Religion and the media

Aii. I read an article in the Daily Express about two hurricanes that will hit the UK sometime next week. Some questions raised from a Christian point of view is if God was in control & he controlled the weather, why does he create violent weather that could potentially kill. Maybe God does it to bring out the best in people, but Is it worth other people suffering just to get people to be good & help others. Moral questions raised could be what you could do to help. Maybe you are the only person with somewhere safe to hide, do you let everyone in & risk running out of food & air (in extreme cases) or do you save people you know & leave the rest to fend for themselves? Those dilemmas are obviously for stronger natural disasters such as hurricane Katrina in Florida 2005. This kind of disaster can cause people to either stick together & help each other sharing resources etc… or it could have a negative effect & bring out the worst in people, becoming selfish in an attempt to save themselves. In the Bible it says love thy neighbour which suggests you have to save others but the whole phrase is love thy neighbour as you would yourself suggesting you should save yourself before you save others. Your body is your temple & you should keep it in good condition for you would be abusing god’s property if you didn’t

 In the paper it does not have a religious view as it isn’t a religiously influenced newspaper although there could be letters regarding the issue from religious people explaining that God doesn’t control the weather, he just set it up to do what it wants. Otherwise God hasn’t controlled it to do this but could have done to test people & teamwork.

B Some people think that TV always shows religious people as “out of touch” with the modern world, meaning they aren’t normal. This is because some religious programmes portray them as living in vicarages & spending most of their life in the church with extreme praying techniques. This could regard The Vicar of Dibley although the vicar is arguably in touch with the modern world there are other religious characters that are definitely not, for example Alice. Who seems to not be in touch with most things. In most programmes with out of touch characters 90% of the time they are comedy characters or the comedy comes from making fun out of their lifestyle.

 In the cartoon, the Simpsons the most religious character is Ned Flanders & his family. In most cases Ned keeps his cool & his faith no matter how much Homer makes fun of his ways or how tough things become. In one episode Neds’ wife, Maude dies. He questions God’s ways asking why he took her, eventhough she had been good & done nothing to disobey God, Ned soon regains cheerfulness & faith.

 Also in the Simpsons is Marge, a Christian housewife. She seems to be normal & in a strong faith with God. She does all normal things that a woman her age would do. Mainly looking after kids & cleaning the house, being a general wife. She is in touch with the modern world & goes to church, she has faith in the lord & in some episodes asks for help from God, something a non religious character wouldn’t do. I think that television sometimes represents religious people, as out of touch with the modern world however, this is not the case all the time. I think 9 times out of 10 they are comedy characters who are trying to be out of touch to make their character funnier. They are usually made to be over the top, out of touch, such as Dougle in father Ted who acts as if he is 10. Or Alice from the vicar or Dibley who is dumbed down to the extent of being funny. I say only sometimes because there are also characters that are in touch with the modern world & religious such as Marge Simpson.