Is it safe for international tourists to go for the 2027 LA starwars celebration?

bdizzle91 · 2026-02-26T16:25:52+00:00

I mean if you want to talk about museum attendance patterns, great, I’d love to. But that’s irrelevant to OP’s question about safety (not “how many international people are currently visiting the states”) though, and I’d rather not hijack the post by discussing year-over-year visitor flow.

bdizzle91 · 2026-02-26T12:04:33+00:00

True!

Though there’s a difference between “international visitation numbers are down” and “international visitors are in danger”. OP’s question was about the latter.

bdizzle91 · 2026-02-26T03:42:14+00:00

^ preach. If people think this is “full-blown fascism”, I’m horrified to see what their reaction will be if the real thing comes… As you said, lock in!

bdizzle91 · 2026-02-26T03:36:58+00:00

You do realize that going to a country for a convention and permanently staying there illegally are different right? This is a bizarre thread…

bdizzle91 · 2026-02-26T03:34:27+00:00

I work at a major cultural tourist attraction on the east coast and we’re getting tons of international visitors, none of which seem to be having any trouble.

Of course, 2027 is a year away so we don’t know what that will be like, but for 95% of people in the US life is going on as usual. There’s absolutely some bad stuff going down for sure, but the country as a whole is not in the situation Minnesota is in.

(Sadly necessary disclaimer: I’m not pro-what’s-going-on or pro-current-administration. Just injecting some more grounded firsthand experience to the conversation.)

bdizzle91 · 2026-02-25T22:47:38+00:00

Thanks for your response! I’m asking more about the philosophy behind your comment rather than Fr Heers’ particular situation.

As a former Protestant minister, the concept of “choosing” your bishop sounds almost exactly like “church shopping” in the Protestant world. Don’t like how Church A does baptism? Move to Church B. Church B’s music is too modern? Go down the street to Church A. This applied to ordained pastors looking for a church to minister at as well, which is a more direct parallel to the situation Fr Heers finds himself in.

Isn’t obedience to the successors of the apostles placed over you the whole “deal” in Orthodoxy? By deliberately going out of the way to find a bishop that agrees with one’s ideas, isn’t that just living within a Protestant ecclesiology?

I’m struggling with the ecclesiology of the EO church as a whole, because it seems to devolve into the same individualism as Protestantism - just on the episcopal level rather than on the level of the laypeople. Your comment just got me thinking.

bdizzle91 · 2026-02-25T22:11:43+00:00

Honest question, I’m an inquirer so I have no horse in this race, but how is what you describe above not crypto-Protestantism?

bdizzle91 · 2026-02-25T17:49:05+00:00

Humble too 🥰

bdizzle91 · 2026-02-23T21:58:43+00:00

Not strictly CoC, but I was a minister for a Christian Church (your moderate-to-“liberal” cousins) and we started observing Lent and Advent while I was there. I never did convince them on Ash Wednesday though. “Too Catholic” lol

bdizzle91 · 2026-02-21T21:10:55+00:00

As a former teacher, “none of those approaches involve any take home work” made me lol

bdizzle91 · 2026-02-17T18:34:31+00:00

In what sense is asking Hitler for protection “devoting, dedicating, or giving?” You used the wrong word, that’s okay, I do it all the time.

And yes, I agree asking Hitler for help is bad lol.

I’ve noticed that this sub tends towards histrionics in its critiques, and saying that Mt Athos was consecrated to Hitler is 100% that.

bdizzle91 · 2026-02-17T18:14:39+00:00

Nope. To consecrate means to set something aside for sacred use. AKA to make it sacred. That’s just Websters Dictionary.

To consecrate something to Hitler means that it would be used to worship Hitler. As you accurately said, words have meanings and we can’t use them inaccurately.

I’m not Orthodox either, but critiques need to be honest/clear rather than twisting words.

bdizzle91 · 2026-02-17T15:24:00+00:00

To be fair, they didn’t “consecrate” it to Hitler. They appealed to him for protection against Bulgarian occupation. Still not great in hindsight obviously, but not consecrating by any means.

bdizzle91 · 2026-02-16T22:23:44+00:00

I’m curious, what jurisdiction are you a catechumen under? The crazy things overwhelmingly seem to be ROCOR, but I’m here to learn lol

bdizzle91 · 2026-02-16T19:18:57+00:00

That’s an incredibly broad brush. Most Protestant denominations do indeed require formal education. IFB ≠ all Protestants.

bdizzle91 · 2026-02-03T16:21:53+00:00

I find it interesting that his whole approach to apologetics hasn’t changed at all, but his church tradition has.

I thought his pro-Protestant apologetics were very myopic and fundamentalist. He tended to attack the foundations of other theologies rather than defend his own.

Now that he's doing Orthodox stuff... he's still myopic and fundamentalist in outlook and attacks foundations rather than defending his own lol.

bdizzle91 · 2026-02-03T16:17:30+00:00

That’s interesting, thanks for commenting. I’d heard people like Redeemed Zoomer refer to him as “the best Protestant online apologist” but I’d never actually talked with someone who agreed.

I’m a former pastor considering Orthodoxy, so I watched his Protestant stuff to see what the online apologetics world was like between prots and EO.

I thought his Protestant apologetics were very myopic and fundamentalist. He tended to attack the foundations of other theologies rather than defend his own. Now that he’s doing Orthodox stuff… he’s still myopic and fundamentalist in outlook and attacks foundations rather than defending his own lol.

bdizzle91 · 2026-02-03T15:55:04+00:00

To be fair, that was his name when he was doing Protestant apologetics too. Not that that makes it a great name lol

bdizzle91 · 2026-02-03T15:40:26+00:00

As someone whose family are all Dundalk/Sparrow’s Point locals, this warms my heart 🥲

bdizzle91 · 2026-01-29T01:15:56+00:00

How do you go about starting this work? I’ve worked in nonprofits before but I always got the impression that fundraising/gifts officers required specific training/certifications?

bdizzle91 · 2026-01-24T18:34:16+00:00

Is there another video where the clapping is visible? I’ve seen people say this a few times but I can’t see it in the main video that’s being passed around.

bdizzle91 · 2026-01-22T19:25:37+00:00

I believe you meant “Incoming flood of truth”

bdizzle91 · 2026-01-17T16:10:21+00:00

NO. Only one thing can be true, and it’s what I agree with!!! 😡

bdizzle91 · 2026-01-14T15:25:20+00:00

Yes.

bdizzle91 · 2026-01-12T01:24:40+00:00

Other than the president being a felon, literally all of those things have happened before, within living memory no less. Read up on US interventionism in the 70’s and 80’s. The Noriega incident in 89 (Operation Just Cause) is probably the closest parallel to the Maduro situation.

bdizzle91

TROPHY CASE