Porn Fuels Loneliness, Research Finds

Pornography and loneliness feed off of each other in a toxic way, creating a “vicious cycle” that erodes human relationships and the health benefits those relationships provide, according to a marriage and family therapist and scholar.

“If loneliness can lead to pornography use, and pornography use may bring about or intensify loneliness, these circular linkages may create a vicious cycle, pulling the user even further from health-promoting relationship connections,” said Mark Butler, a professor in the school of family life at Brigham Young University, in an essay on the Institute for Family Studies blog Tuesday describing research he conducted recently.

Human sexuality is biologically and neurologically tethered to a relationship experience, Butler explained, and is “carefully designed to support both conception and bonding.”

Yet, “when pornography is used to trigger the sexual system, the biology of the sexual system produces a false relationship experience, offering temporary ‘relief’ from lonely feelings, but soon enough, the user again faces a real-world relationship void.”

“That emptiness may trigger loneliness. Additionally, porn invites the mental fantasy of a relationship experience. Thus, the mind fantasizes and biologically the sexual system tricks the brain into imagining it’s having a relationship experience and can thus mask loneliness — but only temporarily.”

He continued that the storylines present in porn present false and unrealistic narratives about sexuality that prove disappointing. Users cannot escape the fact that when the experience of porn is over, they remain…

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Pro-Life Roe v. Wade Film Being Made with Big-Name Talent

Pro-Life Roe v. Wade Film Being Made with Big-Name Talent



An actor best known for his role in Den of Thieves is filming a pro-life movie about the controversial Roe v. Wade decision, but he’s not getting a ton of help from his Hollywood friends.


Nick Loeb is co-directing and starring in the film, which held shoots in and around New Orleans in June, according to The Hollywood Reporter.   


One crew member quit before she even started, writing in an email, “I have been doing research on the movie trying to figure out who is producing and what the gist of the story is, and I finally found it, and so I am withdrawing from this project. I am a staunch pro-abortion feminist activist, and I will not be party to such horrible propaganda.”


The film also stars Jon Voight (Woodlawn, Transformers), Robert Davi (Die Hard) and Stacey Dash (Clueless). Loeb is co-directing it with Cathy Allyn.


Loeb said one woman approached him during shooting and asked, “Are you the director?”


“When I told her I was, she told me to go f–k myself,” Loeb told The Hollywood Reporter. “Then she threw her headset on the ground and walked off. I found out later she was our electrician.”


The movie’s director also quit, forcing Loeb and Allyn to co-direct it.


It is being filmed at the right time for it to get attention, with the nation embroiled in a debate over Roe and the next Supreme Court justice, Loeb said.


“But even without that…

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3 Christians share their views on the NHS today

The post-war Labour government urged everyone through short cinema films and posters to sign up for a doctor by 5th July 1948 with Trafford General Hospital near Manchester being the first in the world to offer free healthcare to all.

Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham recalled on Thursday that the health secretary who founded it, Anuerin Bevan, considered the NHS a worthy cause, saying: “Nye Bevan said, about his NHS, it’s a real piece of Christianity”.

Burnham added: “I think what he meant by that was, it recognises that people are more important than profits, that care is more important than competition, that there is a better way of doing things as a society.”

During the service at Westminster Abbey, Simon Stevens, the chief executive of NHS England told the congregation the nation should give thanks to the “extraordinary” staff of the NHS, many of whom have shown “bravery at times of exceptional challenge.”

With the advances in technology, the growth in services but also the strain on those services, the NHS today is quite a different world to that of post-war consensus Britain. 

Ella…

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Who Will Trump Nominate for the Supreme Court? Here are a Few Options

Who Will Trump Nominate for the Supreme Court? Here are a Few Options



Judge Raymond Kethledge of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit is the best choice for a Supreme Court spot, Hugh Hewitt writes in a column for The Washington Post.


Hewitt, conservative author and radio host, says Kethledge has “stood strongly with free exercise rights.”


The nomination would mean President Donald Trump is keeping one of his most touted campaign promises.


“Kethledge has been faithful for more than a decade to the originalist approach,” Hewitt writes. “White House staffers will have read every word of Kethledge’s many writings, and they will conclude: Gorsuch 2.0.”


Kethledge is 51.


“Married 25 years and a man of faith, he’s also an avid hunter and fisherman, a not insignificant detail in these matters,” Hewitt writes.


According to reports, Trump is expected to announce his nomination on July 9.


“If Trump wants to pay back the people who elected him in 2016, putting a midwesterner on the highest bench is one way to do it,” HotAir.com says.


According to Bloomberg: “Kethledge has impressed those within the White House, the people close to the process said. He was considered for the last Supreme Court vacancy, but didn’t meet with Trump then. On Monday, Trump expressed strongly favorable opinions about him, triggering talk that he’s not a candidate to be ignored.”


The other candidates for the…

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Trinity Church ‘Grieves in Shame’ After Pastor Art Azurdia Admits to ‘Sexually Immoral’ Acts

(Screenshot: YouTube/Jesus’ Word)Arturo G. Azurdia III of Trinity Church in Portland, speaking at the Shepherds’ Conference, held in March 2018.

Pastor Art Azurdia of Trinity Church in Portland, Oregon, has been removed from his position after he admitted to having several “sexually immoral” relationships.

“On Sunday, June 24, the elders of Trinity Church of Portland received an accusation that Art Azurdia has been in a sexually immoral relationship with a woman from outside of Trinity Church. The elders of Trinity Church, after an initial investigation, confronted Art with the accusation,” read a statement on the church’s website posted on Monday.

“Art admitted to the immorality. He also admitted to a previous sexually immoral relationship. Based on these facts and the biblical qualifications required of an elder (1 Timothy 3, Titus 1), the elders have removed Art Azurdia as Senior Minister of Word and Worship at Trinity Church, as an elder, and from all pastoral ministry at Trinity Church,” it added.

“We grieve the shame this brings to the Gospel and the sorrow it brings to God’s people.”

Azurdia, who is married and has two children, is an author and has been a speaker at various national and international conferences. He’s also associate professor of Pastoral…

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New President and Vice President elected for 2019/2020 Methodist Conference

They will start their year of office when the Representative Session of the Methodist Conference meets in Birmingham next year.

Rev Glasson, who is involved in a Methodist interfaith project in Bradford and works with people who have experienced abuse said it’s a privilege to be elected to serve as President.

“My interest is in enabling and honouring Connexional communities that are courageous and rooted in prayer,” she said.

“God is transforming the old and calling us into new things that are a joyful outcome of our Methodist inheritance. I believe that if the Church is authentic and inclusive it will also grow numerically and spiritually.”

Prof Marsh has taught in theological colleges and universities and is currently head of the University of Leicester’s Vaughan Centre for Lifelong Learning and an International Research Consultant at the Queen’s Foundation, a theological college.

On hearing of his election, he said: “I have a deep commitment to encouraging others in learning, no matter what their stage of life or what previous experience they have.

“My calling as a Methodist leads me to prompt people to think creatively about their life experience and the world around them, in developing a practical, theologically-informed faith.”

The role of President of the Methodist Conference is reserved for presbyters and that of Vice-President for lay people or Deacons.

Stay up…

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Bible Answer Man Explains When Christians Will Receive Resurrected Bodies, What Happens After Death

(Screenshot: Facebook/Bible Answer Man)“Bible Answer Man” Hank Hanegraaff in a Facebook video published on February 13, 2018.

“Bible Answer Man” Hank Hanegraaff on Monday explained when believers will receive their eternal resurrected bodies following death, and what will happen to people who are still alive to witness Jesus’ return.

A listener named Barbara asked Hanegraaff in a Facebook video if he can explain what the Bible says about people receiving their resurrected bodies.

The president of the Christian Research Institute noted that he wrote about that subject in his 2016 book, AfterLife: What You Need to Know About Heaven, the Hereafter & Near-Death Experiences.

“I talk about life as we are experiencing it in the present, and then about life after life. And what that entails is that when you die as a believer, you are absent from the body, present with the Lord. But there’s also life after life after life, which is when Jesus appears a second time,” Hanegraaff described.

He pointed to Jesus’ Words in John 5:28-29, where He says: “Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out — those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned.”

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Novichok victim mistaken for being drunk at church event moments before being hospitalised

Roy Collins, secretary at Amesbury Baptist Centre, told Premier News Hour Charlie Rowley attended a barbecue at the church on Saturday – apparently already displaying symptoms.

 

“He was very slow in conversation. Indeed a little bit incoherent,” he said.

“He looked as if he’d been suffering from excess of alcohol, that’s what I first thought. It was good to see them there. He smiled and was friendly, but he was generally very dishevelled and unkept in his appearance.”

Rowley and Dawn Sturgess were taken ill on Saturday in Amesbury, around eight miles from where former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with the same agent in Salisbury in March.

One theory understood to be under investigation is that the pair who were poisoned in the latest incident may have inadvertently found a discarded container – such as a phial or syringe – used to transport the nerve agent for the initial attack on the Skripals.

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Novichok remains highly toxic for a considerable period of time, so even the tiniest trace remaining in a container picked up by the victims could account for their severe illness.

Collins said the community feels “violated” after the second nerve agent emergency in four months.

“We’re very much a part of Salisbury. Our family works there; our children go to college there. We’re very much a…

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Church Puts Mary, Joseph and Jesus in Cage to Protest Trump Immigration Policy

Church Puts Mary, Joseph and Jesus in Cage to Protest Trump Immigration Policy



An Episcopal church in Indianapolis has placed statues of Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus in an outside cage to protest President Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy of arresting people at the U.S.-Mexico border.


The rector of the congregation, Christ Church Cathedral, said the chain-link fence with barbed wire is meant to symbolize a detention center.


“I know what the Bible said,” the Rev. Stephen Carlsen told the Indianapolis Star. “We’re supposed to love our neighbors as ourselves.”


The display, which can be seen on the church’s lawn, was the idea of the Rev. Lee Curtis.


“This symbol is something that speaks to every one of us at our most basic level, because of who we are as a church and as Christians,” Curtis told CNN.


Curtis asserted that Mary and Joseph were seeking asylum, similar to the families crossing the border. He referenced Matthew 2:13:14, which says, “When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. ‘Get up,’ he said, ‘take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.’ So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt.”


Curtis told The Star, “This family is every family, and every family is holy.”


Not everyone on the newspaper’s Facebook page agreed with the church,…

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Prime Minister appoints first special envoy on freedom of religion

Named the first ever Prime Minister’s Special Envoy on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Lord Tariq Ahmad of Wimbledon has also been asked to champion dialogue and respect between difference faith groups.

Lord Ahmad said: “In too many parts of the world, religious minorities are persecuted, discriminated against and treated as second class citizens.

 

“As a man of faith, I feel this very keenly.

“Freedom of religion or belief is a human right enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It must be respected.

“People from all faiths or none should be free to practise as they wish. This respect is key to global stability, and is in all our interests.

Lord Ahmad will work with faith groups and governments across the globe to highlight religious persecution and what can be done to tackle it.

 

Prime Minister Theresa May said: “Religious discrimination blights the lives of millions of people across the globe and leads to conflict and instability.

“Both here and abroad, individuals are being denied the basic right of being able to practise their faith free of fear.

“Tolerance for those of different faiths is fundamental to our values, and is an issue I know is already of great importance to Lord Ahmad, who is constantly looking for fresh…

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