Author: Stephanos Blog

From Doubt to Faith: My Spiritual Journey

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For me, when I was younger, questions about God and religion were mostly an intellectual thing. I was taught to believe, but I also saw people around me who claimed to believe acting like they didn’t. That always made me wonder… does God actually exist? And if He does, what’s the right religion?

By my 40s, I had done a deep dive into world religions, trying to make sense of it all. None of it really answered that central question.

Then I met a girl. We started dating, and she said, “I’m a Christian.” I said, “That’s nice for you, but I’m pretty sure God doesn’t exist.”, she didn’t believe me… “Oh you’re an agnostic”

One Friday I asked her out, and she said, “That’s my prayer meeting night, why don’t you come along?” I figured, sure, I want to get to know her, so I’ll go. She warned me, “Just so you know, people will be speaking in tongues and it can get pretty intense.” I told her, “No problem. If it gets weird, I’ll just wait in the car.”

So I went. The pastor opened with a prayer, people stood up and started praising God… and something hit me like a ton of bricks: God is real. It’s hard to explain, but it was like something in me suddenly knew, without logic or debate.

Afterward she said, “It’s okay if you don’t want to come again.” I just said, kind of sheepishly, “Actually… I think I’d like to.”

That night changed my life. I kept going, had a few more experiences like that, and about a month later, at a church picnic, I became a believer.

That girl became my wife. She has dementia now, and is unable to speak except in rare lucid moments. One time I was able to tell her how much I love her, and she was able to say “I know.”

Message to Christian Gatekeepers

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I had an exchange in comments with what I will call Christian Gatekeepers. They gate keep the country when they want to turn away immigrants and asylum seekers, and they use Heaven as justification saying Heaven has a strict immigration policy. Sounds cool, but this is also gate keeping.

My response is heaven is open to everyone. Yes, absolutely everyone.

There is only two simple requirements. That you Love God, and Love your neighbor.

But then they say: “No! What about Jesus!”

Well it’s Jesus himself who said this, so I’m going to add here for people who are easily confused:

When Jesus said these things allow you to enter life he knew he was talking to a believer, In the same way it goes without saying you need belief in Jesus to enter life.

Think about it, the commands are to Love. And God is Love, Jesus is God.

If Love is in your heart, that’s Jesus!

If there is no love in your heart, where does that put you with respect to Jesus?

Now here is a part, try to understand…. This love is “Agape” in Greek. That’s totally committed self sacrificing Love”,

And so many christians, that push back on.. “You gotta Love”, don’t understand what Christian Love is. They think of it in emotional terms. It’s not that. Emotional Love, in many ways is self serving, it’s an internal feeling.

Agape Love is Active, Proactive. It’s constructive, supportive and yes.. it’s is transformational. It transforms the loved, and it transforms the lover.

How can I say this? Because God is Love, that’s why.

John 3:16. For God so Loved the world he gave his only Son so that whosoever believes in him shall have eternal Life. That’s Agape in action! Jesus is Love and the Life.

So this is why it’s so important when Jesus said, what you did for the poor and needy you did for Me.

It’s not for us to say “Get a job!” to them, or say “It’s not my problem take care of yourself!” We need to Agape them.

I am on my laptop much of my free time.

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Daily writing prompt
How do you manage screen time for yourself?
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I had a career in developing software for research, so I got used to 8 hours a day at the screen.

Now I don’t have a lot of free time, but when I do, very often I’m at my laptop, either developing something, writing, or yes scrolling past reel after reel on social media. The scrolling is not all mindless, because I sometimes get exposure to issues that I then want to write about.

Responsible use of AI, vs AI Slop

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I’m impressed by how many posts in my Facebook feed these days appear to be AI generated, including both the text and accompanying photos. Many are clearly pushing falsehoods, and some attribute things to political figures and celebrities who never said such things.

I admit, I use an AI LLM (large language model) to help write posts, but my process is to completely write the post myself based on the truth as I know it, then I run it past AI and ask for a fact check on what I’ve said to keep me honest. A lot of times the LLM wants to rewrite the post, supposedly to improve the grammar and flow. I draw the line there. I may edit my post with some of its suggestions, especially grammar and facts, but I won’t let AI write for me.

AI-generated narrative text often has telltale signs once you’ve read enough of it, but even experienced readers can’t always be sure. Detection tools can help, though they’re not perfect. Clearly social media platforms can use their own AI to detect synthetic content. I stop short of saying platforms should ban it—because that risks a slippery slope toward limiting free speech—but they could at least flag posts with an “AI probability” rating to promote transparency.

On YouTube it’s a different story. Many channels are using AI narrators and AI photos within their videos. In most of those cases, I see it as a practical thing to do. People want to get their ideas out there, they write their own script, but they may not have a good speaking voice, good audio equipment, a budget to pay for voiceovers and stock photos, or even enough command of English to narrate their own videos. YouTube now asks creators to disclose when realistic content is AI-generated, which seems like a fair and responsible approach.

I ran this post past an LLM and let it fold in factual corrections—I left in a telltale sign AI touched the post, can you find it?

An unpopular opinion about health care for undocumented immigrants.

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I’ve been thinking about how both political parties agree that federal funds shouldn’t be used for healthcare for undocumented immigrants. To me, that’s wrong, especially coming from people who call themselves Christians.

Over time, I’ve come to realize how far the “Christian Right” has drifted from what Jesus actually taught. They talk a lot about faith, but very little about love. I’ve changed my view on Paul, I still think he’s important, but I focus on what Jesus said. In the version of Christianity shaped by Paul’s letters, the way to heaven is “faith alone.” Love becomes optional. And when I bring up the lack of love, I’m told, “That was the old covenant.”

But that misses the point entirely. In the new covenant, God writes the law on our hearts, and that law is summed up in two simple commands: Love God and love your neighbor. If someone’s heart lacks that love, then, as James said, their faith is dead.

The Christian Right’s worldview is built on individualism, the idea that everyone should be self-sufficient and that helping others makes them dependent. But that’s not Christianity. That’s selfishness dressed up as holiness. Jesus taught self-giving, not self-protection.

How can they think what Jesus taught is the “old covenant”? Easy, the gospel of Jesus is very different from the interpreted gospel of Paul. If you look closely, Jesus’s gospel already contains it all, the moral law (summed up in love) and the faith (in John 3:16). Paul might have meant the same thing, but even Peter said people misunderstand him. James tried to correct that misunderstanding, but mainstream Christianity became Pauline instead of Christ-like.

Maybe if we actually followed what Jesus said, love God, love your neighbor, we wouldn’t be so eager to deny healthcare, compassion, or dignity to anyone.

On aging and mobility exercises

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Back in the 90’s I took up Tai Chi (think of slow motion kung fu) mainly for stress reduction. I’d go to the Tai Chi center in Rochester, NY. It was fun, you’d wear a tai chi outfit and special shoes, and go through a routine of flowing moves.

Now I’m getting older, my body is pretty stiff, I need to lose weight.

So I’ve started a program of doing “chair yoga” and “tai chi for strength and balance”

Both are low impact exercises, but they get results, and perfect for older persons.

With chair yoga, I already see more mobility, as the exercises are mainly stretching and flexibility ones.

With Tai chi, the strength comes from the slow motion movements and holds of positions, and the balance comes from challenging your body to remain balanced while holding those positions.

In fact I thought I already had good balance, already I see I need work.

After each workout, instead of feeling tired (Like i would riding an exercise bike) I feel like my body is energized and refreshed.

Well I’m back after almost a year

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My last post was in August 2024, and I’m sorry to say that I haven’t had much time to do anything for a year. My wife was diagnosed with dementia June 2024, and I have been her care giver, so not a lot of time for anything else.

I got a notice today that the domain for this blog needed renewing, so I had to decide quickly whether to let it go or continue.. I decided to continue because by now I have gotten some help to come in to take care of my wife a couple days a week, and so now I’ve been able to do some hobby things I couldn’t really do for the last year.

This blog has revolved around my varied interests, basically whatever I’m working on, and so I think I can continue to do that, plus possibly share some thoughts about what’s involved with caring for a loved one with dementia.

I’ve learned a lot in the last year about care giving, and can say, life ranges from easy, to hard, to very hard. I have learned things that you should do, and come up with a few things of my own that can be done to make things easier, and I’ll try to share that with the caution saying I’m no expert.

For hobby time, I’ve gotten back in to music, since I can do this while my wife is napping or with an aide. I tried to go back to electronics… that’s harder to do, I can find a few minutes here and there to design, but building and debugging take too much attention.

I can say I have used my technology skills to come up with a few things to make things safer for her, and easier for me. Mostly that involved morphing my home automation system (Openhab) into being an aid for myself and aides along the lines of monitoring, alarming, and reminding things related to dementia care giving.

No, a plane does NOT have to dip it’s nose down to account for the curvature of the Earth

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I keep seeing this claim come up in nonsense videos… and then I see people trying to refute it, but the problem is, often none of the parties have any experience actually flying an aircraft.

For once and for all.. No..a plane does NOT have to dip it’s nose to follow the curve of the earth. A plane can both climb and descend with it’s nose decidedly “pointed up”… There is a subtle combination of power adjustments and pitch adjustments that are made to maintain level flight… meaning, just as you drive a car making minute adjustments on the steering wheel to track straight on the road, a pilot makes adjustments to maintain level flight — which includes maintaining a fixed altitude.

In the manner I was taught to fly, in level flight, primarily you can use pitch (nose up or down) to control the air speed of the plane, more down means faster, more up means slower, and use power, up or down, to maintain altitude.

My small experience with Blade helicopters

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I’m going to talk about 2 Blade helicopters, one the Blade 150 FX, and the other the Blade 230 S Smart.

Both are said to be beginner helicopters. I started with the Blade 150 FX, mainly because of cost… Though it would be painful, it looked the least amount of money to spend that might just end up getting lost or completely broken… It is a very small helicopter, meant for indoor, and outdoor in very light winds.

So when I picked it up the clerk said… dont fly it outdoors if there is any wind at all. After weeks of experience with it I now understand what he meant. Fortunately we had a spell of almost windless days when I first got it. and It only took a few flights to get the hang of just hovering it. I found that it could handle winds up to 4mph. A very nice thing about it.. it is so light that even if it gets away and gets up too high to handle, being light, if it drops on grass it seems indestructible. Also since it is so light no FAA registration is required.

The are some drawback due to it’s small size and color scheme. It is 100% red. so unless you keep it close, you can easily lose the sense of which direction it is pointed. the other drawback.. if it falls into tall weeds (like we have at our flying field) forget about it, you wont see it unless you are standing right next to it. I almost lost it on the second flight because I lost orientation, and the wind took it to the weeds. 5 people searched for it, and it was only due to the keen eyes of my wife, she was able to direct one person to the exact spot it crashed.

Also a drawback… it has no landing skids. so the body just sets down on the ground to take off.. so it can not take off from a normal lawn.. I have to place down a piece of cardboard as a platform to fly it from my yard. At the flying field the grass is trimmed extremely low.. so it can take off, but even there if it is not perfectly level set on the ground, it will flop around as soon as you turn off the rotor kill switch.

Having said all that, I really enjoy flying it… it did’nt take too many sessions to learn to hover it in low winds. However, we’re getting on towards fall, and the winds have picked up considerably, so it’s typically 7 to 11 mph all day (unless you go near sunset). It absolutely can not be flown in those winds (no one should expect it to), I did try a few times, It just does not have the power to fight back against the wind pushing it in a direction… and the copter will seriously weather vane into the wind making leaning harder since it’s best to keep the tail rotor pointed toward you as you learn.

So then I moved on to the Blade 230 S Smart. This is a different animal. It’s meant for outdoor use. I’ve seen it being flown at the field in winds up to about 9mph. So that seems just right for me right now. And there are some nice things about it. It has an actual SAFE system.. meaning you get a real Beginner, Intermediate and Agile flying modes. I got mine today, charged up the (not included) battery and was off to the flying field for it’s maiden flight. Winds were 7mph… It’s RTF and it’s a true RTF, you can take it out of the box, and in the time it takes to put the battery in, you are flying. Same for the 150.

And the first flight was a dream… the wind was a cross wind to the direction I had it pointed, so I made sure it was in beginner mode, flipped the throttle switch, and let the rotor stabilize, then very cautiously added power until lift off. It was a very simple matter to give it just enough power to achieve a hover at about 10 feet off the ground. And I have to say that hover was extremely stable. I had to only use small inputs to account for some side to side motion and I was able at one point to just take my hands off the sticks. A gust of wind did come, and I over compensated on the power so it went up higher than I like, but it was very easy to ease it down for a soft landing. Oh.. at one point I did give it some yaw and I have to say it was very responsive to yaw input… so go lightly. (I had the rate switch set to high).

I know I’m going to enjoy learning on that helicopter. And I plan to bring along the 150 in the event the winds are nice and light, so I can fly that while charging the 230’s battery.

About my names

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Daily writing prompt
Where did your name come from?
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I have a 4 part name. First name, Middle name, Confirmation name, Last name.

I don’t need to say the names, but they each have a story.

My first name — is really the english version of a greek name, it means “crown”. You can guess it based on the name of this blog. But how did I get it? Well, my mother had a favorite character in a soap opera back in the 50’s. I got named after the character!

My middle name, is the same as my father’s middle name. I was the third son. My father had that middle name because his father had that middle name… so though I haven’t checked on it… This is a middle name that got passed down the generations.

My confirmation name came form my uncle who sponsored me. Well that’s not unusual, but that uncle’s first name is exactly the same as my father’s middle name.. That uncle is from my mother’s side. The way the name is placed is after my middle name, the name begins with a C.. so I have a C squared in the middle of my name. Part of Einstein’s famous equation.

My last name is interesting. We’re of Italian heritage, but my last name is not really Italian, though you can find families with it or a variation of it in Italy. My last name is often used as a first name, and the way the name came into being is interesting. You see before the 1600’s no one had that name. The name itself is a Welch word. But someone wrote a novel… yes people wrote novels in the 1600’s and there was a character in the book with that as a name. Somehow the name caught on from that and lots of people around Europe adopted the name, or some variation on it…. So again.. My first name came from a character in a soap opera, and my last name came from a character in a 1600’s novel.