So I was surfing television tonight and there was a Dateline or Primetime special about sexual predators. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032600/. Here's the deal - it was sponsored by all these slasher movies like SawIII and Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
My disgust was with the hypocrisy. Here was this show ostensibly offering (albeit as "newstertainment") this story of the basest of all human flaws; pedophelia. And to pay for it, they were feeding the beast they condemned. Vice sells in the fake-news biz, and no vice is more vile than victimizing children.
Friday, October 06, 2006
Thursday, October 05, 2006
When did it become so wrong to believe in something?
Hi, and welcome to my blog. I'm just going to start talking here and discuss some issues that have been on my mind lately. These topics will be mostly spiritual in nature; specifically, I'm interested in political and social ramifications of spiritual orientation (or vice versa).
The news is full of the religious right-wing going off on gay marriage, abortion, war, taxes, prayer in schools, public Christmas trees, and whatever they can manage to feel threatened about. The counterpoint is a bunch of secular fundamentalists going crazy about every mention of religion in the public square. Their search for a Stalinist secular atheocracy is just as reprehensible as the right's oppressive sledgehammer of moralizing legislation. I'd like to take a sober view of the entire social and spiritual landscape, and -since this is my blog - I will. And if no one listens, so be it.
My view is that there is a balance that is attainable between social responsibility and faith. We live in a VERY intolerant society. There is a canon to which we are all forced to adhere. Succinctly put, that canon is:
"You cannot dispute that we all essentially worship the same god and follow the same moral creed. If you do, you are intolerant and 'forcing your views on me.'"
I wonder when it became so wrong to believe something specific and different from your peers. Am I not allowed to think that I am right and that someone else is wrong?
The news is full of the religious right-wing going off on gay marriage, abortion, war, taxes, prayer in schools, public Christmas trees, and whatever they can manage to feel threatened about. The counterpoint is a bunch of secular fundamentalists going crazy about every mention of religion in the public square. Their search for a Stalinist secular atheocracy is just as reprehensible as the right's oppressive sledgehammer of moralizing legislation. I'd like to take a sober view of the entire social and spiritual landscape, and -since this is my blog - I will. And if no one listens, so be it.
My view is that there is a balance that is attainable between social responsibility and faith. We live in a VERY intolerant society. There is a canon to which we are all forced to adhere. Succinctly put, that canon is:
"You cannot dispute that we all essentially worship the same god and follow the same moral creed. If you do, you are intolerant and 'forcing your views on me.'"
I wonder when it became so wrong to believe something specific and different from your peers. Am I not allowed to think that I am right and that someone else is wrong?
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