmite. They're trivial, but at the same time vastly important because they keep the old traditions from ever really becoming "dead," as they say.

...uh, and that's my opinion.

[Kidlicious]

I actually do miss those days in my religious studies classes in college when we discussed many different topics... but then again, many of those classes met in a bar off campus, and we had a great time

Now I understand.

[Kidlicious]

I believe in the Holy Bible. Any reasonable person would accept that as an acceptable position and one that can be argued against. but again the servant can't be greater than the master.

There aren't many catholics on the site that I know of. I can think of only one, Barnabas. If he want's to put in his position fine. But the others are clearly bull****ting.

[Elok]

I believe DanS is Catholic as well. Maybe Ozzy too, and there are probably others I'm just not thinking of.