Trump made clear that Iran shouldn't have any serious attack on us. Maybe more will come, but for now, they listened. They told us where they would strike and we got everyone out of harm's way. They attacked two bases. There were ZERO dead or injured.

Iran has said that they cannot come the negotiation table while being bombed by Israel. Hopefully, those strikes will be over within the next ten days.

Trump will then offer a deal. We would BUY the enriched uranium or have an Arab state do so. The cost would be removal of sanctions on Iran.

Trump might even get Iran to withdraw support to their militia in trade for a trade deal with the US (but that might be a SECOND agreement.
========

"“Thanks to God and the vigilance of the armed forces personnel and the precautionary measures taken, the incident resulted in no deaths or injuries. The Ministry reaffirmed that the airspace and territory of the State of Qatar are safe and that the Qatari Armed Forces are always fully prepared to deal with any threat."

The countries of the world need to come together against Iran.

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Chairman of Joint Chiefs give a description of a near perfectly executed plan

The Iranians never saw them, nor heard them.

A police officer has been filmed confronting a pair of Christians in London for street preaching.

Mon B, a preacher with Mad 4 Jesus Ministries, told the Daily Mail that the officer informed them that they could not stand in front of the barriers and that they were told to move on.

In the confrontation, the British Transport Police officer tells the evangelists, "These people just want to do their journey, they're not coming here to listen to you."

Continued below.

An essay I recent wrote using ChatGPT, based on what embodied cognition can tell us about wisdom, and on the uncanny, liminality, and modernist architecture's fascination with the younger generations, and the deeper spiritual meaning of this kind of fascination with disenchantment, specifically in the context of the Backrooms internet folklore and gaming:


In the beginning, the Backrooms was just internet horror—a bit of digital folklore that began with a simple prompt: "If you're not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you'll end up in the Backrooms..." What followed was a strange vision: a vast, liminal space of endless beige hallways, dingey yellow carpets, flickering fluorescent lights, and a terrifying silence broken only by the soft buzz of electrical humming.

But in the years since, the Backrooms has grown into something more. Through games, mods, memes, and collaborative storytelling, it has evolved into a strange, shared mythos—a liminal world that speaks, almost by accident, to deep spiritual and cultural conditions of our time.

At its core, the Backrooms is a wilderness narrative—a retelling of the 40 years in the desert, except instead of sand and tents and the voice of God, we have Brutalist corridors, broken vending machines, and the aching absence of meaning. It is a place of exile shaped not by divine mystery but by modern architecture, trauma, and disconnection. And yet, in its very sterility, something sacred begins to stir.

What makes the Backrooms feel so deeply unsettling isn’t just the silence or the looping spaces—it’s the recognition. The environments are eerily familiar. These aren’t haunted castles or Gothic ruins. They’re office parks, data centers, hotel conference rooms. The horror here is not ancient. It is contemporary and institutional—spaces we’ve already been trained to inhabit, but never to love.

In this sense, the Backrooms evokes what scientists and theologians alike now understand: our minds are not separate from our bodies, and our bodies respond to space. Embodied cognition tells us that we perceive meaning through physical patterns—symmetry, light, color, curves, texture, human scale. The brutalist geometry of the Backrooms strips all that away. The result is not just visual discomfort but a deep, existential disorientation. This is what dissociation looks like in architecture.

The space echoes trauma, not melodrama. It reflects what many people feel already: overstimulated yet undernourished, surrounded by noise but deprived of depth. It is, quite literally, a temple of absence.

And yet—despite all of that—something remarkable happens in the Backrooms:
people play.

They don’t just survive—they cooperate. They explore together. They tell stories. They share tips. They form communities in a place designed to deny community. “Stick to the left wall.” “Don’t look at the Smiler.” “Shine your flashlight—it’ll keep them away.” “Take some almond water. You’ll need it.”

That last line—"Take some almond water"—carries unexpected weight.

In the mythology of the Backrooms, almond water is a healing substance found in vending machines and crates. It’s sweet. It restores sanity and stamina. And though it’s fictional, it feels real—because it plays the part of sacramental grace. It is the Eucharist of the uncan ny: unexpected comfort, mysterious provision, a gesture of care in a landscape of indifference.

In a world where God seems absent, people still reenact communion—imperfectly, intuitively. Even in digital exile, the liturgical instinct survives.


The Backrooms functions, whether knowingly or not, as a Christ-haunted space. The narrative structure mirrors deep theological patterns: descent into darkness, testing in the wilderness, survival through community, and the slow rediscovery of hope. It's a parody of transcendence, yes—but also a sincere search for it.

The players who enter the Backrooms do not merely entertain themselves—they engage in a form of spiritual resistance. They reject the horror’s premise of isolation. They laugh. They help each other. They mock the monsters. In a subtle but real way, they mock death itself.

Theologically, this is not far from the Christian understanding of Christ’s descent into hell—not to suffer it, but to fill it with presence, to disarm the powers, to make a public spectacle of fear itself. Even the demons become playthings when joy refuses to bow.


But there’s a warning here, too—one embedded deep in the logic of the game and its mythos:

You can visit the Backrooms. You can even play there. But you cannot live there.

To remain in the Backrooms indefinitely is to lose your identity, your name, your sense of time and direction. The space offers survival, not return. It can host initiation, but never homecoming.

This mirrors a cultural temptation: to live forever in liminality, irony, alienation. To aestheticize exile. To treat numbness as wisdom. But we are not made to dwell in absence. The mysticism of emptiness—popular in 20th-century theology and modern art—has its place. But without nourishment, without joy, without beauty, without almond water—it becomes death by fasting.

We are embodied souls, not minds floating in space. We need warmth, color, song, rhythm, bread, presence.


In the end, the Backrooms functions as a kind of parable for our generation. It shows us the shape of the world we have inherited: strange, disorienting, traumatized, and yet full of longing.

The Backrooms are not Eden. They’re not even Egypt. They’re the wilderness.
And the wilderness is only holy if you remember to keep walking.

Can someone please provide a logical argument to justify Iran's hatred for Israel, and the reasoning for their constant funding of terrorist groups to "wipe Israel off the map"?

Why is Israel the "Little Satan" to Iran?

What confuses me the most, is that Iran is not the same type of Muslim as 'Palestine's' population. And they're not even neighbors who share borders... Please explain this Iranian hatred.

Father I am always
Praying for you
Every single night
I never miss a night
That I just don't pray
For you my Father
And in my prayer
I ask you to remove
The stress
That I am having
Every single day
Father I just have a hard time
Coping with my stress
Father
Can you teach me
How to cope with my stress
Because I would love
To be able to cope
With my stress

Can an all-powerful God create a stone so heavy that even He cannot lift it? At first glance, it's a logic trap. If God can create such a stone, He cannot lift it—and is therefore not all-powerful. If He cannot create it, then He is also not all-powerful. The paradox seems unbreakable.

What if the answer has already been lived—in the person of Jesus?

A Paradox with Flesh and Blood​

Christian theology asserts something radically unique: that God voluntarily limited Himself and became fully human in the person of Jesus. This concept, called the Incarnation, is not just a doctrine of faith but a potential resolution to the omnipotence paradox.

In Jesus, God took on weakness. He got tired. He suffered. He died. These are not symbols or metaphors; they are core to the claim. The infinite became finite. The omnipotent allowed Himself to be bound.

And yet, Christians also believe that Jesus was still God during this limitation. That means God chose to become someone who could bleed. Someone who could fall. Someone who could be crushed by a stone He Himself created.

Self-Limitation Is Not Weakness—It Is Power​

What makes this answer profound is that it redefines what true power looks like. Power is not merely the ability to do anything at any time. Real power includes the ability to choose restraint.

God did not cease to be all-powerful by becoming man. He exercised His omnipotence by limiting Himself, for a purpose. This is not a contradiction. It is a richer form of strength—one that can hold back, one that can suffer willingly, one that can enter into the weakness of creation and still redeem it.

Can God Create a Stone He Cannot Lift?​

Yes.

But only because He chooses to. And only for as long as He chooses to. That stone was the weight of mortality, of suffering, of death itself. In Jesus, God carried it. He let it crush Him. And then, by His own will, He rose again—lifting not only the stone but the whole of creation with Him.

The paradox is not a flaw in logic. It's a glimpse into divine love.

Jude 3-5

Don’t trust in princes who rule in the world.
Don’t put your confidence in any earl.
Don’t make reliance on flesh what you do.
Test what you hear to be sure it is true.

Liars, deceivers, abound everywhere.
Many are trapped by them, caught unaware.
Think who they’re following is the right choice,
For they are listening to the wrong voice.

So many liars now live in this world,
Liars who give the truth now quite a whirl.
Truth, they do know it, and some know it well,
But, twisting of truth for the people does sell.

Humans, they like to hear what will feel good,
Even if truth will be misunderstood.
Making it easy for them, what they like,
Even if truth’s being taken by heist.

Not everyone now is right where they are.
Some people, with the lies, yes, they do spar.
Testing the lies against truth what they do,
For they are making sure they live what’s true.

All on the altar, our lives we do lay,
When we repent of sins and God obey.
Following Jesus wherever He leads,
Daily, the Word of God, on that we feed.

Sharing the gospel, in truth, we profess
Our faith in Jesus, in His righteousness.
Die to our sins, so we now live for God –
Hold Him in honor; of Him, be in awe.

Testing the spirits, so lies not believe,
Follow the Savior wherever He leads.
Give of your all, give it all up for Him,
Spreading the truth of the gospel, souls win.

An Original Work / June 22, 2025
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

# 1 Therforen / Oun , is a Conjunction

# 2 We Are Always / Pantote , is an Adverb

# 3 Confident / Thanreo , is in the Greek Present Tense , in the Active Voice , is a Participle Tense , in the Nominative Mood , a Plural

# 4 Knowing / Eide , in the Greek , Prefect Tense , in the Active Voice , is a Participle Tense , in the Nomiative Case , in the Plural

# 5 That / Hoti , is a Conjuncation

# 6 While We Are Home / Endemieo / is in the Greek Present Tense , in the Active Voice , is a Particile Tense , is a Nominative Case ,

in the Plural

# 7 In / En , is a Preposition

# 8 The / Ho , is a Definite Articile , in the Dative Case , in the Singular , is a Neuter

# 9 Body / Soma , in the Dative Case , in the Singular , is a Neuter

# 1O We Are Absent / Ekoemo , in the Present Tense , in the Active Voice , in the Indicative Mood , in the Plural

# 11 From / Apo , is a Preposition

# 12 The , is a Definite Article , in the Genitive Case , in the Singular

# 13 Lord / Kyrios , in the Genitive Case , in the Singular .

# 14 And you can google and of the Tenses , cases and Voices to examine them !


What say you ??

dan p

When I was a little boy, I went one day to a vacant lot near our house, where I gathered up some dandelions, red clover, and what I think now must have been wild chicory in flower — our Word of the Week. Of course, I was getting them together as a present for my mother, who said, when she saw them, “But these are all weeds!” Oh Mom, you dropped the ball on that one! I have to admit, though, that I like to see lawns full of dandelions when they’re in yellow flower, and where I lived in Pennsylvania, that was the common flower you’d see, along with what we called “bluebells,” but what were really a variety of wild violets. But everybody grew flowers, and in those days it was mostly from seeds and bulbs you’d buy in packets — we had no greenhouses. The Italians had to have flowers — it was a requirement of life. You’d see many an old Italian man planting flowers, like my grandfather, or like the somewhat crabby Mr. DeFazio across the street, who always seemed to me to look a little like Grant Wood’s famous farmer with the pitchfork.



Roses and Irises, by Vincent Van Gogh (1890); from the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art

Continued below.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Access to vast amounts of data and information is not the same thing as having intelligence, which is uniquely human and requires being open to truth, goodness and the real meaning of life, Pope Leo XIV told AI experts and executives.

“Authentic wisdom has more to do with recognizing the true meaning of life than with the availability of data,” he said in a written message released by the Vatican June 20.

“Acknowledging and respecting what is uniquely characteristic of the human person is essential to the discussion of any adequate ethical framework for the governance of AI,” he wrote.

The message, written in English, was addressed to people attending the second annual Rome conference on AI, Ethics and the Future of Corporate Governance being held in Rome and at the Vatican June 19-20.

The conference “brings together executives from leading AI companies as well as large enterprises using AI with policymakers, scholars, ethicists and lawyers to consider in a holistic way the challenges facing the ethics and governance of AI, both for companies developing this revolutionary technology as well as the enterprises incorporating AI into their businesses,” according to the event’s website.

Contributing to the AI discussion​

Continued below.

A simple way to provide the outside critters some relief ...

What exactly do you think Trump means by MIGA ?
Also mention if you are sure you know what he means
thanks

I guess this is our official introduction here but wanted to say hi to all, and so proud and excited we finally took the plunge to join! I'm Wendy, originally from Iowa though with our Southern Baptist roots still going strong after my family moved up here from Texas before me and my brother were born. And I guess on that topic of movin' around in the world, my husband and I are building on that tradition but moving just a wee bit farther away from home. To Germany in fact!

We're one of those, as it sounds like ever more numerous mission families moving from America to join the fledgling flourishing overseas ministries "over there", in the EU. From what our pastoral leader has said for most of us doing the Europe missions it's a permanent move, it indeed is for us and we have a little one on the way and a niece already there growing up officially German (plus a cousin and his son doing the same in France, from Texas themselves so you can imagine the funny conversational situations just from that fact, but ne parler Francais so we won't talk about that for now , ) so we'll be duly enough doing some leder hosen and dirndl shopping as we practice our Deutsch sprechen!

Anyway both hubby and I have some solid German roots on both of our sides of the family tree so I guess we like to think we're just moving to another of our homes, in a round-about way. Not unusual for us folks out there in Iowa, Indiana and Missouri, after all with cities with names like Emmetsburg, Bettendorf and Oelwein not too much stretch to figure out where so many of us Hawkeyes originally came from!

But we truly are excited about the mission planning there, we've already gotten arranged to help with building of a small church in a way out there "Kleindorf". A little rural village that's been interested in having it's own church for decades and with help from donors here and there, is finally getting that wish and we get to help be a part of that! So begeistert as they say over there.

If there's one little downer for this exciting mission, it's that we're leaving literally this week for our first big preparation stay in that part of Germany, and let's just say things move a bit slower (including the phone signals and wi-fi). Between that and just getting acclimated and all the bustle of moving while expecting, there's a good chance I may not be responsive until next year. But we'll find some way to stay connected down the road one way or another. As it's said in Ephesians 4:3 "Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace." This was one of my Sunday school teacher's favorite verses and I've held it close ever since, reminded us we're all in one big fellowship family of worship, peace and love and all of you out there are part of that big family for us. So a big well-wish from us to all of you and so happy to be here!

As I understand the day of Atonement , the high priest would go into the Holy of Holy's and sprinkle the blood on the mercy seat and God would cover over the sins of Israel all of Israel. There is no mention that I know of, of there being a conditional covering for only those who believed it.
Hebrews 8 tells us that Jesus is our high priest and that his sacrifice was greater than that of the old. Heb 8:10-12 Because this is the covenant that I shall ordain with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord, placing my laws in their minds and I will inscribe them upon their hearts, and I will be God for them and they will be a people for me. And by no means shall they give instruction- each to his neighbor and each to his brother - saying " Know the Lord", because all will know me, from the least of them to the greatest, Because I will be merciful toward their unrighteousness, and I will certainly remember their sins no more.
So if the OT high priest sacrifice covered all in Israel, but Jesus's sacrifice is only good for those who have said a prayer or jumped through whatever hoops man has made up, how is it a better sacrifice, why would the sacrifice that Jesus being better not include all but only a few.
Or could it be that when scripture says that all will know me from the least to the greatest and that he will remember their sins no more, he really did that.
Eph 4:6 One God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

A guy I know who's done a university computing degree currently believes in a flat earth. I think he believes that because he thinks that's what the Bible says.

I think most flat earthers these days believe that the Earth is a circle with the ice wall of Antarctica around the boundary. The Sun and Moon are believed to be small and close.



I get the impression that there are no verses in the Bible that contradict that flat earth theory.

But here are some that initially might seem to:

Luke 17:34-36
"I tell you, on that night two people will be in one bed. One person will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding grain together. One will be taken and the other left."

That suggests there is day and night simultaneously on the Earth - but the mainstream flat earth theory is compatible with this.

Isaiah 40:22
"He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth,
and its people are like grasshoppers.
He stretches out the heavens like a canopy,
and spreads them out like a tent to live in."

The mainstream flat earth theory also is a circle. I think that verse fits the flat earth better because it has a clear "above" position, is easier to spread a tent over and everyone would be visible like grasshoppers (in a globe half of the people would be obscured by the earth)

Revelation 7:1 and Revelation 20:8 talk about the four corners of the earth but this can fit the flat earth like this:



The following young earth creationist (YEC) web page is against a flat earth but it seems to give scientific reasons to believe in a globe rather than any Biblical reasons:

What are the “good tidings of His salvation” that we, as followers of Christ, should be proclaiming to the people of the world? They are that Jesus Christ, the second person of our triune God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – left his throne in heaven, came to earth, and was born as a baby to a human mother, but was conceived of the Holy Spirit and not of man. Thus, he was not born with a sin nature as we are, and he never once sinned against God the Father. And he came for the purpose to die on a cross for our sins.

When he lived on the earth, during his last few years of ministry, he performed all sorts of miracles, and he preached repentance (death to sin) for salvation from sin, and obedience to God for eternal life with God. And he called out sin for what it was, and he let the people know that they had to suffer and die to their sins, and that they had to walk in obedience to God and to his commands, if they were to have life in him, and if they were to have the promise and the hope of eternal life with God in heaven.

The rulers and teachers of the Scriptures, and people of influence in the temple and in the synagogues, for the most part, rejected Jesus for who he was/is and for who he said he was, too. For he claimed to be God, and they hated him for that. But they also were jealous of his temporary popularity among the people because of his miracles, and they didn’t like what he said about them and their hypocrisies. And they didn’t like his gospel message, either, and so they plotted and had carried out his death on a cross.

[Isaiah 53:1-12; Matthew 26:26-29; Luke 17:25; John 1:1-36; John 6:35-58; John 8:24,58; John 10:27-33; John 20:28-29; Romans 5:8; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 9:5; 1 Corinthians 11:23-32; 1 Corinthians 15:1-8; Ephesians 2:8-10; Philippians 2:5-11; Colossians 2:9; Titus 2:13; Hebrews 1:8-9; Hebrews 2:14-15; Hebrews 4:15; 1 Peter 1:20-21; 2 Peter 1:1]

So, what was Jesus Christ’s gospel message?

Jesus Christ taught that to come to him we must deny self, take up our cross daily (die daily to sin), and follow (obey) him. For if we hold on to living in sin and for self, we will lose our lives for eternity. But if we deny self, die daily to sin, by the Spirit, and we walk in obedience to our Lord and to his commands, in his power, then we have eternal life with God. For not everyone who calls him “Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one DOING (obeying) the will of God (see Luke 9:23-26; Matthew 7:21-23).

For when Jesus gave his life up for us on that cross, he took our sins upon himself, and he put them to death with him so that, by faith in him, we will now die to sin and live to God and to his righteousness in walks of obedience to our Lord and to his commands. For he shed his blood on that cross to buy us back for God (to redeem us) out of our slavery (addiction) to sin so that we will now serve him with our lives in walks of obedience to his commands. But if sin is our practice, and not obedience, we don’t have life in Christ.

Now when this says here that God is to be feared above all gods, Jesus is included, for he is God the Son who was both fully man and fully God when he lived on the earth, and when he died on that cross for our sins. And to fear him is to show him honor, value, respect, veneration, and obedience and commitment to him as Lord (Owner-Master) of our lives. So faith in Jesus Christ, which comes from God, requires that we die to sin and that we now obey God, in practice, in doing what he commands us to do and be.

And we are to reject the “gods” of this world. And they can include other people, even preachers and teachers of The Word, and political figures, and heads of nations, and “church” denominations, and institutional market-driven “churches” (businesses) incorporated (merged, united) with the state (the world, the government, the ungodly). And they can be sinful addictions or particular hobbies or practices or possessions that have control over our lives and which shut out God as the only Lord and Master of our lives.

For what we need to understand here is that God – Father, Son Jesus Christ, and Holy Spirit – is not to be trifled with. Yes, he is a God of mercy, grace, compassion, forgiveness, and salvation. But he is also a God of justice, judgment, righteousness, and holiness, who set a standard for us to follow if we want to be forgiven of our sins and spend eternity with God in heaven. We must turn from (die to) our sins and now follow our Lord in obedience to his commands. If we do not, we will not have eternal life with God.

[Matt 7:13-14,21-23; Lu 9:23-26; Jn 10:27-30; Ac 26:18; Rom 2:6-8; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14; Rom 12:1-2; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 1 Co 10:1-22; 2 Co 5:10,15,21; Gal 5:16-24; Gal 6:7-8; Eph 2:8-10; Eph 4:17-32; Eph 5:3-6; Col 1:21-23; Col 3:1-17; Tit 2:11-14; Heb 3:1-19; Heb 4:1-13; Heb 10:23-31; Heb 12:1-2; 1 Pet 2:24; 1 Jn 1:5-10; 1 Jn 2:3-6,15-17; 1 Jn 3:4-10]

As the Deer

By Martin J. Nystrom
Based off Psalm 42:1

As the deer panteth for the water
So my soul longeth after You
You alone are my heart's desire
And I long to worship You

You alone are my strength, my shield
To You alone may my spirit yield
You alone are my heart's desire
And I long to worship You

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Good Tidings of His Salvation
An Original Work / June 21, 2025
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

The traditional academic theory of religion has been that we all started out as animists, then progressed to polytheism, then to henotheism, then finally to monotheism. However, an examination of certain ancient traditions suggests that monotheistic ideas may have been present in some of humanity’s earliest religious and philosophical systems, suggesting a primitive or primeval monotheism. These traditions, though diverse in geography and expression, share a striking commonality: the recognition of a singular, supreme divine entity that bears resemblance to the Biblical God as a transcendent, moral, and creative force. The story of the building of the Tower of Babel could be seen as an allegory of mankind’s cultural expressions of the One True God.

Zoroastrianism, one of the world’s oldest continuously practiced religions, originated in ancient Persia around the 2nd millennium BCE. At its core is the worship of Ahura Mazda, the “Wise Lord,” who is depicted as the singular, uncreated creator of all existence. The Gathas, hymns attributed to the prophet Zoroaster, properly known as Zarathustra, form the earliest and most authoritative texts of Zoroastrianism and detail why worshipping one god is better than all the other gods of Persia; He saw the confusion this caused and was disgusted by it (the religion of Zoroaster’s day was similar to the Vedic religion as found on the Indian subcontinent but not the exact same). In Yasna 31.7, Zoroaster declares: “He, Ahura Mazda, who created this earth and yonder heaven, who created man and the bodily life for man, who through His wisdom made the soul and the spirit, He is the first and the only one.” This passage underscores Ahura Mazda’s role as the sole creator, a characteristic shared with the Biblical God (Genesis 1:1). Furthermore, Ahura Mazda is portrayed as omniscient and morally perfect, standing in opposition to Angra Mainyu, the destructive spirit. While some interpret Zoroastrianism as dualistic, the Gathas emphasize Ahura Mazda’s supremacy, with Angra Mainyu as a subordinate force destined to be defeated (Yasna 30.3-6). This aligns with the Biblical narrative of God’s ultimate triumph over evil (Revelation 20:10). Zoroastrianism’s monotheistic framework is further evidenced by its ethical system, which emphasizes truth (asha) and righteousness. In Yasna 44.3, Zoroaster asks, “Who established the path of truth and the good mind?” to which the implied answer is Ahura Mazda. This moral dimension mirrors the Biblical God’s role as the source of justice and righteousness (Psalm 89:14).

In ancient China, the Shang (c. 1600–1046 BCE) and Zhou (c. 1046–256 BCE) dynasties revered a supreme deity known as Shangdi (“Most High Lord”) or Tian (“Heaven”). This deity was understood as the ultimate ruler of the cosmos, possessing attributes of sovereignty, morality, and transcendence akin to the Biblical God. The Shangshu (Book of Documents), a collection of ancient Chinese texts, provides evidence of this belief. In the “Announcement of Tang” (c. 1766 BCE), King Tang of Shang states: “The great Shangdi has conferred even on the inferior people a moral sense, to enable them to obey His will. I, the little child, dare not disregard the mandate of Heaven.” This passage reflects Shangdi’s role as a moral overseer who grants humanity a conscience, paralleling the Biblical God’s gift of moral discernment (Romans 2:14-15). Additionally, Shangdi is depicted as the creator and sustainer of the world. The Shijing (Book of Odes), another ancient text, contains hymns praising Tian’s creative power, such as in Ode 236: “Great is Heaven, far-reaching and eternal, who gave birth to all things and governs their ways.” This cosmic sovereignty resembles the Biblical depiction of God as the creator of heaven and earth (Isaiah 42:5). Unlike later polytheistic tendencies in Chinese folk religion, early Chinese worship focused exclusively on Shangdi/Tian, with lesser spirits or ancestors serving as intermediaries rather than coequal deities. The Zhou concept of the “Mandate of Heaven” (Tianming) further reinforces Tian’s singular authority, as kings ruled only by divine appointment, a notion comparable to the Biblical idea of divine kingship (1 Samuel 8:7). The monotheistic character of Shangdi/Tian worship suggests that ancient Chinese religion originated in a belief in one supreme God, being continued by the more defined systems of Confucianism, Mohism, and Daoism (by this I mean the philosophical Daoism of the Daodejing and the Zhuangzi rather than religious Daoism that came centuries later).

In the Western philosophical tradition, the Pre-Socratic thinkers of ancient Greece (6th–5th centuries BCE) laid the groundwork for metaphysical inquiry into the nature of reality. Several of these philosophers posited a singular, eternal principle or deity as the source of all existence, foreshadowing monotheistic concepts. Xenophanes of Colophon (c. 570–478 BCE) explicitly critiqued polytheism and proposed a single, unchanging God. In Fragment 23, preserved in later sources, Xenophanes writes: “One God, greatest among gods and men, neither in form like unto mortals nor in thought… He sees all, thinks all, hears all, and without toil he governs all by the power of his mind.” This description of a transcendent, omniscient, and omnipotent deity closely resembles the Biblical God’s attributes (Psalm 139:1-4). Xenophanes’ rejection of anthropomorphic gods in favor of a unified divine principle challenges the polytheistic norms of Greek religion and aligns with monotheistic thought. Similarly, Anaximander of Miletus (c. 610–546 BCE) introduced the concept of the Apeiron (“Boundless” or “Infinite”), an eternal, ungenerated principle from which all things arise. In a fragment attributed to him by Simplicius, Anaximander states: “The boundless is the source of all things, eternal and indestructible, from which they come into being and to which they return according to necessity.” While not explicitly theistic, the Apeiron’s role as the uncaused cause of existence parallels the Biblical God as the eternal creator (John 1:3). Later, Parmenides of Elea (c. 515–450 BCE) argued for a singular, unchanging reality in his poem On Nature, stating in Fragment 8: “It is ungenerated and indestructible, whole, of one kind, unmoved, and eternal.” Parmenides’ “Being” is a metaphysical precursor to the “unmoved mover” later developed by Aristotle, which bears striking similarity to the Biblical God as the immutable first cause (Exodus 3:14). These Pre-Socratic ideas, along with the Chinese and Persians,, suggest an early inclination toward a singular, transcendent principle that is the God of Abraham.

Is fasting from electronics or hobbies instead of food acceptable? For example, I watch a lot of YouTube and would like to fast from that instead of food. I keep hearing different things as some say this is okay and others say it has to be food.

St Olga of Kwethluk was just glorified the other day and I had some thoughts on how timely it is. Initially I was posting this as part of a reply in the Orthobro thread, but felt it best here.


We are living in some odd times. No, not in the "end of ze world" sense of it; we've been living in the End Times since Pentecost and Christ Himself said that, "Only the Father knows the hour" so frankly I think any further discussion on that is pointless. The obsession over trying to figure out when the world ends and obsessing over Revelation and over what holy people have said about it, I think, have become idols and distractions from our spiritual walk with Christ. The Protestant obsession over it is a huge part of why I never looked towards that tradition with any serious consideration prior to becoming Orthodox.

No, instead we are living in some oddly super politically charged times and not just with world events, but within our own parish communities. We have our own share of community issues related to things like the balance of preserving a culture vs evangelism to the broader society, New vs Old Calendars, American culture war issues within the Church, etc etc etc. A lot of this seemed to exist just below the surface of life until the Pandemic and the ecclesiastical problems in Ukraine that predated Russia's 2022 invasion.

We Orthodox in North America are functioning with an deficit of basic Christian love and compassion. Somewhere in the very old introduction sticky is my conversion story into Orthodoxy and what I'll point out is this: it wasn't the theology that attracted me. I grew up Roman Catholic so I had no need to find a Church that practiced Communion and believed in the Real Presence. I already had bishops, priests, and deacons. I already had a large respect for the Virgin Mary. And, I already had a strong sense of identity as an American Catholic in a sort of Diet Irish flavor. I was already part of a larger, greater organization that stretched beyond the four walls of the building I worshiped in on Sundays. And it was quite ethnically diverse with Americans, Black Catholics, Filipinos, Vietnamese, Hispanics, and, Native Americans.
See, growing up Catholic in a rural part of the Pacific Northwest made me a particular target in high school being attacked by militant atheists/secularists who had an ax to grind about the Catholic Church's sex scandals. It made me a target to every flavor of Evangelical and Reformed Protestantism who blame the Catholic Church for every evil that has happened in the world since Pentecost. It made me a target to the 20% Mormon population of my high school because I didn't flaunt my faith like they did. These attacks and insults, well, actually strengthened my faith and in some ways made me a far more devout Catholic. Eventually I took a critical view of Church History and came to the conclusion that today's Roman Catholic Church is not the same as the 1st Century Christian Church founded on Pentecost.

So then what could possibly lead to my departure from Rome at the age of sixteen to the greener pastures of the Eastern Orthodox Church? The family influence of my Orthodox stepmom and later Orthodox dad played a part, but no, family unity was not it especially with my atheist brother. It was not some desire to be part of a conservative redoubt to the ongoing culture war which was starting to heat up when the notion of legalizing so-called "gay marriage" became a thing. It was not even the changless-ness of the Orthodox Divine Liturgy as the Catholic Church in America continued its un-ending quest of needless liturgical reform in the name of Vatican II. Ultimately, it was the love of people and hospitality of the non-Orthodox which the Orthodox, especially the babushki, have for everyone.


And so here we are today with a weird subset of hatred and malice within American Orthodoxy that doesn't appear to be addressed. We have COVID converts who became Orthodox as part of the Fr Peter Heers cult believing that COVID was concoccted to attack the Orthodox Church and that receiving any COVID vaccine means compromising one's salvation because they think that it is the mark of the beast. We have the anti-abortion zealots who believe that Russia is an Orthodox Utopia, Putin is a living saint, and that all Orthodox should abandon their homelands because of America's abotion laws (ironically ignoring the fact that Russia has consistently had higher abortion numbers than the USA for decades). We have these misguided, hateful people who think that any marginal show of basic compassion is indicative of a larger plot to turn the Orthodox Church into a watered down version of herself similar to the Anglican Communion. And, lastly, we have people who believe that just because Pascha 2025 was one of those years when the two Easters are on the same day, and that Pope Francis toyed with the idea of aligning the Catholic calculation of Easter to the Orthodox calculation, that it can only mean that the Ecumenical Patriarch is going to reunite the entire Eastern Orthodox Church into an Eastern Catholic Church subservient to the Pope in Rome.

With all this, I have to ask: where are people getting these crazy ideas, and why aren't our bishops and priests saying anything about any of it? We need our Church leadership to address these problems and quit burying their heads in the sand and ignoring them because they will not simply go away and disappear. They will persist.


I also have to ask what the Black Eyed Peas asked in 2003, "Where is the Love?" Are we not teaching it anymore? Did the Assembly of Bishops put out a communique saying not to teach that as Christians we are to love one another? The generation of babushki who survived Communist persecution, the ones who by their love brought me and others into the Faith, are dying out; why are we dishonoring their memory by acting the opposite of how they did?

I can't speak for how the Orthodox Church operates in the Old World because I have never been there and have never been a part of it. My ancestors have been in North America since the 1680s, so whatever connections I have on the other side of the Atlantic are flimsy at best. But, I do worry about the state of Orthodoxy in America. I worry that as we fail to teach and live the Gospel, that we will become just another hate-filled, politically-driven non-profit organization just like the Religious Right of Jimmy Swaggert, Jerry Fallwell, and so many other charlatians and hypocrites.


So, what does all this have to do with St Olga of Kwethluk? When we look at her earthly life in comparison with some of our other saints, it really isn't all that remarkable or noteworthy. She did not convert an entire nation of people like St Patrick for the Irish or St Nina for the Georgians. She did not defend the faith against heresy in well-articulated writings like St Athanasius against the Arians or St John of Damascus against the Iconoclasts. She was not a martyr like 40 Martyrs of Sebaste, St Peter the Aleut, or St John Kochurov, or any of the other countless martyrs from Communist persecution in the last century or Islamic persecution in the last 1400 years. She was simply a mother, a grandmother, a godmother, a midwife, and, the wife of a priest in a backwater village accessible almost exclusively by river boat where just over 700 people live.
Instead, she simply lived in her village and loved everyone. Christ said that there are two great Commandments: to love the Lord Your God with all your heart, strength, soul, etc; and, to love your neighbor as yourself. St Olga followed these two Commandments and that is why hundreds of people traveled to a poor Yupik village in western Alaska on the banks of the Kuskokwim River. There were eight bishops present and sadly only one was non-OCA from ROCOR. Which means that there was zero episcopal representation from the Antiochians, Greeks, Carpatho-Russians, Bulgarians, Georgians, Macedonians, or, Serbs. No wonder we laity remain divided in our jurisdictions when even our hierarchs can not be bothered to show for the glorification of someone native to the American lands who is not part of some diaspora group. Someone who's family has likely been cradle Orthodox since St Jacob Netsvetov, a priest of mixed Russian-Aleut heritage, introduced the people of the Kuskokwim River to Christ almost two centuries ago. An Orthodox generation ago, this glorification would have no doubt have had at least Metropolitan Philip of the Antiochians, Metropolitan Nicholas of the Carpatho-Russians, and even at least one of the Greek bishops in attendance. Instead our bishops no longer care about pan-Orthodoxy and even actively fight against it; especially the Greeks and ROCOR. I am, to put it bluntly, disappointed in each and every one of our hierarchs, especially my own, for failing to keep the spirit of Pan-Orthodoxy alive.


We need St Olga of Kwethluk. We need this simple, humble, example of Christian love and compassion. Nineteen years ago when I was chrismated Orthodox (something that people today consider heretical because of Fr Peter Heers' misguided views on the sacraments) there was someone who was like St Olga in every Orthodox parish. She was usually an old grandmotherly lady who survived WWII as a child and later survived Communism in the Warsaw Pact nations, survived the Greek Military Junta, or survived the various wars and civil wars in the Middle East. Now there are fewer of them as that generation dies off. What will we have left when they're gone? What are we doing to be that person for somebody else or are we the reason somebody never comes to Church and hates Christ? Perhaps if we had more people like St Olga of Kwethluk we would have fewer Jay Dyer and the Orthobros.


As former poster OrthodoxyUSA used to end his posts: Forgive me.

The northern ten tribes of Israel who went into exile, perhaps now in Afghanistan or Pakistan, can they return to Jesus and rejoin Israel as Believing Jews? Join the 144,000?