From cd9ab29bf27c8e74f85d5158c4dbf15f86e24b63 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Ambrose Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2026 01:17:20 -0400 Subject: Copied religion post over from old website --- articles/religion.html | 126 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 126 insertions(+) create mode 100644 articles/religion.html diff --git a/articles/religion.html b/articles/religion.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dab703e --- /dev/null +++ b/articles/religion.html @@ -0,0 +1,126 @@ + + + + + + + + Ambrose's Personal Webpage + + + + + + +

Religion

+ + +

+ +

+ + + + + Note on Mar., 19, 2026:
+ I have recently redesigned my website from the ground up, and that + includes moving away from PHP and embedded javascript footnotes. So + please forgive any encoding errors or etc., when reading this article. +
+

Dec., 30, 2025

+I am a recently baptised Orthodox Christian. After a few years of searching, I +have found my home in the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic, Orthodox Church.
+My religious background is surprising not very eventful, I was raised pretty +secular; As most Americans are raised now, we still had the ghosts of Western +Christian culture, we had Christmas, Easter, and St. Patrick's day. But on +those holy days we didn't celebrate what they were originally created +for. But rather their secular corporate rebranding.
+On Easter (Pascha), it was not about the resurrection of Jesus Christ, +his defeating of death by death,The Paschal +Sermon, Saint John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople. https://www.oca.org/fs/sermons/the-paschal-sermon. +nor passover. But rather candy, and an egg-hunt, not saying that those things +were or are bad, but I didn't even +really know what Easter was or why we celebrated it.
+Same for St. Patrick's day, but Christmas was always a little bit different. It +was still mostly about Santa Claus and getting / giving gifts, but I think one +due to the name "Christ-mas", and the person of St. Nickolas, there was +still a Christian element to it. Even modern Christmas music still speaks of +the Christ-child and the Virgin Mary.
+But, I still didn't know really what the religion of Christianity believed; +Religion wasn't something spoken much about in my house, I did learn the +very-very basics of the world faiths, I learnt of Judaism and their holiday +(Holy-day) Hanukkah, along with the far-eastern religions of Hinduism +and Buddhism, as well as Greco-Roman paganism.
+But I was brought up with nothing, however that works... But in my early +teens, I became more interested in religious discussion, but ironically, it +lead me towards Atheism and then Antireligion-ism Also known as "New Atheism". +which now looking back, it's very sad yet comical to have your belief system be +defined as being +an anti anything, it is like being a spiritual reactionary.
+That was all during the COVID-19 lockdowns, and I basically realised that by +practising what I preached de facto Nihilism, I was just wasting my +short life doing nothing for no reward, and I wasn't happy doing it.
+I, like many others were kinda stuck in the Western paradigm of either being +Protestant or Roman Catholic. So when I started my journey into properly +researching Christianity, I first went the protestant route, (mainly due to +issues I had with the papal claims), I picked up an NIV which was gifted to +my father by my grandfather. +I am quite critical of the NIV now, but I do think it is +good for teens and pre-teens, or people with a lower reading level, with proper +guidance of course. +I read the Gospel of Matthew, Revelation, and the first section of Exodus. And +alongside a more scholarly look into things, via online documentaries, I didn't get a +perfect understanding, but a much better one than I had before of the Christian +faith.
+After attending a quite low-church evangelical church that some of my family +also attended, I knew something was missing, I could tell there was something +unique about the Christian faith compared to the rest of the world religions, +but modern, Western Christianity felt dead, and a shell of what I knew what the +Christian faith truly was.
+ +And around that time, I was starting to hear of another branch of Christianity +that was neither Catholicism nor Protestantism, Eastern Orthodoxy! I +actually passed an Orthodox almost weekly my whole life, but I never really +gave it thought when I first started looking into Christianity.
+But after giving it a good solid look, listening to Orthodox and non-Orthodox +alike, explaining their belief, right then and there, I knew it was the true +Church. I couldn't properly put it into words at the time, but I could see it +had everything good that I liked about Roman Catholicism, but without any of +the errors I saw in Rome either.
+ +I couldn't properly put it into words at the time, but I could see it +had everything good that I liked about Roman Catholicism, but without any of +the errors I saw in Rome either. +

+ +That was about two years ago now, and I am finally a member of Christ's Holy +body, I have learnt and changed so much from those two years, and I have to +say, most of it wouldn't be without the Orthodox Church. I am so thankful for +my priest, my godfather, my patron saint Ambrose of Milan, the Theotokos, and +Jesus Christ, for I don't know where I would be without them.

+ +-- Ambrose. +

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