- Status
- that cieling ought to be whitewashed. 
S
sidonius
Guest
This is a great thread, and I am sorry to join so late. My thoughts:
- Many “reality” shows, so called, deal in humiliation of real individuals and involve no creativity on the part of producers. The humiliation and the waste of time are sinful. On the other hand, those which involve creativity under pressure, such as Top Chef or Project Runway can be uplifting.
- Documentaries, such as those on the History Channel, PBS or Discovery can be rewarding and perhaps entertaining.
- Shows like X-Files, ER, Law and Order display creativity on the part of writers, directors, actors and others. Creativity is a gift of God - subcreation as Tolkien called it. Dorothy Sayers wrote a book called “The Mind of the Maker” in which she argued that the creative process mirrored the Trinity, and that creativity was the way in which human beings were made in the image and likeness of God.
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edwest2
Guest
While histories and documentaries can be educational, what about the rest of what’s on TV?
The Sopranos is filled with profanity and partially nude women. It’s one thing to have violence but quite another to have a favorite episode of the Sopranos. Gangster movies of the past were able to convey this horrible lifestyle minus the profanity and partial nudity. The TV show The Untouchables is an example. Remember, the term “pushing the envelope” is short for “pushing the envelope of what the public finds acceptable.” Put some profanity and partial nudity in the Sopranos, people watch it, and before you know it, it’s OK. TV executives think the public, you and I, are OK with it, so they do more. And then add a little simulated sex and so on. It never stops until it enters the explicit porn category. All it takes is small steps over a period of time, no one complains, and on to the next step. That’s what Catholics should watch out for.
Creativity is a gift from God, but when I sin, I don’t drag a video into the confessional. The same should be the case on TV. There are certain lines that should never be crossed.
God bless,
Ed
The Sopranos is filled with profanity and partially nude women. It’s one thing to have violence but quite another to have a favorite episode of the Sopranos. Gangster movies of the past were able to convey this horrible lifestyle minus the profanity and partial nudity. The TV show The Untouchables is an example. Remember, the term “pushing the envelope” is short for “pushing the envelope of what the public finds acceptable.” Put some profanity and partial nudity in the Sopranos, people watch it, and before you know it, it’s OK. TV executives think the public, you and I, are OK with it, so they do more. And then add a little simulated sex and so on. It never stops until it enters the explicit porn category. All it takes is small steps over a period of time, no one complains, and on to the next step. That’s what Catholics should watch out for.
Creativity is a gift from God, but when I sin, I don’t drag a video into the confessional. The same should be the case on TV. There are certain lines that should never be crossed.
God bless,
Ed
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Fitswimmer
Guest
Since all the TV’s I have ever owned come with not only a channel changer but an on/off switch, I’ve never had to watch anything that personally offended me. Now, TV’s even have these really cool things that allow you to block channels, so you don’t even have to see them when you’re surfing.
There’s too many easy ways to avoid objectionable material now, it makes complaining about it sound sort of silly.
There’s too many easy ways to avoid objectionable material now, it makes complaining about it sound sort of silly.
T
Ted_in_Charlott
Guest
I remember I had a neighbor in Atlanta. Beautiful family, 2 small children then, she home schooled and they didn’t have a tv. It was before Al Gore invented the internet so radio was the source of their infomation. I am nor sure where they went to church but it wasn’t mainline for that area. I always wondered how those kids turned out.
As for the OP question:Is it a sin to watch certain TV shows? Absolutely.
As for the OP question:Is it a sin to watch certain TV shows? Absolutely.
T
Ted_in_Charlott
Guest
Put up your dukes on this one.
There were some pretty racy episodes back on the original series. Captain Kirk was quite the playboy.
The Next Generation series was generally clean cut with the exception the Betazoid and Number One had a fling or two. The Android apparently was the most permissive with looser morals. But all without emotion, fascinating as Spock would say.
Never got into the other spin offs
E
edwest2
Guest
Could you explain the “silly” part? So-called popular media is generally raunchy. That is a fact for Catholics. Avoiding it without commenting on the massive output of TV shows about profoundly dysfunctional people is like saying: “You know, there’s a lot of bad stuff out there but I’ll just ignore it. I’ll just be a bystander as TV producers put on shows like Californication and Dexter, that lovable serial killer (did you see the episode where he cuts up a guy with a chainsaw?).”
As a Catholic American, it is my civic and spiritual duty to point out the encroachment of distorted “entertainment.” To point out to my fellow Catholics: What are we going to allow ourselves to get used to next? The lovable family of cannibals next door? The wacky abortion doctor who is just doing what has to be done?
TV shows aren’t commercials but they contain messages. Today, too many of them contain messages and images that should be shunned by Catholics. And the question needs to be asked: Why? Why put on these TV programs that show the absolute worst in humanity in increasingly explicit ways? Why should we Catholics allow ourselves to be dulled to truth and beauty and meditate (yeah, sitting in front of the TV for hours qualifies) on the sordid, the profane and exploitive uses of human beings?
God bless,
Ed
J
James22
Guest
The issue isn’t whether certain shows are “personally offensive.” Your tone suggests the desire, rampant in our secular culture, to relegate all matters of morality to a relativistic, subjective realm of personal interpretation and preference. The question, which is an interesting and valid one, is over whether the election not to avoid ‘objectionable material’ is inherentely and objectively sinful; this is not a question of censorship, or complaint about modern media. Those would be different issues, though it seems they were what have chosen to address.
F
Fitswimmer
Guest
I’m not suggesting anything other than those who are personally offended by programs should be personally responsible enough to turn the darn things off!
Good grief, I never even heard of some of these shows until I read this thread! You guys know more about them than I do! Some of them I think are on pay channels, right-like HBO or Showtime? Why would anyone pay for them if they find the content objectionable? I thought that’s why those channels were subscription only-so that people could choose whether or not to have them in their homes.
As far as “civic and spiritual duty”, I’ve written networks and production companies if I’ve been offended by something. There have been a couple Law and Orders that I felt were unfair to the Church or to Christianity in general and I’ve written on show blogs and written letters to NBC and the show. There’s always writing to the FCC, they’ve got an entire department for that.
E
edwest2
Guest
Turning it off is not the same thing as being responsible. Example with hyperbole:
"Dear Mr. President,
Could you please send examples of your country’s culture to my country?"
Well, what to send? A DVD of Madonna’s latest concert? Or Britney’s? Or a Jay and Silent Bob movie? How about an hour of George Carlin? Maybe a little Lewis Black or Chris Rock.
With cable, people are generally required to pay for things they don’t want but that’s another subject.
This is a Catholic Forum for the discussion of choice in a Catholic context.
Peace,
Ed
"Dear Mr. President,
Could you please send examples of your country’s culture to my country?"
Well, what to send? A DVD of Madonna’s latest concert? Or Britney’s? Or a Jay and Silent Bob movie? How about an hour of George Carlin? Maybe a little Lewis Black or Chris Rock.
With cable, people are generally required to pay for things they don’t want but that’s another subject.
This is a Catholic Forum for the discussion of choice in a Catholic context.
Peace,
Ed
F
Fitswimmer
Guest
You made my point for me-CHOICE. We all have the responsibility to make the right choices in accordance with our Catholic faith. When was the last time you heard a sermon in your parish about what we do with our leisure hours? It’s been a while for me. Can you imagine if Catholics, even half the Catholics that attend Mass on a given weekend, simply stopped watching this stuff? They’re not watching the shows, so they’re not buying the products advertised…and the wave starts to roll.
If we really want better programming, better music, better movies it starts with US. The media companies are going to give us what makes them money. If family programming with good values starts to make them money-they’ll be running each other over trying to make more of it.
R
Rubicon
Guest
I really don’t understand this post.
J
James22
Guest
I think he was saying a couple things:
- that if you tried to take a snapshot of our culture, it would be dismal. Admittedly, and while I agree, I don’t think that’s relevant.
- that if you have cable, you are in a way paying for objectionable material. Again, agreed, not really relevant.
- That this is a discussion about Catholic choice, in a Catholic forum. This, I do think, addresses the subject. I think some want to boil this discussion down to “if you don’t like it, change!” as though the discussion should or could end there. Whereas, really, as Catholics, we should be asking these questions, and deliberating about whether really, even if there is that (concupiscent) part of us that DOESN’T want to change the channel when something scandalous or objectively immoral comes on.
E
edwest2
Guest
Thank you for clarifying. A look at TV in the 1960s, 70s, 80s and 90s would show a very clear, and gradual, adittion of bits of immorality, culminating in NYPD Blue and their use of Partial Nudity and “Adult” Language.
Speaking as a Catholic, I watched as the characters in TV became more and more dysfunctional and more and more sexualized. Then the “Adult” language came in along with some partial nudity.
Consider, as a child, my Catholic parents told me certain words were off limits. Too many Catholics now think that as adults, suddenly that no longer applies to them. But calling it “Adult Language” as opposed to Cussing and Swearing seems to make it seem not as bad for some.
The devil’s primary weapon is deception. As a Catholic, I’ve seen other Catholics go from being very conscious of their faith to repeating the “Oh, what’s the big” deal line from people who want nothing to do with Christian morality.
It is one thing to have compassion and understanding toward those who believe differently, but let’s not forget who we are and what we believe. I doubt it crossed the mind of Moses after he received the Ten Commandments to sit down with God and suggest a few amendments or loopholes.
Grey’s Anatomy. Go to the show’s web site. It proudly proclaims that everything about life is just shades of grey. It also doesn’t help when one of the attractive female characters says: “So I’m a dirty whore. So what?”
I think when Catholics lament about changes they see among people in general or Catholics in particular - “What happened? Why are people like this now? How did everything end up like this?” I think we all need to look at our day:
8 hours of sleep (not always true, I know)
8 hours at work (not counting the time to go and come back).
That leaves 8 more hours to eat, bathe, get food and run errands. How much of that is in front of the TV?
As I write this, I’m also including myself. An hour at Church on Sunday. Is that all of our God time? How do we, including me, live out our faith at home and work? Are we really listening to the priest? Or thinking about the game later on?
We are told to read the Bible and to medidate on the words. Instead, I need to point out that our minds are often medidating on Grey’s Anatomy or Brothers and Sisters or Desperate Housewives. Allow me to define what I see in these shows:
Grey’s Anatomy: Fornication Hospital with Adultery. There is one strange character who is married and had a baby with her husband.
Brothers and Sisters: The Ultimate Dysfunctional Family. Adultery, fornication, divorce and gay relationships.
Desperate Housewives: A group of attractive women show other women the exact opposite of living a Christian life. Fornication, adultery, backstabbing and selfishness, extreme selfishness.
Nobody’s perfect. God knows I’m not. But if we don’t really look at what we’re doing with our time as Catholics, we may find ourselves tolerating a lot that falls outside the boundaries of good, moral Christian living. We may even be inspired to think of doing a few things that “don’t seem so bad.”
Respectfully,
Ed
Speaking as a Catholic, I watched as the characters in TV became more and more dysfunctional and more and more sexualized. Then the “Adult” language came in along with some partial nudity.
Consider, as a child, my Catholic parents told me certain words were off limits. Too many Catholics now think that as adults, suddenly that no longer applies to them. But calling it “Adult Language” as opposed to Cussing and Swearing seems to make it seem not as bad for some.
The devil’s primary weapon is deception. As a Catholic, I’ve seen other Catholics go from being very conscious of their faith to repeating the “Oh, what’s the big” deal line from people who want nothing to do with Christian morality.
It is one thing to have compassion and understanding toward those who believe differently, but let’s not forget who we are and what we believe. I doubt it crossed the mind of Moses after he received the Ten Commandments to sit down with God and suggest a few amendments or loopholes.
Grey’s Anatomy. Go to the show’s web site. It proudly proclaims that everything about life is just shades of grey. It also doesn’t help when one of the attractive female characters says: “So I’m a dirty whore. So what?”
I think when Catholics lament about changes they see among people in general or Catholics in particular - “What happened? Why are people like this now? How did everything end up like this?” I think we all need to look at our day:
8 hours of sleep (not always true, I know)
8 hours at work (not counting the time to go and come back).
That leaves 8 more hours to eat, bathe, get food and run errands. How much of that is in front of the TV?
As I write this, I’m also including myself. An hour at Church on Sunday. Is that all of our God time? How do we, including me, live out our faith at home and work? Are we really listening to the priest? Or thinking about the game later on?
We are told to read the Bible and to medidate on the words. Instead, I need to point out that our minds are often medidating on Grey’s Anatomy or Brothers and Sisters or Desperate Housewives. Allow me to define what I see in these shows:
Grey’s Anatomy: Fornication Hospital with Adultery. There is one strange character who is married and had a baby with her husband.
Brothers and Sisters: The Ultimate Dysfunctional Family. Adultery, fornication, divorce and gay relationships.
Desperate Housewives: A group of attractive women show other women the exact opposite of living a Christian life. Fornication, adultery, backstabbing and selfishness, extreme selfishness.
Nobody’s perfect. God knows I’m not. But if we don’t really look at what we’re doing with our time as Catholics, we may find ourselves tolerating a lot that falls outside the boundaries of good, moral Christian living. We may even be inspired to think of doing a few things that “don’t seem so bad.”
Respectfully,
Ed
B
blessedtoo
Guest
As Fitswimmer commented, and I agree, if this topic was so “hugely important” and if it represented such a threat to our very souls, I do believe we would hear more of noise from the clergy. They certainly did not hesitate to chime in on their feelings about the DaVinci Code. They also freely expressed their OPINIONS about the Passion of the Christ. My pastor spent an entire homily extolling the virtues of the film “Bella”. He is not shy and would not hesitate to express concern about specific objectionable material. There are papal statements about media that reflect the overall clerical position that WE are responsible for our own choices regarding media consumption.
When you start proclaiming TV programs potentially hazardous for the faithful in their relationship with God, you arrogantly presume to know more about that relationship than the Catholic himself. If we are so easily swayed and influenced by media, then tell me how are we to manage with the real situations and real people in our lives? Do we all exist in a Catholic vacuum where we are never faced with the delicacies of interacting with others who live sinful lives and talk about it openly? I have members of the family who are living in sin yet my relationship to God is not compromised by my relationship with them and they are REAL people, not fictional TV characters. How about TV and radio news? I don’t think anything on NBC prime time is as objectionable as some of the things I hear on conservative talk radio and cable news - and I consider myself a conservative! I’ve learned more about the deviant underbelly of American society from news programs and talk radio than I could ever know from watching the X-files or Project Runway.
There are those who would feel compelled or obligated to advise fellow Catholics of how they should consume general media. This is, IMO, condescending and arrogant. Despite the fact that some would like to see one, homogenous Catholic clone, we are all individuals with our own personal (and sometimes poor) tastes. Changing the channel is a powerful weapon against filth. Writing letters, as I have done countless times, allows our voices to be heard. But in the end, it is between me and God and until otherwise stated by those who speak with His authority, that is how it should remain.
E
edwest2
Guest
As Pope John Paul II stated and has been reaffirmed by Pope Benedict, each one of us, as Catholics, is called to evangelize. In the United States, Pope Benedict clearly said that our beliefs are not a private matter. If the farthest we can go speaking among ourselves, as Catholics, is “It’s between me and God and don’t you presume to know where I stand” then this represents a problem that needs to be solved. If the Church can be in dialogue with different faiths, can’t we be in dialogue with each other?
Our very thinking, and even acting, can be influenced by what we watch and what we hear. That’s all I’m saying. When Catholics wonder “Why are those kids acting like that?” they should know where it comes from. It sure doesn’t come from home in most cases. We need to realize that.
I want to stress that, as Catholics, we should look at all peoples with respect and compassion. But we should know that what appears on TV did not get there by itself. A group of producers, writers and network executives spent a lot of time planning and directing what you’re seeing, and all of the other media, radio, magazines and the internet, reinforce and rebroadcast the same immoral ideas and lifestyles.
If Catholics are spending hours each day absorbing, pretty indiscriminately, all of that, we lose our sensitivity to sin.
Speaking for myself, I read the news, ignore the celebrities, go to specialized science and technology sites, and get in about an hour of TV per week, most of it spent monitoring business and some local news.
I write this as an encouragement to all of my fellow Catholics, with sincerity. As someone who works in the media, I have personally watched the steady decay and immoral filth pile up. I’ve written to the FCC.
On Catholic Radio, commentator Al Kresta has spoken about Catholics having amnesia, and that we need to wake up from that. What was on TV 40 years ago was suitable for the entire family and never included Partial Nudity or Adult Language.
God bless,
Ed
Our very thinking, and even acting, can be influenced by what we watch and what we hear. That’s all I’m saying. When Catholics wonder “Why are those kids acting like that?” they should know where it comes from. It sure doesn’t come from home in most cases. We need to realize that.
I want to stress that, as Catholics, we should look at all peoples with respect and compassion. But we should know that what appears on TV did not get there by itself. A group of producers, writers and network executives spent a lot of time planning and directing what you’re seeing, and all of the other media, radio, magazines and the internet, reinforce and rebroadcast the same immoral ideas and lifestyles.
If Catholics are spending hours each day absorbing, pretty indiscriminately, all of that, we lose our sensitivity to sin.
Speaking for myself, I read the news, ignore the celebrities, go to specialized science and technology sites, and get in about an hour of TV per week, most of it spent monitoring business and some local news.
I write this as an encouragement to all of my fellow Catholics, with sincerity. As someone who works in the media, I have personally watched the steady decay and immoral filth pile up. I’ve written to the FCC.
On Catholic Radio, commentator Al Kresta has spoken about Catholics having amnesia, and that we need to wake up from that. What was on TV 40 years ago was suitable for the entire family and never included Partial Nudity or Adult Language.
God bless,
Ed
G
goofyjim
Guest
I’m still watching Star Trek and it still ain’t sinful.
B
blessedtoo
Guest
Dialogue is one thing. Suggesting that specific TV viewing habits of Catholics is sinful is another. Subjectively p(name removed by moderator)ointing certain programs based on your own criteria is not evanglization. It’s arrogant intereference.
Ed, your desire to link TV viewing habits with the decline of western civilization is over reaching, IMO. Does it contribute to moral decay? Of course. Is it the reason why “those kids are acting like that”? Not likely.
I’m sorry. I disagree. It’s a broad and sweeping generalization you continue to make that presupposes that Catholics are unable to discern for themselves what might be harmful to their faith.
F
Fitswimmer
Guest
You said it much better than I did.
E
edwest2
Guest
If my comments are incorrect then you have uncovered a bigger mystery. Church attendance has declined in the Western world. Catholics are “shacking up,” having sex outside of marriage. Some cuss and swear like truck drivers. You are suggesting the causes are outside of what they see and hear everyday? What they meditate on every day?
Catholics going online for porn or going out to strip clubs or smoking dope. This just sort of all happened on its own?
Just because the man doesn’t say, “Honey. Could you put on the latest Jennifer Aniston fornication movie?” does not make it less true.
You taking personal offense and/or speaking for all Catholics who you say can discern for themselves is contradicted by behavior I see all around me.
Either I’m wrong or it’s a total mystery. Either I’m wrong or watching Miss Aniston playing a married woman hopping into bed with her husband’s coworker just goes in one eyeball and out the other. And, of course, everyone is having only holy thoughts while watching.
Peace,
Ed
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