Someone told me that the Epoch Times is supposed to be part of the Falun Gong movement. Why did the publication irritate me so much, while I used to read it, if they intend to follow such a nice traditional path?
Well, for starters, I find the articles misleading at best, manipulative at worst; not that it matters, because the results are the same.
It is always possible that the parts that bother me about their articles are not even meant to be annoying. I know extremely well-meaning people, who are stuck somewhere at the beginning of the epiphany about the globalists’ juggernaut that is dragging the world into a technocratic paradise for the wicked and the brain-dead.
The Epoch Times seems to be surreptitiously financed by major resources (kind of reminding me of the way Google started up), which alone makes me suspicious. They are also able to operate without restrictions, which is also peculiar at best. Well, not quite, because they “follow the rules.”
It is not the intention that matters, but the outcome.
Assuming the following source is authentic,
https://faluninfo.net/what-is-falun-gong-falun-dafa/
I have serious reservations about their philosophy. The first one applies to all idealistic philosophies and “spiritual” practices: what do they do, when they find themselves alone among people who don’t care for “Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance”? “Meditation” (another catch word for people who are not in peace with themselves) usually doesn’t cut it. Moreover, the ancient Buddhist effort to be free from suffering only creates drones, who cannot feel joy, either. Beauty, in my experience, encompasses the whole range of human experience, all the ugliness and beauty, good and bad, suffering and joy. To live a human life to the fullest, one must stay open for all these, which doesn’t mean one has to succumb to all of them.
“Nonviolent” philosophies and religions have always been welcomed by the ruling class, because they pose no danger to the social order and to the ones in power.
The opposite of nonviolence is not violence, but self-determination by those, who are able and willing to take responsibility for themselves, instead of getting dissolved in a cult.
What is the opposite of violence, then?
I think the Epoch Times are good guys. They're trying to be a mainstream news source, but also report on what is actually real. Since the real is very far from the mainstream, they need to be careful to not alienate the reader. I think they're doing a good job and have been reporting increasingly aggressively about election issues, health, vaccine safety, wokeness, and the looming Great Reset.
They were recently censored on Twitter (all links to Epoch Times were gated with "unsafe content" warnings) - which was fortunately rescinded in a day, after a great outcry.
I don't mind their spiritual connections for the same reason I don't mind Andrew Torba (founder of Gab) is a Christian. I do not believe in Christianity, nor do I follow Falun Dafa, but nearly ANY spirituality is more pro-human, more pro-truth, than the soulless materialist reductionism of the globalist enslavers, which aim to eliminate free will by connecting everyone into a techno-Borg collective, such that even thoughts and emotions would be monitored and controlled.
They obviously oppose the CCP and want freedom in China, and I have no reason to disagree.
Death. If one emulated Christ the logical end point is acceptance of individual death by non-resistance. This in turn implies faith in the spirit as being the core of what makes us human. Falun Dafa is said to be a CIA creation.