Philo

The conspiracy theorists are owed a great apology.

Ozzy Osbourne's son is shutting down rumors that his father practiced the occult: "He was a believer in Christ." beliefnet.com/columnists/ido…

One of my contrarian takes: Society peaked in the 80s, and it’s been in slow decline ever since. It was the last era of widespread optimism. You can feel it in the music and movies. “Excess meets innocence.” The 80s also mark the end of the analog world—local economies, in-person everything, and a certain forced simplicity. Malls, movie theaters, magazines, and BMX. Then, beginning in the 90s, came the tidal wave of tech: Mobile phones The internet Social media AI All incredible innovations, with lots of positives. But on the whole I think they’re *net negatives* for society. We replaced a finite, real-world experience with an infinite, digital one. Infinite information. Infinite comparison. Infinite distraction. Human’s aren’t wired for that, and you can see the consequences all around us.

@quotesdaily100 Santorini is one of the fewest places on earth where the pictures & postcards you see actually look much worse than the real thing. There’s absolutely nothing like it.

50 Places You Must See Before You Leave This Earth: 1. Santorini, Greece 2. Kyoto in cherry blossom season, Japan 3. The Amalfi Coast, Italy 4. Patagonia, Argentina and Chile 5. The Sahara Desert at night, Morocco 6. Machu Picchu, Peru 7. The Northern Lights, Iceland 8. Bali, Indonesia 9. The Maldives 10. Cappadocia, Turkey 11. The Amazon Rainforest, Brazil 12. Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe 13. The Great Barrier Reef, Australia 14. Banff National Park, Canada 15. The Scottish Highlands 16. Ha Long Bay, Vietnam 17. The Faroe Islands 18. Zhangjiajie, China 19. Plitvice Lakes, Croatia 20. Lofoten Islands, Norway 21. Torres Del Paine, Chile 22. The Dolomites, Italy 23. Lake Bled, Slovenia 24. Meteora, Greece 25. Petra, Jordan 26. Wadi Rum, Jordan 27. The Dead Sea, Jordan 28. Socotra Island, Yemen 29. Guilin, China 30. Raja Ampat, Indonesia 31. The Azores, Portugal 32. Madagascar 33. Bhutan 34. The Silk Road, Central Asia 35. Tbilisi, Georgia 36. Kotor, Montenegro 37. Dubrovnik, Croatia 38. Cinque Terre, Italy 39. The Swiss Alps 40. Black Forest, Germany 41. Transylvania, Romania 42. Hallstatt, Austria 43. Porto, Portugal 44. Seville, Spain 45. Marrakech, Morocco 46. Zanzibar, Tanzania 47. The Serengeti, Tanzania 48. Skeleton Coast, Namibia 49. Antarctic Peninsula 50. Easter Island, Chile More to add???

@Geniustechw I’m not one to get involved in the abortion debate, but this speech is theologically weak (to state it mildly). Athenagoras of Athens was an early Christian philosopher in the 2nd century. He considered abortion a form of homicide. That’s the ancient Church tradition.

"Jesus would be a clinic escort." A Presbyterian Minister just dropped a "New Beatitude": "Blessed are those who end their pregnancies." The Church is officially unrecognizable. Is this even Christianity anymore?

Pope Leo XIV received representatives of the International Association of Exorcists (AIE) in a private audience on Friday, March 13. They presented a report on the growing prevalence of cases related to occultism, esotericism, and Satanism, and the spiritual consequences they believe this has for many people. During the meeting, the Association asked the Pontiff to ensure that every diocese in the world has one or more adequately trained exorcist priests. The request concerns not only the number of exorcists, but above all their preparation: seminary training, specific programs for new bishops, and clear discernment criteria for addressing particularly delicate pastoral situations. According to Father Francesco Bamonte, Vice President of the AIE, ignoring these phenomena leaves many faithful without an adequate response to grave spiritual suffering, sometimes pushing them toward inappropriate solutions. This is why exorcists insist on the need for serious, prudent, and Gospel-based pastoral care. During the audience, the Pope was also presented with the book Guidelines for the Ministry of Exorcism, along with an image of Saint Michael the Archangel from the sanctuary of Monte Sant'Angelo. Leo XIV also recalled his past acquaintance with and appreciation for Father Gabriele Amorth, founder of the International Association of Exorcists. Discover more at ewtnvatican.com

For 300 years the Muslim Turks were stealing kids from their mothers and putting taxes on the Christians. Before Jizya, in Greece we had the "haraç" (charatsi). It was a form of land tax imposed by the Muslim Turks on "non-Muslim subjects", from the 15th century until the empire's reforms in the 19th century (20–50% of income). Originating from the Islamic "kharaj" (a tax on agricultural land), it evolved into a poll-like tax levied on individuals based on their ability to pay, often tied to land ownership or household wealth. In principle, it served as a counterpart to the "zakat" (charitable tax) paid by Muslims, but in practice, it functioned as a discriminatory burden on "dhimmis" (protected non-Muslims) under the Ottoman millet system, which granted limited autonomy to religious communities like the Greek Orthodox in exchange for fiscal obligations. Collection was reformed in 1834 during the Tanzimat era, shifting to a more centralized commission-based system, and it eventually merged with the "Jizya" (head tax) by the late 19th century. Now, combine all these practices from the muslims: Collecting children (devşirme), insane taxes (haraç), tortures like skinning alive and other practises to convert Christians, and also the slave trade. Greek population in Anatolia & Aegean islands fell -30% via enslavement, tortures or conversion. Harac + slave raids drained villages of labor. Greece under the Ottoman occupation was -50% below Western Europe by 1800. We Greeks, call the Ottomans as "the Grand Masters of Torture". Millions of Greeks died or became muslims. Many of them are calling themselves "Turks" today. These people are the most fanatics against the Christians and the Greeks because they were raised with lies to hate their own ancestral bloodline and history. The devshirme was the greatest wound inflicted on Hellenism during the period of Turkish rule. The children who were seized were considered definitively lost. In Epirus, in fact, on the first Sunday after the abduction, their parents would go to church dressed in black, where a funeral service was chanted. In this service, the names of the children were read aloud as if they were dead. For 300 years the Ottoman Turks were stealing kids from their mothers. This was the most brutal thing humanity ever witnessed. They were waiting for women to birth, raise their kids, and then at the age of 8 were collecting the them. The devşirme known as "collection of children" or "blood tax" or in Greek as "paidomazoma" was a systematic practice by the Ottoman Empire from the late 14th century until the mid-17th century, that forced the recruitment of young Christian boys, typically aged 8–18, from Balkan provinces as a form of tribute. These boys were taken from their families, converted to Islam, and rigorously trained to serve in the empire's military, administrative, and bureaucratic roles. This created a loyal class of elite soldiers and officials who were dependent on the sultan rather than on hereditary Turkish aristocracy. Historians estimate the total number of Christian boys taken across the entire Ottoman Empire around 300.000 kids. From those kids 150.000 were Greek kids (over 300 years). It means the half of the total kids that were stolen were only Greek. It's insane. For example in 1540, a levy in territories of Thessaly & Macedonia took 1.000 Greek boys in one season and in Chios (Greek island) 200 boys taken in 1567 alone. The peak was 5.000 kids/annual from Greece. A generational trauma, with thousands of Greek families losing sons every few years for centuries. Once taken, boys were circumcised, renamed with Muslim names, and forbidden from contact with their families. They were raised as Muslims, effectively erasing their Greek cultural and religious identity to foster loyalty to the sultan. Historical records show Greek-origin devşirme boys rising to prominence, such as Mimar Sinan (chief architect of the Ottomans, possibly Greek) and several grand viziers like Ibrahim Edhem Pasha (from Chios). The system accelerated Islamization in Greek regions, reducing Christian populations and creating a class of "Greek Muslims" (for example in Pontus or Crete). It fueled revolts and the Greek War of Independence (1821), where devşirme grievances were invoked.

@BercesteZeyrek @universalnewsx We understand. Islam = the Sword. People in the sleepy west are waking up to that reality that the Eastern Christians are very aware of. They learned the hard way. @GadSaad

@universalnewsx We fought and we won. We won by the sword, with bloodshed. You were defeated. Centuries have passed; accept it now. Furthermore, in the territories we lost, many mosques were destroyed or converted into churches. That is the reality of war.

🔴 Eid Takbir being recited in the AyaSofya Mosque in Istanbul

@DrJacobsRad Why is he even engaging with masked cowards?

The Toronto Police are taking a clear stand against the chronic protests in the Jewish neighborhood of Bathurst and Shepherd. It takes only a few people to create an atmosphere of fear. While this should have been done a long time ago, this is a welcome development. Via: Caryma S'ad

@Sflecce Agreed 100%. But didn’t you notice the plethora of church arsons across the country?

When any individual is targeted because of who they are, who they love, or which God they worship — it must be confronted with unrelenting force. Jews are 25x more likely to experience hate crimes. It's not just the stats, it's the stories that stick with you. When did we become a nation that normalized a girl’s elementary school requiring a security fortress to keep the kids safe? I can tell you, my church does not require 24/7 guards outside the entrance. I fully stand behind Mayor @StevenDelDuca’s call for the Prime Minister to come to Vaughan, listen to these dehumanizing experiences, and finally act to confront antisemitism with the resolve it deserves.

@eggleston_anita @Ab51_Project Toronto area is the opposite. But here are the stats for you. Take care. x.com/charliesmirkle…

@classicalsense1 @Ab51_Project Maybe demographics matter? Every boomer in my social sphere votes Conservative and also wants Alberta independence. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Canada the Prozac nation... Big reason why Alberta is leaving!

Here in Hagia Sophia, on May 29th 1453, after 900 years of being a Christian cathedral, in the final hours of the Fall of Constantinople, a large number of Christian men, women, children, nuns, monks, priests, and others sought refuge from the Muslim invaders. The Ottomans surged inside and massacred them. On its holy altars they enacted “perversions with our women, virgins and children” including “the Grand Duke’s daughter who was quite beautiful” and forced to “lie on the great altar of Hagia Sophia with a crucifix under her head and then raped” Those who were not murdered were enslaved. Hagia Sophia resembled a “public brothel” before it was turned into a “stable for their horses”, with toppled altars used as troughs. The Hagia Sophia’s main Crucifix was then paraded “in mocking procession” with “spitting and blasphemies and curses”. “Behold the god of the Christians!” They jeered

@eggleston_anita @Ab51_Project He nails it. There’s a reason the overwhelming majority of boomers (especially females) elected Carney. The ones I know where I live still did it despite their kids voting conservative & explaining why.

I couldn’t disagree more with this post. The term “Boomers” has been used negatively quite a bit recently and I’m starting to believe it’s a bit of a psyop. That generation that is being denigrated so often is a generation that enjoyed and promoted the very lifestyle associated with freedom, abundance, wealth and security, and national identity, that until recently was not only the norm, but also what made Canada such an internationally attractive place to immigrate to. Isn’t that what we all want to get back to?? I think it’s highly unfair to cast scorn and blame on the generation that are only guilty of a confident naïveté that their utopia could ever become so tragically altered for the worse by a “new world order “ which has only brought crime, confusion, and immorality to their world on a scale that was once absolutely inconceivable. Politically, given the regular swaps between liberal and conservative administrations in their lifetime, the evidence is they are neither as prominently liberal as the questionable polling suggests, nor majority conservative in their voting habits. They should not be scapegoated for where Canada currently finds itself imo. Theres plenty of blame to go around progressive Gen X.

This is Toronto in 2026. But also most Canadian cities -- Vancouver, Edmonton, even smaller ones. Liberal boomers don't ride the subway, or go downtown -- they're cocooning in their suburbs and loving Mark Carney's anti-Americanism, which counts more to them.

@kinsellawarren He doesn’t even make a top 30. He ain’t got the moves like…

Barf

@kinsellawarren Then you would know in the early 20th century some pro-zionist groups were considered to be anti-Semitic.

I've been researching and writing about this subject for 40 years, so I know: Anti-Zionism is an antisemitic hate movement. Fact, not opinion.

@GadSaad Only if it’s an “upgrade.” Also, if the first edition is your only copy, you may want a reader copy. So if any of the above apply, take the plunge!

I already have these books including a 1st edition of 1984. Should I still get them on principle? Gorgeous editions.

@MichelleMaxwell @I_Just_Do_Stuff Making the world a better place by incinerating other’s children & grandchildren. “Amen”. news.un.org/en/story/2026/…

@I_Just_Do_Stuff Our grandchildren and their children…

I am more than happy to pay more for gas for a brief period if it means President Trump realigns the world for the better. Anyone else feel this way?

@MichelleMaxwell It’s big of you to be willing to pay more for gas. news.un.org/en/story/2026/…