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Cat
Regular Member
Faroe Islands
46 Posts |
 Posted - 03 Nov 2002 : 22:12:45
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Some
Catrin
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Edited by - Cat on 20 Jan 2003 18:22:23 |
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Bondservant
Forum Administrator
382 Posts |
Posted - 03 Nov 2002 : 23:19:21
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| We have a TV but with no cable or antenna reception. However, we do have a satellite dish that receives only one network system called SKY ANGEL. It's a Christian based network with lot's of the older and morals valued black-n-white programs like Leave it to Beaver. We don't watch the "news" or even read the "newspaper" since they have no edification to His family. Even with SKY ANGEL programs, the children don't bother watching it too often and will occasionally watch VHS tapes approved by us, like the original series tapes of Veggie Tales. But overall, the TV is off and the entire family enjoys reading to each other more than anything else when we are at home together. |
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Caleb
Advanced Member
Philippines
209 Posts |
Posted - 20 Nov 2002 : 03:05:12
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We do not have a TV presently. When we did it, you could count on one hand the number of times it was turned on each year. A few movies on the VCR and one or two news events was all. The rest of the time, we kept it hidden in an alcove in the living room. The last time we watched TV was September 11th, 2001.
We have three young children, the oldest of whom is five. They love reading, playing outdoors and with creative toys like wooden blocks or legos. We read a story called "The Wretched Stone" which is an allegory where some sailors discover a glowing stone (ie. TV) and soon turn into monkeys. When our kids ask why they can't watch TV like everyone else, we explain that we don't want them to turn into monkeys.
Maybe you laugh or scoff at this "deception", but it is closer to the truth than anything anyone else will tell you about television. Neil Postman (Amusing Oursleves to Death) and Marshall McLuhan have thoroughly analyzed the medium of television and demonstrated how bad it is - regardless of the actual program you are watching. McLuhan's famous summary is: "The medium IS the message." I know mothers who bought TVs when they had their third child, to "help" with the babysitting. Child one and two love reading, while the younger children have no interest in reading at all.
Studies have also shown that children's brains are not able to assimilate the rapid flickering light and changes in pictures until they are eight years old. Exposure to TV before this age actually causes brain damage. Now you know why there are so many people walking around who are hard to distinguish from monkeys.
With adults, I have had to conclude that the reason I get blank stares when I try to share deep truths with my "Christian" friends, is that they are thinking in the back of their heads, "but that's not what they said on TV." When some "Christian" like Bush or Ashcroft opens his mouth with the latest propaganda, and the "believers" I know all swallow it whole, I know that they determine truth by what is programmed - Matrix like - direct to their brains through the television.
While the evils of the 20th century would fill a list large enough to double the Internet, there is little doubt that television is close to the top as the most evil thing ever invented. It ranks only second to nuclear weapons among evil technologies, and the only evils greater than these are in the realm of ideas. Television creates a passive population that asks no questions and looks no farther than the evening news for "truth". Such a population can easily be convinced that they are serving God by killing innocent people in places like Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and soon, Iraq. |
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