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Markup /qa/3101
Comment
Not zoot either, but look into the theology. In my opinion it's the only truly other wordly faith. It alone holds the fullness of Christian teachings and is fully consistent. Everything else looks like a result of human meddling in comparison. The western denominations are legalistic similarly to judaism and islam but less so. Their approach is very human in nature, that's to say they try to square the faith with what we know here on earth and what we're used to. >oh well we sinned and that put us in debt, just like crimes on earth, and then someone had to pay for that debt, like we do on earth, so Christ substituted himself in our place to pay our debt, like one would on earth and then there's the purgatory >well you aren't totally clean/accumulated more debt so you gotta pay for it yourself until you are clean >but you can also pay for this with your worldly possessions! Yeah, they profited from this with their indulgences, but that's not the only time they bent their doctrine. For example in crusades, where they said war can suddenly be good for your soul. This was obviously a political move to appeal to lords and aristocracy who engaged in wars (The Catholic church is and was a political player, even having it's own state). And of course, at the end of this all, if you fail the checks and balances you're sent to hell where you're tortured as punishment. This is what I mean when I say it sounds like work of human minds, and not a divine revelation. And it's night and day with Orthodox theology of Theosis. Theosis/Deification stands as so unique compared to every other faith there is, it's mystical and full and consistent with the rest of the faith. I feel inadequate explaining it and urge you to look into better sources than me, an internet passerby. Still, I'll explain it to the best of my abilities. Orthodoxy makes a distinction between God's essence and God's energies. The essence is incomprehensible to us, we don't interact with this, but the energies of God can be felt by the created. These energies purify us if we expose ourselves to them, be it trough prayer, liturgy, repentance, doing good in God's name etc. By exposing ourselves to the energies of God we become more like God (thus deification). Think of a sword being put into a flame: The sword will become hot and glow, similarly to flame, but it will never become a flame, it will never copy it's essence. This deification is what we are here to do, to get deified by God's love, to prepare for the afterlife. It's about removing all the boundaries we put between ourselves and God by being of the world. Each sin isn't a crime, rather it is us pushing God away, and repentance is us breaking down these boundaries we erected. Good isn't himself bound by a construct of justice, like west would say, he doesn't withhold salvation from us, rather we ourselves reject it by sinning. Theosis is about receiving God's salvation, not earning it, not paying for it with someone else, but accepting what has been gifted to us. Afterlife in Orthodoxy isn't as it is in western theologies. We don't make a physical distinction between heaven and hell, saying one group goes here, the other there. Rather, after the second coming earth will be renewed, as it was before the original sin. This is where the resurrected people will all live, all embraced by God's love. It will be heaven. However, this doesn't mean all will rejoice, those who didn't participate in Theosis won't be able to receive God's love, it will burn them. Those who didn't deify themselves on earth won't be able to rejoice in heaven, someone too wordly can't rejoice in an other wordly afterlife, as an addict couldn't rejoice in a rehab facility, no matter how luxurious it may be. In Orthodoxy, hell isn't a punishment imposed on you by anyone, it's your own personal failure to anticipate the coming age, an age for which you can't prepare for simply by doing x and not doing y, but by truly embracing God's love and letting it cleanse you of sin. Again, I urge you look for an answer from an actual theologian or priest or a monk. But this is how I managed to articulate how I feel about the Orthodox faith and why I find it so compelling. There is of course the historical arguments about the rightful inheritor after the great schism, but I'm not knowledgeable enough to talk about that.