Daily Archives: June 20, 2024

‘Sister Wives’: Did the Brown Family Lie to Fans Just to Sell the Show? – Showbiz Cheat Sheet

Posted: June 20, 2024 at 3:58 am

As Sister Wives approaches its 19th season on TLC, the Brown family is so far removed its origins that the show is a shell of its original premise. Fans have since realized the original idea for Sister Wives was a lie fabricated by the Browns and TLC to sell the show

The Brown family hard sold polygamy for years. The clans reported objective was to show that polygamists are just like everyone else. And that spiritual marriages should be normalized within society.

However, fans began to smell a rat after a few seasons on TLC. The show started to veer off course, away from the family and into scripted, drama-filled moments.

Kody, Meri, Janelle, Christine, and Robyn Brown became bolder in their confessionals. The familys biggest lie came in Season 18 when Christine Brown let it slip that Kody and Meris happy marriage was anything but how it was portrayed early on in the series.

When Kody and Meri married in 1990, they exchanged rings. However, Meri says that when Kody started dating Robyn, he told her he no longer wanted to wear his wedding ring. He didnt think that it was fair that I had a claim on him, Meri explained, so he melted it down and kept the diamonds.

That was a symbol! That signified our marriage and commitment, and he melted it down! Meri slammed.

Whos to say that he didnt just melt down our entire relationship in that moment? She added that it occurred six or seven years before the catfishing scandal that Kody claimed ended their marriage, yet another lie for TLCs cameras.

In another tipping point from Season 18, Kody admitted that only poverty scares him. That seemed like an odd response from a man who has made millions on reality television, but it makes perfect sense looking back on the Brown family history.

Thats because the family was indeed living below the poverty level for years before their series debut. Christine and Kodys daughter Mykelti confirmed this. She admitted on her Patreon that the Brown family was dirt poor and that they lived off 3-day-old bread and MREs for dinner.

This wasnt evident as Kody introduced his children in the first episode of Sister Wives. They appeared to have everything they needed, including food, as they ate snacks alongside their father.

Showbiz Cheat Sheet has reported that the Browns are estimated to have made anywhere from $25,000 to $40,000 per episode. Therefore, over 18 seasons, if the family filmed at a minimum of 14 episodes per season, they have so far been paid from $6M to $10M

Therefore, without the lies that Sister Wives perpetrates, Kody could face his biggest fear again. Hes also lost a steady income flow from Meri, Christine, and Janelle since they left him. This leaves Kody with less income to fall back on, and his cash flow level lower than its been in years.

In the earliest seasons of Sister Wives, the Brown family moved from Utah to Las Vegas, Nevada. Kody explained they were facing legal issues surrounding their polygamous lifestyle. Fans bought the storyline, which turned out to be a lie.

Later, it was revealed that no legal action was taken against the Brown family. Kody moved to Vegas because he wanted to.

Subsequently, the familys Flagstaff move was sold to viewers as a money maker for the family. However, it was later revealed they moved because Robyns oldest son, Dayton, had been accepted to college in Flagstaff.

During the pandemic, Kody said his older kids couldnt work or see girlfriends. But Kody officiated a friends wedding and was seen dancing and partying with the guests around the same time; another lie.

Some of the many other lies the Brown family told viewers included Kodys assertion that Christine begged to marry him. In fact, he pursued her.

A Meri/Robyn friendship when their relationship was anything but. And worst of all, Kody insisted that he didnt favor Robyn. However, he spent the majority of his time at her home.

Sister Wives is currently on hiatus. The show is set to return to TLC later this summer.

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'Sister Wives': Did the Brown Family Lie to Fans Just to Sell the Show? - Showbiz Cheat Sheet

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Fish Could Turn Regolith into Fertile Soil on Mars – Universe Today

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What a wonderful arguably simple solution. Heres the problem, we travel to Mars but how do we feed ourselves? Sure we can take a load of food with us but for the return trip thats a lot. If we plan to colonise the red planet we need even more. We have to grow or somehow create food while we are there. The solution is an already wonderfully simple biosphere style system; a fish tank! New research suggests fish could be raised in an aquatic system and nutrient rich water can fertilise and grow plants in the regolith! A recent simulation showed vegetables could be grown in regolith fertilised by the fish tank water!

In the next few decades we may well see human beings colonise Mars. The red planet is 54.6 million km away which, even on board a rocket, takes about 7 months to get there! Future colonists could simply have supply ships drop all they need but that becomes ridiculously expensive to sustain and frankly, isnt sustainable. The lucky people that colonise Mars will just have to find some way to grow what they need.

If you have watched The Martian movie with Matt Damon you will know how unforgiving the Martian environment is. Ok the film was a little out on scientific accuracy in places but it certainly showed how inhospitable it really is there. Matt managed to cultivate a decent crop of potatoes in Martian regolith fertilised in human faeces.This may not be quite so practical in real life and there may be alternative, less smelly and dangerous alternatives.

Taking the assumption that colonists will have to grow fresh produce locally, a team of researchers decided to explore how feasible this might be. On first glance, it may seem not too great an idea after all, the atmosphere is toxic with 95% carbon dioxide (compared to just 0.04% on Earth). There is a similar length of day on Mars but being able to grow crops will require longer periods of lighting. It is possible at least water may be collected from the ice which forms on and in the Martian rocks. The rocks most certainly have water stored away but organic compounds that we know of.

The team wanted to see how fish could help and whether the water from the system could be used to impart nutrients into the Martian regolith. To test the idea, they setup an aquaponic system with fish in tanks to generate the nutrient rich liquid.

The results were very promising. They found that aquaponic systems not only facilitate growing plants within the system itself but the nutrient rich water performed as an excellent fertiliser. This took the organically deficient regolith and turned it into something akin to useable soil. The fish used in the study were tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) and using them, the team managed to grow potatoes, tomatoes, beans, carrots and much more. To enable all this to happen, the fish received sufficient light and other environmental stimulus. The plants were grown and indeed thrived in a tent that simulated Mars in every way possible.

Its an interesting aside that the study not only benefits future space travellers but those inhabitants of more environmentally hostile places on Earth.

Source : Fish and chips on Mars: our research shows how colonists could produce their ownfood

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Call Attacks on Pride What They Are: Political Violence – The New Republic

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Earlier this month, when an Austin brewery got a bomb threat specifically citing the drag brunch the brewery hosts, they made the decision to shut down for the day. The threat came via email to the Brewtorium Brewery & Kitchen on the day of their Legendary Drag Brunch and Market, claiming a pipe bomb had been placed in the restaurant office. The email reportedly also said, fuck drag queen scum. A few days later, Pride and Black Lives Matter signs were stolen from an Austin church. The associate pastor said it seemed like someone had run over the signs with their car. Texas has faced far-right and Christian-nationalist harassment of drag and Pride events in the state over the past several years, which at time has featured people invoking Christ as they taunted drag brunch attendees as groomers. The Texas state legislature also attempted to effectively ban drag in 2023, a ban that was ruled unconstitutional.

When police came to investigate the threat at the Brewtorium in Austin, they found no bomb. After a day full of back and forth with the Austin Police Department and an FBI liaison, it has been determined that we were most likely a victim of a hoax that has affected institutions in several major cities throughout the U.S. recently, the Brewtoriums owner said in a statement to Eater Austin. (In May, the FBI issued an advisory about possible threats to Pride, but it focused only on foreign terrorist organizations.) While no one was injured, the hoax bomb accomplished what such threats are meant to: shutting down events. Others may also consider whether Pride events are safe to host in the future.

Attacks targeting Pride events this year are not limited to states or communities with anti-LGBTQ legislation, or where Trump has a conspicuous base. This June, one week after Beverly Unitarian Church in Chicago held its first Pride event in its history, a Pride flag flying at the church was torn down and burned on the church lawn. In response to the attack, the congregation has added more Pride colors to the outside of the church, and theyve scheduled a second Pride event later this month. We are not going away. Our beliefs are not going away. Our trust in people is going away, Beth OGrady, chair of the church board of trustees, told the local CBS News outlet.

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Call Attacks on Pride What They Are: Political Violence - The New Republic

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Cloning and functional characterization of the legumin A gene (EuLEGA) from Eucommia ulmoides Oliver | Scientific … – Nature.com

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Singers Offered AI Voice Cloning by World’s Biggest Record Label – Ultimate Classic Rock

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The worlds biggest record label, Universal Music Group, announced plans to offer its artists AI models of their own voices.

The corporations deal with digital startup firm SoundLabs will create software called MicDrop, designed to replicate an individual voice via machine learning techniques. The artist will retain full control of the model it wont be used in any way without permission, wont be available to the public, and the voice owner will profit from its use.

MidDrop is the latest iteration of technology thats been under development for years and has already begun impacting the music industry. Practical uses include being able to sing in foreign languages without having learned them; being able to create music after health issues prevent ones vocal cords from working; and even allowing music to be made after ones death.

READ MORE:Hear 25 AI James Hetfield Covers: Toto, Wham!, Seal and More

In addition, the voice model can by used like the voices on a synthesizer, offering additional creative opportunities. While its use as an onstage tool remain to be revealed, it could theoretically be used by a singer like Jon Bon Jovi who fears he may never tour again as a result of health issues to stay on the road.

MicDrop is the first in a suite of interoperable AI tools and services developed by SoundLabs for sound design and music generation, UMG said in a statement. It gives artists new music super-powers and completely reimagines how music is made, enabling them to expand what is possible.

SoundLabs goal is to place powerful new compositional tools at artists fingertips, while supporting proper management of their intellectual property. SoundLabs is focused on helping artists retain creative control over their data and models.

We believe the future of music creation is decidedly human, said BT, musician and boss of SoundLabs which uses the tagline Transform your voice into any voice, instantly. He continued: Artificial intelligence, when used ethically and trained consensually, has the promethean ability to unlock unimaginable new creative insights, diminish friction in the creative process and democratize creativity We are designing tools not to replace human artists, but to amplify human creativity.

Chris Horton, SVP of UMG which recently revealed its Principles for Music Creation With AI added: UMG strives to keep artists at the center of our AI strategy, so that technology is used in service of artistry, rather than the other way around.

We are thrilled to be working with SoundLabs and BT, who has a deep and personal understanding of both the technical and ethical issues related to AI. SoundLabs will allow UMG artists to push creative boundaries using voice-to-voice AI to sing in languages they dont speak, perform duets with their younger selves, restore imperfect vocal recordings, and more.

Music lives on long after the artists who create it are gone. Sometimes, lucky fans even get to enjoy new songs afterward.

Gallery Credit: Corey Iwwin

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IZEA Introduces AI Voice Cloning and Speech Synthesis in FormAI – GlobeNewswire

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Cannes, France, June 18, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- IZEA Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ: IZEA), the premier provider of technology, data, and services for the Creator Economy, today announced it has launched new technology that enables both text-to-speech generation and AI voice cloning in FormAI, its suite of artificial intelligence tools built for influencer marketing. FormAI combines the best aspects of a variety of generative AI technologies and models across photos, video, text, chat and now audio. The company provides users with free access to FormAI, allowing power users to upgrade to get additional features and expanded content volume options.

IZEA CEO Ted Murphy unveiled these powerful new features at the companys second annual AI Days event during the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. Marketers and creators aboard a chartered yacht on the waters of the French Riviera viewed a live demonstration of the new FormAI tools.

AI Voice Cloning FormAIs new voice cloning feature allows users to upload a sound clip and generate an AI version of their voice. AI Voice Cloning allows content creators and marketers to generate voiceovers for their videos or podcasts in various tones, accents, or languages, expanding their reach to a more diverse audience. It saves resources by eliminating the need to hire professional voice actors, as creators can simply input their script and have the AI generate the audio. The voice cloning process requires a voice matching authentication, review, and approval process to ensure that the voices cloned are those of the end users.

AI Voice Sharing Creators can share their AI-trained digital voice with other creators, their talent management, or directly with brands. Brands can share an AI voice with creators to ensure consistency in content output. This shared ecosystem fosters a rich collaborative environment, allowing for easy sharing and access controls.

AI Text-to-Speech Synthesis FormAIs AI Text-to-Speech Synthesis feature boasts the capability to articulate text in 29 different languages, offering over 100 pre-existing voices. This includes both male and female voices with a variety of accents designed specifically for narration, character voicing, and more. It allows creators to produce multilingual content effortlessly in a pre-existing voice or their own, opening opportunities to reach a global audience.

With the launch of FormAI Voice Cloning, were taking another significant stride toward our goal of Generative Sponsorships, said Ted Murphy. The sharing of models and voices between brands and creators opens a gateway to a new era of digital storytelling where creators, brands, and technology converge to produce something truly extraordinary together.

These new features are available on FormAI paid plans. To get started with FormAI for free, visit izea.com. For news and resources, follow IZEA at x.com/izea.

About IZEA Worldwide, Inc.

IZEA Worldwide, Inc. (IZEA) is a marketing technology company providing software and professional services that enable brands to collaborate and transact with the full spectrum of todays top social influencers and content creators. The company serves as a champion for the growing Creator Economy, enabling individuals to monetize their content, creativity, and influence. IZEA launched the industrys first-ever influencer marketing platform in 2006 and has since facilitated nearly 4 million transactions between online buyers and sellers. Leading brands and agencies partner with IZEA to increase digital engagement, diversify brand voice, scale content production, and drive a measurable return on investment.

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MrBeast has a ‘clone’ who allows him to ‘be in multiple places at once’ – UNILAD

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MrBeast has revealed he has a team of clones, which is how he is able to make so many huge-scale YouTube videos.

I think we would all like a clone of ourselves to cut in half the amount of jobs we have to do on a daily basis.

MrBeast is one of the most subscribed-to YouTubers on the platform, so its no wonder why he has such a huge team around him.

Now, whether they are actually clones is another question, but whatever hes doing, it seems to be going down well with his viewers.

To make sure his team are making exactly the same decisions he would make, and think exactly how he would think, MrBeast - real name Jimmy Donaldson - hired people who shared his vision and then put them through rigorous training or, as he calls it, 'cloning'.

In an interview with Lex Fridman, MrBeast explained: "I have a lot of people in the company who are able to think like me and basically make decisions like I would make.

"One example is Tyler [Conklin].

Basically for four or five years we just spent an absurd amount of time together and worked on every single video together... and the same thing with my CEO James, he lived with me for a couple of years.

"I'm a big fan of finding people who are just super obsessed and all in that really just want to be great, and then just dumping everything I have in them."

Trusting someone to be CEO of a company you created is pretty major, so it makes sense that MrBeast wanted to make sure James was right for the job - but the process was pretty intense.

He explains: "For two years, [James] lived with me and we probably talked, on average of those two years, seven hours a day... like really, just training his brain to think like me.

"That way, he could just do things without my input, without me having to constantly watch over him or give him advice.

"So for the first six months, he didn't do anything. He just studied me and studied everything I cared about and how I spoke.

"For the next six months he started taking on some responsibilities and now he can just run the company and I don't ever really have to check in on him.

"Like, most of the decisions he makes are exactly what I would do.

"I call that cloning, I don't know that other people would."

He added: "It just makes it where I don't have to be so involved in everything because I just have these people I know will think like I will. So I can kind of almost be in multiple places at once, per se.

"I still approve every idea before we film.

All the creative, I approve it, but I don't have to be in the weeds and nuances and do all this minor stuff."

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The Boys star’s reaction in shocking scene banned in India was ‘totally genuine’ – LADbible

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When it comes to The Boys, there are numerous scenes that you really hope they dont actually put the actors through.

If every victim of Homelander was shot practically, Antony Starr would have somehow found the only way to actually get even scarier than he is when playing the Trumpian superhero.

Fans were shocked, however, to find out that a scene in the newest season so X-rated it was banned in India was completely genuine - at least regarding the actors reaction.

Censorship in India has been a problem for the newest season of The Boys, with one scene involving a cloning superhero human centipeding himself being banned with an edit put in its place of the superhero masturbating by himself without the help of clones.

As much as it wouldnt shock me to hear that the team behind The Boys perfected human cloning and immediately used it to film a self-orgy scene that isnt what happened here.

The scene in question is another in season four, in which Vice-President elect and secret supe Victoria Neuman (played by Claudia Domit) arranges a deal with Butcher (Karl Urban) to steal files the Boys have on her.

When he goes to send her said files, she instead opens her emails to be met with the only way to describe it is what we assume to be Billy Butchers spread a***hole.

Along with the human centipede scene, this moment also ended up getting censored in India - with viewers just seeing a blurred phone screen.

One fan wrote: Hey [Prime Video India] babe, you up? Great. Can we have a chat about you Randomly censoring scenes from The Boys in India?

In season 4 episode 1 Butcher sends a picture of a (his?) butthole to screw with someone (typical Butcher) which has been blurred out.

The official The Boys account on X posted a meme of the scene, saying:

We cant show you the actual image from the episode, but if youve seen it, you know exactly what goes here. Two things you should know:

1. That was Claudias first time seeing it, so her reaction is totally genuine.

2. It is not Karls butthole, but a model hired specifically for this shot. The more you know.

Absolutely. Diabolical.

Whilst were glad Karl wasnt made to spread and cough over a camera, the question asked by fans was clear: How much do you even pay someone to do that?

Never one to disappoint, The Boys account responded to one of the many asking to say: Probably a-whole lot.

No innuendo there Im sure.

Fans of The Boys, sickos that we all are, loved this detail.

One responded to the tweet to say: Could tell. Noticed a grin on her face when she covered it with her hand.

Another said: A genuine reaction, that scene was insane.

A third summed things up perfectly, tweeting: This show is so out of pocket and i bloody love it.

Too bloody right.

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The Boys star's reaction in shocking scene banned in India was 'totally genuine' - LADbible

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‘Orphan Black Echoes’ Review – A Soulless Clone of the Original – Collider

Posted: at 3:57 am

The Big Picture

Its always an exciting day for fans of an IP when a sequel series gets announced. Any opportunity to delve further into the lore of a beloved world especially when its science fiction or fantasy is a boon for longtime fans who usually sate that need via pages and pages of fanfiction or hours scrolling on Tumblr. So naturally, when Orphan Black: Echoes was first announced in 2022, the two-year wait about what to expect from the new project starring Krysten Ritter and Keeley Hawes was near-excruciating.

The premise is simple for anyone familiar with Orphan Black: Ritters Lucy wakes up with no memories at all, unable to ascertain where shes come from. In reality, she didnt exist before that moment shes a print-out, created by Hawes Kira Manning, the daughter of Tatiana Maslanys original clone Sarah Manning. But Lucy doesnt know that and embarks on a quest to figure out exactly who she is and why shes been created, a feat that becomes all the more difficult when she discovers other print-out versions of herself.

Initially, Echoes has all the hallmarks of what fans would want from an Orphan Black sequel series: a further exploration of the ethics behind human cloning, and a direct connection to Sarahs story from the original series. It sets itself up for a slam-dunk into the hearts of avid fans and seems like itll go down in sci-fi history until the end of the first episode, when things take a sharp turn.

Orphan Black: Echoes delves into a new chapter of the Orphan Black universe, exploring the lives of a fresh set of clones. Set in a near-future society, the series follows a group of women who discover they are part of a vast and complex cloning experiment. As they uncover their origins and grapple with their identities, they must navigate dangerous conspiracies and powerful enemies determined to control their fates.

Expand

Perhaps the most egregious problem of Echoes is that Ritters Lucy has none of the charm of Maslanys various clones from the original. This is less the fault of the actress herself and more of the writing, which is nearly a carbon copy of the original series with all its zing and interest surgically removed. Its Scientific Ethics for Dummies, talking down to the viewer about why everything going on in the show is wrong despite trying to make you root for some of the people who committed those atrocities in the first place. It doesnt help that Rya Kihlstedt and Amanda Fix, who play the younger and older versions of the same print-out character, seem like theyre letting Ritter do all the work for them, reading their lines with what feels like complete and utter disinterest in the show theyre starring in.

Hawes is really the only thing that makes Echoes worth watching, but I couldve told you that without watching a single episode. From kicking ass and taking names in Ashes to Ashes and Spooks to her more recent, nuanced work in projects like Its a Sin and Stonehouse, Hawes has always been one to watch, and its a shame that Echoes reduces her to a waif-like plot driver, forcing an American accent on her that, while believable, only makes her exposition-dumping dialogue seem all the more stilted and unnatural. Id be hard-pressed to say that shes bad as Kira Manning, considering she and Ritter are carrying the entire series on their own, but anyone would struggle with the material Echoes provides, which coasts by entirely on the reputation of the original series and nothing more. (This is also proven by a brief appearance from original star Jordan Gavaris, playing Hawes uncle despite being thirteen years her junior and wearing what can only be described as a comically bad fake beard.)

It's been seven years since Orphan Black went off the air, and yet Echoes doesn't offer up a single idea that expands upon the ethics of human cloning in a meaningful way. Echoes itself feels like a clone in the same way that Lucy is without any of her host mothers original memories a hollow print-out, a copy that forged all the structural basics with none of the flair or creativity. It feels less like a sequel to the original, continuing its ideas in a new format, and more like a cheap remake; change a few names, and it could be a completely different project, with almost no throughline to the original beyond Kiras name.

Echoes also features a heavy reliance on flashbacks, as though it cant trust the viewer to infer things for themselves and must walk them, baby step by baby step, through each plot point. When the A plot is about as interesting as watching paint dry, it might help to spice things up a bit by mixing up the timelines, but the flashbacks (one of which lasts an entire episode) do nothing but dump more exposition on the viewer. Echoes doesnt trust its audience for a second, which might explain why its about as fun to watch as one of those instructional training videos every job puts you through it wants to make sure you dont miss a damn thing, to its own detriment, rather than letting the viewer interpret its art through a personal lens.

As a result, getting through Echoes ten episodes its the rare show that gets more than an eight-episode season order is a feeling akin to wading through mud, with the end ultimately lacking what should feel like a satisfying conclusion. Its a tragedy, considering how much Ritter and Hawes can knock you on your ass when theyre given the right material to work with, but its also unsurprising, given the landscape we live in, of IPs flogged until every last bit of moneys been stripped from them. Echoes is nothing more than a dead horse being beaten repeatedly in the hope that someone, somewhere, will mistake it for the (much better) original.

Despite great leads, Orphan Black: Echoes fails to hit its mark and doesn't live up to the original series.

Orphan Black: Echoes premieres June 23 on AMC, AMC+, and BBC America.

Watch on AMC+

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'Orphan Black Echoes' Review - A Soulless Clone of the Original - Collider

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A journey from atheism in China to Catholicism in the United States – CatholicVote org

Posted: at 3:56 am

CV NEWS FEED // In a recent op-ed published in The Catholic Spirit, Juekun Wen, a recent Catholic convert, shared his journey from the atheism he grew up surrounded by in China to Catholicism in the US.

I became Catholic because I am a seeker of truth, Wen wrote in his June 17 article. God planted wonderful people along my journey in my darkest hour to show me the path of light, leading me toward him.

Describing his upbringing in China, Wen recalled that his family did not practice religion. He did not encounter Christianity until he was 25. I have always been taught that nothing is valid until proven to be true, he wrote. Skepticism was my religion.

However, after finishing his studies at the University of Richmond, and working for a few years as a lab technician, Wen decided he would visit his parents before returning back to the US to attend graduate school at the University of Minnesota.

Then covid happened.

Wen was faced with either having to return to China and potentially be unable to return for graduate school, or remain in the US without a job or place to live.

I was very depressed and anxious and felt that my life had hit rock bottom. Little did I know that the Almighty had his plan for me, even though I was not one of his followers yet, he wrote.

Ultimately, Wen recalled that it was one of his undergraduate professors who came to his aid, and subsequently led him to the Catholic faith.

Upon hearing of Wens circumstance, the professor and his family, who are all Christian, offered to host Wen for as long as he needed. It was during this time that Wen began to learn about Christianity.

Wen later attended the University of Minnesota, where his professor connected him with the family that would later become his sponsors to the Catholic Church, and the future godparents to his child.

Alongside his studies, Wen discovered that the more he learned about God, the more he realized that religion and science are not in conflict.

I came to realize that the analytical method and inquisitive mindset (as my younger self would call it, being skeptical) fostered by science are powerful tools to aid one in understanding and searching for truth, he wrote, adding:

One can say that those are wonderful gifts that our Lord has bestowed upon us, to be able to search for him.

Wen now attends St Mark parish in St Paul, where he lives with his wife Lauren. They are currently expecting their first child.

Looking back now, I feel so blessed and grateful for God to put those people in my life to guide me to him, he concluded: Even when I was skeptical of his existence, God had his way of leading me to the truth and happiness.

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A journey from atheism in China to Catholicism in the United States - CatholicVote org

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