@@IsraelCountryCube what do you mean? Are you Christian or for Spinoza?

that is a contradiction. The assertion that God is beyond intellect and cannot be intellectually grasped raises several issues. If something is entirely beyond logic it becomes impossible to affirm any attributes or existence of that thing, including calling it “God”. Comparing God to a wisp of cloud is intellectual.

@@byzantineapologetics I am using language to try to point toward something that is beyond language because that is all we have besides the experience of it. You obviously have had no direct experience of it. If you lived in a desert all your life, had only seen water as rain and maybe small streams and I said there are vast bodies of water called "oceans" and tried to describe the sea, calm and seemingly endless at times, with great waves and rolling water, of nearly infinite creatures that dwelt in it and amazing coastlines and inlet's, etc etc, you would have no reference point whatsoever to begin even to form a conception of what I was talking about. Only when you saw it, swam in it and explored it a bit would the words have any meaning. Thousands of books have been written about the experience of connection to God, great and small, and still they cannot give you the experience. All they can do is point to something. Spinoza only had it half right. What we call "God" is immanent completely yet transcendent simultaneously but also intensely personal. It's intelligence, grace and capacity to run this place is unfathomable. We swim in the ocean of it. As Kabir said "Kabir laughs when the fish in the ocean says it is thirsty." Vedanta is the one of the only great philosophies that gets it all. Here is a great example of "samadhi", (high peak state of connection-immersion). by one of the greatest yogic masters of the 20th century). the Autobiography of a Yogi is free online at crystal clarity website. when I read it 55 years ago, it seemed like science fiction. Now I have lived in those years 80% of it, including great miracles. "In 1915, shortly after I had entered the Swami Order, I witnessed a vision of violent contrasts. In it the relativity of human consciousness was vividly established; I clearly perceived the unity of the Eternal Light behind the painful dualities of maya. The vision descended on me as I sat one morning in my little attic room in Father’s Gurpar Road home. For months World War I had been raging in Europe; I reflected sadly on the vast toll of death. As I closed my eyes in meditation, my consciousness was suddenly transferred to the body of a captain in command of a battleship. The thunder of guns split the air as shots were exchanged between shore batteries and the ship’s cannons. A huge shell hit the powder magazine and tore my ship asunder. I jumped into the water, together with the few sailors who had survived the explosion. Heart pounding, I reached the shore safely. But alas! a stray bullet ended its furious flight in my chest. I fell groaning to the ground. My whole body was paralyzed, yet I was aware of possessing it as one is conscious of a leg gone to sleep. “At last the mysterious footstep of Death has caught up with me,” I thought. With a final sigh, I was about to sink into unconsciousness when lo! I found myself seated in the lotus posture in my Gurpar Road room. Hysterical tears poured forth as I joyfully stroked and pinched my regained possession-a body free from any bullet hole in the breast. I rocked to and fro, inhaling and exhaling to assure myself that I was alive. Amidst these self-congratulations, again I found my consciousness transferred to the captain’s dead body by the gory shore. Utter confusion of mind came upon me. “Lord,” I prayed, “am I dead or alive?” A dazzling play of light filled the whole horizon. A soft rumbling vibration formed itself into words: “What has life or death to do with Light? In the image of My Light I have made you. The relativities of life and death belong to the cosmic dream. Behold your dreamless being! Awake, my child, awake!.... As I finished writing this chapter, I sat on my bed in the lotus posture. My room was dimly lit by two shaded lamps. Lifting my gaze, I noticed that the ceiling was dotted with small mustard-colored lights, scintillating and quivering with a radium like luster. Myriads of pencilled rays, like sheets of rain, gathered into a transparent shaft and poured silently upon me. At once my physical body lost its grossness and became metamorphosed into astral texture. I felt a floating sensation as, barely touching the bed, the weightless body shifted slightly and alternately to left and right. I looked around the room; the furniture and walls were as usual, but the little mass of light had so multiplied that the ceiling was invisible. I was wonder-struck. “This is the cosmic motion picture mechanism.” A voice spoke as though from within the light. “Shedding its beam on the white screen of your bed sheets, it is producing the picture of your body. Behold, your form is nothing but light!” I gazed at my arms and moved them back and forth, yet could not feel their weight. An ecstatic joy overwhelmed me. This cosmic stem of light, blossoming as my body, seemed a divine replica of the light beams streaming out of the projection booth in a cinema house and manifesting as pictures on the screen. For a long time I experienced this motion picture of my body in the dimly lighted theater of my own bedroom. Despite the many visions I have had, none was ever more singular. As my illusion of a solid body was completely dissipated, and my realization deepened that the essence of all objects is light, I looked up to the throbbing stream of light and spoke entreatingly. “Divine Light, please withdraw this, my humble bodily picture, into Thyself, even as Elijah was drawn up to heaven by a flame.” This prayer was evidently startling; the beam disappeared. My body resumed its normal weight and sank on the bed; the swarm of dazzling ceiling lights flickered and vanished. My time to leave this earth had apparently not arrived. “Besides,” I thought philosophically, “the prophet Elijah might well be displeased at my presumption!” This is the best I can do to even try to give you ax sense of it.

@@valinorean4816 good question. The principal of causality can answer the question on whether or not the universe is eternal. I would suggest reading The Kalam Cosmological Argument by William Lane Craig. I will try to summarize it as best I can but Like this video fails to do, a complete understanding of a deep philosophical problem. If the universe were eternal, it would imply an infinite temporal regress of events. Philosophically, an actual infinite series of events (an infinite regress) is problematic and paradoxical. An eternal universe would require traversing an infinite number of past events to reach the present moment, which is logically incoherent because an actual infinite cannot be traversed. I think this means that if you are consistent with this worldview, god must be self caused but, there is a problem if god/nature is self caused. Self causation implies that something (god/universe) causes itself to exist. To say that God is self caused means that God would have to bring himself into existence in some way. For something to be self caused, it must exist and not existed at the same time. Let me explain, if God is self caused then he would have to exist to cause himself, but he would also have to not exist in order that he be caused. It is logically impossible for an entity to exist and not exist at the same time. There’s more arguments if you’re interested, I am interested in Spinoza and I have read his work, however, I don’t think he is consistent.

@@byzantineapologetics "Philosophically, an actual infinite series of events (an infinite regress) is problematic and paradoxical. An eternal universe would require traversing an infinite number of past events to reach the present moment, which is logically incoherent because an actual infinite cannot be traversed." - Wait, let's say there is a parallel Universe that is just quiet empty space with no matter (i.e. just vacuum, purer than intergalactic void), existing forever, just "sitting there"? Then it is eternal into the past without any inconsistency?.. One can give other examples, for example here is an explicit cosmological model with eternity of matter (circumventing physics arguments of Craig's Kalam, they are simply not watertight, so I'm asking about philosophical arguments): callidusphiloDOTcomSLASH2021SLASH04SLASHcosmologyDOThtmlHASHTAGGoldberg - what's wrong with that? And obviously something eternal (God or Universe) does not have a cause, in particular it's not self-caused.

@@byzantineapologetics "Philosophically, an actual infinite series of events (an infinite regress) is problematic and paradoxical. An eternal universe would require traversing an infinite number of past events to reach the present moment, which is logically incoherent because an actual infinite cannot be traversed." - Wait, let's say there is a parallel Universe that is just quiet empty space with no matter (i.e. just vacuum, purer than intergalactic void), existing forever, just "sitting there"? Then it is eternal into the past without any inconsistency?.. One can give other examples, for example there is an explicit cosmological model with eternity of matter on the rationalwiki page for William Lane Craig (reference [18] to be specific) - his physics arguments are simply not watertight, so I'm asking about philosophical arguments; what's wrong with that? And obviously something eternal (God or Universe) does not have a cause, in particular it's not self-caused.

@@valinorean4816 there is no empirical evidence or scientific model that suggests the existence of such a universe. The principal for sufficient reason states that everything that exists must have an explanation for its existence. While an eternal universe could exist without a temporal beginning, it’s still requires an explanation for its contingent properties and why it is structured in a certain way. This points to a necessary being. I’m not gonna go down a rabbit hole because of the model fallacy.

@@byzantineapologetics In that paper it suggests a model and how it explains some otherwise puzzling empirical data. (Also you said "model fallacy" - what's that? What does that mean?) How do you know the Universe itself is not a necessary being? Let's say (one possibility out of many) that the idea that to exist as a possibility is simply to exist - "modal collapse" - is true, then every possible consistent Universe like ours exists - necessarily, and therefore eternally? How do you know that this is false, for example?

Stigmata weren’t recorded in the first thousand years of the church, so that’s something quite new and foreign to the Orthodox. I also take issue with the idea that Padre Pio’s body is incorrupt - it’s not. It was chemically preserved but still deteriorated. A mask covers his partially decomposed head. The air inside the transparent coffin was also replaced with nitrogen to prevent further deterioration of the body. His supposedly incorrupt relics have been used by some as an apologetic argument for the validity of Catholicism. I take issue with that, since it’s based on a falsehood, just a everything else with the heretical Latins.

The only schismatic here is you.

@@klausdalang4936 EO church is

@@lordrevan57 I’m aware of the Mormon doctrine. Yes you are, the mormons have 3 gods. You can find this information on the Mormon website or talk to your local Mormon missionaries, if they teach something different They aren’t Mormon.

@@heberfarnsworth 💀

@@heberfarnsworth if they are not one entity how does the Son derive his relation from the father, and the spirit, etc. and how do you get around Divine simplicity? I assume you reject that too. Mormon 💀

@@heberfarnsworth do they have different essences?

@@byzantineapologetics i’m not sure that term is well-defined. What kind of disagreements are you thinking could exist among the members of the Godhead? If they are all-knowing then they can’t really disagree about what is the best thing to do in a particular circumstance, right?

@@byzantineapologetics I was only commenting on the logic in your video. Didn't mean to offend. I don't really understand your point about divine simplicity, or perhaps I don't understand what that term means. Isn't the relation between the Father and the Son the same as between any father and their son? If not, then why would the scriptures use the terms "Father" and "Son" if the relationship is different?

@@XD_.. i plan to. It is Nestorian in it’s traditional understanding. Such a weird concept.

@@byzantineapologetics nice

@@Madokaexe unitarianism? I would say that it is on par with this heresy. I have one video about how it does not work either.

I’m not familiar with that one. Is that the one where Jesus the Father and the Spirit are the same thing but different forms?

@@crabbowiththestabbo yes. However there’s differences between each sect

@@byzantineapologetics ok, because I’ve heard of modalism. I think it’s basically the same heresy.

@@yossarian_lives they don’t to go back to rome. They need to return to the Catholic Church

It is comical to see your story about joining heretical Rome and alleged "wonders" you experienced, but at the same time using Jesus' prayer that is purely - Eastern Orthodox.!

@@johnnyd2383 sigh, it's to clearly show that I listened to every side at the beginning, and the Holy Spirit lead me to the original faith

@@Elven. If so.. Enjoy being a complicit in blessing of the Sodom & Gomorrah (i.e. same sex couples). Remember that Holy Spirit leads ppl to the Truth and not to the lies.

i’m hearting your comment because of how ignorant it is 🥰

@@byzantineapologetics The ignorance is yours. Paul of the Epistles praises and encourages several woman church leaders. The early church seems to have had no problem with these. Timothy 1 and 2 were certainly NOT written by Paul and diatribe in this video is based on false ideas of what the Bible says, especially Paul.

Thank you for affirming you are against Nicene Christianity 🥰

@@byzantineapologetics So, there are different 'types' of Christianity. What does the Nicene Creed say about women leadership, exactly?

​@@StudentDad-mc3pu You have any actual evidence for anything you're saying?

The Father = God The Son = God The Spirit = God The Father ≠ The Son The Son ≠ The Father The Father ≠ The Spirit The Spirit ≠ The Father The Son ≠ The Spirit The Spirit ≠ The Son

But if Nature/God is simply eternal, has always existed, didn't come from nowhere, then what's the problem? Can you prove matter is not eternal, for example? This seems to be a premise of this argument!

@@valinorean4816 why do you have to comment three times bruh

@@thelifeofcole8755 Sorry. But can you respond tho?

@@valinorean4816 he already destroyed your argument in his comment. Your counter argument is just repeating the same thing you already said

@@thelifeofcole8755 I literally gave a concrete example of a cosmological model with eternity of matter, how is this repetition of the same, and how did he destroy it?..

Of course you shouldn’t go to rome, Constantinople is much better lol. All jokes aside, it is sad to see the ELCA specifically fall into this. If I had to be protestant I would definitely be Lutheran I understand where you’re coming from.

You don't need female pastors, you need to return to the church that held the Council of Nicaea, the Catholic Church, not the protestant church.

@@marchelomanchev5317 I will look into it, right now I am reading and working on a video about the EED

@@byzantineapologetics god bless brother I hope you refute it

@@crabbowiththestabbo Really? not according to Paul.

@@StudentDad-mc3pu According to Paul also, you egalitarian innovator. ESSEPCIALY PAUL.

It didn't happen at all until francis of assisi in the east or the west for over a thousand years

look up the 2018 Moscow-Constantinople schism. "Orthodoxy" is not even one church.

@@Sam0Mahn whats the problem? The constantinople patriarch is proclaiming himself as above the other patriarchs

@@JurandirPERICULOSO The issue is that there is a break in communion between the Russian church and the Constantinopolitan/Greek church, i.e. "Russians on vacation in Greece can not go to church on Sunday." This destroys the myth of "one orthodox church." Also, a patriarch being above the other patriarchs is the Papacy.

​@@Sam0Mahn This is something that has happened multiple times within Christian History. It is a break in Communion due to a Canonical Dispute. Not because one party or another has fallen into Heresy. Both sides are in Communion with Jerusalem, Serbia, Antioch, Bulgaria, the OCA and Georgia.

@@Sam0Mahn Not sure if you are over exaggerating or not, Russians are still allowed to pray in a Greek church, they are just not allowed to take communion.

@@franknwogu4911 he recanted his beliefs before he died, he was anathematized before that. Read the book.

@@byzantineapologetics What document confirms this?

Cyril Lucaris denied ever authoring the supposed "Confession" on several occasions when asked by the Synod of Constantinople. And he is Venerated because he is 1. A Martyr and 2. A fervent opponent of the Unia.

You rejected Christ when you broke off of us in 1054. anathema to you, heretic and blasphemer.

That’s correct. Many times did Rome offered the east to unify. The best case was the ecumenical council of florence which was attended by the byzantine emperor, patriarch of Constantinople, and representatives of each patriarchate. All fathers of the east and west together with the pope signed the bull of union except one. And the east rejected what was given by the church. The eastern orthodox doesn’t have an excuse what was handed down to them by a council

@@byzantineapologetics My sibling in Christ, Don’t you realise how harmful it is to your evangelization when you defile the other living faithful with names like heretic and blasphemer? Don’t you realise how harmful it is to Anathematize your enemies instead of praying for them, like God willed? God does not want you to Anathematize others; rather, he wants you to forgive and to be full of compassionate and full of endless mercy like his son on Earth. My sibling, understand that even through his harsh tongue, he speaks the truth: The Roman Catholics did not enter schism; it was the Greeks. The true root origins of the Eastern Orthodox Church came from this separation, the very same separation attributed to the pride of the formal Patriarch of Constantinople, Photius. Know that this very same Photius, at the time, was only a layman who was unfamiliar with ecclesiastical studies, he lacked the virtues of a Saint. It was through his ambitions to gain power, he found out that Saint Ignatius, a virtuous and holy man, was deposed from his position under Byzantine Emperor Michael III for mere political reasons. Photius longed to take his place. In his excommunication, Saint Ignatius again and again corrected the errors of Photius. Photius’ lust for power wasn’t eased there; he left the Office of Secretary and, in only six days, was ordained acolyte, subdeacon, deacon, priest, bishop, and finally patriarch by Gregory Asbetas, a person who lived in heresy. After unlawfully obtaining his position, Photius withdrew all of his relations with the pope and became distant from the West. He knew that if the West discovered his actions, they would hold him accountable. Despite Photius’ efforts to keep his position, he was revealed for his true intentions and properly excommunicated and deposed by Pope Nicholas I. In return, Photius excommunicated the entire Roman Church. Through the efforts of Byzantine Emperor Basil I, Saint Ignatius was restored as patriarch. But through the governing of Basil I, Photius reobtained his position as patriarch when Saint Ignatius died and the east and the west signed an agreement to prevent schism. But Photius did not learn from his errors; he never did, and so he was deposed and excommunicated by the Pope yet again. Time came to pass. His successor, Cerularius, had the same ambition and lust for power. Cerularius fought with the Roman Pontiff, Pope Leo IX, over the same errors that the confused Photius conceived; he fought against the filioque and rivalled papal supremacy. Because of the errors of the Patriarch, the Pope’s envoys issued a bill of excommunication, Cerularius, leading to the Great Schism. The west tried and tried to make reforms with the east, even holding two ecumenical councils in the hopes of reuniting with their astray brothers. In both councils, the Eastern Orthodox gave into the demands of the Catholics, even coming to accept the doctrines and beliefs of papal supremacy, the filioque, purgatory, and the Catholic Nicene Creed. The Greeks later came to reject this. Not long after the Council of Florence, when the Ottomans conquered the Byzantine Empire, the Sultan replaced the Patriarch of Constantinople with his own, who forced them to withdraw from their agreements made during the council, and so the East departed from the one true Church. I tell you all of this in the hope of your salvation, that this wisdom may help you realise the full truth of the Great Schism. I’ll pray for you, for you, and for the conversion of many. May the Lord of Peace give you everlasting peace in every place. The Lord be with you all. Amen.

Christ established his church, the orthodox church. St Peter being the bishop of Rome does not excuse later papal heresy. The catholic church is the one true church where ALL of it's teachings are anti biblical lies. Go cry about it heretic.

Yeah we do, it's called refusing to negotiate with heretics. Go cry about it

What's the difference between how American Christians debate and everyone else?

@@user-cc5qu6jh2v American Christianity is not Christianity..

@@Akhgy Which one? If it's evangelical protestantism I agree. But there's Orthodoxy in America too.