Comments on: From Fundy to Orthodox to Apostate

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 19:06:11 +0000

I am interested to have you site the examples you mentioned in Galations and Matt.

You make statements that are pure conjecture, amazing.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:28:45 +0000

I am reading an interesting book, How Jesus Became A Christian by Barrie Wilson. His premise is that Apostle Paul invented a new religion which used Jesus and the Torah as a historical foundation but which is distinctly and radically original. The original Jesus movement in Jerusalem was headed by James, brother of Jesus and followed rather strict obedience to the Torah laws. While believing in the ressurection they did not believe in the incarnation. Paul never met Jesus himself and believed the Law of the Torah was a curse and unnecessary for those who had faith in christ. The epistles of Paul written before the gospels reveal his thoughts while the Gospel of Mathew (leaving out the bits about the virgin birth) especially chapters 5,6,7 reveal that Jesus advocated a super righteous fullfiling of the Torah in spirit as well as letter. The original Jesus Movement led by James coexisted with mainstream Judaism in the temple at Jerusalem for 30 years however Paul’s Christ Movement in the diaspora was a source of confusion and dissension. The two teachings are incompatible and caused a lot dissension among the synagogues. The martyrdom of James in 63 a.d. and later the destruction of Jerusalem and the dispersion of the Jews in 70 a.d. weakened the Jesus Movement, the publication, at this time, of a false history called The Book Of Acts, which brilliantly weaves a story reconciling Paul’s religion with the Jesus Movement and clouds the actual history of the very creative religion building exercise by its inventor Paul, ultimately provides the perfect cover up that persists to this day. The printing arrangement of the New testament with the four gospels then the book of Acts and then the epistles of Paul and finally the other epistles strengthens the sense that Paul’s teaching was given in the context of the historical Jesus. The truth is that his hearers had no gospels to evaluate and were relying on his gospel as a true explanation of Jesus’s teachings. Fact is they are incompatible if you examine the epistle to the Galatians and the aforesaid chapters of Mathew. Further Paul’s own description of his conversion and subsequent withdrawal to the desert without speaking to anyone conflict with the story told in Acts about going to be baptised etc. It is well known Paul had conflict with Peter, it is the writers contention that the first apostolic council purportedly held in Jerusalem is fabricated in Acts as part of the deception.
I am quite familiar with the bible and I find the writers thesis plausible and very interesting giving rise to a lot of further investigation. I really can enjoy studying these matters because I feel like I can look at the issues objectively, I don’t have a position to defend, I can enjoy a clear and well expressed argument and weigh the evidence against what I know and think without a lot of emotion or need to defend a particular creed.
Many scholars who are not really christians at all, spend their lives enjoying a close examination of the bible as literature and mythology and as a historical religious artifact much the same way Shakespearian scholars examine his work in such detail and endless speculation.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 17:48:54 +0000

Just to clarify, I left the EOC and moved into the more traditionalist Old Calender Orthodox church. Believe me they do not think evolution is an option, I confessed my thoughts about evolution to my bishop who said I had no right to question the bible or the “Holy Fathers” who are, for those unfamiliar with orthodoxy, the great saints and theologians of the past.the truth is that without the “Fall” to explain sin and mortality, Christianity fails to explain why Christ needed to die on the cross. Without the” fall” the entire thing becomes incoherent. Keep believing if you want to but be honest, it is a psychological need your trying to satisfy despite the lack of evidence to justify it. Old calendar traditionalist Orthodoxy is historic Christianity in action today and it does not accept the modern sciences explanation of evolution. Who would be willing to die for their faith these days when we know there is no solid evidence to support our faith and much that contradicts its claims?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 17:12:42 +0000

Actually I am not embittered at all and I don’t feel the years are wasted. Christianity was exciting and challenging to me, it woke me up and gave me something outside myself to focus on. I was a callow selfish youth with almost no hope of “getting a life” I was stuck in a ghetto of drugs, drinking, partying, I was going nowhere before I converted and when I did see the light suddenly I had purpose and fire in my belly about something bigger than I was.The intellectual challenge was to figure out which branch of Christianity was most reliable and that discussion lasted years fueling research and much heated discussion, tension and excitement, never boring really. through it all I managed to stay married and faithful to my wife and raise a family, get a college degree etc. None of that would have happened I feel without the matrix of religion holding me together. It was just the last part of my life here where I became disillusioned with the politics and people in my church. I was at the same time researching apologetics related to evolution/creationism where I found creationist defenders like Kent Hovind who are not entirely honest and misrepresent facts shamelessly . Here I finally realized evolution may well be truth and if so then the “fall” of man was myth and explained nothing and because so much orthodox spirituality refers to the “fall” as the basis of our personal struggles that it became clear that what I believed was all built on a fairy tale and unreliable. I had essentially given up reading “the fathers” quite recently, just because they were not useful in my personal growth. Never had I looked critically at the bible as a truth source and I started thinking about my conversion experience and how it happened. In hindsight I was converted in a flash of mental activity while reading genesis at age 21. I suddenly had this very clear thought that the universe was created and not just an accident and that someone was in control of what we called life and that this person had a plan and that it was accessible to us through this book. God the Father was real and so if he was real then maybe all the stuff I had heard about his son jesus was too etc. etc. Well now I realize this was all accepted uncritically and at a moment of weakness in my life where I had hit a wall and was stuck psychologically without any idea of what to do with myself. I walked around in a haze for days marveling at this new paradigm. My brain changed, it woke up I was alive and thinking like never before, it was very much like falling in love, same kind of chemistry I think. I was caught in a web which I never wanted to leave I was intoxicated. No one around me was any help, I was pulled in deeper and deeper until my whole life was interwoven into the cult of Jesus and I was a true believer, very earnest, intense and unrelenting in my desire to go deeper in and higher up. The only miracle is that I did not become a clergyman of some sort. I have converted others I started two churches that are still going strong and have been a parish council member of others I followed the trail of the most fervent Orthodoxy all the way to Mt. Athos. I feel there isn’t anything real there. It is llike waking up from an intense dream or alternate reality. Where do I go from here? Besides hell that is…

By: LeoPardus

LeoPardus — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 14:39:54 +0000

Anon:

Well, HI there. You would be only the third person, including myself, who has gone from Protestant to Orthodox to atheist/agnostic.

I am a bit surprised that you find the cre/evol issue to be pivotal in your de-conversion. The EOC holds no dogmatic position on it. They are perfectly fine with evolution and consider science to be the realm of scientists, not theologians.

Still, if you find your way out of the lies that compose theistic religion, that’s a good thing.

Hope your family and friends do OK with it all.

One note: Don’t know if this is an issue with you yet, or if it will become one, but be on guard against becoming embittered now that you’re seeing all the wasted years in the faith. I know I’ve felt the pull that way.

By: Quester

Quester — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 05:38:59 +0000

Welcome and well met. Let us know if we can help.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 05:23:41 +0000

Just happened on this site and this old discussion. What amazes me about it is that I too was a protestant who joined the EOC which joined the Antiochean Archdiocese of North America. I moved and joined the OCA and finally looking for a deeper taste of Orthodox tradition I joined an Old Calender Russian Orhtodox church of “true believers” very traditional and strict and very full of rules and miraculous icons and saints and relics and feast days and many, many, hours of vigil, fasting and long services lasting 5 hours or more on consecutive days. I was completely into it and almost clergy several times in my career. Something kept me back from that (thankfully) and I remained a layman . I raised my family in this enviroment and we home-schooled them, all 7 of them.

My children are adults now and I am a grandfather. I have experienced everything christianity can offer in the way of spiritual enlightenment and known many wise old and very virtuous monks and priests and bishops and even metropolitans. I have experienced answers to prayer that can only be called little miracles and yet I feel I have been fooling myself. I am ready to give it all up because I undertook to unravel the evolution/creationist debate for myself and really look at the issues and understand the arguments as objectively as I could.
Well, the result is that I am now convicted that science and reason has established that the bible is unreliable history and
that evolution tells us more about ourselves than we can learn from all the “holy fathers” whose writings I am so used to relying on and mentally sifting all I read and hear through their teaching.For more than 30 years I have been intensly focused on experiencing grace and seeking the true faith and the true church. I feel like an ignoramus presently and owe my children an apology and all the many people i dragged into it through force of argument and personal conviction expressed with every bit of persuasion I could conjure and deliver.
Now I have to face up to the facts and help my loved ones adjust to my new take on things I once championed so passionately.

By: Lucian

Lucian — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 00:05:58 +0000

So ... I see atheism has become an excuse for laziness now, huh? :-| Well, if the Jews were Judaizers, the Greeks Hellenizers, the Russians Slavophiles, and the Americans export Democracy even by the most un-democratic of all means possible such as bombing the livin` $hit out of one's contry and imposing liberty by force, then I think I'm entitled to a bit of navel-gazing, self-patting Romanian-centrism, ... don't You agree? 8)

By: LeoPardus

LeoPardus — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 23:44:44 +0000

Ah. I figured it was easier than trying to make any headway at all in Romanian.

By: Lucian

Lucian — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 22:27:54 +0000

Agnosas?

F*** You too, man! You callin’ me names here, white-boy!? — Which is to say: No, You may probably not get by with Latin, Sir.