Url: https://www.pluggedin.com/movie-reviews/kingdom-of-the-planet-of-the-apes-2024/
Title: Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes Movie Review
Author: Emily Tsiao
I appreciate this review of the Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. The review of this movie effectively incorporates balance in that it highlights both positive and negative aspects of the film which allows the readers to understand an all-encompassing non-biased perspective of the movie. An interesting insight was when the author of this review discussed the ape's divide with the humans, and that although the apes are against the humans there are elements of respect and value. In regard to attitude awareness, this review demonstrates a clear awareness of the film's messages and motives. The reviewer notes the judgment of humanity's pride and the consequences of scientific overreach, as well as the themes of evolution and dominance of species. The review provides both negative and positive accounts for a full understanding, for example a negative aspect, “Mae prioritizes her own species above theirs, arguably making her no better, morally speaking, than the apes who follow Proximus.” However, there is a balance here that represents respect for both sides of the conflict, which highlights the significance of the dignity of the human person. Emily discusses the film’s representation of both humans and apes with an emphasis on the dignity of both, especially since the apes are very personified in this movie. The review highlights the respectful behavior of the character Noa toward the other species, opposing the violent and selfish actions of the character Proximus. In regard to the media key truth-filled this review discusses an honest assessment of that acknowledges both its strengths and weaknesses. The plot, themes, and characters of the film is accurately assessed, which gives a truthful and accurate account of what to expect. The film itself contains its darker and violent moments, but the review discovers and emphasizes inspiring elements within the plot. It mentions close familial bonds, acts of bravery, and selflessness among the characters, including Noa's compliance with his clan's laws to protect eagle populations, “We see close familial bonds. Several characters act bravely and selflessly. Noa is encouraged to show mercy to Mae by giving her a blanket when she’s cold. And, as you might expect, at various points different characters put their lives on the line for each other”. These elements of the film review can be inspiring to watchers and readers. Both the good and bad messages the film contains can inspire and teach the viewer. The review is clear and well-structured which can guide readers through the thematic elements of the plot. It effectively presents the complex details of the story providing a skillfully developed account of the film. This review incorporates the film’s message to present broader, real-world issues and it relates to common and contemporary discussions, which can allow people to learn from and apply concepts to current daily life, which portrays the film to be motivated by relevant to experience. Overall the review is insightful and detailed, giving an accurate description and reflection of of film from an honest viewpoint. The analysis is genuine and authentic, and it provides a good image of the movie and its hidden messages. Overall, this review appears to be very detailed, well-rounded, and insightful for readers, and it even incorporates the Church’s seven media keys.

I am so sorry for how long this is, but there's quite a bit to cover.
I am a 28F mechanic who works for a rather large dealership in my city. I love my job, I love working on cars, and I love the men that I work with. It's like having an army of brothers that would do anything for me, and I have genuinely never had such a wonderful and supportive workplace environment.
Until "Collin" (26M) started about 6 weeks ago.
Before I start with him, I want to tell you about my "superpower." When I was very, very young, my mother noticed that I had this uncanny ability to detect "bad" people. Even as a toddler, there were certain people I didn't want near me or holding me for seemingly no reason. If they tried, I would scream until they left me alone. If said people tried to pick me up anyway, she'd snatch me away from them and tell them that I said no and to leave me alone. When they'd ask why or push that I "didn't know what [I] wanted," she'd shut them down and say that me not wanting that was reason enough. She's never, ever questioned my "ability" and instead leaned into it and helped me nurture it (especially after certain charges came out about a previous church member that I was uncomfortable around).
Back to Collin. Obviously, that's not his real name, but what is real about him is how... creepy he is. It was evident to me the moment I first met him, but I didn't want to come off as judgemental. My "superpower" has never been wrong, but I have a problem setting boundaries when I'm on the clock because I never want to be the "problem child" for a company. As the only female mechanic, I'm even more aware of that, so I tend to walk on eggshells out of fear of being treated differently.
With Collin, it's a little hard to explain, but to start, he's got personal space issues. As in, I have an issue with how little he respects my personal space. An example: I keep snacks in one of my toolbox drawers for when I and my teammates are too busy to stop and eat a proper lunch. A few days ago, I was bent over and fishing around for a protein bar when I felt him walk up behind me. Of all the angles he could've approached me from, he picked directly behind me and got so close that I felt him brush up against my butt. I immediately shot up and told him to back the fuck up. He tried to play it off as an accident, but I told him, quite loudly, that it's not an accident to sneak up on someone like that and touch them. When he saw a few of my coworkers looking over at us, he quietly made a comment about me overreacting, and walked away.
A few days before that, as I was working on a car, he came up to my toolbox and just took an impact gun. It wasn't mine; I was borrowing someone else's because mine was being repaired. So I stopped him and told him to put it back. He asked me why. This was weird to me because, as far as he knew, it was mine and if I said no, he should've just left it at that. So, I said, "Because it's not yours and I said no. Please put it back." "It's not yours either," is what he said. He tried to walk away with it. At this point, I physically stepped in front of him and said "All the more reason for you not to take it. It isn't mine to lend out. Please put it back." He then asked me if he had a problem sharing. I asked him if he had a problem with respecting boundaries.
Y'all... the look Collin gave me sent chills down my spine. At that moment, he glared at me like my ex did right before he put my head through a wall, and I was actually scared. I swallowed that fear and stood my ground, even though I just wanted to curl up and disappear. He must not be used to people standing up to him because he just sighed in annoyance and slammed the impact down on my bench, then walked away. He, thankfully, avoided me for the rest of the day.
Since those two situations have happened, I've asked for my friend/coworker, "Evan," to make a new group chat for that handful of us that hangout after work because I wasn't comfortable with Collin having access to my phone number. Evan had added him, without asking the rest of us, when they'd gone to a theme park together a few weeks prior. I'd opted out because I didn't want to hang out with Collin, but they used the group chat to communicate plans and such. Evan agreed to make a new group chat so that I feel safer.
Now, finally , the reason I am writing this post is because of what happened yesterday. I may have overreacted? My fiancé thinks I acted well within reason, but sometimes my anxiety makes me believe that I go overboard, even if I'm being perfectly rational. I'm not sure if that's the case here or not.
I caught Collin fishing around in my toolbox. Except, this time, it was the drawer that I keep my purse in. It's not a secret that it's there; every morning when I walk in, my coworkers see me put it in that specific drawer. I used to keep it with the snacks, but the men I work with are a little more old fashioned and won't even go near my purse, so they'd get hesitant when they saw it near the snacks. I moved drawers so they could freely grab food when I was too preoccupied to personally hand them something in order to avoid my purse. It was no bother to do so, but boy did it bother me when I saw Collin huddling over that drawer with my purse in it.
I shouted with my whole chest, "What the fuck do you think you're doing?" He immediately stood up and started mumbling about needing a certain tool, to which I bombarded him with questions like, "And you were just going to take it? That's not even where any of them are! Why were you going through my purse, you creep?" He couldn't keep up to answer any of my questions, but as far as I was concerned, he wouldn't have been able to come up with a good enough excuse because it's quite well known that that's the place where I keep my personal belongings. It got to the point where I was just yelling at him, and other coworkers had to come pull me away from Collin because I was getting increasingly aggressive. I was so mad, in fact, that I didn't even realize that he was getting aggressive too, and the reason why Evan and "Peter" had to pull me away is because Collin was getting in my face and calling me names. When I try to think about it now, I don't remember hearing that. I was so angry, that all I could really hear was the blood pumping in my body.
I had to sign a write up this morning. Absolutely fair, seeing as how I lost my shit and all professionalism in the workplace. I'm annoyed because this is my first write up, but management needs something to prove they "punished" me in some way for my behavior. What I'm not okay with is Collin telling people that I flew off the handle for no reason. Then this guy has the nerve to approach me today and tell me he forgave me for the way I treated him yesterday and that he hopes we can be friends in the future. I might be the asshole because I told him, calmly, that "I never want to be friends with someone who is so apathetic and disrespectful when it comes to boundaries and personal space" and that I'd appreciate it if he left me alone in the future. Now he's moping and saying I didn't even give him a chance before being a bitch to him.
Am I the asshole? Did I overreact?

Yes we all know the dangers of wood and I'm sure you probably know where this story is going but sometimes for roleplaying purposes it's neccesary. So...
My current save is a role play of an old west town. I started with 3 colonists, aptly named after the 3 Amigos, Lucky, Ned & Dusty. They rode in to a dustbowl and soon built a prospering farm and ranch. Soon enough the little farm became a community of 10 and a small town developed.
Every member pulled their weight but most important was Morg, the first to join and the main Horse Rancher. She was bonded with all but the 3 horses our heroes rode in on and was a battle hardened veteran, having single handedly cleared out an ambush when on her way to peace talks with a local tribe.
Mord met and got engaged to Raido, the saloon owner, and they moved in to his loft above the bar the same day he popped the question. The townsfolk had been feeling a little down lately and this news gave them renewed optomism and so, with a little planning, the construction of a new church, with Morg and Raidos wedding to be the first celebration, got underway.
The town had built up a good surplus of stuck so all hands were on deck for the construction. Within 2 days the walls were erected, then began the painstaking task of laying the massive floor. Those less skilled soon proved to be more of a hinderance so whilst the rest were sent away Ned and Dusty vowed to finish the job alone.
They toiled for 3 days, by which point the floor was still only half finished. Exhausted they dropped in to bed. It felt like only seconds before Kane was shaking them awake, raiders had been spotted by the night guardsman. A large group, bigger than we'd ever seen. He rushed to wake the others.
Metting outside the saloon the colonists noticed a member missing. Nolerboa, their newest member. Kane had left them sleeping, they hadn't yet been outfitted with a weapon and they didn't fully trust their new raider turned recruit.
The raiders attacked from multiple points forcing the townsfolk to split up around the palisade wall, firing pot shots at the rushing foe.
Lucky, Tail and Kane took the main force who broke through the palsiade wall before being beaten back leaving 1 member behind to be captured. Ned, Raido and Morgan took the next group trying to break through the East gate, they were quickly dispatched before a lone raider, who had slipped around the side unnoticed and broken through a wall downed Morgan. The gang quickly returned fire and Ned grabbed the downed Morgan to get him to safety.
Dusty and Morg took the last raider, the only one on horse back, they thought about going for their own horses but the paddock was the other end of the town and they didn't have time. They dashed across the open ground of the church yard and took cover behind the palisade. They fired a few waning shots at the raider who returned fire immediately. The first bullet found a small gap in the palisade and tore in to Morgs chest obliterating her heart. Dusty struck back and dispatched the raider but it was too late. The colony had suffered their first loss. As the few surviving raiders retreated, the wounded and captured returned to the town whilst a new threat emerged. As the raiders spread around the town they set numerous fires around the palisade wall, fires that had had to be ignored in the heat of battle. Now there was heat of a different kind, 5 different fires slowly spreading out in a circle around the town. The church with its brand new wood floor is of course next to the largest of the spreading flames.
I'm not sure if everyone is going to get out alive from this. But the one thing I do know is that at least Nolerboa is well rested...
When you say you can sleep through anything and you mean it!

To Repeat something I talked about in the Discord Server:
There seems to be some interesting connections between The Watchman and The Thunderskin so much so that I think The Watchman was somehow involved with the flaying of and Ascension of The Thunderskin.
In Apollo and Marsyas we know that Marsyas is The Thunderskin and Cybele is The Red Grail, so the question is which Hour is Apollo in this story? Apollo as a deity is associated with art, craftsmanship civilization, reason and medicine as well as being associated with light and later the Sun. Apollo was also one of the deities the Romans gave the epithet Invictus to. The Watchman is associated with the reason, craftsmanship and light since his Principal is Lantern, and he is also one of the Hours venerated by the Church of the Unconquered Sun.
Due to his role in the formation of the pact between Yew, Grail, and Axe, The Thunderskin is the only male Hour that the Sisterhood gives reverence to. And yet as The Rose of Waznei shows us there was at one point a heretical offshoot of The Sisterhood who were devoted to The Watchman. Out of all the possible Hours for a branch of a religious order like The Sisterhood to choose from why The Door in the Eye? Is it because like The Thunderskin it/he was involved with the pact that brought an end to The Lithomachy?
The Watchman is one of the Hours most associated with Janus who we know has some sort of connection with St. Januarius. St. Januarius' blood is represented in game by both the Amethyst Ampoule and January Sanguinary, which both have the Heart and Knock Principles. The Cultsim description of the True Blood/ January Sanguinary says that The Thunderskin protected St. Januarius, who being a "Saint" was probably among the figures revered by The Sisterhood who honor The Thunderskin. The presence of the Knock Principle may seem out of place/ unrelated since it is not held by either The Thunderskin or The Watchman, but remember it was Janus who gave Cardea/ The Horned-Axe aka one of the key Knock Hours, the Hawthorne. Additionally it is the Axe who was appeased with the sacrifice of The Thunderskin who ascended through The Peacock Doo Vak who was at one point one of the Axe's Names.
I also think there is something going on with The Watchman's nature as "Amber" and the The Ring-Yew's connection to the Nectar Power and her honey and sap symbolism. Nectar was once called Blood, and we offered up our Blood to the low-red sun who is probably the Egg Unhatching, the God-From-Stone that The Watchman usurped.
Blood is also associated with The Red Grail who has some interesting alchemical themes through to her Names, The Pine Knight and The Sage Knight. The Pine Knight is almost certainly The Thunderskin but we don't know much about The Sage Knight. However, I think it's telling that the figure who resides in The Lodge of The Sage Knight currently is Teresa, a potential candidate for The Watchman's Pilgrimage, one who is also connected to Janus. Thus I think that The Watchman was, in addition to being the Unwise Mortal who learned the alchemical arts of The Flint, was also Known as The Sage Knight and served The Red Grail. Blood, Nectar and Light....... brings to mind Ys and Cross.................
That's the gist of the evidence I have for this speculation currently other than some additional speculation about a connection between The Watchman and Vak given the fact that The Peacock Door looks like both a Vagina and and Eye and The Watchman is also named The Door in the Eye. But the idea that a yonic symbol can also be an eye is a little bit of a stretch unless you're familiar with the writings of Georges Bataille even though I have no doubt in my mind that AK does have some knowledge on his work.

I am part of a youth group in my local church, and I have been tasked with leading a talk about sin. At first, it is very simple: explaining what sin is, the 10 commandments, what happens when we sin, etc.
At the end of the talk, there is a Q&A session where all the participants of the retreat can clarify doubts, and usually, the questions are about whether specific situations are sins or not and why.
I wanted to ask for your help by making questions of this kind so that we can all try to resolve the doubt together, sharing your knowledge about sin or perhaps giving some advice for the talk I will give in about a month.
I hope I have expressed myself correctly and that you understood what I need. Thank you.

1. Courtesans and the Crown: I will be playing M! I am also open to potentially playing a MxM version. (1530s) Benjamin, the illegitimate son of a King, lives a life of luxury without any of the consequences that come with royal blood. He indulges in fine clothing, gambling and is a frequent patron of brothels. At sixteen, he met a courtesan named Antonia, who was five years his senior. Unlike the other women he had encountered, Antonia was beautiful, kind, and captured his heart. While they both share a deep love for each other, they face their own challenges. Benjamin is still learning the ways of the court at the age of eighteen, while Antonia holds a great deal of influence over him due to her life experience. From encouraging him to invite her to tea to spite his royal parentage and even convincing him to petition for legitimation to take his sister's throne, she is ready to shake things up, disguising their power-hungry nature as love. What started as a quiet and humble relationship has now turned them into vicious antagonists towards themselves and others, but their love for each other remains strong. Even though the character's name is Antonia, feel free to create your own character with a courtesan theme. I even encourage it!!!
2. Our Father, who art in Heaven: I can play M or F! (1450s) Through a combination of extortion, torture, and occasional bribery, Pope Castello has ascended to the Papal throne. Despite his vow of celibacy, his illegitimate offspring roam freely in the town, behaving as though they were the offspring of a monarch. His son, in particular, plowing through any woman with a pulse, loses vast sums of money gambling, and harbors his own dark secrets. Meanwhile, his father strives to elevate him to the rank of cardinal. However, what will happen when his son encounters the same fate as his father? Will he fall in love with a noblewoman and violate his church oath? This woman has her own secrets and a father who is eager to marry her off to the wealthiest suitor available. The resulting whirlwind will leave blood on the floor and lipstick stains on collars, reminiscent of The Borgias, but without the incestuous undertones.
3. Of course, Your Majesty: I will be playing M! (1500s) Your protagonist is the eldest child of a powerful monarch, destined to become the next Queen. During her childhood, she formed a close bond with the son of a Lord who was a bit older than her. As they grew up, their feelings for each other became more than just friendship, prompting them to explore a romantic relationship. However, it is the heavily religious 1500s, and fearing that their relationship would compromise her purity and jeopardize her chances of marrying another royal, the Lord's son was sent away to a chateau. Despite the distance, they kept in touch through letters and other means. But, a dramatic shift in the court's dynamics has brought him back, much to the chagrin of your character's father. He is willing to disrupt the status quo for the sake of love and occasionally for his own gain.
4. The Lost Princess: I will be playing F! (1480s-1520s) Princess Margery was adored by her subjects and set to ascend the throne one day. However, her fate changed drastically when, at the tender age of four, her carriage was attacked by bandits. In a desperate bid to survive, Margery pretended to be dead in the frigid snow of the forest. She wasn't certain what happened next, but she eventually found herself in the care of two kind-hearted parents who renamed her Elizabeth and raised her as their own daughter. As Elizabeth came of age, she began searching for potential suitors. But what happens when a young man uncovers her true identity? How does she make her way back to the castle, and what challenges await her upon her return? Most importantly, where do you fit into this tangled web of intrigue and deception?
5. For Our Kingdoms: I am open to playing M or F! (1530s) An arranged marriage between a prince and princess from neighboring kingdoms looms on the horizon. Is she a timid princess, suddenly thrust into the role of heir apparent, seeking a partner to bolster her claim to the throne? Or is she merely a commodity being sold off to the highest bidder? Regardless, what happens when two royals who are less-than-enthusiastic about the arrangement are forced to wed for the betterment of their kingdoms? With an unkind and brash prince making every quip in the book as he rises to the throne, she must find a way to make her marriage work. Will they find common ground, or will they be at each other's throats? Only time will tell.
6. Shadow in Stage Lights:I will be playing M! I am also open to potentially playing a MxM version. (Post-WWII 1940s) In the smoky haze of post-war Hollywood, where dreams are traded like currency and the past casts long shadows, Jack Turner returns from the frontlines of battle a shattered man. Once hailed as a literary luminary, he now struggles to find his place in a world that has moved on without him, haunted by memories he can neither escape nor forget. Enter your character, a radiant starlet whose ascent to fame is as swift as it is dazzling. Cast as the lead in Jack's latest play, she embodies the very essence of the character he once envisioned, igniting the stage with a brilliance that eclipses his own. But as the spotlight shines ever brighter on YC, Jack finds himself consumed by a bitter resentment, his heart seething with anger at the injustice of it all. In a world where shadows lurk behind every smile and fame is but a fleeting illusion, Jack and YC must navigate the treacherous waters of love and ambition, forging a path forward that leads them out of the darkness and into the light.
7. The West was Wilder: I will be playing M or F! (1830s) A young man is a moonshiner and owner of a notorious saloon in a small frontier town. With a reputation for brewing the finest illegal whiskey in the region, he walks a fine line between outlaw and respected member of the community. Meanwhile, a young lass is new to town and is seeking change. She has a tough exterior, but there is a vulnerability that draws folks in. As their paths cross in the dusty streets and dimly lit saloons of the Wild West, sparks fly between them. Whether it's a fiery confrontation over a poker game gone wrong or a chance encounter in the dead of night, their chemistry is undeniable. But with danger lurking around every corner and secrets waiting to be uncovered, their burgeoning romance is anything but smooth sailing.
8. Underneath the Bald Cypress: I will be playing F! (1930s) Amidst the sultry streets of New Orleans, the daughter of a wealthy sugar cane baron, finds herself torn between societal expectations and her own desires. Engaged to a controlling man of her father’s choosing, she longs for true love. Her path collides with your character, a jazz singer, a man of color, or something else entirely, sparking a forbidden romance that defies family secrets. As their love blossoms amidst the city's vibrant nightlife, she must choose between the safety of convention and the allure of a life filled with passion and uncertainty, where forbidden love and hidden truths threaten to unravel the world she knows.
9. Revolution or Run: I will be playing F! (Fallout Fandom) In Vault 47, life appears idyllic, with its inhabitants blissfully unaware of the horrors unfolding beneath the sterile corridors. Your character, recently assigned to a coveted scientist position, stumbles upon a hidden lab deep within the vault, where ghastly experiments are conducted on unsuspecting fellow dwellers. Amidst it all, your character finds help in a resourceful maintenance worker with a knack for uncovering secrets. With the weight of responsibility heavy on their shoulders, they must navigate a treacherous path, torn between loyalty to their community and the pursuit of justice.As tensions escalate within the vault, they must decide whether to ignite the flames of rebellion from within or to venture into the unforgiving wasteland beyond the vault's walls.
Linked here is my writing sample and lore explanation.
I am also open to sending a master list of my current OCs with their vague descriptions!
When you DM me, please send me the answers to these questions!

1. What is your name and pronouns?
2. What RP are you interested in?
3. Are you comfortable playing on Discord?
4. What gender are you interested in playing? (for scenarios 2, 5, and 7 only!)
5. What are your hard boundaries for writing? (i.e. unwilling to write gore/abuse/etc)
6. What is your biggest roleplay pet peeve?
7. What is your paragraph min/max?
8. What is the most important thing to you in RP?
9. Are time zones important to you? If so, what is yours?
10. Is ooc essential to you?
11. Are you okay with a fade-to-black romance style?
12. What is your typical romance speed? Slow/Medium/Fast Burn?

I will answer these questions back! Thanks for reading!

I F(24) was visiting my college girlfriends in Louisville Kentucky for our second annual reunion at the Derby. One of my friends lives in the town right outside of Louisville and was hosting us.
We originally planned to go to a derby themed party on Friday night called Phillies and Stallions. The party had a list and half of the group got on the list. Those on the list could bring plus ones so our plan was to have the two girls who didn't get on the list be our plus ones. The host was one of the girls who did not get on the list leading up to the event kept mentioning that it would be okay if we went without her if she didn't make it. (Which is strange since she was the one hosting us) Come to find out her new boyfriend was guilting her for days about going to the party saying he couldn't believe she would "degrade herself to be a ploy for the hosting company to make money"
For context girls got into the party for free and men paid entrance and the event was sponsored by several different companies (Standard procedure for almost every party I've ever heard of) To make a long story short we did not end up going to the party because the hosts boyfriend made her feel so bad about it. Party aside we sat her down and told her as her friends we were worried for her and that her boyfriend was showing some serious red flags and the early signs of an abusive /controlling relationship. The conclusion of the conversation was that they would have a "talk on Sunday"
Fast forward to Sunday and the other girls were local to Indiana and were planning to head home. I flew from North Carolina and would be flying out Monday morning. The host informed us that Sunday she would be going to church and lunch with her boyfriend and parents- annoying since our Friday was already ruined bc of him and our girls trip had been planned for an entire year at this point and church can happen any other weekend- but decided not worth the fight so let it slide. I decided to go a workout class that morning with another college girlfriend of mine. I left before the host and as my other two friends were packing up to drive home they said goodbye to the host who was heading to church. They heard her say "oops I almost forgot my pool bag if it's nice we are having a pool day.
The two immediately texted me to ask if I knew anything about a pool day- I did not. They hung back to spend some time with me before going home as the host seemingly planned a whole day without me. We decided to pack up all my bags and I called a friend from college in the area to spend the day with him. Part of me felt bad for leaving. I did not hear a WORD from this girl the entire day until 10:30 PM when she came home to an empty apartment. I had her location throughout the day and saw she went to her parents pool, her grandparents house, a Mexican restaurant, a park, and out for ice cream. I her best friend flew across the country and by all accounts in her mind was rotting in her apartment in a city I didn't know without access to a car while she spent the whole day frolicking around the city with her boyfriend who lives 40 minutes away from her.
Upon arriving back home after not speaking to me all day I received a panicked call from her around 10:30 PM asking where I was. At this point I had a fun day involving a barcade, lunch, pool day and was headed to a bar at the time of her call. I was so grateful to my friend for taking me in on one of his only days off for the week. (He works in the service industry as a bartender and has crazy hours) I informed her that since she decided to abandon me I had sought out other plans for myself besides rotting on her couch as well as organized sleeping arrangements and transport to the airport since I clearly was not welcomed any longer. I expressed my disappointment with her choices and told her she was acting so far out of character that I didn't even recognize who she was anymore. The girl I previously knew was a bright ray of sunshine that lit up every room and never knew a stranger . The girl I spent the weekend with was anxious,easily irritated and spent most of her time typing novels of texts to her boyfriend on the phone. I told her to do some reflecting on the ways her relationship was changing her as an individual and a friend. I told her I was heading into a bar and not to bother me any further because her choices had already caused me and lot of feelings of sadness, stress, and betrayal.
I have since flown home and about two weeks have passed and I have yet to hear a word from her since our phone call. I personally have not reached out (and for context did not text her all day Sunday) because I believe it is not my responsibility. I did know she planned to have a conversation with her boyfriend on Sunday but was under no impression that she would be away all day and I would be left to fend for myself . I do feel a small level of guilt because it is clear that the relationship is affecting her judgement and as her friend I should always support her. But the other half of me feels like that I was not shown any consideration on her part and is holding on that feeling of betrayal.
I'm afraid our friendship is beyond repair at this point . Some have said that I am at fault for not intimating a conversation about my thoughts on the events of the weekend. AITAH for leaving and waiting to hear from her?

I F(24) was visiting my college girlfriends in Louisville Kentucky for our second annual reunion at the Derby. One of my friends lives in the town right outside of Louisville and was hosting us.
We originally planned to go to a derby themed party on Friday night called Phillies and Stallions. The party had a list and half of the group got on the list. Those on the list could bring plus ones so our plan was to have the two girls who didn't get on the list be our plus ones. The host was one of the girls who did not get on the list leading up to the event kept mentioning that it would be okay if we went without her if she didn't make it. (Which is strange since she was the one hosting us) Come to find out her new boyfriend was guilting her for days about going to the party saying he couldn't believe she would "degrade herself to be a ploy for the hosting company to make money"
For context girls got into the party for free and men paid entrance and the event was sponsored by several different companies (Standard procedure for almost every party I've ever heard of) To make a long story short we did not end up going to the party because the hosts boyfriend made her feel so bad about it. Party aside we sat her down and told her as her friends we were worried for her and that her boyfriend was showing some serious red flags and the early signs of an abusive /controlling relationship. The conclusion of the conversation was that they would have a "talk on Sunday"
Fast forward to Sunday and the other girls were local to Indiana and were planning to head home. I flew from North Carolina and would be flying out Monday morning. The host informed us that Sunday she would be going to church and lunch with her boyfriend and parents- annoying since our Friday was already ruined bc of him and our girls trip had been planned for an entire year at this point and church can happen any other weekend- but decided not worth the fight so let it slide. I decided to go a workout class that morning with another college girlfriend of mine. I left before the host and as my other two friends were packing up to drive home they said goodbye to the host who was heading to church. They heard her say "oops I almost forgot my pool bag if it's nice we are having a pool day.
The two immediately texted me to ask if I knew anything about a pool day- I did not. They hung back to spend some time with me before going home as the host seemingly planned a whole day without me. We decided to pack up all my bags and I called a friend from college in the area to spend the day with him. Part of me felt bad for leaving. I did not hear a WORD from this girl the entire day until 10:30 PM when she came home to an empty apartment. I had her location throughout the day and saw she went to her parents pool, her grandparents house, a Mexican restaurant, a park, and out for ice cream. I her best friend flew across the country and by all accounts in her mind was rotting in her apartment in a city I didn't know without access to a car while she spent the whole day frolicking around the city with her boyfriend who lives 40 minutes away from her.
Upon arriving back home after not speaking to me all day I received a panicked call from her around 10:30 PM asking where I was. At this point I had a fun day involving a barcade, lunch, pool day and was headed to a bar at the time of her call. I was so grateful to my friend for taking me in on one of his only days off for the week. (He works in the service industry as a bartender and has crazy hours) I informed her that since she decided to abandon me I had sought out other plans for myself besides rotting on her couch as well as organized sleeping arrangements and transport to the airport since I clearly was not welcomed any longer. I expressed my disappointment with her choices and told her she was acting so far out of character that I didn't even recognize who she was anymore. The girl I previously knew was a bright ray of sunshine that lit up every room and never knew a stranger . The girl I spent the weekend with was anxious,easily irritated and spent most of her time typing novels of texts to her boyfriend on the phone. I told her to do some reflecting on the ways her relationship was changing her as an individual and a friend. I told her I was heading into a bar and not to bother me any further because her choices had already caused me and lot of feelings of sadness, stress, and betrayal.
I have since flown home and about two weeks have passed and I have yet to hear a word from her since our phone call. I personally have not reached out (and for context did not text her all day Sunday) because I believe it is not my responsibility. I did know she planned to have a conversation with her boyfriend on Sunday but was under no impression that she would be away all day and I would be left to fend for myself . I do feel a small level of guilt because it is clear that the relationship is affecting her judgement and as her friend I should always support her. But the other half of me feels like that I was not shown any consideration on her part and is holding on that feeling of betrayal.
I'm afraid our friendship is beyond repair at this point . Some have said that I am at fault for not intimating a conversation about my thoughts on the events of the weekend. AITAH for leaving and waiting to hear from her?

I F(24) was visiting my college girlfriends in Louisville Kentucky for our second annual reunion at the Derby. One of my friends lives in the town right outside of Louisville and was hosting us.
We originally planned to go to a derby themed party on Friday night called Phillies and Stallions. The party had a list and half of the group got on the list. Those on the list could bring plus ones so our plan was to have the two girls who didn't get on the list be our plus ones. The host was one of the girls who did not get on the list leading up to the event kept mentioning that it would be okay if we went without her if she didn't make it. (Which is strange since she was the one hosting us) Come to find out her new boyfriend was guilting her for days about going to the party saying he couldn't believe she would "degrade herself to be a ploy for the hosting company to make money"
For context girls got into the party for free and men paid entrance and the event was sponsored by several different companies (Standard procedure for almost every party I've ever heard of) To make a long story short we did not end up going to the party because the hosts boyfriend made her feel so bad about it. Party aside we sat her down and told her as her friends we were worried for her and that her boyfriend was showing some serious red flags and the early signs of an abusive /controlling relationship. The conclusion of the conversation was that they would have a "talk on Sunday"
Fast forward to Sunday and the other girls were local to Indiana and were planning to head home. I flew from North Carolina and would be flying out Monday morning. The host informed us that Sunday she would be going to church and lunch with her boyfriend and parents- annoying since our Friday was already ruined bc of him and our girls trip had been planned for an entire year at this point and church can happen any other weekend- but decided not worth the fight so let it slide. I decided to go a workout class that morning with another college girlfriend of mine. I left before the host and as my other two friends were packing up to drive home they said goodbye to the host who was heading to church. They heard her say "oops I almost forgot my pool bag if it's nice we are having a pool day.
The two immediately texted me to ask if I knew anything about a pool day- I did not. They hung back to spend some time with me before going home as the host seemingly planned a whole day without me. We decided to pack up all my bags and I called a friend from college in the area to spend the day with him. Part of me felt bad for leaving. I did not hear a WORD from this girl the entire day until 10:30 PM when she came home to an empty apartment. I had her location throughout the day and saw she went to her parents pool, her grandparents house, a Mexican restaurant, a park, and out for ice cream. I her best friend flew across the country and by all accounts in her mind was rotting in her apartment in a city I didn't know without access to a car while she spent the whole day frolicking around the city with her boyfriend who lives 40 minutes away from her.
Upon arriving back home after not speaking to me all day I received a panicked call from her around 10:30 PM asking where I was. At this point I had a fun day involving a barcade, lunch, pool day and was headed to a bar at the time of her call. I was so grateful to my friend for taking me in on one of his only days off for the week. (He works in the service industry as a bartender and has crazy hours) I informed her that since she decided to abandon me I had sought out other plans for myself besides rotting on her couch as well as organized sleeping arrangements and transport to the airport since I clearly was not welcomed any longer. I expressed my disappointment with her choices and told her she was acting so far out of character that I didn't even recognize who she was anymore. The girl I previously knew was a bright ray of sunshine that lit up every room and never knew a stranger . The girl I spent the weekend with was anxious,easily irritated and spent most of her time typing novels of texts to her boyfriend on the phone. I told her to do some reflecting on the ways her relationship was changing her as an individual and a friend. I told her I was heading into a bar and not to bother me any further because her choices had already caused me and lot of feelings of sadness, stress, and betrayal.
I have since flown home and about two weeks have passed and I have yet to hear a word from her since our phone call. I personally have not reached out (and for context did not text her all day Sunday) because I believe it is not my responsibility. I did know she planned to have a conversation with her boyfriend on Sunday but was under no impression that she would be away all day and I would be left to fend for myself . I do feel a small level of guilt because it is clear that the relationship is affecting her judgement and as her friend I should always support her. But the other half of me feels like that I was not shown any consideration on her part and is holding on that feeling of betrayal.
I'm afraid our friendship is beyond repair at this point . Some have said that I am at fault for not intimating a conversation about my thoughts on the events of the weekend. AITAH for leaving and waiting to hear from her?

This is my first reddit post, although I have been a long time lurker of many subreddits. I am 23 years old and an only child. I am not a native english speaker, so please forgive any weird formatting or any spelling/grammar mistakes.
As the title states, my mom died ... and I am currently writing this to try and process this whole situation. I've tried to section all the paragraphs in chronological order, to make reading easier. Sorry for the extremely long post - I just needed to get it all out.
We only just celebrated her 60th birthday back in february. She did all the cooking, cleaning and planning without any trouble - even down to picking out the perfect napkins and flowers for her white and gold theme.
My mother was without a job. She had been jobless for almost 2 years now, after she was fired from her old cleaning job due to frequent sick days because of stomach cramps and pain. She was seen by a doctor back in 2022 for her stomach aches, and they found no physical cause - hence why we concluded it must've been due to stress. The stress and stomach pains subsided after she'd been fired. So we thought no more of it.
In march she was doing a 4-week internship in a local supermarket to see if she might've been a good fit for a permanent paid position. This is common practice for unemployeed people here in Denmark.
My mother started having stomach pains again during this internship, soon followed by back pains as well. She figured this was due to her spending most of the day sitting as a cashier in an uncomfortable position. My mother wasn't very tall, so she had trouble reaching the floor pedals that control the cashier conveyer belt.
In the beginning of april, she went to the doctor. Her stomach and back pains hadn't gone away although the internship was over. Her doctor also concluded it was most likely due to her uncomfortable working position, and that it would pass in a few weeks time. The doctor did some bloodwork, and found that she was severely lacking vitamin D, but nothing else seemed concerning at the time.
In the middle of april, her pains had only gotten worse, and she went to the doctor again. Her doctor did more bloodwork, and did a phisycal exam of my mothers stomach. Her doctor ordered a CT scan to check for anything serious.
19th of april. I accompany my mother to the hospital for her CT scan. We get told that we'll have the results in a week or so. My mother is not looking good when I pick her up at the bus station. She is more pale than usual, and has trouble walking at her usual pace.
23th of april. My mother received a referral to a meeting at the hospital with a doctor and nurse, to discuss the results of the CT scan. This referral is sent from the hospitals cancer department. My mother and I speak on the phone, she is concerned, but I tell her that this type of referral must just be standard pratice, and that she shouldn't worry untill we have spoken with the doctor. I cried that night.
25th of april. The day before her meeting with the doctor, I received a phone call from my mother. She tells me that she had fallen while at home, but that I shouldn't worry. I, of course, worry.
I pack my things and leave for my mothers house, I live an hour away by bus. When I finally arrive my mother seems okay-ish, but the house is another story. My mother is normally known for being a clean freak, and her house has always been clean and organized, But it wasn't anymore.
Her kitchen was a mess, and the dishwasher hadn't been empited or loaded for at least two weeks. Her bathroom is even worse, and I won't even begin to describe the state of the toilet it self. It is a sight that will horrify me for the rest of my life. I cleaned everything, while my mother rested.
My mother had also started sleeping on the guest bed, saying her own was too uncomfortable for her.
While cleaning the bathroom, my mother wakes up. Despite her state, she says she wants to help. But before I can even tell her no, my mother has another fall. Her legs essentially just crumble beneath her, and she falls backwards and lands head first on the floor. We argue back and forth about calling an ambulance, but she refuses to let me - so I don't, even though I should have. I guess I still respected my moms authority too much.
My mother lives alone, as my parents are divorced (they are very good friends though). My mother refuses to let me call my dad and tell him about this whole situation. She is stubborn and too proud to admit defeat.
26th of april. We take a taxi to the hospital. The taxi driver has a help my mother into the car. During the carride my mother says very little, but seems slightly delirious and very tired. When we arrive at the hospital, I quickly borrow a hospital wheelchair for my mother. She is almost unable to walk unassisted at this point.
After waiting for a while in the waiting area, a nurse comes and guides us to a meeting room. My mother is very tired at this point, and still delirious, and I have to handle most of the conversation with the doctor.
The CT scan results showed Pancreatic cancer. The cancer had already spread to her liver and abdomial cavity.
I had read about this cancer a few days prior, trying to figure out what was wrong with my mother. I knew what this meant, and I knew that it was effectively a death sentence. The doctor told us that an operation was out of the question, since the cancer had already spread. And due to the clearly weak state of my mothers health, chemo would also not be offered, as it would finish her.
I told the doctor of her two falls and the state of her home, and that she would not be safe on her own. The doctor had her admitted to a nearby bed department for stomach- and gastrointestinal surgery patients.
The hospital did a ton of bloodwork on my mother when she got admitted, and everything was off. All numbers were either too high or dangerously low. My mothers health was in fact so bad, that I was told she was a heart attack risk. I was also told that if a heart attack happened, she would not be brought back - as it would only prolong a very short and painful life.
I called my dad.
27th of april. My mother slept most of the day.
28th of april. My mother had another fall during the night, trying to get to the bathroom.
29th of april. My dad shows up to the hospital. He wasn't able to get off work until now, as he works in the other end of the country. He is shocked to see my mother in this state. We are told once again by a different doctor that nothing can be done. They are looking into getting her a spot at a nearby hospice.
The rest of the remaining week is spent in hospital. My dad and I are by my mothers side every day. She doesn't leave her hospital room, apart from a few times a day for a smoke break outside. My dad and I take her outside in a wheelchair, which she needs help to get in and out of.
Her bloodwork is showing some slight improvements, but she is still having trouble with infections and receives a lot of antibiotics. She eats like a mouse, but drinks a lot of fluids.
My mother is often very confused or tired most days. She gets referred for an MR scan, to see if the cancer has spread to her brain, or if one of her falls has caused permanent damage. Lucikly the MR scan shows that nothing is wrong with her brain.
She gets confused about her diagnosis a few times, thinking that she had brain cancer instead due to the MR scan. I have to remind her a couple times about what the doctor actually said.
6th of may. My mother seems to have stabilized somewhat so my dad has gone back to work.
7th of may. I get told by the hospital staff that my mother is to be transferred to a different hospital, which is one hour away. I become very upset by this news, and unfortunately yell at one of my mothers nurses in frustration. I yell at her that It'll be harder for me to get to my mother in time if something were to happen. I am ashamed of this childish behavior, as the transfer was the best desicion for my mother in hindsight.
I leave with my mother as we get transferred to the new hospital and their department of palliative care.
I am very ashamed by my behavior to my mothers old nurse, as this department for palliative care was truly the best place for my mother. She seemed very satisfied and happy to have been transferred. They have a large garden with wild flowers, and lovely staff. And my mother got a much bigger room all to herself. She also meets with their physical therapist, who helps my mother relieve some of her pain.
My mother and I have dinner together in the evening in her hospital room. My mom is her old self, although with some delayed speaking. I unfortunately have to rush a bit when leaving, as to not miss my bus home, so I quickly say goodbye to her and leave.
8th of may. In the morning on my way to the new hospital, I received a phone call from her new doctor. My mothers liver has suddenly started to fail due to the cancer. When I arrive, she is asleep. I am told she wont wake up again.
I called my dad, but he wont arrive until the evening, due to the distance from his workplace.
I spend most of the day in my mothers hospital room, listening to her sleep. She occasionally attempts to cough in her sleep, but it mainly just sounds like yells. It is terrifying. The nurses give her pain medication and some sleep medication to help her body relax.
My dad arrives in the late evening. We drive to my mothers house and stay the night there. We spend most of the late evening looking at pictures and scrapbooks of my mother, and packing a bag with clothes for her, for when she passes.
When prepareing the guest bed for my dad, we find a blanket that my mother slept on. It is stained, matching the previous state of the bathroom. We throw the blanket out.
9th of may. Mom is sleeping. Dad and I spend the day at the hospital, but we don't sit in her hospital room. It is too eerie and uncomfortable. We check on her occassionally. Towards the evening, her breathing becomes slightly more rapid and quick. But the nurses tell us to go home. There is no reason for us to sit by her side during the night - as it'll only make it worse for us.
10th of may. I wake at 6.12 am to my phone ringing. It is a nurse. My mother has passed away in her sleep at 6.05 that morning due to liver failure. My dad and I drive to the hospital. I am the first to see her body after the nurses prepared and dressed it in the clothing we picked.
(warning: the following paragraph may be slightly upsetting to some readers)
It it eerie and uncomfortable to see my mother like this. A symptom of pancreatic and liver cancers is that your skin will yellow. Something that I hadn't noticed in my mother till now. I cant help but think that she looks like a wax doll, although I feel horrible for thinking it. I finally touch her hand, after gathering the courage to, almost like I am afraid to distrub her. Her hands are cold, and only get colder as I sit by her side. I am supposed to say my goodbyes to her, and tell her how much she means to me, but in this moment I am speechless. I can't say anything, even on my mothers deathbed. I feels wrong to speak to a corpse. I should've said those things while she could hear them instead. I kiss her forehead before I leave the room.
17th of may. Funeral. The church and casket was beautifully decorated with colorful flowers, like my mother had requested. She didn't want anything white or depressing. I cried all the way through the funeral service, stopping only when it was time to carry the casket out. My dad on the left side, and me on the right, and some other family members behind us. Purple rain by Prince was played on the church piano as we carried the casket. I knew the casket would be heavy, but nothing prepared me for the sheer weight of that thing.
21th of may. Today. I don't really know what to think of my mothers death. Some days I almost forget that shes gone or that all this has been happening, until something reminds me of it.
In a way, I am thankful. Of course I didn't want my mother to die, but I'm glad that her suffering wasn't prolonged for months while she slowly withered away to cancer. And I'm thankful that my mother didn't live to suffer from alzheimers, like her own mother. And I am glad that if anything, my mothers death has brought my dad and I closer.
But at the same time, I am angry that she didn't get to live more of her life. She was only 60 years old, and should have had 20 more years at least. If she at least was 70, it might've been easier to lose her but I doubt it.
I think mostly of all the things she will miss out on, which saddens me the most. I am 23 and my mother wont get to see most of my life or my achivements. If I have kids, she'll never meet them, and she I get married, she'll never see it. My 24th birthday is coming up soon, and I don't know how I'll handle that day without my mother for the first time - or christmas for that matter.
I want my mom.

"Why Did Jesus Die on the Cross?"

The main reason Jesus died on the cross was to defeat Satan and set us free from his oppressive rule. Everything else that Jesus accomplished was to be understood as an aspect and consequence of this victory (e.g., Recapitulation, Moral Influence, etc.).
This understanding of why Jesus had to die is called the Christus Victor (Latin for “Christ is Victorious”) view of the atonement. But, what exactly was Christ victorious from, and why? To find out the answers to these questions, we have to turn to the Old Testament, as that's what the apostles would often allude to in order to properly teach their audience the message they were trying to convey (Rom. 15:4).
The OT is full of conflict between the Father (YHVH) and false gods, between YHVH and cosmic forces of chaos. The Psalms speak of this conflict between YHVH and water monsters of the deeps (an ancient image for chaos) (Psa. 29:3-4; 74:10-14; 77:16, 19; 89:9-10; 104:2-9, etc).
The liberation of Israel from Egypt wasn’t just a conflict between Pharaoh and Moses. It was really between YHVH and the false gods of Egypt.
Regardless of whether you think the aforementioned descriptions are literal or metaphorical, the reality that the Old Testament describes is that humanity lived in a “cosmic war zone.”
The Christus Victor motif is about Christ reigning victorious over wicked principalities and Satan's kingdom, and is strongly emphasized throughout the New Testament. Scripture declares that Jesus came to drive out "the prince of this world” (John 12:31), to “destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8), to “destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Heb. 2:14) and to “put all enemies under his feet” (1 Cor 15:25). Jesus came to overpower the “strong man” (Satan) who held the world in bondage and worked with his Church to plunder his "palace" (Luke 11:21-22). He came to end the reign of the cosmic “thief” who seized the world to “steal, and to kill, and to destroy” the life YHVH intended for us (John 10:10). Jesus came and died on the cross to disarm “the principalities and powers” and make a “shew of them openly [i.e., public spectacle]” by “triumphing over them in [the cross]” (Col. 2:15).
Beyond these explicit statements, there are many other passages that express the Christus Victor motif as well. For example, the first prophecy in the Bible foretells that a descendent of Eve (Jesus) would crush the head of the serpent (Gen. 3:15). The first Christian sermon ever preached proclaimed that Jesus in principle conquered all YHVH's enemies (Acts 2:32-36). And the single most frequently quoted Old Testament passage by New Testament authors is Psalm 110:1 which predicts that Christ would conquer all YHVH’s opponents. (Psalm 110 is quoted or alluded to in Matthew 22:41-45; 26:64, Mark 12:35-37; 14:62, Luke 20:41-44; 22:69, Acts 5:31; 7:55-56, Romans 8:34, 1st Corinthians 15:22-25, Ephesians 1:20, Hebrews 1:3; 1:13; 5:6, 10; 6:20; 7:11, 15, 17, 21; 8:1; 10:12-13, 1st Peter 3:22, and Revelation 3:21.) According to New Testament scholar Oscar Cullman, the frequency with which New Testament authors cite this Psalm is the greatest proof that Christ’s “victory over the angel powers stands at the very center of early Christian thought.”
Because of man's rebellion, the Messiah's coming involved a rescue mission that included a strategy for vanquishing the powers of darkness.
Since YHVH is a God of love who gives genuine “say-so” to both angels and humans, YHVH rarely accomplishes His providential plans through coercion. YHVH relies on His infinite wisdom to achieve His goals. Nowhere is YHVH's wisdom put more on display than in the manner in which He outsmarted Satan and the powers of evil, using their own evil to bring about their defeat.
Most readers probably know the famous story from ancient Greece about the Trojan Horse. To recap the story, Troy and Greece had been locked in a ten-year-long vicious war when, according to Homer and Virgil, the Greeks came up with a brilliant idea. They built an enormous wooden horse, hid soldiers inside and offered it to the Trojans as a gift, claiming they were conceding defeat and going home. The delighted Trojans accepted the gift and proceeded to celebrate by drinking themselves into a drunken stupor. When night came and the Trojan warriors were too wasted to fight, the Greeks exited the horse, unlocked the city gates to quietly let all their compatriots in, and easily conquered the city, thus winning the war.
Historians debate whether any of this actually happened. But either way, as military strategies go, it’s brilliant.
Now, there are five clues in the New Testament that suggest YHVH was using something like this Trojan Horse strategy against the powers when he sent Jesus into the world:
1) The Bible tells us that YHVH's victory over the powers of darkness was achieved by the employment of YHVH’s wisdom, and was centered on that wisdom having become reality in Jesus Christ (Rom. 16:25, 1 Cor. 2:7, Eph. 3:9-10, Col. 1:26). It also tells us that, for some reason, this Christ-centered wisdom was kept “secret and hidden” throughout the ages. It’s clear from this that YHVH's strategy was to outsmart and surprise the powers by sending Jesus.
2) While humans don’t generally know Jesus’ true identity during his ministry, demons do. They recognize Jesus as the Son of God, the Messiah, but, interestingly enough, they have no idea what he’s doing (Mark 1:24; 3:11; 5:7, Luke 8:21). Again, the wisdom of YHVH in sending Jesus was hidden from them.
3) We’re told that, while humans certainly share in the responsibility for the crucifixion, Satan and the powers were working behind the scenes to bring it about (John 13:27 cf. 1 Cor. 2:6-8). These forces of evil helped orchestrate the crucifixion.
4) We’re taught that if the “princes of this world [age]” had understood the secret wisdom of YHVH, “they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Cor 2:8 cf. vss 6-7). Apparently, Satan and the powers regretted orchestrating Christ’s crucifixion once they learned of the wisdom of YHVH that was behind it.
5) Finally, we can begin to understand why the powers came to regret crucifying “the Lord of glory” when we read that it was by means of the crucifixion that the “handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us [i.e., the charge of our legal indebtedness]” was “[taken] out of the way [i.e., canceled]” as the powers were disarmed. In this way Christ “triumph[ed] over” the powers by "his cross” and even “made a shew of them openly” (Col. 2:14-15). Through Christ’s death and resurrection YHVH's enemies were vanquished and placed under his Messiah's feet, and ultimately His own in the end (1 Cor. 15:23-28).
Putting these five clues together, we can discern YHVH's Trojan Horse strategy in sending Jesus.
The powers couldn’t discern why Jesus came because YHVH's wisdom was hidden from them. YHVH's wisdom was motivated by unfathomable love, and since Satan and the other powers were evil, they lacked the capacity to understand it. Their evil hearts prevented them from suspecting what YHVH was up to.
What the powers did understand was that Jesus was mortal. This meant he was killable. Lacking the capacity to understand that this was the means by which YHVH would ultimately bring about the defeat of death (and thus, pave the road for the resurrection itself), they never suspected that making Jesus vulnerable to their evil might actually be part of YHVH's infinitely wise plan.
And so they took the bait (or "ransom"; Matt. 20:28, Mark 10:45, 1 Tim. 2:5-6). Utilizing Judas and other willing human agents, the powers played right into YHVH’s secret plan and orchestrated the crucifixion of the Messiah (Acts 2:22-23; 4:28). YHVH thus brilliantly used the self-inflicted incapacity of evil to understand love against itself. And, like light dispelling darkness, the unfathomably beautiful act of YHVH's love in sending the willing Messiah as a "ransom" to these blood-thirsty powers defeated them. The whole creation was in principle freed and reconciled to YHVH, while everything written against us humans was nailed to the cross, thus robbing the powers of the only legal claim they had on us. They were “spoiled [i.e., disempowered]” (Col. 2:14-15).
As happened to the Trojans in accepting the gift from the Greeks, in seizing on Christ’s vulnerability and orchestrating his crucifixion, the powers unwittingly cooperated with YHVH to unleash the one power in the world that dispels all evil and sets captives free. It’s the power of self-sacrificial love.

Why Penal Substitution Is Unbiblical

For the sake of keeping this already lengthy post as short as possible I'm not going to spend too much time on why exactly PSA (Penal Substitutionary Atonement) is inconsistent with Scripture, but I'll go ahead and point out the main reasons why I believe this is so, and let the reader look further into this subject by themselves, being that there are many resources out there which have devoted much more time than I ever could here in supporting this premise.

"Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:"-1 Corinthians 5:7

The Passover is one of the two most prominent images in the New Testament given as a comparison to Christ's atonement and what it accomplished, (the other most common image being the Day of Atonement sacrifice).
In the Passover, the blood of the lamb on the door posts of the Hebrews in the book of Exodus was meant to mark out those who were YHVH's, not be a symbol of PSA, as the lamb itself was not being punished by God in place of the Hebrews, but rather the kingdom of Egypt (and thus, allegorically speaking, the kingdom of darkness which opposed YHVH) was what was being judged and punished, because those who were not "covered" by the blood of the lamb could be easily identified as not part of God's kingdom/covenant and liberated people.
Looking at the Day of Atonement sacrifice (which, again, Christ's death is repeatedly compared to throughout the New Testament), this ritual required a ram, a bull, and two goats (Lev. 16:3-5). The ram was for a burnt offering intended to please God (Lev. 16:3-4). The bull served as a sin offering for Aaron, the high priest, and his family. In this case, the sin offering restored the priest to ritual purity, allowing him to occupy sacred space and be near YHVH’s presence. Two goats taken from "the congregation” were needed for the single sin offering for the people (Lev. 16:5). So why two goats?
The high priest would cast lots over the two goats, with one chosen as a sacrifice “for the Lord” (Lev. 16:8). The blood of that goat would purify the people. The second goat was not sacrificed or designated “for the Lord.” On the contrary, this goat—the one that symbolically carried the sins away from the camp of Israel into the wilderness—was “for Azazel” (Lev. 16:8-10).
What—or who—is Azazel?
The Hebrew term azazel (עזאזל) occurs four times in Leviticus 16 but nowhere else in most people's canon of the Bible, (and I say "most people's canon," because some people do include 1 Enoch in their canon of Scripture, which of course goes into great detail about this "Azazel" figure). Many translations prefer to translate the term as a phrase, “the goat that goes away,” which is the same idea conveyed in the King James Version’s “scapegoat.” Other translations treat the word as a name: Azazel. The “scapegoat” option is possible, but since the phrase “for Azazel” parallels the phrase “for YHVH” (“for the Lord”), the wording suggests that two divine figures are being contrasted by the two goats.
A strong case can be made for translating the term as the name Azazel. Ancient Jewish texts show that Azazel was understood as a demonic figure associated with the wilderness. The Mishnah (ca. AD 200; Yoma 6:6) records that the goat for Azazel was led to a cliff and pushed over, ensuring it would not return with its death. This association of the wilderness with evil is also evident in the New Testament, as this was where Jesus met the devil (Matt. 4:1). Also, in Leviticus 17:1-7 we learn that some Israelites had been accustomed to sacrificing offerings to "devils" (alternatively translated as “goat demons”). The Day of Atonement replaced this illegitimate practice.
The second goat was not sent into the wilderness as a sacrifice to a foreign god or demon. The act of sending the live goat out into the wilderness, which was unholy ground, was to send the sins of the people where they belonged—to the demonic domain. With one goat sacrificed to bring purification and access to YHVH and one goat sent to carry the people’s sins to the demonic domain, this annual ritual reinforced the identity of the true God and His mercy and holiness.
When Jesus died on the cross for all of humanity’s sins, he was crucified outside the city, paralleling the sins of the people being cast to the wilderness via the goat to Azazel. Jesus died once for all sinners, negating the need for this ritual.
As previously stated, the goat which had all the sin put on it was sent alive off to the wilderness, while the blood of the goat which was blameless was used to purify the temple and the people. Penal substitution would necessitate the killing of the goat which had the sin put on it.
Mind you, this is the only sacrificial ritual of any kind in the Torah in which sins are placed on an animal. The only time it happens is this, and that animal is not sacrificed. Most PSA proponents unwittingly point to this ritual as evidence of their view, despite it actually serving as evidence to the contrary, because most people don't read their Old Testament and don't familiarize themselves with the "boring parts" like Leviticus (when it's actually rather important to do so, since that book explains how exactly animal offerings were to be carried out and why they were done in the first place).
In the New Testament, Christ's blood was not only meant to mark out those who were his, but also expel the presence of sin and ritual uncleanness so as to make the presence of YHVH manifest in the believer's life. Notice how God's wrath isn't poured out on Christ in our stead on this view, but rather His wrath was poured out on those who weren't covered, and the presence of sin and evil were merely removed by that which is pure and blameless (Christ's blood) for the believer.
All this is the difference between expiation and propitiation.

The Content of Paul's Gospel Message

When the New Testament writers talked about “the gospel,” they referred not to the Protestant doctrine of justification sola fide–the proposition that if we will stop trying to win God’s favor and only just believe that God has exchanged our sin for Christ’s perfect righteousness, then in God’s eyes we will have the perfect righteousness required both for salvation and for assuaging our guilty consciences–but rather they referred to the simple but explosive proposition Kyrios Christos, “Christ is Lord.” That is to say, the gospel was, properly speaking, the royal announcement that Jesus of Nazareth was the God of Israel’s promised Messiah, the King of kings and Lord of lords.
The New Testament writers were not writing in a cultural or linguistic vacuum and their language of euangelion (good news) and euangelizomai would have been understood by their audience in fairly specific ways. Namely, in the Greco-Roman world for which the New Testament authors wrote, euangelion/euangelizomai language typically had to do with either A) the announcement of the accession of a ruler, or B) the announcement of a victory in battle, and would probably have been understood along those lines.
Let’s take the announcements of a new ruler first. The classic example of such a language is the Priene Calendar Inscription, dating to circa 9 BC, which celebrates the rule (and birthday) of Caesar Augustus as follows:
"It was seeming to the Greeks in Asia, in the opinion of the high priest Apollonius of Menophilus Azanitus: Since Providence, which has ordered all things of our life and is very much interested in our life, has ordered things in sending Augustus, whom she filled with virtue for the benefit of men, sending him as a savior [soter] both for us and for those after us, him who would end war and order all things, and since Caesar by his appearance [epiphanein] surpassed the hopes of all those who received the good tidings [euangelia], not only those who were benefactors before him, but even the hope among those who will be left afterward, and the birthday of the god [he genethlios tou theou] was for the world the beginning of the good tidings [euangelion] through him; and Asia resolved it in Smyrna."
The association of the term euangelion with the announcement of Augustus’ rule is clear enough and is typical of how this language is used elsewhere. To give another example, Josephus records that at the news of the accession of the new emperor Vespasian (69 AD) “every city kept festival for the good news (euangelia) and offered sacrifices on his behalf.” (The Jewish War, IV.618). Finally, a papyrus dating to ca. 498 AD begins:
"Since I have become aware of the good news (euangeliou) about the proclamation as Caesar (of Gaius Julius Verus Maximus Augustus)…"
This usage occurs also in the Septuagint, the Greek translations of the Jewish Scriptures. For instance LXX Isaiah 52:7 reads, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news (euangelizomenou), who publishes peace, who brings good news (euangelizomenos) of salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.'" Similarly, LXX Isaiah 40:9-10 reads:

"…Go up on a high mountain, you who bring good tidings (ho euangelizomenos) to Sion; lift up your voice with strength, you who bring good tidings (ho euangelizomenos); lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Ioudas, “See your God!” Behold, the Lord comes with strength, and his arm with authority (kyrieias)…."-NETS, Esaias 40:9-10

This consistent close connection between euangelion/euangelizomai language and announcements of rule strongly suggests that many of the initial hearers/readers of the early Christians’ evangelical language would likely have understood that language as the announcement of a new ruler (see, e.g., Acts 17:7), and, unless there is strong NT evidence to the contrary, we should presume that the NT writers probably intended their language to be so understood.
However, the other main way in which euangelion/euangelizomai language was used in the Greco-Roman world was with reference to battle reports, announcements of victory in war. A classic example of this sort of usage can be found in LXX 2 Samuel 18:19ff, where David receives word that his traitorous son, Absalom, has been defeated in battle. Euangelion/euangelizomai is used throughout the passage for the communications from the front.
As already shown throughout this post, the NT speaks of Jesus’s death and resurrection as a great victory over the powers that existed at that time and, most importantly, over death itself. Jesus’ conquest of the principalities and powers was the establishment of his rule and comprehensive authority over heaven and earth, that is, of his Lordship over all things (again, at that time).
This was the content of Paul's gospel message...

Justification, and the "New" Perspective on Paul

The following quotation is from The Gospel Coalition, and I believe it to be a decently accurate summary of the NPP (New Perspective on Paul), despite it being from a source which is in opposition to it:

The New Perspective on Paul, a major scholarly shift that began in the 1980s, argues that the Jewish context of the New Testament has been wrongly understood and that this misunderstand[ing] has led to errors in the traditional-Protestant understanding of justification. According to the New Perspective, the Jewish systems of salvation were not based on works-righteousness but rather on covenantal nomism, the belief that one enters the people of God by grace and stays in through obedience to the covenant. This means that Paul could not have been referring to works-righteousness by his phrase “works of the law”; instead, he was referring to Jewish boundary markers that made clear who was or was not within the people of God. For the New Perspective, this is the issue that Paul opposes in the NT. Thus, justification takes on two aspects for the New Perspective rather than one; initial justification is by faith (grace) and recognizes covenant status (ecclesiology), while final justification is partially by works, albeit works produced by the Spirit.

I believe what's called the "new perspective" is actually rather old, and that the Reformers' view of Paul is what is truly new, being that the Lutheran understanding of Paul is simply not Biblical.
The Reformation perspective understands Paul to be arguing against a legalistic Jewish culture that seeks to earn their salvation through works. However, supporters of the NPP argue that Paul has been misread. We contend he was actually combating Jews who were boasting because they were God's people, the "elect" or the "chosen ones." Their "works," so to speak, were done to show they were God's covenant people and not to earn their salvation.
The key questions involve Paul’s view(s) of the law and the meaning of the controversy in which Paul was engaged. Paul strongly argued that we are “justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law” (Gal. 2:16b). Since the time of Martin Luther, this has been understood as an indictment of legalistic efforts to merit favor before God. Judaism was cast in the role of the medieval "church," and so Paul’s protests became very Lutheran, with traditional-Protestant theology reinforced in all its particulars (along with its limitations) as a result. In hermeneutical terms, then, the historical context of Paul’s debate will answer the questions we have about what exactly the apostle meant by the phrase "works of the law," along with other phrases often used as support by the Reformers for their doctrine of Sola Fide (justification by faith alone), like when Paul mentions "the righteousness of God."
Obviously an in-depth analysis of the Pauline corpus and its place in the context of first-century Judaism would take us far beyond the scope of this brief post. We can, however, quickly survey the topography of Paul’s thought in context, particularly as it has emerged through the efforts of recent scholarship, and note some salient points which may be used as the basis of a refurbished soteriology.
[Note: The more popular scholars associated with the NPP are E.P. Sanders, James Dunn, and N.T. Wright. Dunn was the first to coin the term "The New Perspective" in a 1983 Manson Memorial Lecture, The New Perspective on Paul and the Law.]
Varying authors since the early 1900's have brought up the charge that Paul was misread by those in the tradition of Martin Luther and other Protestant Reformers. Yet, it wasn't until E.P. Sanders' 1977 book, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, that scholars began to pay much attention to the issue. In his book, Sanders argues that the Judaism of Paul's day has been wrongly criticized as a religion of "works-salvation" by those in the Protestant tradition.
A fundamental premise in the NPP is that Judaism was actually a religion of grace. Sander's puts it clearly:
"On the point at which many have found the decisive contrast between Paul and Judaism - grace and works - Paul is in agreement with Palestinian Judaism... Salvation is by grace but judgment is according to works'...God saves by grace, but... within the framework established by grace he rewards good deeds and punishes transgression." (Paul and Palestinian Judaism, p. 543)
N.T. Wright adds that, "we have misjudged early Judaism, especially Pharisaism, if we have thought of it as an early version of Pelagianism," (Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said, p. 32).
Sanders has coined a now well-known phrase to describe the character of first-century Palestinian Judaism: “covenantal nomism.” The meaning of “covenantal nomism” is that human obedience is not construed as the means of entering into God’s covenant. That cannot be earned; inclusion within the covenant body is by the grace of God. Rather, obedience is the means of maintaining one’s status within the covenant. And with its emphasis on divine grace and forgiveness, Judaism was never a religion of legalism.
If covenantal nomism was operating as the primary category under which Jews understood the Law, then when Jews spoke of obeying commandments, or when they required strict obedience of themselves and fellow Jews, it was because they were "keeping the covenant," rather than out of legalism.
More recently, N.T. Wright has made a significant contribution in his little book, What Saint Paul Really Said. Wright’s focus is the gospel and the doctrine of justification. With incisive clarity he demonstrates that the core of Paul’s gospel was not justification by faith, but the death and resurrection of Christ and his exaltation as Lord. The proclamation of the gospel was the proclamation of Jesus as Lord, the Messiah who fulfilled Israel’s expectations. Romans 1:3-4, not 1:16-17, is the gospel, contrary to traditional thinking. Justification is not the center of Paul’s thought, but an outworking of it:
"[T]he doctrine of justification by faith is not what Paul means by ‘the gospel’. It is implied by the gospel; when the gospel is proclaimed, people come to faith and so are regarded by God as members of his people. But ‘the gospel’ is not an account of how people get saved. It is, as we saw in an earlier chapter, the proclamation of the lordship of Jesus Christ….Let us be quite clear. ‘The gospel’ is the announcement of Jesus’ lordship, which works with power to bring people into the family of Abraham, now redefined around Jesus Christ and characterized solely by faith in him. ‘Justification’ is the doctrine which insists that all those who have this faith belong as full members of this family, on this basis and no other." (pp. 132, 133)
Wright brings us to this point by showing what “justification” would have meant in Paul’s Jewish context, bound up as it was in law-court terminology, eschatology, and God’s faithfulness to God’s covenant.
Specifically, Wright explodes the myth that the pre-Christian Saul was a pious, proto-Pelagian moralist seeking to earn his individual passage into heaven. Wright capitalizes on Paul’s autobiographical confessions to paint rather a picture of a zealous Jewish nationalist whose driving concern was to cleanse Israel of Gentiles as well as Jews who had lax attitudes toward the Torah. Running the risk of anachronism, Wright points to a contemporary version of the pre-Christian Saul: Yigal Amir, the zealous Torah-loyal Jew who assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin for exchanging Israel’s land for peace. Wright writes:
"Jews like Saul of Tarsus were not interested in an abstract, ahistorical system of salvation... They were interested in the salvation which, they believed, the one true God had promised to his people Israel." (pp. 32, 33)
Wright maintains that as a Christian, Paul continued to challenge paganism by taking the moral high ground of the creational monotheist. The doctrine of justification was not what Paul preached to the Gentiles as the main thrust of his gospel message; it was rather “the thing his converts most needed to know in order to be assured that they really were part of God’s people” after they had responded to the gospel message.
Even while taking the gospel to the Gentiles, however, Paul continued to criticize Judaism “from within” even as he had as a zealous Pharisee. But whereas his mission before was to root out those with lax attitudes toward the Torah, now his mission was to demonstrate that God’s covenant faithfulness (righteousness) has already been revealed in Jesus Christ.
At this point Wright carefully documents Paul’s use of the controversial phrase “God’s righteousness” and draws out the implications of his meaning against the background of a Jewish concept of justification. The righteousness of God and the righteousness of the party who is “justified” cannot be confused because the term bears different connotations for the judge than for the plaintiff or defendant. The judge is “righteous” if his or her judgment is fair and impartial; the plaintiff or defendant is “righteous” if the judge rules in his or her favor. Hence:
"If we use the language of the law court, it makes no sense whatsoever to say that the judge imputes, imparts, bequeaths, conveys or otherwise transfers his righteousness to either the plaintiff or the defendant. Righteousness is not an object, a substance or a gas which can be passed across the courtroom. For the judge to be righteous does not mean that the court has found in his favor. For the plaintiff or defendant to be righteous does not mean that he or she has tried the case properly or impartially. To imagine the defendant somehow receiving the judge’s righteousness is simply a category mistake. That is not how the language works." (p. 98)
However, Wright makes the important observation that even with the forensic metaphor, Paul’s theology is not so much about the courtroom as it is about God’s love.
Righteousness is not an impersonal, abstract standard, a measuring-stick or a balancing scale. That was, and still is, a Greek view. Righteousness, Biblically speaking, grows out of covenant relationship. We forgive because we have been forgiven (Matt. 18:21-35); “we love" because God “first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Love is the fulfillment of the law (Rom. 13:8, 10, Gal 5:14, Jam. 2:8). Paul even looked forward to a day when “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad” (2 Cor. 5:10), and he acknowledged that his clear conscience did not necessarily ensure this verdict (1 Cor. 4:4), but he was confident nevertheless. Paul did in fact testify of his clear conscience: “For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation [i.e., behavior] in the world, and more abundantly to you-ward” (2 Cor. 1:12). He was aware that he had not yet “attained” (Phil. 3:12-14), that he still struggled with the flesh, yet he was confident of the value of his performance (1 Cor. 9:27). These are hardly the convictions of someone who intends to rest entirely on the merits of an alien righteousness imputed to his or her account.
Wright went on to flesh out the doctrine of justification in Galatians, Philippians, and Romans. The “works of the law” are not proto-Pelagian efforts to earn salvation, but rather “sabbath [keeping], food-laws, circumcision” (p. 132). Considering the controversy in Galatia, Wright writes:
"Despite a long tradition to the contrary, the problem Paul addresses in Galatians is not the question of how precisely someone becomes a Christian, or attains to a relationship with God….The problem he addresses is: should his ex-pagan converts be circumcised or not? Now this question is by no means obviously to do with the questions faced by Augustine and Pelagius, or by Luther and Erasmus. On anyone’s reading, but especially within its first-century context, it has to do quite obviously with the question of how you define the people of God: are they to be defined by the badges of Jewish race, or in some other way? Circumcision is not a ‘moral’ issue; it does not have to do with moral effort, or earning salvation by good deeds. Nor can we simply treat it as a religious ritual, then designate all religious ritual as crypto-Pelagian good works, and so smuggle Pelagius into Galatia as the arch-opponent after all. First-century thought, both Jewish and Christian, simply doesn’t work like that…. [T]he polemic against the Torah in Galatians simply will not work if we ‘translate’ it into polemic either against straightforward self-help moralism or against the more subtle snare of ‘legalism’, as some have suggested. The passages about the law only work — and by ‘work’ I mean they will only make full sense in their contexts, which is what counts in the last analysis — when we take them as references to the Jewish law, the Torah, seen as the national charter of the Jewish race." (pp. 120-122)
The debate about justification, then, “wasn’t so much about soteriology as about ecclesiology; not so much about salvation as about the church.” (p. 119)
To summarize the theology of Paul in his epistles, the apostle mainly spent time arguing to those whom he were sending letters that salvation in Christ was available to all men without distinction. Jews and Gentiles alike may accept the free gift; it was not limited to any one group. Paul was vehement about this, especially in his letter to the Romans. As such, I will finish this post off by summarizing the letter itself, so as to provide Biblical support for the premises of the NPP and for what the scholars I referenced have thus far argued.
After his introduction in the epistle to an already believing and mostly Gentile audience (who would've already been familiar with the gospel proclaimed in verses 3-4), Paul makes a thematic statement in 1:16: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” This statement is just one of many key statements littered throughout the book of Romans that give us proper understanding of the point Paul wished to make to the interlocutors of his day, namely, salvation is available to all, whether Jew or Gentile.
In 1:16 Paul sets out a basic theme of his message in the letter to the Romans. All who believed, whether they be Jew or Gentile, were saved by the power of the gospel. The universal nature of salvation was explicitly stated. The gospel saved all without distinction, whether Jew or Greek; salvation was through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Immediately after this thematic declaration, Paul undertakes to show the universal nature of sin and guilt. In 1:18-32 Paul shows how the Gentile is guilty before God. Despite evidence of God and his attributes, which is readily available to all, they have failed to honor YHVH as God and have exchanged His glory for idolatrous worship and self-promotion. As a consequence, God handed them over in judgment (1:18-32). Paul moves to denunciation of those who would judge others while themselves being guilty of the very same offenses (2:1-5) and argues that all will be judged according to their deeds (2:6). This judgment applies to all, namely, Jew and Greek (2:9-10). This section serves as somewhat of a transition in Paul’s argument. He has highlighted the guilt of the Gentiles (1:18ff) and will shortly outline the guilt of the Jew (2:17-24). The universal statement of 2:1-11 sets the stage for Paul’s rebuke of Jewish presumption. It was not possession of the Law which delivered; it was faithful obedience. It is better to have no Law and yet to obey the essence of the Law (2:12-16) than to have the Law and not obey (2:17-3:4). Paul then defends the justice of God’s judgment (3:5-8), which leads to the conclusion that all (Jew and Gentile) are guilty before God (3:9).
Paul argues that it was a mistaken notion to think that salvation was the prerogative of the Jew only. This presumption is wrong for two reasons. First, it leads to the mistaken assumption that only Jews were eligible for this vindication (Paul deals with this misunderstanding in chapter 4 where he demonstrates that Abraham was justified by faith independently of the Law and is therefore the father of all who believe, Jew and Gentile alike). Second, it leads to the equally mistaken conclusion that all who were Jews are guaranteed of vindication. Paul demonstrates how this perspective, which would call God’s integrity into question since Paul was assuming many Jews would not experience this vindication, was misguided. He did this by demonstrating that it was never the case that all physical descendants of Israel (Jacob) were likewise recipients of the promise. In the past (9:6-33) as in the present (at that time; 11:1-10), only a remnant was preserved and only a remnant would experience vindication. Paul also argued that the unbelief of national Israel (the non-remnant) had the purpose of extending the compass of salvation. The unbelief of one group made the universal scope of the gospel possible. This universalism was itself intended to bring about the vindication of the unbelieving group (11:11-16). As a result of faith, all (Jew and Gentile) could be branches of the olive tree (11:17-24). Since faith in Christ was necessary to remain grafted into the tree, no one could boast of his position. All, Jew and Gentile alike, were dependent upon the mercy and grace of God. As a result of God’s mysterious plan, He would bring about the vindication of His people (11:25-27). [Note: It is this author's belief that this vindication occurred around 66-70 AD, with the Parousia of Christ's Church; this author is Full-Preterist in their Eschatology.]

I personally would go join the Church of the Broken God. The technology themed GOI activated my neurons and made me realize the weakness of THE FLESH, prompting me to become a downloaded mind into data and becoming one with WAN.

1-1 Gunfire Battle
1-2 Gunfire Battle With Car
1-3 Gunfire Battle With Traffic
1-4 Motorcycle Passing At 55mph
1-5 Motorcycle Passing At 100mph
1-6 Chopping With An Axe
1-7 Chopping With Fallen Tree
1-8 Newspaper Leafing Through
1-9 Newspaper Ripping
1-10 Children Giggling
1-11 Drinking Through A Straw With A Gulp
1-12 Saltwater Fishing Casting Reeling And Catching Fish
1-13 Slot Machine Pull And Pay-Off
1-14 Lion Roars
1-15 Lion Growls Close Perspective
1-16 Bacon Frying
1-17 Swiss Yodel Call
1-18 Helicopter Start Up And Take Off Int Perspective
1-19 Helicopter Flying By Vers. 2
1-20 Helicopter Coming In And Landing Vers. 2
1-21 Grating Carrots
1-22 Heavy Breathing
1-23 Pay Phone Sequence
1-24 Tearing Paper Short
1-25 Tearing Paper Long
1-26 Baby Crying
1-27 Crickets At Night
1-28 Jet Taking Off
1-29 Jet Passing Overhead And Landing
1-30 Cracking Eggs
1-31 Beating Eggs In A Bowl
1-32 Horse Whinny And Neigh
1-33 Horse Gallops By
1-34 Horse Walks Up And Snorts In Stable
1-35 Man Coughing
1-36 Water Splash
1-37 Loud Large Group Applauding
1-38 Witches Evil Laugh
1-39 Pigs Grunting In A Sly
1-40 Church Clock Strikes 1 O'Clock
1-41 Church Clock Strikes 12 O'Clock
1-42 Car Won't Start
1-43 Car With Dead Battery
1-44 Car Start And Rev Engine
1-45 Car Start Rev Engine And Drive Away
1-46 Car Approach And Fast Stop
1-47 Car Approach Skid And Medium Crash
1-48 Eating Crisp Potato Chips
1-49 Shoveling Dirt On Concrete
1-50 Car Wash Interior Perspective
1-51 Referee Type Whistle
1-52 Thunder Clap Vers. 3
1-53 Wind Howling Lightly
1-54 Thunder Wind And Rain
1-55 Thunder And Heavy Down Pour
1-56 Man Screaming
1-57 Small Crowd Booing
1-58 Small Crowd Sighing Relieved
1-59 Small Crowd Gasp Astonished
1-60 Small Crowd 'Yeah' Happy
1-61 Grandfather Clock Strikes 12 0'Clock
1-62 High Performance Car Start And Idle
1-63 High Performance Car 160mph Pass R To L
1-64 Champagne Cork Popping
1-65 Millitary Jet Fast Flyby
1-66 Stirring In A Cup
1-67 Truck Horn 1 Blast
1-68 Truck Horn 2 Blasts
1-69 Truck Passing With Horn
1-70 Boxing With Punching Bag
1-71 Woman Shrieking
1-72 Vacuuming
1-73 Hydraulic Lift In Operation
1-74 Chicken Coup Atmosphere
1-75 Diving And Swimming Past
1-76 Small Group Applause
1-77 Propeller Airplane Start And Idle
1-78 Machine Gun Burst
1-79 Machine Gun Burst With Returned Fire
1-80 Wooden Bat Hitting Ball
1-81 Aluminum Bat Hitting Ball
1-82 Weight Lifting
1-83 Rocket Launching With Countdown
1-84 Taking A Shower
1-85 Electric Shaver
1-86 Brushing Teeth
1-87 Flushing Toilet
1-88 Police Car Passing With Siren
1-89 Police Car Approach And Stop With Siren
1-90 Police Car Departs With Siren
1-91 Police Radio In Operation
1-92 Kiss
1-93 Cannon Blast
1-94 Patchinco Continuous Play
1-95 Paper Bag Put On Head And Removed
1-96 Tuning Radio AM
1-97 Tuning Radio FM
1-98 Electronic Radio Alarm Sounding
1-99 Crystal Glass Ping
1-100 Rock Concert Applause With Shouts
2-1 Explosion Bang With Falling Debris
2-2 Explosion Medium Bang
2-3 Explosion Small Bang With Falling Debris
2-4 Fire Alarm
2-5 Crack Of A Whip
2-6 Elephant Trunk Noise
2-7 Angry Elephants
2-8 High Performance Car Start Drive And Stop
2-9 High Performance Car Start Up And Burn Out
2-10 High Performance Car Burn Out Vers 2
2-11 Sneeze
2-12 Crowd At A Horse Track
2-13 Water Dripping
2-14 Water Dripping With Reverberation
2-15 Filling Sink With Water
2-16 Emptying Sink
2-17 Handsaw Sawing Wood
2-18 Jigsaw In Operation
2-19 Circular Saw In Operation
2-20 Chains Rattling
2-21 4 Boings
2-22 Scissors Cutting Hair
2-23 Hair Dryer In Operation
2-24 Carnival Atmosphere
2-25 Gavel Hammering In Court
2-26 Rotary Dialing Telephone
2-27 Telephone 1 Ring / Pick Up
2-28 Hanging Up
2-29 Ship Horn 2 Blasts
2-30 Evil Male Laugh
2-31 Evil Male Laugh With Echo
2-32 Male Laugh Hysterical
2-33 Tray Of Glasses Rattling
2-34 Carbonated Water Fizzing
2-35 Airplane Jet Take Off (Jumbo Jet)
2-36 Airplane Jet Landing Vers 2
2-37 Airplane Jet Landing With Tire Squeal
2-38 Burp
2-39 Small Group Applauding With Cheers
2-40 Applause Polite Medium Group
2-41 Cow Moo
2-42 Pool (Billards) Break
2-43 Pool (Billiards) Combination Shot
2-44 Town Clock In Distance Striking 1 0'Clock
2-45 Town Clock In Distance Striking 12 0'Clock
2-46 Party Horn
2-47 Party Noise Maker
2-48 Cave With Water Dripping
2-49 Ice Cubes In A Glass
2-50 Ice Cubes In A Bucket
2-51 Jogging Past Right To Left
2-52 Jogging Past Left To Right
2-53 Car Honk
2-54 Car Long Honks
2-55 Car Several Honks
2-56 Traffic Jam Honks
2-57 Car Passing With Horn
2-58 Angry Crowd
2-59 Panic Stricken Crowd
2-60 3 Gun Shots 45 Automatic
2-61 Shotgun 1 Shot
2-62 M14 Rifle Several Shots
2-63 Elevator Door Opening
2-64 Elevator Door Closing
2-65 Elevator Lift Rider's Perspective
2-66 Bees Buzzing Around Hive
2-67 Alarm Clock Bell Sounding
2-68 Electric Fan In Operation
2-69 35mm Camera Shutter Sound
2-70 35mm Camera Auto Motor Drive
2-71 35mm Camera Automatic Sequence
2-72 Camera Flash Charge And Pop
2-73 Hammering Nails Into Wood
2-74 Door Bell Several Rings
2-75 Knocking On Door And Door Opens
2-76 Heartbeat
2-77 'Surprise' At Party
2-78 Car Fast Approach And Stop
2-79 Car Approach Skid And Crash
2-80 Car Approach Long Skid And Big Crash
2-81 Car Skid And Tire Squeal
2-82 Writing On Blackboard
2-83 Fingernails On Blackboard
2-84 Velcro Ripping
2-85 Propeller Airplane Taking Off Ext Perspective
2-86 Air Pump
2-87 Movie Camera Old Clockwork Type
2-88 Donkey Hee Haws
2-89 Newsroom General Atmosphere
2-90 Coins Dropped On Table
2-91 Coins Being Counted
2-92 Coins Jingling
2-93 Duck Quack
2-94 Scrubbing Floor With A Brush
2-95 Rain Continuous Downpour
2-96 Thunder Clap Vers 2
2-97 Thunder And Rain Storm
2-98 Wind Blowing Through Trees
2-99 Rocket
2-100 Wolf Howling Human Simulation
3-1 Bowling Alley General Atmosphere
3-2 Bowling Gutter Ball
3-3 Bowling Strike
3-4 Soda Can Opening
3-5 Soda Pouring In Glass
3-6 Telephone 3 Rings And Pick Up
3-7 Telephone Slammed Down
3-8 Rooster Crowing
3-9 Woman Screaming
3-10 Sipping Coffee
3-11 Cork Pulled With Reverberation
3-12 Crowd 'Oh' Disappointed
3-13 Crowd 'Ahh' Satisfied
3-14 Crowd Urgh Disgusted
3-15 Steam Train Passing By
3-16 Bugle Call Outdoors - Charge
3-17 Bugle Call - Post Time
3-18 Bugle Call - Fanfare
3-19 Bugle Call - Parade Dismiss
3-20 Bugle Call - Fall In
3-21 Bugle Call - Lights Out
3-22 Bugle Call - Military Taps
3-23 Bugle Call - Retreat
3-24 Bugle Call - Revue
3-25 Bugle Call - Reveille
3-26 Belch
3-27 Baby Laugh
3-28 Domestic Car Alarm
3-29 Domestic Car Door Opening
3-30 Domestic Car Door Clossing
3-31 Domestic Car Crash With Yell
3-32 Domestic Car Approach And Skid
3-33 Horse Trots Up And Snorts Outside
3-34 Horse Whinny And Neigh Outside
3-35 Horse Canters By Outside
3-36 Hellcopter Start Up And Take Off Vers 1
3-37 Helicopter Flying By Vers 1
3-38 Helicopter Coming In And Landing Vers 1
3-39 Applause Concert Crowd With Cheers
3-40 Drinking Fountain Turned On And Off
3-41 Drinking Fountain Taking A Drink
3-42 Roller Coaster In Operation
3-43 Fight Bell 2 Strikes
3-44 Cuckoo Clock Strikes 1
3-45 Cuckoo Clock Strikes 12
3-46 Record Needle Scratch
3-47 Ambulance Passing With Siren
3-48 HiFi Store With Radios And TV's
3-49 Sizzle Light
3-50 Sizzle Heavy
3-51 High Performance Car Start, Idle, Rev, And Stop
3-52 High Performance Car Burn Out
3-53 High Performance Car High Speed Pass 150mph
3-54 Coffee Grinder
3-55 Coffee Perculator
3-56 Ball Bouncing
3-57 Ball Bouncing Away
3-58 Thunder Clap
3-59 Thunder Continuous Claps And Rumbles
3-60 Wind Howling Heavily
3-61 Thunder And Rain In The City
3-62 After Storm Atmosphere
3-63 Bicycle Bell
3-64 Shuffling Cards
3-65 Dealing Cards
3-66 Fireworks General Atmosphere
3-67 A Glass Clinking In A Toast
3-68 Many Glasses Clinking In A Toast
3-69 Game Show Buzzer
3-70 Sweeping The Floor
3-71 Broom Dropped
3-72 Submarine Sonar
3-73 Mantal Clock Clicking
3-74 Many Clocks Ticking
3-75 Cats Meow 3 Types
3-76 Cash Register Ring Up
3-77 Social Gathering Party Crowd
3-78 Tray Of Dishes Dropped
3-79 Zipper Zipped Up
3-80 Zipper Zipped Down
3-81 Dog Many Barks
3-82 Dog Growling And Barking
3-83 Dog Chasing Man And Barking
3-84 Ratchet Tightening Nut
3-85 Wind Chimes
3-86 Door Opening
3-87 Door Closed
3-88 Door Slammed
3-89 Many Party Horns
3-90 Balloon Being Inflated
3-91 Balloon Let Go Flying
3-92 Balloon Popped
3-93 Balloon Popped With Reverberation
3-94 Video Archade Atmosphere
3-95 Opening An Envelope
3-96 Crumpling A Letter And Throwing Away
3-97 Airplane Jet Taking Off
3-98 Airplane Jet Flyby Overhead Right To Left
3-99 Airplane Jet Interior With Cabin Announcements
3-100 Airplane Jet Landing Vers 1

The recent beef had made me obsessed with Kendrick's songs again and understanding why the songs were made and what he wanted to communicate. When it came to Auntie Diaries, I was wondering why he went through dead naming, using the wrong pronouns and even dropping F bombs, but one line stood out to make that point pretty simple:
"Kendrick ain't no room for contradiction, to truly understand love, switch position"
The central theme of the song is empathy, and the story is about how Kendrick learns to empathise. He may have been initially supportive of transgender people around him, but he never truly understood what things they have been going through.
This is why the intro says: "Heart plays in ways the mind can't figure out".
Middle schoolers have no filter and to them it is just a word. However, it still affects queer people like me despite it being a word. People may just make jokes, but to queer people it can be seen as an attack. To Kendrick, he was taught that words were "nothin more than a sound" if the intentions weren't there. However, the heart understands that it represents a normalisation of marginalising queer people. Kendrick, just like most of the other non queer people in this story, were ignorant of that reality.
It all comes to a climax at near the end when Kendrick stand up against the Church, and with the experience of the white girl on stage.
Kendrick questions if we should "love thy neighbour" because the preacher man is contradicting that by attacking his uncle and Mary Ann.
He chose humanity over religion despite quoting the Bible, as a minor critique of modern religious practices (especially in Christianity) being more exclusionary. It became more representative of the ignorance that plagues human virtues, misconstruing the word of God to spread animosity and biases.
Kendrick's message is this: Our humanity is getting contradicted by the biases that come from ignorance. By learning empathy and understanding people, you can alleviate the contradictions and choose humanity over ignorance.

New Flash everyone: the guy who hangs out with Daniel Greene(a pro-fairy rights socialist), is loved by redditors, and got a Hugo award is… woke. Who would have ever seen that coming? But, thanks to Jon Del Arroz making a video about it on May 18th, I am here to repeat the news back to you so there is an easily accessible source as to HOW he’s woke. Everything was revealed back in January 2023, but I want people to understand the implications and narrative that he’s presenting when he says his concerns about fairy rights. By the end of this, you will realize that people calling themselves Christian does not cause them to be immune to wokeness.
In fact, with how Christianity has influenced wokeness into existence, it’s likely a lot of "Christians" are what we can call “first wave wokeness”.
For context, Brandon Sanderson is a Mormon, part of the Latter-Day Saints (LDS). Mormonism is almost exclusively a US issue, and I’ve also noticed that there are a lot of youtubers who tend to be Mormon women(probably because they have other women in the house to do the chores). These people are great with money, big in business, and their church is anti-fairy. A lot of problems the fairy-rights activists have are with Mormon churches, which is strange for Europeans to witness with how open a lot of their churches are, outside of the US. Protestant, evangelical, unitarian, the national church of Denmark, it’s a big list.
But in 2008, Brandon wrote an essay about his Mormon beliefs on how Dumbledore from Harry Potter liked to have wands stirred around in his brown cauldron. His quote:

How does this relate to Dumbledore? I'm not trying to present him as an antagonist or a villain. All I'm saying is that if you believe in the truth of your message, then you shouldn't care if someone decent, respected, and intelligent is depicted as believing differently from yourself. Decent, respected, and intelligent people can be wrong--and you can still respect them. It's okay. That doesn't threaten our points, since we (theoretically) believe that they are eternal and stronger than any argument we could make.

Back in this time, Brandon had only been an author for 3 years, but he won an award for his first published book, Elantris. He was being careful with his words, and his take is considered liberal. He was trying to defend the backlash JK Rowling received for her (poor) choice of virtue signaling and tried to mend this defense with his own religion. Mentioning his religious views is what got him canceled back then, which he later apologized for in 2011:

I cannot be deaf to the pleas of [fairy] couples who want important things, such as hospital visitation rights, shared insurance, and custody rights. At the same time, I accept and sustain the leaders of the LDS church. I believe that a prophet of God has said that widespread legislation to approve [fairy] marriage will bring pain and suffering to all involved.

He was not backing down from his religion yet. His goal post moved to the legal ramifications of the US, which are separate from his church(remember, church and state, supposed to be separate in the US), but he was still saying his religion wanted him to oppose people calling it a marriage and having it in churches. This was a second “cancellation” that didn’t go very far, mostly because he was able to use religion as an excuse for his take, with the Christian Cake Packed With Fudge Scandal not happening yet(2018).
Fast forward to 2023, after he hangs out with a bunch of woke youtubers, and we get a new quote from Brandon:

The church’s first prophet, Joseph Smith, famously taught, “I teach them correct principles and they govern themselves.” My current beliefs are where I’ve arrived on my journey, as I attempt to show the love that Jesus Christ taught. I look forward to seeing further changes in the church, and I work to make sure I am helping from within it to create a place that is welcoming of [fairy] people and ideas. I would love, for example, to see the church recognize [fairy] marriage among its members. Both temporally and eternally. I would support ordaining [tinkerbell] men to the priesthood. (And would support the ordination of women, though that is another issue.)

That’s interesting. It seems like he made a complete 180 on his stance, claims that he’s always believed this new stance, blames Jesus for this new stance, and then doubles down on this new stance by adding female ordination(becoming a priest and higher) and even Tinkerbells. As time went on, he decided that his religion was totally wrong about fairies, and this 13 year difference means way more than the nearly 200 years Mormonism has been around. I believe a fellow Mormon, Shadversity, would love to have a discussion about how any of this makes sense, but I’m starting to feel that he’s the same way. Who knows if Ethan Van Sciver understands Mormonism as well as Brandon Sanderson does, with how easy it is to manipulate prophecies and reinterpret scripture.
But that’s been the point for a while, right?
Wokeness is here to restructure both historical evidence and even religions, in order to shift cultures and social institutions to obey this progressive change. Words are changed in the dictionary, social “norms” are changed to be updated for a “modern audience”, and postmodernists like Foucault were able to trick college kids into thinking the Greeks were all pixie fairies. Once a critical theorist gets their hands on something with power, their goal is not to keep it as it is. It is to keep it for themselves. This is why you will hear these people say everything is subjective, which is secret code for “Look at me: I’m the captain of reality now.”
But wait, it gets better! Brandon Sanderson continued with:

Back in 2007, I was mostly known only in my community, not to the world at large. The essay, then, was directed at my local community, and was more controversial among them (for being too liberal) than it was controversial to the world at large for being [fairy]phobic. That might surprise you, if you’ve read the excerpts that often float around the internet. This was mostly me trying to encourage other members of the church to be more open and welcoming of [fairy] characters and ideas.
That said, the essay does display the casual bigotry common to people who (like myself) have lived lives where we haven’t had to deal with some of the issues common to the lives of people suffering discrimination. Many of the assertions (such as my view on [fairy] marriage) do not reflect my current stance. After writing it, and interacting with those who found it objectionable–even painful–I came to understand them and their experiences better. Though they did not owe me that honor, they gave it freely.

You see, he's honored to hear about the life of a bug chaser.
Brandon cares deeply about the pain he caused to his wallet… I mean the fairies who saw his essay. He was an award winning author back then, he didn’t know it would be a global thing. It was supposed to be only seen by people in Utah, that’s it. This is what we call: bullshit. The woke rely heavily on gaslighting and pretending they’re ignorant of everything, while telling others that they need to learn and understand EVERYTHING about a subject before they are even able to mention it.
He was already big on reddit, he knew all about his fandom, and he knew about his publisher, Tor. The only thing that really changed is that now he is unable to stick to being liberal and he has to present himself as progressive. Why? Well, the new Amazon deal happened recently, and he’s the writer of the series The Wheel of Time. As if Rings of Power wasn’t evidence enough of how Amazon mistreats their properties, Brandon was forced to erase his own past, like Agent J in Men in Black, burning his own hands in the process.
I’m not surprised that he’s woke or even that Christians are falling to this woke inquisition. When I said first wave wokeness, I would like to clarify why it’s the catalyst for all of this stupidity. Wokeness is not of Christian values, but instead a parasite upon Christianity, in the same way Gnosticism and Satanism would be. When Christianity started to allow new sects, and a lot of these were considered valid, the crazy sex cults of the 60s opened the floodgates for a bunch of crazy reinterpretations. It’s the same way as how there are still circles of Christianity that go for flat earth theory or say that dinosaurs don’t exist, with these people usually at the forefront of the home-schooling movement.
It’s not that home-schooling is bad by itself, it’s that bad people use it to then have the good people using it be wrongfully grouped into the same area, in the same way gun-ownership does. This type of bastardization has always been a problem in the US, due to the lack of authority over what makes something categorized as such a thing, thanks to liberalism allowing the freedom to constantly change things. As time went on, this liberalism changed into progressivism, with the key difference being that liberalism is an allowance of change while progressivism is an enforced change. The liberalism of the 1800s allowed the Confederates to claim Christianity approved of their enslavement of black people, by blaming the story of Ham and using scripture to claim it was okay to enslave certain people for generations. We always see this strange cherry-picking of scripture from fake Christians, and this problem has expanded into the Vatican itself with the current and following generations of Popes.
A lot of times, we’ll hear news about how Christians are under attack, a bakery is targeted to expose discrimination, or even where people claim they were banned from twitch for being Christian. But what they get wrong is that they are in the same circle as liberal and progressive Christianity, their openness created this weakness to tourism, and most Christian circles have been taken over in the US since before the 60s. The south has a culture of being liberal, Mormons have a culture of being liberal, protestants are very liberal, all because the US began as a liberal culture in the form of classical liberalism. The libertarian argument is always used by these liberal groups, that changes into the progressive enforcement, and over the years these liberal people get infected by the virus.
Add money to the mix, and we have ourselves an endless chain of liberal minded people falling to wokeness. The “redemption” narrative, along with original sin, from Christianity is currently its main weakness. The appeal to ignorance is another weakness, with people playing skeptic as a snake slithers through the grass. Christianity isn’t the problem by itself, it’s the naivety that comes from blind faith, which then expands into a contradictory blind faith that people are good inside, only to later wonder why everything is changing for the worse when evil people are put in charge. Fantasy stories have been under attack by the woke for quite a while, long before they tried to appropriate Tolkien with Rings of Power.
The fantasy that is controlled by the woke is an extension to their attack on religion, because to them a fantasy story is no different than a bible. Mythological presentation, symbolic themes, a dream-like world to present morals to follow; the entire thing has been used by Brandon to then have him later claim that he’s always had fairy characters since the beginning. Sure, his religion says fairies are bad, but then he virtue signals by claiming he’s always made fiction about how they’re good. He would never say this if the publishing world made sense and if publishers were the way they were in the 1950s. That is because he would never have to choose between religion and money back then, with money always mattering more to the typical materialist.
I’m sure people will say that I’m being hard on Christians, or that I’m evil for saying this, or even that I am a satanist for noticing. These people would only be angry at the truth being said, which is the opposite of what Christianity teaches. Fantasy writers, like Brandon, have a lot of supporters, with this support merging between the woke and Mormons. So many feel that they need to make sense of their fandom, so they claim their religion is wokeness, converting it into blind Satanism. This is far from the truth and we need to condemn those who focus solely on radical subjectivity.
Especially if they blame God for their stupid takes, like how Brandon does now.