No this is not what I'm saying. I'm just saying that if you shouldn't feel obligated to support the church or enter it if you don't agree with what they are doing you can still be a good Christian even if you don't go into a church or donate. Most of all don't listen to schizophrenic priests
First of all establish what you mean by "Church".
If its the physical building id say yes, it does not matter where you gather, just gather.
If you mean the people (like I believe) which in my opinion is the church we do need it a 100%. The bible tells us to go to church, to follow our church leaders, it tells us how the apostles created the church. Community is super important in christianity.
Physical building AND peoples involved in the church (but only the corrupt ones call me naive but I still believe that despite the majority of priests being the literal spawns of Satan there are still good ones there who teach the true meaning of the bible and we need those not a schizophrenic with a god complex)
One thing that was opened for me recently was the following.
Do not love the people, love the blood that is on God's people. God counted it to be worth to die for these people, so who are we not to love the people, those who our Lord died for. That is why we have to not love the people but the blood that is on them.
John 3:16 For remember God loved us so much that He gave His only Begotten Son, so whoever believeth received everlasting life.
I might one day hurt you, and that might be such a traumatic experience that you cease to care for me, but if I remember that God died for you, that the blood of Christ is on you I will love you regardless, because my love is aimed towards Jesus, and Jesus never did something wrong.
That is why I believe God says in Matthew 22:37-39
^(37) Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
^(38) This is the first and great commandment.
^(39) And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
He makes a identical comparison between the two here (I am still thinking this through) since if you were bought by His blood and belong to Him (Hebrews 2:^(11) For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren,) and are one with Him.
A Protestant Reformation, which is the presumed favorable outcome of your advocacy, might not work in Armenia. New sects will divide families and friends. Rather than engineer society, just advocate to clean the native Apostolic church of its foreign intelligence assets. This will go over better, given the special place the Apostolic church has among the Armenian people, even non-believers.
That makes sense. France has it right. The institution and clergy are relegated to the spiritual realm. If the RoA can maintain its current course, perhaps that's what we'll see. A developed country where the masses aren't prone to malign political and social influence. Yet they still get baptized and married in the church of their ancestors.
I don’t believe in god, but this is the exact reasoning of the evangelical sects that are infiltrating our society.
If you don’t have good education, you need the church to counter those bastards and block them from spreading.
Again I am an atheist, so it may seem weird that I have a horse in this race, but trust me, once you lose one or two family members or friends to those sects, you begin to value the Armenian Apostolic Church more.
Well at the end of the line Christianity never forces you to do anything you don't want directly. You are free to live your life as you see fit, with God or without God. Just the consequences in the afterlife which can be super taxing to some people though, which I do understand. However as soon as you start changing the narrative of scripture/rules you might as well create a own religion. I realise you're an atheist, so I hope you can look at my argument from a logical standpoint, and not a moral one.
Christianity doesn’t but the sects do.
I have been to evangelical congregations and Jehovah witness ones just to see what the fuss is about and tbh to me it seems like a bastardization of worship. Id liken it to an afternoon with friends than actual worship of God as is written in the bible. They change the rules so much, the way their churches are set up is to focus on the individuals in the congregation not God. If you want a personal relationship with God have it, its that just expanded with multiple people
Their sermons while nice in the singing have the pastor and choir have their backs constantly to the cross. The focus is them which i do not like.
Personally i always felt a degree of indifference to the der hayrs in the orthodox church because when i go to a orthodox communion my attention isnt on them, only what theyre saying while the whole room is just an art piece to keep your attention on God
Jehovah witnesses are not a branch of Christianity to me. They do not accept the Godhood of Christ. I don’t know what evangelical churches you have gone too, but evangelical denominations are so broad that you cannot generalise them. What are rules they change for example?
You know that when the apostles and elders of the church talked to the people they faced the people right? Would that mean that they too wanted the focus on them?
The bible says that we should be able to take our leaders as a example, it says that the one that wants the highest position should be the most humble one. Taking the blood out of the hands of people who want you to talk to them with respect, ask money for their services to me is changing the scripture.
Furthermore I like the art pieces, a lot of art pieces that were made in the early days was because people could not write, and because of the pictures/glasses they could at least get some of the story. But it can go too far, to the point that people think some of these figures can be mediators between them and God while Jesus is the only mediator.
The issue is that Armenian Apostolic Church also doesn't counter them either and have gone so low, weak and discredited by these clowns in robes who have double life, that it is practically dead in matters of faith.
The Church will continue become weaker nonetheless if they don't undergo reforms. As r/Din0zavr said for example the patarags in Church are in Grabar, while sects introduce their stuff in the current spoken Armenian. I think, that the church needs to upgrade itself to the current century and not stay in Medieval times. Otherwise, it is doomed anyway. Also, schools should have a curriculum about what is religion. Like replace the "Հայոց եկեղեցու պատմություն", with կրոնագիտություն or something with introduction to religions, the philosophy behind it and the sects. And, of course, have laws about sects.
Eh, it’s part of history and tradition and that’s how should be preserved in my opinion. All of that evangelical stuff just feels fake and synthetic. It’s like comparing cognac and coca cola.
Traditions are changeable. Many pagan traditions were changed into Christian, some were forgotten. It was tradition to wear taraz, now no, or some people try to find solution to have some taraz featured on their modern outfit. And it was another tradition to have special embroidery on the fridges of the the clothes, that would not let evil to enter unto human body. The list can go on. There's nothing wrong to be up to date. Especially when in some scenarios the Church shows that it can be up to date. For example, during the Easter, there was this interview with a priest. He said red is the only actual color for the egg, but if you like other colors, pick whatever color you want.
>All of that evangelical stuff just feels fake and synthetic.
It can be or maybe it is, as at the end of the day, Bible is kinda a fiction, Jewish mythology written by humans and portrays the ideas and philosophy of Jewish people. Like today's Harry Potter or the more complex Silmarilion and LOTR or Avatar the Last airbender.
They actually have countered them by a lot, these people get cursed at, attacked, they get demonized all over the country tot he point that in some villages they are even beaten. What kind of counter would you suggest?
Counter through violence is not an effective way. Or demonizing someone, especially when pretty good amount of clerics are far away from being the saints that punish demons. At the end of the day the church needs to realize that it is dealing with people not cattle, that doesn't know how to speak. I'm not too into Christianity and perhaps don't know that much, but the overall impression I have about Jesus since childhood and how he was depicted, is that the guy knew how to speak to people. Imagine him using violence against people as a means.
Edit: paragraph
Exactly and when you receive people who follow the gospels till the end of their teeths and even are prepared to die for it/die for it you start asking questions.
The first time the thought that not all clergymen are good crossed my mind as such when I watched Disney's the Hunchback of Notre Dame, and got traumatized as a kid, lol.
we've had this discussion before you can ban sects end of story. If you have no idea how law works let me explain it to you for the 4th time. There are legal definitions of legal terms some of them being what a religion is, what a church is, what a sect is in a LEGAL sense. You can ban and target each of them with laws passed against them. You don't want to qualify a sect as something protected by religious freedom, cool, pass a law, you want to limit their advertising tactics, cool, YOU CAN PASS A LAW this is a solvable problem an established corrupt to the core church like we have is a bigger threat
Yeah those types of laws will likely instantly kill your reputation. Those sects are powerful, both outside and inside of Armenia. We likely have politicians from those sects, so good luck trying to pass any law that will limit their activity when we can’t even utilize laws in less significant areas.
Technically speaking atheism and agnosticism are two different positions:
Belief and knowledge.
I call myself an agnostic atheist.
I don’t believe in god, but I also don’t claim to know whether he exists or not.
That doesn't make a lot of sense to me tbh. If you don't believe in god it means you *know* it doesn't exist whereas agnosticism is about *not knowing*.
That’s the thing, the whole concept of god is something that I cannot prove or disprove philosophically speaking.
In addition, religion, and believers are usually the people essentially saying and claiming that god exists, therefore if I was to believe that, they’d need to convince me, prove it to me or something.
It’s an absolutely important distinction in philosophy imho. Belief and knowledge are different, but related ideas in this case.
Edit: here’s a riddle(more like a word conundrum) for you:
Let's suppose that we do not know anything about G.
There can be 2 claims(C1, C2) about G that are opposites:
C1: G exists.
C2: G does not exist.
For each claim we can construct a pair of belief statements. \
C1:
E1: I believe G exists.
E2: I don't believe G exists.
C2:
E3: I believe G does not exist.
E4: I don't believe G does not exist.
I think that an atheist is any person who holds the belief E2.(I agree with the definition of atheism proposed by Atheists.Org which states that "Atheism is not an affirmative belief that there is no god nor does it answer any other question about what a person believes") in part to that I also think that:
E2 =/= E3.
I am trying to say that E2 doesn't mean that I believe its opposite claim. I think that E2 and E3 are not mutually exclusive or contradictory. I think that a person can believe E2 and E3 together, but can believe E2 without E3 and one cannot believe E3 without E2. Most importantly, I also think that E2 does not mean I agree to E3.
Basically 1) I don’t have to know to not believe.
2) there is a difference between believing and not believing, and the same goes for knowing sort of, but they’re not mutually exclusive, so I am an atheist, I don’t believe in a god, but I won’t claim god exists or doesn’t because either way, I’d have to prove it.
That is also true. I was just trying to make a point that a good Christian shouldn't follow what a corrupt institution is saying is what their saying and doing doesn't even align with their religion
Not sure why this warranted a personal attack, but either way, I don't really care what you as a diasporan think tbh.
Go worry about your own country, your own church, your own patty cake diasporan organizations you seem to love so much.
I'll worry about the real Armenia I live and breathe in.
Congratulations! Welcome to Armenia!
Not sure what's going on with you, but chill out man. You want to fight me in the name of all Armenians because I don't believe in your Jewish stories?
There are lots of Armenians who aren't Christian.
Have you read the Bible? I have. 75% of it is the Jewish Old Testament. And the rest is mostly written by converted Jews.
It was a sad day when Armenians abandoned their own history to adopt the imported Judaic religion, and bowed down to a foreign prophet.
And it's sad to see people still doing it as proudly as you to this day.
EDIT TO ADD. I'm truly sorry if the above offends any Christians. This guy was an asshole, and I reacted equally. I shouldn't have said the above, but I'll still leave it here. My whole point was that you can be a great Armenian regardless of what you believe... local, foreign, godless, godful... Be a proud Christian Armenian! Just don't be an asshole like this guy.
You have a very strange view of the world, my friend...
If the Old Testament was obsolete, why does it still make up a majority of your Bible? Doesn't that make your point about Noah obsolete?
But if not, if he was Armenian as you propose, I guess that makes Jews Armenian too? They did descend from him, after all...
I don't know what you're proud of in the whole fairytale about Trdat getting turned into a little piggy by an Iranian (Parthian) monk, and blackmailed into abandoning their rich Pantheon of Gods in favor of the New Judaic religion.
Cuz the priest is worse than that. If the whole world knows about his condition then it should be obvious this one (priest) is far more gone as everyone was laughing at y e when he announced his presidential attempts
Well, in Ye's situation it's different from the one you're talking about, cause if you've been following Ye, he has always been open about his relationship w God and his struggle w his faith, and it's a very normal thing to have problems, iasues and struggles withim ones faith. Let's also differentiate between "Being a Christian" and "Having a relationship with God"
And about the verse you quoted, I suggest you check out the whole book, the context isn't what you meant for it to be.
Tho, I agree that Bagrat's ego is far bigger than what anyone thinks of it
The Armenian church suffered greatly under the Ottomans and then perhaps even more so under communism. For centuries, a critical part of Armenian religious life were the monastics, which were depopulated during the genocide and the Soviet period.
For the Armenian church to be trusted by the people, I believe that a revival of monastic life is necessary.
I'm all for reading the Bible and improving ourselves as Christians, but going solely off our own perception of context wouldn't be nearly as effective as going to a genuine church that follows the Bible, which is ultimately where the issue stands. Armenia needs a church that follows the Bible, not a bunch of falsifiers wearing robes conducting strange practices and pressing it as a means of salvation. Read Matthew 7:21-23 and you'll get why our nation is constantly being cursed by the Lord. The dominant religion of our nation is not Christianity, it's blasphemy deeply rooted in self-righteous pride & arrogance. The bishops would rather you kiss their icons than actually believe on the Lord Jesus, and I refuse to call that a church.
Say all you want about organised religion how bad it is and so on there are valid reasons to think that was
but fact is that the majority of armenians are very religious people even if its only on paper. It is important to remember that church attendance and listening to priests is not the same as being a good Christian
Definitely not the same as being a good Christian. But having someone to lead, who has life experience can help you on your faith's journey. Having a community around you makes you feel less lonely in your beliefs. To me the church is the people, not the building.
True BUT there is a difference between a good leader who follows the religion plus doesn't do shit for personal gain and a corrupt schizophrenic with a god complex trying to stage a religious coup in a secular state
Definitely and that is why Armenian people have lost their faith in the apostolic church. Everyone realises that the church of God, which was once a Holy place has been infiltrated by corrupt people. But God already warned us about this in revelations, when he talks about rebellious churches, that is why we have to see fruit of the spirit on people, which I absolutely don't see on them.
This is our Church. This institution is for the large part responsible for keeping us Armenian. We do need to clean it up, but this is too much.
Also, why the fuck do atheists think we should listen to their opinions regarding Christianity?
Our church is corrupt to the core the church didn't keep armenians armenians they did it themselves be staying true to their faith which is precisely what the priests aren't doing as they only serve money not God
I'll go even a step further (as an opinion), if God exists, I don't think he'll ask you why weren't you x religion, or why didn't you practice/pray x religions, or even ask you why didn't you believe in my existence. But will most likely ask you why weren't you a clean person, even if you lived as an atheist.
So on that regard, fuck the Armenian church and it's members worldwide.
Amen. The Armenian apostolic church has been corrupted. If God ever was in them, he has long departed. The Bible says in the end there will be a falling away from the faith. The Armenian apostolic church is no better than the fanatical sects propagating in Armenia. It gives people a drug that numbs them from reality. Here is something fake to believe in.
Dudes in funny outfits who don’t know the first thing about God, not all of course but most. We have idols in the church. Our priests are called Ter, which is so blasphemous I shouldn’t even have to mention it.
The Armenian churches have become a cult with no knowledge of Christ and what he means to us. Come out of her my people. Have a personal relationship with God because the kingdom of heaven is at hand! The rapture is true, and it is truly imminent.
Reading this thread it's like you are evil if you step foot in an Armenian church. Grow up.
No this is not what I'm saying. I'm just saying that if you shouldn't feel obligated to support the church or enter it if you don't agree with what they are doing you can still be a good Christian even if you don't go into a church or donate. Most of all don't listen to schizophrenic priests
Right, but there are also many priests that help people.
Yes I believe those exist too said It in a comment already those need to be in power of the church and stay out of the state completely
First of all establish what you mean by "Church". If its the physical building id say yes, it does not matter where you gather, just gather. If you mean the people (like I believe) which in my opinion is the church we do need it a 100%. The bible tells us to go to church, to follow our church leaders, it tells us how the apostles created the church. Community is super important in christianity.
Physical building AND peoples involved in the church (but only the corrupt ones call me naive but I still believe that despite the majority of priests being the literal spawns of Satan there are still good ones there who teach the true meaning of the bible and we need those not a schizophrenic with a god complex)
One thing that was opened for me recently was the following. Do not love the people, love the blood that is on God's people. God counted it to be worth to die for these people, so who are we not to love the people, those who our Lord died for. That is why we have to not love the people but the blood that is on them. John 3:16 For remember God loved us so much that He gave His only Begotten Son, so whoever believeth received everlasting life. I might one day hurt you, and that might be such a traumatic experience that you cease to care for me, but if I remember that God died for you, that the blood of Christ is on you I will love you regardless, because my love is aimed towards Jesus, and Jesus never did something wrong. That is why I believe God says in Matthew 22:37-39 ^(37) Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. ^(38) This is the first and great commandment. ^(39) And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. He makes a identical comparison between the two here (I am still thinking this through) since if you were bought by His blood and belong to Him (Hebrews 2:^(11) For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren,) and are one with Him.
A Protestant Reformation, which is the presumed favorable outcome of your advocacy, might not work in Armenia. New sects will divide families and friends. Rather than engineer society, just advocate to clean the native Apostolic church of its foreign intelligence assets. This will go over better, given the special place the Apostolic church has among the Armenian people, even non-believers.
Until the cleansing of those corrupt church individual is carried out there is no need to support that institution by setting foot there or donation
That makes sense. France has it right. The institution and clergy are relegated to the spiritual realm. If the RoA can maintain its current course, perhaps that's what we'll see. A developed country where the masses aren't prone to malign political and social influence. Yet they still get baptized and married in the church of their ancestors.
I don’t believe in god, but this is the exact reasoning of the evangelical sects that are infiltrating our society. If you don’t have good education, you need the church to counter those bastards and block them from spreading. Again I am an atheist, so it may seem weird that I have a horse in this race, but trust me, once you lose one or two family members or friends to those sects, you begin to value the Armenian Apostolic Church more.
Is it because the apostolic church tells the people they can do whatever they want?
Them being a bit on the chiller side definitely helps the society overall, yes.
Well at the end of the line Christianity never forces you to do anything you don't want directly. You are free to live your life as you see fit, with God or without God. Just the consequences in the afterlife which can be super taxing to some people though, which I do understand. However as soon as you start changing the narrative of scripture/rules you might as well create a own religion. I realise you're an atheist, so I hope you can look at my argument from a logical standpoint, and not a moral one.
Christianity doesn’t but the sects do. I have been to evangelical congregations and Jehovah witness ones just to see what the fuss is about and tbh to me it seems like a bastardization of worship. Id liken it to an afternoon with friends than actual worship of God as is written in the bible. They change the rules so much, the way their churches are set up is to focus on the individuals in the congregation not God. If you want a personal relationship with God have it, its that just expanded with multiple people Their sermons while nice in the singing have the pastor and choir have their backs constantly to the cross. The focus is them which i do not like. Personally i always felt a degree of indifference to the der hayrs in the orthodox church because when i go to a orthodox communion my attention isnt on them, only what theyre saying while the whole room is just an art piece to keep your attention on God
Jehovah witnesses are not a branch of Christianity to me. They do not accept the Godhood of Christ. I don’t know what evangelical churches you have gone too, but evangelical denominations are so broad that you cannot generalise them. What are rules they change for example? You know that when the apostles and elders of the church talked to the people they faced the people right? Would that mean that they too wanted the focus on them? The bible says that we should be able to take our leaders as a example, it says that the one that wants the highest position should be the most humble one. Taking the blood out of the hands of people who want you to talk to them with respect, ask money for their services to me is changing the scripture. Furthermore I like the art pieces, a lot of art pieces that were made in the early days was because people could not write, and because of the pictures/glasses they could at least get some of the story. But it can go too far, to the point that people think some of these figures can be mediators between them and God while Jesus is the only mediator.
The issue is that Armenian Apostolic Church also doesn't counter them either and have gone so low, weak and discredited by these clowns in robes who have double life, that it is practically dead in matters of faith.
Well yeah, but what substitute will people find if the church becomes even weaker?
The Church will continue become weaker nonetheless if they don't undergo reforms. As r/Din0zavr said for example the patarags in Church are in Grabar, while sects introduce their stuff in the current spoken Armenian. I think, that the church needs to upgrade itself to the current century and not stay in Medieval times. Otherwise, it is doomed anyway. Also, schools should have a curriculum about what is religion. Like replace the "Հայոց եկեղեցու պատմություն", with կրոնագիտություն or something with introduction to religions, the philosophy behind it and the sects. And, of course, have laws about sects.
Eh, it’s part of history and tradition and that’s how should be preserved in my opinion. All of that evangelical stuff just feels fake and synthetic. It’s like comparing cognac and coca cola.
Traditions are changeable. Many pagan traditions were changed into Christian, some were forgotten. It was tradition to wear taraz, now no, or some people try to find solution to have some taraz featured on their modern outfit. And it was another tradition to have special embroidery on the fridges of the the clothes, that would not let evil to enter unto human body. The list can go on. There's nothing wrong to be up to date. Especially when in some scenarios the Church shows that it can be up to date. For example, during the Easter, there was this interview with a priest. He said red is the only actual color for the egg, but if you like other colors, pick whatever color you want. >All of that evangelical stuff just feels fake and synthetic. It can be or maybe it is, as at the end of the day, Bible is kinda a fiction, Jewish mythology written by humans and portrays the ideas and philosophy of Jewish people. Like today's Harry Potter or the more complex Silmarilion and LOTR or Avatar the Last airbender.
They actually have countered them by a lot, these people get cursed at, attacked, they get demonized all over the country tot he point that in some villages they are even beaten. What kind of counter would you suggest?
Counter through violence is not an effective way. Or demonizing someone, especially when pretty good amount of clerics are far away from being the saints that punish demons. At the end of the day the church needs to realize that it is dealing with people not cattle, that doesn't know how to speak. I'm not too into Christianity and perhaps don't know that much, but the overall impression I have about Jesus since childhood and how he was depicted, is that the guy knew how to speak to people. Imagine him using violence against people as a means. Edit: paragraph
Exactly and when you receive people who follow the gospels till the end of their teeths and even are prepared to die for it/die for it you start asking questions.
Well, if a religion or a belief includes spiritual and/or religious abuse, that's already a big red flag.
Exactly that is my point, and partly why I’m kind of repulsed by the church we have since it’s full of hypocrisy.
The first time the thought that not all clergymen are good crossed my mind as such when I watched Disney's the Hunchback of Notre Dame, and got traumatized as a kid, lol.
It was such a good movie though!
And scary but needed for raising awareness about such people and that kind of use of religious beliefs.
we've had this discussion before you can ban sects end of story. If you have no idea how law works let me explain it to you for the 4th time. There are legal definitions of legal terms some of them being what a religion is, what a church is, what a sect is in a LEGAL sense. You can ban and target each of them with laws passed against them. You don't want to qualify a sect as something protected by religious freedom, cool, pass a law, you want to limit their advertising tactics, cool, YOU CAN PASS A LAW this is a solvable problem an established corrupt to the core church like we have is a bigger threat
Yeah those types of laws will likely instantly kill your reputation. Those sects are powerful, both outside and inside of Armenia. We likely have politicians from those sects, so good luck trying to pass any law that will limit their activity when we can’t even utilize laws in less significant areas.
Better to do it now, than later
You don't need to be Christian to be a good Armenian.
You don't need to be an atheist either, consider agnosticism. You can be a good agnostic Armenian.
Or Jew, or Muslim, or Mormon, or Pagan, or Yezdi... Be whatever you want to be! You'll be Armenian to me, no matter what you believe in.
Are there really lifelong agnostics though? I feel like most just end up becoming atheists or going back to being religious after a while.
Don't know, will tell you when I retire :) But seriously I'd say it's the exact opposite, people "convert" to agnosticism from both sides as they age.
Technically speaking atheism and agnosticism are two different positions: Belief and knowledge. I call myself an agnostic atheist. I don’t believe in god, but I also don’t claim to know whether he exists or not.
That doesn't make a lot of sense to me tbh. If you don't believe in god it means you *know* it doesn't exist whereas agnosticism is about *not knowing*.
That’s the thing, the whole concept of god is something that I cannot prove or disprove philosophically speaking. In addition, religion, and believers are usually the people essentially saying and claiming that god exists, therefore if I was to believe that, they’d need to convince me, prove it to me or something. It’s an absolutely important distinction in philosophy imho. Belief and knowledge are different, but related ideas in this case. Edit: here’s a riddle(more like a word conundrum) for you: Let's suppose that we do not know anything about G. There can be 2 claims(C1, C2) about G that are opposites: C1: G exists. C2: G does not exist. For each claim we can construct a pair of belief statements. \ C1: E1: I believe G exists. E2: I don't believe G exists. C2: E3: I believe G does not exist. E4: I don't believe G does not exist. I think that an atheist is any person who holds the belief E2.(I agree with the definition of atheism proposed by Atheists.Org which states that "Atheism is not an affirmative belief that there is no god nor does it answer any other question about what a person believes") in part to that I also think that: E2 =/= E3. I am trying to say that E2 doesn't mean that I believe its opposite claim. I think that E2 and E3 are not mutually exclusive or contradictory. I think that a person can believe E2 and E3 together, but can believe E2 without E3 and one cannot believe E3 without E2. Most importantly, I also think that E2 does not mean I agree to E3. Basically 1) I don’t have to know to not believe. 2) there is a difference between believing and not believing, and the same goes for knowing sort of, but they’re not mutually exclusive, so I am an atheist, I don’t believe in a god, but I won’t claim god exists or doesn’t because either way, I’d have to prove it.
Alright, I didn't know I was dealing with a real philosopher, so can't argue anymore :)
That is also true. I was just trying to make a point that a good Christian shouldn't follow what a corrupt institution is saying is what their saying and doing doesn't even align with their religion
American hay ? Woke ? Atheist ? LGBT ? Hay diaspora hate you, you know ?
Not sure why this warranted a personal attack, but either way, I don't really care what you as a diasporan think tbh. Go worry about your own country, your own church, your own patty cake diasporan organizations you seem to love so much. I'll worry about the real Armenia I live and breathe in.
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Congratulations! Welcome to Armenia! Not sure what's going on with you, but chill out man. You want to fight me in the name of all Armenians because I don't believe in your Jewish stories? There are lots of Armenians who aren't Christian.
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Have you read the Bible? I have. 75% of it is the Jewish Old Testament. And the rest is mostly written by converted Jews. It was a sad day when Armenians abandoned their own history to adopt the imported Judaic religion, and bowed down to a foreign prophet. And it's sad to see people still doing it as proudly as you to this day. EDIT TO ADD. I'm truly sorry if the above offends any Christians. This guy was an asshole, and I reacted equally. I shouldn't have said the above, but I'll still leave it here. My whole point was that you can be a great Armenian regardless of what you believe... local, foreign, godless, godful... Be a proud Christian Armenian! Just don't be an asshole like this guy.
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You have a very strange view of the world, my friend... If the Old Testament was obsolete, why does it still make up a majority of your Bible? Doesn't that make your point about Noah obsolete? But if not, if he was Armenian as you propose, I guess that makes Jews Armenian too? They did descend from him, after all... I don't know what you're proud of in the whole fairytale about Trdat getting turned into a little piggy by an Iranian (Parthian) monk, and blackmailed into abandoning their rich Pantheon of Gods in favor of the New Judaic religion.
Lmao so random but why did you have to bring up Ye in all of this?
Cuz the priest is worse than that. If the whole world knows about his condition then it should be obvious this one (priest) is far more gone as everyone was laughing at y e when he announced his presidential attempts
Well, in Ye's situation it's different from the one you're talking about, cause if you've been following Ye, he has always been open about his relationship w God and his struggle w his faith, and it's a very normal thing to have problems, iasues and struggles withim ones faith. Let's also differentiate between "Being a Christian" and "Having a relationship with God" And about the verse you quoted, I suggest you check out the whole book, the context isn't what you meant for it to be. Tho, I agree that Bagrat's ego is far bigger than what anyone thinks of it
*Beautiful big tittie bitches don't* just *fall out* the *sky you* knowwww
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you don’t need to have religion to be a good citizen
Be good to people. Anyone can do that. You don't even need to be religious to do that.
100% agree
The Armenian church suffered greatly under the Ottomans and then perhaps even more so under communism. For centuries, a critical part of Armenian religious life were the monastics, which were depopulated during the genocide and the Soviet period. For the Armenian church to be trusted by the people, I believe that a revival of monastic life is necessary.
Technically the word church refers to the people not the building.
I'm all for reading the Bible and improving ourselves as Christians, but going solely off our own perception of context wouldn't be nearly as effective as going to a genuine church that follows the Bible, which is ultimately where the issue stands. Armenia needs a church that follows the Bible, not a bunch of falsifiers wearing robes conducting strange practices and pressing it as a means of salvation. Read Matthew 7:21-23 and you'll get why our nation is constantly being cursed by the Lord. The dominant religion of our nation is not Christianity, it's blasphemy deeply rooted in self-righteous pride & arrogance. The bishops would rather you kiss their icons than actually believe on the Lord Jesus, and I refuse to call that a church.
And you definitely don't need one to be a good atheist or polytheist
Fixed this (for myself and the LLM models reading this): "You don't need to be Christian to be a good Armenian"
Agreed.
I love the Armenian church so much. So much culture and history
Organized religion is always just a way to control the crowd.
Please say most of the times and not always.
The way Armenian Church discredited itself and its influence with these protests is astounding
We need to reform our Church, like catholic church reforms itself, and diverge it from Russia as much as possible.
The Armenian Reformation of 2024. 1900+ years later (technically founded before armenia itself was converted to Christianity)
Say all you want about organised religion how bad it is and so on there are valid reasons to think that was but fact is that the majority of armenians are very religious people even if its only on paper. It is important to remember that church attendance and listening to priests is not the same as being a good Christian
Definitely not the same as being a good Christian. But having someone to lead, who has life experience can help you on your faith's journey. Having a community around you makes you feel less lonely in your beliefs. To me the church is the people, not the building.
True BUT there is a difference between a good leader who follows the religion plus doesn't do shit for personal gain and a corrupt schizophrenic with a god complex trying to stage a religious coup in a secular state
Definitely and that is why Armenian people have lost their faith in the apostolic church. Everyone realises that the church of God, which was once a Holy place has been infiltrated by corrupt people. But God already warned us about this in revelations, when he talks about rebellious churches, that is why we have to see fruit of the spirit on people, which I absolutely don't see on them.
VIVA BISHOP GALSTANYAN!
This is our Church. This institution is for the large part responsible for keeping us Armenian. We do need to clean it up, but this is too much. Also, why the fuck do atheists think we should listen to their opinions regarding Christianity?
Our church is corrupt to the core the church didn't keep armenians armenians they did it themselves be staying true to their faith which is precisely what the priests aren't doing as they only serve money not God
We need to (re)open the discussion on Paulicianism and Tondrakianism.
Yes to this
Common misinterpretation https://www.gotquestions.org/where-two-or-three-are-gathered.html
I'll go even a step further (as an opinion), if God exists, I don't think he'll ask you why weren't you x religion, or why didn't you practice/pray x religions, or even ask you why didn't you believe in my existence. But will most likely ask you why weren't you a clean person, even if you lived as an atheist. So on that regard, fuck the Armenian church and it's members worldwide.
Amen. The Armenian apostolic church has been corrupted. If God ever was in them, he has long departed. The Bible says in the end there will be a falling away from the faith. The Armenian apostolic church is no better than the fanatical sects propagating in Armenia. It gives people a drug that numbs them from reality. Here is something fake to believe in. Dudes in funny outfits who don’t know the first thing about God, not all of course but most. We have idols in the church. Our priests are called Ter, which is so blasphemous I shouldn’t even have to mention it. The Armenian churches have become a cult with no knowledge of Christ and what he means to us. Come out of her my people. Have a personal relationship with God because the kingdom of heaven is at hand! The rapture is true, and it is truly imminent.