Hollywood atheists spent the 70s, 80s, and 90s preaching a counter-gospel through movies and TV shows that went like this: “Religion has been holding humanity back. We’ll usher in a bright, sexy utopia of pure reason once we free ourselves of bronze age superstition.”
You couldn’t pick up a DAW paperback or tune in to after hours network TV without hearing lectures from a diverse cast of spacemen about how they’d “grown out of” belief in the supernatural.
What the Carl Sagan imitators overlooked is the fact that man wired for worship. They shouldn’t have been surprised. Intelligence plus living in a universe that’s unimaginably bigger and older than you means only an idiot or an egomaniac thinks the world revolves around him.
That inevitably bring up the question of what the world does revolve around. How you answer that question–the question of what the most important thing in the universe is–determines what you worship.
In ancient times, each tribe and nation believed that a pantheon of deities ruled over their fortunes. They sacrificed to an assortment of gods, demigods, and ancestor spirits to ensure good harvests and victory in war against other tribes. Public worship was the center of civic life.
A little voice inside you is probably snickering at those dumb ancients right now. Not so fast.
Those ancients had their priorities straight–straighter than us postmoderns have ours, at any rate. Their worship may look primitive to us, but at least it was honest. They worshiped what they really thought were the supreme beings.
Current Year man, in contrast, constantly lies to himself–about a great many things, but primarily about what he worships.
Some of us claim to have no faith. Many more assert they’re “spiritual but not religious.” Most people profess faith in one of the Abrahamic religions. In the US, that means Christianity. But where your heart is, there lies your treasure.
Hollywood’s visceral hatred of most of the country should be no surprise to anyone with a pulse at this point. After all, they long ago placed their faith in the ravenous death cult that’s consumed the Left. They, too, lie about it, but lying is one of the cult’s anti-commandments.
While our makers of pop culture are being devout little death cultists by and large, what are their sworn enemies the Christians and Conservatives doing? Paying inflated ticket, eBook, and subscription prices to be mocked by the cult, of course.
It’s not entirely the normies’ fault. Part of the death cult’s strategy has been to churn out anti-Christian propaganda nonstop for decades. Everyone alive today has been marinating in lies their whole lives.
Until about a century ago, Christianity was taken for granted as dominant faith and moral pole star of American life. The notion that a mother had a right to murder her child, that two men could marry, or that a boy could become a girl would’ve been seen as sick humor at best.
Now find me a major motion picture, best selling Big Five novel, or prime time TV show not made by people who celebrate all of the above. You’ll have a hard time, as the last holdouts are rapidly being exiled from the industry.
Yet more people worship Luke Skywalker, Mario, and Thor–the comics version–than worship Jesus Christ.
You can have civil arguments over theology all day, but tell your buddy that his waifu is shit, and now you have a problem.
Though not full death cultists, we may rightly call these misguided folks sci-fidolaters or pop cultists.
And before the nu-atheists in the peanut gallery start high-fiving each other, no one worships nothing. If you think the current species of sub-paganism is an improvement on the faith that gave us cathedrals, universities, and the scientific method itself, you’re hopeless.
The churches haven’t helped their case by continually trying to accommodate the death cult’s fads. The Catholic Church suffered an especially disastrous attempt at dialogue with the World that’s stripped the liturgy of nearly all solemnity and dignity.
That Church leaders–Protestants are excused from this paragraph–don’t grasp this basic aspect of human nature is simply baffling. People crave capital “M” Mystery. Ritual is how you apply the power of Mystery to people’s daily lives. That beings with senses need smells, bells, and icons raising their hearts and minds to the divine should be taught in every seminary.
Then again, the death cult has been busy infiltrating the seminaries for a while, now.
That’s why it’s up to us. The cavalry ain’t coming. Only we can defeat the death cult and its pop cult thralls.
Here’s some advice I’ve learned the hard way. You have to be patient with pop cultist family and friends. Since they’ve transferred the piety properly reserved for God to idols of electrons, wood pulp, and celluloid, those questioning their devotion are in for some serious backlash.
For example, I wouldn’t quote this post verbatim to that friend who’s still dead set on attending the midnight show of Episode IX. Sci-fidolaters respond to disconfirming facts even wore than UFO cultists when the mother ship fails to arrive. Subtle rhetoric is the order of the day.
Mouse Wars paypig: “I’m camping out tonight for Salacious Crumb: A Star Wars Story! Care to pitch a tent next to mine?”
Force of Evil Chad: “A bunch of us are having a classic film noir marathon at my place tonight. You can really see what Lucas was trying to imitate when you watch those master directors. Drop by if the fanboy funk gets too thick for you.”
It’s the bandwagoning plus subtly casting aspersions on the sci-fidolater’s taste and social status that does the heavy lifting here.
Netflix and ill: “Have you seen that streaming exclusive Star Fox anime? Sure, the main villain turns out to be a lemur version of Christ, but it’s so addicting I binge-watched all of season 1 last night!”
Deus Vultron: “What you do in the privacy of your yiffing dungeon is none of my business.” *Goes back to watching the original MS Gundam*
You get the idea. Try to attack a sci-fidolater’s addiction head-on, and he’ll lash out like a junkie. But man is a social animal as well as a spiritual being, and peer pressure can work wonders.
Of course, the price of an effective tactic is an appealing alternative. We can’t hope to deprogram the pop cultists unless we’ve got something better to offer them.
A number of independent creators are working hard to produce fun, exciting entertainment that doesn’t insult its audience. But it’s not easy when you’re up against Hollywood and their fellow travelers in Big Tech. That’s where readers like you come in.
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Brian,
And Beauty follows Mystery and Ritual. I just finished reading Flamanca. A medieval Occitan love story. The author provides a detailed physical description of the 2 main characters to praise their physical and interior beauty. Tirant lo Blanc is similiar.
Thus English language writers need to acknowledge Orwell's warning from his essay on the English language while reevaluating Hemingway's plain language with spare descriptions.
Writing will be more delightful with more descriptive language.
xavier
xavier
What you say really makes sense about how "Fandom" has replaced religion in many peoples lives. Especially how certain fans act quite like Zealots whenever something in their favorite property doesn't go the way they want it. Was going down that path years back, thankfully God intervened on my behalf.
Praise God for the grace of conversion!
Secularism is the dumbest religion. But the worst part of the disease is how no one ever fights it even though it is a paper tiger.
One of the books I'm reading for Lent is "The Medium and the Light: Reflections on Religion" that collects Marshal McLuhan's essays on Catholicism and media.
This passage was in the Introduction written by his son:
"Much significance has been attributed to the appointment of my father to the Vatican's Social Communications Committee. I regret to say that the significance has been grossly inflated. The appointment was made, true. But it meant little other than receiving in the mail from time to time a notice of meeting (always to be held in Rome) or some such. My father tried several times to strike up a correspondence with someone, anyone, on the committee. He was anxious to be of some service and to help them with the study and understanding of media. His efforts attracted, unfortunately, no response, which was a source of great disappointment."
I'm afraid I don't see how you can have Marshall McLuhan available and willing to help, and not doing anything with him.
If it wasn't for the grace of God and the fact that it is true, no one would ever otherwise consider converting to Catholicism. They make it far too difficult even though they have the means to reach more people than ever before.
*nods* To paraphrase Belloc, if not for divine guidance, no organization run with such knavish incompetence would have lasted a fortnight.
And to be sure, the VSCC leaving Dr. McLuhan's immense talents sidelined in the war against Modernity is the most knavishly incompetent blunder I've yet heard of the hierarchy making.
Speaking about communications,
Providentially Catolic answers live radio has a podcast with Elizabeth Levi. Authour of how Art saved the the faith. Available at osvbooks.com
Basically how the visual arts was a powerful rhetorical and dialectical means that save the faith.
Another resource to regress harder
xavier