Awhile back my wife and I watched the film Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. The film is a non-conventional romantic comedy starring Steve Carell as Dodge Petersen and Keira Knightley as his love interest Penny. The film begins in New York City with Dodge and his wife Linda sitting in their car when news of an asteroid named Matilda is announced to be on a collision course with planet Earth in three weeks’ time. Linda looks at her husband in disgust and promptly abandons Dodge. Dodge tries to shove the news out of his daily life. He continues to work as an insurance salesman and to employ his cleaning lady, even as the world around him collapses into panic. People abuse drugs, engage in free sex, and commit suicide in anticipation of the world’s end. Dodge attends a friend’s party where he declines offers of drugs and sex. He returns home to his apartment and thinks of his high school girlfriend Olivia. He notices his upstairs neighbor Penny outside, crying on the fire escape. She has just broken up with her boyfriend Owen after he makes her miss the last opportunity to return home to family in England.
The two go to Penny’s apartment, where she gives Dodge years of his mail mistakenly delivered to her apartment. Penny also accidentally reveals that Dodge’s wife Linda was having an affair. Dodge is furious. He storms off and guzzles window cleaner and codeine-laced cough syrup in an attempt to commit suicide. He wakes up the next morning, seeing a dog tied to his leg with a piece of paper saying “sorry” on it. Dodge returns to his apartment and takes the dog (who becomes known as Sorry) with him. He reads the mail he received from Penny and is surprised to discover a three-month-old letter from his high school sweetheart Olivia, in which she refers to Dodge as the “love of my life.” A riot then breaks out on the block; Dodge finds Penny and tells her he knows someone who can fly her to England in his hometown in Delaware. Penny agrees to accompany Dodge in his quest to reunite with his high school girlfriend. On the way to their destination Dodge and Penny encounter several misadventures and, predictably, end up falling in love with each other.
Dodge, Penny, and Sorry arrive at the house of Dodge’s estranged father Frank, who agrees to fly Penny to England. After Penny falls asleep Dodge carries her to his father’s plane, bidding her farewell and confessing his love for her. Dodge returns home with Sorry to live out what remains of his life. Dodge is surprised to find Penny has returned to him. After she woke up en route, she told Frank to turn back so that she could spend her remaining time with Dodge. Dodge and Penny lie in bed as Dodge asks Penny questions about her childhood in an attempt to distract her from their impending doom. The couple hears the asteroid Matilda approaching, and Penny expresses her wish that they could have known each other longer. Dodge states they would never have had enough time. When Penny laments that they can’t save each other, Dodge assures her that they already have. Penny smiles and the screen fades to white. Silence. The End. The clear implication is that the asteroid has hit, and that all life has been annihilated. The film attempts to portray an optimistic outlook within the nihilistic and defeatist worldview of atheism.
Many within the secular Alt Right share the worldview of this film. They believe that the existence of life is a fortuitous accident, and that the white race was forged by the purposeless trials brought about by generations of northern winters. These same thinkers also believe that the world will end in a similarly inglorious fashion. One day the earth will die, whether due to an asteroid collision, nuclear fallout, or simply the death of the sun. Perhaps the white race (or even members of other races) will survive the death of the planet Earth by escaping to another planet somewhere else in the universe. But even if this were to happen – and right now we are a long way off from achieving this – it won’t matter in the long run. If the universe maintains its current trajectory, it will eventually undergo “heat death,” when all life and physical activity cease due to the increase in entropy over time. Granted, this is projected to occur in the far future, but this is really the only possible outcome of the universe if it is conceived in an atheistic paradigm.
Bertrand Russell summarizes the atheistic view of the human experience:
That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins–all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.
Unyielding despair is exactly what the people experience during Seeking a Friend as soon as they discover that the world will end in three weeks. The secular Alt Rightist is playing the part of Dodge Petersen. While the rest of the world manifests their despair by indulging in various forms of degeneracy, Dodge keeps calm, reflects upon life, goes about his business, and finds what he has been looking for all along: true love in his romance with Penny. Likewise, the Alt Right trudges forward in an effort to resist the futility of life by embracing traditional values and pretending that his life won’t end shortly and bring about meaningless nonexistence in oblivion. Similarly, most secularists emulate the people in Dodge’s world whose despair over the earth’s imminent destruction leads them into degeneracy. The only difference between the world of Dodge Petersen and the secular Alt Rightist is the time until the end is reached. Dodge (and the rest of life on this planet) has only three weeks to live, whereas the average atheist believes that oblivion will occur eons in the future.
Even if the Alt Right and white nationalists were successful in securing our future, this would be only a temporary victory. Eventually an asteroid will destroy our planet or we will run out of places to hide. The stated goal of white nationalism is often summed up in the fourteen words: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for White children.” If atheism is true – as most secular Alt Right thinkers believe it to be – then this goal, the very raison d’etre of the Alt Right and white nationalism, is destined for complete failure! It is no wonder, then, that any attempt to save the white race cannot succeed if it is rooted in atheistic assumptions.
The Alt Right exists in order to facilitate the survival of white people, as well as the flourishing of traditional white cultural expressions. But this is nearly impossible under the prevailing climate of secularism. It should come as no surprise that degenerate behaviors have increased in relation to the adherence of a secular atheistic worldview. As modern whites have abandoned the notion that there is any objective meaning or purpose to life, they have embraced behaviors obviously harmful to our people’s welfare. Very few whites simultaneously embrace atheistic materialism and white nationalism – because embracing white nationalism today requires courage, sacrifice, and fortitude. These aren’t the traits cultivated by a worldview that teaches the absence of objective meaning or purpose. Hence my criticism of the secular Alt Right. Many prominent Alt Right figures have expressed not just casual indifference towards Christian principles, but rather overt hostility.
Many on the Alt Right confuse genuine Christian principles with cuckservative Christianity. Consequently many secular Alt Right thinkers believe that Christianity cannot possibly save Western Civilization or her people. I disagree with this perspective. Like other writers at Faith and Heritage I believe that only Christianity can save us. Today relatively few people are overtly atheistic, but many live their lives as though there is no God. In an atheistic worldview, nothing is sacred, nothing lasts forever, and there is no meaning or purpose to anything. How can we possibly persuade our white brethren to abandon multiculturalism and degeneracy while tacitly admitting that the white race is just an accident of history and the product of a string of cold northern winters? Why should anyone make sacrifices to save the white race and European culture if our people and all vestiges of our culture are destined for extinction at some point in the future regardless of our efforts to save it for the present and near future?
These are important questions, because the goals of the Alt Right require sacrifice and courage if they are going to be realized. Courage, bravery, and fortitude are only attained in the pursuit of the transcendent. The knights and warriors who defended Christendom, the architects and masons who built Europe’s palaces, cathedrals, and churches, and the philosophers and theologians who developed the Western intellectual tradition all sought to build on a lasting foundation. If we seek to rebuild Western civilization on the foundation of atheism, we will labor in vain (Ps. 127:1) and build our house upon the sand (Matt. 7:26). We must return to the firm foundation of Christ the Rock (Matt. 7:24-25; Lk. 6:48). The Christian message is one of triumph (Ps. 86:9) in which all nations are converted by Christ’s redemptive work and preserved in all their glory for all eternity (Rev. 5:9; 7:9; 21:24-26; 22:2). I urge those on the Alt Right who identify as atheists or secularists to reconsider your position and abandon the hopeless despair of atheism. As my friend Christian Gray suggested, “Why don’t all you white nationalists become Christians and get it over with?” There is an asteroid heading for a collision course with Western Civilization in the form of anti-white genocide. Fear not, for there is no need to despair. Christ will conquer this enemy of our people and deliver us to the Promised Land.
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