I commented on a video on youtube.  And somehow that got me subscribed to a discussion on google+ which is the same discussion.  Google is doing weird stuff these days.  But I guess it works out, because the discussion is easier to read on google+ than on youtube.

The video is of a guy who converted to Eastern Orthodoxy from Protestantism. And a Protestant posted a comment:

idk from a protestant viewpoint, it’s like your’e giving man authority in the orthodox church, you’re not blessed by a man, you’re blessed by God.

Although not Eastern Orthodox, I don’t consider myself Protestant anymore. And this comment is so obviously based on a flawed perception of reality, So I commented:

Are you kidding? Protestantism is all about the worship of pastors and megapastors. You’ve given man plenty of authority. Protestants don’t even believe the Bible. If you show them verses that prove their beliefs wrong, the response is “I’ll have to ask my pastor.”  Because whatever the pastor says is the word of God to Protestants, not the Bible.  Sola Scriptura my butt; you guy’s follow Sola Pastura.

And a little later on, in response to this, someone (who is presumably Eastern Orthodox) wrote:

Indeed, Protestants PICK AND CHOOSE what scripture they CHOOSE TO FOLLOW.  For example, the Protestant idea of salvation BY FAITH ALONE is refuted in the book of James where we are told that FAITH WITHOUT WORKS IS DEAD!  However, many Protestants CHOOSE TO IGONORE THIS PASSAGE BECAUSE IT DOESN’T FIT THEIR AGENDA.

The Protestant didn’t like this, and responded to that person:

Shut your mouth. Jesus Christ’s atonement on the Cross is sufficient, Powerful unto salvation, it was all done on the Cross, no works can bring your salvation. Orthodox Christians don’t stress the Gospel, Jesus, nor the Word of God, they are not of Jesus’ sheep, they are of their father, Satan, following according to their own traditions, vain traditions, making the Word of God of none effect – even as the pharisees of Jesus’ time did,…….

And I responded to that:

But one who truly believes in Jesus Christ’s atonement on the Cross will want to do good works rather than constantly attack them like you Calvinists do.  All Calvinists are good for is attacking morality.

And a little later, I said the following (with two minor typos corrected):

Something that can be added to this.  If Protestants would just read the Sermon on the mount and the sayings of Jesus in general, they would find that something about their doctrine just doesn’t smell right.  They tend to teach that being a Christian means wallowing in sin and contemplating the depths of your depravity (warned against in Rev 2:24).  And no work is meritorious in any way according to them.  All good works are themselves sins according to Prots, unless done with absolutely pure intentions, which they of course claim is impossible for “fallen man.”  Even after their one-time legal transaction salvation, they still believe they are fallen and depraved.  But what does Jesus say? “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets….”  Wait, something you do or suffer through can be somewhat meritorious?  How so? All our intentions are always evil according to the Calvinists.  How can we suffer persecution with pure enough intentions to earn a reward?  Or again, Jesus says “Let your light so shine that men see your good works and glorify the Father” but how so?  All good works, the Calvinists tell us, are really just disgusting sins in disguise.  Their way of thinking is totally divorced from Jesus.

Anyway, in the course of that discussion, a certain Daniel Prince wrote:

David Brainerd, well said. Calvinists, then, attempt to overplay the ‘legal transaction’ made by God on the cross in His punishing of His own Son. Man is not a sinner because God does not see him as a sinner, but we may still – and rightly so – call ourselves sinners. That is to say, Christians, though in themselves are fallen, God only sees his own son’s blood in the now believer so that – despite the ontological reality of man’s condition – God sees no sin.

Then the problem arises: how can we assert that God is supremely sovereign when he is incapable (or at least partial in his perception) of seeing man for what he really is. The Calvinist cannot answer the question “What is man?” – they have no anthropology, certainly not so rich an anthropology as Orthodox.

Whatever I might have said, not so important as what he says here.

“They have no anthropology” he says.  This is the point on which Calvinists thunder and trumpet and toot their own horn.  They claim to be the only ones who do have an anthropology!  Yet, in reality, when faithfully analyzed, they are found to be the ones who don’t have one.  That is a profound realization.

And certainly that non-sense and complete joke that the Calvinists try to pass off as an “anthropology” is completely disproven by the experience of everyone but the worst of drug addicts.  Miley Cyrus might could be made to believe in the Calvinist “anthropology” since after decades of bad parenting and years of Disney mind control and media prostitution she’s Totally Twerking Totally Depraved, but who else can believe it?