Discuss best Orthodox literatures and quotes.
“The principal Tradition, the transcendent Tradition, of the Orthodox Church is the living God-man Christ, entire in the theanthropic Body of the Church of which He is the immortal, eternal Head. This is not merely the message, but the transcendent message of the holy apostles and the holy fathers. They know Christ crucified, Christ resurrected, Christ ascended. They all, by their integral lives and teachings, with a single soul and a single voice, confess that Christ the God-man is wholly in His Church, as in His Body. Each of the holy fathers could rightly repeat with St. Maximus the Confessor: ‘In no wise am I expounding my own opinion, but that which I have been taught by the fathers, without changing aught in their teaching.’”
- St. Justin Popovich
I prefer Islam. To me it seems like Christians were people oppressed so long they actually reimagined God so he was weak, feckless, and submissive—“literally me!” Very jarring trying to reconcile Jesus in Christianity being the Yahweh of the Bible who brings the pain on people who defy Him
Christ is a deeper self-revelation of God to the world. We go from glory to glory. First the Israelites were taught about the unity of God against pagan teachings, and then we learned of the Father’s Only-begotten Son, and the boundless love of God. God’s steadfast love is revealed all throughout the OT, he is like a husband to his wife, forever trying to draw her back even when the relationship is shattered. This theme is particularly noticeable in Hosea all through the prophets. If in the OT we see these themes not at the forefront, they become strikingly obvious in the NT, in which God in a theophany of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God’s promise to dwell among Israel is fulfilled, as are all of the blessings, prophecies and promises of a New Covenant given to Jeremiah. God demonstrates his infinite love, his solidarity with man, his desire for us to love him and repent (realign our lives towards him). Christ is the new Moses leading us on a spiritual Exodus from bondage and slavery into the promise land, which is the Kingdom of God, and not even death can separate us from his love. God does not want to be despot over man, by Father of loving children who cry to him ‘Abba!’
Yeah retconing God as Mr. Rogers doesn’t sit right with me either neither does imposing the word “despot” to mean a ruler who doesn’t fool around. Basically what Christianity did was transform God from the master of humanity into the slave of humanity because the oppressed had gotten so psychologically broken by helplessness that they coped by saying being a slave was actually the noblest thing you could be and so reimagined God as one
Even the NT calls Jesus Christ King of Kings and Lord of Lords, who will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, rendering to each according to his works. God is not ‘Mr. Rodgers’. He is merciful and righteous at the same time, but to the unrepentant sinner, there will be outer darkness and the weeping and gnashing of teeth. Jesus Christ came to save what was lost, not to let them go astray
Let’s me clear, you portray God as being kicked around and crying but preaching be nice to your heathen overlords and don’t resist oppression or robbery. This is the mentality of buck-broken israelites, not God
I don’t think you understand the spiritual message of the Gospel.
No I do. It’s that God became a slave and endured torture and persecution and death because he was such an incredibly nice guy. That’s the quality you associate most with God, not power or might or majesty or vigor, but being exemplary nice. In fact so nice you had to abrogate his power, might, majesty and vigor because to the weak and feckless these qualities seem mean and not nice
You do not even understand the simplest parts of the Gospel. At the core, Jesus has very simple teachings, but there is also a deeper part of it too that is very easy to understand once one sees it—that is theosis. The basic core of the Gospel is of course to love God with all of your heart, soul and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself (Mark 12:30-31). One can even say that the core of the Gospel is the imitation of God, as is said in Matthew 5:43-48, where the takeaway is to be perfect as heavenly Father is perfect, or the idea in Luke 6:39-40 that a disciple is not above his teacher, but that a fully trained disciple is like his teacher—what does this say about us and Christ? Christ teaches to put God as the absolute highest value, and to not worry ourselves over things on this earth which pass away, but to instead seek that which is endures and is eternal (Matthew 6:19-34). The Gospel of John talks about things such as our union with Christ, how he will abide in us if we abide in him (John 15:1-11) and how if we keep his commandments, he and his Father will come and make their home with us (John 14:23). The peak of this is John 17, where Jesus prays to the Father that we may all be one, as the Father is the Son, and the Son in the Father, and that we may be in them, one as they are one, perfectly one, abiding in the perfect love of God (John 17:20-26). This is the Kingdom of God, in a sense, abiding in Christ, and Christ in you, and it follows that those who are not are already condemned (John 3:16-18). The Gospel ultimately ends in union with God—but not a union of annihilation of self, but of abiding in love, following God’s will, participating in the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). Of course judgment is a part of it as well—Jesus teaches us to ‘stay awake’ and live with a wakefulness of God in every moment (Matthew 24:42) because we do not know when the end will come, and because we were meant to live like this anyway, before we fell and became his lost sheep (Luke 15:3-5) Those in Christ have nothing to fear (1 John 4:18).
Yes, theosis, to become God. But of course your conception of God is not defined by being Almighty and being alone worshipped without peer, but by being Supremely Nice, hence theosis does not involve becoming powerful and dominant, but by becoming increasingly less resistant and passive to every ebb and flow of the will of others until you have less firmness than a blade of grass, and this embracing of total destruction of your strength to overpower others is called love by Christians
> your conception of God is not defined by being Almighty and being alone worshipped without peer
Stop reading there. Idolators will not inherit the Kingdom, and Christ is King of Kings.
>Stop reading there. Idolators will not inherit the Kingdom
Including Orthodox Christians who pray to Maryam عليها السلام every liturgy “O Holy Theotokos, save us!”
They’re asking Mary for her prayers. James 5:16, “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” The most common litany for the Theotokos in the Divine Liturgy asks for prayers and the prayers of the saints and ends with an exhortation to devote our entire lives to Christ our God. Don’t lie, Muhammadan.
That’s not how you ask someone for prayers, is it? If you ask someone to pray for you do you prostrate to them and say save me? No, you just say pray for me. In truth it’s idolatry with a bs explanation, “It’s not what it looks like?”
The saints can do nothing apart from the fact that they participate in the Body of Christ and have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Prayers can indeed be saving, but not in the sense that it will enter someone into the Kingdom. You’re equivocating. Like all Muslims you apply your paradigm on a completely different one. Your ideas of tawhid and shirk (as Muslims understand it) are not Christian
All this word salad. We say la ilaha il Allah
> la ilaha il Allah
i.e. al-ʾab, wa-l-ibn, wa-r-rūḥ al-qudus
Christians are unable to understand the formula “no x but y” in Arabic grammar negates all but one subject?
Yes, the singular essence of the Holy Trinity would be the referent, that is what ‘Allah’ refers to, the essence.
Are the father and the son grammatically distinct subjects?
Yes, they are different persons. There is no God apart from the Christian God, who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, one and in essence and indivisible.
>yes
Okay
>Christians are unable to understand the formula “no x but y” in Arabic grammar negates all but one subject?
>akshually
Literally don’t care about Arabic grammar, akhi
Then why are you using Arabic words and giving your interpretation of an Arabic phrase?
>not involve becoming powerful and dominant
"To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne."
- Revelation 3:21
We will reign with Christ over all creation for eternity.
Yeah as your reward for being meek and nice, the meek shall inherit the earth etc. Just like the nice guy who says one day she’ll recognize him as the best guy and he’ll be her man
To add to this I'm alsy trans and Islam is more welcoming to transfolx like me than Christians are.
If you’re Shia
idk they dont really seem like a real superpower on any kind of scale, more of a fatherless gangster bandwagon not nearly as capable of as much beauty, suffering in chaotic hellholes until they try to escape to the christian countries and their women become liberals
but yeah that one time we supplied them with professional camera crews and guns to make them look like epic bad guys or something
>Islam
Saint Anthonys monastery in Arizona recently published this great collection. A good way to discover Orthodox literature is to look at websites for monasteries and scroll through their book catalogue, they often publish good stuff and you cut out the amazog middle man by using their site.
Also, go to your own threads Muslims
Go home, Dasha, you're drunk
So any on topic responses?
I read pic related last winter and enjoyed it very much. It's a look into the Pskov Caves monastic community during and after the Soviet era. Sometimes really funny, sometimes serious and touching on the more mysterious parts of the faith.
Filthy orthodogs