maven&meddler

Here’s a joke:

What do you get when you combine a greek orthodox priest, a rabbi, a muslim imam and a buddhist monk in a room with 10 atheists?

A Turkish reality show. Tovbekarlar Yarisiyor in Turkish, to be exact, or ‘Penitents Compete’.

No lie. Just when you think the world can’t choke down one more idiotic reality show, the Turks come up with this. Yes, the Turks … as in the only supposedly secular state still standing in the Middle East.

Just how will they convert the godless?

The lame object is to attempt to convert the godless heathens to any one of the represented ‘truths’ during each episode by force of argument … logic ( yeah, right)… or covering them in honey and ants until they scream and give in?

Haven’t the atheists been hammered for centuries, nay millenia, in the hope of conversion? Haven’t enough non-believers been put on the rack, stoned or burned at the stake?

If that didn’t ‘do it’ for us, why should public browbeating for ratings?

Oh, yes … and the big payoff: a trip to Mecca, Jerusalem or Tibet. Whoa! Places at the bottom of my bucket list to be sure.

The programs stated aims

“The project aims to turn disbelievers on to God,” the station’s deputy director, Ahmet Ozdemir, told the Hürriyet Daily News and Economic Review.

That mission is attested to in the programme’s advertising slogans, which include “We give you the biggest prize ever: we represent the belief in God” and “You will find serenity in this competition”.

Atheist contestants will be vetted and grilled by a committee of nitwits to verify that they are, indeed, true, practicing atheists and not just gaming the network to get a free vacation. Oh, and they will be monitored for genuine religious conversions, too.

That’s worked really well over the centuries. Do they teach history in Turkey? Do they teach anything about jews forced to convert to christianity or die? Non-believers forced to say they got the spirit or die? Nazi’s gave jehovahs witness members a chance to renounce their faith before being commited to the ovens along with the jews.

Does the world need a televised Inquisition?

There have been four already: The Roman Inquisition, the Medieval Inquisition, The Spanish Inquisition and the Portugese Inquisition.

Gallileo faces the Roman Inquisition

Now we can watch, with commercial interruptions to sell stuff, the Turkish Inquisition.

Turkey needs to pull its collective head out of its ass.

Trivializing religious belief? 

Scheduled to air in September, the show has been criticised by commentators and religious figures for trivialising God and faith. I don’t know about trivialising god, but it’s sure to make somebody look stupid, like Mustafa Cagrici, provincial head of the state-run religious affairs directorate ( now there’s the main source for bullshit like this - an official state religious agency ) for Istanbul, said: “I don’t find it right to discuss religion in such environments.”

No, do you think? It looks for all the world like the Turkish network suits have also run out of good ideas for T.V. fare just like our networks.

A vehicle for intolerance?

Some others see the show as fuelling a widespread intolerance of atheism in Turkey, where a large majority profess a deep religious belief despite the state’s officially secular character.

It’s only a matter of time before the American version appears.

maven