saved!

When one does not have cable television one ends up watching whatever happens to be on the 5 or so fuzzy channels one gets with rabbit ears. Last night we stumbled upon "Unlocking the Mystery of Life," a documentary film that makes a "scientific" case for intelligent design that happened to be showing on TCT (that's Total Christian Television--snappy name, no?). Interestingly enough, this charming film is available for purchase on the PBS website, but that's another story. I'm still not entirely certain what it is that I watched, but I'm pretty sure at one point Mount Rushmore was used to illustrate the "activity of intelligence":

"...human beings correctly detect the activity of intelligence whenever they observe a highly improbable object or event that also matches a recognizable pattern. Just such a pattern is found in the Black Hills of South Dakota."

"Now if you travel through the west, you'll see lots of different shapes on the mountainsides, most of which mean nothing at all. They're just rocks strewn in various patterns. But, what you don't see are the faces of Lincoln, Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, and George Washington on the mountainsides. The only place you see that is in South Dakota. And the reason it's there is because a sculptor--an eccentric sculptor--decided he wanted to honor these Presidents by spending the larger part of his life chiseling their faces in the side of a mountain."

Oh hell, you should just read the script yourself. I think I spent most of the time asking Peter if anything they were saying made any sense to him. It appeared to be chock-full of pseudo-science. If it looks like creationism and sounds like creationism...well...you know.

You would think we'd had our fill of TCT, but nay. Next up was "The Way of the Master" a delightful show hosted by none other than former Growing Pains star Kirk Cameron. I highly recommend spending some time on that site. Seriously. Answer Yes and No to the "Are you a Christian" question. Go up to Tools and hit 100 Question and Objections to learn important things like points for open-air preaching and how to speak at a funeral of someone you suspect wasn't saved and how to witness to a homosexual. You can take the Are You a Good Person quiz (You aren't. Trust me. You're a liar, a thief, and an adulterer) For some reason Kirk and his co-star Ray Comfort were situated in what appeared to be a casino (this wasn't explained, but I suspect it had something to do with their purity allowing them to resist the evil temptation of gambling?) where they talked directly to the camera very earnestly about how if you are not born again you are most decidedly going to hell. They also chastised pretty much every mainstream Christian chuch for being too politically correct. They essentially called on ministers to stop being such candyasses and start telling people that if they don't repent they will spend eternity being damned. They also took to the streets (of what looked like some sort of Christian DisneyWorld) and asked people who were self-proclaimed Christians if they would mention hell to people they were witnessing to. When most said no--that they didn't feel comfortable using such scare tactics--their true faith was called into question. They were told they were sinners and failures and fakes.

Now, I am not a huge fan of organized religion. I spent most of my 20s being pretty angry at myself for choosing to go to a private Christian college, but even I know many Christians that are intelligent, thoughtful, logical, and loving people. Mr. Cameron and Mr.Comfort? They are right of the right-wing Christian conservatives. And they're scary. And popular.

Oy.