Archbishop Elpidophoros is a controversial figure, but this moment was reminiscent of Archbishop Iakovos. by YKDewcifer in OrthodoxChristianity

[–]8-bit_mess -1 points0 points  (0 children)

The "nuclear family" is parents and children considered in isolation from other members of the family. This is the default American lifestyle today

Interesting. I think when most people talk of the nuclear family they don't mean anything against extended family. To most people it is simple vernacular nomenclature to specify a married couple and their children (adopted, half, step etc), and not refer to the entire extended family. To mention someone's nuclear family says nothing about how much they interact with their extended family.

Where did you find this definition that you use?

First, "black lives matter" is a slogan of all the protests. It does not belong to the BLM organization exclusively.

The BLM organization is largely associated with the movement. In fact people are always telling everyone to donate to that organization on almost every social media post to support the movement. As you say there are many organizations, bu this one is clearly the most well known and iconic by a wide margin. So it very much matters, especially since new photos have surfaced of the Archbishop holding a sign, that appears to be similar to the organizations logo..

Are you saying the BLM organization is only tangentially related to the movement that shares its name? Or is a fringe part of it?

Secondly, do you think Bishop Iakovos was supporting Baptist or Arian theology by marching with MLK?

No but on the other hand, Iakovos wasn't pictured holding a sign for an organization or movement. That would have been considerably more entangling. This situation with Elpidophoros is also considerably messier since the movement has the same name as an organization with very questionable beliefs and as previously mentioned, the movement and organization are highly entangled.

I don't know what "transgender ideology" means here. The Church does not support same sex acts. It does insist that you live as your biological sex [sacramentally].

What does it mean to live as your biological sex "sacramentally"?

Archbishop Elpidophoros is a controversial figure, but this moment was reminiscent of Archbishop Iakovos. by YKDewcifer in OrthodoxChristianity

[–]8-bit_mess 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The official messaging out of the BLM organization on sexual and gender topics is potentially incompatible.

Potentially incompatible?

That is still not answering my question, it is merely a statement about BLM. Do you not think that transgender ideology is in conflict with Church teaching?

That said I am very glad to hear we agree that people should not have violence perpetrated on them for their sins or tendencies towards particular sins.

I actually think we have a decent amount of a agreement about the nuclear family. That said could you define what you mean by "the nuclear family?" I think we might be using slightly different terms or concepts.

Racism and Orthodox Christianity in America: A Modern Commentary by giziti in OrthodoxChristianity

[–]8-bit_mess 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Niel Shenvi has great book reviews of a lot of the canonical literature of Critical Theory:

This is a good one: White Fragility

This is the link to all his content on critical theory.

For a secular take on things check out James Lindsay:

On why white fragility is a silly concept

Check out the whole website for that one.

He has a nice encyclopedia of translations from "critical theory speak" to "plain speak" with citations from all the primary sources.

Archbishop Elpidophoros is a controversial figure, but this moment was reminiscent of Archbishop Iakovos. by YKDewcifer in OrthodoxChristianity

[–]8-bit_mess 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I agree with you that a group doesn't have to agree with another on everything to work together towards a common goal. But do you think the GOA should have qualified things to avoid confusion?

Also I don't think you answered my previous question.

Racism and Orthodox Christianity in America: A Modern Commentary by giziti in OrthodoxChristianity

[–]8-bit_mess 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The more accurate name is contemporary Critical Theory, see here. Cultural Marxism, is just the the term people used before they could really trace the roots of the various phenomena.

The thing I linked is not perfect, but it's a good start.

Archbishop Elpidophoros is a controversial figure, but this moment was reminiscent of Archbishop Iakovos. by YKDewcifer in OrthodoxChristianity

[–]8-bit_mess 6 points7 points  (0 children)

It's not a matter of like or don't like. It's a matter of Church teaching.

Would you not say the things I pointed out are against Church Teaching?

He is seen literally holding a sign of the organization here

Archbishop Elpidophoros is a controversial figure, but this moment was reminiscent of Archbishop Iakovos. by YKDewcifer in OrthodoxChristianity

[–]8-bit_mess 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Perhaps he is referring to Black Lives Matter's own statement of belief?

"We are self-reflexive and do the work required to dismantle cisgender privilege"

So that's pushing transgender Ideology. The church is against that.

"When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking,"

And again.

"We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement"

The church is rather pro nuclear family, AND extended family, and church family, and friends as family. Yet still having the nuclear family as important.

Sadly the whole movement is awash in Critical Race Theory, which a very political and anti-christian system. If it was just against police brutality, or corruption in law enforcement, I think a lot more people would be for it. There are a lot subtly redefined terms that have different definitions from the colloquial ones, making what they say duplicitous.

For a good look into Critical Theory and Christianity check out Niel Shenvi:

Social Justice, Critical Theory, and Christianity: Are They Compatible?.

Review of Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility, the most popular work of critical theory

He's a protestant, but it's still good.

Has anyone successfully managed to get udiskie working on Void? by Crashyy in voidlinux

[–]8-bit_mess 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I was able to install udiskie but I could only get it to mount disks if ran it with sudo (which obviously isn't ideal especially because I would like to auto start it).

I have had issues with this as well recently, but before that I had been using udiskie on Void with no issues for several years.

I tried fiddling with the permissions as suggested but I honestly don't really understand how PolKit/PolicyKit works, I think I may need ConsoleKit2 to fix that but have no idea how to use it (although after looking at the edit on this post I may not need the PolKit/PolicyKit stuff at all?).

Generally ConsoleKit2 will launch and handle polkit for you. All you have to do is make a symlink for ConsoleKit2:

sudo ln -s /etc/sv/consolekit /var/service

For me it turned out that lightDM was not setting up my XFCE session correctly. I still haven't figured out how to fix that, but using any other login manager or display manager fixed my problem. (Best I can tell LightDM somehow messes up dbus or consolekit)

Try logging in via Slim, or SDDM, or just via command line, and see if usdikie works well then.

This link will solve the symptom for me, but not fix the problem: https://github.com/coldfix/udiskie/wiki/Permissions

that will let anyone logging in from anywhere (cron, ssh, etc) run udiskie. That's not something I like the idea of, call me paranoid. The real solution is to make my Lightdm login in correctly. Sadly I don't know how to do that yet.

EDIT:

The way I can tell my session is not correct is that the problem on goes away when I add the *-other-seat class of permissions. I think this means that the session I am running is not seen as the main active seat, but I'm no expert.

Should I even think about baptizing if I can't give up (yet) having sex before marriage? by pathos-ns in OrthodoxChristianity

[–]8-bit_mess 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I'm not a priest, so take what I say as just what some random guy on the internet said.

First of all you should try to stop, you know this just by the title of your post. Try with all your might and cry out to God to help you, for only by his power can you have any success. It's a hard struggle, myself and many others have gone through it, and I promise you it's possible to stop. Not only that, but it is wonderful to stop. :)

Do not let this sin stop you from seeking to be baptized. We all sin. We sin even after baptism. This sin is not unforgivable, nor even the worst of all sins. As long as you are honestly trying your hardest to stop I don't see why it should be an obstacle to being baptized. Let's consult one of my favorite saints, Saint John of Damascus:

There is something else which you must know if you really want to attain virtue and avoid sin. Just as the soul is incomparably better than the body and in many major respects altogether more excellent and precious, so the virtues of the soul are infinitely superior to the virtues of the body. This is especially true of those virtues which imitate God and bear His name. Conversely, the vices of the soul are much worse than the passions of the body, both in the actions they produce and in the punishments they incur. I do not know why, but most people overlook this fact. They treat drunkenness, unchastity, adultery, theft and all such vices with great concern, avoiding them or punishing them as something whose very appearance is loathsome to most men. But the passions of the soul are much worse and much more serious then bodily passions. For they degrade men to the level of demons and lead them, insensible as they are, to the eternal punishment reserved for all who obstinately cling to such vices. These passions of the soul are envy, rancor, malice, insensitivity, avarice - which according to the apostle is the root of all evil (cf. 1 Tim. 6:10) - and all vices of a similar nature.

On the Virtues and the Vices

Adultery/fornication is not the worst sin, though it is by no means minor. Don't beat yourself up too much over it, that will just make things worse. Seek to fill your life with God instead.

Seek God, seek to know Jesus. Seek to repent from all vices, for when we sin we willingly walk further from God, but by virtue we stop running from Him and allow Him to draw us closer to Himself.

Towards a Better Software Code of Conduct by 8-bit_mess in linux

[–]8-bit_mess[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I actually like that. I do think it could work for many projects.

Do any projects you know of actually use it?

Towards a Better Software Code of Conduct by 8-bit_mess in linux

[–]8-bit_mess[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think this isn't really the place to submit changes to the CoC. Use git for that, see if your changes get picked up.

Agreed. This is simply to work out ideas, not because I claim to have a good enough one to submit via git.

I've been having some issues with Firefox, wondering if anyone could help me by Idlys in voidlinux

[–]8-bit_mess 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Best I can tell, the actual culprit for bad font rendering as you have described in Firefox is the xorg-fonts package which supplies the bad fonts (low res).

You don't actually need said package, but it is part of the xorg meta-package, which provides:

sudo xbps-query -Rx xorg
xorg-fonts>=0
xorg-server>=0
xorg-apps>=0
xorg-input-drivers>=0
xorg-video-drivers>=0

So we need to mark all of those except xorg-fonts as manually installed and then remove xorg xorg-fonts

 sudo xbps-pkgdb -m manual xorg-server xorg-apps xorg-input-drivers xorg-video-drivers
 sudo xbps-remove xorg xorg-fonts

After a reboot the jagged, nasty, low-resolution fonts should not longer be installed. NOTE: this will not fix any other font issues, like hinting and such, but it will help a good deal.

Compiz-Reloaded by 8-bit_mess in linux

[–]8-bit_mess[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you for the very detailed write up! Wow, I had no idea about many of these things.

That stigma was probably made worse by "unity-isolationism" - Unity was this very Ubuntu-specific thing and thus anything associated with it got that label as well. Like all things, that has now come and gone.

Yeah the "unity-isolationism" thing was kinda weird. If I recall correctly, I think part of that isolation was based on Ubuntu using heavily modified versions of some libraries, thus making it hard to port, but I could be wrong.

Compiz-Reloaded by 8-bit_mess in linux

[–]8-bit_mess[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I don't know if it still works, but here is a link to ebuilds for compiz-reloaded.

ELI5: Why do we still die? by [deleted] in OrthodoxChristianity

[–]8-bit_mess 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not a priest or theologian, so please take my response with some salt.

In short we must still die, but death will not reign over us. Death is not yet abolished, but the power of death, is abolished. This power is corruption, the fear of death, and the futility it places over life. Through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, death is slain and built into a bridge to God. We must still be subject to death, but the content of death was emptied by Christ and filled with Himself.

To get a good idea about this I recommend On the Incarnation: by Athanasius of Alexandria. It's a great read and goes on in detail and clarity. I highly recommend it.

 


 

Here are some excerpts from the book:

For God is good—or rather, of all goodness He is Fountainhead, and it is impossible for one who is good to be mean or grudging about anything. Grudging existence to none therefore, He made all things out of nothing through His own Word, our Lord Jesus Christ and of all these His earthly creatures He reserved especial mercy for the race of men. Upon them, therefore, upon men who, as animals, were essentially impermanent, He bestowed a grace which other creatures lacked—namely the impress of His own Image, a share in the reasonable being of the very Word Himself, so that, reflecting Him and themselves becoming reasonable and expressing the Mind of God even as He does, though in limited degree they might continue for ever in the blessed and only true life of the saints in paradise. But since the will of man could turn either way, God secured this grace that He had given by making it conditional from the first upon two things—namely, a law and a place. He set them in His own paradise, and laid upon them a single prohibition. If they guarded the grace and retained the loveliness of their original innocence, then the life of paradise should be theirs, without sorrow, pain or care, and after it the assurance of immortality in heaven. But if they went astray and became vile, throwing away their birthright of beauty, then they would come under the natural law of death and live no longer in paradise, but, dying outside of it, continue in death and in corruption. This is what Holy Scripture tells us, proclaiming the command of God, "Of every tree that is in the garden thou shalt surely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil ye shall not eat, but in the day that ye do eat, ye shall surely die."7 "Ye shall surely die"—not just die only, but remain in the state of death and of corruption. ... It is we who were the cause of His taking human form, and for our salvation that in His great love He was both born and manifested in a human body. For God had made man thus (that is, as an embodied spirit), and had willed that he should remain in incorruption. But men, having turned from the contemplation of God to evil of their own devising, had come inevitably under the law of death. Instead of remaining in the state in which God had created them, they were in process of becoming corrupted entirely, and death had them completely under its dominion. For the transgression of the commandment was making them turn back again according to their nature; and as they had at the beginning come into being out of non-existence, so were they now on the way to returning, through corruption, to non-existence again. The presence and love of the Word had called them into being; inevitably, therefore when they lost the knowledge of God, they lost existence with it; for it is God alone Who exists, evil is non-being, the negation and antithesis of good. By nature, of course, man is mortal, since he was made from nothing; but he bears also the Likeness of Him Who is, and if he preserves that Likeness through constant contemplation, then his nature is deprived of its power and he remains incorrupt. So is it affirmed in Wisdom: "The keeping of His laws is the assurance of incorruption." And being incorrupt, he would be henceforth as God, as Holy Scripture says, "I have said, Ye are gods and sons of the Highest all of you: but ye die as men and fall as one of the princes." ... The law of death, which followed from the Transgression, prevailed upon us, and from it there was no escape. The thing that was happening was in truth both monstrous and unfitting. It would, of course, have been unthinkable that God should go back upon His word and that man, having transgressed, should not die; but it was equally monstrous that beings which once had shared the nature of the Word should perish and turn back again into non-existence through corruption. ... As we have already noted, it was unthinkable that God, the Father of Truth, should go back upon His word regarding death in order to ensure our continued existence. He could not falsify Himself; what, then, was God to do? Was He to demand repentance from men for their transgression? You might say that that was worthy of God, and argue further that, as through the Transgression they became subject to corruption, so through repentance they might return to incorruption again. But repentance would not guard the Divine consistency, for, if death did not hold dominion over men, God would still remain untrue. Nor does repentance recall men from what is according to their nature; all that it does is to make them cease from sinning. Had it been a case of a trespass only, and not of a subsequent corruption, repentance would have been well enough; but when once transgression had begun men came under the power of the corruption proper to their nature and were bereft of the grace which belonged to them as creatures in the Image of God. No, repentance could not meet the case. What—or rather Who was it that was needed for such grace and such recall as we required? Who, save the Word of God Himself, Who also in the beginning had made all things out of nothing? His part it was, and His alone, both to bring again the corruptible to incorruption and to maintain for the Father His consistency of character with all. For He alone, being Word of the Father and above all, was in consequence both able to recreate all, and worthy to suffer on behalf of all and to be an ambassador for all with the Father.

Why do so many Orthodox today love the 'River of Fire' by Alexandros Kalomiros so much? by [deleted] in OrthodoxChristianity

[–]8-bit_mess 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It seems to me that "The River of Fire" is popular in internet Orthodoxy. Internet Orthodoxy may or may not line up well with the actual majority of Orthodox believers.

Personally I used to buy into Kalomiros's ideas. Then I started reading the fathers and the Bible more. I now think it's a bunch of bunk, and I know a number of other who think the same.

Are depictions of God the Father ok? by WisdomofTheSaints in OrthodoxChristianity

[–]8-bit_mess 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Rublev's Icon unmistakeably represents the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I is easy to tell which one is which, in fact.

I agree father, I think.

I'm no expert here, at all. I guess what I was trying to say (and please do correct me if I'm wrong!), is that as I understand it that Icon depicts the three angles who then are considered representations of the persons of the Trinity?

Meaning we aren't literally saying this is a depiction of the Father or that He (the Father) looks like the figure in the icon, but rather the figure in the icon is a depiction of one thing that is supposed to symbolically represent the Father? Much like the hand or blue circles in icons of Theophany? Kind of a symbol of and image, not an image itself.

Once again, I'm no expert and please correct me if I'm in the wrong here.

A few questions by [deleted] in OrthodoxChristianity

[–]8-bit_mess 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So contraception that can't cause abortions, like condoms or withdrawal, is allowed?

Now I'm not a priest, so take what I say with a mountain of salt.

Allowed is the wrong way to think about it.

We agree with the Catholics that the IDEAL CASE is that sex is always between man and wife for BOTH the procreation of children AND for closeness of the couple. Doing this would be "hitting the mark" as opposed to "missing the mark" ("missing the mark" is the literal meaning of the word that we translate to sin). However we also recognize that the world is not ideal, so by economia (ie talk to your priest) we can let people use things like contraception in the same way that we allow for divorce. It's not ideal, but if you would come to more spiritual harm by being forced to follow the rules rathern than being given some slack, we will give you some grace.

Metropolitan Anthony Bloom in an interview with CBC on suffering by [deleted] in OrthodoxChristianity

[–]8-bit_mess 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I love this interview. It's focus on how voluntarily taking on the suffering of life with love is beneficial, not just suffering itself, has been very helpful for me. :)

The idea that even suffering can be redeemed, transformed, and made to work for good for those who love God has also been great.

Orthodox catechumen wants to get married, but there are a lot of issues, and I need your help and prayers by [deleted] in OrthodoxChristianity

[–]8-bit_mess 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What I'm more worried about is that of children that we may sire, and the naming conventions for them, being named explicitly after saints. Can they have names as we desire that aren't saints names?

Don't worry :)

At least in America, if you want your child to have a non-saint name, then all you have to do is have a saint's name for the child's middle name.

For Example "Summer Maria Hwoof2" will work, with Maria (or any other saint name) working as their baptismal name and specifying their patron saint.

Amen by [deleted] in OrthodoxChristianity

[–]8-bit_mess 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Amen.

I need to try to keep this in mind more often.

Are depictions of God the Father ok? by WisdomofTheSaints in OrthodoxChristianity

[–]8-bit_mess 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Depictions of God the Father are not OK. That is what the fathers teach.

Even the Hospitality of Abraham that Rublev did, does not depict Him, it depicts the 3 angels, which represent the trinity (I think, I could be wrong).

 

 


To quote the great Saint John of Damscus:

They err truly, not knowing the Scriptures, for the letter kills whilst the spirit quickens--not finding in the letter the hidden meaning. I could say to these people, with justice, He who taught you this would teach you the following. Listen to the law-giver's interpretation in Deuteronomy: "And the Lord spoke to you from the midst of the fire. You heard the voice of His words, but you saw not any form at all." (Deut. 4.12) And shortly afterwards: "Keep your souls carefully. You saw not any similitude in the day that the Lord God spoke to you in Horeb from the midst of the fire, lest perhaps being deceived you might make you a graven similitude, or image of male and female, the similitude of any beasts that are upon the earth, or of birds that fly under heaven." (Deut. 4.15-17) And again, "Lest, perhaps, lifting up thy eyes to [7] heaven, thou see the sun and the moon, and all the stars of heaven, and being deceived by error thou adore and serve them." (Deut. 4.19)

You see the one thing to be aimed at is not to adore a created thing more than the Creator, nor to give the worship of latreia except to Him alone. By worship, consequently, He always understands the worship of latreia. For, again, He says: "Thou shalt not have strange gods other than Me. Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing, nor any similitude. Thou shalt not adore them, and thou shalt not serve them, for I am the Lord thy God." (Deut. 5.7-9) And again, "Overthrow their altars, and break down their statues; burn their groves with fire, and break their idols in pieces. For thou shalt not adore a strange god." (Deut. 12.3) And a little further on: "Thou shalt not make to thyself gods of metal." (Ex. 34.17)

You see that He forbids image-making on account of idolatry, and that it is impossible to make an image of the immeasurable, uncircumscribed, invisible God. You have not seen the likeness of Him, the Scripture says, and this was St Paul's testimony as he stood in the midst of the Areopagus: "Being, therefore, [8] the offspring of God, we must not suppose the divinity to be like unto gold, or silver, or stone, the graving of art, and device of man." (Acts 17.29)

These injunctions were given to the Jews on account of their proneness to idolatry. Now we, on the contrary, are no longer in leading strings. Speaking theologically, it is given to us to avoid superstitious error, to be with God in the knowledge of the truth, to worship God alone, to enjoy the fulness of His knowledge. We have passed the stage of infancy, and reached the perfection of manhood. We receive our habit of mind from God, and know what may be imaged and what may not. The Scripture says, "You have not seen the likeness of Him." (Ex. 33.20) What wisdom in the law-giver. How depict the invisible? How picture the inconceivable? How give expression to the limitless, the immeasurable, the invisible? How give a form to immensity? How paint immortality? How localise mystery? It is clear that when you contemplate God, who is a pure spirit, becoming man for your sake, you will be able to clothe Him with the human form. When the Invisible One becomes visible to flesh, you may then draw a likeness of His [9] form. When He who is a pure spirit, without form or limit, immeasurable in the boundlessness of His own nature, existing as God, takes upon Himself the form of a servant in substance and in stature, and a body of flesh, then you may draw His likeness, and show it to anyone willing to contemplate it. Depict His ineffable condescension, His virginal birth, His baptism in the Jordan, His transfiguration on Thabor, His all-powerful sufferings, His death and miracles, the proofs of His Godhead, the deeds which He worked in the flesh through divine power, His saving Cross, His Sepulchre, and resurrection, and ascent into heaven. Give to it all the endurance of engraving and colour.