Proposed Title: What Do You Think?

You have an answer for everything Mindwalk. It is clear you do not want to be proselytized because Bogatyr is quoting scripture chapter and verse to you and you disregard it with arrogant comments.  Therefore since you show no interest in the Christian faith or the Orthodox Christian faith you should leave.  I am a very kind man in my life and I have worked as a volunteer in prisons, homeless shelters and youth sports camps.  I only say that to point out that your wild accusations that I do not follow Christian ethos are baseless.  I am a sinner and I fail to live up to the Christian ideal but I strive.  Jesus was a shepherd and one of the analogys he made was that a shepherd keeps a wolf away from the sheep.  So like a good sheepdog I want to keep a wolf, you, away from my fellow Christians.  We are under attack from hateful people like you all over the world  I see through your smarmy comments and $5 dollar words. I do not believe you are genuine and I do not trust your professed motives for being here.  Leave.  To Pocklecod I am a member of the Western Church it is true.  But the Western Church and The Eastern church have moved closer together than they have for 1,000 years.  As a Western Church member I am allowed to attend mass in the Eastern Church.

Jebcc: If I have mistaken your motives, I apologize. I know that St. Augustine thought that those in Heaven would look down upon the sufferings of the damned with glee--something I find absolutely appalling--and from your tone I thought you sounded like such a person; but if I was wrong about that, then I'm sorry. I hope I *was* wrong. And I am very pleased to learn about your helpful activities in life. One good thing about the church is that it provides a structure to help people do those good things. That's something I miss.

It's difficult to know what to say about your wolf/flock analogy. It's true that anyone would want to protect his friends and family from attack--I don't think that's unique to Christians. But you and I have very different views of what I am doing here, and it's hard to know how to reconcile the difference in those views. My initial wish was simply to find out whether or not I really should retitle my book, since I did not wish to give foreseeable offense. But when questioning a belief system is itself seen as offensive, what am I to do? It can be dangerous to call into question Moslem beliefs, because you might have a fatwa issued against you. Yet, I doubt that you would want us to simply keep quiet and say nothing but good things about Moslem beliefs! Well, Christianity is not Islam, and Orthodox Christianity is not Islam, but if I think its believers are committing an epistemic mistake, should I simply keep quiet and say nothing but good things about Christian beliefs?

I have already agreed that you most definitely should examine very closely any criticism of your belief system. You should not simply say, "Oh, this fellow has a criticism--I guess I was wrong." Of course not! You should think hard about it. You should do your best to find problems with whatever criticisms I (or anyone else) might make--the critics, after all, might be wrong. I wouldn't want you to change your mind for no good reason any more than I want you to hold your beliefs for no good reason.

As for the five-dollar words--I'm sorry, but that's how I talk. I can try to simplify things sometimes, but really, the making of distinctions requires using those words. If you want to talk about Einstein's theory of relativity, you have to learn the language of curved spacetime and spacelike intervals and timelike intervals and the Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction and so on. If you want to talk about the appropriateness of holding a belief about reality, you have to learn the language of epistemic propriety and metaphysical reality and what constitutes good justification and so on.

But this much, at least, I can put simply: Truth matters. I want to believe what's true. I don't want to believe what's false. The way I know the difference is by having reasons for what I think is true. Without good reasons, I can't tell what's true and what's false. And if I can't tell what's true and what's false, I shouldn't believe--I should withhold belief. And if you don't have good reasons, then you can't tell what's true and what's false, either--and then you shouldn't believe, either. Isn't that simple? Maybe three-dollar words, but no five-dollar words?

But I am sorry if I wrongly accused you of savoring the prospect of my suffering eternal torment. If you really do pray for Jesus to have mercy on my soul, then thank you. I appreciate the thought. I want the best for everyone, and if you do, too, then we agree on that, at least.

I invited “MindWalk” in our team!

I sent him a private message but I prefer to continue in public.

The title of your collection is not insulting for me in any way. If you don’t lie, vituperate, threaten or slander, you can write whatever you like!

The most important subject in Orthodox Theology is the one of freedom (and Love). That’s my opinion of course, but I base it in my comprehension of Orthodox tradition and that’s why I have chosen the “Ancestral Sin” (it’s not the same with Original) for my master.

You choose not to believe that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead and I can’t prove “scientifically” that you are wrong. I respect your choice. It is a matter of faith for me not rational, but we have our signs…

For me the consents of ocular witnesses and also the poor and illiterate fishermen (in their majority) that they became schoolteachers of nations, lived ugly and difficult situations and they accepted to die martyr tortures because the Christ was alive beside them, makes me believe that the Resurrection is a fact. We have torturers that became Christians when they were torturing Christians and saw marvels in front of their eyes, marvels that made them sacrifice their own life and take the place of the tortured! We have millions of martyrs and many of them were rich, beautiful, young, well educated and they sacrificed everything for a fact, not a fairytale.

We also have a true miracle every Easter in the orthodox temple of Resurrection in Jerusalem with the Holy Light that is given only to the orthodox Patriarch in front of the eyes of heretic bishops.

I don’t believe that Dawkins can seriously consider the philosophical arguments especially for God's existence. He is irrelevant and philosophical illiterate.

I am sorry but my English is not very good and I do not have the time to offer you to convince you that our God really exists. If that is your true purpose, what you expect from us is to write Your book but with another title! As I said before in Orthodoxy it is a matter of an Apocalypse or experience. Unfortunately I can’t give you anything of them. You have to try hard to achieve something like Paradise, it’s not a case of a reading a book. To give you something to compare imagine that our goal of life is to win a medal in the Olympics!

I will suggest you 3 orthodox books and if you read them with open hurt I believe that you will understand.

1)    «Fountain of Knowledge or The Fountain of Wisdom» and especially the 3^rd part “An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith” of St. John of Damascus

2)    Ancestral Sin, John S. Romanides

3)    Title: "Born to Hate, Reborn to Love"
Original title: "Zwei Millionen Kilometer auf der Suche" of

“Insufficiently good reason to believe” is not enough for a choice like that. A choice of life or death. You have to be sure and have proofs, you are a scientist and I m a believer, remember? Or else it’s your (more sufficient) religion against another.

There is a religious community that I have in mind, our Holy Mountain Athos in Macedonia in Greece, it is something unique. There, everything springs from God! I suggest you to visit them before you take your final decision about the existence of God…

PS:Sorry I havent read the comments from 17 hours before.

I'll read them and come back.

MindWalk: But those are always the questions I am interested in: "What do you (NOT) believe? And why do you (NOT) believe it?" In other words, what do you think is true, and why do you think it's true? It sounds as though you will answer such questions for me.

What do you know about Orthodoxy and what you want to know from us?

If you want to know, we do not believe in the god that Dawkins don’t believe either!

http://www.oodegr.com/english/ekklisia/ancestral_vs_original_sin.htm

I don’t agree with “Jebcc” and I have to ask from him to behave (more) polite. I don’t want anyone to leave the team, except those who don’t respect us and “MindWalk” respect us. I want to thank you for your great help and participation in our team matches, in forums, etc. and I want to remember you to trite the non-believers of our team as your neighbor that want to learn why it would be better if he becomes your brother in Christ.

“MindWalk” we are here to talk about Orthodox faith not about orthodox’s mistakes so try not to spend in pointless personal criticisms except you want to found your atheism in the malice of the believers. Accept that we are bad students of the perfect Teacher (and teaching) and criticize the Faith (if you can), because what made you an atheist is that you don’t believe in the Teacher or you think that the teaching is wrong, not the bad students (believers).

Of course to criticize it, you have to know it first and this is the hardest part and I know it by experience because I was born in an Orthodox country (Greece), I participate in the mysteries of my church, I studied theology in University I am 32 1/3 years old and I still have to learn a lot!

I told you before that to know God you must have Revelation or experience, than you become a saint, in This life. If you don’t become a saint in this life you won’t be a saint neither after physical death and we ALL have to be Saints. This is our purpose of life!

You say “I believe that everyone has the right to express his beliefs freely and to practice his religion freely (assuming it does not involve anything like human sacrifice).” What if this sacrifice is a free choice of the victim?? This is Ethics, something difficult for the most sects of atheists.

I would like this discussion to be public and not private because I find this a great opportunity to learn more about our faith and share our knowledge. We Orthodoxs have nothing to be afraid of. Just please be more specific. We Orthodoxs have a specific faith, we are not just Christians. What kind of atheist you are (OK you said that you are not a communist!) and what are your questions from our faith (1,2,3…).

I only have time for a quick message right now; I'll be back in several hours. I want to point out that the blue "NOT"s in the previous post are Anastasios's additions to part of a reply I made to him--the most important part, in my view. I am interested not only in what is believed but in *why*.

Yes, we are all fallible. No religious belief can be demonstrated to be false by pointing to the shortcomings of its believers, and no religious dictum can be rightly criticized by pointing to the failures of its believers to live up to it all the time. What is in question is the *merit of the belief*--is it one for which we have good reason to think it is true?

I would not believe or fail to believe that God existed because I liked or disliked Jesus's moral teachings.

If the human being sacrificed sacrifices himself freely, that makes the moral judgment more difficult than it would be were he being compelled to sacrifice himself. But it is against the law to kill your neighbor whether he agrees to it or not, and the church's sacrifice would similarly be illegal. I would want churches to be free to burn incense, to hold prayer meetings, to hold baptisms, and so on, but I wouldn't want them to be allowed to sacrifice human beings. I take human consciousness to be sacred, if I may use the word "sacred" to mean something like "of the highest importance," and it is generally wrong to end someone else's conscious life. (If the sacrificed people were old and suffering from debilitating illnesses, having only months to live and only constant pain to look forward to, that might very well be acceptable. I didn't have that in mind when I thought of human sacrifice.) Even if the victim agrees, the people killing him have an ethical obligation not to kill him, and society has an ethical obligation to prevent them from killing him by law.

I apologize Anastasios.  I am intrigued by the miracle of the Holy light I would like to learn more about this. 

I appreciate your humble reply Mindwalk  I will walk more humbly here as well from now on.  You are correct in your assumption that the good works I have done were through the structure of the church.  I would never have done these things without the church.  I have sat and talked with Hardened convicts as they wept and talked about their life.  I have helped feed hungry homeless persons through the church.  I would never have done these things without the structure of the church and the grace of Jesus Christ.  This may not be a philosophical proof but it is my proof.

We believe the communion is the physical body and blood of Christ.

Anastasios,

Thanks so much for what you've said.  I share your sensibilities on the issue at hand, as well as the question of whether the conversation should continue. 

Jebcc,

Thank you also for coming down a bit in tone.  I do want to make a serious request, though, and I don't want you to get defensive about it or feel attacked (I don't mean it as an attack).  I want it to be extremely clear that you do not speak for the Orthodox perspective on all issues since you are not Orthodox.  This is important to me because there are real differences between your theology as a Catholic and our theology as Orthodox, and they have serious implications for this kind of conversation.  The fact that we have good political relations at present (and we do...something I'm happy about) does not change this when it comes to a conversation like this one.  I'm perfectly happy for you to be present and contribute, so long as everyone keeps it well in mind that there are not two points of view being represented here (Orthodox and atheist), but at least three - atheist, Orthodox, Catholic.  For example, you bring up the body and blood of Christ, and of course you know very well that there are differences in what Orthodox and Catholic theologians mean by using those words.  I don't want to go down that road now, but it is a good example of what I mean.  I appreciate that you long for reunion, and I long for the same, but as of today we are not one Church and there are reasons for that - theological reasons which bear a lot upon this conversation.  You raised me to anger earlier in this forum not because I didn't want you to be here talking, but because you presumed to speak for my tradition.  I would never presume to speak for Catholics, and so I ask the same from you.  Feel free to say what you like, and represent your point of view, but it will not always be the same as ours, though it will be much of the time.  You and MindWalk are both non-Orthodox who are very welcome here (I really mean this) but please don't forget either part of that statement.

Reading MindWalk and Anastasios together, as well as my own comments, I wonder if the question of God's existence isn't actually a bit of a problem as a starting point.  As Anastasios points out quite rightly, we also don't believe in the God which, for example, Dawkins doesn't believe in.  So - if that's what MindWalk is trying to disprove, then we actually just plain agree on that particular point!  So where is there a real difference...if there is any.  With Dawkins, for example, it's easy to see that he finds religion to be a social disease, and we totally disagree - we find religion to be a source of life, salvation and genuine love.  But what about with you, MindWalk?  You don't seem to see religion as a social disease, so where do you think Orthodox theology goes wrong?

This may be a bit hard to answer as you've noted you're not well versed in our theology.  But as Anastasios points out we are not just one group of Christians - we have a very distinct theological tradition and it makes our views on God very different from what you're used to.  To proceed from here, it seems, we will have to accept the idea of starting over a bit.

If you're willing, MindWalk, that can be an important beginning - and I think it might be a valuable conversation for you, too.  There are, after all, upwards of 300 million Orthodox Chrisitans in the world, and if you are going to examine the issue of theism in a complete sense, you'll have to take a look at the Orthodox perspective on it which, again, is not the same as most other Christian perspectives.

I know I already replied to you via private message, but here's another reply.

pocklecod: Your question about finding religion a social disease is tricky to answer. (Sorry, all those who prefer simplicity and three-dollar words.) Religious institutions often do plenty of good. But that good, I think, stems from their social nature rather than from the religious (God/afterlife/sin/salvation/etc.) beliefs they propound. It's great for people to get together periodically and focus on morality; it's great for people to be reminded (although reminders really shouldn't be necessary) that other people have feelings, too, and that treating other people lovingly and kindly is a good thing to do. And it's great for people to have a social structure wherein they can meet future spouses, get job leads, arrange child care, set up soup kitchens, and so on. But none of that requires belief in God or an afterlife.

It's belief in God or an afterlife that I think Dawkins's idea of a meme applies well to--and a viral meme, at that. But since you Orthodox believers seem to have a different approach to your religious beliefs than I ever have in mind myself, perhaps your sort of belief does not fall into that category. I will have to learn more from you all before judging whether or not it does.

BogatyrSvyatogor: I'm sorry, but your last post wasn't entirely clear to me. I can make a couple of comments, but I might be missing your point.

As to the idea of a meme: I had in mind Richard Dawkins's idea. A meme, for ideas that can be held and passed along by members of society, is supposed to be analogous to a gene, which stores and passes along biological information. In any technical sense, memes aren't scientifically well-established; but I do think it's a useful idea. Anyway, what one wants to get across is that some ideas seem to be very readily transmitted--some ideas seem to "catch on" very easily, and seem to be very hard to get rid of. Such ideas are given the label "viral memes." I, at least, do not mean anything more by the term "viral meme" than that. A viral meme could even be a good thing--it need not be bad.

The Creation problem is indeed difficult to answer. I will be happy to discuss cosmological arguments for the existence of God with you, if you wish, but for now, let me just say two things: First, I don't think "God did it" is really helpful, since it transfers the ultimate question from the universe to God--you still have the fundamental problem that something rather than nothing exists. One might say, "God just *does* exist," but one could just as well save a step and say, "The universe just *does* exist." Second, I regard the question "How is it that there is something rather than nothing" as fundamentally unanswerable. I don't see a good answer. When scientists come up with their ideas for the universe's existence, their explanations are always in terms of something else that exists, but the fundamental question--"How is it that there is something rather than nothing"--remains unanswered. But *any* explanation would be in terms of something else that exists, leaving the basic question unanswered. So, I regard the question "How is it that there is something rather than nothing" as fundamentally unanswerable.

MindWalk,

I don't recommend putting too much stock in Ehrman et. al.  This kind of work is outdated and designed as much to make waves and sell books as anything.  The approach to history taken by historical Jesus scholarship on all sides (arguing for Jesus' divinity, against it...his very existence...whatever) is typically deeply flawed.

I would highly highly recommend taking a look at Ben Meyer Critical Realism and the New Testament.  Not an Orthodox scholar, but to my mind just about the only seriously compelling scholar in historical Jesus studies...maybe ever.  Not famous at the popular level, but taken very very seriously by scholars of the field (who, in my experience, rarely take Ehrman very seriously).  I know there have been a lot of books thrown at you, but this would be right up your alley.  Maybe you've even read it.

Lewis is indeed very Orthodox in many ways, though not quite all ways.  He's popular among English-speaking Orthodox.  But keep in mind that Lewis is a popularizer and an apologist.  I would not consider him an intellectual "heavy hitter" by any account, nor does he set out to be one.  Not everyone needs to be a heavy hitter, but Lewis doesn't strike me as a natural conversation partner for someone interested in the level of sophistication which you seem to be seeking.  He's trying to take serious ideas to the common man - if you want to get to the foundational ideas themselves, he's not the best place to start.  After all, some of his best works are children's novels!

I don't want to get too far into the "religion as social disease" debate because I don't find it very engaging - it's really just talking politics.  That was just brought up as an example.  The bottom-line is if that you're not going to be snarky and nasty to us a-la Christopher Hitchens, then we're already past that conversation anyway, and happily on our way to something more productive.

" So, I regard the question "How is it that there is something rather than nothing" as fundamentally unanswerable."

See - now you're talking theologically already!  If there is such a thing as an "unanswerable question" (and I agree with you here!) then you've already done away with many of the assumptions that drive post-enlightenment attacks on religion (usually involving the idea that science can figure everything out, spouted by people who clearly have very little notion of what "science" is in the first place.)  Well, of course there are certain questions beyond scientific method, and, indeed, even any human mental process like reason or logic...and the question "why is there something rather than nothing" is such a question!

Thus, the reason there is something rather than nothing is a mystery.  This is a hugely important term in Orthodox theology, and it is precisely in observation of the existence of mystery that we come to talking about God in the first place.  God is mystery.  Not "a mystery," not "something mysterious" - God is mystery.  This is not in the sense that we have a "God of the gaps" and use God as an explanation for natural phenomena otherwise unexplainable.  Indeed a God of the gaps is precisely not a mystery, but the complete opposite - such a God is an explanation!  Instead, we Orthodox the mystery itself for God is mystery...indeed fundamental mystery is God.

You will probably say, "no, mystery just means I can't answer the question" and ask whether we are worshipping the mental state in which we have a question to which we do not know the answer.  I will respond that we do not worship our own mental states, but rather worship that which underlies existence itself which we absolutely admit to be a fundamental mystery (as you also have just done).  This is to say that here we are...there is something rather than nothing - the human mind cannot but think in terms of cause - yet the cause of the essential something cannot be articulated, understood or known - it is mystery.

The mistake made when someone like Aquinas wants to use this as an argument for God is in saying that this situation points to an "unmoved mover."  This is similar to the Anselmian argument - we start to say "well, God is whatever if behind the mystery."  But this form of argument requires us to actually deny the mystery.  Aquinas at most pays lip service.  It's to say that there's no mystery at all - that there is an explanation, and that explanation is God. 

This is wrong.  We cannot call the cause of all that there is an "unmoved mover," because the cause cannot be known - the question cannot be answered.  To say "unmoved mover" is to answer it...which we can't do.  Even using the word "cause" is itself a construct, a human projection...indeed, a kataphatic theological statement.  Any such move to a proof cannot be directed towards God because God is fundamentally mystery...not a thing which we don't fully understand, not something shrouded in mystery...but the reverse...God is the mystery that shrouds.

It's precisely the real and total mystery of God that makes God God for us Orthodox.  Thus, to the extent that we can talk about a proof of God at all (and we can't do that very much) it is to say that the explanation for the unexplainable, which explanation we will never articulate in the most essential sense, is God.  God is the place where the answer to the unanswerable question would be if there were an answer...but we find that that place is empty, and that very emptiness which is Light is God.  God is not a made-up being that answers that question mind you (this is very very important) but the unthinkable idea that you have yourself asked a question about which question you could not answer.  God is not the solution to all these contradictions, as you are accustomed to people saying...God is the problem that causes them.

I'll move to unify the threads.  In the other thread you say:

Existence is just a brute fact.

This is what I'm getting at.  That brute fact is God.  This relates very closely to my last post.

MindWalk: “(One of the early Christian fathers even said that it was OK to lie to people in the cause of converting them to Christianity. I don't think it's OK to lie in the pursuit of truth.)” Give your reference or your apologies.

You say that if we want to talk about relativity we have to learn the language of the science. YOU talk to Orthodoxs but you ignore our language. Are you just and simply irrelevant or you having a big idea for yourself and your atheistic religion?

Forget Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, flames and purgatories. We have Dionysius Areopagite, Cyril of Jerusalem, Clement and Athanasius of Alexandria, Ignatius of Antioch, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory the Theologian, John Chrysostom, Basil the Great, John of the Climax, Neil from Sinai, Simon the New Theologian, Maximus the Confessor, Isaac from Syria, John from Damascus, Gregory Palamas, Nikodimos from Holy Mountain Athos, Seraphim of Sarof. Study them (not just read them) and if you are not convinced about Gods existence, at list you will have learned what Christianity really is.-

It is truth that in Greece we do not know Augustine. ¶We did not need him (maybe) because we have enormous wealth of Fathers' Tradition and we have not learned to interpret the Logos of God only with the eyes of one and only Father as absolute specialist as in the West. ¶There are Fathers in the East that disagrees between them on particular subjects, this is problem only if this subjects is dogmatic and if they insist in their erroneous opinion. ¶Then the Church distinguishes them as heretics. ¶Our Faith is not cancelled if a Father, even if he is considered a saint, makes error, even dogmatic. ¶To be saint somebody it does not mean that he is perfect. ¶Perfect is only God. ¶I do not say that the Augustine is heretic, although there are theologians that searching his texts proved his errors and interpret the course of Western Christianity, which because it was based blindly in Augustine, was led to Heresy. ¶

¶Anything I know for Augustine it is from critics, usually negative against his. However ¶I do not condemn him when I study the Historical background and the general climate of his teaching. ¶The educative level of Westerners was tragically low in order to be transported the high theological meanings of Fathers of East. ¶Even he was not enough educated in order to understand in depth, that’s why we often see misinterpretations. ¶Perhaps they are owed in that he did not know good Greek and was based in translations.

¶

We know also that the street of fear leads to the Salvation.¶ It is the street of "slaves" but from the absolute destruction, it is something.¶ In the East we see also the street of interest that is the road of "soldier for money" and can also lead to the Salvation.¶ Perfect, however, is the street of Love, for the genuine children of God. ¶When went down from the trees or came out from the caves the Huns, the Goths, the Vandals and the Scotch of West, where they ate roar dead animals or unearthed and ate humans, he couldn't bring them up in the philosophy of East! ¶Not even today we can occupy significances as nature, essence (you say substance with the same meaning), energies, substance (as person), created and uncreated, etc. ¶They should become first Humans and afterwards to enter in Theology. ¶Therefore Augustine said to them "do not eat the one the other because it will come out a dragon from hell and will burn you after first stick you (!)". By ¶frightening the people stopped the killings, rapes, etc. ¶They afterwards went to the new Christian priests as in their old "magicians" of the village and they asked "how will become well my abdomen that aches" ¶  (because I ate roar dead animals or because I did not made bath ever) and they answered, as illiterate priests, make 10 times your cross and then say 20 "Ave Maria" and you will be cured by the God! The worst is that when the West was developed technologically they did not search to correct the wrong interpretation in Faith to Christ, but they rejected it without actually ever been known (in the bigger degree, because there are always exceptions).

¶

We, the theologians, are often accused that we dealt with small details and we miss the forest. ¶What becomes however when the meaning is degraded by a wrong interpretation or translation of a word? ¶How much changes the meaning when Augustine says that God said to Ancestors: “If you eat I will kill you” while he should say "If you eat you die". ¶Or how much perverts the blessed meaning of marriage and love, which was most important in Jews when he present as punishment for the disobedience of Ancestors to God, the disobedience of their genital bodies to them!¶

I am sorry brothers, I would like a lot to continue our discussion, but I do not have constant internet line at home and I have to go out with my car in order to find free Wi-Fi and my laptop battery is ready to die! ¶

¶Thus and differently I believe that the “Atheist” is not interested for my theological information and the members of our team shows with their absence their indifference for his reflections, therefore I consider that the discussion will not go for a long…

Pity, because I waited from the “Atheist” (who even if he is agnostic, declares scientist and [erroneously] as consequence of this, Atheist) to give proofs for the Not existence of God.

I invited him because I thought that he wanted to learn about Orthodoxy and that there would be members of our team to help him find the real Christianity.

Maybe I will post some general comments in future maybe not...

Anastasios,

Sorry to hear about your computer situation!

I think the conversation has been very productive, and I expect at the very least that MindWalk and I will remain in contact, though I might venture into the other forum he mentions if things are dying down here.  You've taken the right attitude to all this, and made some very helpful comments.  I do think MindWalk is interested in learning our perspective, but it takes a lot of talking to go from no knowledge at all - and as you know, most people in the West know absolutely nothing about Orthodoxy.  Thank you for being an excellent administrator of the group and encouraging this discussion.

MindWalk,

I have to concur with Anastasios regarding the issue of lying to people in order to convert them.  In the first place, we really would need to see the quotation, for two reasons.  1) Context of what's said to see if we agree with your reading of the quotation, 2) It may or may not be from a Father who is well-regarded in Orthodoxy...it may not even be from someone Orthodox at all...or it may be something said by a particular Father that has been subsequently agreed upon to be wrong [it's very important than in the Orthodox Church the Fathers, though highly highly regarded, are not infallible].  Many Fathers, even some of the most highly regarded, have had certain teachings refuted by the Church (for example, Gregory of Nyssa) either explicitly by Council, or implicitly over time.

As for Chrysostom, you're taking what's he's said to apply somehow to a conversation like this one (about the existence of God) when he is talking about his relationship to his friend and his decision to reneg on a promise to receive ordination at the same time as his friend.  We can parse out that particular issue with St. John - and maybe he's wrong that it was okay to lie to his friend in this instance...but regardless it has no application to something like a philosophical or theological discussion.  Moreover, the translation sounds archaic to me, so it would be important to see the Greek.

I have never encountered, in the Orthodox Church, any tradition of embracing lies or deceit in order to win converts at all costs.  Indeed, one of the key markers of Orthodox mission and apologetics which distinguishes Orthodoxy from many Evangelical movements, for example, is precisely that Orthodoxy refuses to engage in the "growth no matter what" mindset and rely on tools like emotionality, fire-brand preaching, threats of hell or whatever else in order to gain converts.  Instead, Orthodoxy plods along slowly, and we are encouraged time and again to bear witness to Christ mostly through our lives, our love for each other and all human beings, and the real presence of God in us. Now and then we find opportunities to use words - but that's rare.  You'll just about never see an Orthodox Christian preaching to all comers on a street-corner.  You're far more likely to see him quietly bringing a sandwich to the homeless man nearby instead.  That is a very large part of why someone like you has never really heard of Orthodoxy or been exposed to our theology.  The vast majority of us are simply seeking to live quiet lives of prayer and love.

There are a lot of reaons I'm Orthodox instead of some other kind of Christian, but one of them is this very fact - the Orthodox Christians I know believe in the truth of what we teach - and the real belief in that truth actually means the stakes are pretty low regarding the conversion of any given person.  The Truth carries on with me or without me, it carries on with you or without you...mission and outreach are not something we do to "save" you (as though anyone but God could save you) but rather are an invitation to a way of life which will bring you to See.  There is never a need to lie to someone as a means of simply inviting them in.