Evangelical atheists coming soon to a channel near you… all atheists, all the time.
A New Jersey group is launching the first on-demand atheist channel to counterbalance what they call a “glut” of evangelistic programming. My first reaction was, “good for them!” It’s always nice to see a group exercising their free speech and religious freedom rights. You can’t do things like this in just ANY country. The United States is special that way.
My second thought was, “isn’t that pretty much all that’s on TV anyway?” I mean, really, think about it. How many sitcoms do you see embracing any kind of religious evangelism? God is not referenced unless used as slang or in as cussing. The only religious celebration you may see is Christmas, but there’s rarely, if ever a reference to the real “reason for the season.” And if Jesus’ name is used it’s only to make fun of extreme religious nuts, and not in any way to be taken seriously.
But if you’re looking to spread the message about atheism as a religious belief, then I guess you could say there’s a void to be filled and this channel aims to fill it.
Personally, I’d like to see a little more entertainment programming, like sitcoms, including serious characters (not caricatures) of people walking out their Christian faith in real life scenarios. Hollywood is intent on exposing us to every other group of people, why not those as well?
You can read more about this new channel here. Let me know your thoughts.
