Stupid TV

I quit watching TV a long time ago.  But a lot of people have told me that "The Big Bang Theory" is funny - especially in matters of religion.  So I watched some excerpts on YouTube.  What I watched was actually a sort-of prequel showing the formation of the show's character "Sheldon" as a child.

What I saw was comedically pathetic, and pathetically preachy.  It is nothing more than very bad Atheist Apologetics that depends on the ignorance of the viewer to be effective.  I watched excepts from this episode in which an 8-year old Sheldon takes on Christianity and dismantles it single-handedly, because he believes in "science."  The arguments were not just simplistic, but stereotypical and cartoonish.

The writers don't even know the basics, such as the fact that Baptists don't adorn their churches in colored paraments corresponding with the church year.  I know that there are exceptions to this rule, but so few as to be statistically insignificant - a concept that the writers should seemingly understand and embrace: math and science and all that.  Also, pastors typically do not field questions while preaching in the pulpit.  It makes one wonder if the writers have ever been to an actual church service.  There was also a scene in which the Baptist Sunday school children were reciting and praying the Lord's Prayer together.  This is also not how Baptists teach the Bible to children.  And they don't use the translation of the Lord's Prayer that uses the word "trespasses."  I mean, this stuff is so basic, that it shows that they have no consultant.  And why would they?  They clearly think they know everything.  They have this smug, cocksure attitude that corresponds to a writer insisting on not using a proofreader.  It indicates the haughty ego of the insufferable know-it-all.

After the discussion of the Lord's Prayer (which is in Matthew's Gospel), Sheldon cites "Chapter One Verse One" - while not naming the book (which is incidentally John's Gospel) to show what an idiot the pastor is, based on the translation of the word "Word" ("In the beginning was the Word").  He points out that this is actually the Greek word "Logos" - which "means knowledge."  The reality is that the word Λόγος - like many foreign words - can be translated into English in several different ways depending upon context.  The world's greatest scholars have been translating the Greek of the New Testament into the world's languages for nearly 2,000 years.  

The Latin is rendered Verbum, German: das Wort, French: la Parole, Spanish: la Parabla, Italian: il Verbo, and even Esperanto: la Vorto.  See the pattern?  

When the kid says that "Logos" means "knowledge" - it seems to befuddle the pastor.  In reality, this idea of the Logos - in all of its fullness - is part of Christian christology.  Christ is the Logos - the intelligence behind the universe, behind creation, the Word "by whom all things were made" as we have been confessing in the Nicene Creed for just shy of 1,700 years.  The word "Logos" is part of the etymology of the word "Theology" and all other "-ology" words.  This is a confession of Christian truth, not a refutation of it.  This is not a startling revelation.  

Moreover, the first day that many of us set foot in seminary, we were learning Greek.  And even if Christian pastors don't have to study the New Testament in Greek, they certainly know the main Greek words used in Christian theology.  They don't have to be told this by a smart-aleck eight-year old unbeliever.

Sheldon also uses logic (also based on the Greek word "Logos," by the way) to "refute" the apologetic claims of the pastor.  Of course, this is all "funny" and "lighthearted," but if you were to remove the laugh-track, it would come across for what it is: cheesy, hamfisted, and manipulative Apologetics wielded against a straw man.  

One example is the pastor pointing out that many of the world's greatest scientists actually believed in God - including Charles Darwin.  Sheldon retorts by saying, "So Darwin was wrong about evolution and right about God?"  "Hahaha" screams the laugh-track as the doltish pastor looks bewildered at being checkmated.  But how is this an argument?  Couldn't one equally point out that Atheists also argue that Darwin was wrong about God, but right about evolution?  

In another scene regarding creation according to Genesis, Sheldon "trumps" the pastor by pointing out that light was created on Day One while the sun wasn't created until Day Four.  My gosh, how did we miss that?  We have been reading, thinking about, and commenting upon the Genesis text for some three and a half millennia - but it took a Hollywood screenwriter to refute the whole thing to a laugh-track.  "Hahaha!" and on to the next scene.

And of course, Sheldon's Christian parents speak with a Southern accent, while he speaks like he comes from the North.  Subtle, isn't it?  I would be willing to bet that many Americans get their view of Christianity and Christian Apologetics from the likes of this sloppy and intellectually dishonest TV show and their ignorant writers.

Finally, isn't it interesting that the writers target Christianity as their representative of "irrational religion" in opposition to "science" - while adopting a hands-off view of Judaism and Islam?  

So I've seen enough.  This confirms my premise that nearly all TV is junk food for the mind and rat poison for the soul.  Television seems to retard the intelligence of the viewer, who typically laughs on cue like a drooling Pavlovian dog (but convinced that he is now the smarter for it) and moves along to the next scene without asking too many questions.