| Gabriel Garnica |
07/24/08
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It is really a shame. My family enjoys the cultural programs on PBS, where you find theatre and arts which are non-existent elsewhere. Any fan of musical theatre, for example, can appreciate the outstanding Broadway programs which yearly grace the PBS screen. That is why, on one level, one can appreciate the value of having Congress use tax dollars to support such artistic and cultural PBS fare.
Unfortunately, PBS is not simply about art and culture. It also sells liberal bias on many levels, most obviously political and pseudo-news. However, there is an even more insidious and just as dangerous bias sold by PBS, and that is its vile religious prejudice.
CENSORING RELIGIOUS MESSAGE IT DISFAVORS
A classic case of this favoritism is found in the suppression of Islam vs. Islamists , a documentary by Martyn Burke which many reviewers have called outstanding, riveting and informative. PBS claimed that the program was “not good enough, aesthetically” yet one reviewer argues that PBS censored and blackballed the documentary precisely because it was very well made yet presented a message PBS does not want heard. http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/film_review_islam_vs_islamism
The documentary dares to tell us that there are moderate Muslims and radical ones, that the radical ones wave the Koran as a justification to stone adulterers and commit other violent acts and that the moderate ones are at risk for their lives for being, well, moderate.
Apparently, PBS finds the notion that some Muslims use their faith to justify violence and terrorism offensive and unsavory, so it decided to censor that notion on the pretext that the source was not well done.
PUSHING RELIGIOUS MESSAGE IT FAVORS
Contrast the blatant censorship of a newsworthy, relevant and factual documentary cited above with the way PBS once again pushes a biased, one-sided and typical hit job on the Bible in The Bible’s Buried Secrets, a program scheduled to air on November 18th.
Simply put, while PBS deemed the sight of a radical Muslim waving the Koran to justify violence unfit for its audience, it has no problem with having biased, so-called researchers and scholars waving the Bible to argue that it is basically a fraud.
Its list of absurdities is long, but a few will suffice respecting our purposes and stomachs for despicable prejudice. The program claims, among other things, that the Exodus did not happen, that the Old Testament was written in the sixth century B.C. and hundreds of authors contributed, that Abraham and his offspring did not exist and that the Israelites believed that God had a wife. In a nutshell, it presents the Bible as a bunch of made-up stories that never happened. It is the latest offering of liberal secularists who argue that the Bible is nothing but a fanciful work of fiction that is taken far too seriously by far too many fools.
ARROGANT PATRONIZATION OF BELIEFS
One rarely needs to fish very long for classic statements that crystallize the arrogant, smug and elitist patronization of these people toward Christians and their Bible.
Their bias drips from every statement, and one more often finds oneself shooting fish in a barrel, trying to decide which pompous spew to choose over the others.
Enter Producer Paula Apsell, who said: "...It's (The Bible's Buried Secrets) designed for intelligent people who are willing to change their mind. ...it will give intelligent people who want to read the Bible in a modern way a chance. If we insist on reading the Bible literally, in 25 years, nobody will read it any longer."
What more, members of the jury, do we need in terms of evidence? Apsell is telling us that anyone who insists on respecting and interpreting the Bible as is can be seen as an ignorant fool, a clueless imbecile, a naïve dope who will believe anything. Only the intelligent folks, Apsell tells us, have the brains to move beyond this narrow-minded, superstitious and primitive mentality. Apsell insists that “modern” thinking dictates that the Bible be seen in a new way or perish into the past of long-discarded foolishness.
By extension, traditional Christian beliefs and doctrines are nothing but the ramblings of uneducated, narrow-minded and mindless sheep that blindly follow long-discarded and discredited scribbles of imaginative and biased ancients. The obvious inference is that our society cannot possibly move beyond the obsolete and enslaving chains of traditional Christianity if it is to survive. In a typically patronizing swipe dripping with arrogance and propped-up nobility, these people offer Christianity one life raft: be willing to change, to “progress” according to our bright perceptions or become extinct.
For this serving of pompous advice they expect Christians to be eternally thankful.
IMAGINE SOMETHING
Imagine if PBS presented a documentary accusing the Koran of being a fraud and told us that “intelligent people” should see it in a new way, a manner suggested by rows of propped-up scholars with alphabets of fancy degrees and titles. Might there be a slight reaction among Muslims?
However, switch the Koran for the Bible and the Muslim faith for Christianity and everything is once again safe and warm for consumption by anyone biased, lazy or stupid enough to buy anything that PBS sells which does not have “Broadway”, “Lincoln Center” or “Mozart” slapped on it. If anyone can present a more obvious example of religious bias, please let me know.
CONCLUSION
The accusation that PBS is blatantly biased against Christianity and just as blatantly biased in favor of the Muslim faith should not shock anyone with two brain cells to rub together, two eyes to see or two ears to hear. Nobody is contending that its bias should be reversed. Rather, one may ask why any bias should exist at all. Is it so unreasonable for us to ask PBS to fairly, equally and objectively present the facts and all sides of all faiths?
Given its censorship of such programs as Islams vs. Islamists and pathetic marketing of such programs as The Bible’s Buried Secrets, the answer seems to be a clear and convincing one, and you do not have to be so “intelligent” to realize that tragic fact.
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