Sons of Anarchy has encouraged necrophilia, violence and lawlessness. Dangerous criminals lead exciting lives without the downsides of reality. The lead character in Rescue Me is about a fire fighter who is an abusive, adulterous, recovering alcoholic and drug addict. 20 or more uses of explicit obscene or profane words and graphic sexual terms occur every episode --and masturbation is a running theme.
Testees --obviously a play on words --is about two human guinea pigs at a testing facility who endure various obscene situations that I won't describe here.
PTC urges us to become informed and active in convincing cable and satellite providers that this network should at least be a pay channel, so we can reject it and not have to pay for it!
Suffice it to say, we need to tell our cable and satellite suppliers that we're fed up with this particular Fox channel and they need to exercise some restraint in what they make available to 80 per cent of American homes. It's all well and good to exercise parental controls on televisions --or "just turn it off," as liberals are wont to say, but what about those children whose parents are unaware --who won't exercise restraint --or whose kids get around the controls when Mom and Dad can't be home? Do we really want our children influenced by kids who grow up on this junk? And they WILL be affected.
"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible
19 comments:
Fox is owned by Rupert Murdoch, who is well known for publishing outright pornography in the UK. Fox, for years and years, has produced some of the worst stuff on television. It boggles my mind that so many Christians tolerate it at all.
But really, it's not just Fox... Why not just get rid of these idiot boxes altogether? Television is clearly the idol of our age. We arrange the furniture in the most widely used room of the house around these things. We eat in front of them. We organize our free time around the images they show us. Televisions provide the graven images of our day.
We got rid of ours about six years ago and it was the best thing we ever did. We haven't been to a movie theater since then, either. I would encourage this for everyone. Why do Christian parents invite into their homes a device that glorifies wickedness 90% of the time? Really? This box just sits there inviting everyone to passively stare at wickedness. Do we not see the danger in it? But we'd rather ban things like tobacco and alcohol and shelter our kids from these things which could harm the body while we tolerate and embrace the things which will destroy the soul. I'm convinced it's just laziness. If we get rid of the TVs we'll be forced to talk and interact and read and learn actually do things in the evening.
Well, I think TV is here to stay as home entertainment --so groups like Christians and Parent TV Council and the AFA rightly evaluate and decry and work against the accessibility of bad tv where kids can see it--and the lack of cable choice of basic family-friendly packages.
I don't think laziness is the motivation for tv watchers, either --it's the love of entertainment over other options! (including the work or creative things we could be doing.)
I recall hearing the Gothard home school fellows say the first thing they would do when they turned 18 and moved out would be to buy a tv. They really felt they had missed something--along with competitive sports denied them.
IN general, I expect the children of tv-free homes will be most enriched and I do admire those who make it their choice.
Today's schools --like AW--give so much extracurricular activity and time-consuming homework --that along with music lessons and church --our kids mostly saw it in the summer and some on Saturdays. I can't think we had much time for it on school days. In fact, we probably ate in the car on the way to and from band practice, etc. more than in front of the tv.
I remember hearing Miss Ohio's mom tell how they ate and dressed in the car, so full were their schedules between school and extra- curriculars.
There may come a day when one of my sons tells me he's getting a tattoo as soon as he turns 18. I'll be disappointed but I won't just throw in the towel and take him to get one right away.
Having a television set in the main room of your home is just as bad as placing an idol on your mantle. I don't understand why Christians are so hesitant to get rid of what they know is wicked and will destroy them.
By the way... Gothard followers are plagued with all sorts of issues that wouldn't be appropriate to discuss here. Let's just say I won't be changing my child-rearing habits because of Gothard problems.
I should also be more clear than I was in my last post. We have a television in our house but it's in an upstairs bedroom hooked up to one of those stupid digital converters. It gets such poor reception that we only watch DVDs on it. But the important thing was to get it out of the living room so that we didn't turn it on by default in the evenings.
For matt --I agree --18 was never an automatic liberty date in our house. Some parents are even eager to boot them out the door at that age. In fact, we delayed the driving age --with no one's protest.
I think it's a bit extreme to say that a tv in the living room is an idol that will destroy us.
You are the first I've heard to complain about the digital video situation. I am VERY disgusted that we ordered the High def box from Time Warner --and only have a dozen high def stations --and the others are small pictures and not as good a quality as our old Sony Trinitron. Going digital didn't change the quality since we had cable --but going to the new style tv with the high def box has been a big disappointment.
But there ARE bigger problems for our complaints, of course --considering the tv isn't our idol in the living room--but I did think the new technology was supposed to be upward and it has proven disappointing.
Barb,
I don't think I explained myself well with the tattoo thing. My point is that saying people should have TVs because Gothard kids promise to run out and get one as soon as they move out is like taking a fifteen year old boy out to get a tattoo because he threatens to get one when he turns eighteen. I'm not going to give up the fight right now because my children may make a decision I disagree with later.
I agree, Matthew. I said I admire those who choose to live without TV. And you are right that just because youth may really, really WANT to have TV when they don't, doesn't mean you should cater to that wish. Time will be well spent, we trust, in a house without TV.
One of the funniest programs I have ever seen is Fox's Family Guy. It can be a little hit-and-miss, but there have been many, many hilarious moments.
Hilarious moments don't outweigh the listed criticisms observed by Parents' TV Council. I also saw snippets that would be very bad for kids --adult themes that even adults should object to for themselves.
supposedly the belief system of the writer explains his irreverance for decency and disinterest in "clean" humor.
Family Guy is definitely not for children. It's not to your taste, obviously, but, as an adult, why should I object to it for myself?
And thensome, are you speaking as a mere adult? or a Christian adult? It is my conviction that Christian adults should object to extreme coarseness and vulgarity and obscenity in the culture. If we find we enjoy evil, shame on us. Also, we are our brother's keeper --and guardians of kids --Family Guy ought to be on a pay channel if it must exist ----something that parents can protect their kids from without being watch dogs of their tv's. As kids get older, more independent, they will watch what we have prohibited them seeing in the grade school years
but then there are a lot of parents who won't, don't, or can't screen out all the obscene programming while the kids are small --and it's just too bad that there is so much of it out there --to jade and debauch the kids who will be the adults of the future. The people our kids will find to date.
A sick mind makes the family guy--someone with a crass sense of humor. Is that all we'll be able to tune in when this generation raised on Family Guy grows up to make tv shows? Even Friends and Seinfeld contribute to defining deviancy down --with all the casual, non-consequential sex --giving young people a fictional, misleading idea of sex and its impact on real people in real life.
As though casual sex were Ho hum and not deeply distressing to most women and many men --when the experiences are bad and/or the relationships break up.
I've stated before --that I think the Abu Graib hijinks were perpetrated by young adults who were raised on the likes of The Family Guy and Beavis and Butthead, etc. They thought they were being funny to pile a bunch of prisoners into a pyramid --while naked and shackled. Ha ha ha ha --they thought --until it hit the press!
Haven't you seen insensitive drunks who think vulgarity, crassness, coarseness are funny--and they have no conscience about it? Is that the kind of kids we want to raise?
Are you really blaming Beavis and Butthead for Abu Ghraib? That's a real stretch, to put in very, very kindly. You don't know if the perpetrators even watched the show, nor can you provide evidence that those who did are any more prone to the acts documented at Abu Ghraib than those who didn't.
And they didn't do it to be "funny"--they did it to humiliate the prisoners in order to "break them" for interrogation. They said they were following orders from officers in Military Intelligence; the Army contends they were acting on their own. I'm not sure who to believe, really.
I do know the "ringleader" of the group, Charles Graner, was a church-going Christian.
And no, I'm not saying his being a Christian had anything to do with anything--but if he were an atheist, I'm sure you'd be quick to make something of it, Barb. Am I wrong?
Most of America claims to be "christian", Andthensome.That doesn't mean they really believe --or live accordingly.
In fact, many Americans are "practical atheists" --that is, they conduct their lives as though God did not exist or care what they do --as if there would be no eternal consequences for evil/selfishness/greed/cruelty, etc.
Beavis and Butthead is just an example of entertainment in our culture --my husband and sons laughed at them --if I recall these characters thought it hilarious --and made youth laugh--at the idea of breaking old people's glasses. Just one example. Of course, my husband and son know better than to embrace that idea of humor in real life --and MOST people do. But think of the kids raised by the tv!
Saturday Night Live has a history of extreme vulgarity --laughing at the idea of incest many years ago.
I'm just saying that the generation of the Abu Graib soldiers learned humiliation was humorous --and that victimization of others was funny--regardless of what their superiors told them to do. I suspect they didn't think that what they did was so bad, really --not cruel, just funny by the values of today's youth raised on uncensored tv and movies.
Cartoon humor has always been blamed for making people laugh at what would be painful in reality --slugging, making creatures' heads spins. POW, BAM, CRASH! People couldn't live through what cartoon characters endured --even in the clean cartoons. Three Stooges was thought to make kids slug each other, not realizing the pain it would cause.
Today's extreme entertainment is sexually vulgar, bathroom humor, making us laugh at the obscene.
So I think it's no wonder that some people don't know any better than to do what the abu graib soldiers did.
I think art creators should consider impact of their products on the unparented and the poorly parented --those who are not taught humane values --and those kids may not be the only ones vulnerable to developing a warped sense of humor and insensitivity toward the pain of others.
Who would have guessed 20 years ago that we would be having all these gay characters and on screen smooching women and simpering boy couples? Although --in the 80's or 70's, TV movies did feature a mother son incest story --and a female teacher with boy student story. Highly advertised and promoted. I saw only snippets of each. Pure filth. And then we saw it happening in real schools --women teachers with boy students. I think it's quite possible that life imitates art.
Of course I don't believe the creator of Family Guy, Seth MacFarlane, has a "sick mind," as you put it. While his humor is often edgy and crude, it is also very smart.
By his "belief system," are you referring to his atheism? Do you mean to say that atheism leads to indecent and unclean humor?
Seems to!
If you believe in God and believe humor should be clean, then you don't go as far as Family Guy creator does to be funny. He goes so far that he isn't funny --but disgusting.
You don't think it's possible to be an atheist and prefer "clean" humor?
I agree that it's possible to be an atheist and be good in a lot of ways --but Christians have more REASON to be good --because they feel accountable to God and His standards as given in the Bible and to others.
The atheist MAY feel accountable to fellow man --or he may not. He has no authority beyond himself (except man-made laws) to guide him. So he has less reason to believe in "clean humor," than the Christian.
That's why he can embrace abortion and sodomy without batting an eye.
You may be interested to know about the Atheist and Agnostic Pro-Life League. I think the name itself is pretty descriptive, and demonstrates how at least some atheists oppose abortion.
I am not a member myself, but still...
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