what are my thoughts of eastern orthodoxy as an orthodox christian



i have conflicting thoughts about religion and theology in general. i am interested in theology but at the same time i think that it's the most pointless field of study to argue about. whenever i argue about theological talking points like, how this or that is heretic and this is fundamentalist and this is proper and have you considered this and so on, i feel i have wasted so much time for nothing.

i believe in god but in a sense, i've said this to my philosopher teacher who was also theistic, that i am self-aware about the fact that me believing in god doesn't really make any sense. why i believe in something that isn't scientifically even proven.

for me believing in god is just three things.

first, it's the cultural framework for voices i've heard all my life. originally i thought that when people referred to god, angels, demons, saints and so on, they just were voices that people hear in the same way as i do. i was shocked when i found out that no, people in fact don't hear any voices. i personally don't understand how people even can believe in god when they can't hear any voices. i know this in a sense when some christians are visibly offended when some secularists or atheists ask that okay so you sense something that doesn't exist, are you in psychosis? well, i am humble and i can admit that yes, my beliefs doesn't make any sense. my voices aren't based on reality. so in sense, you could say, that i am person who is delusional.

i have sense of reality in the sense that i am aware that voices i hear are just audative hallucinations and aren't real. like, if i start to genuinelly think that they're real, then it means that my mental health is worsened. before i just thought that all spiritual beings that people says that they believe, are by definition, those same audative hallucinations. when i learned that no, people don't hear anything and they still believe in spiritual beings, in my own personal religious worldview god, angels, demons, saints, souls ect. are just symbolic names of my voices and not as some universal definition of hallucinations that almost everyone (theistics) would experience.

so here is the reason why i said before that theology is the most pointless study of field to argue about. i remember the clip from series called "xavier renegade angel" where they were referring to events during columbrine shooting. the character asks "do you believe in god?" and if person said yes, then he killed them with pistol. well, then the shooter wanted to shoot xavier, but he said that believing in god isn't some yes or no -question but in fact it's highly vague because god is subjective.

some would say that god is liberal, some would say that god is a communist, some would say that no, god is christofascist, no god is loving father, no god is a great wrath who perishes the evil. god loves finland, no god loves america, no god loves russia, no god loves world, no god hates globalists, no god hates ultranationalists. okay shall we use bible as a source material or? is it some academical metapsychical consept of all-knowing, all-loving and all-almighty that doesn't necessarly refer to christian god or? are we even using abrahamic framework? god, even protestants are using some gender-neutral pronouns about god inspired by jewish kabbalah's shekinah.

in philosophy classes the basic thing that you should always keep the mind on, is ensuring that the both parties refer in same thing when we are talking about some consept. the conversation don't go anywhere or make any sense, if both parties can't agree on similar meanings of words. of course we are always subjective in a sense that we mirror our life experieces into definitions of words, but everyone knows what spoon or fork means, but nobody in all actuality doesn't know what the god means.

also the fact is that god is subjective term, but it's also loaded term because everyone who believes in god, in some sense, put their meaning of life on it. of course arguing about something which gave you meaning for your life is horryfing. so of course that debate will become extremely toxic, emotional and irrational. so what do you even gain from theological debates? nothing. everyone is pissed off and for concept that just is vague, irrational, low-key schizophrenic and doesn't even exist in scientific worldview.

so, my focus is on christianity itself, it's theological contents. god is subjective but if you focus only on christianity and it's values, conversation will be more fruitful.

i believe in three things that are necessary in order to be proper christian who gets christianity.

1. person always should be philosopher first and christian second.

it's necessary, if your theological arguments/views aren't sustainable in philosophy classes, then those arguments/views aren't sustainable in theology. in fact, anything in any field that doesn't hold up philosophically is unsustainable. it's just universal rule that is applied on everything, even in sustainable christian theology and christian identity.

if you don't do philosophical thinking first, what happens? then you will eventually become victim of religious abuse. person is not sane, if some religious auctority says that yeah you should become suicide bomber because i am person with apostolic succession and with apostolic mandate which came from jesus and therefore from god himself, you should really listen what i say. so you're using bible against me? it's church tradition, it's holy spirit doing it's work through us.

you might think that my example is hyperbole but it is based on reality. russian orthodox church gives support to war that uses it's african soldiers as suicide bombers without their consent. i love how russian orthodox christians who support this don't understand that they're basically eurasian jihadists. except, it's worse, because at least jihadist suicide bombers gave their consent to suicide bombing and russian army forces african soldiers to become suicide bombers.

also, the russian army told it's injured russian soldiers that everyone who is severely injured and didn't kill themselves, is a traitor of holy russia because now russia have to pay all expensive treatments and pensions for these soldiers. that sounds so christian.

i think that if person doesn't think philosophically, then the second thing which is usually the result of religious abuse, is identity crisis. and at the worst case scenario, it might kill faith completely, because person doesn't know that it doesn't have to be this way and you have right to keep distance of religious groups that are pathological. groups that are abusive, don't represent the whole eastern orthodoxy. even if they are majority, like russian orthodox church is biggest church in orthodox world but you still can call them sadistic heretics and join constantinopole.

i think that the reason why orthodox religious radicalization is prevelant is due to the fact that our church's history in almost every church and every continent is full of orthodox christian persecutions. catholics, muslims, communists and protestants have always fucked us over. we never had break. orthodox christians have some epigenetic survival mode instinct. this collective trauma is the reason why i think that why orthodox christians usually are ultranationalists, calls everyone heretic, are skeptical about inter-faith dialogue, believe in all kinds of conspiracy theories and if you question any of it then they get extremely defensive.

it's not best just for laypeople to use their own head, but it's best for the church as well. usually orthodox church is flexing about the fact that we are hierarchical church (and it's in the word itself, hierarchy literally means "sacred rule" and came from orthodoxy) and there is like, no democracy. i don't mean that we should abolish the hierarchy. but if church doesn't have any ounce of rationale like "oh so we shouldn't say that people who have commited suicide are burning in hell and we should maybe even change the theological framework into more like how earthly evil pushes people to be unhappy and suicidal instead of saying that that person is somehow evil in midst of mental health crisis".

it's these small things that counts and who makes people rethink their church membership. usually conservative people who think that money comes from a magic wall, don't have the humility that is characteristic of entrepreneurs, and laugh and say, "haha, look, those libtards are leaving the church, finally!" well, who's laughing when there aren't enough church tax payers and eventually even the more conservative ones leave, leaving even more crazy people in the church who are usually quite marginalized? so someone is ready to wage a culture war with unsustainable views just to drive away church tax payers and then our churches will either be demolished or given to the national board of antiquities, which can then do whatever it wants with the churches. even catholics have become more liberal too late, purely because their properties have had to be sold in france, italy and spain. i especially don't want the same fate for the orthodox church.