This is a braindead take. The word “empire” has a lot of cultural baggage with Russian nationalism and it is totally different than say “the Spanish Empire” or “The British Empire” because when Russians say “The Russian Empire” it is specifically referring to an idea within Russian nationalism that Russia is the successor state to Rome and all of the cultural and religious ideas that come with that. The idea is that Moscow is the “Third Rome” with the first being, well, Rome, the second being Constantinople, and after the fall of Constantinople, it went to Moscow because of the unique connection of the Rus’ with the Byzantine empire and Eastern Christianity. To use the term “Russian Empire” would be a huge boost to Russian nationalists and accomplish nothing substantial for anyone else.

Ngl I totally understand this one. When you’re Russia it’s not like you have a lot of options for international partners and the Taliban are straight up the government of Afghanistan. It’s kind of awkward to try to make trade deals with one of the only countries still willing to trade with you when all of its leaders and officials are considered members of a banned terrorist organization. I suppose this is an issue any time there is a revolution, once the radicals are the actual government everyone has to re-evaluate how to deal with them.

I may legitimately lose my supposedly magical and highly important American manufacturing job because of this shit and these dumbasses think that this is all a genius move that will finally Make America Great Again. Everyone else I know who works in manufacturing is feeling the same way. One of my coworkers is mildly Trumpy and was talking about how he thinks it’s a negotiation tactic and was shocked when I said I think the people in charge are just legit stupid and think tariffs will magically make things better in their own right. He didn’t have anything to offer as a rebuttal he just seemed surprised that anyone would think Trump isn’t a turbo genius who is secretly making 5000 IQ negotiation moves.

The historical Arians were a pretty diverse group, much like the early Christian church in general. Arius, the person whose teachings the Arians were named after, was North African, and there were Arians throughout North Africa, the Middle East, and Europe.

FYI “Aryan” is the word you’re looking for. “Arian” is an early Christian sect decried as heretical in the later Roman Empire

It’s more complicated than that since I do believe God exists but in a way that is incomprehensible to humans, and, according to all evidence, doesn’t “intervene” with the universe. I say “intervene” because God, as classically described, is simultaneously incapable of intervening and incapable of not intervening. If we define God as “an omnipotent being”(which, for the record, I do not), then He is necessarily also all knowing and exists outside of the limitations of time and space. Such a being would be perfectly optimized as well, and so it would be impossible for anything to occur without its express permission and cause. Therefore, under classical theism, it seems impossible for God to say, answer prayers, because this would imply that He could possibly change His mind or that what was happening wasn’t already what He wants to begin with.

Eh. I could care less about downvotes and I understand that the idea of practicing Christianity for reasons beyond personal faith in it is going to be controversial to Christians and atheists alike. If someone made a chill Atheist/agnostic “church” where there was singing and discussions on moral philosophy, and a community of people devoted to helping each other and their community I’d probably be doing that but as it stands religion is the only game in town for such things and I think that it’s good to do something like this. Plus I don’t know, it’s kind of cool to be a part of rituals people have been doing for thousands of years.

It’s complicated but I used to be essentially atheist but now believe that there is something one might as well call “God” after studying philosophy. Essentially everything has a cause and something must be at the end of that chain, and we might as well call that “God.” I also practice Christianity because I feel that it is good to have the community and structure that a religion can provide but I don’t think that “God” necessarily exists in the way Christianity typically presents it.