This was very interesting. I’m Catholic, but for most of my life I was very lukewarm and only recently started to take it serious and start reading the Bible. I read through half of the gospels and most of Genesis so far. I’m kind of reading the parts that interest me. I tried to do a full read through, but gave up. I think I’m going to read Paul’s letters next. As for racial belief. I’m Pro-White but I don’t hate anyone, though I do think the JQ should be looked into and not ignored.
I've been a long time reader since iFunny. I'm always happy to read about a troubled atheist youth coming around to Christianity later in life, especially one as analytical as you seem to be. I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and had similar "edgy" teenage years where I thought church was a waste of time and didn't have much faith. Experiences since then have shaped my life and I find deep meaning in the Lord and His Gospel like yourself. I feel sorry for those you think nothing of life's purpose and what will become of us after death. Thanks for sharing. I love a good conversion to Christ story, and this one is well articulated.
I haven't been on much lately and the recent hack only made iFunny worse but I got 2.3k days on the platform. I was on back when names like Detroids, Temper, Sandpaper, LordB8r were big. iFunny was a huge part of growing up like it was for a lot of us. Honestly, as I've shifted to other social media like instagram, I've been realizing that the users and contents just depress me. I'm glad to have had iFunny as my primary social media growing up as funny as it sounds Imao. My account is JohnnyJohnsonn
Tbh I can’t get over the >100IQ comment because that is almost word for word the response I gave to a new orthodox dude who was trying to trash my own church.
I’m saying that orthodoxy seems like such an assbackward retard mix of hypermonkery and Russo-arab mythology I struggle to understand how intelligent people get into it. Obviously there’s got to be something more than just the aesthetic appeal but for the life of me I can’t find it.
The best way to find out is to just go to a service. But yeah, there are lots of stupid people who “become Orthodox” because they want to post monks on Twitter and argue with people about ecumenicism or whatever
Nationalism is an atheist construct. Before the Enlightenment, there was no such thing as a nation. You belonged to a Kingdom or Empire, property of the King or Emperor regardless of your heritage. You weren’t committed to the people or your race, but the King/Emperor. It wasn’t until the age of Revolutions that “the people” saw themselves as a collective identity separate from ruler.
So white nationalism is a farce. Not only is it based on an concept that doesn’t exist in reality, whites don’t even share a heritage…so how can they share a nation? Europe is crisscrossed with borders for a reason.
Probably one of the most relatable conversion stories I have read. Always happy to see another guy get out of the evangelical/prot mines. The WN angle is refreshing as there really is room for us here in the church.
Uhh... This is what you call a lightning round? (nervous soyjak face)
>For many Americans, I imagine viewing the Orthodox Church as a “middle ground” theologically between Prots and Catholics is very helpful.
I agree with this and don't know why some people view Orthodoxy as "more Catholic Catholicism". It is more devolved, less focused on philosophy, less marian, less dogmatic. That is why the reformation failed in the East. But many will say it was because God was punishing the schismatic Catholics...
What do you think of the argument that Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Lutheranism are all representative of the pre-Christian religions of their core areas? It goes something like...
Lutheran: Germanic Paganism -- no official sacerdotal class, more centered around individual interpretation of runes by the earls
Catholic: Roman Paganism -- convoluted and state-integrated priestly elite mostly focused on proper conduct of ritual, "magical", endless doctrinal dialogues between priests
Orthodox: Greek Paganism -- centered around esoteric mystery cults, highly mystical, mostly devolved with no hierarchy but with some priestly organization
I've written an article speculating the Lutheran case, but only because there is actual statistical evidence for it (pretty weakly, though -- proximity to sacred groves correlates with chances that a town went Prot during the reformation). I would like to hear your thoughts on the Orthodox case. There were, after all, still Greek Pagans in the countryside as late as the 800s. I don't really buy it, but I'm not an expert on Orthodogzy
I guess I can see the pre-Christian religions thing in the sense that your religious views are somewhat influenced by your genetics (as you know). For Lutherans, I think this is the weakest comparison. Lutheranism (Protestantism) at large was much more a political movement than a religious one. It was about wealthy Germanic princes realizing they didn’t actually need the RCC, one that was by Luther’s time starting to stagger under its own weight. So, there was a lot of cultural inertia to break away because of centuries of latent discontent.
But remember, Luther’s era of Lutheranism was a lot more like SSPX than skinny jeans worship music. In fact, some of the early Protestants viewed it as an opportunity to be **more** hard core than an RCC that was trying to pull everyone to the middle of the piety bell curve. Many early reformers instituted stuff like mandatory daily church services, acutely written (and huge) confessions of faith, and extreme fasting. That doesn’t jive with what I know about Germanic paganism. The Puritans were effectively family-oriented Protestant monastics, after all.
As for the OC, I’d say it was more influenced by the near eastern world of Christ’s life than anything, but (as I’ve written) the classical Greek authors (including Aristotle) played an enormous role in framing thought. The ECFs are pretty open in their love for the Greeks, which is why I disagree with Catholics who say that was a unique quirk of Aquinas or something
I LARPED as an ortho once. I didn't even know what it was, I just didn't want to be Catholic or protestant. I was never as diligent as you on my research, in fact I did not research back then (very shameful). I decided to hop back on Christianity after a few years of going back to reddit atheism because I was convinced by the first way, none of the arguments people raised against it seemed to work. I decided to pick Catholicism because my country is Catholic and it just "felt right". Nowadays I'm still Catholic but have no interest for Orthodoxy, the filioque simply seems too true for me.
Orthodox? Probably. Protestant? Probably not. I do appreciate historical protestantism but their current churches are either fully dominated by the woke or evangelical. I am repulsed by the first one for obvious reasons and the second one just comes off as extremely cringe (especially youth groups), this without getting into the low IQ vibe from them.
I’m not Layne, but as an Orthodox Christian in America, we hold them in high regard. It varies depending on who you ask, but they didn’t deserve what they got temporally and are martyrs as much as they are passion bearers. I think there is also a special role for them as the last sovereign rulers of the last Orthodox Christian Empire.
Also, even in a purely secular sense, Nicholas II was a much kinder and more capable person than he is commonly perceived as. He had some interesting reforms and was helping lead the country into the modern age—it was just unfortunate that his country wasn’t ready for the trials of 2nd Generation industrial warfare.
You are a Roman Catholic, correct? What is your stance on the Romanov Royal Martyrs?
Tsar Nicky’s just one of those heavily-slandered figures that takes a lot of research to realize what he was like. The things he was good at he did well, but the things he was bad at he was simply underprepared for. And most of his failures were simply beyond his control, because he lacked many political allies that possessed the three necessary traits of competence, influence/power, and loyalty. Anyone with all three, like Stolypin, made enough enemies to get assassinated.
Nicholas was a mediocre administrator, but this is because he hadn’t completed his civic training by the time his father died. His father Alexander III was an extremely robust man and it was widely thought that he would live a long time, but his mortal wounds following the revolutionary train attack took his health from him and robbed Nicholas of his remaining education. Given the circumstances, he really did quite well at managing crises like 1905 and coordinating the civilian-military balance of government in WWI. Had there been no February Revolution and Nicholas enacted his plans for 1917, history would remember him much more fondly.
There’s also something to be said about Russia’s conservative trajectory in an age of progressive idealism, which harmed them diplomatically. They lost to Japan because of naval technology offered by the British and denied to Russia solely by the influence of Jews in the British cabinet who opposed the Black Hundreds’ pogroms.
Excuse the rant here, I just find Nicholas a fascinating figure even without the religious connotations, and secular historians will never do him justice. He did the best he could given his means, his failings were never for a lack of trying on his part, and he was constantly betrayed by people he should have been able to trust. He even implemented some reforms that the United States didn’t have at the time (Taft was envious of Russia’s public health insurance program, for instance). But God pronounced a judgement upon Russia, and the Royal Martyr Nicholas traded his tarnished crown for an incorruptible one, where his strong faith and personal virtue triumph over administrative acumen.
You describe “White Nationalist” in terms intended to make it sound not hateful and violent but the reality of the US today is a multiracial, diverse society. So you either envision dominating and relegating to second-class citizenship all people who aren’t sufficiently White (how would you even define that? It’s not possible given all the intermarriage and countless genetic variables and combinations), or somehow segregating them? It’s simply not a realistic ideology. Nor a peaceful, loving and charitable one, imo. You can have your own culture and racial identity without making it ethnic nationalism.
The U.S. was intended to be a white nation, but you’re correct in that it’s not as simple as it was in 1796. Some of the easiest policy things to enact is to 1) restate the original Founder’s vision 2) almost completely halt non-white immigration 3) offer voluntary deportation for non-whites.
Realistic? Probably not. The correct thing to do based on available information? Definitely.
Heterogenous societies are breeding grounds for misery and distrust, with all of the sociological problems that brings.
So you admit your vision is not realistic yet you choose to pursue it out of fidelity to some bizarre 200-year-old racial concepts. We know from Revelation 7:9 that heaven will be a heterogeneous society, and from Galatians 3:28 that ethnic distinctions are erased in Christ, so your vision is fundamentally anti-Christian. Moreover, from a civic perspective your vision is unAmerican and not at all ‘conservative.’ This is a neo-Confederate fantasy. I choose reality, and in my reality I have close friends, colleagues, and church mates who are Black, Hispanic, White and otherwise.
1) Ironically, you are the one with “bizarre 200 year old racial concepts”. The default view in the totality of human history until the 1960s was the exact opposite of what you think now. If you believe any iteration of “race is only skin deep”, you are inarguably, factually, objectively, irrefutably wrong. You will never, ever align with reality until you abandon this.
2) there is no such thing as race in heaven. It’s also a paradise that has no earthly problems and is a really bad example of “heterogeneous paradise”
3) no. This is an incorrect reading of a verse with a lot of heuristics. Most scholars agree this verse refers to the specific divide between first generation Christians. I have an entire article about what some believed to be an inaccessible divide between Jewish and gentile first century Christians. You’re, hilariously, trying to plaster “200 year old bizarre racial beliefs” onto this verse.
4) heterogenous societies only (briefly) survive with 2 key assumptions: extremely high standard of living, and a mostly educated population.
Both of these are up for debate in the current West.
Racial, tribal, and national conflicts have been a defining feature of human society throughout history. The Gospel calls us to a higher way. Galatians 3:28 says that “all are one” in Christ Jesus. This does not literally mean that there is no such thing as Jew/Greek, Free/Slave, or Male/Female, it just means that these are not THE defining reality that give us greater or lesser value.
Secondly, to clarify: I did not say that race is merely ‘skin deep.’ I see it as also being cultural, political, and often language-related too. When I said you have a particular 200-year-old racial concept, I was referring to your way of dividing the world into ‘White’ and ‘Non-White.’ This is a particularly American way of thinking related to our history of segregation, slavery, and the trans-Atlantic slave trade. In other parts of the world, and at other times in history, they have seen race in different ways. For example, the early European explorers and settlers did not divide the world into White/Black. Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, English, Scot, Swedish etc were distinctive races whereas today you’d probably conflate these all as ‘White,’ a collective identity that did not exist.
Lastly: Heterogenous societies only (briefly) survive? What? The U.S. itself is the oldest surviving republic and it’s also the most diverse. The Roman Empire? They had Gauls, Latins, Africans, Egyptians, Dacians, Armenians, Greeks, etc, and it lasted 2000 years.
I hope you'll choose to pursue Jesus' blessing in Matthew 5: "Blessed are the peacemakers." Racial grievances, tensions, and even open conflicts can be real and Christians are called not to inflame them but bring peace.
This was very interesting. I’m Catholic, but for most of my life I was very lukewarm and only recently started to take it serious and start reading the Bible. I read through half of the gospels and most of Genesis so far. I’m kind of reading the parts that interest me. I tried to do a full read through, but gave up. I think I’m going to read Paul’s letters next. As for racial belief. I’m Pro-White but I don’t hate anyone, though I do think the JQ should be looked into and not ignored.
Anyways, God Bless 🙏🏻 and Peace ✌🏻
I've been a long time reader since iFunny. I'm always happy to read about a troubled atheist youth coming around to Christianity later in life, especially one as analytical as you seem to be. I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and had similar "edgy" teenage years where I thought church was a waste of time and didn't have much faith. Experiences since then have shaped my life and I find deep meaning in the Lord and His Gospel like yourself. I feel sorry for those you think nothing of life's purpose and what will become of us after death. Thanks for sharing. I love a good conversion to Christ story, and this one is well articulated.
Thanks man, what’s your iFunny?
I haven't been on much lately and the recent hack only made iFunny worse but I got 2.3k days on the platform. I was on back when names like Detroids, Temper, Sandpaper, LordB8r were big. iFunny was a huge part of growing up like it was for a lot of us. Honestly, as I've shifted to other social media like instagram, I've been realizing that the users and contents just depress me. I'm glad to have had iFunny as my primary social media growing up as funny as it sounds Imao. My account is JohnnyJohnsonn
what about the church of solloway
I’m actually ordained there
Tbh I can’t get over the >100IQ comment because that is almost word for word the response I gave to a new orthodox dude who was trying to trash my own church.
Were you saying that people with Iq >100 don’t become Orthodox?
I’m saying that orthodoxy seems like such an assbackward retard mix of hypermonkery and Russo-arab mythology I struggle to understand how intelligent people get into it. Obviously there’s got to be something more than just the aesthetic appeal but for the life of me I can’t find it.
The best way to find out is to just go to a service. But yeah, there are lots of stupid people who “become Orthodox” because they want to post monks on Twitter and argue with people about ecumenicism or whatever
Lol, Monotheism is Jewish Poison and iFunny is just Discount Store 9GAG. You worship a Jewish Volcano Demon who pushes race-mixing.
Don’t you have a pension fund to rob rebbi?
Lol, incorrect. I'm not Jewish, Brezhnen. I suspect you however are a buttsalty christcuck of potentially mixed heritage. LMAO even!
But there is only one God, why worship something else?
Monotheism is Jewish Poison; there isn't only one god. You're just cucked to the Jews.
The pure act can only be one in principle, whatever you're worshipping is not God
Are You Jewish?
Nationalism is an atheist construct. Before the Enlightenment, there was no such thing as a nation. You belonged to a Kingdom or Empire, property of the King or Emperor regardless of your heritage. You weren’t committed to the people or your race, but the King/Emperor. It wasn’t until the age of Revolutions that “the people” saw themselves as a collective identity separate from ruler.
So white nationalism is a farce. Not only is it based on an concept that doesn’t exist in reality, whites don’t even share a heritage…so how can they share a nation? Europe is crisscrossed with borders for a reason.
Probably one of the most relatable conversion stories I have read. Always happy to see another guy get out of the evangelical/prot mines. The WN angle is refreshing as there really is room for us here in the church.
>Lightning round
>38 minutes long
Uhh... This is what you call a lightning round? (nervous soyjak face)
>For many Americans, I imagine viewing the Orthodox Church as a “middle ground” theologically between Prots and Catholics is very helpful.
I agree with this and don't know why some people view Orthodoxy as "more Catholic Catholicism". It is more devolved, less focused on philosophy, less marian, less dogmatic. That is why the reformation failed in the East. But many will say it was because God was punishing the schismatic Catholics...
What do you think of the argument that Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Lutheranism are all representative of the pre-Christian religions of their core areas? It goes something like...
Lutheran: Germanic Paganism -- no official sacerdotal class, more centered around individual interpretation of runes by the earls
Catholic: Roman Paganism -- convoluted and state-integrated priestly elite mostly focused on proper conduct of ritual, "magical", endless doctrinal dialogues between priests
Orthodox: Greek Paganism -- centered around esoteric mystery cults, highly mystical, mostly devolved with no hierarchy but with some priestly organization
I've written an article speculating the Lutheran case, but only because there is actual statistical evidence for it (pretty weakly, though -- proximity to sacred groves correlates with chances that a town went Prot during the reformation). I would like to hear your thoughts on the Orthodox case. There were, after all, still Greek Pagans in the countryside as late as the 800s. I don't really buy it, but I'm not an expert on Orthodogzy
I guess I can see the pre-Christian religions thing in the sense that your religious views are somewhat influenced by your genetics (as you know). For Lutherans, I think this is the weakest comparison. Lutheranism (Protestantism) at large was much more a political movement than a religious one. It was about wealthy Germanic princes realizing they didn’t actually need the RCC, one that was by Luther’s time starting to stagger under its own weight. So, there was a lot of cultural inertia to break away because of centuries of latent discontent.
But remember, Luther’s era of Lutheranism was a lot more like SSPX than skinny jeans worship music. In fact, some of the early Protestants viewed it as an opportunity to be **more** hard core than an RCC that was trying to pull everyone to the middle of the piety bell curve. Many early reformers instituted stuff like mandatory daily church services, acutely written (and huge) confessions of faith, and extreme fasting. That doesn’t jive with what I know about Germanic paganism. The Puritans were effectively family-oriented Protestant monastics, after all.
As for the OC, I’d say it was more influenced by the near eastern world of Christ’s life than anything, but (as I’ve written) the classical Greek authors (including Aristotle) played an enormous role in framing thought. The ECFs are pretty open in their love for the Greeks, which is why I disagree with Catholics who say that was a unique quirk of Aquinas or something
Thanks for your testimony
I LARPED as an ortho once. I didn't even know what it was, I just didn't want to be Catholic or protestant. I was never as diligent as you on my research, in fact I did not research back then (very shameful). I decided to hop back on Christianity after a few years of going back to reddit atheism because I was convinced by the first way, none of the arguments people raised against it seemed to work. I decided to pick Catholicism because my country is Catholic and it just "felt right". Nowadays I'm still Catholic but have no interest for Orthodoxy, the filioque simply seems too true for me.
If you were born in an Ortho or Prot country would you have been one of those?
Orthodox? Probably. Protestant? Probably not. I do appreciate historical protestantism but their current churches are either fully dominated by the woke or evangelical. I am repulsed by the first one for obvious reasons and the second one just comes off as extremely cringe (especially youth groups), this without getting into the low IQ vibe from them.
What do you think of the royal martyrs
I’m not Layne, but as an Orthodox Christian in America, we hold them in high regard. It varies depending on who you ask, but they didn’t deserve what they got temporally and are martyrs as much as they are passion bearers. I think there is also a special role for them as the last sovereign rulers of the last Orthodox Christian Empire.
Also, even in a purely secular sense, Nicholas II was a much kinder and more capable person than he is commonly perceived as. He had some interesting reforms and was helping lead the country into the modern age—it was just unfortunate that his country wasn’t ready for the trials of 2nd Generation industrial warfare.
You are a Roman Catholic, correct? What is your stance on the Romanov Royal Martyrs?
Shit leader but anyone who's against tsarism or supports the murder is either stupid or evil
Tsar Nicky’s just one of those heavily-slandered figures that takes a lot of research to realize what he was like. The things he was good at he did well, but the things he was bad at he was simply underprepared for. And most of his failures were simply beyond his control, because he lacked many political allies that possessed the three necessary traits of competence, influence/power, and loyalty. Anyone with all three, like Stolypin, made enough enemies to get assassinated.
Nicholas was a mediocre administrator, but this is because he hadn’t completed his civic training by the time his father died. His father Alexander III was an extremely robust man and it was widely thought that he would live a long time, but his mortal wounds following the revolutionary train attack took his health from him and robbed Nicholas of his remaining education. Given the circumstances, he really did quite well at managing crises like 1905 and coordinating the civilian-military balance of government in WWI. Had there been no February Revolution and Nicholas enacted his plans for 1917, history would remember him much more fondly.
There’s also something to be said about Russia’s conservative trajectory in an age of progressive idealism, which harmed them diplomatically. They lost to Japan because of naval technology offered by the British and denied to Russia solely by the influence of Jews in the British cabinet who opposed the Black Hundreds’ pogroms.
Excuse the rant here, I just find Nicholas a fascinating figure even without the religious connotations, and secular historians will never do him justice. He did the best he could given his means, his failings were never for a lack of trying on his part, and he was constantly betrayed by people he should have been able to trust. He even implemented some reforms that the United States didn’t have at the time (Taft was envious of Russia’s public health insurance program, for instance). But God pronounced a judgement upon Russia, and the Royal Martyr Nicholas traded his tarnished crown for an incorruptible one, where his strong faith and personal virtue triumph over administrative acumen.
You describe “White Nationalist” in terms intended to make it sound not hateful and violent but the reality of the US today is a multiracial, diverse society. So you either envision dominating and relegating to second-class citizenship all people who aren’t sufficiently White (how would you even define that? It’s not possible given all the intermarriage and countless genetic variables and combinations), or somehow segregating them? It’s simply not a realistic ideology. Nor a peaceful, loving and charitable one, imo. You can have your own culture and racial identity without making it ethnic nationalism.
The U.S. was intended to be a white nation, but you’re correct in that it’s not as simple as it was in 1796. Some of the easiest policy things to enact is to 1) restate the original Founder’s vision 2) almost completely halt non-white immigration 3) offer voluntary deportation for non-whites.
Realistic? Probably not. The correct thing to do based on available information? Definitely.
Heterogenous societies are breeding grounds for misery and distrust, with all of the sociological problems that brings.
So you admit your vision is not realistic yet you choose to pursue it out of fidelity to some bizarre 200-year-old racial concepts. We know from Revelation 7:9 that heaven will be a heterogeneous society, and from Galatians 3:28 that ethnic distinctions are erased in Christ, so your vision is fundamentally anti-Christian. Moreover, from a civic perspective your vision is unAmerican and not at all ‘conservative.’ This is a neo-Confederate fantasy. I choose reality, and in my reality I have close friends, colleagues, and church mates who are Black, Hispanic, White and otherwise.
There’s really no need to sperg out dude.
1) Ironically, you are the one with “bizarre 200 year old racial concepts”. The default view in the totality of human history until the 1960s was the exact opposite of what you think now. If you believe any iteration of “race is only skin deep”, you are inarguably, factually, objectively, irrefutably wrong. You will never, ever align with reality until you abandon this.
2) there is no such thing as race in heaven. It’s also a paradise that has no earthly problems and is a really bad example of “heterogeneous paradise”
3) no. This is an incorrect reading of a verse with a lot of heuristics. Most scholars agree this verse refers to the specific divide between first generation Christians. I have an entire article about what some believed to be an inaccessible divide between Jewish and gentile first century Christians. You’re, hilariously, trying to plaster “200 year old bizarre racial beliefs” onto this verse.
4) heterogenous societies only (briefly) survive with 2 key assumptions: extremely high standard of living, and a mostly educated population.
Both of these are up for debate in the current West.
Racial, tribal, and national conflicts have been a defining feature of human society throughout history. The Gospel calls us to a higher way. Galatians 3:28 says that “all are one” in Christ Jesus. This does not literally mean that there is no such thing as Jew/Greek, Free/Slave, or Male/Female, it just means that these are not THE defining reality that give us greater or lesser value.
Secondly, to clarify: I did not say that race is merely ‘skin deep.’ I see it as also being cultural, political, and often language-related too. When I said you have a particular 200-year-old racial concept, I was referring to your way of dividing the world into ‘White’ and ‘Non-White.’ This is a particularly American way of thinking related to our history of segregation, slavery, and the trans-Atlantic slave trade. In other parts of the world, and at other times in history, they have seen race in different ways. For example, the early European explorers and settlers did not divide the world into White/Black. Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, English, Scot, Swedish etc were distinctive races whereas today you’d probably conflate these all as ‘White,’ a collective identity that did not exist.
Lastly: Heterogenous societies only (briefly) survive? What? The U.S. itself is the oldest surviving republic and it’s also the most diverse. The Roman Empire? They had Gauls, Latins, Africans, Egyptians, Dacians, Armenians, Greeks, etc, and it lasted 2000 years.
I hope you'll choose to pursue Jesus' blessing in Matthew 5: "Blessed are the peacemakers." Racial grievances, tensions, and even open conflicts can be real and Christians are called not to inflame them but bring peace.