February 21, 2003

• God Talk

  
  

  Okay, here's my pet peeve.  You want to know what makes me really feel disgusted?  You want to know what completely turns me off?  You want to know what makes me say, God, please don't ask me to be in the presence of this person because I don't know how I could be kind?  God talk.

  
  

  You know the kind of talk I mean.  I'm not opposed to conversation about God, or even debate about God.  I'm opposed to the kind of speech that says "I'm a good person because I talk about God so just ignore the way I'm acting, words count, actions don't."  You know.  God talk.

  
  

  I'm hooked on Survivor.  I didn't mean to get hooked on Survivor.  In fact, I strenuously resisted watching it because it's unappealing to me to see people lie, scheme, betray, and manipulate for reward.  I know it happens in real life, even in my life.  But, I'm trying very hard to reduce the appearance of those elements in my world, I don't want them sneaking back in under the guise of entertainment.  But, Survivor comes on just before CSI.  So I was tuning in and catching the last cople minutes before my show came on.  Then the next week I tuned in a little earlier, just to see the immunity challenge (no schemeing there, just good clean competition, right?)  Then I was tuning in a little earlier to see ... you get the picture.  Finally, there I was with my bowl of popcorn in hand and the remote securely hidden from any channel flipping fiends (the dog is horrible about that) for the 90 minute premier eposode of this latest Survivor incarnation - the Amazon Adventure.

  
  

  I was more intrigued by this one than previous shows anyway because of the men vs. women setup.  Now I'm disgusted.  The women are behaving horribly.  They have been together for six days, they have no plan, no purpose, no freaking relationships with each other.  They seem to be harboring the secret desire to endure early part of the game with minimal effort biding their time until they can be combined with the men and taken care of.  yes they won the first immunity and the first reward challenges, but they are a mess.

  
  

  The worst part though is the excruciating behavior of the one religious person on the show.  She annoys the others with her constant God talk.  She sings while they are trying to fish.  She preaches while they are trying to sleep.  And at the first sign that someone is less than appreciative of her opinion, she flies off the handle like a two year old in bad need of a nap.  May God deliver me from being the kind of person who uses God talk.  It's the least attractive thing I've seen on the show yet.  And I'm including the parts where they ate bugs and rats.  Give me a good clean rat any day over the nastiness of rude, hypocritical, manipulative, and self-serving God talk.

  
  

  Other people in previous episodes have been rude, hypocritical, manipulative etc and so forth.  They didn't offend me, they stirred me to pity.  Those sad and ultimately friendless people represented only themselves.  The backstabbing used car dealer, the whining lazy restaraunt owner, the manipulative seductress - all these people looked bad.  But, when it was over, their bad bahavior was understood in the context of the people as individuals.  But, when a self-proclaimed religious person behaves badly, it doesn't just reveal poor character, it confirms the opinion that so many people carry about religious people in general. 

  
  

  Of course, it is a fallacy to judge entire belief systems by the  behavior of someone who claims to adhere to those beliefs.  Behavior, not verbal claims, reveal whether or not someone truly believes.  But, in a world where it seems that fewer and fewer people have the tolerance to avoid overgeneralization in regard to religion.  It seems to me that a person who desires to be a religious person must understand that it's far more important to act on it than to speak of it. 

  • 10:37 am
  • 36 Comments