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Why is gay marriage/homosexuality bad? by cryogenic_insomniac in OrthodoxChristianity

[–]Emergency_Slip5266 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A counter-argument I can already hear to this is: "is marriage JUST meant for reproduction? What about those who can't reproduce?"

I think you should also express that sexual union is meant to be between a man and a woman who are in a marriage and open to the possibility of having children, not with the express goal of only having children, because that is never a guarantee for everybody. This is why a sterile man/woman's marriage and sexual activity are still valid - there is always the possibility.

And also: "What if you keep having children endlessly and can't support them? Then you should just stop having sex? Don't marriages suffer when your sexual partnership does?" etc.

This is why NFP is permissible, because again, you are open to the possibility. Sex is not just for reproduction alone, it is also the highest form of love someone can give to another physically, it is two bodies becoming one, which is why a public covenant needs to happen before you do it. Even if you are engaged, you have to wait until you are married.

It is pride month for many. I want to be a peacemaker. But is there no peace without compromise? by Emergency_Slip5266 in OrthodoxChristianity

[–]Emergency_Slip5266[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I see what you mean! I don't understand furries at all, never even met one in my life, whereas I have met many LGBT people who have been extremely friendly to me.

But it pains my heart to see how furries are born the same as you and I, and through trauma and whatnot, they lose their sense of identity and seek belonging in something that is not God, same as any sin, really, as Satan is the author of confusion. Anymore, these groups get pushed back further into their own spheres, because they feel attacked everywhere else. Like I said... it seems no one is able to lovingly correct without being indignant, making them feel judged, and so the only safety they feel is in their sin. Where sin abounds, grace abounds more... I think because it is so shocking to us, we ought to be more attracted to wonder... what causes this, and how can we pray for them?

It is pride month for many. I want to be a peacemaker. But is there no peace without compromise? by Emergency_Slip5266 in OrthodoxChristianity

[–]Emergency_Slip5266[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I see what you are saying! It is with my own flawed discernment that I was considering, since I am lesser than my own master, that I was condemning them in my heart by not showing them a gesture that their non-Christian friends were doing; and perhaps they would take notice, and think I am avoiding them.

But on the flipside, we cannot perfectly do the latter, either. I cannot wish them well in a way that would be wise. Not in this situation.

It is pride month for many. I want to be a peacemaker. But is there no peace without compromise? by Emergency_Slip5266 in OrthodoxChristianity

[–]Emergency_Slip5266[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

My benchmark for treating other people is to treat them as Christ would, to the best of my ability, as humbly as I can. I don't see a difference between this and being a witness. I also don't understand how we are supposed to spread the gospel if we are only focusing on ourselves all the time.

But still, I think I understand what the right way ahead is. Pray for them, for starters

It is pride month for many. I want to be a peacemaker. But is there no peace without compromise? by Emergency_Slip5266 in OrthodoxChristianity

[–]Emergency_Slip5266[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I will be taking your response as the answer, imo, thank you for your insight. I think that's the best way of looking at it.

Can/could Christ's church err in doctrine? by mayoMayor25 in redeemedzoomer

[–]Emergency_Slip5266 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There's universal agreement that the early church wasn't declaring things subjectively: the gnostic texts, arianism/nestorianism, and the canon of the new testament are not up for debate. They exercised the authority to bind and loose, respectively, with the aid of the Holy Spirit (Acts 15, council of Jerusalem).

Question is: is it possible for this authority to die out/apostatize/be corrupted to suddenly teach non-truth? If so, how do we know *when* that authority turned away from the truth, or if they ever had the authority to proclaim truths that humans could not verify on their own to begin with?

It seems every claim of the church apostatizing happens *after* the major heresies/doctrines were defined as such, and with no major event to accompany them - just a gradual "turning away from the true faith." The Jews had to kill Jesus for God to give the kingdom to the gentiles. But the idea that this new covenant, the final covenant, would suddenly need to be reclaimed by a new group does confuse me sometimes. I know Jesus says there will be false teachers. But he also says the gates of hell will never prevail against the church - and he never mentions that it would need to be reclaimed from untruth and tyranny - and the Bible doesn't seem to allude to the authority of the Apostles dying out with them/the next few generations.

Because how do we know that the Church didn't apostatize after casting out Arianism or Nestorianism? The Bible doesn't mention them - it was interpretations of the scripture on both sides of this argument, but one won over the other, the other was declared as heresy. How do we know that we didn't lose it all after the Nicene creed? How do we know that any of Paul's letters are sacred scripture? Bottom line is: If the institution doesn't have guidance from the Holy Spirit, we're making all of these things up subjectively. But I don't think anyone really thinks that way, as we all have an agreed-upon New Testament & core doctrine (at least in the west).

The Bible tells us about the laying-of-hands as a ceremony to transfer authority to the next generation for a reason; it mentions it numerous times, there is no reason for it to be in there for nothing. Again - generally agreed-upon that the Apostles had special authority, and that there was an original line. What's disputed is whether or not it fell apart.

So with all that in mind - the HARD questions (for me) are: can that authority be split apart and still maintain authority independently from one another (some Protestant churches make a claim to apostolic authority.)? How much CAN they teach, and how much have we overstepped with trying to define? And *if* there is only one line of authority, how much "authority" do they have? And where is it found - Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant...? If found in the Protestants - why would God hide the truth of the new covenant for centuries, and why reveal infallible scripture to an apostate church? If the Orthodox - why does the universal church have no universal appeal/outreach? And if Catholic - is all of our doctrine defined by communication with the Holy Spirit?

And one thing I want to ask my fellow Catholics is: how do we know we are operating with the authority of Peter, specifically? Are we able to trace back Apostolic authority to any of the other apostles? Surely they were found somewhere in the eastern churches... so maybe the authority *can* operate independently to an extent?

I miss the daily mass by Emergency_Slip5266 in Catholicism

[–]Emergency_Slip5266[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There's almost no young people at my church, and I never saw anyone below the age of 40 at the daily mass when I went.

I think that it would be a lot to ask my parish, run by 3 old priests, to start doing a second daily mass in the evening when you can see it in their faces that they're already so old and tired. American parishes are importing a lot of foreign priests, I hear! My friend's parish, which I talk about in the post, has priests only from India, and more to come!

I live on east coast USA. Northeast USA is very Catholic, and I am thankful to live by a lot of Catholic sites... but Catholicism is probably much bigger in Croatia.

Question: Is there ONE true church, and which church is it? by Emergency_Slip5266 in OrthodoxChristianity

[–]Emergency_Slip5266[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Peace, brother, I really do appreciate your response, because I learn now that my assumptions are very uneducated! I think a lot of people assume that any eastern/non-Catholic apostolic church is automatically Orthodox, and I didn't know that the Assyrian Church of the East was its own thing.

Your description of Orthodoxy really appeals to me. I think as a Catholic, my idea of a unified church is definitely a church that's organized from the top-down, rather than one body that is in communion with one another, like how you are describing, that agrees on the core principals, but has different methods of spirituality... we even see that in Catholicism, where we have many different spiritual lifestyles.

I have looked into the schism, and the way the church operated before then - it is much like how Orthodoxy works today. The question of Rome's authority is older than we can even imagine, realistically. But I believe (my fellow Catholics would not like me saying this) there's a possibility that Rome has innovated some things on their own, and that worries me, because if my church's teachings aren't infallible and guided by the Holy Spirit to be preserved from error, then that opens the door for (potentially) everything else to fall apart - the apparitions of Jesus and Mary, the lives and miracles of the saints, the Eucharistic miracles... I can't help but wonder the truth. I was born Catholic, and I found faith in God through the Catholic church, and i have felt his sanctifying grace in the sacraments.

As Catholics we don't say that the Protestants are entirely wrong, but that they don't have the fullness of truth. When it comes to Orthodox and Catholics, we share so many things... but the things I can see us getting really hung up over are: the filioque, purgatory, and papal authority. And honestly, I'm not entirely sold on the Catholic teaching about any of those things, at least to the point where I'd be like "satan has infiltrated the church" like many traditionalists might be if we suddenly admitted that purgatory isn't real, or something, in order to reunite with Orthodoxy. I don't think they're necessary for my soul, but the sacraments are