West vs East-Spiritual Warfare

[rusmeister]

@rusmeister Regarding women's attire at services, I'll agree that certainly there are outfits that would be totally inappropriate. Wetsuit, string bikini, as well as plenty of outfits not intended for swimming. I've never seen a woman at a service in one of those, but certainly, they would be inappropriate. As would be my going to services in just bathing trunks or a clown suit.

And certainly it would be wrong for anyone to go to services in an outfit, or engaging in behavior, that would be distracting or tempting on purpose (who would do that? Probably someone, I guess).

So, having agreed so far, I'll say these two things:

1) How do I know what's tempting? I can tell whether I think a woman is good-looking even when she's in super-"modest", nothing-showing, non-form-fitting attire with her hair covered. I know I am not the only man with this "power." Is she "being a temptation to me" just by being there? If not, why not? If so, why is she allowed to be there? Or why am I allowed to be there? Perhaps I am so good-looking that even in men's attire that you would find appropriate for services, many women there are boiling over with temptation. Maybe so. What am I supposed to do about this?

2) Let's allow that there would be a situation where we could agree: yeah, that woman's outfit was not appropriate for services (doesn't matter what it is, just that we imagine that we agree). And then we hear something after services in the alley by the church. We look out: a man is beating that woman to death! He is so much larger and stronger, she is barely able to resist. She is already on the ground, completely vulnerable. He is screaming "I am going to beat you until you stop being alive!!" and pummeling her in a way that is absolutely horrifying. Looking back at the other parishioners who are peering out at him, he says, with nothing but malice in his voice, "And I know who's next, too!" eyeing a woman who was wearing a long woolen skirt, long sleeves, and a headscarf while she stood in a dark corner of the church.

Now, here are a couple options for what to do in this situation. Remember, we can agree that her outfit was inappropriate.

1) Nothing.
2) Scream at her "Stop resisting! You're making it take longer! Just get it over with! The violence must stop!!"
3) Ask her sister where she buys clothing and, on hearing the answer, inform her that that was not a good source of clothing.
4) Go to the office of the church, activate the computer, and try to log in to her credit or bank account, acting indigant all the while, so you can see exactly what she bought and when.
5) Get the strong men together and run out there and stop him.

I think the only option is 5. If this woman was really so confused or so deliberately attention-seeking that, for some reason, she really wore a string bikini to church, then if she recovers from her injuries, maybe tell Father or Matushka or the abbess that you think one of them might mention to her that other attire should be preferred. But in the moment, I would go with 5.

An analogy is a comparison that has one point that is the same. If all the points were the same it wouldn’t be an analogy, but two identical things.

The analogy of a woman dressing deliberately to tempt (which is NOT the same as a woman dressing normally), to knowingly engage in behavior KNOWN to be provocative has the point in common with Cuba allying with the USSR or a hypothetical alliance of Mexico with China and subsequently, ie, later receiving strategic weapons on its territory from its new allies would certainly seem threatening to the US. It doesn’t need to have other points in common. No American would deny what I have said about Cuba or Mexico. They would KNOW, on a gut level, that such alliances are a threat, and the Cuban Missile Crisis is absolutely a valid analogy in which the US was also willing to go to the brink of nuclear war and not back down.

Now I might agree on your option 5), IF it wouldn’t start a civilization-destroying event. But to say that “other attire should be preferred” is to really minimize, and essentially ignore the deliberately provocative behavior. We agree that the rape is horrible. But I’m saying that it is both wise and important not to engage in deliberate and certain provocation, and getting from you guys that deliberate provocation is acceptable/tolerable and irrelevant. I say it IS relevant and NOT acceptable, even though the sin is certainly a lesser one. You are saying in effect that it is not a sin at all. That’s where we differ.

The woman should NOT have deliberately gone to church (or anywhere at all, in my opinion) in a string bikini. Ukraine should NOT have pushed for NATO membership and the US should NOT have dangled it in front of them (and to this day, Ukraine is STILL not a NATO member, proving the Western intention of throwing Ukraine under the bus. Ukraine should NOT have pushed for a Ukrainization that marginalized it’s large Russian minority. But, nope, they don’t want to admit that. They want to start all thinking only from the rape/invasion and refuse to consider that any previous behavior should have been different. That’s NOT justification of the greater evils. All I’m asking is that you admit that.

IF Ukraine were to renounce Ukrainization and efforts to join NATO (and an EU where Russia is permanently denied membership), then they would pull the rug out from under all popular support from the general Russian citizenry of the invasion. But they don’t want to renounce those things, so we have what we have. I’m saying that it need never have happened.

 

[rusmeister]

More than 15 years ago, I had to talk to a police officer. He told me a story. One prisoner was released early from prison on the condition that he behave well in freedom. He was a good shoe repairman. He took up this business, did everything efficiently and inexpensively, and was in demand. Life began to improve. But one acquaintance, passing by his workshop, kept trolling (teasing) him, saying offensive things. This one could not answer him, since under the terms of the agreement he would have been put back in prison. He understood that the shoemaker would not touch him and trolled (teased) him more and more insistently. The shoemaker endured all this for a long time. But one day he couldn't resist. He had a knife in his hand. When that person started trolling (teasing) him again, he unexpectedly stabbed him in the heart area with a knife. The result is a tragedy: he was imprisoned again, and his offender died.

This is me to the fact that trolling (teasing) a person is also a big sin. Unfortunately, representatives of the OCU troll (tease) representatives of the UOC. The UOC also wants to show a patriotic position. They, too, want to serve their people and support them in difficult times of war. But these people who troll (teasing) provoke conflicts on religious grounds.

It seems to me that it is beneficial for someone to rock the Ukrainian society on the basis of religious and linguistic conflicts. It is beneficial for Russia to rock the Ukrainian society and make it unstable during the war, which is why I suggested that the FSB is behind these trolls. Or is it just stupidity.

I quite agree, Valery, except for one thing. You seem to see Russia as the prime beneficiary of Ukrainian instability. It seems to me that Russia would benefit much more from a stable Ukraine in economic cooperation with Russia, but more importantly, that others benefit even more from an unstable and proxy war-torn Ukraine, and their representatives sit at Davos. NATO’s funding is a multi-billion dollar business; the combined military spending probably (on my scientific wild guess) approaches a trillion dollars annually. In any event it is a HUGE amount of wealth, and worth maintaining the flow of at any price to countries like Ukraine and Russia. Worth buying politicians, bribing, all of the corrupt machinations that produce the policies that produce war rather than peace. Some Russian fat cats certainly benefit from a war footing, but not as many or on the scale that the Western fat cats do.

 

[archer75]

And indeed, @rusmeister, that's where we differ. I think a Russian "victory" (speaking according to the convention of the world) is more likely to lead to a world war than is a Russian "defeat" (which would be closer to an actual victory for Russia).

Russian "victory" in this means the destruction of Russia, which, personally, I don't wish for.

Overall, while (again) it is fair to say that you and I do agree on a number of important matters here, I still cannot understand your overall take. You say you are against the war, that the war is wrong. Yet you are against military aid to Ukraine. Without military aid to Ukraine, Ukraine eventually falls. So you are against the war, but are for a situation in which the goal of the war (the destruction of Ukraine, NOT the protection of anyone, which is a lie: you do not bomb and murder people you are trying to protect) comes about. To me that is difficult to understand. If someone is engaged in sinful actions in order to get a sinful goal, how can you be against the actions but for the fulfillment of their sinful ambitions?

Regarding Ukrainization: a country called Ukraine is certainly allowed to be Ukrainian. If Putin didn't like that, he should have taken some magical actions in the 1980s to prevent the collapse of the USSR. Too late.

Further, why look back to "Ukrainization" and not look much further back? To the anti-Ukrainian language campaign of the 1930s? To the execution of countless artists and writers? The enforced Russification of schools that had formerly been Ukrainophone...for Ukrainophone children? Ukrainianophone Ukrainians your age and even younger remember going to schools, with a mostly Ukrainophone set of kids, and being forbidden to speak Ukrainian, ever, at school, where Russian was the only allowed language. What was this for?

Perhaps there were reasons -- centuries of reasons, actually -- for a touch of Ukrainization in the 21st century?

Perhaps if we are to understand the fake reasons for the war, we could also look back to the real reasons for Ukrainization: the centuries of Russian aggression against the very existence of Ukrainian identity?

Perhaps, if things were truly so terrible for Russophone people in Ukraine, Russia could have used its incalculable weath to give them visas and allow them to move to delightful Russia?

Again, you can say that you are against the war. Fine. But how can you be against the war when you are for its outcome?

Military resistance from the US doesn't cause a world war. It gives Putin an excuse to wrap this up with some nonsense line that a spin doctor will take ten seconds to come up with. What does it matter anyway? They say whatever they want, and Putin's slaves pretend to believe it. It's not as if the government of the RF is somehow married to the truth.

Rus, this would have happened anyway. Ukrainization is not the reason. The reason is that Ukraine started flexing its muscles and showing that it wasn't going to act as the slave of a tinpot dictator sitting on a pile of nukes that were built when he was in high school. That is the "crime." If Ukraine had started inching toward meaningful reform and had made RUSSIAN the official language, and given every Russophone Ukrainian a box of lollipops and a fun monthly stipend, Putin would be doing exactly the same thing right now.

Following the logic of a violent criminal is like following the logic of a child abuser, which is actually a better analogy. Whatever the child does is followed by abuse, which is then justified as a "punishment:" "You made me do this! You were [reading, crying, sitting, asking a question, not asking a question, breathing too loud, being too quiet]!!" When you enter into the "logic" of the abuser, there is really no way out. "Well, why don't we look at what this kid did and see if..." Okay.

Or to alter the horrible analogy with the woman: suppose she was dressed normally. No one noticed anything. And then you find the guy beating her to death, screaming "I'm going to kill her for wearing a bikini!"

Evil is evil. Putin's actions are evil. Evil. He hates Christ and also does not believe in Christ in any way. The Orthodox faith is a joke to him. Not even a joke. He hates families. He hates anything to which anyone could have any loyalty or for which anyone could feel any love apart from his cult of personality. Not resisting is affirming him in his sin AND will cause the destruction of Russia as well as the destruction of Ukraine, the deaths who knows how many thousands or millions, the orphaning of many more, centuries of incalculable damage to Orthodox witness, the possible destruction of the ROC as a jurisdiction, countless suicides, lives lost to drug addiction, the poisoning of countless family lines for farther into the future than we can imagine.

Resistance means fighting against sin and against all those things listed. It also means fighting for the future of Russians, including young people like your son.

A Ukrainian victory is a Russian victory. A Russian victory means the destruction of two countries and much of the rest of the world.

 

[Nick1000]

There are jaundiced assertions in a post that attempt to make the case that Russia would not want to destroy Ukraine because Russia would only benefit from economic trade and prosperity next door in Ukraine.

There is a lot to unpack in that assertion but it certainly summarizes the poster's total misunderstanding of what is happening.

Russia and Russians would most definitely prosper and benefit but Putin's agenda and that of the Russian people are two totally separate goals. Putin is working his personal agenda based on his Peter the Great delusions and the legacy that he is striving for. If Ukraine and its economy are reduced to a parking lot and a hundred thousand Russian and/or Ukrainians soldiers die, it is just a cost of achieving his legacy. And if Russia becomes a world pariah and collapses into the moral, economic, and spiritual equivalent of North Korea, none of that benefits Russia or the Russian people. But it is just part of advancing Putin's goals so he is well on his way to doing exactly that.

This is not about Ukraine and it is not about NATO. It is about Putin's personal agenda and it is about his staying in power. The Russian people might benefit from a prosperous Ukraine nearby but that is a direct threat to Putin's power. Not militarily but because it raises the aspirations of the Russian people. "How come the Ukraine people are just down the road and are having a better life economically with more freedoms and we are living this increasingly draconian life in Russia." That is a direct threat to Putin's power. It's not NATO, it's not the drag queens, it is not Cuba 1962.

That is why Putin is conducting a scorched-earth war in Ukraine. If he does not win and he gets some slice of Ukraine or whatever and then leaves, he at least wants to destroy Ukraine so that will not be an economic or aspirational threat to his regime. Any apologist who starts an argument with the assertion that Putin would not do something because it is not good for Russia is living out on Planet Putin.

The Ukrainians are fighting for Ukraine and their families and in self defense.

The Russian kids are fighting for Putin's agenda. Not for what is best for Russia. I am not talking about what they think they are fighting for but what they are actually fighting for. Decades of propaganda tell them what they think. That is not in dispute.

Putin went up to the St. Petersburg economic forum a week or two ago, and starts babbling on about how people accuse Russia of taking St. Petersburg from Sweden, and that that is not true - that Russia just took back what it already owned. Just a total nutcase working his agenda and baggage day in and day out.

The painful irony is that it is Putin who is increasingly a threat to Russia, not the foreigners or NATO. I guess that is just part of what bringing the Soviet days back looks like. No one knew how to kill Russians quite like the Soviets. The apologists need to start supporting what is best for Russia not what is best for Putin.

It is not just the Russians' business. It is everyone's business now. He is a bad actor and it has worldwide implications. If you love Russia, then he is turning your country into a dumpster fire.

 

[rusmeister]

This is just boring. Going in circles. You see certain evils. I agree to a great extent that many of them are evil. I point out that they have roots in other, lesser and preceding evils, and you consistently downplay, if not outright deny, any importance to them. You point to still earlier evils (The Holodomor, etc) which I agree are evil and roots of the later ones, and yet which had been followed by peace for generations.

I see no point in this. You cannot convince me that the more recent evils are unimportant and irrelevant, I cannot convince you that they are; it must be left to the thinkers in the peanut gallery to decide whether the expansion of NATO, Ukrainization, the overthrow of the elected government in 2014, etc, were things that actually seemed disturbing or threatening to Russians from the Russian POV or not. Looping this on infinite repeat is just vanity.

 

[archer75]

This is just boring. Going in circles. You see certain evils. I agree to a great extent that many of them are evil. I point out that they have roots in other, lesser and preceding evils, and you consistently downplay, if not outright deny, any importance to them. You point to still earlier evils (The Holodomor, etc) which I agree are evil and roots of the later ones, and yet which had been followed by peace for generations.

I see no point in this. You cannot convince me that the more recent evils are unimportant and irrelevant, I cannot convince you that they are; it must be left to the thinkers in the peanut gallery to decide whether the expansion of NATO, Ukrainization, the overthrow of the elected government in 2014, etc, were things that actually seemed disturbing or threatening to Russians from the Russian POV or not. Looping this on infinite repeat is just vanity.

Yet you still have not addressed how you can be against a war but for the goals of the war.

 

[prodromos]

Yet you still have not addressed how you can be against a war but for the goals of the war.

If Ukraine surrenders now, it will endure. Over time, relationships between Russians and Ukrainians can be rebuilt and eventually flourish.
If the conflict continues with the West feeding arms and ammunition to the Ukraine, it will result in devastation and huge loss of life. That is simply the outcome regardless of right or wrong.
The Greek people suffered centuries under the Ottomon yoke, yet they endured. The Turks could have easily wiped them off the face of the earth had the Greeks continued to resist.

 

[rusmeister]

Yet you still have not addressed how you can be against a war but for the goals of the war.

There is no contradiction. I am against the war, but cannot change even the recent past. I would have preferred a Ukraine prior to 2014, with no Maidan, no hostilities with Russia, and a renunciation of Ukrainization. But that cannot be now. So what’s left? Either Ukraine surrenders and gets the best deal it can possibly get, or we have World War III. They’re never going to be members of NATO, regardless of the wish they wrote in their very Constitution, and if they were, we would STILL have WW3. The most they can hope for otherwise is proxy war, continuing to tear them apart, gain them nothing, except friendly smiles from the EU and US, until they have nobody left to fight with. I wish it had never happened, but think it ought to stop NOW, not 6 months from now with scorched earth, a new holodomor imposed by conditions of no food, no wealth, and no energy to make it through the winter. If you are for the continued supplies of weapons and money, but not troops and NATO armed forces, then you favor such a proxy war. If you DO support NATO engagement, then you support (intentionally or not) WW3. I think both options much worse for Ukraine than immediate negotiations.

And if you start going in a circle, back to “bad Russia” and the morality of rapists and child abuse, I’m not going to respond further. The end run of your position is as I have described it.

Our common wish is a return to pre-2014 boundaries and peace, friendship, and prosperity between nations. But then the other factors I have named were already working to make that impossible. And I see, not Russia, but the men behind the men at Davos as the true evil-doers, the ones who willed and arranged this conflict.

 

[archer75]

@rusmeister, don't take my references to Russia as a demonization of the bulk of the population of the RF, who you know I believe are captives. Their government is illegitimate and is their worst enemy.

Okay, so if you really believe what you said above, then that's what you believe. Ukraine cannot surrender until it is destroyed. If the government were itself destroyed, then we would have a generation of guerilla warfare. No one can surrender after what Russia has done. But okay.

 

[archer75]

If Ukraine surrenders now, it will endure. Over time, relationships between Russians and Ukrainians can be rebuilt and eventually flourish.
If the conflict continues with the West feeding arms and ammunition to the Ukraine, it will result in devastation and huge loss of life. That is simply the outcome regardless of right or wrong.
The Greek people suffered centuries under the Ottomon yoke, yet they endured. The Turks could have easily wiped them off the face of the earth had the Greeks continued to resist.

This is untrue. The Russian plan for Ukraine is the destruction of Ukraine, erasure of the Ukrainian identity, and the creation of a set of (fake) "republics " on Ukrainian territory, all Russian puppets. This information is public. So if we believe the Russian prop sites, then what you said is not true: surrender means destruction. End of sentence.

 

[prodromos]

This is untrue. The Russian plan for Ukraine is the destruction of Ukraine, erasure of the Ukrainian identity, and the creation of a set of (fake) "republics " on Ukrainian territory, all Russian puppets. This information is public. So if we believe the Russian prop sites, then what you said is not true: surrender means destruction. End of sentence.

That is exactly what the Turks intended for Greeks, and yet they endured.

 

[archer75]

@rusmeister, one other thing. I say Putin's actions are evil and you accuse me of "Russia bad." As Nick has already said, Putin is not Russia.

Putin is Russia's #1 enemy, Stalin, Yezhov, and Beria rolled into one. As I stated clearly and you ignored, I do wish for Russia to survive as a culture as well, but Putin is working hard against that outcome. He is playing a suicide game along with his pathetic LARP of conquest.

 

[archer75]

That is exactly what the Turks intended for Greeks, and yet they endured.

Great argument. Great that Holy Russia can now be compared to Turks.

 

[archer75]

Wow, I have read so much about how defending one's home is legitimate in Orthodoxy, how affirming sin is so bad, and now here we are: defending your home is no longer legitimate, and the sins of an atheist war criminal who has priests punished for speaking the truth are now to be affirmed...for the rest of his life.

So I wonder, Rus, what will be the excuses that mean Poland should just surrender? Perhaps they aided Ukraine by letting refugees in, thereby hurting the feelings of Russia? Maybe they have some Russian speakers living there but don't have all the Polish news in Russian?

 

[prodromos]

Wow, I have read so much about how defending one's home is legitimate in Orthodoxy, how affirming sin is so bad, and now here we are: defending your home is no longer legitimate, and the sins of an atheist war criminal who has priests punished for speaking the truth are now to be affirmed...for the rest of his life.

So I wonder, Rus, what will be the excuses that mean Poland should just surrender? Perhaps they aided Ukraine by letting refugees in, thereby hurting the feelings of Russia? Maybe they have some Russian speakers living there but don't have all the Polish news in Russian?

If defending your home results in your wife and children being killed, is that a better outcome than surrendering so that they might survive?

 

[archer75]

If defending your home results in your wife and children being killed, is that a better outcome than surrendering so that they might survive?

Where is it written than this is the outcome?

So this applies whenever Russia invades anywhere now, right?

Also, @rusmeister, you say you want Ukraine to surrender and get the best deal they can get. So are they allowed to negotiate? How does one get the best deal without negotiating? But, now someone might say, they can't negotiate because that's like threatening not to surrender, which is too much like fighting...it's going to have to be unconditional surrender, the apologists for Russia will say. And how is that the best deal they can get?

Any answers about Poland? Or will it just be the same the whole way through?

 

[tapi]

Where is it written than this is the outcome?

Indeed, it would be very stupid for Ukraine to surrender, especially now. Russia done goofed. They botched the early invasion to the extent that they are unable of reaching any major strategic goals without what would involve years of rebuild. In any case, I doubt many Ukrainians would submit willingly to live under a Russian-installed and puppeteered, tyrannical regime over war anyways.

 

[archer75]

Indeed, it would be very stupid for Ukraine to surrender, especially now. Russia done goofed. They botched the early invasion to the extent that they are unable of reaching any major strategic goals without what would involve years of rebuild. In any case, I doubt many Ukrainians would submit willingly to live under a Russian-installed and puppeteered, tyrannical regime over war anyways.

Ukraine is done with Bolsheviks. And that's who is running this war.

 

[Nick1000]

If Ukraine surrenders now, it will endure. Over time, relationships between Russians and Ukrainians can be rebuilt and eventually flourish.

Just like after Russia took Crimea?

Just give Putin a little piece of Georgia and he will be happy.

Then just give Putin Crimea and then things will be fine.

Then give him a third of Ukraine......

Moldova, Poland...Finland

 

[archer75]

Just like after Russia took Crimea?

Just give Putin a little piece of Georgia and he will be happy.

Then just give Putin Crimea and then things will be fine.

Then give him a third of Ukraine......

Moldova, Poland...Finland

And each time, no one is allowed to fight back because it will "take longer."