Hello from tangent-ville.

Okay, so on TRIO they also have this show in the "brilliant but cancelled" category called God, the Devil and Bob. It's a cartoon where God is thinking about destroying the world (again) and decides to give us a second chance if he can find one righteous man. (I'm going to stick with the masculine pronoun here cause in the show, God is shown as male-- even though I think God has no need for biological gender). He "lets the devil in on the bet" by letting him pick the man (which the devil clearly tries to win the bet by picking an imperfect man who the devil is sure will screw it all up). The show got into all kinds of trouble, and eventually was cancelled, partly because Christians objected to it as blasphemous and evil. I really wish that folks would concentrate on things in the world that I think are truly evil on TV-- a few jokes about religion are a bit less troublesome (IMHO) than the dozens of murders a day one can see on basic TV.

One problem people had with it was they claimed God would never do something like that. Hello! Can you say Book of Job? In that book, God basically makes a bet with the devil around Job's faith. It's in the bible, you know. So it's not like this is much of a stretch to imagine being a possibility. Of course, some Christians have always had difficulty with aspects of Job's story. Anyway.

My point is-- I think the show was really funny, and always quite on target with the basic intelligent person's theology. God gives us free will. This is why we get in trouble-- we often know we shouldn't do something bad but do it anyway because we are imperfect. God could have literally (at least, an ominpowerful god) caused humanity to NOT have choices, and then that whole Garden of Eden thing would have not happened, right? But God allows choice, and that includes the choice to do bad things. Think of A Clockwork Orange-- the "choice" to be evil is taken away from the protagonist, and so whe he is "Good" it is meaningless! Only when that person is "good" because they WANT to be good does it mean anything!! But ultimately, most people are pretty darn good. Don't go around kicking puppies and stuff but really wanting to make the world a better place. And I think God and the point of being here has a lot to do with that philosophy-- make the world better than it was when you woke up this morning, even if only in a small way.

So I'm digressing and getting into bad argument zone because I'm getting sidetracked.

But my point about this whole darn thing is this: the show was cancelled, partly because religious folks objected to its message, thought it was blasphemous to show God chatting with (and making a bet with) the devil. And that God is shown drinking beer (for pete's sake!) And that the graphical image of God is shown apparently to look like Jerry Garcia (I'm not sure this was deliberate on the part of the show's makers-- honestly, he has a white beard and mustache. That's a traditional image of God! Jerry Garcia was a lot heavier-- he wore certain kinds of clothes.... God basically looks like an older man with a mustache & beard who has liberal hippie tendencies). Perhaps he does look and perhaps the creators meant him to look like Garcia. It's not like he looks like Jeffrey Dahmer or something-- what did Garcia do that was so evil? Oh yes, he was human & flawed and did stupid things that eventually caused his life to end. That doesn't sound like ANYONE I know.

It was really upsetting to me to look around on the net and find only ridiculously illogical, non-specific arguments about how evil the show was. Often these arguments were circular (the show is bad cause it shows God being blasphemous and that's blasphemous of the network and they're going to Hell.) Another thing these "critiques" on the net show was arguments that completely forgot things like JOB.

One website went down the list of its objections to the show, including things like that Noah was perfect and didn't drink (did you forget that Genesis 9:22-23 shows Noah drunk and naked lying about in his tent? This is the whole thing that gets his son Ham in trouble, and ends up being used by bad theologians in the past as justification for slavery). So the point is that even a "perfect" man, chosen by God to save a piece of humanity (that is otherwise seen as beyond salvation and drowned) has human imperfect moments. The whole claim that the show is immoral merely because they show God drinking a beer is really a stretch. They show God saying "how did we live without Starbucks" too. Should we condemn the show for that reason cause coffee is a stimulant, too. And Starbuck's is corporate, clearly evil, right? Making the world all liberal and hippie minded like those Northwestern Washington types. (yeah. right.)

Drinking is one of those places that people like to get up on a soapbox and say "the bible clearly says" it's bad. Well that's not true. There are other places that it "clearly" says other things about drinking. I personally think the point is NOT TO DRINK IN EXCESS!! All of the places people like to quote about alcohol being EVIL really to me are interpretable as statements against OVER indulging. One does not get "red eyed" drunken-ness from a glass of wine, or even two.

Again, I'm getting off point. What bugs me about narrow-minded bad arguments like this? Really? Is that technically I am a Christian, a believer in God. (Granted, I think I have very liberal views and I doubt that many of the folks who wrote those websites would think I am anything other than bad). What bugs me is that these folks succeed, all the time, in ruining shows like this one because they CLAIM to be a moral authority on what God would like. What DOES God think about things like sin? Well, even from a Christian standpoint, God allows a way out of it-- so yes, it's wrong, but it's not like there's no chance of redemption. In theology, I think there is ALWAYS a chance to redeem oneself. And we can never know, even if we think Jerry Garcia was bad and therefore the show is bad cause it shows God looking like him, that in his heart, Garcia wasn't "right with the Lord." How, really, do you know that? Are you claiming to be omniscient?

I don't think so bub. The Bible also condemns hypocrisy. If you're claiming to be so righteous that you can firmly and authoritatively say that YOU are the only right person, I think you're committing quite a sin yourself. You might be surprised to find out that you are not an authority on what God thinks, and claiming to do so is a bit of a stretch on your part.

But then again, I could be wrong. Maybe those folks really are right, and God really is so narrow-minded and caught in the 19th century Puritanical view of everything in the world that is "fun" is sinful. If so, well, I reckon it's really only me who will suffer from my wrong-beliefs. Those folks will be happily hanging out with that God in heaven. In this, I believe in the Billy Joel song "I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints, the sinners are much more fun". Funny how Jesus hung out with a lot of sinners, huh.