Channel-surfing can be hazardous to your health.....

[poltr1]

Was flipping channels on the TV yesterday -- nothing remotely interesting on except the Weather Channel -- and came across the Come-to-Jeezus channel (aka Trinity Broadcasting Network), which was hawking a book linking Presdient Obama with the End Times. I think it was called New World Order Rising, or something like that. It was offered by Jack Van Impe Ministries.

I can do without high-powered televangelists. Instead of gently inviting people to their faith, they make it sound like it's a hard-sell. And that's what turns me off.

I'm not sure which is scarier -- the people who actually come up with this nonsense or those who gleefully eat it up with a spoon without question.

The civil libertarian in me says people have a right to express their religion. But a more logical part of me says, "It's not *what* one expresses, it's *how* one expresses it."

Unfortuantely, it's an old TV and I can't erase this channel from the memory bank. Grr argh.

Comments

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

The civil libertarian in me says people have a right to express their religion. But a more logical part of me says, "It's not *what* one expresses, it's *how* one expresses it."

And what often goes with it. I'm hoping that the wave of right-wing hatred of President Obama coated with Christianity will show my parents some of why fundamentalism isn't so hot.

[(Anonymous)]

Practicing your religion in whatever way you desire is fundamental to the liberties we enjoy in this great nation. Whether anyone else gets it is not part of the equation. In fact the greatest strength of our nation and the constitution is protesting unpopular expression whether it be in speech or in religion. Too often we forget this point. If it aggrevates you, pass it by.

Randy

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

The real test for our belief in freedom of speech comes when we have to face the speech of those whose views are evil fundamentally against what we hold true and sacred.

People have to have the right to be wrong and to express ideas that are wrong. Anyone should be allowed to believe what they like and to talk about what they believe to anyone who wants to listen. The limit to free speech should be when the speaker seeks to force his views on someone who doesn't want to hear them.

Of course, what one person sees as merely making their views available may seem to another like rubbing his face in them. Do I have the right to be offended about someone displaying a sign in public? Probably not. Do I have the right to be offended if the sign physically blocks my progress? Probably so. Individual cases will always cause arguments.

I think the fundies having their own TV channel intrudes less on those of us who don't want to hear it than having them buying pieces of time on channels the rest of us use.

What offends me about the fundies isn't that they want to *sell* books that *I* don't like, it's that they would prevent me from *buying* books that *they* don't like.

[poltr1]

And that, my friend, is the double-edged sword we call the First Amendment. To paraphrase Voltaire, I may disagree with what they say, but I'd defend to the death their right to say it.