Thursday 5 October 2023

The News or Nihilism - your (self-imposed) only choice

We modern people substantially make our reality, thus choose our reality: just look around you! So primal/ childhood unconsciousness and instinct is not an option, not if we are to live as a human among humans. (And anyone who is genuinely prepared to hand-back the human ticket and live as an unconscious, instinctive animal, would not be arguing about it: just shutting-up and doing it.) 


Yes, but what reality do we choose? 

En mass, on-average, We choose The News.

That is reality... Whatever The News says is what-passes-for objectivity. Despite that The News is incoherent, labile and evil - it is the only reality we have... 


(We are, to some extent, allowed to select from-within The News - i.e. the approved media, the ones that are not blocked; we have that 'freedom'! We can therefore, each and all of us, be unique individuals; with our very-own choice and combination of official News-reality -- Yippee!)


But suppose we reject The News - what then? 

If we do not live in the world of The News, what other world may we inhabit?

Behind The News is... Nihilism - nothingness, non-objectivity. 

You step outside The News, and you are on your own, mate! You will then inhabit a world where there is only your-word against the-world.


(Look around, and you will find many News stories with this subtext. They may even acknowledge that The News hates you, and wants you dead! [Actually They really want you damned - but can't say it within the materialism of The News.] The News may rub it in your face that They are trying to immiserate, hurt, maim and kill you... But then - what else is there? Leave The News and you are dead anyway!)


Or maybe you have a few allies - but then so what? Family and some friends is not The Economy. 

You don't have police, army, control of the laws, ability to print money; or the mass media to label you a disgusting, dumb, evil outlaw - and declare open-season on you. 

You don't have a linked-bureaucracy that extends almost everywhere and supplies almost everything. 

You can't live separate from The News; and if you even try and show any sign of succeeding, The News will stop you whenever it wants. 


Such is life. Such is life on the mainstream secular world-view - materialistic metaphysics - which everybody is taught and which is everywhere reinforced in the public domain - not mainly be statements, but wholly by assumptions. 

God, Heaven, the soul, the spirit, creation, reality of values - our whole public world is built and functions on the basis that none of these are real. In the bureaucracies which run everything nowadays; all rules and procedures exclude the reality of of God/ creation/ soul/ spirit etc etc. 

There is just The News, the objectivity to the current Establishment diktat - which is always a lie; or there is Nihilism, nothing, mere subjectivity - which is not even a lie.  

On the one hand we have belief in The News hence obedient service to purposive evil; on the other hand - if we reject The News - there is fear, leading to despair. 


Such are the choices in our materialist (God-excluding, Heaven-excluding, spirit-excluding etc) world view; and our world functions on materialist assumptions

Modern Men are  - for the only time in history - absolutely imprisoned by their assumptions, by their metaphysics. 

And - while Modern Men hold these assumptions - they have nowhere to turn but The News, nowhere to run but into Nihilism... no escape that is not worse than whatever they already have. 


We cannot escape - even in our thoughts! - because, according to our deepest beliefs; reality just-is The News backed by Nihilism. 

Our prison is absolutely secure, because it is self-chosen; and the cage is double-locked because we refuse to acknowledge that we have thus chosen, and continue thus to choose - day-by-day, minute-by-minute. 

So long as we personally (and culturally) exclude that extended reality of God, Heaven, the spirit, life beyond life etc; we shall necessarily remain trapped by the dilemma of The News versus Nihilism. 

**

If, on the other hand; we choose to acknowledge the reality of God, divine creation; if we choose the possibility of Heaven, and primacy of eternal spirit - then we are-escaped already

Having escaped - the task of our life, our purpose or destiny, can begin

But not until after we have escaped. 


2 comments:

David Earle said...

Love the tone of this post! Very clear and memorable.

Bruce Charlton said...

@David E - Thanks. I keep trying to clarify for myself, and really understand, things I have often stated (more or less) before - this is an example.

What I am getting at is something I seem to observe in people when the validity of the mainstream (News) is challenged - I seem to see a desperate sense that they feel life slipping away from them; that, if they start doubting, then it will propagate, worsen, and end in isolation and despair.

And, within a secular framework, this is true! If we believe only in this world, then there is no escape from being part of The News/ The System - and making the best of (i.e. striving for the happiest niche within) this situation.

So, people can't really be rescued from totalitarian evil until after they have come to believe in and desire Christ's kingdom that is Not of this world.