Make Me A Christian Makes Me An Angry Atheist
Hot on the heels of Richard Dawkins' The Genius of Darwin (which had a post's-worth of problems, but otherwise I generally enjoyed.This week's on Social Darwinism should be better), Channel 4 is screening Make me a Christian. Wherin about a dozen people from various backgrounds in Leeds are berated for being "sinful" and lectured by a bunch of somewhat fundamental Christians.
I could tell I wasn't going to like it when in the first 10 minutes the guy leading the project states that he believes in Genesis and Adam and Eve because Jesus did. No further explanation seemed necessary to him. He didn't seem to think there was anything wrong with bullying a woman who was clearly unhappy with her life, and may well have had self-esteem issues, picking on the fact that she was interested in tarot, wicca and witchcraft. And then he meets the lesbian, confiscates her erotica, posters, etc. Isn't Christianity supposed to be about love? Because that really wasn't the message he was sending out.
There's a scene where they get the group together and discuss abortion with them, showing them graphic videos of the procedures, including one of an abortion that happened after 20 weeks. One of the participants (the lesbian I think) asks "what about cases of rape?" This is brushed aside with the comment that "there are plenty of people out there who are willing to adopt." After that my flabber was well and truly ghasted.
I'm quite glad the rest of this weeks episode was devoted to the guy who's shagging around while his girlfriend is off at uni. Unfortunately showing him pictures of people with tertiary syphilis didn't put him off that week's boozing and clubbing session. Maybe if they'd told him that when the programme gets shown on national TV he's going to get dumped on his arse he might have listened, because Jesus clearly wasn't putting him off. In fact telling people he was trying to "live a Christian life" seemed to be working as a chat-up line!
The main problem with this program is that the biker was absolutely correct when he pointed out that "your not giving us reasons to believe in this". He is of course the "uncooperative" member of the group, and therefore makes for better TV. I wonder if the mild-mannered bearded chap will be so critical of him when the people running this project discover he's been flirting with Islam?
I could tell I wasn't going to like it when in the first 10 minutes the guy leading the project states that he believes in Genesis and Adam and Eve because Jesus did. No further explanation seemed necessary to him. He didn't seem to think there was anything wrong with bullying a woman who was clearly unhappy with her life, and may well have had self-esteem issues, picking on the fact that she was interested in tarot, wicca and witchcraft. And then he meets the lesbian, confiscates her erotica, posters, etc. Isn't Christianity supposed to be about love? Because that really wasn't the message he was sending out.
There's a scene where they get the group together and discuss abortion with them, showing them graphic videos of the procedures, including one of an abortion that happened after 20 weeks. One of the participants (the lesbian I think) asks "what about cases of rape?" This is brushed aside with the comment that "there are plenty of people out there who are willing to adopt." After that my flabber was well and truly ghasted.
I'm quite glad the rest of this weeks episode was devoted to the guy who's shagging around while his girlfriend is off at uni. Unfortunately showing him pictures of people with tertiary syphilis didn't put him off that week's boozing and clubbing session. Maybe if they'd told him that when the programme gets shown on national TV he's going to get dumped on his arse he might have listened, because Jesus clearly wasn't putting him off. In fact telling people he was trying to "live a Christian life" seemed to be working as a chat-up line!
The main problem with this program is that the biker was absolutely correct when he pointed out that "your not giving us reasons to believe in this". He is of course the "uncooperative" member of the group, and therefore makes for better TV. I wonder if the mild-mannered bearded chap will be so critical of him when the people running this project discover he's been flirting with Islam?