Why Watch/Read Secular Entertainment?

[Melodeonist]

I used to watch tons of secular YouTube videos and play tons of video games. I find that doing so greatly harmed my faith and made me lazy. Thanks to God, I have awoken from my sinful slumber and I realize the damage I’ve done to myself from sowing the seeds of sin.

Now I ask: why subject yourself to this content? Old movies made in the Hays code era are generally clean entertainment, but modern movies, video games, and entertainment in general are filled with impure content, and in my opinion just sow the seeds of sin and lead one to spiritual sloth.

I’m sure one of great faith and chastity may be able to endure such content, but I’m just a miserable sinner. Nobody has a gun to my head or your head forcing us to view such content, so why even go there? I find that God has given us the Bible so we could read His words to grow in faith and fill the gap of our needs to hear great stories. The only great stories we need are in our Lords word.

What do you think?

 

[Xanthippe_Voorhees]

If it is a current struggle for you, then go with that. However, even the most faithful nuns I know have a bin of “secular” movies they can watch on Friday nights when they relax. They are hand-picked for their values, but even “The Minions” have made the cut.

It’s not something you can do forever, but for now it right it’s right for you. My husband and I don’t have a real TV. We enjoy Captian Sparklez on youtube and often watch PBS specials or TLC shows on home building or other channels on cooking, etc. I had a Supernanny bug for a while and I watched that. And more Youtube. I love Jas Townsend for his history videos, and Extra Creditz and their Extra History series.

We certainly avoid shows that would be sinful. But we’re also older than you. It takes time to figure out what is good and what is not.

 

[LuciaPacifici]

Do whatever you feel God is calling you to do. But don’t assume everyone has your path to sanctity. I had a phase where for several years I dropped all secular music, movies, almost all books, and so on. I did mostly spiritual reading or meditating. It was good at first, but eventually my scrupulosity and depression became worse, as I was only intaking heavy things and had no lighthearted, innocent distractions to calm my nerves. I was even judging people who enjoyed the movies that were not overtly about God. I also was so intense that people didn’t listen to my witness as much. A commenter on this forum mentioned a person they knew who only read spiritual content, but who was psychologically unhealthy. That woke me up.

Now I enjoy innocent tv shows and movies and books. I am a writer so I love stories. Good fiction always has truth to it somewhere.

 

[De_Maria]

Good advice. The Church Teaches us to avoid all occasion of sin. Although many people deny it, people can be indoctrinated by the repetitive messages of atheism, sin and lust that bombard them in today’s media.

 

[2towers]

I used to be a real big gamer back in the early “2000s.” I loved in particular, games by Blizzard Entertainment, such as their space war game, [I forget the name] and Diablo II and Diablo III. Father Amorth, the Vatican Exorcist mentions this later game in one of his books. In that game, some of the Characters were: Wizard, Demon hunter, and Witch Doctor. I spent hundreds of hours playing these games.

One of the shocking things I found out about the game in Father Amorth’s book, was that the Demons you had to destroy were named after actual demons. I won’t mention the names here. I thought “wow,” when I read that. It is probably no coincidence that these games, and even these TV programs are so addictive. They accomplish nothing, they eat up time which is a very precious gift we have here on earth, and they all have to have some sort of impact on us and our personalities.

What I do now of course is to try and make up for some of that lost time. It is a big job and a long process. I feel bad for and pray for those still caught in those traps. I now channel some of that “media desire” if you will into good things like praying, reading Catholic books, and even Catholic online forums.

 

[edwest21]

As a working editor and writer, the Hays Code (Motion Picture Production Code) is my template with a few exceptions. There was a Catholic Legion of Decency for many years. As a student of the media, I watch what type of material is being presented to report on it accurately. After I see enough, that’s it. Those shows get dumped. I watched the degradation on TV start in 1970. A little before then for movies. It was painful to realize that as the years passed, people were slowly being poisoned, and then that extended to the radio as well. By 1985, it was about 50/50 good/bad. In the 1990s, off the precipice. I am here to remind people that, although I am a sinner, we can no longer afford to take it. Dysfunctional is the standard character template. Divorce, sexual scenes, “strong” language and the profanity level has just ticked up a bit, plus lesbian behavior scenes. Cohabitation with sex. What’s the big deal? No. It’s 100% wrong to portray any of this, to normalize any of this. Kids get raised by the TV, internet and video games - another source of sexual perversion.

Keep telling people how wrong all of this is to our mental and spiritual health.

 

[Pat_Albertson]

I used to watch tons of secular YouTube videos and play tons of video games. I find that doing so greatly harmed my faith and made me lazy. Thanks to God, I have awoken from my sinful slumber and I realize the damage I’ve done to myself from sowing the seeds of sin.

Now I ask: why subject yourself to this content? Old movies made in the Hays code era are generally clean entertainment, but modern movies, video games, and entertainment in general are filled with impure content, and in my opinion just sow the seeds of sin and lead one to spiritual sloth.

I’m sure one of great faith and chastity may be able to endure such content, but I’m just a miserable sinner. Nobody has a gun to my head or your head forcing us to view such content, so why even go there? I find that God has given us the Bible so we could read His words to grow in faith and fill the gap of our needs to hear great stories. The only great stories we need are in our Lords word.

What do you think?

I think your point of view is a reasonable one. I quit movies, TV, newspapers and magazines back around the end of 2007 and the beginning of 2008. As for computer games, I didn’t have to quit because I never really got started with them in the first place.

 

[hvizsgyak]

I’m kind of mixed on this one. I love a good story whether it be fact or fiction and every year I check out the new TV shows to see if there are any good ones. And each year I see some goods and start watching them. A lot of them deteriorate within the first two episodes but others capture my attention. If I wasn’t such a visual person and didn’t have a mild case of narcolepsy, oh and throw in a tad of ADD/OCD, I would read, read, read. And thank goodness, I was able to read the Bible twice all the way through with some of the Books being read numerous time before I started have these dozing off problems.

If you watch the right things TV is great. We get FORMED from our parish so I can watch documentaries on the Jesus, the Apostles, the Saints, the Church and so on. Like one of the posters above said youtube has some great videoes on history and great lectures by Catholic Apologists. I call TV the poor man’s entertainment. Unfortunately, there is the bad stuff out there and I have tried to speak out against it. Here’s a perfect example that will land me in hot water with many people - The Game of Thrones. I hear it has a great story but I will not subject myself to all the nudity and sex. If it ever comes out in the Wal-Mart version (minus the sex scenes) I might watch it.

You have to choose what to watch carefully. And try not to overindulge in to much TV. It does make one a sloth.

 

[Jamie5]

Entertainment, whether religious or secular, is meant to “entertain” by nature and different people like different things. It would be absolutely torture to have to watch only rated “G” movies or listen to music only about flowers and rainbows. Somedays you just want to rock out to Metallica and watch Pulp Fiction.