christian bashing on t.v.

And, just for a moment, try looking at an ARGUMENT, not your hyper emotional reaction to it.


Dys commented, simply, on the sheer weight on cable TV of christian programming..vs one show that makes fun of christian foibles.


(You DO agree christians have foibles, like every other poor dumb bastard under the sun, right?)


You then leaped to making all sorts of assumptions about what Dys might or might not feel re the god bothering shows.


The point was that, rather than being, as you appear to feel, a sadly lampooned and disrespected shivering group of martyrs, christians are well and normally solemnly (except when the buffoons like Falwael etc open their mouths) self represented in numerous shows ...vs ONE putativ lam,pooning show.

Care to answer that with a rational argument about the actual state of christian representation on TV, with supporting data, instead of just complaining how mean people are to question you?

The importance of being a victim when you are a lunatic fringe is not to be disregarded.

PS It's just TV. It has an off switch and comes with several channels. The audience votes with their clickers. Don't like something? Don't watch it.

Remember "Soap"? It was on in the '70s. There was murder, homosexuality, kidnapping, hmm, let's see, adultery, I can't recall what else. And the 2 families were not Jewish, Catholic or Islamic (although one marries a Catholic priest). I don't think they were atheists. So they were Christians, at least in name. And Christianity has survived, so has Catholicism, nay, they flourished, despite the show, which was probably watched by more people than most hits are watched today (given the fragmentation of TV, a "hit" consists of a lot fewer viewers than it did 25 - 30 years ago.

"Friends" - remember "Friends"? It had 3 kinda, sorta Jews on it, the only Jews on TV, or just about the only ones. Yet 2 aren't really Jewish (mother is Christian) and the remaining one became a single mother. And, let's enumerate the stereotypes: the former fat girl who became something of a nympho before settling down and marrying, you guessed it, a non-Jew. The shopaholic Daddy's little girl who had had a nose job. The shlemiel pining after the unattainable woman, a geek too smart for the room. Yet Judaism survives, and no one went nuts boycotting the show. Because it didn't matter and it doesn't matter. It's a TV show.

It's no more real than dilithium crystals on "Star Trek", the mysterious whatevers on "Lost" and the squeakily ultra-perfect family on "The Brady Bunch". It ain't real.

Saw an article about the "Book of Daniel" show on TV Guide today. It looks like the usual idiotic TV fare, with a somewhat better cast than usual: Aidan Quinn and Ellen Burstyn, for starters. Didn't see any references to homosexuality but it's possible that TV Guide didn't talk about it in the article, although that seems doubtful. This is a lot of sound and fury about something that's not real. And the more sound and fury, the more people will be interested in watching it. 'Course, that's another use of controversy -- ticking off people enough to get press, press and more press so as to build an audience.

The thing is, good writing keeps audiences. Interesting stories keep audiences. And yes, shock and jiggles and stupidity also keep audiences. And a lot of it is financailly driven, e. g. what does the network want to show and what do the companies that spit this stuff out want to produce. But the audience is fickle -- it buys Donald Trump's "Apprentice" but can't stand Martha Stewart's carbon copy. It buys "The Bachelor" but not other allegedly romantic reality shlock. It eats up "Battlestar Galactica" but isn't enough to get "Serenity" renewed. And so it goes.

Recently, God and spirituality have been all over TV, from "Seventh Heaven" to "Joan of Arcadia" to "Ghost Whisperer" to "Medium". It ain't just "Touched by an Angel". Say what you like about the quality of any of these programs, but I hardly think they go into the "disrespecting Christianity" column. And, even with "Joan of Arcadia" cancelled and "Seventh Heaven" on its way out, it's still more favorable programming than allegedly unfavorable programming -- and we're still not sure, really, whether this "Daniel" show is even unfavorable. This is a lot of talk about a program that has not aired yet. Perhaps it's completely favorable.

Consider this premise: A devout man loses just about everything. He becomes even more devout and loses even more. He prays even more and loses the last that he had. He cries out to God and does not get a satisfactory answer. Is this a story that mocks religion? Of course not, it's the Book of Job.

This is nowhere near that level of communication. It's just a stupid TV show, designed to sell soap and vacuum cleaners. It's not real, and it's not important.

In the beginning I thought this was going to be about me

I am not going to argue with any of you over this. I do not agree with what you are saying and so I can agree to disagree civilly with all of you.
It has nothing to do with me being emotional. It has everything to do with me standing up for my beliefs. It has everything to do with respect for others.

Sure, it's okay to have Christmas changed to Happy Holidays or whatever to accommodate everyone else. God forbid a Christian would say Merry Christmas to you and offend your sensibilities, but it's perfectly okay to ban Merry Christmas from employees saying it to customers at stores. So, what makes your rights more important than a Christian's?

Christians and their beliefs on these threads have been called plenty of names for what we believe. We are told to get tougher skins. But let someone step on the toe of a non-believer and many rush in to tell us how wrong we are. If being a non-believer, atheist, etc., gives you license to not have to take responsibility for your own words, then keep it. That is plenty of reason enough for me to never believe the way you do. I will never believe that you should taunt and ridicule someone because of their religious or non-religious beliefs.

It is not just a stupid TV show. If that show is really like it is explained in the original post it extremely offensive to Christianity and Christians. I am sure you would all jump on the bandwagon if it were something a little closer to home in each of your lives. Is this what you teach your children? That they can ridicule someone just because they believe in God? How sad for you and for the children of this world. Their parents cannot even give someone the right to believe what they want to without ridiculing them for it. What if they ridiculed your child because your child believed? How would you feel then? Would that be okay with you? Would you allow someone to ridicule your children for doing what they believe is right for them? I would really like to think that you wouldn't be that way but it's hard to.

I have tried many times and in many ways to understand your side of things. I have tried to maintain peace and civility with you. The harder I try to be peaceful and not accusatory the more you are accusatory and ridiculing. I don't care if you see it that way or not. It's the truth.

MA let me say I love you to pieces but you don't "have" to maintain - you are "required" to maintain :wink:

And what about Grace hanging out with (you'll pardon the expression "faygeleh") Will. Her Jewishness is often referred to but that's as far as it goes.

I do not watch that show flyboy804.

Husker,

I need prayer.

'Whoever exalts himself will be humbled,
and whoever humbles himself will be exalted."

It's all pretty silly. If they did a show in which an obvious atheist became the brunt of a lot of jokes, or some famous atheists were made fun of, I would be one of the most eager to watch it. Who could they make fun of? Darwin was a Christian, have to exclude him. But, there are Bertrand Russell, Philip Wylie, Freud, and quite a few others they could draw on. I myself have ridiculed Madelyn Murray O'Hare in the past.

All of my life, comedians have been among my favorite people. In their sights, not much is sacred, and that makes for some really great material. Nobody and no thing should be excluded from being a butt of jokes. To laugh is to be human.

Well, for your sake, I hope God agrees with you.

Who?

Yep, nothing for you to worry about then.

See? Humor could well be your forte, if you would give it a chance.

Uh, yeah.

Tell us a joke, Momma, and let us decide.

Okay, have you ever heard the one about when God passed out sex lives to man and all the animals?

mother really does have a need to be persecuted it's a significant part of her devotion it's her means of purity via crucification

Dys,

Now you are a psychiatrist? Or my old favorite, "Did you just stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night?"

Try reading what I post. I say exactly what I mean. Nothing more and nothing less.

while you do consistently add commentary of speculation, mother angel, you would most likely be taken aback by what you don't know about people you comment about.