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Narrow path.....

Narrow path.....

Spirituality

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Are there historians who write biased, bad, and untrue history?

Are there journalists who publish lies? Are their reporters that only give us yellow journalism?

Are there politicians who are crooks, and bureaucrats that are corrupt? Are there doctors and medical experts who are quacks?

Of course there are, but this does not mean that no history is true, no journalism is accurate, no politicians are proper leaders, and no bureaucrats are honest & hard workers.

I believe what is said by men who were esteemed most among their own peers and are part of the oldest continuous & unbroken Christian tradition alive whose Gospels that I accept. What reason do I have to pretend that they say nothing credible? Zero.

There are no Saints who put on a Benny Hinn show in Orthodoxy.

There are also universities who don't tolerate frauds, hospitals who don't tolerate quacks, there are news outlets that also only hire journalists that they believe have integrity and hold them to the highest of standards.

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@philokalia said
Are there historians who write biased, bad, and untrue history?

Are there journalists who publish lies? Are their reporters that only give us yellow journalism?

Are there politicians who are crooks, and bureaucrats that are corrupt? Are there doctors and medical experts who are quacks?

Of course there are, but this does not mean that [i]no history is true, no j ...[text shortened]... so only hire journalists that they believe have integrity and hold them to the highest of standards.
The stories about "angels" taking monks to "Heaven" and therefore 'proving' or even 'creating' some doctrinal point about "salvation" and "judgement" are folktales, plain and simple.

Your anger at the state of the world does not alter this. And you are right: people in positions of power and influence very often are ugly, despicable and not what they seem.

We have no way of knowing for sure how many of your Church's 'senior' and feted figures ~ "Saints" as you call them, rather quaintly ~ were corrupt, were womanizers, were paedophiles, were liars, etc. etc. There's simply know way of knowing.

Like everyone else, regardless of what "Church" they play or played the role of 'celebrities' for, they all died and took most or all of their secrets to the grave. They were the Benny Hinn equivalents from their times, the different brand of showbiz notwithstanding.

Just because you see them as "Saints" - with a capital S - it does not transform what are obvious, blatant, for-the-lumpen-masses folk and fairy tales into historical accounts that anyone should take seriously.

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I am actually not mad at the world. The world has been doing a great job in many ways, and the world is also too large for us to characterize. I also believe that we are better off turning away from evil things instead of dwelling on them -- I do not actually think that this thread shows me at all mad with the world as I am here talking about forgiveness.

You are the one here talking about frauds and treating a distinguished branch of Christianity as a bunk collection of lies. Feel free to believe that, but it is a bit rich accusing me of being full of pessimism on this one.

Do you accept that Jesus Christ turned water into wine, walked on water, fed the 5,000, raised a man from the dead, etc.? Of course, you do not, so why would you accept the notion that holy men living in holy communities saw angels from time to time? You do not accept any of these premises, and that doesn't surprise me, and it also does not surprise me that you would make this the central point of a pretty long thread even though it really isn't the topic and wasn't meant to be the area of focus.

Maybe every thread doesn't have to come down to my belief in God and His Presence on earth, and your disbelief in that, though. That;'s my suggestion.

Again, I'll let you have the last word. If you say something new, though, perhaps I will confront it, but we can feel free to end this iteration here.

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@philokalia said
You are the one here talking about frauds and treating a distinguished branch of Christianity as a bunk collection of lies. Feel free to believe that, but it is a bit rich accusing me of being full of pessimism on this one.
I am the one here saying that you related a couple of folktales - borderline fairy stories, I'd say - as if they were evidence of something or other. Your certainty and your sincerity cannot alter the nature of these stories.

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@philokalia said
Maybe every thread doesn't have to come down to my belief in God and His Presence on earth, and your disbelief in that, though.
That isn't the topic here, as you well know. Suggesting that it is is a rather clumsy straw man. You can believe that Muhammed spoke to the archangel Gabriel in a cave for all I care. But you are being called out for trying to pass off obvious folktales about Turkish soldiers and monks and angels as historical accounts.

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@philokalia said
Do you accept that Jesus Christ turned water into wine, walked on water, fed the 5,000, raised a man from the dead, etc.?
If you tell me that you believe these things, as do billions of other people now and right down through history, that's one thing, but you cannot build upon these beliefs a further 'truth claim' about how a story set in 1994 about supernatural beings whisking a drunken monk away under the noses of some soldiers is a historical account.

I get why people like you believe the Gospels, and that's fine, but do you really think you can then add any old fable or myth of fairy story or folk tale that happens to appeal to your superstitious mindset and try to pass it off as further historical evidence that explains some religious doctrine or other?

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@philokalia said
You do not accept any of these premises, and that doesn't surprise me, and it also does not surprise me that you would make this the central point of a pretty long thread even though it really isn't the topic and wasn't meant to be the area of focus.
You introduced some relatively recent folktales as "historical" evidence to make your point, you did this, I didn't do this.

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@philokalia said
You are the one here talking about frauds and treating a distinguished branch of Christianity as a bunk collection of lies.
I have pointed out that they are clearly folk stories. I haven't used the word "lies". You have introduced the word "lies" word into the conversation. Not me.

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@fmf said
If you tell me that you believe these things, as do billions of other people now and right down through history, that's one thing, but you cannot build upon these beliefs a further 'truth claim' about how a story set in 1994 about supernatural beings whisking a drunken monk away under the noses of some soldiers is a historical account.

I get why people like you believe the Go ...[text shortened]... nd try to pass it off as further historical evidence that explains some religious doctrine or other?
This actually isn't true: the tale is likely from the 1950s and not much later as the period in which Turkish soldiers were purging Asia minor was in the 1920s under the Young Turks.

1994 was the year that St. Paisios died.

I have also already told you that these are not to be referred to as fables, myths, folk tales, etc., but rather these are stories related by literal Saints in the second largest church and oldest continual church tradition within all of Christianity.

That is the very definition of authoritative.

... And even if you reject these stories, they clearly are

(a) relevant to the thread, and
(b) accepted by the Orthodox Church as they come form the Saints.

It has clear ramifications with Church doctrine, and it is also obviously consistent with Church doctrine.

I did explain that already.

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@philokalia said
This actually isn't true: the tale is likely from the 1950s and not much later as the period in which Turkish soldiers were purging Asia minor was in the 1920s under the Young Turks.

1994 was the year that St. Paisios died.

I have also already told you that these are not to be referred to as fables, myths, folk tales, etc., but rather these are stories related by l ...[text shortened]... doctrine, and it is also obviously consistent with Church doctrine.

I did explain that already.
If you want to blather on about fairy/folk tales that you think constitute evidence supporting your religious beliefs, and if you want to do this without it being called out or scrutinized by people with different beliefs, then you should go post this kind of material on a Christians-Only website.

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@philokalia said
That is the very definition of authoritative.

... And even if you reject these stories, they clearly are

(a) relevant to the thread, and
(b) accepted by the Orthodox Church as they come form the Saints.
Like I said, it's just a mish-mash of confirmation bias and appeal to authority. Psychologically speaking, it is - indeed - a narrow path that your beliefs lead you down.

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@philokalia said
I have also already told you that these are not to be referred to as fables, myths, folk tales, etc., but rather these are stories related by literal Saints in the second largest church and oldest continual church tradition within all of Christianity.
They are clearly folktales. Your suggestion that they are historical accounts of some kind is unaffected by you asserting that your religious group is "the second largest church and oldest continual church tradition within all of Christianity".

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@fmf said
If you want to blather on about fairy/folk tales that you think constitute evidence supporting your religious beliefs, and if you want to do this without it being called out or scrutinized by people with different beliefs, then you should go post this kind of material on a Christians-Only website.
This is incredibly off the topic of what the "narrow path" is, and I suppose that is fine as we shoudl always just feel free to post and write freely.

I am also fine with you "scrutinizing" it.

So tell me, why should we not believe the words of St. Paisios and St. Nikolai?

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@fmf said
They are clearly folktales. Your suggestion that they are historical accounts of some kind is unaffected by you asserting that your religious group is "the second largest church and oldest continual church tradition within all of Christianity".
Why are the words of St. Paisios & St. Nikolai "folk tales?"

They seem to actually just try to be personal accounts of things that had happened, and that also have religious significance.

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@fmf said
Like I said, it's just a mish-mash of confirmation bias and appeal to authority. Psychologically speaking, it is - indeed - a narrow path that your beliefs lead you down.
So accepting the veracity of other people's stories makes you narrow?

I thought that would actually make your path broader?

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