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28 Dec 2006, 2:59 pm

krist wrote:
Scrapheap wrote:
The bible is an ancient plagerised book of mythology. I would'nt use it to predict anything, especially since so many prophecies in the bible never came true.
the bible is not at all historically accurate. i do not believe any of it litterly happend at all. you can not take the bible litterly! dispite the fundie turds. i am orthodox christian and my priest told me that.


Thank you for mentioning this point. I am in the process of questioning my own faith and this is something I was contemplating from time to time but I never got around to actually studying on Orthodox Christianity. So now that I have an apportunity let me ask you few questions on that:

So you mentioned that you don't believe in literal interpretation of the bible. How about church fathers? I guess I vaguely know the "catholic" argument that due to the fact that bible has so many different interpretations, you have to listen to church fathers in terms of knowing which one is right. But I am not sure whether or not ORthodox christians hold the same view on church fathers as catholics do, let alone the fact that I might not be too familiar with catholic argument. So are you saying they are inerrant, or are you saying they might also make mistakes just like bible does, and they are merely "human guides" that would complement for the "guidence" within pages of teh bible?

By the way I remember you mentioned that not only protestants are off the mark but catholics are off the mark as well. So what is the difference between Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity other than the fact that one trusts pope and the other trusts arch bishop? I know both groups differ from protestants in a sense taht protestants believe in "bible alone" while both Orthodox and Catholics believe in church fathers. But are there otehr differences though, because you did mention that you have a problem with catholics too? So do catholics believe in literal interpretation of the bible, or do they agree with Orthodox that it shouldn't be taken literally?

And finally, how do you make sense of the passages where Jesus was preaching against following the "traditions of men"? Doesn't it seem to refute both Orthodox and Catholic position?

Also how do you make sense of Matt 7:13 that says only few are saved? I mean there are more than few Orthodox? Actually this is the question I was also asking to Protestants and never got satisfactory answer which is the very reason I am trying to explore other faiths. So I am hopping that there is some kind of Orthodox answer to Matt 7:13 that would be more satisfactory than Protestant one.

Finally, are you Russian Orthodox or Greek Orthodox? Given that I am from Russia, I know somewhat more about Russian Orthodox. So if I were to become Russian Orthodox does it mean I am to believe in all the past Czars? I guess this would open Pandora's box in terms of questions such as why were the Czars overthrown by Russian revolution and stuff like that. Also, I don't really like the idea of basing my faith on history of one country (whether it be Russia if I am Russian Orthodox or Greece if I am Greek Orthodox) because Jesus said that his comming is like a lightning that from east shines all the way onto the west. But once again I don't know much about these faiths, so these aer all questions rather than statemets.