It is mistaken to assume that being selective creates quality reality. It is not selectivity but evaluation and differentiation that promotes knowledge. And then all sources of reality must be evaluated - not endlessly but until they are understood. Otherwise, prejudice closes the doors to knowledge. Also, a person needs to know something about the errors and corruptions of other persons.

Too often, people shun realities which oppose their own. That's not the right thing to do. Persons who are involved in organized religions in particular tend to isolate their reality from opposing views. They do that because they buy into exploitable contrivances which won't stand up to criticism.

There is a philosophical principle which is applicable, as I state in the introductory material. Truth always evolves forward through the interactions of realities. Controlled logic and criticism are most effective at evolving truth. Therefore, there is no excuse for one way communication or shunning opposing realities.

Knowledge primarily is concerned with the most important realities. Often they are the most basic ones, but sometimes other factors make realities important enough to qualify as knowledge. The basic realities are quite abstract, which makes them hard to handle.

Very critical in acquiring knowledge is the starting attitude. A person must have a value for knowledge and must seek knowledge before it can be acquired. Corruption in general makes knowledge undesirable because it produces truth; and as Christ said, corrupted persons avoid the light of truth, because it shows that their deeds are evil (John 3:20).

Even though knowledge extends far beyond the truth about sin, it is often shunned because it opposes all of the schemes for exploitation and domination that are developed everywhere and depended upon by weak and corrupted persons. Corrupted persons apply pressure to other persons to go along with their schemes, while knowledge creates conflicts with their rationalizations and propaganda.

Christ said he who seeks finds (Mat 7:8). He also said he who has acquires more, while he who has not loses what little he thinks he has (Mat 13:11,12), which refers to knowledge.

When a person is seeking knowledge, God provides it. God is the teacher and provider of knowledge, when one seeks knowledge. But one has to look for it, before God can provide it.

Wherever questions arise in society, there is a need for knowledge. However, nihilism is often produced instead, because corruption creates a rejection of knowledge.

You might not believe what I just said, if you assume knowledge is a lot of details. It isn't. Knowledge deals with the basics of a subject, which tend to be abstract. The basics are shunned because of a rejection of knowledge.

In religion, theology creates nihilism, because the foundations of the subject are not developed. Theologians close the doors to knowledge not entering themselves and inhibiting those who wish to enter, as Christ said (Luke 11:52).

The rejection of knowledge is a subconscious reaction which develops over time. Like all corruptions, it does not have a logic. It develops on a stimulus-response basis. A negative reaction to knowledge is repeated over and over until it becomes an automatic response to stimuli.

A negative reaction to knowledge results from an investment in corruption. Knowledge destroys the investment in corruption.

An investment in corruption includes anything that is done in a corrupted context. If, for example, there are errors in science, applying or exploiting that science is an investment in corruption. If there is exploitation and human degradation in the institutions of society, using them is an investment in corruption.

No one has to judge someone else's investment in corruption; people judge their own sin by their reactions. When they have invested in corruption, they reject knowledge.

To consider the role of knowledge in the reaction, let's say a person is buying Persian rugs. He pays thousands of dollars for something that is supposed to be antique, hand made and containing highest quality fibers. An expert then proves that it was made recently on a production line with cheap materials. The investment is worthless.

Now notice this point: Without the knowledge, the rug is worth thousands of dollars. With the knowledge, it is worthless. Does the knowledge make the rug worthless? Logic says that the rug would be worthless regardless of the knowledge, but the reactions are created by the knowledge.

A specific example is the Persian rug of relativity in physics. As long as it is assumed to be true, it is worth billions of dollars in exploitation. If someone shows that it is untrue, it is worthless.

Corrupted persons think they are making sin pay. But knowledge reverses the process, and they do the paying instead of someone else. So knowledge reverses their schemes. They develop a reaction against knowledge as a result.

One of the consequences of the reaction is that there is no sin but the truth about sin in a world of sin.

An important truism is that sin cannot exist in the light of truth. Therefore, solving problems is developing the truth about the sin of the subject. But the opposite is generally assumed, because corrupted persons would rather conceal truth about sin than reveal it.

The more basic the truth, the more relevant it is. Therefore, one of the most important truths is the definition of reality.

There are a lot of supposedly moral believers who promote way too much nihilism. They don't realize it, but it is a reaction to their own corruption.

The most obvious manifestation of nihilism, is "see no evil, speak no evil, do no evil." Evil is promoted in that manner. A more subtle form of nihilism is not allowing opponents to question oneself. Similar to it is not addressing the concerns which opponents try to take up. The lack of openness is a measure of the corruption which escapes awareness.

This subject must be viewed in terms of the reality medium. All life, material and spiritual, is integrated into a medium of realities. Sustaining life therefore requires a proper relationship to the reality medium. It means correcting the reality errors which corruption creates. Persons who refuse to correct the reality errors are promoting corruption.

There are a lot of misrepresentations with nihilism. The most common is the pretense that it is a virtue rather than a corruption to avoid the concerns of opponents. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The concerns are where the problems lie. If the corruption really were in the opponents, why not blow them away with truth? Or if their own good is the concern, they need to know what their errors are. So it is only the sources of corruption who prevent the reality problems from being corrected.

Corruption replaces knowledge with feel. Right is what feels good, wrong is what doesn't. Much theology promotes that error. Conscience is one avenue, Natural Law is another. "let your conscience be your guide" is to do what feels good. One of the problems with that ethic is that sin feels good to corrupted persons due to positive reinforcements with the psychological conditioning of sin. Another problem is that satan determines how realities feel. He controls the realities of corrupted persons by making fraudulent realities feel like they are right.