What a giggle (The God Channel)

Member Name: bigbtommy

Product:	The God Channel
Date:	19/01/04 (1964 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Hilarious fun (especially when drunk)

Disadvantages: Tacky, scary that some people might actually listen to the idiotic American televangelists

Saw this topic and just had to respond! Oh boy. What do I say about the God Channel? That it's filled with idiotic televangelists? That it's outranked by Sky One (a channel that's only redeeming factors are the presence of Simpsons and Futurama)? This is satellite television at it's rawest and least intelligible.

Americans who look like they're on the knife edge of an intestinal rupture spew forth their sermons. It's not so much the religion that offends me, but the idea that the theology of Christianity has to be punctuated every thirty seconds with an advert for some cheesy motivational speaker who feels that if they can say "God and family are important to me" that they can take the worlds population of believers for chump change in flogging 'motivational' products (books, cassettes, videos and whatever other crap they can find to sell). The Bible as a religious text brings up a lot of questions and, I'm sure for lots of believers, answers. Although I'm not a religious man, I try to respect those that are. But if I was a Christian, I'd find this channel the pits. Why people can't discuss their faith without screaming "God loves us all" in every interval.

The people they have on channels like God and it's many spinoffs and contemporaries (there is a God 2 channel, 'Revelations' and numerous other Christian channels on Sky) do nothing, I repeat, nothing to show Christianity in a good light. You've managed to survive the public relations disaster that was the Crusades and the Inquisitions. But can your faith survive in a world of satellite television and information superhighways? You do no favours by speaking always in the negative. "You're all going to hell unless you pray to (and pay) me".

I suppose, as a secularist, I should be happy that channels like this exist. They show that religion is irrelevant in a world of satellite television. So
me commentators have described this as a Christian MTV, but channels like the God Channel make it look like instead of rejecting the 'filth' of contemporary teenage consumerism (shown through the technical semological icons: the phone, the television and, to a lesser extent, the computer) the Christians believe not in a supreme being, only the supremacy of cold, hard dough.

Television does that. Like MTV has dumbed down culture so that every song has to be three minutes long and feature a swath of rappers, DJ's and the unattainable goals of "cool" and "attitude", God Channel and it's similars has dumbed down Christian theology in such a way that every statement the televangelists come out with has to be summed up in joke form. Set it up, deliver the punchline. When did theology and the supreme questions of life and death become televised entertainment?

Through channels like God, any attempt at moral superiority and culture is lost. Christians can no longer preach that MTV sells evil, because Christianity is now just an MTV clone.

This channel does have it's good sides though. It's hilarious, especially after a few drinks. Seeing Americans in their traditional OTT-mode about everything, and their "duh huh" statements about violence on TV or the notion that consenting adults having sex with one another is "naughty". It's all there in full idiot mode, and it's beamed right in to your home for hilarity. The downside is that for every hilarious joke, there is always some poor sucker who takes it seriously.

Suspend disbelief, watch the God channel. It's like a movie with the scary realisation that there are people out there who actually nod their head in agreement with what the idiotic televangelists say. Much fun.

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