Feb 12, 2010 -- 1:16PM, bigbear6161 wrote:

If you think biological theories are as weakly supported as orthodox theological propositions then you are too far gone already.  Biological theories are strongly supported and not only that, they change to admit new learning.  Your theological positions are frozen and resist new learning.  And by the way, it is not my world view, it is our worldview, yourself included as you are a product of the 20th & 21st centuries just as I am.  Dave

Too far gone from what?  A 21st C. worldview.  I concur.

Too far gone for what?  A meaningful dialogue with a 21st C. worldview.  Again I concur.

You want to have the debate on your terms: a 21st C. worldview and epistomology.  In that case, we orthodox have already given away the candy store.  I won't accept dialogue on these terms, and you won't accept dialogue on my terms.  We are at loggerheads.  It is vital for you to understand this. 

Inside of orthodox Christians there is not a 21st C. man struggling to get out.  Really.  A 21st C. worldview (which we call phrenoma) is as welcome in my church as a turd in the punchbowl.  You personally are welcome to visit us so long as you respect where you are.  Who knows, maybe you'll change your mind (which we call metanoia).

We are changing our minds to fit our theology, not our theology to fit our minds.

So sorry, I won't drink the Kool-Aid you are peddling.

People can change their worldviews from the one they grew up with to one that makes more sense and explains the world better, ITHO.

Its really not all that hard, but it is not a quick process.  You just question all of your prejudices and preconceived notions.  I did it by tracing back all of these 21st C. worldview prejudices to their origins, the men who first invented the concepts.  Many of these guys (and they are all guys) are not very attractive characters and they held other opinions you would find loathesome, I would guess.

Once you have deconstructed the 21st C. worldview, you can put on another.

You might want to read Mountain of Silence to see an example of shifting worldviews.

Here is a google preview:Mountain of Silence

Feb 12, 2010 -- 11:00AM, SeraphimR wrote:

The parables get a pass because they were spoken by the Man-God Jesus Christ.  They are reliable.

According to you! I can accept that Jesus was a trail-blazer and created great wisdom teachings, but the "Man-God" story didn't begin until several generations after his death; and it was likely created by later gentile followers to advance a claim that their saviour was just as divine as the Roman, Egyptian, Greek and Persian God-men.

When it comes to parables, other religions have their own parables. In India, there are Hindu fundamentalists who have been having a fit recently because the government wants to dredge the channel between India and the island of Sri Lanka. According to their biblical literalists, an underwater collection of rocks and outcroppings is what remains of a sacred bridge created so that Lord Rama could lead an army of monkeys to fight a demon army......so prove them wrong!

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asi...

Feb 12, 2010 -- 6:39PM, bigbear6161 wrote:

I disagree with you Seraphim.  Perhaps we are at loggerheads.  But you can't rip yourself out of space and time, and that is what you are trying to do.  You are not a 12th century Orthodox anymore than I am a 12th century Catholic.  For you or me to try to be is absurd.  We can only be what we are and that is we are 21st century Christians.

Maybe I am physically in the 21st C., but I can think and understand like an Orthodox Christian from the 12th C.  It is an interesting, even remarkable, phenomenon that you can read Orthodox Christian literature from  the 2nd C. and the 21st C. and they both say the same thing.  Similarly, Orthodox literature from Alexandria and Russia both say the same thing.  Orthodoxy transcends space and time.  I can participate in that worldview anywhere any time.

Turd in a punch bowl.  I like that peculiar phrase.  It's the romantic in me.  I am not trying to disrespect your Orthodox Church.  I know there are Orthodox progressives too. 

I've heard people make this claim before, but could never point one out to me.  Do you have a website or even a blog you could direct me to?  The most progressive attitude I'm run across IRL was the man who told me he didn't care whether the priest had a beard or not.  I find that I am pretty progressive for an Orthodox myself.  I will go to a church with a clean shaven priest, although it would be a bit strange.

Remember, you are the one who came onto this board and called Progressive Christians scam artists.  If anyone started the mud slinging it was you.  No harm done.  I am willing to call a truce.  You may have your traditionalist views.  Just let me have my Progressive views.  There is room in our once united Church (before the Great Schism) for both Traditionalists and Progressives, as there has always been diverse viewpoints there.

I see Progressive Christians tearing Protestant Churches apart.  When Tradition lapses it is gone forever.  I consider it my duty to, however humbly, preserve that Tradition for future generations.

How could the Orthodox Church ordain women and still be Orthodox?  And the same for the Catholics.  I say NO! to Progress.  Its just my thing

Dave

Feb 13, 2010 -- 4:48PM, bigbear6161 wrote:

Seraphim, I like you and I see you have great respect for the traditions of the Orthodox Church, one of the earliest traditions in Christianity.  I enjoy reading the Desert Fathers, who seem like Christian Yogis to me.  I enjoy the richness of the iconography and the many saints from the Eastern Church.

Men just like the Desert Fathers can be found today at Mt. Athos.  There are men and women elsewhere, but they are harder to find, being dispersed in the wilderness.

  I always felt it a shame that our two Churches split into latin and greek variants, and of course the slim theological differences that have kept us apart.

I see no benefit in coming together.

  As a Catholic, I love reading the Latin Church Fathers, also the great theologians like Aquinas and mystics like John of the Cross.  I love all these things.  But it just seems to me that traditionalist formulations can not stand up to the challenge of our modern worldview, and that for me anyway a post-modern criticism makes a lot more sense.

I think it is the modern worldview which is defective, not the Tradition.  Personally, I rejected the modern worldview before I became Christian.  Hans Kung once wrote that one must make a choice between Nihilism and Christianity.  I choose Christianity.

 

  I even think that it allows for the traditional narratives when understood as a set of narratives growing out of a particular time and place and a distinctive worldview.  I just believe that there are other narratives too, and other interpretations of the experiential spirituality within our Christian traditions, liturgies and doctrines.  That is why i identify myself as a Progressive Catholic Christian.  I believe the Church is a big enough tent to encompass both wings (and moderates too).  I hope we can exist side by side and not be adversaries.

Other interpretations are erroneous.  Postmodernism is poison.

And simple observation of the chaos into which Progressive politics has thrown the Protestants argues very strongly against your "big tent theory".  (How's that for convoluted syntax?).

 

Peace,

Dave

By the way, you got any "Progressive Orthodox" for me?  I don't believe they exist.

Two Progressives in the Orthodox faith:  Lance Goldsberry and Juvenaly Repass.

Dave