What is even happening with the Trad communities on the internet

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I’m sure you are all aware of the recent past of /rel/, the downward spiral of autism, absolute garbage tier shitposting and race bating that lead nowhere. Eventually shadowbans and the great passing of /rel/. Now i am no stranger to internet autism, being in online communities for most of my life. But there is a certain uneasiness i have been feeling, not just with /rel/, but with pretty much any trad online group I’ve come across. A sort of dark wind from the wayside that has been troubling my journey as a follower of Christ. And it has been a creeping source of despair in my heart.

So this all started around early to mid 2017, when I have began my catechists as an EO christian. I have been listening to common filth for some time and managed to grab a discord link early on. At first I thought “man, this guy is so based! Fuk fgts & bugmen!” And while i am glad for CF for opening my eyes to the horrors of the LGBT movement, there was a distinct lack of hope when he preaches about Christ. As if he was still sucked up in the vanity of the world, he’s just busy bitching about it instead of trying to reach transcendence. And the rest of the fandom seem to just spiral around the filth of the world again and again ad nauseum. I found it spiritually deafening and quickly moved on.

/rel/ when I first moved in was a very quirky and esoteric in their expression of “brothers in Christ”. But, I grew to only understand the madness, but to love it. It was a place where i can learn Christianity from a group of people who spoke my language. From /rel/ I was able to discover other groups, namely Earldom of Gray and OMS. OMS, while a couple of good posts are made here and there, is 99% “lel dumb catlick” memes. Earldom is interesting because it had a similar track record of change as /rel/: first was pretty based, but then more and more /pol/ack tier crap came through. And again, way too much degeneracy posting.

Now, I know we can’t escape the degeneracy of our time. This must be discusses with the fervor that Christ call us to have. But when i try to flip through these pages and groups, it deadens my soul rather than inflame it. I guess you would call it second hand black pilling.

Its times like these that I wish i had just a local clique of trad friends to hang out with offline; a place to about the local and the particular. Sadly, my local congregation is mostly middle aged people.

I am mostly just venting and I am probably talking utter crap, but has anyone else here been feeling, i don’t know, frustrated? Frustrated at our options online?

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I feel ya, fam. I sometimes considered leaving rel after 90% of all posts became either race baiting or “hurrrrr look at this bad thing I found from some normie newspaper that I pollute my mind with durrrrrrr”.

Hopefully this site will have a much greater focus on Christ and gain popularity. I think that non-fb forums are suited better for this purpose tbh, and eventually will unite apostolic Christians better than faceberg ever could

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I agree. I recently hope LG takes root and outlive /rel/ and trad groups on FB. Because let’s be honest, fb is socially designed to segment people and bubble them in islands of media trash. Be it degeneracy or just normie their shit.

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I think the big thing here is the old adage “If you are going to sup with the Devil, use a long spoon”, a lesson that many forget to take into account.
Further, the focus some make in shitposting to get the message across is unhealthy and does not breed any good discussion habits, in fact, it soon takes over from the discussing and replaces arguments completely. You will find that many shitposters in /rel/ used to be good debaters, but have since let those skills deteriorate through disuse and now only post a premise and support it with “hurr durr, u r mom gay cuck” memes.

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The shitposting can be good in moderation, and it’s sometimes good to let off steam, but it needs, like all things, careful practise and use to ensure it does not take over.

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That is a very good point. And a very pertinent quote at that. People often forget that the vast majority of bishops and saints talked very little about degeneracy and the works of the Devil. And when they do, they often “watch their step” while in these thoughts and try to quickly pull back everything to Christ.

And for good reason, when we shake our fist in the dark for too long, we end up spending as much time as those who embrace the dark. We ought instead spend our spiritual energy trying to turn to the light of God’s grace. Yes we ought to fight Satan at every turn, but ultimately this isn’t our fight to win, it’s Christ’s.

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“when I have began my catechists as an EO christian” - I found your problem.
I don’t mean that in a snarky way either, the problem is that simply put; Most of the American Orthodox Christians involved with the Traditionalist movement are converted Protestants, who tend to be more concerned with the worldly conditions as it is, and local nationalists who often put the good of the nation and the Church at the same level. This makes sense because for the Orthodox Church, the nation is at that same level because the Church exists and operates on the national level. There’s more to be invested in the condition of your country, namely the physical secular realities of your country, if your Church is organized only in that one country and if your highest religious authority is that of the Patriarch of your country. This is the reason why Moscow is unwilling to give up power to Constantinople for example, very very simplistic and not the whole story of that issue of course. The full truth is never simple of course.
This is NOT to say that Catholicism is superior, that the Orthodox Church is heretical or schismatic or that the organization of the Orthodox Church isn’t a beautiful, rich entity. Only that I believe it leads to a focus on extremes, you have people extremely outside of the world - The orthodox church has some of the most inspiring monks and Holy orders you would ever see in the Faith - and people extremely in the world and acting in it for, what they believe mostly justly but sometimes unjustly, is the will of God.
These extremes exist in Catholicism absolutely and there’s far more degeneracy within our Church at the moment and there’s reasons for that, but if you’re looking for something that can be equally concerned with the spiritual as much as the immediate then I would suggest adding Catholic Trads or checking out Catholicism if you haven’t already.
I might be wrong, I might even be completely off base but I do see a lot of people going into the Orthodox Church that would honestly probably be happier in Catholic parish. I see the opposite too, I know a lot of Catholics who would have probably been better off converting to the Orthodox Church. I’ve seen people converting to Eastern Catholicism very happy too if they were lead down that road.
I think honestly what would solve a lot of these little things, extremes in one thing or another, looking at the world too much, would be more cooperation among the different Churches. I personally enjoy Trad groups that have people of different Apostolic Churches involved in it. It works well in a very unique way every time I’ve seen it so long as minor hang ups are avoided and they usually are a lot easier to avoid in real life, given what we all live through in the world, as opposed to the internet which is kind of inherently insular. And I think that can start with the laity, if we simply open ourselves to association among Churches and actively seek each other out I think it would send a strong message to the leadership. The Churches would probably be united the easiest from the bottom up at this point. This is why I hate the conflicts between Catholics and Orthodox that I see so often on /rel/ and elsewhere. We are so much more powerful together than we ever would be apart and I think we would all gain what we feel we are lacking in our current positions if we more united. I think a lot of the extremes would naturally be eroded and moderated over time.
Just some thought.

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“I do see a lot of people going into the Orthodox Church that would honestly probably be happier in Catholic parish. I see the opposite too, I know a lot of Catholics who would have probably been better off converting to the Orthodox Church”

This is an extremely neglectful statement on a spiritual basis. Both Churches can’t be right, and yes, we do see each other as schismatics - those are the hard facts.
How we handle that situation is something completely different though, and THAT should be done with respect and charity.

However, you can’t say that someone would be better off in a Church that isn’t the one Christ established whether your Orthodox or Catholic. Both can’t be right

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However, I strongly agree that we should work together and put an end to our ancient grievances. There’s close to absolutely nothing in this world that would make me happier, than to see us united again; it would be a true wonder.

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I agree that I’d love to see East and West in full communion. I pray for it often.

But to bring the thread back to the topic, I’ve also noticed how most of /rel/ was more saying how terrible the world was than how great God was. True, the world is pretty dang messed up right now. But let’s be honest: when was it not? Each era has had its own degeneracy. Study history, and you’ll see. Also, basic degeneracy such as lust and gluttony have always accompanied fallen man. There’s no escape from it in this life. Notice that I say “in this life.” And this is why we need to focus on the eternal life that God offers us. This is one of the reasons why I love the Benedict Option so much. It hints at the possibility of being able to live in a community with others, but a community that has, as St. Paul, kept its eyes fixed on Jesus. If building/finding a community like this is not currently our goal, I think it should be.

Also, @MesmericMemelord, even if your parish is full of middle-aged people, there might be some who have a profound relationship with God, and you could benefit from talking to them. There’s this one old lady in my parish, I think she’s about seventy, who’s had an extremely difficult life. She should’ve died forty years ago. And yet, she has persevered through her illnesses with great faith, and hearing her talk honestly about her life has greatly inspired me.

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I’m going to state the sad reality: the moment that filth isn’t constantly reminded, the moment we are not aware of the degeneracy of the world, people forget about it, and allow it to thrive. The world is filthy, and for every piece of good news, there are a million bad ones. That is just how reality is. I really don’t know how you expect those communities to be, since they usually comment on recent news.

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But that’s the point: it shouldn’t be about the news/the passing things of this world. It should be about supporting each other in the faith, and discuss what we can do to become better examples of Christ’s love and spread the faith to as many people as possible.

There’s literally no point in constantly focusing on degeneracy - we all know that the world sucks

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In facebook groups and similar places, it is normal that new posts are prompted by the news. People can’t keep a constant stream of deep commentary about new topics.

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Well, good thing we got off Faceberg then. It’s engineered specifically to be anti-social and a fag-advocating platform.

There should be a great schism; a schism where all those who are dead tired of being harrased by the zucc and his minions, go and make their own forums.
Would be great to see fb suffer from being too openly degenerate and evil.

I don’t think that it will happen so soon tho (people are still too addicted to fb), but in time, things might change for the better.
Hopefully this site will get more attention as well, as a result

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Yeah I am tired of getting banned as well and sad !thing was i was reported by “Christians”! The sad reality is that everything is going down hill and the trad groups now are even getting me zucced of fagbook.

Christians%20lose%20their%20minds