Why I Don't Watch The News

Of course, at my age, the assumed response would be bias. How many times have you heard a twenty-something rant about how biased the news is, "blah blah blah" and that's why they claim to refrain from participating. This isn't a rant on media bias. This is something else entirely. Of course the news is biased. Behind the scenes it's function is purely entertainment value. However,  I do occasionally watch fake news, because it doesn't pretend to be something that it isn't. The fake news comes right out and says "for your entertainment pleasure" and I like that. The catch is when individuals en masse start taking it all too seriously  (the "real" news, per say). Even the twenty-something's that rant about how they discredit the news because it's biased believe in it. Does that make sense? Why else would they get so worked up about it? In fact, it seems like everyone gets worked up over the news, and angry, and does it not drive most our daily lives? 

I don't watch the news because it prohibits originality. I interact with a lot of individuals  from multiple demographics. Earlier this week I was ridiculed because I hadn't heard anything about the little boy who was supposedly trapped in a hot air balloon that was made to look like UFO- the little boy that was hidden away in his parents attic to purpose a publicity stunt. Almost ashamed I disclosed that I don't watch the news. "How can you not watch the news?" I was asked. "Don't you even listen to the radio?" I don't... and apparently this is the kind of conversation I miss out on.

This feeling of shame is the same feeling I have when I'm asked why I don't regularly attend church. It's like I'm breaking some sort of standard expectation of how one is to life their life. It's hard to lock me into an argument over religion/Christianity because I don't fall into the normal binary opposition of believer/non-believer. A great example of this dynamic was provided above: the twenty-something that discredits the news for it's bias vs. the individual that believes in the news as a concrete truth. There are many philosophers that have talked about originality being dead. "There is nothing new under the sun." But in way, that isn't true. Each one of us has the potential to be original. But much like the news, prohibiting original meaningful thoughts and conversations, so does Christian dogma limit what can be done. 

I think the most revolutionary thing Jesus ever was credited to have said is that "I and the Father are One." This was an invitation to originality. It was the misinterpretation of Paul's statement to the Ephesians (5:1)- to be imitators of God that Christians lost out. Rather than making new paths, one path was established, and originality became prohibited- as a song lyric by David Bazan says, "Jesus only lets me do what's been done before." And rather than approaching Christianity for what kernels of salvation, there is a binary opposition that has been established of the believer/non-believer. But is there really a difference between these two? Are they not two sides of the same coin?

Originality is possible- in you and in me. We are the news. We are the believer. We are the atheist. We are the Christ.