04 April 2022
POLL: The Pandemic & Orthodox Churches
If you are a part of any Orthodox Church (Eastern or Oriental) in the USA, please click on the link below to take part in a large national survey. It's about the effects of the pandemic on parish life, and is funded by the Louisville Institute. Your responses are strictly anonymous. Please also pass this on to any Orthodox friends or relatives; the more participants, the more meaningful the data will be! Thanks for sharing your thoughts. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/PandemicAndYourParishNow
14 October 2021
Real Cancel Culture
Cancel culture is real and both the left and right are guilty of using it against their perceived enemies. Sometimes it can be used to shutdown a harmful practice, but often times it can also be harmful to the innocent. In my lifetime I remember BADD (Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons) trying to shut down D&D (Dungeons & Dragons) in the 1980's due to the Satanic Panic, which has been proven to be a false and unnecessary panic. My Dungeon Master's (referee's) parents bought into it and did not allow their son to play D&D anymore at his house. Instead we had to play a Christian RPG (Role-Playing Game) called Dragon Raid at his house. We still played Dungeons & Dragons at my house, because my parents did not buy into the panic. You can read more about the fraudulent Satanic Panic and attempts to cancel D&D at https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26328105
Recently a priest's blog was removed from Ancient Faith Radio after multiple warnings about not posting about partisan politics. This was not a case of internet opinion charging him before he was in a court of law, but a company that warned a content provider to stop a prohibited activity over and over until they felt they had to remove him. People cried "Cancel Culture" but this is NOT cancel culture. He was removed from one platform, no judgement was made upon him as a bad person, and AFR even offered to help him set up his blog at new platform. AFR only made a statement about it because the priest had made one first, claiming he was cancelled (Which he has now, thankfully retracted). I am not even a fan of AFR, but these are facts, which I will not twist because I like and respect the priest in question.
However in the modern day, there are actual victims of cancel culture in the world. The problem is that this is done off of accusations, not someone being found guilty in a court of law. In fact, one of these cancelled creators, Zak Smith, actually ended up suing his accusers and was found that he was being defamed and that the accusers had to pay-up and/or post retractions to their accusations. But those facts were not important to the Twitter troll mobs who keep spreading the accusations (only made on social media) and as such, no one will publish Zak's work. Zak, thankfully, makes lots of money from his art, but the TTRPG is missing out by not having his Adventure Campaigns which are also works of art. There are others that are also being cancelled and it is hurting their ability to make a living for them and their family. To this end, I recently interviewed Zak, being a fan or his art and writing and wanting to get the facts of his story from his POV without the interviewer (me) passing judgement. WARNING: This interview has adult language and talks about adult situations.
We need to be patient and let the facts come out in courts of law when accusations are made and remember, at least in America, that people are considered innocent until proven guilty. We don't need a litany of Heart Queens yelling, "Off with their head" anytime anyone is accused of anything bad.
20 April 2017
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27 February 2014
Don't Trust Hollywood (For True Theology or Biblical Truths)
“Having got a chance to read an undated version of the script for Noah I want to warn you. If you were expecting a Biblically faithful retelling of the story of the greatest mariner in history and a tale of redemption and obedience to God you’ll be sorely disappointed. Noah paints the primeval world of Genesis 6 as scorched arid desert, dry cracked earth, and a gray gloomy sky that gives no rain – and all this, caused by man’s “disrespect” for the environment. In short, an anachronistic doomsday scenario of ancient global warming.”According to the website, Beginning And End, In this movie Abel and Cain befriend the Shaman Noah as a child. Adding to the Biblical confusion, King Og of Bashan, an evil Nephilim King in Scripture, is portrayed as good being in Noah. In Scripture, Og lives after the flood and is one of the most powerful Kings of his day. He hated the ancient Israelites and sought to conquer them as they migrated to the land of Canaan, the Promised Land, after being led out of slavery in Egypt. The battle against Og, led by Moses, took place over 1500 years after the flood. In Noah, Og is one of the fallen angels or "Watchers", who now, despite rebellion against God, decide to help Noah build the ark and protect it. In a scene in which a small army of men try to take siege of the ark, it is the fallen angels who fight to make sure that Noah and his family can enter safely. Not only that, but Noah tries to kill his own granddaughter once she is born in the Ark!
You wouldn't stand for going to church and the Bible being preached in a way that it was changed "to be more exciting", so why would you pay people to do this very the same blasphemous thing?
This is not the first movie that Hollywood has done this with. What other Biblical movies has Hollywood messed up? Pretty much all of them, but here are just a few:
- The Passion of the Christ's principal source is The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the reported visions of the stigmatic German nun Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774–1824), as written by the poet Clemens Brentano. Even the Vatican position on the authenticity of the books produced by Brentano was stated by Father Peter Gumpel, who was involved in the study of the issues for the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints: "It is absolutely not certain that she ever wrote this. There is a serious problem of authenticity".
- The Last Temptation of Christ's eponymous final sequence depicts the crucified Jesus—tempted by what turns out to be Satan in the form of a beautiful, androgynous child—experiencing a dream or alternative reality where He comes down from His cross, marries Mary Magdalene (and later Mary and Martha), and lives out His life as a full mortal man. He learns on his deathbed that He was deceived by Satan and begs God to let Him "be God's son," at which point He finds Himself once again on His cross. At other points in the film, Jesus is depicted as building crosses for the Romans, being tormented by the Voice of God, and lamenting the many sins He believes He has committed.
- The Prince of Egypt shows Moses is adopted by Pharaoh’s wife, instead of his daughter. Miriam walks off and leaves Moses as soon as he is found, rather than approaching Pharaoh’s
daughterwife to offer her mom as a milk maid. Moses kills the Egyptian entirely by accident, and he never hides the body, because in the film this all happened in sight of everybody. He flees the very same hour, and that because of his own feelings of guilt, not because Pharaoh was trying to kill him. Pharaoh wasn't trying to kill him, not having heard about anything yet, and not having been given the opportunity before Moses left. Moses approaches the Burning Bush, to the point of putting his hand into the fire. Moses did not hide his face, neither was he afraid to look at God. Moses' reason for not wishing to return to Egypt at God's command is his guilt at having been party to the oppression of the Israelites, not because he was a poor speaker. Moses does not set his wife and children upon a donkey, but sets his wife upon a camel. He doesn't have any children. Aaron does not come forth to meet him, but rather avoids him, because Aaron is Moses' enemy. Aaron is therefore not Moses' spokesman, does not even go in with him to Pharaoh, and manifestly does not perform the miracles. Moses demands the entire and permanent liberation of the Israelites, rather than just three days’ freedom to worship God outside the country. Pharaoh’s response is to double the workload of the Israelites, rather than to make them gather their own straw. Moses is not eighty years old by any stretch of the imagination. The carcasses of the Passover lambs continue to lie in the street after the blood has been put on the door posts, and are not eaten. The Red Sea is parted because Moses strikes the water with his rod, not because he lifted his hand over it, and, conversely, it returns without him doing anything at all. Pharaoh is in the midst of the sea and survives.
22 January 2011
China Promotional Video on BON 中国国家形象宣传片人物篇BON版本
The People's Republic of China has a new promotional video promoting stunning Chinese beauty, leading-edge Chinese agriculture, influential Chinese wealth, extraordinary Chinese people, aesthetic Chinese design, trend-setting Chinese supermodels, Chinese space travel, thrilling Chinese athletics, though-provoking Chinese scholarship, enchanting Chinese art, captivating Chinese dialogue, inspiring Chinese bravery, award-winning Chinese talent, Chinese friendship, everything Chinese, and China.
How many famous Chinese people do you recognize?
I first saw it on CNN at work and I liked the video. I found it very interesting that they used the painting of God touching the finger of Adam and one of the backdrops since the Chinese Communist Party is officially atheist.