The Faithful Watchman

Suicide Among The Most Common Causes Of Death In The US

Homicide as well as suicide are common causes of death for young age groups in the United States, second only to accidents for those between the ages of 15 and 34.

After that age, cancer, heart disease and more recently Covid-19 become bigger killers.

Even for children aged 5-9, homicide is a big danger and was the fourth most common cause of death for the age group in 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

For those 10 to 14 years old, both homicide and suicide are among the top 4 killers.

According to a study published this week in scientific journal Jama Pediatrics, homicide rates in children have been rising in recent years, increasing by as much as 50 percent for Black children and those between the ages of 16 and 17 just between 2018 and 2020.

They also shot up for adults in 2020 and 2021. Suicide rates also increased for those under the age of 45 in the past decade, including very young children from the age of 5.

South Carolina Supreme Court rules fetal heartbeat law ‘unconstitutional’

Court found that banning abortion after six weeks’ pregnancy ‘is an unreasonable restriction upon a woman’s right to privacy’

A South Carolina state law that would have restricted abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected was declared unconstitutional by the state’s Supreme Court.

In a 3-2 decision Thursday, the South Carolina Supreme Court said the Fetal Heartbeat Act illegally infringes on a woman’s right to privacy. The act was signed into law by Gov. Henry McMaster in 2021 and prohibited abortion once a fetus’s heartbeat can be detected, which usually occurs around six weeks of pregnancy.

Writing for the majority, Justice Kaye Hearn said, “We hold that the decision to terminate a pregnancy rests upon the utmost personal and private considerations imaginable, and implicates a woman’s right to privacy. While this right is not absolute and must be balanced against the State’s interest in protecting unborn life, this Act, which severely limits — and in many instances completely forecloses — abortion, is an unreasonable restriction upon a woman’s right to privacy, and is therefore unconstitutional.”

Top Podcasts On Apple, Spotify Are About The Bible, Christianity

Some of the top podcasts in the United States so far in 2023 on streaming sites like Apple and Spotify discuss things like faith, the Bible, and Christianity, beating out ones from The New York Times, NBC, and more.

In a tweet on Wednesday from Ascension Press, it shared that the number one podcast on Apple is the Catholic media’s “The Catechism in a Year podcast” (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) [CIY].

“You people are crushing it with your CIY & BIY listens!” the outlet tweeted. “Nearly a WEEK at the top of the charts and still going strong!”

Parents slam effort to ban ‘hate speech’ from school-board meetings

Man dared to call homosexuality ‘immoral’ and quote a Bible verse

Loudoun County parents are speaking out against a resident’s petition that calls to ban hate speech from school board meetings following a school board meeting in which parents lambasted school officials over their handling of a sexual assault case.

The petition, signed by several hundred county residents and started by 19-year-old Andrew Pihonak, a Loudoun County resident and member of the LGTBTQ community, calls to “ban hate speech in Loudoun School Board meetings” after a man called homosexuality “immoral” and quoted a violent Bible verse during the public comment period of the Dec. 13 board meeting. Parents present at the meeting and seeking accountability from the school board for a special grand jury report, which found the district failed to alert the community of multiple sexual assaults within the district, told the Daily Caller News Foundation the one comment is not representative of their efforts and that their demands have nothing to do with the LGBTQ community.

The petition misrepresents parents at the Dec. 13 school board meeting who are focusing on holding the school board accountable, Colin Donniger, a Loudoun County parent, told the DCNF.

Scientists create ‘baby’ wormhole as sci-fi moves closer to fact

In science fiction – think films and TV like “Interstellar” and “Star Trek” – wormholes in the cosmos serve as portals through space and time for spacecraft to traverse unimaginable distances with ease. If only it were that simple.

Scientists have long pursued a deeper understanding of wormholes and now appear to be making progress. Researchers announced on Wednesday that they forged two minuscule simulated black holes – those extraordinarily dense celestial objects with gravity so powerful that not even light can escape – in a quantum computer and transmitted a message between them through what amounted to a tunnel in space-time.

It was a “baby wormhole,” according to Caltech physicist Maria Spiropulu, a co-author of the research published in the journal Nature. But scientists are a long way from being able to send people or other living beings through such a portal, she said.

“Experimentally, for me, I will tell you that it’s very, very far away. People come to me and they ask me, ‘Can you put your dog in the wormhole?’ So, no,” Spiropulu told reporters during a video briefing. “That’s a huge leap.”

Jesus the Palestinian terrorist and his 72 dark-eyed virgins

One of the many ways in which the Palestinian Authority distorts history in order to invent a centuries-old Palestinian identity, is to turn Jesus the Judean (Jew), who promoted peace on earth, into a Palestinian terrorist who was murdered by the Israelis, thus becoming the first Palestinian “Martyr,” who is now reveling in heaven with Allah, in the arms of 72 dark-eyed virgins.

While the language the PA uses to describe Jesus as a terrorist and as someone enjoying his virgins is less direct, the meaning is the same.

When referring to Palestinian terrorists, the PA calls them “self-sacrificing fighters,” or “fidai”. So, when the PA and its officials use the same terms to describe Jesus, they are in fact saying he is a terrorist.

As Palestinian Media Watch has shown, here, here, here, here, and here, among other places, the definition of Jesus as a terrorist enjoying his virgins is not a fringe idea, but rather one expressed by the highest order in the PA.

Rogue geoengineering outfit claims to be dumping unmonitored particles into stratosphere to change the weather

A rogue solar geoengineering start-up claims to have begun using balloons to launch reflective clouds into the stratosphere for the purpose of changing the weather.

Although the initiative may be presently little more than a publicity stunt, Luke Iseman, cofounder and CEO of Make Sunsets, told the MIT Technology Review that he hopes this provocative cloud-seeding effort will help launch what may be a lucrative “cooling” industry.

What are the details?

According to Make Sunsets’ website, “we need to start cooling the world immediately.”

While Iseman condoned property destruction in a blog entry as one way to bring about this end, the method he has personally resolved to use is geoengineering, specifically by way of “albedo enhancement” or albedo modification (i.e., the reflection of sunlight).

Anti-Christian Riots in India Surge Across 20 Villages

Hundreds of Christians in Chhattisgarh forced to flee into forests

12/22/2022 India (International Christian Concern) — Christians in 20 villages in the Narayanpur and Kondagaon districts in the Chhattisgarh state of India were attacked this week by radical Hindu nationalists for refusing to re-convert from Christianity to Hinduism.

The attacks took place on Sunday, Dec. 18, as Christians gathered for worship. The attackers looted and destroyed the homes of many Christians and desecrated three churches.

Sources told International Christian Concern (ICC) that the Hindu nationalists used bamboo sticks to attack Christians. Several people were severely injured and hospitalized, while others fled to the jungle or to nearby police stations. When Christians reported the attacks to authorities, police told them to fend for themselves.

‘Animism’ recognizes how animals, places and plants have power over humans – and it’s finding renewed interest around the world

A movement known as “new animism,” which seeks to secure personhood rights for nonhuman beings through legal means, is gaining a following around the globe.

New animist environmental activists are not the only ones using the term. Animism itself has become fashionable. Some spirituality bloggers talk about animism as a way to deepen one’s spiritual relationship to nature. Scholars – from anthropologists to philosophers – have taken a renewed interest in the concept.

Most of these people are using animism in a very general, and inaccurate, way, to mean the belief that everything in nature has a soul. The renewed interest in animism stems from the hope that people will behave in more ecologically sustainable ways if they believe that the natural world around them is alive.

However, as an anthropologist of religion who works with people whose religious practices were traditionally described as animist, I believe the reality is both more interesting and more complicated. Animism is not a religion or even a set of beliefs about nature having a soul. It’s a term used by scholars to classify religious practices through which human beings cultivate relationships with more powerful beings that reside in the world around us.

Horrifying Pestilences Are Starting To Run Wild All Over The Globe

How many millions have to die before people start to realize what is happening? For years, I have been persistently warning that we would soon enter an era of great pestilences, and now it is here. Sadly, what we have witnessed over the past few years is just the tip of the iceberg. At this point we have been perfectly primed for future pandemics because vast numbers of people all over the planet are now running around with compromised immune systems. That means that diseases will now be able to spread even more easily, and this is a trend that we have already started to see all throughout 2022.

Strep A is the latest illness to run wild in the western world. The number of children being admitted to the hospital with Strep A is way above normal in the U.S., and this appears to particularly be true in the western half of the country…

A deadly wave of Strep A infections in children looks set to take off in the US — weeks after the UK was hit by a spate of deaths.

At least two children have died in Colorado after suffering the normally-mild illness, and pediatric hospitals in five states — Arizona, Colorado, Texas, Washington and West Virginia — are reporting much higher levels of admissions than usual.

At the country’s largest pediatric hospital in Texas, doctors are already handling four times more Strep A patients than last year.

But this has not been a typical Strep A outbreak.

In fact, hospitals are reporting that children are coming in with very strange symptoms that are not usually associated with Strep A at all…

One of the largest children’s hospitals in Missouri is seeing an influx of children with bizarre Strep A symptoms – as the outbreak continues to spread in the US.

Children’s Mercy Kansas City Hospital has had seven children in recent weeks come in with symptoms like a ‘stuck’ eye, lumps behind the ear and trouble swallowing – which led to drooling.

Doctors were initially perplexed by the cases – but further testing found each child was suffering from Strep A. The normally-mild bacterial infection is causing a spate of hospitalizations across the US, UK and Europe.

So what is going on?

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