This doesn't make sense. The Vatican predates the CIA; how would the CIA run it?
It coopted it after WWII. It doesn't matter which came first.
Read the books or watch some videos on the subject and it will become clear. Jay Dyer has good analysis on this. There are mounts of evidence and it's not just a crazy theory.
Yep, it's a pdf skittles cult. And it's very obviously ran by the CIA and the technocratic global government, especially since the 60's and Vatican 2. There is a two volume research on the topic by D. Wemhoff who is a trad Cath himself. P. Williams's book Operation Gladio: The Unholy Alliance Between the Vatican, the CIA, and the Mafia is good too.
There is no excuse to be Catholic in the 21c. when all this information is out there and your Pope openly promotes the NWO agenda.
Dude, are you aware 'the Medieval era' which spanned Europe, Asia and Africa over a period of 1000 years is not a single cohesive thing you can point to?
Do you even know that during most of the so called Dark ages (talmudic propaganda name) jews were banished from many kingdoms unlike your masonic 'secular' modern times you love so much where jews basically run the whole world through usury and blackmail? Don't you wonder why jews sought to destroy all Christian monarchies starting with the French Revolution and ending with the Bolshevik one as outlined in their Protocols?
What took and still takes place after the talmudic revolutions of the past 250 years is 100 times worse than anything during the Christian period before that. Christianity kept jews at bay and 'secularism' and republicanism is a jewish invention - you got it all mixed up. Go read Fire in the Minds of Men by J. Bilington which is an academic level text about the origin of the revolutionary ideas and of secular government.
Where in the video are jews mentioned?
I’m not the one appealing to my own understanding here. I’m appealing to the final and controlling authority Christ and the apostles themselves appealed to.
Oh, did Christ tell you you hold the correct interpretation? Or did He establish His apostolic Church and sent the Holy Spirit at Pentecost to guide it? Are you sure that same Church didn't have a synodal structure with sacraments and ordination of bishops? All this is evident in Acts and the Epistles. But I guess your infallible interpretation of Scripture missed that part.
Jesus didn’t say “you have heard from the fathers,” He said “it is written.” And when Satan quoted Scripture correctly but applied it wrongly, Jesus didn’t defer to tradition. He corrected the interpretation with more Scripture.
You just lost the debate. Oral and liturgical tradition was how the Church operated in the first centuries before the canon of Scripture was decided by the Church fathers you reject. I swear, Protestantism hinges on being ignorant of early Church history.
Yes, the God of the Old Testament is Jesus Christ. John 1, Colossians 1, and 1 Corinthians 10 are explicit about that. No argument there. But acknowledging that doesn’t mean every covenantal command given to Israel applies unchanged to Christians after the cross. The apostles explicitly say otherwise. Hebrews exists for this exact reason, and it wasn’t written by modern Protestants.
Sure, Christ changed the moral prescriptions. The question was if OT morality was still normative or if it was replaced by new evolved morality. Do you believe that capital punishment or war suddenly became unchristian because hippy-Jesus came to sing Imagine to the people? Of course nothing in Scripture was written by Protestants because the early Church didn't run on Protestant presuppositions, which destroys your entire position. The ideas of Protestantism are post-scholastic modern developments, reactionary to the degeneracy and errors of the RCC.
If you had any idea about history and philosophy of ideas, you'd know that Protestantism is based around nominalism, which is a late Medieval position on metaphysics. No one in the first centuries of the Church thought like Luther and Calvin. It's like applying Critical race theory to something that happened in the middle ages - you don't understand how ridiculously anachronistic and retarded all this is. Protestantism is ahistorical.
Psalm 110 is messianic. Jesus Himself says so in Matthew 22. David is speaking prophetically about Christ’s exaltation and God subduing His enemies. But notice something important: Christ Himself tells us how that psalm is fulfilled, and it’s not by His followers taking vengeance. He reigns until His enemies are made a footstool.. by the Father. That’s divine judgment, not Christian retaliation. The same distinction applies to Revelation, the Psalms of judgment, and prophetic language throughout Scripture.
As for Psalm 58 and Psalm 139, those are imprecatory psalms. They describe righteous longing for God’s justice, not a license for believers to cultivate hatred or take vengeance themselves. Paul, who knew those Psalms far better than either of us, still says plainly: “Bless those who persecute you… never avenge yourselves… leave room for the wrath of God.” If David’s emotional expressions override apostolic command, then Paul is contradicting Scripture.
So does Paul contradict himself when in Roman 13 where he says that the ruler has the sword and can exact justice? Or maybe Christ's teaching is not to avenge YOUR injuries YOURSELF and to be forgiving instead but when it comes to justice He never taught wrongdoing, crime and sin should go unpunished.
For the final time - your have a broken mind and you read Scripture as a set of either/or's when it's both/and's depending on context. If Jesus saved the woman from being stoned and made people realize they too have sins and should show mercy, it doesn't follow that therefore no one should ever be punished ever again or that now the death penalty is rendered immoral.
On interpretation: Scripture interprets Scripture And those same apostles warn repeatedly that tradition can nullify God’s word.
Scripture interprets Scripture? Do you know what a circle is? No, dude. Interpretation requires a person - an interpreter. What you basically said is the same as 'Scripture reads Scripture'. Does that seem rational to you?
because Christ authorized the apostles, not an amorphous later tradition, to bind and loose doctrine.
The irony of not realizing Sola Scriptura itself which you appeal to, is exactly such a later tradition and no one believed this for 15 centuries before Luther came.
Christ gave the apostles the keys to the Church and reassured them that the Church won't cease to exist even before the gates of hell. Yet you claim the apostolic tradition was lost and the Church capitulated shortly after they died. So what happened, was Christ wrong? Btw, that same 'amorphous later tradition' later compiled the Bible you appeal to as I already stated.
So “the fathers said so” is not an argument unless it agrees with apostolic teaching.
Lol, that's the point - it agrees with the apostolic teaching because it's part of the same uninterrupted tradition and the apostles laid hands on them so they can pass that tradition down the line. You have no way of knowing what the apostolic teaching is outside of that tradition because you lack the correct interpretation that goes along the text and is also part of the tradition.
You're reading your own wrong interpretation into the text because you hold the wrong presuppositions about what the teaching is. The Church fathers hold the correct interpretation of Scripture, not you. But you presuppose it's the other way around.
It's so funny and tragic at the same time looking at protestant being incapable of even entertaining the idea that their own personal interpretation of Scripture 20c later, may not be how the early Church of the apostles understood it. You're so full of pride that you can't even begin to repent.
That's cool. Civility is good and I'm all for it.
It would have been nice not to blow through my arguments though because it seems you just don't care for the truth of the matter. Just answer this one:
Who is your greatest enemy? Is it perhaps Satan? Do you love him?
I think I made my point. Nobody can force you to come to the truth. I'd rather be rude and disrespectful but give you the truth than be all tolerant and nice and make compromises on it. I hate falsehood and lies, not people. If you truly love your neighbor you direct them towards the truth even if it's not dressed in niceties and false unity.
I think people should grow a back bone and not be all feminine in their exchanges because Christianity is not about being nice but about the Truth - otherwise we get Nice-ianity). I'd go even further - If you're afraid you could hurt someone's feelings by telling the truth, you can't be a Christian. If I call you a fool and you're acting like one, that's not unchristian in the slightest. Scripture and the Church fathers used very harsh language when dealing with heresies and false teachings (and not just language but physical aggression too).
Is this why they mock Him everywhere and media and culture is blatantly satanic? Makes total sense.
It is clear you do not understand the difference in the old covenant and new covenant. Jesus Christ fulfilled the law. Before He sacrificed His life for us, He preached and preached about loving one another, praying for our enemies, and leaving judgement to Him. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING in the New Testament supports your narrative that's based all on the old covenant.
He did, but that doesn't negate the moral teachings of the OT because it was Him who gave those. Unless you believe God's morality evolves with time which is a retarded heresy.
Nothing, and I mean NOTHING in the New Testament supports your narrative that's based all on the old covenant.
Are you sure about that? What if I were to tell you that lex talionis (eye for an eye) still applies in the NT and as Jesus said "For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled."
He who leads into captivity shall go into captivity; he who kills with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.
Revelation 13:10
Why is that? Because morality didn't somehow evolved between the OT and the NT and justice remained the same. What Jesus teaches us is not to retaliate for personal injuries (a literal or metaphoric slap on YOUR cheek) and to be forgiving. Idiot protestants like yourself take this out of context and turn it into a maxim that leads them to origenist pacifism and pussfied liberal interpretation of Scripture. You probably believe the death penalty is not applicable to the NT too (never mind Romans 13:4). This is not how the Church understood the text historically, this is your modernized heterodox take on it because you follow a subverted talmudic interpretation of Scripture.
I reject both your appeal to authority and bad theology. I hope you'll spend more time trying to understand the messages and parables Jesus Christ left on your own instead of letting someone from hundreds of years ago think for you.
"I won't listen to the apostles who Jesus Himself appointed to be His Church and their successors - the early Church Fathers, but to my own interpretation because I know better than those idiots hundreds of years ago". Do you realize how retarded and prideful you are? What makes your interpretation authoritative and why should we go along with yours and not the Church fathers? Are you holier and wiser than they are just because time has passed? Protestantism is literal brain damage.
Who is your greatest enemy? Is it perhaps Satan? Do you love him?
I rest my case. You've been cooked. Come to the true apostolic Church.
PS: Btw, if we are supposed to leave all judgement to Christ, then why should we have a justice system put in place? Who are we to judge and administer punishments, right? Are you supposed to love the muslim immigrants who come to your home and rape your wife and daughter before brutally murdering them? Would you turn the other cheek and let them rape you too? Yeah, that's why the west is cucked and people believe Christianity is weak and feminized. Little do they know this is not the actual tradition of the Church but a gay ass liberal theology propped up by jesuits, freemasons and jews to destroy western civilization and enslave mankind.
Exactly. There's a point where you're basically dealing with the sons of Belial. I'm sorry to burst some hippy-Jesus prots bubble here (not you) but you can't love demonically obsessed people. This is not what Jesus meant when He said love thy enemy. Satan is your ultimate enemy - are you supposed to love him too? Again, this is why context is key.
There's no meaningful difference. Satan, Lucifer, Belial, Father of Lies and the devil are all names pointing to the same entity.
Are you a lawyer irl? I can smell one from any distance.
"Honor" does not mean "obey to the point of dishonor". See Acts 4-5, we must obey God rather than men. You honor an unjust command by straitly telling the commander you cannot obey and will take the punishment, Daniel 1. (Also Luther, here I stand ....) Your quest to see contradiction and exception in the moral law is, well, doomed.
I never said anything about obeying so don't present strawmen. Let's stick to the wording of the commandment and my hypothetical:
For example do you think you ought to honor your parents if they are complete degenerates who treat you and your family like trash for no good reason?
You'll notice that in this case you don't disobey or dishonor God in any way. On the contrary - following your logic, your refusal to follow the commandment is disobedience to God. If you're supposed to follow the commandment indiscriminately as a rock does, then you'd have to agree you should still honor your parents even if they abuse you and your family. I can push the hypothetical even further if you need me to.
Uh, yes, you honor them by obeying them up to the point of conscience and by telling them when your conscience forbids your obedience (because they have given an immoral order, which abrogates their authority).
But wait, that means you will break the commandment and you won't honor them? I thought commandments don't contradict each other? Uh oh.
If they are God's commands I see no alternative but to obey them in exactly the same way that rocks obey his commands.
You're in a contradiction, bro. You just said you honor your parents up to a point which is not what the commandment asks. You're making clauses up stuff and adding to God's law.
It seems you got yourself in a tight place here.
I don't think so. Those are pretty straightforward. There are no examples in Scripture and Church tradition that provide exceptions.
God controls consequences so we don't get to use that as determinative because it's not in our control (e.g. if our lie is caught leading to greater harm). The devil pleads intentionality on the road to hell. So what matters is rather Truth at all costs. Discernment only arises from commitment to Truth and nothing else. Not "truth and exceptions", not "truthiness".
So you're not supposed to foresee the consequences of your actions and consider them before acting? Why were you given reason then - just follow the rules like an algorithm and you'd be fine, right? Do you realize that Scripture contains seemingly contradictory commandments if taken out of context and used as maxims? If you were to adhere to every commandment like a damn robot, you'd quickly run into absurdity. Prots get around this and cherry pick the commandments they like and pretend they should be applied without reasoning and nuance regardless of context.
I don't believe so, I use just-war doctrine.
That's begging the question how do you determine what aggression is just. Scripture and Church history give examples of aggression being justified and God Himself engages in it (OT is full of it, but also Jesus whipping the crap out of the moneylenders).
I've never been able to dredge up support for Chrysostom, having the same feelings about him as you have about Augustine, and now you tell me he's a liar too. Not surprising. I'm comfortable with my selection of fathers.
A liar? Gtfo dude. I don't base my position on vibes so don't give me that. Go collect Church fathers as if they're pokemons. What's your standard for discerning which father is reliable? Your personal judgment? Makes sense when you're your own Pope.
Btw no Church father teaches that lying is not a sin but that it could be justified under some circumstances. Same goes for killing. St. Paisios reiterates the patristic position.
I remain subject to my own conscience that I do not permit deception at all even as I am not always called to tell everyone everything.
You do you, it's not as if your bound to any position. Tomorrow you may wake up with a different feeling and go off it. But if I were to use your standard and go off my feeling, I'd not trust a single word you write here. You give me a very slimy and deceitful vibe. I sense you're posing as something you're not.
I meant the 10 commandments. For example do you think you ought to honor your parents if they are complete degenerates who treat you and your family like trash for no good reason? You're supposed to apply discernment and not follow the commandments like a freaking robot. God endowed man with reason and we should use it appropriately.
And it's not invalid. Why do you believe they're not confusing?
You're making the positive claim - what makes them confusing? Give an example how any of the above is confusing? If you lie to a demon to save the life of some innocent man is that bringing confusion? You see, this is why commandments cant be taken as universal maxims but should be examined case by case with wisdom. This is Kant's categorical imperative level idiocy.
Of course, reason alone is not enough and we're not rationalists or pragmatists. If a person is spiritually mature, if he partakes in the divine sacraments and follows the teachings of the Church and the advice of his spiritual father, then it gets much easier to discern.
PS: On the funny side, my favorite command is "Thou shall not gang bang". On a more serious side, genocide is a modern concept. I mean, what constitutes a genocide? Did the Israelites genocide the neighboring nations when they settled down or did they just ask them nicely for their land?
Dude, I just quoted some of the most important early Church fathers who back up the position. If you still can't understand the context where lying is permissible that's on you. Your logical argument is invalid because the second premise is false.
Every rule has exceptions to it. I can take pretty much any commandment and think about some exception where one would be justified to break it. What matters is intentionality and consequences. Since we can't comprehend every consequence of our actions because we're limited in knowledge, intentionality and spiritual discernment is paramount.
Here's Jay Dyer schooling a libertarian on the same subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hb-RJmFOdM8
Oy vey! Hava Nagila!
The command is not to murder (though it's often translated kill, but this is clarified by the context of executions). The contradiction is not in the intent but in falsely resolving the ambiguity in English. Killing in self-defense is specifically separated from murder in the case example of a night break-in (Ex. 22:2).
Fair enough, I agree about the distinction between killing and murder (unjustified killing). But it's not just in self-defense, because God commands Israel to attack and slaughter other nations too, so aggression is also justified.
I can give other examples where commands can contradict one another and where a person has to discern what the righteous action is.
So you reject Augustine, who I understand counts as Orthodox
Individual saints and Church fathers aren't infallible. St. Augustine held a host of problematic beliefs like filioque, inherent guilt, infants going to hell, predestination, abstracted essential Trinitarian model, lack of essence/energies distinction, emphasized institutionalization which led to papalism. He worked in Latin and didn't have access to the Greek fathers which led him to his errors. The Orthodox Church has canonized him but doesn't consider him an authoritative father and he's not part of the dogmatic consensus.
and affirm a doctrine I've traced only to Origen.
No, the position of pastoral flexibility and economic consideration is what St. John Chrysostom and other Eastern fathers held.
I agree there is a time not to tell the whole truth if deception isn't involved, but that time expires when one is asked to testify the whole truth. I don't agree there is ever a time to deceive or mislead and I asked you indirectly who says so.
Sure. Here's Chrysostom:
“For as physicians, though they know many remedies, yet do not employ them all indiscriminately, but according to the condition of the patient, sometimes even deceiving him for his benefit, so must we also act.”
- On the Priesthood, Book I
“It is not the same thing to speak falsely with intent to harm, and to do so to save another from danger.”
- Homilies on Genesis (Homily 44)
Basil:
“The truth is not to be told at all times, nor to all persons, nor in all circumstances.”
- Letter 8 (to Caesaria)
St. Gregory of Nazianzus:
“It is necessary sometimes to deceive in order to benefit, as physicians do with their patients.”
- Oration 40 (On Holy Baptism), §45
St. Ambrose:
“What of deception in war? Is it blameworthy when it brings about victory without bloodshed?”
- De Officiis Ministrorum, Book I, ch. 30
So in this case Origen is correct since he goes along with the consensus. Remember that just because someone was condemned, it doesn't mean everything he teaches is wrong and vice-versa - someone being canonized doesn't make him infallible. Origenism refers to his condemned heretical teachings and not to everything he ever wrote.
On OrthodoxWiki the only relevant topic I get is prelest.
I don't care about what OrthodoxWiki says as if it's some authoritative source. This has nothing to do with prelest.
Correct. The founding fathers were deists and the God they postulated is not the Christian Trinity but the masonic ambiguous deity (let's face it, that's Satan). The idea behind the great US experiment was to create a secular republic based on Enlightenment revolutionary and humanist ideas borrowing from the jewish orchestrated French Revolution and the newfound republic's left (jacobins - communists and illuminists) and right wing (girondins - classical liberals and libertarians) factions of parliament.
Historically, all Christian countries were governed as monarchies with the king and the Church assuming their respective roles of secular and spiritual governance (symphonia)*. This form of government is the direct reflection of the monarchy of the Father in the Trinity and of Christ being the divine King of kings. There are zero mentions of parliaments, presidents and democracy in the Bible but Christians (mostly Protestants) pretend that means nothing. The US is much like pagan Rome with some Christians living in it but it's yet to be truly Christianized.
The greatest jewsh feat was the toppling of the Christian monarchies which they achieved between the French Revolution and WWI. This is the origin of the NWO and this agenda has been disclosed in their Protocols. Then WWII completed the transition and this is when we got NWO proper. What happened next is obvious to everyone with a brain.
*It should be noted that in Christian monarchies, especially in Byzantium, the emperor also held a minor clerical office of a diakonos (deacon which translates to God's servant) which is exactly what Paul writes in Romans 13:4. So yes, monarchy is Biblical, republicanism and democracy is freemasonic and it inevitably leads to fake and gay one world technocratic governance.
Further, no command can contradict another, so if you are faced with an apparent contradiction it is your own failure of discernment
That's false. I can easily refute you by saying you should defend your family (or country) with lethal force if necessary. In this case the command not to kill is contradicted by the command to love and serve your family. Choosing not to kill in this instance could actually be sinful.
You and I denounce Origen, and yet the introduction into Christianity of the thought that Christians have a "right of reserve" to not tell the whole truth is Origenism.
Not at all. You hold the Augustinian position which is the basis for the western Church. But the Eastern fathers agree concealment of truth and even deception is permissible in certain situations (pastoral flexibility) - precisely what Athanasius did in your anecdote.
It doesn't matter. The point is even if they had lied, what matters is the intention because God sees our heart and judges according to it. For example if a man comes to kill your friend you actually have a duty to lie to him and save your friend (supposing fighting is not an option).
The commandments are general rules of behavior but they are not absolute because there are always exceptions. Judging how to apply them correctly requires wisdom and spiritual knowledge. As a general rule we're commanded to love our enemy and to turn the other cheek but that's not always appropriate. Why? Because that may lead to the enemy destroying our loved ones that we have a duty to protect. And yet idiot protestants don't seem able to grasp this line of reasoning somehow but always speak in absolutes. It's like their minds are broken and they can't apply nuance and discernment.
The Greek worshiped their gods. They had temple cults and made sacrifices. The Olympic games were a religious festival which is why it was resurrected by the masonic neo-pagans in the 20th c.
China was religious too. They also had rituals, sacrifices and oracles but unlike the Greek their gods were impersonal. The Emperor was god personified and he was treated accordingly.
That definition exists only in your head. What if secularism itself is the agenda of the day? If I go to work and denounce secularism I'll most likely get cancelled, be called a bigot and a flerfer.
You try so hard to paint yourself and other atheists as victims in todays society as if you don't represent the mainstream ideology. You're like a black lesbian DEI queen complaining about how bad the patriarchy is treating her.
Btw, zionism is a secular socialist movement so you should be cool with it.