Scripture says the righteous are alive in God, not truly cut off by death (Luke 20:38). It also says we are one Body in Christ (1 Corinthians 12), that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses (Hebrews 12:1), and Revelation shows heavenly saints presenting the prayers of believers before God (Revelation 5:8). So asking a saint to pray for you is not worshiping them; it is asking another living member of Christ’s Body to intercede, just as we ask Christians on earth to pray for us. I'm sorry this is a lot for you, but this is just what Orthodox Christians believe. I'll pray for everyone anyway, we all should.
Orthodoxy does not believe every Christian practice has to be explicitly commanded in one Bible verse. Scripture itself tells us to hold to apostolic tradition received orally and in writing (2 Thess. 2:15). The veneration of saints is part of the historic Church’s understanding of the communion of saints, not a pagan practice imported centuries later.
Christmas trees share a lot with ancient pagan winter solstice traditions that you seem fine with.
Orthodox Christians do not deify or worship the saints. I worship the one true God, and I ask the saints to pray for me. That is the same basic principle as asking other Christians in the Church to pray for you, the difference is that we believe the saints are alive in Christ.
I welcome any progress against the gun grabbers, but if this gets struck down (which is great if it does) we still have to go through the new asinine process to buy our rights back from the state through SB25-003. Wish we could just strike both of those things down and get rid of Colorado's gun grabbers.
@Frost214514 I saved so much money and bought piece by piece to build my MK18 clone. Once I had everything I was happy. I built my dream rifle with nothing but the best parts. Buy once, cry once.