He is risen!

[Bereta_Eder]

I wouldn't say that I am religious but it's true that religion has been associated with people from whom I have received love and support in my life.
I associate religion with them.
From a personal POV I find the teaching of humility necessairy and I associate with the perils of hybris.

[kentonio]

I'm still not totally sure why I'm religious, though I know that I am. I think the bottom reason is that what most or all major religions have in common is not so much God but the notion that human beings are sick and broken. I find this to be true, so I follow the advice of people who've been thinking about human brokenness for a long, long time. I allow that, being so broken, we may have gotten any number of things wrong. But it still seems better to do the best I can, from my limited perspective, to become less broken. Really I don't have any choice, it seems; true nihilism is not psychologically feasible, and I can't swallow attempts to downplay our bugs or recast them as features. That leaves religion, and I find Orthodoxy the most compelling of faiths.

Why does it leave religion? If you consider every aspect of humanity to be a direct consequence of evolutionary development, all those things you think of as 'broken' become much more understandable and you don't have some great cosmic guilt trip about how we're broken because we're fundamentally bad and need to be saved.

[ricketyclik]

I'm still not totally sure why I'm religious, though I know that I am. I think the bottom reason is that what most or all major religions have in common is not so much God but the notion that human beings are sick and broken. I find this to be true, so I follow the advice of people who've been thinking about human brokenness for a long, long time. I allow that, being so broken, we may have gotten any number of things wrong. But it still seems better to do the best I can, from my limited perspective, to become less broken. Really I don't have any choice, it seems; true nihilism is not psychologically feasible, and I can't swallow attempts to downplay our bugs or recast them as features. That leaves religion, and I find Orthodoxy the most compelling of faiths.

Our "bugs" usually turn out to be advantageous to the propagation of our species if viewed from the points of view of evolution and game theory.

[Imran Siddiqui]

On the other hand, you Western *****es were still a week early, so get with the program.

Get with the program? Y'all are using the obsolete calendar

[Imran Siddiqui]

going down that route makes it even harder to say anything definitive at all about God

A lot of theologians would say that this is a very wise statement, FWIW.

[Bereta_Eder]

Will someone reply to my question?
Were names like peter and george and john jewish names or were they made up to fit the occasion?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Peter (or Cephas) for one means "rock". His given name was Simon (or Shim'on in Hebrew)

John is Yohanan in Hebrew (I think)

[Bereta_Eder]

It means so in greek
Petra = rock
Petr(in)os=made of rock

I was just wondering if these were names that existed in the jewish people and just achieved notoriaty due to those apostoles being associated with jesus - or wether they were names that were carved up to describe things.

[Imran Siddiqui]

They had Jewish names. But with the New Testament being written in Greek, those names were... adapted.

[The Mad Monk]

On the other hand, you Western *****es were still a week early, so get with the program.

Orthodoxy: because sometimes, even Christ needs a snooze alarm.

[I AM MOBIUS]

Oh so funny when the 'Christians' can't even agree amongst themselves...

Surely if God existed, you'd all be singing from the same hymn sheet (quite literally!)...?

[Nikolai]

Oh so funny when the 'Christians' can't even agree amongst themselves...

Surely if God existed, you'd all be singing from the same hymn sheet (quite literally!)...?

Not really. God is true, but humans have a proven track record of making a mess out of everything.

[Nikolai]

He's probably a hero of Nikolai's

Who? The guy with punchable face? I don't even know who he is.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Don't feed the troll.

[Elok]

Why does it leave religion? If you consider every aspect of humanity to be a direct consequence of evolutionary development, all those things you think of as 'broken' become much more understandable and you don't have some great cosmic guilt trip about how we're broken because we're fundamentally bad and need to be saved.

I doubt I will be able to have this whole discussion with you, but for starters, I ain't guilty. That's more of a Catholic thing. We Orthodox view sin as an illness, not a crime. Naturalism necessary and inevitably implies nihilism; if the universe was generated without purpose, then there is no purpose to our existence and we are merely distracting ourselves until death. And no, we can't "find a meaning for ourselves." Or rather we can, but finding a meaning where none truly exists is also known as pretending, or lying. Your meaning is a pretended pattern you can see in the static if you squint. In which case, my Christian lies have better aesthetics and make me happier than your humanist lies, so I should follow the former regardless of their truth (which I can never really know anyway).

Okay, I'm going to stop there, b/c for some reason this page is perpetually reloading itself ("waiting for ib.adnxs.com" flickering rapidly in the lower corner, no matter what I do), and it's annoying as hell. It's been doing this since I came back yesterday.