Only Jew in the B.C. Cabinet forced out for speaking the truth

 

This is an example of the power of Islam and antisemites over the British Columbia government even while Islam makes up a very small percentage of British Columbians. Someone speaking the truth about Israel has no place in the NDP cabinet.

Selina Robinson was the only cabinet minister of Jewish origin. It's a big win for antisemites to get rid of her influence in Cabinet. As a Christian, they have helped me decide who I will vote for in the next provincial election.

Selina Robinson steps down as B.C. minister

following controversial comments

By Amy Judd  Global News

Posted February 5, 2024 1:15 pm

 Updated February 5, 2024 5:41 pm

Global News Hour at 6 BC: Selina Robinson resigns as B.C.'s advanced education minister

Selina Robinson is stepping down as B.C.’s minister of advanced education, Premier David Eby announced Monday afternoon. She will remain in the BC NDP caucus.

Eby said the government has been reaching out to the community on how to make things better. “When you hurt someone, you need to reach out and figure out how to reduce harm. The depth of work she needs to do is substantial.”

He said Robinson’s comments were “belittling and demeaning.”

Yes, but they were also true. Prior to 1947, the Holy Land was a mostly desert wasteland, as it had been for nearly 1900 years. It was never a country since 70AD, and none of the Islamic countries in the Middle East or North Africa wanted any responsibility for it until the Jews showed up and began reclaiming it from wasteland. 

Palestinians don't want you to know the real history of the Holy Land because then you would know that nearly all Palestinians come from North Africa and Arabia, and they came to the Holy Land in the 20th century. 

They also don't want you to know that in the 20th century, Islamic North Africa purged about 900,000 Jews. Most of them had nowhere else to go but to the Holy Land. This is far from the first time Islam has attempted ethnic cleansing of the Jews, and yet, they want you to feel sorry for them like they are the victims. *SR

2:01

B.C. premier announces minister of education will step down following controversial comments

Eby added it was clear the amount of work Robinson had to do was too much for her to balance her work in the cabinet.

“What has become apparent is the scope of work, the depth of the hurt, as a result, we came to the conclusion together – she needed to step back.”

Dozens of people showed up to protest outside a BC NDP caucus retreat in Surrey on Monday morning, demanding Robinson be removed from her role, following her comments last week that Israel was founded on a “crappy piece of land.”

In her initial comments, made in an online panel discussion hosted by B’nai Brith Canada, Robinson also equated the generations-long battle between Israelis and Palestinians to a fight between the Tsleil-Waututh and the Squamish First Nations over land.

In a statement, B’nai Brith said it was “unfortunate that comments that she made last week have resulted in her feeling compelled to step down from her ministerial position.”

“We believe that her apology was sincere and that MLA Robinson will work to regain the confidence of the constituents who were offended by her remarks,” the Jewish human rights group said.

4:47

Protesters call for B.C. minister’s resignation following controversial comments

Robinson previously apologized in a social media post, saying her comments were “disrespectful,” and that she had been referring to the land having limited natural resources.

Natural resources like water!

Robinson issued another apology Monday morning, adding that she will take part in anti-Islamophobia training.

Eby said Robinson has a lot of work to do with people in different communities.

Following Eby’s announcement Monday afternoon, Robinson issued a statement, saying “This decision does not excuse my harmful comments, nor does it absolve me of the work I am committed to doing.

“While I had previously decided not to run again in the next election I remain committed to my constituents for the remainder of my term.”

Covid_19 - Big Pharma > Pfizer Pressured Twitter to Block Truth Tellers

..

Pfizer Board Member Pressured Twitter to Censor Posts on Natural Immunity, 

Low COVID Risk to Children: Emails

By Zachary Stieber, The Epoch Times

January 9, 2023 Updated: January 10, 2023

A Pfizer board member who used to head the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) lobbied Twitter to take action against a post accurately pointing out that natural immunity is superior to COVID-19 vaccination, according to an email released on Jan. 9.

Dr. Scott Gottlieb wrote on Aug. 27, 2021, to Twitter executive Todd O’Boyle to request Twitter take action against a post from Dr. Brett Giroir, another former FDA commissioner.

“This is the kind of stuff that’s corrosive. Here he draws a sweeping conclusion off a single retrospective study in Israel that hasn’t been peer-reviewed. But this tweet will end up going viral and driving news coverage,” Gottlieb wrote.

Giroir had written that it was clear natural immunity, or post-infection immunity, “is superior to vaccine immunity, by ALOT.” He said there was no scientific justification to require proof of COVID-19 vaccination if a person had natural immunity. “If no previous infection? Get vaccinated!” he also wrote.

Giroir pointed to what was at the time a preprint study from Israeli researchers that found, after analyzing health records, that natural immunity provided better protection than vaccination. The study was later published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases following peer review.

Researchers said the data “demonstrated that natural immunity confers longer lasting and stronger protection against infection, symptomatic disease and hospitalization caused by the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, compared to the BNT162b2 two-dose vaccine-induced immunity.” BNT162b2 is the trade name for Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, which is the main shot used in Israel.

Gottlieb’s email triggered messages on Jira, Twitter’s internal messaging system, according to journalist Alex Berenson, who was granted access to Twitter’s internal files by CEO Elon Musk.

“Please see this report from the former FDA commissioner,” O’Boyle wrote.

A Twitter analyst who reviewed the post determined it did not violate any misinformation rules but Twitter still put a tag on it, claiming to all users who viewed it that it was “misleading” and directing them to a link that would show “why health officials recommend a vaccine for most people.” The tag prevented people from replying to, sharing, or liking Giroir’s post.

Gottlieb later defended his actions, saying he targeted posts that he thought included “false and inflammatory” information. Giroir said “my tweet was accurate then, and it remains so now” and that Twitter never responded to him.

Another Message

Gottlieb later messaged O’Boyle again, flagging a post from Justin Hart, a critic of lockdowns and a skeptic of COVID-19 vaccines, Berenson reported.

Gottlieb took issue with Hart writing that “sticks and stones may break my bones but a viral pathogen with a child mortality rate of <>0% has cost our children nearly three years of schooling.”

COVID-19 poses little mortality risk to young, healthy people, studies and data show.

Gottlieb did not detail why he wanted to censor Hart, but the objection came shortly before the U.S. government authorized and recommended Pfizer’s vaccine for children aged 5 to 11.

O’Boyle sent the request to Twitter analysts, failing for a second time to disclose Gottlieb’s ties to Pfizer. The complaint did not trigger any action.

“Our team of ragtag analysts, activists, moms and dads have been going after Scott since April 2020 when he repeatedly advocated for school closures and lockdowns. He doesn’t like people pushing back on the narrative,” Hart told The Epoch Times in a Twitter message.

Twitter did not respond to requests for comment.

Tried to Get Journalist Banned

Gottlieb also tried to get Berenson, a former New York Times reporter who now authors a Substack, banned from Twitter, a message released in 2022 showed.

The message showed that Gottlieb forwarded a blog post from Berenson to a Twitter worker, writing that Berenson calling Dr. Anthony Fauci arrogant was an example of why Fauci, at the time the head of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, needed a security detail.

Four days later, and a day after Gottlieb met with Twitter workers, Twitter banned Berenson for allegedly violating its rules on COVID-19 misinformation.

Gottlieb defended his actions.

“I’ve raised concerns around social media broadly,” Gottlieb said during an appearance on CNBC. “And I’ve done it around the threats that are being made on these platforms, and the inability of these platforms to police direct threats, physical threats about people, that’s my concerns around social media, and what’s going on in that ecosystem.”

“I am very concerned with physical threats being made against people’s safety and the people who gin up those threats against individuals,” he also said.

Berenson responded that he’d never threatened Fauci or Gottlieb and referred to Gottlieb’s comments.

In the post that triggered Gottlieb’s email, Berenson criticized Fauci for saying that “attacks on me are attacks on science” and how he handled the U.S. pandemic response.

Berenson was reinstated to Twitter in 2022 as part of a settlement of a lawsuit he brought against the company. Berenson obtained Gottlieb’s email about Fauci’s post during discovery. Before the settlement agreement, a judge had concluded that Berenson plausibly alleged Twitter failed to abide by a policy of five strikes before banning the journalist.

Thank God for Elon Musk! 

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George Soros' America - $125 million should keep America far-left

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Soros stocks his war chest for Democrats ahead of midterms

The liberal financier has set aside $125 million to influence the upcoming midterm elections

George Soros listens to remarks by Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker and Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi

during a roundtable discussion in Washington, DC, May 20, 2015 © Getty Images / Mark Wilson

Liberal megadonor George Soros has funneled $125 million into Democracy PAC, a political action committee aimed at supporting Democrats this November. Soros’ spending on this PAC already dwarves the millions he donated in 2020.

Soros announced his investment in a statement on Friday, first reported by Politico. The money will be used to support “causes and candidates, regardless of political party” who are invested in “strengthening the infrastructure of American democracy: voting rights and civic participation, civil rights and liberties, and the rule of law," the billionaire liberal stated. 

I'm inclined to believe that all candidates have to be godless.

Soros's buying of America was preceded by his buying of Europe. He has influence over 226 members of the European Parliament. How else could the invasion of Europe by Muslim migrants have occurred? 

Although Soros pledged cash to candidates “regardless of political party,” the lion’s share will likely go to Democrats, based on Soros’ political views and past donations.

The donation means that Soros has already given Democracy PAC considerably more money than he did during the 2020 election cycle, which is unsurprising considering that polling shows Democrats will have to fight tooth and nail to preserve their control of Congress in November. During 2020, Soros gave Democracy PAC $80 million, which the PAC then disbursed to a myriad of causes and candidates.

Soros’ son Alexander serves as Democracy PAC’s president, and he told Politico how the family views this investment as a long term one, made necessary by the supposed “generational threat” posed to “our democracy” by the right.

Democracy PAC will publish its spending figures next week, after filling with the Federal Elections Commission. According to Politico, however, it has already sent $2.5 million to Senate Majority PAC and $1 million to House Majority PAC, aimed at preserving the Democratic hold on the Senate and House of Representatives respectively. Another $1 million has been sent to the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State, highlighting Soros’ interest in down-ballot races.

Secretaries of state oversee elections, and their role was made apparent in 2020 when it came time to certify an election that former President Donald Trump insisted was “rigged” against him.

Soros has also taken an interest in district attorney and sheriff races, pouring $17 million into these contests between 2015 and 2019 in support of far-left candidates. Some of these Soros-funded candidates now oversee prosecution in America’s major cities. St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner, San Francisco Attorney General Chesa Boudin and Philadelphia AG Larry Krasner all had their campaigns funded by Soros too, and have been blamed by Republicans for the crime waves their cities have experienced since.

On the other side of the aisle, Trump’s Save America PAC has already raised nearly as much cash as Soros’ Democracy PAC did in 2020, and currently has around $60 million on hand. This cash, combined with Trump’s endorsement of conservative candidates, will be a powerful counterbalance against Soros’ near-unlimited resources as the 2022 spending war heats up.

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Big Pharma > Drug Company Liable in Opioid Case; Is Big Pharma Controlling Twitter Now? Pharma Bro Loses Suit for $65m, Barred from Industry

..

Drug company found liable in landmark opioid case

Pharmaceutical company Teva is facing numerous other opioid-related lawsuits

around the US

©  REUTERS/Amir Cohen

A New York jury has found Teva Pharmaceutical Industries liable in helping to fuel opioid addiction in the state, with damages set to be determined later.

Following Thursday’s decision, which came after more than a week of deliberations, Teva released a statement saying they “strongly disagree” with the outcome of the six-month-long trial and they are preparing a “swift appeal.”

New York Attorney General Letitia James meanwhile called Thursday a “significant day” for all those negatively impacted by opioids, and said the legal action was only one part of a longer plan to continue holding “manufacturers and distributors” of opioids accountable. 

The lawsuit, taken by the state and two of its counties, accused Teva of using manipulative and misleading marketing to push more opioids, fueling the addiction crisis that has hit New York, as well as numerous other parts of America. 

The judge presiding over the case still has to make a ruling on a request for a mistrial, based on a statistic cited by the prosecution in their closing arguments that was false. Teva’s shares tumbled several points less than an hour after the verdict.

The New York lawsuit is a landmark case as it is at the center of a massive legal undertaking to target every part of the opioid supply chain, including manufacturers and distributors. If this verdict stands and leads to significant damages, it could pressure Teva and other companies to settle the thousands of other pending lawsuits across the country related to opioid addiction rates spiking in recent years due to what critics say is a system that over-prescribes and does not sufficiently warn patients about the highly addictive substance. 

Other drug manufacturers were included in New York’s lawsuit, including AbbVie, which settled its lawsuit earlier this month for the price of $200 million. Teva was the sole defendant following AbbVie’s settlement. 

More than 100,000 people died of a drug overdose between April 2020 and April of 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a November report on the ongoing crisis. Officials have said more than 500,000 deaths can be linked to the opioid crisis in the last two decades.

Twitter Suspends Media Site’s Account for Posting Video

of Congressman Criticizing Big Pharma

By Jack Phillips January 2, 2022

Media company Grabien News has been suspended by Twitter for posting a video of a U.S. congressman criticizing pharmaceutical corporations, its founder said.

Grabien founder Tom Elliott wrote on Twitter on Dec. 31 that Grabien was suspended for citing comments by Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) about COVID-19 treatments.

“Big Pharma Won’t Consider Therapeutics Like HCQ or Ivermectin Because of Economic Interests,” the post reads. It had an attached link to a video containing the congressman’s comments.

Elliott included a screenshot statement from Twitter, which sent him a boilerplate message that Grabien was suspended for “violating the policy on spreading misleading and potentially harmful information related to COVID-19,” which Elliott described as “next-level Twitter absurdity.”

“Obviously, in this case, quoting an elected leader on an issue that matters to everyone is important and newsworthy, regardless of whether you agree,” Elliott said. “And I can’t help but add that his basic point was once mainstream among progressives.

“I’ve appealed, making this point. However, I have no confidence in Twitter doing the right thing and acknowledging this tweet did not violate its terms & conditions.”

That's because it's not really about violating its terms and conditions, it's about speaking the truth about Big Pharma. These incidents make it obvious that Big Pharma is exerting a profound degree of influence over Twitter. It also makes it obvious that Twitter is not capable of managing itself in terms of free speech and truth.

Twitter officials didn’t respond to an Epoch Times request for comment by press time.

The suspension appears to suggest Twitter is aiming to crack down on COVID-19- or vaccine-related posts and content that run contrary to mainstream views on the matter.

Dr. Robert Malone, who helped develop the mRNA vaccine technology, was suspended last week for allegedly violating Twitter’s terms and conditions. And on Jan. 2, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) personal Twitter page was suspended for similar reasons, she wrote on social media site Gettr.

“We permanently suspended Marjorie Taylor Greene for repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation policy,” a Twitter spokesperson said in a statement on Jan. 2. “We’ve been clear that, per our strike system for this policy, we will permanently suspend accounts for repeated violations of the policy.”

Malone, meanwhile, told The Epoch Times that his account—which had more than 500,000 followers—was permanently suspended with no forewarning. That was days before Malone conducted an interview with popular podcaster Joe Rogan.

Meanwhile, former New York Times journalist Alex Berenson has filed a lawsuit against Twitter after his account, which also had amassed hundreds of thousands of followers, was banned.

Last month, former CEO Jack Dorsey resigned from his position at Twitter, sparking concern that the San Francisco-based company would take a more hard-line stance on what content can be posted. Longtime Twitter employee Parag Agrawal, who previously made comments critical of free speech, took over as CEO upon Dorsey’s departure.

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‘Pharma Bro’ CEO ordered to pay $64 million, barred from industry

The company was accused of driving up the price of a lifesaving drug used 

by pregnant women and cancer patients

Martin Shkreli after the jury issued a verdict at the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York

in the Brooklyn borough of New York City ©  Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Martin Shkreli, dubbed the “Pharma Bro” by the media, has been ordered to pay $64.6 million in profits he and his company made off of the anti-parasitic drug Daraprim. He is also barred from the pharmaceutical industry for life.

Shkreli, the founder and former CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, won’t be living up to his nickname for much longer. US District Judge Denise Cote delivered the decision barring him from the business on Friday, following a seven day bench trial in December. 

“The powerful don’t get to make their own rules, despite Shkreli thinking cash rules everything around him,” New York Attorney General Letitia James tweeted about Shkreli in a thread celebrating the ruling. The 2020 lawsuit alleged Shkreli blocked the competition from vital data and used supply agreements to manipulate the market availability of the drug’s actual ingredients. 

Shkreli’s price gouging was first discovered in 2015 and the story immediately captured the national spotlight, with former President Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton even addressing it on the 2016 campaign trail, with the former dubbing Shkreli a “spoiled brat.”

Then-CEO Shkreli came under fire after his company acquired the lifesaving drug Daraprim and sent prices through the roof, raising costs in 2015 for consumers from under $20 to more than $700. 

He defended the actions simply as capitalism at the time, something that did not help him in his latest case, with Judge Cote saying Shkreli “doubled down” in the face of “public opprobrium.”

Shkreli is currently serving a seven year sentence for separate securities fraud charges. 

Is there any chance he will emerge from prison a more humble pharma bro? I doubt it!

Senator Buys (and Drops) Thousands in Defense Stock After Pushing Trump for Bigger Military Budget

The Military Industrial Establishment is not normally this sloppy.

That's why it's called Deep State!

Corruption is Everywhere - even in Washington

© Reuters / Gary Cameron

A Republican senator who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee bought thousands of dollars-worth of stock in arms manufacturer Raytheon after pushing the Trump administration to approve massive hikes in defense spending.

Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma purchased between $50,000 and $100,000 of Raytheon stock last Tuesday – just days after news broke that US President Donald Trump had decided to back plans to request $750 billion from Congress for defense spending for the fiscal year 2020.

Citizens for Ethics✔

@CREWcrew

 1. Sen. Inhofe pushed for record defense spending

2. Inhofe bought tens of thousands of stock in a defense contractor

3. Inhofe’s office was asked about the purchase

4. Inhofe dumped the stock https://www.thedailybeast.com/sen-james-inhofe-bought-defense-stock-days-after-pushing-for-record-pentagon-spendingthen-dumped-it-when-asked-about-it …

It seems that Inhofe was personally involved in the decision to hike the defense budget, too. When Trump suggested last week that he wanted to downsize parts of the US defense budget, Inhofe met with him and Defense Secretary James Mattis – a meeting which seems to have successfully convinced Trump to back increases in defense spending rather than cutbacks.

Inhofe’s communications director, Leacy Burke, told the Daily Beast, which first reported on the senator’s stock buy, that his financial transactions are “handled by a third-party advisor” and that he was not aware of the stock transaction. Burke said Inhofe had told his financial advisor to reverse the transaction when he learned of it. “This means that the transaction was canceled before it was settled; the Senator never took ownership of it,” she said.

© The Daily Beast

The staffer also said Inhofe had written to his financial adviser instructing him not to buy anymore aerospace or defense stocks in future, given his position as the new chairman of the Armed Services Committee – but metadata on the letter provided by Burke showed that the letter was created less than 20 minutes after the Daily Beast contacted Inhofe’s office for comment on the stock purchase.

It appears that this was not the first time Inhofe owned stock in companies “within his direct legislative purview” either, the website reported. When he chaired the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee between 2015 and 2017, Inhofe owned stakes in multiple energy companies.

The stock buy has raised ethics concerns, with experts saying it highlights the conflict of interest that exists when elected officials’ financial interests are tied up in industries they have control over in the form of enacting or stopping legislation.

Lawmakers are not allowed trade stock based on non-public information, but since the news of Trump’s defense spending request was already public, Inhofe’s short-lived Raytheon purchase would not have been classed as congressional insider trading, even if he had directed the purchase himself.

Still, one expert said the senator “likely has other nonpublic inside information, such as insight into what the final budget will look like and which industries stand to benefit.”

Migration & Radical European Muslims Stir Up Antisemitism in Germany – Parliament Chief

What I've been saying for at least a couple years...

Not only is overt anti-Semitism growing in all sectors of German society, but Muslim influence is growing and will continue to grow in the Bundestag, and other EU parliaments, turning  governments slowly and inexorably against Israel.

A man wearing a kippah waits for the start of an anti-Semitism demo, September 14, 2014

/ Thomas Peter / Reuters

Radical Muslim communities and immigrants harboring extremist views of Israel are contributing to the rise of anti-Semitism on German soil, speaker of the Bundestag Wolfgang Schaeuble warned in a candid interview.

Wolfgang Schaeuble, a German political heavyweight who previously served as the country's finance minister, argued that combatting anti-Semitism is "a stress test" for Western societies, especially in times when immigration from Muslim-majority countries continues to grip Europe.

While anti-Semitism is "not a specific Muslim problem," it is still getting stronger "due to migration and the hatred against Israel that is fueled by radical forces in the Islamic world," he told the Funke media group, as cited by Die Welt newspaper.

Schaeuble, who now chairs the Bundestag, reiterated that some European Muslims are disseminating "an irrational hatred of Jews, also fueled by anti-Zionism," with the phenomenon spreading in France "but also in Germany." "Liberal societies," he posited, must tackle the problem despite "this huge migration." Defeating hatred of Jews would become "a great stress test for Western democracies" because many in Muslim communities have "strong commitment to anti-Semitism."

The Bundestag president was speaking just days after Horst Seehofer, a newly-appointed Interior Minister, claimed Islam does not belong in Germany and promised to introduce a fast-track deportation scheme for failed asylum applicants from Muslim states. "We can't stop the gait of history," Schaeuble said, adding that "everyone had to deal with the fact that Islam has become part of our country."

Muslims, for their part, would have to understand "that they live in a country that is not shaped by Islamic traditions," he stated. But the rest of the population "must accept that there is a growing proportion of Muslims in Germany."

Schaeuble's remarks were a partial echo of what Charlotte Knobloch, former head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany and current President of the Jewish Community of Munich and Upper Bavaria, said in January. She said that attacks on Jews have become "commonplace" in Germany, while anti-Semitism "has grown on the right and the left, in the Muslim community and also in the heart of German society."

Schaeuble is not the first politician to voice concern over the issue. Stephan Harbarth, the deputy chairman of ruling CDU / CSU parliamentary group, said that ahead of the Holocaust Memorial Day on January 27, Berlin will "resolutely oppose the anti-Semitism of migrants of Arab descent and those from African countries."

Also, Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) have reportedly drafted a policy document, which seeks the deportation of immigrants rejecting Jewish life in Germany or questioning Israel's right to exist. A "complete acceptance of the Jewish life" is a "criterion for successful integration," the document, seen by Die Welt, apparently reads.

Number of Atheists in Russia Halves in 3 Years – Poll

© Sergey Pyatakov / Sputnik

The number of Russians who describe themselves as atheists has fallen from 26 to 13 percent in just three years, according to recent research. The share of those who back the Church’s involvement in state politics has increased slightly.

The poll, conducted by the Russian independent research center Levada in late June, showed that majority of Russians (62 percent) describe their attitude to atheists as “good and respectful,” with only 8 percent stating negative feelings towards this group. These figures remain virtually unchanged since 2014.

At the same time, the share of those who describe themselves as atheists fell sharply over this period – from 26 percent in 2014 to 13 percent today. Nine percent of participants in the poll said that they considered themselves “very religious” and 44 percent said they were “partly religious.”

That would leave 34% as 'religious'.

In the same poll, 28 percent of respondents said that they were confident that the Church must influence the decision-making process in the upper echelons of state power. This is up from 26 percent three years ago.

The share of those who oppose such actions remained unchanged at 36 percent, while 39 percent said that in their minds the influence of the Church on state politics was “exactly at the necessary level.”

When researchers asked the Russian public about their attitude to representatives of various popular religions and confessions, Orthodox Christianity came out as the most popular with the approval of 92 percent of respondents. Just under three-quarters (74 percent) said that they had positive feelings towards Catholics and 61 percent said they felt respect towards Protestants.

The share of those who reported positive feelings towards Muslims is now 59 percent – which is unchanged since 2013. Seventeen percent described their feelings towards Muslims as “controversial” and 13 percent as “fear and hostility.”

Just over half (55 percent) of Russians said they had a good attitude to Jewish people, with 17 reporting controversial feelings and 11 percent stating they had negative sentiments.

Analysts from the Levada Center noted in comments published on the group’s website that while the share of religious people in the country was on the increase, the strength of their faith was apparently getting weaker.

“The increase in the number of believers is not accompanied by sincere faith or understanding of importance of the religion for spiritual life,” the comments read.

“Indirectly, the weakness of Orthodox Christian norms can be confirmed by growing opposition to restrictions imposed during major fasts – such as the restrictions on entertainment, alcohol or sex. The number of people who say that they are not ready to bear this burden has increased up to two times over the past few years.”

The Russian Orthodox Church expects partial fasts on Wednesdays and Fridays, plus they have a plethora of other fasts that vary from forbidding a few things to not eating from Monday morning until Wednesday evening. While many of the fasts are aimed at monks and clergy, it seems devout Orthodox believers often try to follow them as well.

Fasting is a powerful tool in the church, but it seems to me that it should always be volunteered, not imposed. Fasting, while resenting the fast, is not only ineffective but is probably quite a negative experience. Jesus disciples shocked the religious establishment when they picked a few ears of corn to eat on the Sabbath. They had that freedom in Christ as do all who believe in Him.