Fact and Truth

[Fist and Faith]

It seems self-evident to me that all political action is aimed at forcing - at imposition. If we vote for one thing, and against another, (and if our vote carries real power) then we are imposing a view on a minority, however tiny, that objects. If the vote has no power, but we think it does, then we are still, in our own minds, imposing force. Of course, any actual action taken - the outlawing of this or that, the mandatory requirement of this or that, IS imposing force. So I say that you, and everyone who votes, is one of those who force.

Certainly. If humans live in groups - and it seems we will, at all costs - there must be things that define the group. What common characteristics make it a group in the first place? And what rules will there be that will help the group stay together? And, no matter what we try, there will always be some people who will object to some of those rules. It's a matter of what things, and what kinds of things, we would impose on each other.

One curious thing, though - you seem to think that I would impose Orthodox faith by law. This is simply not true. It is absolutely not true. I think there are only a few issues where I have said that I would impose law. I do think everyone should believe what I believe - that everyone should know what I know - including the part that I want to know more - but I don't think that faith can be legislated. It must be accepted. but a civil society CAN be required to do certain things, or have them forbidden - which is all that I proposed - and that is something quite different from accepting faith. (Accepting faith would help in accepting the ideas tremendously, as the person accepting the faith discovers that they are not gloomy Forbiddings but boundaries that both keep us safe, and allow us to be completely free within them, as parents build fences to protect their children from wandering off and being lost, or being snatched by a pervert. As something good, not evil.)

Let me try this wording... I don't suspect there's any way to force anyone to actually embrace a faith they do not want. How can such a thing be forced? I have no idea if you would do so if it was possible. If you could push a magic button that made all people believe as you do, would you? But there's no such thing, so it doesn't matter. The point is, belief can't be forced. It can't be legislated. (Although we could take all children of non-Orthodox parents, and see that they are raised Orthodox, eh? This is a more evil thing than the magic button, and I feel a pretty safe saying I don't think you would do this if you could.)

But what is possible, and what you want to do, is make laws forbidding those things that your faith says are wrong. In effect, you want to say (if you were king), "You are free to believe what you want. ... Up to a point. Orthodoxy is the real Truth, so if your beliefs would have you do things Orthodoxy does not approve of, you can't do them." When certain situations come up, you'll say, "You want to what? No, I'm sorry, Orthodoxy does not allow that. You can't do it."

Is that imposing Orthodox faith by law? Yes, it is.

[Zahir]

Okay, Fist, I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here (or something like it).

To use an (almost ridiculously) obvious example, it is against Orthodox doctrine to commit murder. Secular law takes the same stance.

Another example, just a tiny bit less obvious. The Greek Orthodox Church maintains it should be allowed the same legal rights in Turkey as enjoyed by Islam. Keep in mind Turkey is a very secular state, albeit with a Muslim majority who generally seem to support legal discrimination against the Orthodox Church. By the standards with which I've grown up, I would say the Church has the right of it--regardless of my own Faith. My guess is you would agree.

But let us look at a more difficult example. The Orthodox Church opposes gay marriage. And yet, no one (at least no one I've heard of) is insisting it accept or recognize gay marriage. Rather, arguments in terms of government and law is the legal, civil recognition of same sex unions. Many Orthodox (and other religious factions) take their stand on moral grounds, viewing homosexuality as a sin that must not receive society's sanction. That this is precisely the identical argument used against inter-faith and inter-racial unions is a coincidence, they claim.

But here is the crux. Aren't those who genuinely feel recognition of same sex union to be harmful obligated to make their case? Other churches at other times took up the cause of the Abolition of Slavery. Should they have stayed silent because they felt that way in part due to their religious views? Or--and this would be my argument--shouldn't they be held to the same standards as anyone else making their case in the public forum?

Along those lines, I find it perfectly valid to criticize anyone who enters into debate and then lies--or stirs up hatred--or simply forbids others to disagree with them--or demands civil law obey one interpretation of one set of religious laws--or who intimidates their opponents, etc. etc. None of these are valid, not in a system that has learned the terrible lesson of what happens when religion and government blend together (i.e. lots of bloodshed, even more cruelty, hardly any civil liberties).

Fist, your words taken literally imply the religious must lose their right to take part in the political process. Methinks it is a much more difficult matter than that. Preserving our hard-won separation of Church and State isn't a formulaic matter of rejecting those who go to Church and take their religion seriously.

On the other hand, I would certain agree that an argument from religious authority simply has no place in a debate about civil law. That it ends up there anyway is one of the very many imperfections with which we must routinely deal. We do our best. We will not absolutely succeed. No one does.

[Fist and Faith]

I'm criticizing and opposing rus' attitudes toward and beliefs about homosexuality, SSM, and various other things; I'm not criticizing or opposing his right to express those attitudes and beliefs. He's free, and more than welcome, to voice his opposition all he wants.

Whether or not this or that becomes a law depends on what kind of society we're in. What principles are the society based on? The one I'm talking about (not necessarily the one I live in, but I can dream) is based on equality and freedom. If no harm is being done, whatever we're talking about would be legal. At its best, if everything came to a vote, even if a majority of the people opposed SSM, they would not vote it illegal, because they had already voted for freedom and equality. "I don't like it, but what I really don't like is limiting freedom and equality."

In this kind of society, as in the current USA, rus has every right to speak out against SSM. He has the right to try to talk everyone into voting against it. That's also part of freedom and equality. Excellent. And, in fact, I think an argument from religious authority has a perfectly legitimate place in the political process. If rus' only criteria for deciding who should rule society and what laws should exist was who is the best interpreter of God's words and what those words are, then that would be his decision. Why should he not want that to be how the world is run?

And I'm also entitled to oppose him. I'm free to say laws like that should be in a society ruled by an Orthodox (or even a more general Christian) government. I'll pick apart his arguments as best I can. I'll try to convince people that freedom and equality are a better way to run society.

Let's see who wins!

[Zahir]

Okay, Fist--that was what I thought you meant. But it wasn't what you said. Or more accurately, it wasn't what you seemed to be saying.

And I agree with you, for the record.

I am frankly opposed to any religious organization gaining control, by any means whatsoever, of the power of the state. Like military juntas, they've proven themselves terrible at the job.

[Fist and Faith]

I don't think it's religious organizations and military juntas that are the problem. It's human beings. Alas, there are always going to be those who want to wipe out others; dominate others; and, generally, inflict harm on others. And, in most places (not the US, but possibly only because we're so young), they've always found ways to grab power. Sometimes in the guise of religion, sometimes other things.

[rdhopeca]

And, in most places (not the US, but possibly only because we're so young), they've always found ways to grab power.

I think we're well on our way here in the last 10 years or so. Not to turn this into a Tank thread, but our reaction to terrorism is most certainly being leveraged in just this way to grab power...

[Fist and Faith]

Yeah, looks possible, don't it? And the terrorists will have accomplished exactly what they wanted. Our way of life will be destroyed. They must be laughing their asses off in those caves.

[Vraith]

Yeah, looks possible, don't it? And the terrorists will have accomplished exactly what they wanted. Our way of life will be destroyed. They must be laughing their asses off in those caves.

Well, if this is so, they'll only be laughing until the U.S. of Crazy Fundies nukes their butts out of existence.

[Avatar]

I am frankly opposed to any religious organization gaining control, by any means whatsoever, of the power of the state. Like military juntas, they've proven themselves terrible at the job.

Unfortunately, the state has proved itself terrible at it too...

You will find that the State is the kind of organization which, though it does big things badly, does small things badly, too.

--A

[DukkhaWaynhim]

I like that quote.

[rusmeister]

they describe something of the human condition and then leap to the conclusion that God has ordained it to be so.

This is simply not true. False, false, false.

Without the texts in front of me, I can't cite specific examples. But rest assured that I found multiple instances of precisely this, in both GKC and Lewis.

(Edit:) I think it best to say, "Bring on the examples" and I'll show that they didn't generally "leap to conclusions". They established something, and having established it, treated it as established. I'd bet that where you saw what you describe, they were not actually making an unfounded jump, but had already established the steps by which they got there. Now certainly, Chesterton was less of a logician than Lewis was. But he hits the most important points at their heart, and cuts through the unimportant ones raised by sophists like tissue paper.

Maybe somewhere you'd even find an actual leap (a rather rare thing in my experience, at least in writings addressed to general - ie, including unbelieving - audiences). I don't claim perfection or omniscience in my favorite modern writers. You could possibly find a mistake. But compared to what they have right, it would be pretty irrelevant. Again, it is the 1,948* facts he has right that outweigh the (what I think to be somewhat less than the) 70-odd you claim to have found.

*I can see the pedant rushing to point out that I claimed a different number above. And that's my point.

I can't tell you what a relief it is to believe in deities who *don't* claim to be omnipotent or omniscient or both. All of these pesky questions about why God does X, Y and Z to his creation, and about free will v. determinism, and (for Western Christianity) how to behave to get into heaven (assuming your name is already in the Book, which is by no means certain in some denominations) -- they're all meaningless if your god doesn't claim absolute dominion over everything.

<snip>

All of those "pesky questions" DO address real questions of humanity not limited to humanity under an omnipotent God. How is it that our thoughts are not merely those of a bewildered ape? How is it that we have a will that is ours at all? I see no reason why a pagan cannot ask these questions just as reasonably as a Christian. Indeed, the question is more "why NOT ask them?" "Why are they pesky?" Since I think Western Christianity got it wrong starting well over a thousand years ago, I don't think it fair to project the ideas developed there onto what I do accept.

Not quite sure what you mean by that last sentence....

Perhaps what I should have said is that pagans might well ask questions about how humans got here, in this form, and why we behave the way we do. The difference is that we don't pin total responsibility for the answers on any one god or goddess.

I'll use, as an example, the debate over free will v. determinism. And I would ask at the outset: PLEASE, I beg of you, do not post your religion's answers to the question here. That is not the point of my example. Please just read to the end. Thanks.

Now then: The Christian God is said to be omniscient. Plus, he lives outside of time, in a way -- he knows what's going to happen in our future, perhaps because he lives every moment in history concurrently. (Or at least I've heard the phenomenon explained to me this way. There are likely other explanations.)

But as soon as you posit a God who knows the future, it immediately begs the free-will-v.-determinism question: if God knows what we're going to do, why bother to give us free will? Do we have free will at all? And so on.

Pagans, otoh, don't have any comparable deities. You've got your riddle-speaking oracular deities, to be sure, and the odd two- or three-faced god (who might be facing into the past and the future, or who might just be facing north and south, who knows? ). But there's nobody, to my knowledge, who claims to know everything, all the time. Even in a pantheon with a head god -- Thor for the Norse, Zeus for the Romans (or was Zeus the Greek guy? I get the names confused...) -- he doesn't claim to know everything that's going to happen. Certainly the Wiccans' Goddess doesn't have the same attributes as the Christian God; omniscience* isn't her bailiwick. So there's no anguish in Paganism over whether humans have free will -- it's clear to Pagans that we do. And anyway, it doesn't matter in terms of eternal salvation because for Pagans, *everybody* goes to the pleasant afterlife. (Well, the Norse have one heaven for warriors and another for everybody else, but neither one equates to the Christian Hell.)

Anyway, that's what I meant by "pesky questions" -- these eternal debates spawned by conflicts inherent in Christian dogma. You just don't have that in Paganism.

*(It just struck me that "omniscience" is "omni" + "science". Which means "science" is "knowledge", yes? Fascinating...)

Hi Ali!

Yes, "science" does mean knowledge. I'd say the problem in our use of it today is that we use the word to mean "the natural sciences" and exclude other forms of knowledge from the concept, thus making that original meaning fuzzy; our modern interpretation, therefore, allows confusion of concepts. I like how Fr Tom (Hopko) said in his Darwin podcasts that what is really meant by "a debate between science and religion" is actually "natural science" vs Christian theology (something else that needs clearing up). Of course, we don't see any conflict between the two, and only need to understand how we ought to relate the two.

As to my last sentence, what I meant is that nearly all understandings y'all have about Christianity are based on what you know of Western Christianity. As I've said before, many things you object to are things we also object to. So regarding the Great Schism, if the Eastern Church is right, and it really was Rome that broke with the other ancient Church centers (which remained Orthodox), then the theology developing in Rome had already gone wrong, in placing the authority of one bishop over all others and sabotaging the collegial form of leadership, leading to all of the ills in Western Christianity - the famous excesses of Roman Catholicism of the Middle Ages - the Crusades, indulgences, later the Inquisition, and of course, the objections to these things (above all indulgences), namely, the Reformation and the very birth of Protestantism and Sola Scriptura - all things a result of wrong theology and world view. The juridical view of sin as crime and punishment was passed on intact from Catholicism to protestantism, and all of the talk and imagery of God as a punishing God as something preserved in the new covenant (testament) is what we grew up surrounded by.
So a constant problem the Orthodox Christian has in speaking with modern westerners is that the latter come with preconceptions of Christianity that don't exist in Orthodoxy, and so when they rightly object to those things that we also see to be wrong (very often dichotomies of "either/or" where we see them as "both/synergy/paradox") but project them onto Orthodoxy - it's about objecting to a Christianity that we don't believe in, either.

On to your comments - having read through to the end and grasping the thesis (lest you think I jump guns)...

It seems to me that pesky questions can be raised in neo-paganism as well - the debates don't exist because (certainly in the West, which is what we are talking about) an intelligent paganism that has existed for millenia and seeks to reconcile the philosophers with the priests; ie, theology, doesn't exist, or perhaps more accurately, hasn't existed. The ancient pagans never developed theology. Free will vs determinism. for instance, is something that developed among thinking people who accepted the proposition of faith, and was hammered out over centuries. Determinism, being the heresy, was actually hammered OUT in the early Church, but resurfaced with Calvinism after the elimination of Church authority which had excluded it.
In neo-paganism, however, the answers to questions(that could be) raised - such as, "if gods are finite beings, then they exist within a pre-existing universe - whence then the universe?" or "Who arranged for this pleasant afterlife that we all go to and why?" - are all new, and certainly not hammered out by large numbers of thinking people over centuries. I would say that modern answers have not been tested by time and the reaction over time of a large body of intelligent thought to ideas is not there (although you could certainly argue that, given half a millennium, they could be there).

That said, I'll add my own comment here:
As to what seems a tricky dillemma - the free will thing vs determinism with an omniscient God - it is actually quite easily resolved to my mind, and this is something else I have said before, is that God is related to this universe more like the way a play is related to its author. A Being completely outside of time is not touched by what would be paradoxes or contradictions if He were in time. Shakespeare is present at the beginning of the play, and the end of the play and at every moment of the play. Knowing is not the same as forcing. The Biblical story of the God telling Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac is a great illustration of this. God KNEW what Abraham would do. It was Abraham that didn't know and needed to learn - needed to be faced with a test that had a real possibility that he would actually kill his own son out of obedience. God didn't need test results - Abraham did.

There's no anguish in Orthodoxy over whether humans have free will -- it's clear to the Orthodox that we do.

[rusmeister]

Compassion is reported to be the theme behind most Christian religions. But its always compassion in the long view. Not saying OCs are this way, but I've come across some super-fundie Christian zealots that are total a$$holes to living people, at the same time they profess their love for the souls within. Their compassion is in the form of the sword -- 'tough love', your soul *will* be saved, whether you want it to be or not... I hope for their religions' sakes that they are misrepresenting their chosen paths.

How to properly exhibit compassion for fellow sinners is a difficult path to walk, since our 'fellow sinners' don't always agree with the earnestly helpful (read 'busybody') Christian that the lives they lead are False, not of-God, and terrible paths toward permanent darkness. Some people just think it's Monday, and have to first be convinced that they are on the brink of total spiritual failure. That's when the Salvation part of the Script(ure) kicks in.

So lets ask some questions that are variations on a theme, but speaking in terms of Facts/Truth:

Is it or is it not a Fact that most (if not all) Orthodox Christians are taught to believe that homosexual acts are acts that are against God's will?

True or False: The Orthodox Church, as with many fundamental / traditionalist Christian institutions (or whatever term you prefer), teaches that homosexual acts are acts that are against God's will?

If the Church does teach this, what is the basis for this teaching? Official Church dogma? Widely held tradition? A Tradition -- (not sure if there is a difference between 't' and 'T' here)?

If the Church does teach this, and there is a citable source for the teaching, is there an explanation given as to the reason why?

If a mod wants to move this post to another, that's fine. These threads seem destined to Voltron together most unsatisfactorily anyway...

dw

Voltron
Sorry about the delay!
One of the problems of posting and real life is that we may be forced to postpone (groan!) our posting or wait for worthwhile answers from others. (I'm still waiting for responses in Doriendor Corishev...)

I think the problem of compassion you raise is a real one, and it exists in any faith that demands compassion as a tenet, and so, you can find it among us Orthodox, too. Perversely, while it does nothing to attract unbelievers, it DOES prove the teachings of the Christian faith regarding us humans and our nature. It is a source of sorrow for us. I believe it was St Seraphim of Sarov who said, "Acquire the Holy Spirit, and thousands around you will be saved". It is our failure as Christians that we give in to sin and selfishness as often as we do, and so hinder the spread of the Gospel. But we can't despair at the fact that 'the Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting - it has been found difficult, and left untried'. We have to keep getting up and trying anyway.

I don't agree with what I draw from your second paragraph, though. It seems to be based on the assumption that sin is not a real problem, a real threat that really is destructive. Today we don't see the connection with our own mortality, be we certainly can see it in every tendency to abuse good things that "are not good for us", that in some way damage our lives, be it alcohol abuse or merely eating too many sweets.

I have already answered the question on homosexuality on other threads, most notably the same-sex marriage thread. It is undeniable that the teaching of the Church, found in Scripture and completely supported in the rest of our Tradition do teach that the homosexual act is contrary to our design (since 'against God's will' tends to be interpreted as the arbitrary whim of an arbitrary higher Being).

www.oca.org/DOCmarriage.asp?SID=12&ID=26

Now you may hold a dogmatic position of your own that disagrees with this (most here do). But certainly, in the context of our worldview, our position is equally as reasonable (right or wrong to your thinking) as the positions held here. It is one that has applied reason to the teachings, that finds that the teachings do make sense, harmonize and are part of an organically holistic worldview. It is NOT "mindless acceptance of what some guys dressed like Neo tell us in order to control our minds and foster bigotry". But I'm largely through trying to convince people of that who will not be convinced no matter what explanations I put forth. The dogmatic assumptions that it cannot be reasonable and must be mind control will not permit any explanation to get through. I'm still waiting for the first person on the Watch to say, "Ok, that IS reasonable, even though I think it's wrong."

[Fist and Faith]

Yes, "science" does mean knowledge. I'd say the problem in our use of it today is that we use the word to mean "the natural sciences" and exclude other forms of knowledge from the concept, thus making that original meaning fuzzy; our modern interpretation, therefore, allows confusion of concepts. I like how Fr Tom (Hopko) said in his Darwin podcasts that what is really meant by "a debate between science and religion" is actually "natural science" vs Christian theology (something else that needs clearing up). Of course, we don't see any conflict between the two, and only need to understand how we ought to relate the two.

I think we need many definitions here. Heh. Fact. Truth. Knowledge. Natural science.

But a big one is "fact." What's the difference between the facts that "There is a force that we call 'gravity'" and "Christ is risen from the dead"? What words best categorize those two kinds of "fact"? The first is verifiable. We've all unintentionally, even unknowingly, verified it every moment of our lives. And we've probably all intentionally verified it many times in our lives. Experimented dropping different things, from different heights, at different locations... And not one of us tries to live in defiance of the fact that gravity exists. To try would be fatal.

The second is not verifiable in any way. I've never heard anyone claim it is, and it certainly isn't in the sense that gravity is. Nobody doesn't believe in gravity, after all. Most who believe that "Christ is risen from the dead" is a fact say it cannot be verified; that, if it could be, it would no longer be a valid part of their religion.

So what is the definition of "fact" that both things fit? And what words more specifically fit each, so that, if someone called another thing by one of these words, we would have a more clear understanding of this new "fact"?

As to my last sentence, what I meant is that nearly all understandings y'all have about Christianity are based on what you know of Western Christianity. As I've said before, many things you object to are things we also object to. So regarding the Great Schism, if the Eastern Church is right, and it really was Rome that broke with the other ancient Church centers (which remained Orthodox), then the theology developing in Rome had already gone wrong, in placing the authority of one bishop over all others and sabotaging the collegial form of leadership, leading to all of the ills in Western Christianity - the famous excesses of Roman Catholicism of the Middle Ages - the Crusades, indulgences, later the Inquisition, and of course, the objections to these things (above all indulgences), namely, the Reformation and the very birth of Protestantism and Sola Scriptura - all things a result of wrong theology and world view. The juridical view of sin as crime and punishment was passed on intact from Catholicism to protestantism, and all of the talk and imagery of God as a punishing God as something preserved in the new covenant (testament) is what we grew up surrounded by.
So a constant problem the Orthodox Christian has in speaking with modern westerners is that the latter come with preconceptions of Christianity that don't exist in Orthodoxy, and so when they rightly object to those things that we also see to be wrong (very often dichotomies of "either/or" where we see them as "both/synergy/paradox") but project them onto Orthodoxy - it's about objecting to a Christianity that we don't believe in, either.

You, yourself, help keep us all confused on this. You object to people dismissing Christianity in general because they find the concept of eternal damnation to be... various things that would put God in a bad light. You say dismissing Christianity in general because of this is wrong, because some kinds of Christianity - most important, Orthodoxy - do not believe in it, either.

Then, you give me a podcast that says there is eternal damnation (Gehenna), even if not all instances of the word "Hell" in the Bible are accurate or acceptable translations of one of a few different words. You confirm what the podcst says, saying that, even though some people may be able to get out of the damnation in which others will spend eternity, those others will be in eternal damnation.

[aliantha]

It seems to me that pesky questions can be raised in neo-paganism as well - the debates don't exist because (certainly in the West, which is what we are talking about) an intelligent paganism that has existed for millenia and seeks to reconcile the philosophers with the priests; ie, theology, doesn't exist, or perhaps more accurately, hasn't existed. The ancient pagans never developed theology. Free will vs determinism. for instance, is something that developed among thinking people who accepted the proposition of faith, and was hammered out over centuries. Determinism, being the heresy, was actually hammered OUT in the early Church, but resurfaced with Calvinism after the elimination of Church authority which had excluded it.
In neo-paganism, however, the answers to questions(that could be) raised - such as, "if gods are finite beings, then they exist within a pre-existing universe - whence then the universe?" or "Who arranged for this pleasant afterlife that we all go to and why?" - are all new, and certainly not hammered out by large numbers of thinking people over centuries. I would say that modern answers have not been tested by time and the reaction over time of a large body of intelligent thought to ideas is not there (although you could certainly argue that, given half a millennium, they could be there).

Why does it have to be a "who" that created the afterlife? Or the universe? I know where you're going with this -- to some Progenitor God/dess. But while some pagan societies do feature creation myths that talk about the beginning (often with a Father Sky lying closely upon a Mother Earth, from whence all the other gods, and the animals and people, are created!), others believe life is cyclical -- and not just for humans (i.e., reincarnation), but for the universe as well. For them, there is no beginning and no ending -- instead, there is a continual cycle of renewal/destruction.

Modern Pagans, by and large, have adopted this idea, evident in their emphasis on the Wheel of the Year, which endlessly cycles from Samhain (Halloween) to Samhain, and in the adoption by some Pagans of a belief in reincarnation. So "Who made the universe?" and "Who created the afterlife?" are more of those pesky questions that don't really compute for a Neopagan. The universe wasn't *created*, per se. It always has been and always will be.

[rusmeister]

It seems self-evident to me that all political action is aimed at forcing - at imposition. If we vote for one thing, and against another, (and if our vote carries real power) then we are imposing a view on a minority, however tiny, that objects. If the vote has no power, but we think it does, then we are still, in our own minds, imposing force. Of course, any actual action taken - the outlawing of this or that, the mandatory requirement of this or that, IS imposing force. So I say that you, and everyone who votes, is one of those who force.

Certainly. If humans live in groups - and it seems we will, at all costs - there must be things that define the group. What common characteristics make it a group in the first place? And what rules will there be that will help the group stay together? And, no matter what we try, there will always be some people who will object to some of those rules. It's a matter of what things, and what kinds of things, we would impose on each other.

It appears, then, that you agree with me on this - or at least, do not contradict me. That makes your concerns about not wanting to have something imposed on you to be merely that you do not want any votes going against what you want. OK. We all feel that way. That doesn't make my position out to be especially heinous, or even more so than your own.

One curious thing, though - you seem to think that I would impose Orthodox faith by law. This is simply not true. It is absolutely not true. I think there are only a few issues where I have said that I would impose law. I do think everyone should believe what I believe - that everyone should know what I know - including the part that I want to know more - but I don't think that faith can be legislated. It must be accepted. but a civil society CAN be required to do certain things, or have them forbidden - which is all that I proposed - and that is something quite different from accepting faith. (Accepting faith would help in accepting the ideas tremendously, as the person accepting the faith discovers that they are not gloomy Forbiddings but boundaries that both keep us safe, and allow us to be completely free within them, as parents build fences to protect their children from wandering off and being lost, or being snatched by a pervert. As something good, not evil.)

Let me try this wording... I don't suspect there's any way to force anyone to actually embrace a faith they do not want. How can such a thing be forced? I have no idea if you would do so if it was possible. If you could push a magic button that made all people believe as you do, would you? But there's no such thing, so it doesn't matter. The point is, belief can't be forced. It can't be legislated. (Although we could take all children of non-Orthodox parents, and see that they are raised Orthodox, eh? This is a more evil thing than the magic button, and I feel a pretty safe saying I don't think you would do this if you could.)

But what is possible, and what you want to do, is make laws forbidding those things that your faith says are wrong. In effect, you want to say (if you were king), "You are free to believe what you want. ... Up to a point. Orthodoxy is the real Truth, so if your beliefs would have you do things Orthodoxy does not approve of, you can't do them." When certain situations come up, you'll say, "You want to what? No, I'm sorry, Orthodoxy does not allow that. You can't do it."

Is that imposing Orthodox faith by law? Yes, it is.

No it isn't. It would not impose any acceptance of faith on your part. It would require you, in public behavior, to toe a particular line, just as a secular one has Christians toe a particular line. The government today DOES say, "I'm sorry, secularism does not allow that." So Christians are evidently also only free to believe what they want up to a point.

It comes down to "there can be only one". The idea that I would expose the lie of is the idea that modern secularism has a place in the sun for traditional Christianity. The two cannot co-exist. The former says that you may believe whatever you want, but what you believe does not reflect an absolute reality that affects all, and therefore may NOT affect what you believe in politics - or nearly anything else outside of your church on Sundays. Your worldview, your view of everything must have no impact on practical daily life - certainly not in school, let alone the ruling of a nation.

[Vraith]

Having done some research and thinking, I'll go at least this far for you, Rus:
In a "holistic" [I must have said on the Watch at least 50 times that I hate that word!] worldview sense, the Orthodox is MORE reasonable, MORE internally consistent, than most of the western variations/heresies/offshoots.
[just an fyi, lot's of orthodox near me, cuz we had tons of immigrants from all the orthodox areas of the world. Hell, the original deed to my house has a notation "Do Not Sell to Italians" cuz they didn't want to be corrupted by Catholics...anyway, just brought it up to say the research wasn't hard, mostly just talking to folks, cuz I have neighbors... Technically, I suppose, my grandmother-in-law is "Lapsed Orthodox"]

I'll even say that, historically speaking, it was [and unlike the Catholics mostly acted like] a reasonable worldview...even valuable, which is more important....at least to me.

But, the primary reason we are having these arguments/conflicts is two-fold: the Orthodox seems more consistent/reasonable because...until recently...they were adaptively reasonable [most of them aren't involved in the "young earth" and "evolution" arguments in the same way as the Western christians, not so much because of "giving in" to science [as wester catholics roughly viewed it would be] but because they [rightly] recognized that, [I know I'm simplifying] it didn't matter, from religious perspective if earth was 6 years, or 6 trillion years old.] But they are no longer adapting.

That's because we've reached a point where we know that some things called "Sin" are not, factually, due to some 'broken' quality in humans...we grew to be as we are, we were not made better, and then became lesser.
We have come to a point where, though the Orthodox dealt with it better before and for a long time, and as I said before:
Science [the right sort] doesn't contradict or attack the 'faith-truth' parts of religion...the fight really is when religion makes fact-truth claims, and will not give them up...not because of insufficient, or unconvincing, or unreliable evidence, but in complete contradiction of any evidence of any kind whatsoever.

And, though I'm not a pagan, I have to mention [sorta backstopping Aliantha] there are many, many reasons why the "pagan dogma" you suggest should exist doesn't: most important being they were murdered by soldiers, christians, and plague for almost 2000 years...second most important being that's just not the kinda thing a real pagan would do very often, sit around debating and writing things down.

[rusmeister]

Having done some research and thinking, I'll go at least this far for you, Rus:
In a "holistic" [I must have said on the Watch at least 50 times that I hate that word!] worldview sense, the Orthodox is MORE reasonable, MORE internally consistent, than most of the western variations/heresies/offshoots.
[just an fyi, lot's of orthodox near me, cuz we had tons of immigrants from all the orthodox areas of the world. Hell, the original deed to my house has a notation "Do Not Sell to Italians" cuz they didn't want to be corrupted by Catholics...anyway, just brought it up to say the research wasn't hard, mostly just talking to folks, cuz I have neighbors... Technically, I suppose, my grandmother-in-law is "Lapsed Orthodox"]

I'll even say that, historically speaking, it was [and unlike the Catholics mostly acted like] a reasonable worldview...even valuable, which is more important....at least to me.

But, the primary reason we are having these arguments/conflicts is two-fold: the Orthodox seems more consistent/reasonable because...until recently...they were adaptively reasonable [most of them aren't involved in the "young earth" and "evolution" arguments in the same way as the Western christians, not so much because of "giving in" to science [as wester catholics roughly viewed it would be] but because they [rightly] recognized that, [I know I'm simplifying] it didn't matter, from religious perspective if earth was 6 years, or 6 trillion years old.] But they are no longer adapting.

That's because we've reached a point where we know that some things called "Sin" are not, factually, due to some 'broken' quality in humans...we grew to be as we are, we were not made better, and then became lesser.
We have come to a point where, though the Orthodox dealt with it better before and for a long time, and as I said before:
Science [the right sort] doesn't contradict or attack the 'faith-truth' parts of religion...the fight really is when religion makes fact-truth claims, and will not give them up...not because of insufficient, or unconvincing, or unreliable evidence, but in complete contradiction of any evidence of any kind whatsoever.

And, though I'm not a pagan, I have to mention [sorta backstopping Aliantha] there are many, many reasons why the "pagan dogma" you suggest should exist doesn't: most important being they were murdered by soldiers, christians, and plague for almost 2000 years...second most important being that's just not the kinda thing a real pagan would do very often, sit around debating and writing things down.

Thanks, Vraith.
Some fair-minded thoughts there!

The two things I would hit on is
1) where you claim that (who?) knew that something was sin and now is not?
and
2) Pagans were writing and debating for at least a millennium before being murdered by soldiers and (people claiming to be) Christians and plague (something that wasn't terribly discriminating in the worldviews of its victims). What they did NOT do was synthesize religion and philosophy, something that theology actually does. One could argue that that could have been a contributing factor to the collapse of paganism, but it is certain that that western paganism did, rather suddenly and completely collapse. I'd say that any revival now is only possible, more than 1,500 years later, due to the divisions and errors in Christianity which contribute to unbelief that have allowed the relatively small neo-pagan movement even to get off the ground. But you'd expect me to defend Chesterton's thesis in "The Everlasting Man" (if you knew what it was) anyway; that should be no surprise.

(If I'm not commenting on your 'Orthodox' comments, it's because you said it pretty well, yourself. I only wanted to pick on those two bones.)

[Vraith]

Very briefly, at least 2 things we can agree on [though if I were gonna go deep we might not agree for same reasons]. The pagans didn't, in the detail/manner I think you mean, connect philosophy with religion.

And, I suspect the broad [though quite shallow for most...not necessarily you, Aliantha] popular awareness of the neo-pagan found its opening because of the failures of western christianity.

I even [and suspect you might agree] think those branches/sects of the neo-pagan that claim connection with the originals...well...they're riding a horse with only one leg. Which isn't to say they're wrong [which I know you WON'T agree with] just that they can't ride it...they have to do the hard stuff themselves.

[rusmeister]

Yes, "science" does mean knowledge. I'd say the problem in our use of it today is that we use the word to mean "the natural sciences" and exclude other forms of knowledge from the concept, thus making that original meaning fuzzy; our modern interpretation, therefore, allows confusion of concepts. I like how Fr Tom (Hopko) said in his Darwin podcasts that what is really meant by "a debate between science and religion" is actually "natural science" vs Christian theology (something else that needs clearing up). Of course, we don't see any conflict between the two, and only need to understand how we ought to relate the two.

I think we need many definitions here. Heh. Fact. Truth. Knowledge. Natural science.

But a big one is "fact." What's the difference between the facts that "There is a force that we call 'gravity'" and "Christ is risen from the dead"? What words best categorize those two kinds of "fact"? The first is verifiable. We've all unintentionally, even unknowingly, verified it every moment of our lives. And we've probably all intentionally verified it many times in our lives. Experimented dropping different things, from different heights, at different locations... And not one of us tries to live in defiance of the fact that gravity exists. To try would be fatal.

The second is not verifiable in any way. I've never heard anyone claim it is, and it certainly isn't in the sense that gravity is. Nobody doesn't believe in gravity, after all. Most who believe that "Christ is risen from the dead" is a fact say it cannot be verified; that, if it could be, it would no longer be a valid part of their religion.

So what is the definition of "fact" that both things fit? And what words more specifically fit each, so that, if someone called another thing by one of these words, we would have a more clear understanding of this new "fact"?

As soon as you say "verifiable", Fist, it seems to me that you are reducing the concept of "fact" to what is fact in the natural sciences. Your example reinforces that. Try ancient history, instead. What is a fact in ancient history? How do we know anything at all? Reports can seem to be supported by an ultimate result we see today, but ultimately, we accept the reports, or we do not. An awful lot is made about the ability to infer facts about ancient Greek life from depictions on a vase, but similar depictions on an icon are rejected because they are connected to supernatural claims. So if I say "It is a fact that ancient Athens had direct democracy" (as if any other kind were actually democracy), on what basis do I do so? Largely on the basis of historical reports, which we accept as true. That's the thing. History is a story - and there are even different stories and different - and contradictory - histories. What is really "verifiable"? And it comes down to believing some authority or other. Even in the natural sciences, you are believing authority on some point or another - unless/until you do all of the work from A to Z yourself. WE have an awful lot of faith in Einstein's theory and evolution on the basis of say-so. (I'm still cheerfully skeptical about the ultimate truth of any scientific knowledge, even though as working hypotheses, they seem to work according to what we (believe we) know now - just like the ancient hypotheses did to the ancients.)

Most people who say that Christ is risen from the dead DO think it has been verified - and believe the reports - although they don't believe that experiments can be performed on the reports any more than you can do with history in general, by and large.

From Merriam-Webster:

Definition of FACT
1
: a thing done: as
a) obsolete : feat
b) : crime <accessory after the fact>
c) archaic : action

2
archaic : performance, doing

3
: the quality of being actual : actuality <a question of fact hinges on evidence>

4
a : something that has actual existence <space exploration is now a fact> b : an actual occurrence <prove the fact of damage>

5
: a piece of information presented as having objective reality
— in fact
: in truth
See fact defined for English-language learners »

The closest to what you seem to be claiming is 3), which refers evidence, although if we accept eyewitness reports as valid, they must be considered evidence - whether we believe it or not.

(Edit:) The concept of school is all about imposing certain thoughts, ideas, and ways of thinking on the young by authority, even how facts and truth are defined and understood. And most of us were schooled before we began thinking.

As to my last sentence, what I meant is that nearly all understandings y'all have about Christianity are based on what you know of Western Christianity. As I've said before, many things you object to are things we also object to. So regarding the Great Schism, if the Eastern Church is right, and it really was Rome that broke with the other ancient Church centers (which remained Orthodox), then the theology developing in Rome had already gone wrong, in placing the authority of one bishop over all others and sabotaging the collegial form of leadership, leading to all of the ills in Western Christianity - the famous excesses of Roman Catholicism of the Middle Ages - the Crusades, indulgences, later the Inquisition, and of course, the objections to these things (above all indulgences), namely, the Reformation and the very birth of Protestantism and Sola Scriptura - all things a result of wrong theology and world view. The juridical view of sin as crime and punishment was passed on intact from Catholicism to protestantism, and all of the talk and imagery of God as a punishing God as something preserved in the new covenant (testament) is what we grew up surrounded by.
So a constant problem the Orthodox Christian has in speaking with modern westerners is that the latter come with preconceptions of Christianity that don't exist in Orthodoxy, and so when they rightly object to those things that we also see to be wrong (very often dichotomies of "either/or" where we see them as "both/synergy/paradox") but project them onto Orthodoxy - it's about objecting to a Christianity that we don't believe in, either.

You, yourself, help keep us all confused on this. You object to people dismissing Christianity in general because they find the concept of eternal damnation to be... various things that would put God in a bad light. You say dismissing Christianity in general because of this is wrong, because some kinds of Christianity - most important, Orthodoxy - do not believe in it, either.

Then, you give me a podcast that says there is eternal damnation (Gehenna), even if not all instances of the word "Hell" in the Bible are accurate or acceptable translations of one of a few different words. You confirm what the podcst says, saying that, even though some people may be able to get out of the damnation in which others will spend eternity, those others will be in eternal damnation.

As I said above:

a constant problem the Orthodox Christian has in speaking with modern westerners...

I never said "there isn't eternal damnation."
First, consider the distinction between Sheol and Gehenna no longer made in the West. We believe that some may be saved from Sheol; we know of no salvation from Gehenna. Thus, what appears to be contradictory in light of the simplistic western understanding of hell proves to be consistent.
For me, Lewis's "The Problem of Pain" was of immense help on that particular subject.

I hope you will indulge the quote - it is only the beginning of the chapter on this particular subject:

IN an earlier chapter it was admitted that the pain which alone
could rouse the bad man to a knowledge that all was not well,
might also lead to a final and unrepented rebellion. And it has been
admitted throughout that man has free will and that all gifts to him
are therefore two edged. From these premises it follows directly that
the Divine labour to redeem the world cannot be certain of
succeeding as regards every individual soul. Some will not be
redeemed. There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove
from Christianity than this, if it lay in my power. But it has the full
support of Scripture and, specially, of Our Lord's own words; it has
always been held by Christendom; and it has the support of reason.
If a game is played, it must be possible to lose it. If the happiness of
a creature lies in self surrender, no one can make that surrender
but himself (though many can help him to make it) and he may
refuse. I would pay any price to be able to say truthfully “All will be
saved". But my reason retorts, “Without their will, or with it?" If I
say "Without their will" I at once perceive a contradiction; how can
the supreme voluntary act of self surrender be involuntary? If I say
"With their will", my reason replies "How if they will nor give in?"

The Dominical utterances about Hell, like all Dominical sayings,
are addressed to the conscience and the will, not to our intellectual
curiosity. When they have roused us into action by convincing us of
a terrible possibility, they have done, probably, all they were
intended to do; and if all the world were convinced Christians it
would be unnecessary to say a word more on the subject. As things
are, however, this doctrine is one of the chief grounds on which
Christianity is attacked as barbarous, and the goodness of God
impugned. We are told that it is a detestable doctrine - and indeed, I
too detest it from the bottom of my heart - and are reminded of the
tragedies in human life which have come from believing it. Of the
other tragedies which come from not believing it we are told less.
For these reasons, and these alone, it becomes necessary to discuss
the matter.

The problem is not simply that of a God who consigns some of
His creatures to final ruin. That would be the problem if we were
Mahometans. Christianity, true, as always, to the complexity of the
real, presents us with something knottier and more ambiguous - a
God so full of mercy that He becomes man and dies by torture to
avert that final ruin from His creatures, and who yet, where that
heroic remedy fails, seems unwilling, or even unable, to arrest the
ruin by an act of mere power. I said glibly a moment ago that I
would pay "any price" to remove this doctrine. I lied. I could not pay
one-thousandth part of the price that God has already paid to
remove the fact. And here is the real problem: so much mercy, yet
still there is Hell.

I am not going to try to prove the doctrine tolerable. Let us make
no mistake; it is not tolerable. But I think the doctrine can be
shown to be moral, by a critique of the objections ordinarily made,
or felt, against it.

from ch 8 "Hell"

An Orthodox explanation for us moderns (this one has a lot of respect in Orthodox circles):
www.stnectariospress.com/parish/river_of_fire.htm

Anyway, seeming contradictions turn out to be either paradoxes or synergy, but coming from the Western "either/or" paradigm, it's hard to get that.

[rusmeister]

It seems to me that pesky questions can be raised in neo-paganism as well - the debates don't exist because (certainly in the West, which is what we are talking about) an intelligent paganism that has existed for millenia and seeks to reconcile the philosophers with the priests; ie, theology, doesn't exist, or perhaps more accurately, hasn't existed. The ancient pagans never developed theology. Free will vs determinism. for instance, is something that developed among thinking people who accepted the proposition of faith, and was hammered out over centuries. Determinism, being the heresy, was actually hammered OUT in the early Church, but resurfaced with Calvinism after the elimination of Church authority which had excluded it.
In neo-paganism, however, the answers to questions(that could be) raised - such as, "if gods are finite beings, then they exist within a pre-existing universe - whence then the universe?" or "Who arranged for this pleasant afterlife that we all go to and why?" - are all new, and certainly not hammered out by large numbers of thinking people over centuries. I would say that modern answers have not been tested by time and the reaction over time of a large body of intelligent thought to ideas is not there (although you could certainly argue that, given half a millennium, they could be there).

Why does it have to be a "who" that created the afterlife? Or the universe? I know where you're going with this -- to some Progenitor God/dess. But while some pagan societies do feature creation myths that talk about the beginning (often with a Father Sky lying closely upon a Mother Earth, from whence all the other gods, and the animals and people, are created!), others believe life is cyclical -- and not just for humans (i.e., reincarnation), but for the universe as well. For them, there is no beginning and no ending -- instead, there is a continual cycle of renewal/destruction.

Modern Pagans, by and large, have adopted this idea, evident in their emphasis on the Wheel of the Year, which endlessly cycles from Samhain (Halloween) to Samhain, and in the adoption by some Pagans of a belief in reincarnation. So "Who made the universe?" and "Who created the afterlife?" are more of those pesky questions that don't really compute for a Neopagan. The universe wasn't *created*, per se. It always has been and always will be.

A question may "not compute", or it may be irrelevant as having already been answered. Any thinking person may ask what explanation a given belief system has for the existence of this universe, and it is an extremely reasonable question.

The assumption of the universe "having always been here" can work for a believing neo-pagan - or atheist, or whoever, of course, but it has a serious objection - everything we observe in the universe is not self-existent. Furthermore, while there is no certainty about the ultimate origin or fate of the universe, most scientific theories work on a definite beginning and posit a definite end. I think that most scientists would therefore reject the idea that this universe has always been here stretching into infinity. Natural science clashing with pagan theology, at least regarding those who hold that view (as it equally would with Buddhist or Hindu views that see an uncaused infinite earth/universe).

So the options for the rest of us go back to either a caused universe, or an uncaused, but finite one. And these are, of course, very old debates, with a lot of thought hammered out over time on both sides.
I think the great advantage to the Judeo-Christian view is that if one accepts mysticism outside the universe - that the universe is a created thing - all the other ducks fall in a row. The finiteness of this universe is explained and makes sense, never mind that of our world. Natural science becomes then, not an antagonist of Christianity, but an ally - something that fits into our worldview and helps us make sense of the natural aspects of our being. I think that same science must question the infinite world/universe view.