u/ManteLover60

These two ladies were asked if there was a war between the US and Armenia where there was no right or wrong because neither side was the good guy or the bad guy, to whom would their allegiance be.

Now speaking for myself…

I was born and raised in the US, and yet my first allegiance is still to the motherland because no one is going to exterminate the US, but Armenia could be wiped off the map in a day. If the US was trying to wipe Armenia off the map, that would make it complicit in the Armenian genocide 2.0. I don't care what the US has done for me, I couldn't participate in that. Part of my affection for the US is my feeling that despite all our flaws, we are the good guys at heart. A US that was actively at war with Armenia with Armenia not having provoked that war would be a monster if in that war we were supporting the very nations to our left and right that wanted to wipe us off the map. However, if the US was trying to turn Armenia into a US state, then perhaps I could get behind that campaign because as painful as this would be, at least if Armenia was a US state, the Turks would never dare touch us again. If the US was invading Armenia to absorb it in its totality and not hand it in whole or in part to the Turks, then my allegiance could swing back in the US direction.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DcESP2jlS3-/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

I was kind of curious if are any folks in the group who are either theoretical physicists themselves, or are just extremely well read on the subject, especially when it comes to things like quantum mechanics.

OK so I'm Oriental Orthodox, but I think I would benefit from hearing some feedback from our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters because y'all have gone the deepest out of all the apostolic churches into philosophy and defending the faith intellectually.

I want to talk to you about a matter of the heart.
You know what I desire most of all? What I've been desiring for years and years, long before I came back into the Orthodox faith after over a decade as a Hindu?
The desire for holy foolishness.

I'm pretty sure I suffer from OCD, and so it doesn't take a lot for me to go into fits of sadness and at least minor depression.
Even if I'm rationally convinced of the position that I hold, the negative inverse of that position always haunts me like a shadow at the corner of my mind.
All it takes is for me to hear or read an atheist source saying something like, "So-and-so spent years researching this phenomenon and cataloging numerous instances of it. And all attempted experiments have turned up disappointing results. This phenomenon's been thoroughly refuted and debunked. It doesn't exist." All it takes is for me to hear something like that, and every insecurity bubbles up to the surface. Then I'll go looking around the internet for a strong counterargument or counterevidence to make me feel better, or I'll feel the compulsive need to fact-check the sources or research claimed by the atheist.
And it's not just religious matters. I often have the same thing going on with other things I hold dear. I've got the same insecure OCD response if I hear even a mildly convincing argument by an Armenian Genocide denier or a hereditarian claiming that some racial or ethnic groups have a greater capacity for abstract thought than others.
But I feel it the strongest when it comes to my faith.
I used to think that the reason I felt this way was because I didn't want to be deceived, and that I just wanted to know the truth whatever it is. And that might've been part of it, but I've come to realize that a big part of it is that I don't want to be wrong, because to be wrong's embarrassing and disheartening for me. When I say wrong, I don't mean wrong like I made a mistake kind of wrong. That's perfectly fine. I mean like being on the wrong side of history kind of wrong.

This's especially the case if I take a position that often receives a lot of mockery. I'm a Christian. You know how much we're mocked for believing in angels, demons, life after death, and that God became a man, died, and rose from the dead on the third day. In the case of a secular topic like the Armenian Genocide, the insecurity's something more like, "What if it wasn't a genocide, and what if we did rebel and betray the Ottoman Empire? And what if we've just been sore losers for the past century when we could've just gotten over it and established excellent relations with Turkey?" I don't want to be wrong, and I don't like being made fun of or having my position made fun of.
I'm deeply jealous of my fellow Christians who're able to let it all just slide like water off a duck's back. "You believe in a 2,000-year-old fairytale!" "Yup! Yes, I do! God bless you, friend!"
More than anything, I want to be able to be a fool in the eyes of the world and my detractors, and wear it as a badge of pride. I want to be able to let the mockery slide like water off my back. I want to not care.
This doesn't mean that I'd close my mind to new evidence or good arguments. One must always keep an open mind. If we're truly confident in the faith, we won't be afraid of a little scrutiny and questioning. But there's a difference between having an open mind and being driven into insecurity-fueled episodes of depression every few weeks. I have the potential to sink into a 2 day episode of depression every time I to hear an atheist make a simple statement like, "Belief in a God may've been a necessary coping mechanism for our primitive ancestors in pre-modern times, but with the advent of science, we've no need for such antiquated superstitions," and think, "Well, gee, I don't want to be an antiquated relic of the past. Maybe I should get with the times."

Hey everyone. I could really use some help or at least advice.
So I'm a repat and I've been living here since 2023. Knowing the horror stories about landlords in Yerevan, I feel truly blessed that my overall experience with landlords has been overwhelmingly positive. But now is not one of those situations.
I live in a studio apartment in a really good location. The rent is cheap, only about 150,000 AMD (not counting utilities). And my current landlord allows me to keep my pet cat.
So what's wrong?
Well, I suspect the main reason he's letting me keep my cat is because the apartment is rather old and decrepit. He plans on selling the place down the line anyway, so he doesn't care to put in the money for its maintenance. A lot of the repairs have been out of my own pocket. And here is the problem: I thought we had an agreement stating that all repairs would be subtracted from my rent, so long as what broke wasn't my fault. Now, either I misunderstood the initial agreement, or he has gone back on it.
There were a couple of times when things happened that were my fault. The first was when water from my bathroom floor went down the drain into the bathroom of the neighbor lady below me. I can't remember who paid for that one, but we had the drain sealed up with cement. The second was when my water heater stopped working and my friend and I tried to bring it back online, but we accidentally turned the water pressure up too high and caused some flooding. That one I gladly paid for out of pocket because it was totally my fault.
But ever since then, he has been gaslighting and browbeating me about my visual impairment, weaseling out of subtracting anything from my rent—even though none of the subsequent repairs have been because of anything I've done since those first two incidents. He basically insinuates that I probably broke things because I'm blind, and when things break, he asks me why I touched something without knowing how it works. I'm sorry, how the fuck am I supposed to know that when I opened up the washing machine in the middle of the night to do some laundry, water would pour out of it because the fucking water distribution line is old and decrepit? Another 15,000 AMD out of my pocket.
And just today, when I innocently returned home and turned the doorknob to come inside, the motherfucker came off in my hand. I'm sorry, was that my fault too?
Anyway, I'm sorry about the rant and the vulgarity. I'm just getting tired of this shit.
Under normal circumstances, I would just get the fuck out of here and find another apartment. But I haven't had much luck finding any others that would allow me to keep my cat, and I don't want to give him up. I adopted him from the streets, and we are best friends. He is one of the cuddliest boys you will ever meet.
So do you think you guys might know any animal-loving landlords or landladies who might charge a reasonable rent? Because otherwise, I'm kind of stuck here. I think my landlord knows my options are limited, so he kind of takes my staying for granted.
It's gotten to the point where when things break, I've just stopped telling him. It's his goddamn house; let him worry about it. Yeah, it affects my standard of living, but what can I do? He's just gonna tell me that if I want it fixed, I can pay for it. There's a reason I even moved into this place with this cheap rent—I don't have extra money up the ass to pay for additional repairs. I'm basically at the point where I can't even lock my front door anymore because of the doorknob. I have to have faith that none of my neighbors will walk into my apartment and steal my shit.

Hey all!
I wanted to check if any of you might have some connections or contacts with reputable Armenian academic institutions, individuals, or publishers. My good friend and I have done the first completely unabridged translation of Prime Minister Hovhannes Kajaznuni’s 1923 report to the ARF conference, in which he argued that the party had no more usefulness to the Armenian people and should end its existence.
This document has been used by Turkish and Azerbaijani apologists as a tool of genocide denial, and it is often quoted out of context and horrifically distorted. There are currently two English translations. One was done by an Armenian American scholar in the 1950s, and it is highly abridged. The other one was done by Turkish academics who wanted to use the document to deny the genocide. The Turkish translation is particularly awful because it is the result of a game of telephone. The English translation is based off of a Turkish translation, which is based off of a Russian translation of the original Armenian.
Ours is the first fully unabridged English translation directly from the original Armenian text.
We thought of just putting it up on the Internet for free so that everyone could make use of it, but we want this to be legitimately used by genocide scholars and other historians to push back against Turkish and Azerbaijani distortions. We don’t want our enemies to say that it is an amateur translation with no academic credentials. So even though we do want to put it up for free eventually, we do want it to be published through an academic institution first so that it can serve a scholarly purpose.
If anyone might be able to help me get in touch with the right people for this, please let me know.
Thank you in advance!