I do feel free, and I also feel free to comment and reply.
you used my post to promote yourself
'I only promoted us two as mods after you promoted me as mod when you said, "this place has none active moderators... One solutions could be for you to create your own page and moderate it as well as you can, another would be to call for a community that would visit a forum and place certain people, that you trust, as moderators... If you want to create your own community, I will help with everything that I have. But I suck as a moderator. I can flag things for you, if you want, but I wouldn't want to make the final decisions. If you have an idea for a new commity, you have my full support! Many will benefit from such a place!" "I agree - no moderation in quite some time... Seems like an echo chamber in here... And if we don't fix it, who will?" and "I am an absolute idiot in moderation".'
If my deed is so terrible, then why did you copy it?
I didn't say your promoting yourself was terrible. And I didn't say your copying yourself 11 times in 65 seconds was terrible, it was then calling me out for replying to boilerplate with boilerplate that was self-unaware. As if you didn't "spam me to oblivion" first.
Don't ever bother me again, you selfish parasite!
If you use the "block" function you won't see it when I feel compelled to community-note any false statements you make. If you don't use the "block" function then you have only yourself to thank for being bothered.
Correct. Those satanic Jews and their Gentile partners could be called the "depths of satan", not the "synagogue of satan". Jesus mentioned this to show that all enemies are eventually irrelevant and will bow with equal swiftness, I thought you'd appreciate how fast and decisively it happened there. Our enemy flees whenever resisted, he's been losing ground for millennia and not gaining it.
Jesus said they were not Jews so they were Gentiles. Jesus said they called themselves Jews and were organized so somehow the lie that they were Jews was current and he implies it was easily exposed. This implies they were physically uncircumcised as well as not in him spiritually. Ignatius says that the schism in exactly that city included Gentiles who preached Judaism; that's Judaizing, which usually includes circumcision but in this case got an exception. That would be typical as being one of the Simonian-to-Valentinian movements of the day. Ignatius said there were also Jews preaching Christianity without Christ; those are unbelieving circumcised Jews, which are not the ones Jesus speaks of, because he speaks of those in the church and not those outside. So the synagogue of satan were Gentile church members who called themselves Jews and counted themselves in the church but rejected the leaders' authority and excluded real Christians from their nominal "Christ" meetings which they called a "synagogue". Jesus said they would worship at the church's feet, and Ignatius implies that some of them did repent and accept his teaching, while others were baffled even as they continued arguing with him. Therefore the "synagogue" did not remain after the providential preaching and lecturing of Ignatius. That's the story.
The synagogue of satan today, if allegory means anything, is people in the church who do not believe it and who proclaim it to need a direction and organization that they cannot offer in truth.
If you call yourself an American Christian patriot on X and you're from Bangladesh, you're a patriot of satan by Jesus's metaphor, pretty simple.
When we get to the church being influenced by outsiders importing porn and pharmacy and transhumanism Jesus calls that the depths of satan instead. Different enemy attack.
If you do, I and all Rangers live rent-free in your mind.
"Origination and sending without begetting or procession or spiration": Yeah, it's over semantics. For a couple people it wasn't and they were heretics, and God knows who they are. For the rest, I won't argue the size of hypernormative connection. (And my larger point is that all schisms that remain might well be over semantics, as there will be a final resolution for each and it will be either semantics or one size being defined out forever. You do want the Filioque resolved, don't you?)
you don't have a Church and tradition
No, you! I might say. I asked the difference, you didn't give an answer I comprehended and ultimately deferred the answer to authority, that's where it stands. Another pass on OrthodoxWiki doesn't find anything supporting "The True Church". If the mark of "The True Church" is that it does treat other professing churches as hypernormative, well it seems Rome has that mark too (and again it's just semantics about size).
BTW there's no evidence Origen or Tertullian were excommunicated. Origen made big errors but the church was too polite to him to name him in their anathema against his errors. Tertullian reformed Montanism (Tertullianism) to bring it back to Christianity and was a great pontifex.
I follow it a 100%.
That's fine, you don't have to believe me when I doubt it's 100% and I provide evidence, you're responsible for the evidence you've received.
Worship the One Jew. Say His Name. You deny Jesus every time you deflect from him.
exceptionally bored AI
You didn't use to sound like this.
You and Will have the same MO. Devoid of personhood, merely being inspired to respond to stimuli, staying insulated. Either the imago Dei lives or it dies, you choose.
Uncircumcised in both.
Say His Name. You deny Jesus every time you deflect from him. Worship the One Jew.
I was making light, but I agree in essence: I've said all along that calling it something like "origination and sending without procession or spiration" is just argument over the same thing with different definitions applying.
exceptions where there's good reason
Yes, and that reason is judged two ways, either by God (where we can't argue the size of the exception) or by human reason (where we'd be at risk of wanting to second-guess his good reasons).
This is not the case with Protestants today,
The latter of the ways of judgment.
who have access to the Church but choose not to come to it out of their own volition and because they persist in their heterodox teachings.
All I have to do is invert. Our Church and Tradition judges that we have apostolic succession through Luther and that the Eastern Church are the heterodox by not agreeing with Luther when they had and have access (he tried!); and Eastern claims to the contrary have already been proven wrong by our tradition, even if it sounds silly and illogical to them and we don't explain it very well, because our tradition is The True Church. You see how it doesn't work in the reverse direction, and why I don't think it works in your direction either?
Which is why I say feel free to keep the theology of "exceptions for good reason" and be prepared to be called on any variances from that theology.
We need a new name, Orthodox Protestant Catholics (paragraph 6 here). Then we can drop the "Protestant" part when Rome apologizes and we'd be back to exactly the primitive name, Orthodox Catholics.
Not offended, disappointed; and, in this context, not your language, a different fren's language whom I know knows better.
What do you want us to do about crime and pornography that we can do today? Do you want to check my pale stash? Seems to me that by affirming right speech we inform right art and right behavior.
Yep because it's gentiles who gather in synagogues who reject Jesus Christ.
Actually yes! That's precisely what Ignatius describes. Jesus wasn't referring to all synagogues, but a new practice in two cities. Ignatius makes clear they were uncircumcised Judaizers, and reading between the lines of Ignatius implies they asked the local Jews if they'd have permission to be called a "synagogue", and so they ended up being called "Jews" too by these liberal birth Jews who broke the tradition of every other Jewish community in the world. If Jesus said something like "all synagogues are of satan" that would be different, but he said this "synagogue" was of satan implying others weren't. Basic logic and basic history.
Welcome. You deny Jesus by running from his name when called on to say it. Say the Name.
You reflexively quoted "109" when the list only had many repeated countries and overlapping regions on 109 lines and was taken from a list of only 81 expulsions in 22 countries and a few regions. That undercuts your ability to criticize Jews accurately. If you'd said "(Grosser's 81 expulsions)" you'd bolster your case instead.
Site sabotage is everywhere and logs (and this week's news) show it's from all kinds of countries. I always upvote lists of Jews and shabbos goyim with good rubrics; but I tell people "it's the satanists", because that's theologically true and they don't care what nationality you are because they'll smear you by association with whatever human-shield nationality is convenient for them. The obsession is real but doesn't come from a human bond like ethnicity but a transcendent satanic one. Yes, the cabal has worked spiritually for millennia, but so has God and his plan and network is better and it always works.
Jews, Christians, Muslims, and satanists all have as a core eschatology the triumphalist view that unrepentant unbelievers become subservient. The Jewish view of the present day is similar to the American view of going to Walmart and commanding the purchase of things from the labor of over 100 countries. Perhaps the issue is that Christians are the weakest at asserting their triumphalist eschatology.
Theologically I cannot accede to a narrative where any subgroup of satanists was gifted complete control over our lives. We have complete control, we offered some consents, and we can withdraw any consent anytime. If you want to Name The Jew, do it For Real by accurate statement and elite research, and without dooming, or you look like a Jewish shill who is making anti-Semitism look stupid. Accuracy will eventually get all the satanists.
Uh, Gentiles in the sense not Jews. Ignatius describes them as uncircumcised Judaizers.
First, he wasn't talking about anyone in context other than Smyrna and Philadelphia. Second, if his words are applied to others, the pattern must be the same: Ignatius showed the issue was Gentiles (non-Jews) proclaiming Judaism (Judaizing), but the Khazars converted and stayed Jews for centuries before their Khazar polity disappeared, so they were really Jews.
If you say the Khazars lied for centuries and didn't believe the Judaism they lived and died in, this gives Jews the right to say American Christians lie and are neither Christians nor Americans, because the outsiders know better what the real experience is than the insiders.
In fact, you're trying to be Jewish yourself: you're culturally appropriating the only-Jewish practice of deciding what a Jew is.
The canard goes around and around, at first I asked for sources but nobody had or admitted any. It's clearly a conspiracy and psyop. Thanks Joe, you've given me the ability to compare anti-Khazars with flat earth and Mormonism: they all argue for a "fun" narrative in spite of any facts and have no interest in the truth but only the feels of sticking with the narrative. All I need for total ridicule is some good naming and meming. Thank you for continuing your buffoonery to the point where it may explode in the whole subversive movement's face. Hmm.
American can decide Jews aren't Jews? :)
Jews can decide Americans aren't Americans? :(
Will work on it! "Othering" isn't strong enough.
So God can unite people to the Church extranormatively outside the rituals and Orthodox worship and we can't bound his ways. Thanks. Then you do feel qualified to explicate that answer, and we'd be better off just not arguing about the size of the exception.
But you don't feel qualified to answer about conscience from your own being born or catechized into Orthodoxy, you refer me to the bishop. Got it.
("Christ sent the Spirit"? Sounds like filioque to me! What is this change?)
Protestants worship the self, their own head and not Christ.
But there it sounds like you know for certain that all Protestants are disconnected from extranormative unity. That sounds like arguing over the size of the exception, that's all.
When I investigated the question of conscience I concluded that two professing Christ who agree they disagree on an essential (i.e. where at least one is not in communion with the other) do not get to judge each other. The division is from the Lord, to show which of you are approved. If they agree it shows they're both approved, if either goes bad it shows he is disapproved, if either dies in the separated state approval will be shown by the later direction of the movement living (ultimately reuniting) or dying. I see nothing that commends one side over the other: not succession, not titles, not size, not depth, not tradition, not hierarchy, not even appeal to logic as humans experience it. Only the Logos can show it and he waits patiently to do so, often by other means than human formality.
Now that tested conclusion pits me against churches that say we have not only unique distinctives but also an automatic superiority (the thing Rome got in trouble for in fact). "We are #1 in humility." Each distinctive has its own commendation, like a name only the bearer understands, and so if anything has a "superiority" they all do in their own ways. The argument "who is greatest" is ultimately answered by God showing all his children are greatest in their own different way as he ordained, as we humbly realize the imago Dei in everyone.
That may be enough to roll with. Since you exposit Kallistos, I can limit the issue to whether you seem to weaken that exposition separately. Someday I will interview both Orthodox and Catholic to see if their claims have some compatibility with each other, because for every appeal you make a Catholic has made the same appeal. Protestants typically reject "sheep-stealing" and so I generally stick with where my family grew up because I have vital connection. If someone says I must lose something I have in Christ to join their church, that's suspicious, and my perception of what is loss must be tested as well as their own perception of gain.
Jesus said the synagogue of satan were not Jews. Read the link. He was referring to Gentiles.
There is no credible theory that we get to say today's "Jews" are not Jews, or else they'd have the right to say "Americans" are not Americans.
I remember it, I was wondering if you would accept my "suggestive sale closing" reference to it. The fact that you're talking to me suggests that you're ready to affirm you pursue the truth at all costs, so I'd like to hear that in your words, because I think it would be good for you and for others.
What does "largely overlap" entail?
What you said, Scripture is part of Tradition.
For the last time: You don't have a standard against which to judge what the correct interpretation of both scripture and tradition is.
Exactly, only God does.
If one protestant believes in baptism and the other doesn't when both appeal to their interpretation of Scripture, how do you arbiter this?
Any number of ways. (1) It doesn't need to be arbitrated anytime soon, they continue in separate polities. (2) They negotiate an agreement together or with a mediator. (3) One unilaterally yields either by submission or by enfolding. Same as in your church if two people of equal standing disagree BTW.
You imply that separation is a problem because of an assumption something like there's only one Church organization on earth. Not proven.
Tradition exists externally in the Church which keeps it.
Then it's writing to be interpreted, or lives that are dynamic and capable of adjustment. Neither of those are absolute like God is.
It doesn't exist externally in your system where very denomination or Bible reader makes up their own tradition by deconstructing and reforming what came before.
What I said.
It is self-worship guised as Christianity.
You'd be surprised what reliance on tradition becomes (as you understand it, or as any mere human understands it)! Worshipping only God means leaning on him to teach not assuming we have the whole teaching accessible by human methods.
Protestantism is at its core satanic because it appeals to man and not God (the Church being His Body and His Spirit) as the authority.
Well, you're free to keep me excommunicated, I did offer to seek catechesis, I'll just have to ask the next Orthodox. I'm not kidding either. Soon as we get over this hump of understanding authority, the rest is a downhill 3-year period. But I learned from Luther it is never safe or right to go against conscience. If I leave my conscience outside the door, that's the only place I can go back and get it if I ever need it!
I told you I appeal to God. Of course I appeal to the Body of Christ within that; I appeal to the Spirit who reveals; I appeal to the Word of God; I appeal to any special appearance the Father yields. (I don't have the Church being his Spirit, Orthodoxy teaches it's the dwelling of his Spirit.) When you tell me I'm satanic because I don't appeal to the Orthodox Church the Spirit of God, that's pressing it pretty far, your bishop might say.
I can be a protestant and deny all previous traditions while interpreting Scripture in the most schizo way possible and you still wouldn't be able to tell me that I'm wrong and I'm not the Church.
Of course I can tell you you're wrong, but I can't force you to see it any more than I'm telling you I think you're wrong now and you don't see it. If the Orthodox Church told you you were wrong and you disagreed, you'd be out of there. (Or else perhaps you swore to always agree with whatever the bishop tells you even if he abuses his power because he's the bishop.) Orthodoxy doesn't solve the problem of people being wrong either. People who think they're the Church either work it out with others who think they're the Church (proving they are) or they don't forever (proving they're not). Simple.
TLDR: You're free to proceed any way you like. If you think I might be worth a little more of your evanglistic effort, we might try again with how catechesis works. How do I submit to the bishop or catechist, what's being asked of me, what do I do with my conscience? We might also work on those two positions I identified. Is Metropolitan Kallistos right to say "We know where the Church is but we cannot be sure where it is not"? Is Theophan the Recluse right to say "Christ is here, in our Orthodox Church, and He is not in any other church"? Orthodox disagree interpreting those two! If you don't want to answer my questions, it's been enlightening, but brothers seeking truth together ought to be able to get past a little hiccup like my talkativity.
I too have been banned from that page, where rent-free memes are catalogued against me. So I put them on my SwampRangers earned media page, where anyone can contribute civilly.
Obviously the conspiracy is that the cabal is using dedicated irrational accounts to prevent the spread of fairness and transparency. Every account that refuses to observe the rules as an honor code is liable to being considered as doing the enemy's work.