Down Syndrome Babies Like My Little Sister-In-Law Are Not Defects To Eliminate
The tragedy is not Valentina's life with Down syndrome; the tragedy would have been never letting her live it.The tragedy is not Valentina's life with Down syndrome; the tragedy would have been never letting her live it.
Ain’t no scam: Bitcoin fixes the looming AI oversight fiasco
Welcome, America, to the Thunderdome of AI oversight.
President Trump has dropped his executive order, putting the onus on the federal government’s most secretive agencies to determine whether the products of private corporations are safe for public consumption. The National Security Agency is at the heart of the plan, with the intelligence community setting classified benchmarks, vetting, and gatekeeping new AI models within a 30-day window. Private-sector institutions and stakeholders, including AI companies themselves, must sit and wait, blind, for decisions to be handed down.
It can’t be said that this decision is strongly supported by conservatives, the “based community,” or even MAGA people more narrowly. The personal, private bid by former White House AI and crypto chief David Sacks to stop the Trump train on AI resulted only in a delay and a narrowing of the oversight window. On X, Sacks had to resort to emphasizing the things the order doesn’t do that he and the accelerationist wing of the right oppose.
Is there anything we can tell these machines to do that doesn’t tend to demote us as human beings?
That means even Trump’s inner circle will keep on duking it out among themselves.
Congress is wrestling with OpenAI’s approach, which relies on (deep breath) the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Center for AI Standards and Innovation. In short, the idea is that oversight and testing should be carried out under the aegis of established and respected bodies that bridge government and industry through public-private partnerships. This approach allows AI companies themselves, plus other stakeholders and experts outside the intelligence community, to have a participatory role in testing and oversight of new models.
Yet Congress is sharply divided, and the upcoming midterm elections could alter the balance of power. Competing bills are already in the mix on Capitol Hill, with the leading piece of draft legislation, the bipartisan American Leadership in AI Act, hinging on outcomes in the rat’s nest of congressional politics — ranging from Louisiana Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson’s unwillingness to reauthorize the House AI Task Force to rank-and-file Democrats’ unfavorable disposition toward the draft bill.
Can both houses of Congress come to an agreement on AI model development as well as testing? One that Trump won’t veto? Probably not, but with anti-AI sentiment running hotter and hotter across the populist (and opportunist) wings of both parties, principled members and ambitious members alike are all but guaranteed to shoot their shot before November.
That means Americans won’t be looking to their elected representatives for clarity on AI.
RELATED: Why dystopian AI doomers need to get religion
And Pope Leo XIV, of course, has his landmark encyclical out there, insisting — along with many other Christians — that no law or regulation or basket of rules is enough to enable anyone, even the United States government, to get the kind of grip on AI that will ensure our sacred human being is no worse for wear.
But there’s no indication that America’s Christians, much less the world’s, are poised to throw down their doctrinal and ecclesiological differences and line up shoulder to shoulder with the pope’s presentation of things — or with the pope as a singular planetary spiritual authority on all matters AI and tech.
That means neither our leading political power players nor our leading spiritual authority figures will give Americans the kind of overall guidance they increasingly seem to crave.
Perhaps, however, we should all recognize that’s actually for the best, because the essence of the problem concerning AI is its risk, not of wiping out the human race, but of emptying the human race of all power and authority except for a tiny cyborg elite, one hell-bent on remaking all God’s creation, every single one of us included, in their monomaniacal image.
Paradoxically, responding to this risk by maximizing tech hate and consolidating all tech hatred into as tiny and powerful an elite as possible dramatically increases the risk of both wiping out the human race and deepening the would-be cyborg elite’s conviction that if they don’t achieve a radical and irreversible break with all to ever come before them, then they’ll meet a fate worse than death.
Back on our feet and back in charge
Given the dangers of over-centralized AI oversight on one hand and a regulatory war of all against all on the other, now is a good time to ask whether Bitcoin can offer ordinary people a more balanced, distributed, and practical path forward.
For all the noise and blather in the fractured crypto world, the case for Bitcoin in the AI age is simple: If we are not going to dismantle these machines — and if people will keep building more powerful ones — can we direct them toward anything that preserves rather than diminishes our human dignity?
The answer is obviously yes, but the combination of massive fear over techno-dystopia and massive resistance to “organized religion” leads many to paint themselves into a paralyzing psychological corner where no answer seems plausible or effective.
That’s a shame. Bitcoin is sitting right there, an advanced, mature technology that allows people with a minimum of new information or expertise to start creating and growing markets and institutions that benefit and protect themselves and their friends, families, and parishes, without having to rely on superintelligent machines or government financial systems.
Given that superintelligent machines and government financial systems have a clear logical and practical tendency to converge, becoming one system very well suited to enforcing a single, uniform, and servile existence worldwide, it would seem fairly urgent for people to consider the benefits of taking a few steps outside their zone of comfort or self-disempowerment and start to use Bitcoin at least a little with those they care about most.
That’s why I continue to offer my book on our tech reckoning, "Human Forever," only in Bitcoin. Piling up the digital currency and waiting for Nirvana just isn’t going to cut it, whether we face a societal collapse scenario, an age of mandatory pleasure and plenty, or a mutant future that somehow combines both into one waking phantasmagoria. Using Bitcoin needs to happen well beyond the realm of books, obviously. But being a writer, well — I’m putting my money where my mouth is.
Is it enough to solve all our problems, with our machines and with one another? Obviously, again, no. But it just might fix our attention on how we can preserve human ways of life that open the way not just to solutions, but to salvation.
Mind the gap: How the London Underground's simple warning can help us find our way to heaven
"Mind the gap."
British trains broadcast this recorded warning to passengers about to board, reminding them to avoid stumbling into the space between the station platform and the train.
The Bible explains how this one act of sacrificial love built a beautiful bridge over that infinitely large gap between you and your Creator.
But there’s a much bigger gap — a bottomless chasm of a gap — that we also desperately need to mind.
It’s the gap between us and the wholly holy God who made us.
I know. You don’t believe in a “sky daddy.” Or you do, but you prefer to avoid thinking about the ramifications of being a creation and not the Creator.
Either way, you know that you’re broken. Perhaps you rationalize your unhappiness by telling yourself the fiction that we are all just random bits of tissue, evolved from primordial ooze.
But telling yourself there is no meaning to life does not mean there is no meaning to life. You’ve just not grasped it yet.
And you can’t. Not on your own.
But again, that doesn’t mean the answers are not there. You’re just reluctant to look in the right place.
The answer you don’t want to hear
Yep, it’s the Bible. The beautiful story of who created you, and what He created you for.
Of course, you could start by just looking around — at the magnificent beauty in the world, at the unfathomable greatness of the cosmos, of the meticulously designed intricacies of the human body, of the irreducible complexity of the tiniest organism — and ask yourself honestly, is this really all random?
The people who insist that is the case are the most effective gaslighters in history. Because you’re being gaslit when someone tells you to ignore what you can plainly see with your own eyes.
And when you open your eyes to that, you have to wrestle with the existence of a Creator. And that’s when you should consider opening that Bible.
It explains how a loving, wholly holy God created people, not robots. They were and are free to choose. The first people chose wrong. Like we all would have, had we been the first. God was not surprised by this. After all, He’s God. He had a plan all along.
Why did He choose to do it this way? I don’t know. I’m not God. Neither are you.
But as He is holy and perfect and we are not, doing wrong put a permanent, uncrossable, gaping chasm between Him, the holy, and us, the unholy. We don’t have a way to reach Him.
And yet — He created us to be in relationship with Him. That’s a longing we all have, to be in relationship with our Creator, but we stifle it or tell ourselves it’s nonsense until we can’t even hear the little voice that tried to point us in the right direction.
The good news ...
And now we come to the good news, or gospel (which literally means "good news" in Greek). This part is in the Bible too, as it was, as I said, God’s plan all along.
Jesus, who is God, came to Earth. He allowed Himself to be crucified. And He rose again, as was witnessed by hundreds of people. He is alive now. He is still God.
The Bible explains how this one act of sacrificial love built a beautiful bridge over that infinitely large gap between you and your Creator. Your broken relationship with God has been permanently repaired.
So all that’s required to mind the gap is to access that beautiful bridge.
And that’s really quite simple. The Bible shows us the path, countless times.
In Acts 16, we’re told that the authorities had jailed the apostle Paul and his companion Silas for preaching that gospel, and God miraculously caused an earthquake to break open the jail doors and unshackle the prisoners. The jailer awoke, saw the open prison doors, and drew a sword to kill himself, believing his two prisoners had escaped. But Paul yelled to him that they were still there. The jailer rushed in: “And trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas, and after he brought them out, he said, 'Sirs, what must I do to be saved?' And they said, 'Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved'” (Act 16:29-31).
Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved. That’s it. Faith in Jesus as Lord means you are saved from eternal separation from the Creator (hell) and rightly aligns you as who you were created to be.
Simple, but rich with meaning. Note the language. We are to believe in the Lord Jesus.
... and how to take it
Consider also (boldface mine):
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gracious gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).
"If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, leading to righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, leading to salvation” (Romans 10:9-10).
Many beliefs move a person closer to God. Acknowledging that there IS a God is a start. So is acknowledging that Jesus lived, died, and even rose again. But you can intellectually come to believe the second part of that passage (believe God raised Him from the dead) without confessing Jesus as Lord — because if someone is your Lord, by definition you submit to Him.
Make no mistake, God is already in authority over you. But He doesn’t force anyone to submit to Him. As James points out, even the demons know that Jesus is God, but they don’t willingly submit to Him (James 2:19). You have been granted the same freedom to reject Him as Lord and be your own god.
Millions choose that path. But the fact is, there is only one bridge to God — that bridge forged by Christ’s loving sacrifice on the cross.
RELATED: 7 ways to know if you're saved
Only one way
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
“Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through Me'” (John 14:6).
“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is narrow and the way is constricted that leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matthew 7:13-14).
Don’t be misled. Any path that doesn’t involve walking over this bridge will not mind the gap. It is instead a path that will leave you without God for eternity.
It’s so easy to take a wrong turn. That’s why the gospel is such good news, that fulfills every need you have with a plethora of blessings.
What prizes await
When you accept the free gift offered through faith in the Lord Jesus, His grace transforms you.
And that moment of transformation is YOUR life’s pivot point. Kind of like the best Christmas morning you could ever have, because all at once you get to unwrap all these gifts:
- The gift of faith, as we are granted the ability to believe the truth.
- The gift of repentance, as we begin the pivot away from our old life (aka, begin to sin less).
- The gift of justification, which means our accounts are settled with God. The price has been paid for every sin we have ever committed or will commit. Paid in full. Done. (Spoiler: Christians will still sin. See “sanctification” below.)
- The gift of salvation, as we are welcomed into His eternal family and rescued from the domain of darkness. We are now His children.
- The gift of relationship, as we are granted personal, unquestioned access to the God of the universe (in the Old Testament, only the high priest could access the “Holy of Holies” aka God; now we all can, as we are welcome to pray at any time).
- The gift of the Holy Spirit within you. God comes to live in you.
- The gift of sanctification, which means we will grow more and more like Him as we learn more and more of Him through His word. And the more we are like Him, the more we will burn with a desire to do for Him whatever He has gifted and called us to do. We are invited to come alongside Him and build His kingdom, which is the greatest adventure any of us could undertake.
So now you know how to access the bridge that will mind the gap, once and for all.
Whether you take that path is the most important decision of your life. God will not force you into His presence. But in His love, He has provided a simple choice you can make to live with your Creator now and for eternity.
If you choose wrong ... mind the gap, my friend.
Henry Nowak’s Murder Is Much Worse Than Just Anti-White Racism
The forces driving Third-World immigration into the West don’t care about skin color nearly as much as they care about destroying the Christian foundation of modern society.‘Backrooms’ is horror for a self-justifying age
“Backrooms” came out of internet lore to take down “The Mandalorian.” Perhaps audiences are turning on Disney. The film is now a smash hit theatrical release, but its story began online, where it grew from a 2019 4chan image and creepypasta into one of the most recognizable examples of liminal horror: familiar spaces that somehow make no sense.
The idea began on 4chan’s paranormal board, where a discussion about “disquieting spaces that just feel off” led to a user defining the Backrooms as spaces where you “noclip” out of reality. The term comes from video games, where a player slips outside the designed bounds of the game into unintended space. The Backrooms are marked by yellow wallpaper, buzzing lights, and seemingly infinite rooms.
‘Backrooms’ asks a question more terrifying than anything hiding under the fluorescent lights: What are you doing with your guilt?
These spaces are liminal, meaning they should function as transitions. Hallways, corridors, and waiting rooms are meant to have an entry point and a destination. What makes the Backrooms terrifying is that they do not go anywhere. The hallway has no destination. That is not merely inconvenient. It is a picture of purpose removed.
The movement, then, runs from liminal horror to cosmic horror. Liminal horror unsettles us because a familiar space no longer performs its purpose. Cosmic horror goes further. It asks whether all of reality is like that. The terror is not merely that something bad may happen inside reality. The terror is that reality itself may not make sense.
On the surface, life seems familiar and coherent. But as we move through it, life often becomes stranger and harder to explain. It does not turn out as we hoped. Our efforts fail. Our goals recede. Our explanations collapse. That is the fear beneath the fluorescent lights: not monsters, but meaninglessness.
We assume reality can be understood. When failure comes, we think we need more information, more self-help, more discipline, or a better method. Then we try again. We expect success. But we fail again. The failures accumulate. And life gets shorter.
That makes this horror different from a standard slasher or zombie film. In those stories, the threat is physical and animal-like. You cannot reason with the monster. You simply have to survive it. Cosmic horror raises the stakes. It asks: What if rationality is not built into reality at all? What if reason is merely man’s frantic attempt to impose order on chaos?
Clark, the film’s protagonist, embodies that question. He enters the Backrooms already looking for an explanation that will let him escape responsibility. His failures have left him with a ruined marriage and a failed career. He wants to be told that none of this is his fault. He refuses to see his obvious flaws as the cause of what happened to him. That makes him a perfect fit for the irrationality of the Backrooms.
Guilt is the bridge between the film’s horror and its spiritual meaning. Clark does not simply want to survive the Backrooms. He wants the Backrooms to explain him. He wants the maze to tell him that his failures were not really his fault.
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In that sense, the Backrooms can be read as an image of the unconscious mind. As in a dream, things feel familiar but not quite right. The spaces are recognizable and impossible at the same time. Clark searches there for something that will excuse him, but he cannot find anything intelligible. He wants the maze to justify him. Instead, it exposes him. He is trapped in the Backrooms because he is already trapped inside himself.
Director Kane Parsons has said the Backrooms are not purgatory or hell. In a literal sense, he is right. They are not presented as divine judgment according to a moral order. But that is exactly why they work as an image of a different terror: existence without moral order at all.
Christianity gives a name to this terror. It is life severed from the God who made reality intelligible. Hell is terrifying not merely because of punishment, but because those in hell have cut off communion with God the Creator. God made the world with wisdom. The world makes sense because God created it and gave man a rational soul by which to understand his creation.
When human beings reject God, they cut themselves off from the source of rationality and meaning. They then try to create their own smaller rationalities and meanings. All of them collapse because human beings cannot be God.
The person who has lost communion with God occupies a dreadful liminal space. He senses that he was created for a purpose, but he can no longer grasp that purpose. Reality feels familiar, but something is wrong. It has become unintelligible.
To be handed over to final meaninglessness while still possessing a mind that longs to understand is the greatest terror imaginable. You cannot understand reality. You cannot understand yourself. All lesser terrors frighten us because they echo this one.
One word often used to describe the Backrooms and their occupants is “deformity.” That’s key. Deformity is the attempted creation of someone who cannot create rightly. It is Lucifer’s counterfeit of what God made, and it turns out wrong. When man follows Lucifer by believing he can be his own god, he ends up in the Backrooms of his own unintelligible mind.
God created through the Logos. Lucifer deforms creation through the anti-Logos.
RELATED: When ‘be nice’ becomes the whole ethic, we’re in trouble
The movement of the film is clear: A man burdened by guilt enters a world without meaning, seeks self-justification, and is destroyed by the irrationality he hoped would excuse him. That gives us good reason to consider our own guilt before God. Clark is gripped by guilt, but his solution is self-justification. He deceives himself about his failures and wants others to join the deception.
If we do not deal with guilt by turning in repentance to God through Christ, we are left with the same self-deception and the same liminal space of meaninglessness.
The Christian answer is not self-justification but repentance and reconciliation. In Christ, guilt is not hidden in a maze, explained away by trauma, or dissolved into meaninglessness. It is forgiven. Communion with God is restored. Reality becomes intelligible again because we are reconciled to the One who made it.
In the end, “Backrooms” asks a question more terrifying than anything hiding under the fluorescent lights: What are you doing with your guilt?
Viral ‘alien disclosure’ panic sweeping Christian social media just ‘smoke and mirrors,’ Bible teacher warns
A viral “alien disclosure” scandal has been rocking Christian circles after a group of charismatic pastors claimed the government held a secret meeting warning religious leaders about impending UFO revelations involving a fake rapture and a massive deception.
“There’s groups of people meeting to talk about their beliefs about aliens or the government, that’s not new at all. That’s been going on for quite a long time. But the idea that government officials were there and that they were informing these pastors so that the pastors could help the people because the government was about to tell us stuff that was so wild,” Bible teacher Mike Winger tells BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey.
“They absolutely misled the people into thinking that they had some sort of government-approved inside information, and it was just smoke and mirrors, the whole thing,” he explains.
However, they were actually just meeting with “private Christians who they say are intelligence operators.”
“They like to use that phrase, but they don’t actually work for any government agency or any sort of government at all,” he says.
Rather, these Christians actually just have “theories based upon publicly accessible information.”
“It’s all been declassified info for years. And they just go and they try to put it together in a way that they think tells a story that they believe is true. And the story they believe is true, interestingly enough, is that the government’s going to affirm aliens do exist,” Winger says.
“And they’re going to couple this with propaganda from the government itself to say Christianity is false,” he says, noting that one man in attendance claimed that “there will soon be an alien in the sky who will be a false Jesus, and there’ll be a false rapture event, and they’re going to use this to deceive Christians around the world.”
“These are kooks. These men are kooks,” he continues.
“They try to position themselves as ‘the government has informed us of what’s really coming guys, you need to listen to us, we will be your guides, we’ll be your thought leaders through this turbulent time of disclosure,'” he explains.
“And I was like, this is going to hurt a lot of people,” he continues, adding, “They should not be our thought leaders.”
Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?
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