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James4Christ 777

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He was one of the people who defended traditional Christianity in General Theology. I guess one have to be cautious.

It a reminder to check our pride , and remember it can be any of us who ends up in his state of apostasy.
 
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Oh... you didn't receive the Kingdom of God as a little child. We hate when this happens to anyone. We're so sorry about this.
 
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RobNJ

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He was one of the people who defended traditional Christianity in General Theology. I guess one have to be cautious.

Another example of why, no one in their right mind (or, me , for that matter ), venture into that open-air cesspool, that is the General Heresies forum!
 
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Not David

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Another example of why, no one in their right mind (or, me , for that matter ), venture into that open-air cesspool, that is the General Heresies forum!
It might not being General Theology otherwise he would say Obama is the Antichrist or that the Byzantine Emperor invented Orthodoxy.

I will also be careful of the Political and Atheist Forums here.
 
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☦Marius☦

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I get what you are trying to do, but you are making too many assumptions about my intent. I have yet to ever try psychedelics, merely study them.

All of should ask God why he has allowed someone who gave up everything he has multiple times to both monastic and missionary callings within various churches, to fall into what you are calling foolishness. When I have done nothing but pray for humility, freedom from my mental torment, and a prayer life. Do you know what it's like to be in torment every time you try to pray? My entire life has been destroyed by this religion, and I don't feel it has benefited my soul in any way.
 
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☦Marius☦

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I've been reading the Bible and trying to pray my entire life. Look at my forum posts, does it look like I lack a Biblical education? Why does everyone assume it must be my failings that have led me here?! I've had honest intentions. I cannot help how I think or how I feel. I cannot help that God hasn't lifted one finger to help my prayers for freedom from sin and mental illness. My entire life has been accursed but oh it must be my fault. What have I done to deserve the hell that goes on within my mind? I have to try something before the end in order to save my self. No myrrh steaming icon, invocation of saints, prayer to Christ, exorcism, or reading and memorization of scripture has helped in 23 years. It's only gotten worse.

The monastery was my last straw. I gave my all and "God" gave nothing.
 
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☦Marius☦

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It a reminder to check our pride , and remember it can be any of us who ends up in his state of apostasy.
Do you know how proud this itself sounds? I started faltering during my time on this forum because of the sickening words of other "Christians".
 
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☦Marius☦

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I posted this post as a courtesy to those I consider friends on this forum. Not to be attacked by people who neither know my struggle, or my thoughts.
 
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Jude1:3Contendforthefaith

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Do you know what it's like to be in torment every time you try to pray?

Yes, I actually do know how this feels. It can take many forms : rage, sadness, lust, pride, vile thoughts, involuntary physical feelings caused by demons etc.
Involuntary physical feelings and vile thoughts can be caused by people using witchcraft, spells and sorcery against us because they are working with demonic spirits.
The Lives of Sts. Cyprian and Justina

The story of Martyrs Saint Cyprian and Saint Justina makes this abundantly clear.

The demons that are causing you this torment are the very same ones encouraging your fascination and research into demonology, magic and the occult.

I'm telling you man, it's demons doing this to you. It just means that you will have a great reward in Heaven because of the suffering you have endured in this life. But you must endure to the end.


.
 
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AMM

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Do you know what it's like to be in torment every time you try to pray?
Yep.

I’ve seen it in levels that you describe in people that I am very close with. and I’ve felt it myself to a small degree.

It’s not fun by any means. You have my sympathy and my compassion. Lord have mercy on us.
 
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dzheremi

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Lord have mercy. There is some I can relate to in some way in there, having been born with debilitating medical condition myself (that is, of course, incurable and degenerative...weeee ). I think something that a lot of people don't allow themselves to think or at least wouldn't tell others is that in this kind of state, it is entirely normal and understandable to doubt God and religion and want to reject all of it. I mean, people will point to Job and other similar characters in the Bible and say "Look -- here is a man who suffered unfathomable tragedies, and yet he still praised God." Yes, good. Good for him. A very good model for us all. Here's the thing: He had children, he had some amount of wealth, he had...things. I mean, if we're on the internet right now, I think we can safely assume that we all have things (read: I really hope this doesn't come off like an "everybody pity me" post, because that's not my point; I am definitely a member of the "1%" in a global sense, and so are basically all of us purely by virtue of being here), but it is really not the same. Modern life is a giant game of appearance and pretense and when you can't even participate because of problems that you had nothing to do with creating and can't seem to get any relief from...man, I dunno...it's hard. There's not really any reason to keep going that is extrinsic to you if you don't have anything or anyone that is extrinsic to you to turn to. Some people who manage to be more cynical than me would say that's why human beings turn to religion to begin with...or at least to internet forums like this one.

I just want you to know that no matter what is going on with you, there are people here who do care about you and don't want to judge you, even if we're all sad at the turn you've taken lately in regard to your faith or your relationship to religion or whatever you'd call it. Sometimes the victory is in persevering so that you can get through the natural run of life, including the precipitous drops. So many of the saying of the fathers (or at least the Desert Fathers, by whose path I was led into the Coptic Orthodox Church) warn us to expect temptation to the very last breath, and that is true, but there is also the reliability of pain, confusion, hurt, loneliness, and all of these other things that make life so full of snares. I spent roughly 10 years outside of any kind of religion after my mother died (she was a very faithful and committed Protestant, so I guess young me was angry with God for nevertheless taking her from a child, when she was really the only parent I had ever known up to that point). I honestly have only very dim memories of that time by now, but I do know that all of those bad feelings and experiences did not go away for me, but only intensified...as well as the bad ways that I coped (or rather didn't cope) with them.

So I am afraid that I am bound by the same question that the Lord was asked when so many had abandoned Him over His hard teachings: "Lord, to whom shall we go?"

Wherever you go, Marius, I sincerely hope that you find the peace that you are seeking.
 
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charsan

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I do not want to sound mean. You may have gone through a lot but others are worse off. Take me for example I am disabled, get chronic cellulitis which in the summer was so bad it changed me and required multiple visits and stays to and in the hospital. My wife has problems with dizziness so severe that sometimes all she can do is sit and she can only sleep in a chair. I need a lift van to get around and a hospital bed to be able to sit up in bed. We have prayed many times and I pray everyday about these things and you know what? Nothing. Even with that faith in God is what sustains us against all these terrible things.

Maybe this exchange between CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien might help:

The following Tuesday (September 22), Lewis recounted the scene to his longtime friend and correspondent, Arthur Greeves:

We began on metaphor and myth—interrupted by a rush of wind which came so suddenly on the still, warm evening and sent so many leaves pattering down that we thought it was raining. We all held our breath, the other two appreciating the ecstasy of such a thing almost as you would.

We continued (in my room) on Christianity: a good long satisfying talk in which I learned a lot: then discussed the difference between love and friendship—then finally drifted back to poetry and books.

Later in the letter, discussing the writings of William Morris (a 19th-century English novelist and poet who had greatly influenced Lewis from his youth), Lewis notes:

These hauntingly beautiful lands which somehow never satisfy,—this passion to escape from death plus the certainty that life owes all its charm to mortality—these push you on to the real thing because they fill you with desire and yet prove absolutely clearly that in Morris’s world that desire cannot be satisfied.

The [George] MacDonald conception of death—or, to speak more correctly, St Paul’s—is really the answer to Morris: but I don’t think I should have understood it without going through Morris. He is an unwilling witness to the truth. He shows you just how far you can go without knowing God, and that is far enough to force you . . . to go further.

The following month (October 18), Lewis wrote to Greeves again about their conversation:

Now what Dyson and Tolkien showed me was this: that if I met the idea of sacrifice in a Pagan story I didn’t mind it at all: again, that if I met the idea of a god sacrificing himself to himself . . . I liked it very much and was mysteriously moved by it: again, that the idea of the dying and reviving god (Balder, Adonis, Bacchus) similarly moved me provided I met it anywhere except in the Gospels. The reason was that in Pagan stories I was prepared to feel the myth as profound and suggestive of meanings beyond my grasp even tho’ I could not say in cold prose ‘what it meant’.

Now the story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened.

Source

I also wanted to say thank you for your time here and I hope again I don't sound mean. The bold came from the article above not me.
 
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A Realist

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I posted this post as a courtesy to those I consider friends on this forum. Not to be attacked by people who neither know my struggle, or my thoughts.
I hope the best for you, and sympathize with you because you are about to learn (and are already learning) who your friends really are.

Some folks also just don't understand that platitudes are of no benefit to you right now.
 
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James4Christ 777

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Do you know how proud this itself sounds? I started faltering during my time on this forum because of the sickening words of other "Christians".
How is it prideful to remind us all that it can be anyone who falls away, and not to have the "nah I'm good" mentally, which is pride. if the language was harsh in your view I'm truly sorry , please forgive me, if you think this was a personal attack on you, it wasn't, please forgive me.

Also Christians are rude, use bad language, lie, cheat on their wives, it is unwise to judge whatever to stay in the faith or leave over how random Christians on a forum behave, it is for sure disheartening, yet it one of the most wrong reasons to leave Orthodoxy.
 
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Nick1000

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Okay, we will leave the Light on for you.
 
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ArmyMatt

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do I? yes, I do. but more importantly, St Tikhon of Zadonsk does. he suffered throughout his life.
 
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AMM

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do I? yes, I do. but more importantly, St Tikhon of Zadonsk does. he suffered throughout his life.
Do you have more info on this Father? I have read St Tikhon is a patron saint for afflictions and suffering, especially mental, but I don’t know why
 
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Jonaitis

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I do not need to ask God how or why, because he has already told us through his word. If I gave my view on this matter, in this forum, I would breach the rules for promoting contrary doctrine. You are an example of my view for how someone who may appear a believer may end up showing everyone that it wasn't real, abiding and transforming. You can show yourself to be great, theologically and morally, in the faith and still be lost.

There is such a thing as real, true apostasy, with the apostate convinced of his error. But how one is an apostate is debated among us professing Christians.

Marius, even though you were an EO (and Baptist before that), my heart still breaks for you.
 
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ArmyMatt

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Do you have more info on this Father? I have read St Tikhon is a patron saint for afflictions and suffering, especially mental, but I don’t know why

he is the Orthodox version of the dark night of the soul.
 
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James4Christ 777

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he is the Orthodox version of the dark night of the soul.
Yes, the saints too had moments of doubt, we should look to them during times of unbelief.
 
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