Heres a tale my pastor read out-loud last night at church.
A few months before I was born, my dad met a stranger who was new to our small town. From the beginning, Dad was fascinated with this enchanting newcomer, and soon invited him to live with our family. The stranger was quickly accepted and was around to welcome me into the world a few months later. As I grew up, I never questioned his place in our family.
The stranger became our story teller. He could weave the most facinating tales. Adventures, mysteries, and comedies were daily conversations. He could hold our whole family spellbound for hours each evening.
He was like a friend to the whole family. He took Dad, my brother and me to our first major league baseball game. He treated us many times to the movies...
The stranger was an incessant talker. Dad didn't seem to mind, but sometimes Mom would quietly get up, go to her room and read, meditate, or pray, while the rest of us were enthralled with one of his stories of faraway places. I wonder now if she ever prayed or wish that the stranger would leave.
You see, my dad ruled our household with certain moral convictions, but this stranger never felt an obligation to honor them. Profanity, for example, was not allowed in our house--not from us, from our friends, or from our relatives. Our longtime visitor, however, used occasional four-letter words that burned my ears and made my dad squirm. To my knowledge, the stranger was never confronted.
My dad didn't smoke and thought that smoking was a waste of health and money. But the stranger felt like we needed the exposure, and enlightened us to harmful life styles in a seducing manner.
He talked freely about sex. His comments were sometimes blatant, sometimes suggestive, and generally embarrasing. I know now that my early concepts of the man/woman relationship were influenced in a negative manner by the stranger.
As I look back, I feel extremely fortunate that the stranger did not influence us more. Time after time, he opposed the values of our parents, yet he was seldom rebuked and never asked to leave.
More than thirty years have passed since the stranger moved in with us, and when I go to visit my parents, I still see him there, telling his stories and showing his pictures.
Question:
Would you allow a stranger like the one that invaded and stayed in my home invade and stay in yours?
We know his full name, but we always just call him...
The TV.
Ladies and Gentlemen you've just narrowly missed "The Scary Door"
Well my answer is if you take offence to what is shown on the Television, there is an off switch.
Heh. So true.
Welcome to the Twilight Zone.
and
| Spoilers (Select To Read) I already knew this fact before reading the thread. :p |
To be honest, I grew up without a televison, and think it did me more good than anything else...
I grew up with a television in my own room, my parents room, my sisters room, and the living room.
...but whenever I used one it was mostly for video games. ^^
~T2K
Nice story, bad analogy.
If the stranger were so full of knowledge, news, culture, and entertainment as a tv, he could certainly live with me, if he helped with chores and paid rent. That's how I make friends and choose roommates, after all: people who are fun to be around and intellectually stimulating. (Friends should also be reliable and supportive, but a tv is just an appliance, how much can you expect?). If I had certain moral boundaries, I'd make it clear to him. I can't turn off my roommate or change his channel, but the tv is just an appliance.
TV isn't all-or-nothing... monitor what your kids watch. If your kids see something that challenges their moral views, if they're mature enough, instead of immediately censoring it, talk to them.
The TV isn't so much one stranger so much as all of the world in its knowledge, beauty, and decadence, for better or worse. And you can't keep the world out completely.
(Or just don't get a tv. I don't watch tv much, not because I'm morally offended, but because it's mostly a waste of time.)
i grew up to a diet of cartoons, top of the pops, gladiators and noel's house party.. TV was restricted for me and my sisters when we were children and we never had a problem with that.
i never was really influenced by it, i spent too much time living in a fantasy world of my own in my room or the garden. 
I grew up watching cartoons and playing nintendo. now, that stuff is cool and fun. but now, i dont really watch tv other than maybe a movie or a game. TV is highly overrated. However, who needs a tv when you have a computer?
Honestly, weather its a tv, radio, news paper, video game or computer, its all transfer of information. if you get rid of tv, you might as well get rid of the others. then what? well... ide sure love to find out what happens next =3 maye we'll go back to older times and start wars or something. but even in midevil times we had storry tellers and entertainers... so come on people. its all the same, just a little different in our time.
Like the song goes, "It's all just a little bit of history repeating."
Honestly, weather its a tv, radio, news paper, video game or computer, its all transfer of information. if you get rid of tv, you might as well get rid of the others.
That's like saying "if you get rid of your abacus, you might as well get rid of your graphing calculator."
Heh, I heard this story a few years ago.
I had TV, a NES, and a Game Gear growing up, but I didn't get to waste hours away on 'em. My time was always restricted, and I'm freakin' glad now. I've seen firsthand what happens to kids who were raised on violent video games and Comedy Central. It's not pretty. >< Now I'm old enough to know what's good for me and what's not, and I don't have any urges to sit for hours on end Gamecubin'. (Except when I first got Animal Crossing.)
