I'm just as suspicious of fundamentalist Christianity as you are, Tunesmith, but it hasn't stopped me from pursuing spirituality or finding spiritual meaning in my life. My suspicion is that Jesus would be about as upset with many of the churches founded in his name as you are...and with good reason!

There are a fair number of Americans who hold fundamentalist Christian views, but I doubt that they comprise a majority. I'll tell you what the majority-held religion is in North America: CONSUMERISM, that's what! Worship of money and material goods. And you will find that that is the key ingredient behind American policy, as well, with religious fundamentalism simply coming along now and then as a handmaiden to the remorseless search for profit, excess, and material gain.

Build a religious shrine, and a handful of people will come there. Build a casino, and twenty-thousand people will pour through its doors every day, in hopes of getting something for nothing. That's what I call FAITH, considering the fact that 98% of them get fleeced.

As for TV...most of it is a spiritual wasteland. People are brainwashed by it every day of their lives for but one purpose: to sell commercial product. An inevitable side effect is the promotion of mind-numbing conformity in society, and mental laziness, and the desire for instant gratification (same principle as a casino).

One way to escape it is to gut the damn TV and turn it into a plantholder. Another way, which I have suggested from time to time, is to take it out into the backyard, execute it with a shotgun, and celebrate the recovery of a large chunk of your waking life! This is frowned on in some municipalities...but, oh, is it ever satisfying. :-)

I would be all in favour of an open questioning of the assumptions of traditional religion, as you suggest, on TV or elsewhere...but you are unlikely to see it, because it wouldn't sell much product. Instead, count on more stupid shows with sex, violence, "attitude", and other marketable stuff like that. Crap sells in America. Serious content? Forget it.

Like I say, consumerism is the dominant religion here. Its main tenets:

1. Material stuff is the only thing that really matters in life.
2. If some stuff is good, a whole lot more stuff is better.
3. Buying more stuff will make you happy.
4. Having more stuff means you are successful.
5. Buying the right stuff will make you sexy and desirable and maybe even keep you young longer.
6. People will love you if you buy the right stuff.
7. He who dies with the most stuff wins. Everybody else is a loser.

All in all, it may just be the most simple-minded, destructive, wasteful religion in history. Maybe. In 500 years it has taken a once pristine continent and turned a very great deal of it into a garbage pile overrun with people who have no idea what to do about their predicament.

- LH