TVSquad

Hollywood is desperate for good ideas. Rather than come up with original concepts on their own ... which requires genuine skill and talent ... they are increasingly choosing to take things which are sacred and honorable to some people and alter them. They choose to alter whatever many people believe as TRUTH.

This serves a two-fold purpose: They get lots of free publicity for their 'daring' concepts, which amount to drivel. They would rather despise the sacred and exalt the profane. It's a cheap, easy way to be considered BOLD, BRAVE, etc. by others of the same ilk. From Martin Scorcese (LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST) on down to some yet-undiscovered Hollywood wunderkind... they are all the same. Mental lightweights, morally bankrupt, socially irresponsible, money-grubbers.

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Okay, throwing my chip in for the "spiritual, but smart enough to not be easily offended and start spewing crap about no-talent hacks profaning the scared oh no" crowd.

This sounds like a stupid show. What sucks about that is that its impending failure will probably be seen more of as a "why religious shows don't work" problem rather than simply a measure of quality. Religion can be mined for humor. I don't think this it.

And "Last Temptation of Christ" was good. :p

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EVERYTHING can be mined for humor. It's the pious holier-than-thou types for the most part who see it all as persecution of their faith, which only makes the humorists want to push it further. It's all about getting a rise out of someone and making them look foolish in their protestation, because, at least when it comes to religious humor, it invariably comes down to "My imaginary invisible man in the sky can beat up your imaginary invisible man in the sky" and "I'm going to spend eternity by my imaginary creator's side while you're going to spend enternity in an imaginary realm full of fire and brimstone run by an imaginary sadist with a pitchfork fetish."

Ok, you want serious? Screw Catholics. Screw Christians and all of the Christ-based religions. Screw Jews. Screw Muslims. Screw Buddists. Screw Scientologists. Screw Hindus. Screw Sikhs. Screw Atheists. Screw Agnostics. Screw Secular Humanists. (Sorry if I missed anyone in this list, but screw them too.) The problem as I see it, and you're certainly free to disagree, is that far too many people only believe what they're told to when they're young and never question it. They're told what they're being taught is absolutely right and any threat to that is a threat to their entire belief system, so they overzealously defend it.

So someone made fun of the pope. Big effing deal. He's an old man wearing a dress, a funny hat and more jewelry than Mr. T, who has dedicated his life to teachings that come from a two thousand year-old book that's more difficult to understand than a Microsoft Access 2003 programming guide that's been translated from English to Spanish to Portuguese to Polish to German and back into English, most of which will always remain open to multiple and opposing interpretations. If you were a Catholic and secure in your beliefs, then you know that there is no chance that a silly cartoon called "Popetown" is going to have any effect on your beliefs and that someone making fun of the pope will eventually meet his maker and explain his behavior. That secure Catholic could very easily laugh at "Popetown" simply because it's funny. It's only those who are insecure and feel personally threatened that feel the need to snap back and claim they are being harassed and persecuted. Just what is it that has this insecure Catholic so scared? Is he afraid that perhaps if he admits that there could be something funny about the pope then there's something funny about the whole religion? I have no idea because my mind doesn't work that way, but I do know that the surest way to sound like a nutjob is to claim that someone making fun of your belief system is somehow a threat of any kind.

Oh yeah, before I forget, Happy Good Friday! (Or is it 'Merry Good Friday'?)

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Amen Elf! (pun intended)

larry dalton, your closemindedness frightens me. If you thought Last Temptation of Christ was an excellent and very christian film. It saddens me that you completely missed the point. Pull your head out of your preachers ass sometimes.

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totally flubbed that line.

Should be "if you thought LToC was terrible you missed out on what was an excellent..."

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is it just me, or does the pope look like jason from home movies to anyone else?

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Yeah, what is it with these typos today? Maybe because it's Good Friday? I meant sacred, not scared. Funny how one little flipped word can change the whole thing....

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I feel sorry for those whose faith is so small that they feel threatened by something as fleeting and inconsequential as a cartoon. It may be sad that people do not understand the deeper meanings of a religious practice, be it "Funny Hats" or Buddhist prayer wheels. But I figure God is powerful enough to work out the issues directly with the cartoon maker(s) and if God chooses not to bother with them, then neither will I.

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You are unreal. To let something like this get out. Nothing is sacrid anymore. Is that what we want to teach our kids. I understand the catholic faith is messed up,But you don't show your kids to make fun of everything. What is wrong with you people. there is a line damit. No wonder the kids are so screwed up. Gee everything is funny. Death must be funny also so lets make a show about that. Grow up.

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There's really no point in arguing about things like this. People will have their own opinion. I'm sure some will find it funny, and others offensive. This silly TV show really isn't the point. People disagree about religion, and some seem to have very personal anger stemming from it as well. If you are a Christian, then your job is to convince others that you have found the way. You do this not by arguing your point, but by "walking the walk". We need to remember how the Muslim community reacted to the cartoon of Mohammed. Lead by example.

I'd rather believe there is a God, and find out I'm wrong when I'm dead, then not believe, and end up in Hell!

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What is wrong with YOU Jimbo?? Your stunning ignorance of social, cultrual and religious history is quite frightening. Christianity is (like all monotheistic faiths) an arrogant, absusive and bullying religion, unable to withstand close scrutiny or sustained criticism. Yet the First Amendment gives you and me both the right to believe as we will, and the right to express our views as we will. I can critic and poke fun as I please, and if you don't like it you have the right to respond in kind. You don't have the right to make me stop. That is the bedrock and cornerstone of our morality as a people, as a nation. Kids are screwed up today because both the religious-conservative-right and politically-correct liberal left have systematically chipped away at the core values that made America great, and replaced it with an "us vs. them" ethic, where everyone is out to protect their own views by silencing others, much as you wan't to, Jimbo. It is, in fact, you that needs to grow up.

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Isn't it funny...it's OK for the Catholics and the Protestants to be "policitically incorrect", but heaven forbid anyone else is. SCREW THAT NOISE. For years the liberals were bashed for being too PC ~ now we take our pot shots like those jerks do and they don't like. TOUGH COOKIES. Get off the cross ~ someone else needs the wood or use the wood to build a bridge and get over it!

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What a bunch of pigs you all are. Ignorant an uninformed. Losers destined for nothing-ness

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"ignorance of social, cultrual and religious history is quite frightening"

"Kids are screwed up today because both the religious-conservative-right and politically-correct liberal left have systematically chipped away at the core values that made America great"

What, I ask, are the core values that made America great? I'll give you a hint; take a look back to the founding fathers' philosophy and religious heritage.
Enlightenment thinkers and Christianity.

Also, if you think our polarized political parties are the harbingers of corruption and that America's hey-day was rooted in good 'values' (a worthless signifier in your realm, anyway), then you are in need of a history lesson yourself.

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The hypocrisy of the fans of Western religious traditions (that are, unknown to most followers, distortions of their original message and teachings), particularly in the U.S., never ceases to amaze me.
Poster 'jimbo' and others feel "there is a line" that shouldn't be crossed. I wonder if he and others feel as strongly about the "sacred" nature of non-Judeo-Christian religions When it comes to the symbols and teachings of the more ancient Eastern spiritual philosophies, like Hinduism and Buddhism? I suspect they don't. I haven't heard any complaints about the idiotic misrepresentation of the Law of Karma on a weekly basis on "My Name Is Earl," or the commercial where two women in bathrobes joke and laugh about their yogurt being better than Zen! Then there's the misuse of the Yin/Yang symbol and others, as decoration. American TV and movies ridicule the sacred regularly, but since it isn't Christianity, Judaism, or the Muslim religion (now practiced by a growing number of Westerners) that is being denigrated and ridiculed, no one objects.

The ignorance of most Americans about Eastern religions, as well as their own religions, is astounding. Few realize, for example, that Jesus studied with Himalayan Monks, as well as Rabbis, and that original teachings of all major religions are essentially the same. Buddha was reacting against the solidifying of original Hinduism into a moral code used by a few to control the many. Jesus was reacting similarly to Judaism' corruption. Protestant reformers were reacting to changes in Christianity, and to Catholicism's hierarchy of religious royalty. The "perennial philosophy" is found in the Kabbalah in the West and ancient Hindu texts in the East, with fragments remaining in heavily-censored "Holy Books" elsewhere.

Despite any indoctrination into a particular faith at a vulnerable age, each of us should seek the truth and fight off the superstitious fears that cause knee-jerk bullying of others.

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If you really believe that liberl thinkers and skeptics are destined for nothingness, then you fail to see the general trend of history. Doubt cannot be controlled by affirmations and arrogance. Doubt will not be silenced until there is reasonable evidence that your ideas are valid. Until then, your conservative attitude will only hold you back from becoming more. Conservatism in general rejects change, social development and skepticism, as does the Catholic church. A stupid cartoon will not change that, although eventually skepticism and reason will. You group enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire in with religion as foundations of American greatness, failing to realize that those same thinkers were overwhelmingly skeptics and forward thinking men. Their rejection of the old ways of thinking is what made them, and America, great. Even the religiously zealous Sir Issac Newton was willing to step outside of the bounds of traditional thought, and he ired the church in the process. Likewise, all innovation is still being resisted by a creaky old man whose infallibility has long since been renounced. As the papal states have collapsed into a pathetic cinder, so shall (to use an appropriately biblical term) Catholicism eventually either dwindle or be revolutionized. A cartoon cannot change the tide, which is already moving toward the left. It always will, though it will also always be resisted by existing intolerant belief systems. St. Paul may have been the greatest charlatan in history, turning a decent carpenter into a generator of income and power for himself and his ilk.

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To Jimbo- Parents must be parents, do not expect society to raise your children for you. It is your job to raise your child in the manner in which you want them raised-Do not blame anyone for what is on the TV, when you as a parent can turn it off or program it to not be seen.

Thou should not judge others- maybe you should look in the mirror, take responsibility for your parenting and your decisions, and let others do the same for themselves.

Happy Easter

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It's not the Catholic Faith that's messed up, it people wo interpret the Faith that can get messed up. I'm tired of Catholics getting blamed for what some extremely sick priests have done and the hierarchy's failure to acknowledge the crime. I'm catholic and love my faith. What I do protest about this cartoon is the lack of respect people have in general. Our 1st Amendment to have freedom of speech is a good thing, but I do believe that that speech can also be tempered, not watered down, but tempered with respect for the views and beliefs of others.

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I am appalled by the level of illiteracy shown by these blogs. Unfortunately, it is an excellent example of the quality of education now imposed on our current school system. And one of the biggest culprits is the NEA. Their fixation on inserting dubious social programs into the curriculum (read: "Heather has two mommies") instead of the basics (read, write, spell, speak, know math and history) leaves graduates foundered in the maze of an inscrutable, unfriendly world, without the necessary intellectual tools to cope with an increasingly technological world that has no use for people who can't read-write-spell-speak, do math, or know their heritage. God (or whoever) help all of you; I wish you had the teachers that I had in the 1930's and '40's.
Herb (TNB in KC)

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I too would be counted among those that hate the idea of this cartoon but, believe it or not, I'm not some hard core religious zealot (or for that matter, a left wing-nut) who's hurling verbal and written spears at anyone who disagrees with what I believe. My objection is to the general baseness of the media today. I just wonder when it happened that the only way to get a laugh from the (mostly) younger set is to hurt others in some way. Everyone's beliefs get a poke at some point in comedy...that I get. But it seems like the trend is moving faster and faster toward just completely hurting others in any way possible as a means of getting a laugh. Instead of becoming the tolerant society that we Americans claim to strive for, we teach our kids that only thier feelings count and that feeling good comes from hurting others. I hate to tell y'all this (on both sides of this argument) but, even the satanists have a moral code to follow. I do monitor what my kids see through the media, but I can't make other, less involved, parents do the same. It's scary for me to think about what could happen to them when they are faced with the "real world" (pardon the MTV reference) with other kids who have no sense of other peoples feelings or what's right and wrong. I simply believe that there is no need to bash what IS sacred to others. If I want others to leave me to my beliefs, I need to leave them to theirs.

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