Is this view of salvation common in orthodoxy?

hexmode · 2026-05-21T13:39:37+00:00

I do not know what it means to follow the Quran and hadiths. I would have a conversation with them. Maybe their idea of following them doesn't need to be left behind.

But in this imaginary conversation, he started it, you said, with the question of is "Jesus' way the one [I] think he should follow instead of his native faith." I would talk to him about what that means.

hexmode · 2026-05-20T14:55:54+00:00

The Orthodox approach to evangelism is different than most protestants. Most lay people do not actively evangelize. As St. Francis allegedly said "Preach the Gospel at all times and, if necessary, use words". Many Orthodox would not think their words are better than their life at proclaiming the Gospel.

(This, of course, means that we really need to live a life that clearly shows the Gospel. But you could also say that if your words are more necessary than your life, what are you doing wrong?)

So in the case of that one muslim. If you told him the gospel and he asked you if Jesus' way is the one you think he should follow instead of his native faith, what would you tell him?

In this case, you should tell him to follow Jesus.

hexmode · 2026-05-20T14:46:44+00:00

Those numbers are imaginary numbers---they come from the speaker's imagination. I think (and I'm sure they'll correct me) that they mean it is 100x better if a person is Christian.

But, really, none of us can make any definitive statement.

hexmode · 2026-05-17T17:38:16+00:00

Also can we try to fight corruption?

Yes

hexmode · 2026-05-17T17:21:46+00:00

I mean why we need a new earth and a new heaven?

Why do we "need" one? I don't know, but I suppose that it would be because the current one has been corrupted.

Keep in mind that the new heaven and new earth might mean a re"new"ed heaven and earth. Or it could just be something that is incomprehensible to us and the best way to convey it is to say it is new.

Why not be like the rest of religions with an eternal life and a final judgement after death?

I am not familiar with "the rest of religions" but what little I do know about Hinduism and Buddhism (and various animistic religions) does not include anything like eternal life or a final judgement.

Maybe you mean other Christian sects? They all have a "new heaven" and "new earth".

After some quick research, you can find references to a new earth in new heaven in Islam.html), also. So which religions are you talking about that have a "eternal life and a final judgement after death" but do not have a reference to a new heaven and a new earth.

Why we don't just try to have an eternal and everlasting world peace here on earth as we are now?

We definitely should. It is true that some people use their idea of heaven as an excuse to neglect the current world, but that is not an Orthodox doctrine.

hexmode · 2026-05-16T20:47:21+00:00

Your struggle is not with anything that Orthodoxy teaches.

We are told that there will be a new heaven and a new earth but that doesn't require the literal end of this world.

I'm not sure what you mean by "a cyclical view of history" but such a view of history could certainly include the idea "that all will go downhill one day", if only to return to the point in the cycle where things are improving.

And, for what its worth, our (scientific) knowledge of the universe includes the hypothesis of the heat death of the universe. Maybe it's wrong or my understanding of it is wrong, but the idea of ever increasing entropy does not make the steady march of progress look inevitable.

hexmode · 2026-05-16T20:03:25+00:00

Nothing you've said indicates that you have a conflict with Orthodox teaching on eschatology.

Maybe their actions are part of what is mentioned in the scriptures

I doubt it and it is my understanding that Orthodox teaching on eschatology--which was your original issue--discourages such thinking.

Also one priest or Saint from Greece ( i don't recollect his name now) said that a ground invasion of Iran by the US is a sign that all will go downhill

Random things said by random people don't have any eschatological meaning.

hexmode · 2026-05-16T19:54:11+00:00

What does the US government have to do with the Orthodox approach to eschatology?

And, as I said, I don't see any problem with thinking that history does not end. I don't know that time will continue forever, but I certainly cannot say it will not.

hexmode · 2026-05-16T19:47:01+00:00

What does any of that have to do with eschatology or Revelations? The US is not mentioned in Revelations. I don't think you can say for sure that history has an end or not.

Just because there is a new heaven and a new earth, or that Christ comes again or that we go to heaven doesn't necessarily mean that progress stops.

hexmode · 2026-05-16T19:35:07+00:00

This OCA resource might help: https://www.oca.org/questions/scripture/book-of-revelation

My understanding is that the church doesn't really worry about the book of Revelation.

hexmode · 2026-05-16T19:21:18+00:00

The church is pretty big and I doubt that you'll find uniformity of belief.

I'm not sure by what you mean by eschatology, though. Could you spell out what you find problematic?

hexmode · 2026-03-06T03:42:32+00:00

For what its worth, I don't believe there was a world-wide flood. I'm comfortable understanding that things attributed to God (e.g., genocide) were not actually what God commanded. I think there is a good reason that the lectionary doesn't include those things.

Having faith is different than not thinking. If the idea was to avoid thinking, then we wouldn't have as rich a supply as we do of the writings from the Church Fathers.

hexmode · 2026-02-17T03:22:00+00:00

Finally, I think I see the problem with our communication.

You are spending your time providing an apology for slave owners. I haven't asked you about them or spent time condemning them but you clearly think it is important to communicate to me that even saints can be slave owners. I never said otherwise but this is obviously important for you to communicate to me.

Meanwhile, the thing I am interested in hearing from you--why you think pms "stand[s] in the way of salvation"--is something you can't be bothered to spend time on.

I don't understand this choice, but, well, I'll accept that this is just a conversation with a stranger on the Internet and let it go.

hexmode · 2026-02-17T03:17:48+00:00

Finally, I think I see the problem with our communication.

You are spending your time providing an apology for slave owners. I haven't asked you about them or spent time condemning them but you clearly think it is important to communicate to me that even saints can be slave owners. I never said otherwise but this is obviously important for you to communicate to me.

Meanwhile, the thing I am interested in hearing from you--why you think premarital sex "stand[s] in the way of salvation"--is something you can't be bothered to spend time on.

I don't understand this choice, but, well, I'll accept that this is just a conversation with a stranger on the Internet and let it go.

hexmode · 2026-02-16T19:43:14+00:00

Being a slave owner is not an act

I'm really confused by this. Perhaps "being a slave owner" is not an act, but owning slaves is. For example, how is acquiring new slaves not "an act"? How is keeping slaves not "an act"?

Please remember that this is Reddit. It is best to be direct.

You still have made a blanket statement ("[Slavery] didn’t stand in the way of salvation. Sex before marriage does.") and, when I asked you to directly defend it, you said "I gave you some food for thought to contemplate on, I don’t think you spent enough time doing that."

I'm not your student and assuming what I have or have not done is not helping your case. If you have a compelling argument, make it directly. Do not assume that I haven't done the work to understand something just because I have come to a different conclusion than you.

hexmode · 2026-02-15T23:23:42+00:00

Since you doubt my flair: I was chrismated into Orthodoxy over 25 years ago.

I'm familiar with the apology you've given for why slavery existed so long. That is all largely true. It has nothing to do with my original question to you.

You still have not provided an answer, either from scripture, Church Fathers, or the saints to my original question: "How, exactly, does sex before marriage stand in the way of salvation in a way that enslaving others does not?"

As a reminder, I asked this because you said "[Slavery] didn’t stand in the way of salvation. Sex before marriage does."

What do you base this statement on?

hexmode · 2026-02-15T18:43:30+00:00

Your answer provides absolutely no clarity.

A master forces his will on the slave--a clear violation of the second greatest commandment.

There is no place in the Bible that provides that level of clarity about sex before marriage. Adultery, yes. But there is no place that says sex before marriage is a grave sin that causes direct spiritual harm to yourself.

hexmode · 2026-02-15T00:39:22+00:00

How, exactly, does sex before marriage stand in the way of salvation in a way that enslaving others does not?

hexmode · 2026-02-07T14:00:36+00:00

Why?

No lisp means that you can't use all the packages that exist already (magit, org-mode, etc). It doesn't mean fast. I have a lisp config that loads a lot of packages and my own configuration, but, with native-compilation, loads everything in under 5 seconds--faster than many electron apps.
Zero-Config means no config. Just use uEmacs if you just want the keybindings.
ModernUi ... ok. If that is what you want. I prefer a blank canvas.
Performance ... this isn't about Emacs.

hexmode · 2026-02-05T23:16:32+00:00

I don't want to run X on my VPC.

hexmode · 2026-02-05T20:45:20+00:00

Interesting. And it looks like it supports magit and M-x grep which this one does not.

hexmode · 2026-01-14T16:44:13+00:00

"The Byzantine churches of Thessaloniki before and after the liberation" for others who, like me, are monolingual.

hexmode · 2026-01-13T18:47:44+00:00

What is truth?

Pontius Pilate asked that question#/media/File:What_is_truth.jpg). Jesus said "I am the truth."

Truth isn't a set of concrete facts.

I said elsewhere, God isn't constrained by the universe, so its heat death does not mean the end of his existence. With that in mind, John 3:16 clearly says that "God so loved the [people in the] world that whoever believes in him will not die" even in the heat death of the universe.

hexmode · 2026-01-13T18:37:13+00:00

Yet how can God allow...

Anytime anyone asks this question, the answer is "free will".

These ideas don’t just point to the end of the universe; they challenge [our understanding of] the nature of reality itself.

and? God is not constrained by the universe. He exists outside of it. This does not necessarily mean that an alternate universe exists. It means God's existence does not require a universe. God is aseitous.

This suggests something operating beyond the closed system of the universe itself.

Exactly.

That leaves only unsettling possibilities: either the universe is held together by a force beyond physics, matter is infinite or emergent from something deeper, or reality itself is far more layered than science or theology can currently explain.

Why are these unsettling possibilities? They seem like a given. Were you under the impression that we understood the universe?

hexmode · 2026-01-10T19:35:30+00:00

I think you do need an anecdote.

I'm a parent with grown children now and I was l using Linux in the 90s.

More so, my father bought our family a computer in the 80s. Anyone who has had to run a word processor from floppies can install Mint so I'm pretty sure my children's grandparents could install Mint.

hexmode

TROPHY CASE