This has started the many events leading to WWIII. Orthodox Christian prophecies told by Saints and Holy Elders for years and decades are unfolding in front of our eyes. Metropolitan Neophytos quoting a holy elder on this particular event back in 2019. Surreal. Lord, have mercy. Pray that the events coming are lessened.

WASHINGTON, June 12 (Reuters) - Israel is prepared to attack Iran in the coming days if Tehran rejects a U.S. proposal to limit its nuclear program, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing U.S. and Israeli officials.

Continued below.

Muslims are the fastest-growing religious group

A new Pew Research Center report shows that although Christianity continues to be the world’s largest religious group, its share of the rising global population has fallen over the last decade, mainly due to people walking away from the faith.

The report, based on an analysis of 2,700 censuses and surveys, shows that the global population of Christians grew by 121.6 million people from 2010 to 2020, reaching some 2.3 billion people. As a share of the global population, estimated to be about 7.8 billion in 2020, Christians fell by 1.8 percentage points to 28.8%.

The global population of Muslims, on the other hand, reached 2 billion, registering an increase of 347 million. Their share of the global population increased by 1.8 percentage points to 25.6%. The study also recognized Muslims as the world’s fastest-growing religious group.

Continued below.

Israel is directly attacking its biggest and bestarmed adversary, without clear backing from the U.S. President Trump publicly opposed an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear sites on Thursday, saying he still believed a nuclear deal was possible.

It's not clear whether Israel has ordered strikes on Iran's nuclear program, or whether the U.S. opposed this specific operation. But the Israeli strikes could be the start of a military conflict that poses grave danger to both Israel and Iran.

Sirens sounded across Israel on Thursday night. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz declared a special state of emergency across the entire country.

"Following the State of Israel's preemptive strike against Iran, a missile and drone attack against the state of Israel and its civilian population is expected in the immediate future," Katz said.

I raise this question, because obviously there's a lot of debate about the current protests happening right now.

While the predictable battle lines have been drawn, and there are clear-cut cases of "peaceful" and "non-peaceful" that everyone can point to...


I'm more concerned with the grey area. The methods of protest that don't actually involve hitting someone in the face or throwing a brick, but that carry certain externalities that harm people in other ways.


I'm referring to things like this:


Or people deliberately blocking traffic, thus preventing hundreds (or potentially thousands) of people from getting to work, and potentially blocking emergency services.


By the standards some people are using, the exchange in the video (or the act of blocking a bunch of people from getting to where they need to be) would get labelled as "peaceful" because no punches were thrown. But is it really "peaceful" considering the definition of the word is "freedom from disturbance; tranquility"?


We've seen it before, people blocking the roads for hundreds of people, and when one person has finally had enough, and gets out of the car and engages them, the person engaging them catches the blame for making things "unpeaceful" or "escalating". When, in fact, I'd say that the entitled action of "I get to make 1,000 other people miss a day's pay because me and my friends want to stand in the highway and make a political point" is, itself, the initial escalation.

Rep. RJ May, R – Lexington, is charged with 10 counts of distributing child sexual abuse material. Those charges carry a maximum 20-year prison sentence, with a minimum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of South Carolina, the social messaging app Kik alerted the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in April 2024 of several videos containing child sex abuse from an account with the username “joebidennnn69.” Investigators found at least 10 of those videos had been shared from that account and connected it with May’s mobile device and home IP address.

He is a founding member of the hardline conservative South Carolina Freedom Caucus, which has been part of the effort to push the Republican Party in South Carolina further to the right.

May was also suspended from his role in the South Carolina House of Representatives on Thursday via a letter penned by South Carolina House Speaker Murrell Smith.

President Donald Trump has several avenues to squash the riots in Los Angeles. Still, there’s a surefire way to cut off the money flowing to Mexico, thus significantly reducing the financial incentive illegal immigrants have to be in the U.S.

“Directo a México” is the official remittance program of the Federal Reserve Bank, facilitated through the FedGlobal service, which allows illegal immigrants to transfer money to Mexico’s central bank at no additional fee.

In an April 2013 report to Congress, the Federal Reserve Board detailed how it facilitates fee-free transfers through a special relationship between American banks and the Bank of Mexico.

“The Reserve Banks have worked with the Mexican central bank (Banco de México) to enable U.S. depository institutions sending remittance transfers through the FedGlobal service to Mexico, called Directo a México, to comply with future disclosure requirements. Banco de México has provided the Reserve Banks with specific information about applicable taxes and informed the Reserve Banks that no Mexican financial institutions that receive payments through FedGlobal will deduct fees,” the report stated.

Government money-transfer programs aimed at encouraging immigrants to join the U.S. banking system have been in place since at least 2005, according to a report by NBC News. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, through its Retail Payments Office, centrally manages the FedGlobal service, which enables illegal immigrants to enter the United States, receive payment for their work, and then send their earnings back to their home countries. (Sign up for Mary Rooke’s weekly newsletter here!)

Several U.S. banks take advantage of the program. The biggest culprits are Citibank, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo. In 2024 alone, Mexico received $64.745 billion in remittances, marking the 11th straight year of increased growth since 2014. These transfers account for approximately 4 percent of Mexico’s total GDP.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum exposed just how desperately her country relies on these remittance payments in a video statement, which fanned the flames of the LA riots.

“Mexican citizens in America work hard to pay their bills. We don’t want this tax to affect the remittances of our countrymen, who tend to the needy,” Sheinbaum said. “If necessary, we will mobilize. We will not allow them to punish those who help the least fortunate.”

Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill includes a 3.5 percent remittance tax on transfers going to Mexico. As illegal immigrants and LA residents were attacking police and burning property, Sheinbaum promised to mobilize Mexico should this new tax proposal go into effect.

Missouri Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt promised to increase the remittance tax from 3.5 percent to 15 percent due to Sheinbaum’s threats.

“I’m introducing legislation to quadruple the proposed remittance tax — from 3.5% to 15%. America is not the world’s piggy bank. And we don’t take kindly to threats,” Schmitt said. “As I’ve said many times before: America isn’t an economic zone. It isn’t an airport with a shopping mall attached. It’s our country. It’s our people. It’s our home.”

Trump has been very clear that under his administration, Americans will no longer be taken advantage of by foreign governments or their citizens. He should direct the Federal Reserve and American banking institutions to end their remittance programs. This money does not stay in the U.S. and has a direct financial incentive enticing mass illegal immigration into our country.


Thoughts?

I've been feeling pretty spiritually cold for a while now. I don't feel like praying, and while I believe in the existence of God, I've been having a hard time believing Him as a complete reality in my heart lately. I mean, I'm in church or with a group of fellow believers reading the Word, and thoughts like "this text could be a human invention" start popping into my mind, that sort of thing—distrusting that it's the Word of God or questioning some aspects. I can't quite put my finger on why this started happening. Some fellow believers tell me that it was probably my mood that changed, and that was causing me to lose my faith, and it's something that feeds off itself. But from my own perspective, I don't see it in that order; I couldn't say for sure.
While talking to a brother about this topic, he gave me a book on apologetics, and while I was reading it, it did me a lot of good. But I never achieved a consistent faith. For example, for two or three days in a row, it was like impulses or "pushes" that lasted a few hours, and if I wanted to try to recover them, I knew I had to go back to studying the apologetics book. What I also recognize is that I have a hard time humbling myself. There's a kind of hidden "anger" toward God (I don't know if it's anger or simply my pride in wanting to take things into my own hands).
But what I mean is, I can't manage to genuinely humble myself enough to make room for Jesus to take control of my life.
I know that when I can believe in God as an absolute reality (as I once did), this state of mind will vanish, and I'll live without fear and with joy again...
But I don't know how to do it. Or I don't know how to get off the pedestal where perhaps I am (I can't be sure at all) and it's preventing me from feeding on redeeming Grace...
I read you and may God bless each and every one of you.

As I've said so many times, and this goes for everyone, when dealing with law enforcement don't disobey commands or resist. Here they start to bring him out and he pushes his way forward. If you think law enforcement acted improperly then file a complaint later on. Republican leaders have been constantly under threat of violence during this administration and do have security. Democrat leaders at this time should be talking to their base and telling them violence is not the way.

The Satanic Temple plans to open its third telehealth abortion center on President Donald Trump's birthday, offering women prescriptions for abortion drugs and instructions for performing the "abortion ritual."

The facility, part of the group's "religious abortion care organization," TST Health, will open in Maine on Saturday. TST Health intends to operate the facility free of cost to clients, except for the $91 charge to its pharmacy partner, Honeybee Health, for the chemical abortion prescription.

The latest abortion center, named "The President's Yuge Most Beautiful Tremendous Satanic Abortion Clinic," is the third one TST Health has opened, following the opening of "Samuel Alito's Mom's Satanic Abortion Clinic" and "Right to Your Life Satanic Abortion Clinic" in New Mexico and Virginia, respectively.

Continued below.

The rainbow colors of LGBTQ ideology are conspicuous throughout the UK. But beyond the Pride pomp are signs of Catholic renewal.

CANTERBURY, England — Despite reports of possible early signs of a Catholic revival in England, the majority of the country’s population continues to beat a path towards a post-Christian future.

Perhaps no clearer is this seen than in the month of June. Scarcely any Englishmen know it is dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, but they will know that the month has been given over to the demon of sexual perversity that endangers the salvation of souls, although few of course realize this is what it entails — or if they do, are not allowed to publicly acknowledge it.

But if there’s one helpful aspect to Pride Month, it’s that it sheds light on how far the nation has severed herself from her Christian roots.

The festive processions celebrating sinfulness instead of the sacraments are now ubiquitous, as are signs and symbols supporting the LGBT agenda. From major supermarket chains and the headquarters of Britain’s intelligence services to the British Museum and even an unappetizing crumble dessert in the House of Lords, the colors of the “Pride” rainbow flag are brazenly on show.

Continued below.

242 aboard - no survivors apparently Crashes into urban area shortly after takeoff. No explosions during its unexplained descent - until it hits the ground. Another Boeing jet, but at this point cause is pure speculation.

Air India crash latest: At least 200 killed as plane to London crashes moments after take-off in Ahmedabad

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) issued a report that surveyed reproductive-age adults and recommended “reproductive autonomy” as a solution to global fertility rate decline, a solution that received pushback from pro-family experts.

The UNFPA, along with YouGov, surveyed more than 14,000 adults in 14 countries: the United States, India, Germany, Hungary, Sweden, Italy, Mexico, Brazil, Thailand, South Korea, Indonesia, Nigeria, Morocco, and South Africa.

The report, “The Real Fertility Crisis: The Pursuit of Reproductive Agency in a Changing World,” found that about 39% of people in the survey who want children said financial limitations affected their family size, with many citing a lack of job security, housing limitations, and child care options as reasons. About 19% of respondents said fears about the future contribute to their expectation of having fewer children. Almost one-third reported they or their partner had an unexpected pregnancy.

About 45% of respondents were not sure whether they would have their desired number of children or did not answer the question. Only 37% responded that they expect to have the amount of children they want.

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Hi! I'm a 21-year-old college student who is truly getting into Christianity for the first time. I just started my TRUE journey recently, but was raised Christian and never truly believed. I have dealt with anxiety and other mental health issues for most of my life, and I feel like my experiences with those have significantly contributed to my previous doubt in Jesus. I have slowly started to heal and correct the sins I was making previously to overall become a better person and a thoughtful, loving Christian. I am starting to read the Bible for the first time in my life and have tons of questions, which led me here. I am looking for people I can connect with who have a deeper understanding of the Bible and Christianity to help guide me on my path and answer the questions I have to the best of their ability. If you are interested in connecting and maybe even acting as a mentor to me, please reach out. I need all the help I can get. Thank you so much, and I look forward to my time on the forums and can't wait to connect with others!

Look who's talking
Badly about me
He tells me that I am
A religious fanatic
That is wrong
Because that is not me
Also he doesn't know me that
Well
That is the truth
I was born a Christian
And I will die as a
Christian
Yes I pray every night
For my Father
Before I sleep
It only takes a few
Minutes to do it

There is an Australian class action against Tesla due to what is known as "phantom braking".

Some Tesla drivers have reported phantom braking while their car is in autopilot mode, which, according to Tesla, "enables your car to steer, accelerate and brake automatically within its lane".

It is not entirely autonomous driving, but you can take your foot off the accelerator while the car drives along at a set speed and slows down for other vehicles.

Click to expand...

The company also maintains that autopilot is designed to make driving safer, but in the US, Tesla has been sued over several deadly crashes in which the system was enabled.

Click to expand...

We've got a hybrid Toyota. We've had it for about 18 months. It has a similar system except they call it "adaptive cruise control" and "lane centering". If I set the cruise control, the car slows down if the car in front slows down and then picks up speed if the gap opens us. Likewise it will steer itself in the centre of marked lanes if I push the centering button.

One minor issue is that if there is pull over bay on the side of the road, and the left hand white line dives off to allow for the bay with no dotted line as a "barrier", the car will temporarily try to veer left to stay right in the centre of the "lane" (we drive on the left in Australia). But it only lasts a second as we go past the bay in a very short time.

So far we haven't had any problems with "phantom braking" touch wood. Apparenlty other brands have had issues, including Toyota, but it seems to be a persisent problem for Tesla.

Other Manufacturers Report Issues​

While AEB systems are designed to improve safety on the road, issues have been reported with vehicles from several different automotive and truck manufacturers.

In addition to Tesla and Nissan, other manufacturers reporting issues with AEB systems include:

• Subaru: In 2019, Subaru announced a recall of more than 1.3 million vehicles due a system problem that could cause the AEB to activate unexpectedly. The recall affected several models, including the Forester, Outback and Crosstrek.
• Toyota: Toyota has issued several recalls related to AEB system issues in various models, including the Camry and the RAV4. In some cases, the AEB system failed to activate when it should have, while in other cases, it activated unexpectedly.
• Ford: In 2020, Ford issued a recall of 600,000-plus vehicles because the AEB system activated randomly and without cause. The recall affected several models, including the Fusion, Edge and Lincoln MKX.
• American Honda: In 2019, Honda recalled more than 118,000 CR-V models due to a software issue that could cause the AEB system to engage unexpectedly.
• General Motors: GM has also issued several recalls related to incidences when the AEB system either unexpectedly activated or failed to activate when needed in various models, including the Chevrolet Malibu, GMC Acadia and Cadillac XT5.

Click to expand...

I do remember driving a Mercedes Sprinter van for my job which tended to go into "Go slow" mode due to road surfaces. There might have been a rough patch or some potholes when I braked or cornered. I assume the car's computer thought it could be dangerous and it went "go slow". Even that could be risky as I might have been trying to turn right across fast moving oncoming traffic and the van decided to slow down which meant it took longer to cut across the oncoming traffic.

I'm sorry, but I just can't get away from the idea that mankind is God's "experiment". Look at the proof. First, Gods seems to be caught off guard when Adam and Eve sin and all of mankind from then on are considered by God to be sinners. Then comes the time of Noah (Genesis 6:6-7) 6 "The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. 7 So the Lord said, I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them". But instead of wiping us out, He continues His "experiment" by allowing Noah and his family to live and replenish the earth. So, the earth is replenished but most of mankind continues to sin and ignore God. Moving up to the time of Jesus, He makes this statement: John 3:16 - "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life". So, God goes from "I regretted that I have made human beings" to "He so loved the world". That is confusing.

I believe in God and the Trinity, but I just don't get His plan for mankind. Today there are billions of people who are lost, and I just don't understand why He continued His experiment, only to send billions to annihilation. I try to visualize the day of judgement with billions standing before Jesus and that one person in the midst of those billions who will be judged. Can you visualize it? How can that one person be judged in the midst of billions? It just boggles my mind. And yes, I know that God does things that are above our mind, but some things just don't make sense.

I am having some very unpleasant experiences in a certain area of my life. Please pray for peace of mind. Thank you.

Hello, it has been a while since I’ve been on these forums. I come asking for prayer and wisdom. After almost a decade as an Eastern Orthodox, this Sunday my wife and I, along with our two youngest children, will be received into the Catholic Church. Please pray for our remaining three children. Two are outside of valid sacraments. The oldest remains in Orthodoxy but is greatly distressed. I thank you for your prayers.

If you have any wisdom to share, please feel free to do so.

So.. I feel kinda dumb.
I've heard the song for years and years and years, but because I usually don't pay attention to lyrics in music, much less in heavy metal music because a lot of it is.. well.. bad, or at least perceived to be bad/evil

But I got the inkling that I wanted to listen to Creeping Death by Metallica today.. I don't know why.. I just did. That particular song.

and .. I caught lyrics about Pharaoh and slaves and first born, where I normally just let words gloss over without paying attention and.. realized..
it's a song about the first Passover, told from the Angel of Death's point of view.

almost 30 years of hearing that song and never knew that.

but normally I've been conditioned that Heavy Metal is all Anti-Christian and Satan worship music and whatever so I usually just kinda blank it out. I know a lot of the genre in total, is a little misunderstood.. being that the genre is musically supposed to fit the same niche as horror movies. Occult themes and violence are all over heavy metal music, for the same reason that they're in horror movies. Not because they like those things or worship them, but because those themes are scary. An Iron Maiden song "Number of the Beast" gets a lot of flack like it's a devil worship song but it's about the Omen movies (horror movies about the antichrist) and a nightmare that their lead songwriter had after watching one of the movies. He wasn't worshiping the devil or antichrist, he was scared of them.
Though that said a lot of secular musicians in general are anti-Christianity mostly out of ignorance of what Christianity is, because they've been presented it as a means of controlling the masses, Christianity to them is a set of rules that if you don't follow you go to hell forever and God is always angry and petty.

We all know that's not the truth of it, but they basically don't.

But it is interesting when secular music makes biblical reference. In this case I just didn't realize it for decades.

Professor John Senior, my godfather and one of the professors of the famed Integrated Humanities Program at the University of Kansas, was a master of hyperbole. He once hinted to us, his students, that we should just go home and smash our television sets. Perhaps he didn’t mean this literally, but he suggested that this was something we should consider. I know of at least one fellow student who took him at his word and dropped his 19-inch Motorola black and white television set out of the window of his fourth-floor dorm room onto the concrete alley below.

Today, the lightweight plastic screen would barely make a sound when it hit the pavement. But in the 1970s, the dozens of sealed tubes (this is why some still call the TV “the tube”) exploded with a thunderous noise. It was so satisfying. So cathartic.

TV was a relatively new technology at the time; it had taken a generation or so to begin to realize what it was doing to us. Instead of being active, seeking, critical engagers with the real world, filled with wonder and joy, we were becoming lazy, slack-jawed, and flat-souled accepters of an often false or incomplete mediated version of reality.

The sound of a TV exploding on the pavement helped mark a new phase of life for us. One in which we made a commitment – a commitment deeply related to our faith (I converted to Catholicism through influence of the IHP) – to refuse to allow this technology to shape us in these negative and distorting ways.

Today, we are faced with a similar problem, but on a wildly greater scale. Artificial Intelligence and related technologies will now be able to use our reliance on screen-delivered mediating technologies and throw us into something close to total confusion about what is real and what isn’t.

Continued below.

To get the real story about what's happening in LA, listen to Jimmy Kimmel's monologue on June 10th. He lives in Los Angeles as do the hundreds in his studio audience and his staff. They showed pictures all over LA of people shopping, eating at street vendors, lining up for Disney movies and just having a grand old time. They were all completely unworried except for the unnecessary military escalation. Kimmel said that there were so many people living in Los Angeles far longer than he had, working, contributing to the community, with deep roots and strong ties but without green cards or citizenship. He then said that people with masks were abducting them because what they were doing could not be called anything but abduction. Of course these were interspersed with ridiculously incoherent statements by Trump, about cleaning up the forests almost all of which are actually federal Forest Parklands, and. about the water that was being sent to the ocean while the forest fires were raging, another complete lie. I guess there are people as incoherent as he is to whom this makes sense but everything he said in those clips was absolute nonsense. My sympathies to the people of Los Angeles. They deserve a president who is on their side and who is not a national embarrassment.

Baal






What if Baal was never a being to begin with, however more of a common act? A verb? Or even a metaphor for everyday living and understandings of our life on earth as we know it?

“God is not angry at us for living” ...

As long as the cherubs in Heaven keep saying “Holy, Holy, Holy.” I’m not going to disbelieve what I just thought about a certain observation on a FB religion group. The word “lord” is an alternate word for “Baal”. Then tonight I was compelled to discern the fear mongering into common sense. Baal means idol worship, but even an engine is an idol which is my concern as well as I come to faceting a comprehensive understanding before the fear pulls people into too much panic over Yahweh who told John in the writing of 4:18 that he did not want him to teach a religion of fear.

I’m not trying to attack religion either; it is necessary for connecting to God. But faith tells me my only Lord is Yeshua, and/or Christ Jesus. We live a life of enough fear from the Baal of doubt in this world. Your faith keeps you on this forum because you believe the way I do on that matter. I’m pretty sure the people in that group mean well but they are missing a key point. Lord Jesus should always be the Lord Christ.

We are balancing a conflict of fear and doubt. I learned a short not to long of a time ago how to avoid taking matters into my own hands instead of trusting in God. I’m anything but stagnant, but there is way too much fearmongering going on FB right now from a few hotshot Christian groups. I posted this diagram there earlier, but it got auto deleted by FB AI, this is what I was looking into when I was delving for answers on Google...



I have also realized that if this is true that then we are also needing church at this very moment, and I know definably I would be hard pressed to pray the same way a Seraphim does...