It's (nearly) The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year!

Isn't autumn beautiful?

Is Our Christianity Too Victorian?

A thought-provoking post by VD:

Christianity isn't etiquette

What We Did Yesterday

We tried this out:

The end result was quite good:) Anyway, it's a much better way to spend your evening than sitting in front of a TV.

Speaking Of Pirates

They are coming back apparently. Or, at least, their ships:

The owners of Fairtransport were inspired to revive sail cargo after witnessing at first hand the yellow smog caused by commercial vessels. They restored two ships, a 70-year-old minesweeper renamed the Tres Hombres and a wooden ketch called Nordlys that dates back to 1873.
Templeman arranged to board the Tres Hombres, sailing from the Azores to the Netherlands. “I was watching the ocean and it came like a ghost ship through the dawn mist. It looked like a pirate vessel. I was so excited.”

All in the name of sustainability, of course:) Well, this is one climate initiative which I don't mind:)

H/t to Wrath Of Gnon

Vikings Weren't S*xually Progressive

You don't tell me! TV shows are full of lies and propaganda??? Who would have thought...

More On Shills

I think I created a bit of confusion with my previous post on this topic, so I thought I'd try to better explain what I mean. In my opinion, a shill is someone fundamentally dishonest who creates a fake internet persona to sell you some product or ideology. I'll give you a couple of examples which (please keep it in mind) are pure fictional in nature.

Imagine somebody starts a blog saying they are a Christian homeschooling mother of 4 and will share their daily life with you. The target audience of this blog will be obviously women in a similar situation (Christian, homeschooling etc). The blog is quite successful and after a couple of months has a certain number of readers. Then the supposed blog owner starts telling you that though her life is hectic at times, there is a certain brand of supplements which helps her to pull through and that they are produced by a Christian company and if you buy them, you'll help all Christians and homeschoolers out there.

Then later you find out the supposed lady was a single guy in his twenties who sells supplements online.

Now imagine that by some reason, I hate Christian homeschoolers and want to give them a bad name so I set up a blog calling myself a Christian homeschooling mom from Arizona and will expressly state that my blog exists  to support and promote homeschooling and then I'll proceed with publishing  stories which will be ever so slightly over the top, portraying my imaginary family as rather dysfunctional and unpleasant, with spoilt kids, borderline abusive husband etc etc. A normal person will read it and think that home educators are crazy and should be avoided at all costs. So my objective of discrediting the homeschooling movement will be achieved.

There is a difference between a shill and someone who is convicted about a certain issue. There are plenty of Christians who will belong to a certain church and think it's the best. Some will even go so far as to state all others are heretics. They may be misguided in some things but they are sincere and moved by the desire to warn others and to promote their own church/community. They will tell you to join this or that religious group because it's the closest to the Scriptures.

A shill, on the other hand, would pretend to be a sincere Christian and then go around bashing all existing churches, communities and preachers without pointing you to any healthy alternatives as to leave you in the state of despair. (Or sometimes they will point to themselves as the only ones in the possession of some truth which will save you. In this case, it may be not really  a shill but simply someone who is very full of themselves and likes cult-like following. ). You see, he's pretending to be one of you and to help, but in reality, such a person is something totally different.

It's much easier to do online due to the relative anonymity of the internet, so it's always a good idea to practise some discernment:)

Climate Activists Aren't That Popular These Days

Check this tweet:

Upper middle class comes into contact with men who actually have to work for their living:)

How To Recognise A Shill

I guess by now we are all aware of "fake news" and what it means. Most people will associate the term with MSM and turn to the alternative news sources, such as the internet. Yet, here another danger lurks: fake persons, aka shills, who may present dangers of their own, especially if they are in the business of giving advice, outside of the sort which is general in nature. I'll give you one example of what I mean. Apparently, there used to exist a site which published erotic fiction supposedly written by a housewife and yet later, it turned out to be a man.

So how to recognise a fake? I guess if someone desires to create a fake persona online we don't really have a way to be 100% sure unless they get doxxed or self-doxx by some reason, yet, imo, there are certain signs which can betray them and their intentions. When in doubt, follow your gut feeling and stay on the safe side!

Personally I distrust everyone who will give online counselling, unless it's something general like "exercise and eat well", especially if they will go into detail discussing someone's personal situation, family conflicts, etc. Another category is the type who will always try to sell you something. It's one thing to be an affiliate and link to a product you like but it's quite another thing when someone obsessively pushes you to buy his brand of vitamins/supplements "because that's the only thing that works!"

Then you have conspiracy theorists. Sometimes they are onto something and may be even right about many things, but there is a type who will tell you that everything around you is fake and that you yourself probably don't exist, either. Generally, when the internet persona tells you that he or she alone is in the possession of (some) truth and everybody else is a shill, they are possibly a shill themselves:)

There are also fake Christians out there, which are probably the worst of all since they can promote false doctrine and that is much worse than wasting money on vitamins (which are probably harmless  anyway and can even do you good). And here is an idea of mine: I may be wrong, but personally I don't trust anyone who will tell you one thing and promote another. You can't be a Bible following Christian and defend things like p0rn, for instance. You can't say that you are all for traditional family and then discourage marriage, whether directly or indirectly. You can't say that you support Biblical gender roles and then say it OK for married women to work.

I also find it rather strange when I see churches being attacked. Yes, churches aren't ideal. We aren't ideal, either. It may be that in the area where you live there is not one decent church left. It could be probably better in some situations for some people to worship at home. But to blatantly say that ALL the churches are bad and corrupted and you can only find the truth on someone's web page is a sign of a cult mentality.

If you have real life problems, please try to solve them by interacting with real life people, and not by joining an internet personality cult!

If you have any ideas, please feel free to share!

The Autumn Garden

Some pictures from last week:

It's mild for the time of the years but it has been raining every day for like 4 weeks:)

How's your weather?