Reality

Real TV seems to be a new found fad on network television. Is LIFE not real enough for us as it is? Yes, I like to watch SOME television shows.
Television is a way of escape and relaxation for me. You can find me eating my dinner in front of the idiot box more times than not. I call the TV an idiot box in a funloving way because I feel that if we allow ourselves to be trapped into a couch potato mentality where we turn our minds off and let the garbage pour in unfiltered that it eventually will turn us into mindless idiots.

As a Christian I find myself compromising my faith with some of the things that I watch on television. Network television has changed dramatically over the years and they are showing things to us on TV that would have NEVER been aired 20 years ago. Nudity, homosexuality,
spouse abuse, child abuse, wanton violence and a host of other things have taken over the television set. No, this is not a rant about how evil the television set is and how I feel that you should exorcise it out of your house because you are in damage of hell fire. Television is a tool.
Most of us use television as a means of escape and to receive information and entertainment in our homes. The television is not what is bad but the content is what causes the damage. If we use this tool correctly it can ADD quality to our lives and if we use it mindlessly and allow everything that is there to overtake us it can change our worldview and it can damage us. More on that in another babble session. Lets get back to Real TV for a moment.

Hollywood has found that shock value sells. How much shock value can you cram into a 60 minute program with 25 minutes of commercials.
I was talking to a co worker the other day about my trying to figure out the purpose and reasoning behind Real TV. Real TV is attempting to bring MORE shock value to the homes of America through our viewing of people subjecting themselves to things that would normally terrify them if they were to experience it. Actors and actresses are getting in front of the camera and showing us their inner most phobias and fears and doing things that most of us would never dream of. Is it the money that they are getting paid or is this all just another act?

I heard someone say that Satan is going to use our technology to deceive us in a big way. I am not talking about polluting our minds and keeping us off balance and away from the things that we should be doing. I watched a movie once about how the earth was destroyed by computer technology (robots and war machines we created) and how the battle raged on and the machines were victorious and humanity lost.
The machines created a false world that humanity was thrust into and no one knew about it because of how it was done. I am wondering if the same thing is happening very subtly to us as a race. I wonder if Real TV is just another step in the chain of events that is being used to lull us further and further away from our own personal realities where we have to make life changing choices about real life issues.

Wars and rumors of war, disease and pestilence are signs of the time when Christ could come back for His church. Every generation has claimed that they were experiencing those things and that Jesus was certainly going to come back during their generation. We have been saying that for 2000 years. The bible says that we will not know the time and day when Jesus will come back for His church but we do know that we are to be watchful and waiting and ready upon His return. Technology seems to be drawing us further and further from the reality of who God is in our lives. Instant success, instant relationships, instant gratification seems to be our desire. We are cloning sheep and someone has probably tried to clone a human being and we have just not heard about it yet. We are trying to become like God. The creation is trying to be like the creator. Why is REAL TV so attractive to us? What need do we have that draws us to it?

Am I paranoid or are we being deceived into thinking that what the network television giants are pumping into our houses really is reality?
Where does our worldview come from? Where do we receive information? What sources of information do we use in order to formulate our worldview? We live in a world of information overload. Thanks to the worldwide web everything that you can imagine is being categorized and turned into a web page. Indexes upon indexes upon indexes have been created where you can research almost anything you want on the world wide web. Our worldview will determine what our choices are and our choices will determine what happens to us and what consequences we will have to live through. Bad choices can cause us to live through a life time of consequences. Instead of us focusing on another reality on our television sets maybe we should be tending to our own realities. Escape is nice but it only lasts so long folks.

I would love to hear your feedback on this and any other article that I post on my web log. Feel free to write to me at jcmoffitt@jcmoffitt.com with any comments or questions that you may have. Blogger Pro is supposed to have the built in ability to allow live feedback and interaction but I do not see that functionality just yet. In the future we might have some surveys to see what everyone else thinks about a particular subject.

James Moffitt
Jesus Connect Ministries
http://www.jesus-connect.net
jcmoffitt@jesus-connect.net