Is the History Channel slanted

[housewolf]

towards christianity? Is it backed or funded by christians or christian organizations?

[Nikepallas]

1. Not that I am aware of why?

[housewolf]

4. I am watching

this History of Christmas show, and I just wondered if it was christian propaganda or if it might actually be legitimate.

[mcscajun]

7. Well if it's the show I'm thinking of...

...they do discuss the pagan roots of the holiday, so it's not propaganda.

Someone else posted about this earlier...and they indicated that Mithras was mentioned in the show, and the Puritan banning of the holiday, etc.
So it seems a pretty well-rounded discussion.

[7th_Sephiroth]

2. i think so

it does seem that way alot

[RoyGBiv]

3. It's a Disney thing ...

Draw you own conclusions.

It *is* slanted toward WWII and a view of history that centers on the US as a progressive influence in the world. As for religion, I'm not really sure. Some of the programs they've run on the history of Christianity itself have been pretty good, even-handed accounts of the relgion's actual history. They do, however, focus more on Christianity than they do other religions, which I suppose they'd rationalize as being necessitated by the audience they serve. (That audience does not tend to include academics who might know better.) They did run a history of Islam that wasn't bad for most of it. It tended to focus a bit too much on the modern era and the more radical elements, but it gave a good ancient background.

[Razorback_Democrat]

5. I've noticed they always have Hitler shows on

besides what's wrong with a Christmas show about the history of Christmas? I mean it is Christmastime

[housewolf]

8. Nothing wrong with Christmas

I like Christmas, I am enjoying the show.

I just wondering if I was watching a channel that specialized in broadcasting disinformation so that I'd have an idea of how seriously to take what I see there.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

6. they used to

have religious programs on that NEVER mentioned the Qur'an, but lately they've mentioned it from time to time, so I think they are getting better. Of course, when they televise a series about the Ramayana or the Bagava Gita, then we'll know they are really being universal in their look at world history and religion.

[Liberal_Dog]

9. Very...

A "Great Blunders In History" show about Saddam's invasion of Kuwait completely whitewashed GHW Bu$h's pre-war duplicity.

There was no mention of April Glaspie or "We have no interest in Arab land disputes". It was as if none of it happened.

[Al-CIAda]

42. Whitewash and misleading.

Yes, no mention of our settting up Saddam OR setting him up to invade.

WHITEWASH of the Kennedy assasination.

WHITEWASH of 9/11
---
It is the MIStory channel.

[Winamericaback]

10. I watch it all the time

and I don't see a bias. I caght the last half of the Christmas show earlier today and then right after it was an hour on Greek Mythology :)

[gulfcoastliberal]

11. I can't remember any of their shows dealing with the history of labor, or

anything in that vein. They glorify business and industry. I just saw a modern marvels that showcased the technologies of commercial fishing. While they did reference extinction being an issue, they also devoted much time to how regulated the industry is and really didn't discuss whether their techniques are sustainable. It also seems like it's mostly military history. I do enjoy their UFO shows, though.

[housewolf]

12. Ancient historoy shows

I occasionally watch their shows on ancient history. I like the way they bring ancient structures and places to life.

[KSAtheist]

14. I remember...

A documentary last year about the haymarket riot. Or something like that. It explained how it came about really well and put it in context.

The UFO shows are crap.

[0007]

21. ...they indeed have a lot of ridiculous UFO material.

I think the History Channel is tilted to the right somewhat with alittle embellishment here and there to jazz up the program, it certainly doesn't walk hand in hand with most history books.

[chicagiana]

25. Well, the UFO phenomenon is kinda history ...

The UFO stuff used to be on Discovery. I'm very glad it moved because UFOs have NOTHING to do with science.

The UFO phenomenon however IS an aspect of US popular culture. We know the land of Oz is not real, but it DOES affect our culture and the way people behave. I'm actually surprised that they don't have "Tolkien History" since it has influenced more geeks than the Bible ;-)

[DireStrike]

13. I saw an ad on buses recently about the French Revolution

"For two hours, it won't kill you to love the French."

The text is next to a guillotine, and it gives the time and name of the show.


Now, it could just be a poorly thought out joke, but do we really need to be reinforcing the stereotype that the French are somehow disliked or unlikeable?

[pinniped]

15. They always used to show * ads before the (s)election.

They also aired Kerry ads but they were less frequent.

On Thursday I was watching their Noah's Ark special and I found it pretty well balanced until I fell asleep.

It started out with a marine archaeologist stating that there's no way a wooden boat could've been constructed in the dimensions noted by historic records. It would've sprung leaks all over and busted up over the open water.

They also stated there's no way Noah could've herded an estimated 30- million species onto the vessel in the seven day period he was allotted. He would have to load 3,000 animals every second.

At a normal loading rate it would take him 30-years to load them up.

And how could he collect them all in seven days?

Then they went on to say that maybe he only took animals in his geographic area. There was no mention of whether the dinosaurs made it onboard or not.

There's also not enough water on the planet to flood the entire planet either.

They talked about the Mt. Ararat photos that were declassified but they are inconclusive.

Then I fell asleep.

[chicagiana]

27. Noah is the Bible's weak link ...

The worst thing any apocryphal tale can do is be descriptive and exact. If you're ambiguous enough, you can claim anything you like because there is nothing to verify.

The Noah story is a weak link because modern science can peer way back into geological and biological history. The writers of the Noah story probably didn't even know much beyond the Middle East region, why would they know their are tens of millions of individual types of animals in the world.0

Of course, the fundies will fall back on simply saying that god can do whatever he wanted. God made the universe so he can easily make a couple extra million cubic miles of water. Than god can take it away. A wooden structure the size of supertanker??? It's infeasible for modern ship-builders, but god can easily make "magic wood" with super strength and super sticky "magic tar" to seal up all the seams.

If god felled a tree in the forest, than removed all evidence that the tree existed, did it really ever fall??? I guess that's an issue for philosiphers. If god makes a miracle and than undoes all the physical artifacts for that miracle (the flood), did it ever really happen??? If god "unmakes" something in it's universe does he really want us to know about it.

And we arrive back at "faith without proof". We should trust and believe narratives. But we should not believe natural revelation of gods work. Those are merely "demonic deceptions".

As far as I'm concerned, words are easier to undermine than creation. So if the universe disagrees with the bible, I'm more apt to think that Satan corrupted the Bible but was unable to break the mighty craft of God.

[Moloch]

16. Yes.. Tremendously so...

It is slanted lately so much to the NEO CON worldview that I can't seem to watch it.

I don't believe it is backed by Christian organizations though, regarding Christianity they have had some fairly balanced documentaries on there.

[AliciaKeyedUp]

19. Is it possible to have a network one side won't think slanted?

I don't believe so. Every programming chief has some bias or beliefs. Inevitably, their programming choices will reflect it. Maybe this is why neocons are always bitching about what's on TV. I can't say.

But I do think it must be tough on History Channel or Lifetime or whatever to come up with a balanced slate of shows -- especially under the current climate.

[Moloch]

20. Well, Alicia..

I don't think it would be too hard for them to make their Iraq War documentaries look less like ads for the army.

[AliciaKeyedUp]

23. I'll trust you on that

History Channel is only on my set on rare occasions.

[Moloch]

39. To be fair...

They have also had some really good documentaries like How The West Was Lost about our abysmal treatment of Native Americans in the latter half of the 19th century.

[IMayBeWrongBut]

17. The only time I recall a Christian bias was..

The only time I recall a Christian bias was in the Viking episode in the series called "barbarians". Basically the show went on and on about how evil and vile the Vikings were then one of their kings converted everyone to Christianity and every one lived happily ever after. I watch a lot of the history channel and Discovery channel shows, and they are generally pretty well balanced. Their series shows usually get re-played a lot, but that one never does.

Or maybe I was just let down because the promo with the arrows was just so cool, I had high expectations for it.

[chicagiana]

28. Vikings were a pre-history mafia ...

They wandered from sea-port to sea-port raping, pillaging and taking slaves. I'd call that evil.

When the Vikings "settle down" they become an acceptable society that creates it's own food and riches. If that coincides with the introduction fo Christianity, so be it.

BTW, there is a little bit of Viking in every Norman. Hence there is a little bit of Viking in every English and Frenchman.

[AliciaKeyedUp]

29. Vikings were also traders

So a lot of their DNA is mobile not because of conquest but because of travel.

[chicagiana]

35. By trading you mean "fencing" ...

... because they were pawning off their stolen goods and captured slaves.

Yeah, they pillaged and eventually conquered both Normandy and indirectly England as well as tons of settlements on the Northern coastline of Europe.

But I'm sure they did indeed visit the whore-houses in their ports of call and drop some seed destined to become unwanted whorehouse babies. And of course, they were in the pillaging business so perhaps they kidnapped some of the ladies they liked from their ports of call. Although, they probably had all the wenches they liked from their conquest, so why pay for it??? They were slave traders after all.


Please don't propogate the whitewashing of Viking history. It is a partial legacy of the Nazis to romanticize anything with blonde hair no matter who they killed and what they stole.

No doubt the Vikings were great innovators and they did things to be remembered by. That makes them great. But great can be both good and bad. And the Vikings were some pretty bad-ass motherfuckers who took lot's of shit that they didn't build or earn.

But I suppose the Vikings didn't all live on boats. And I'm sure the one's who stayed at home were as innocent as the Germans who didn't go off to conquer the world in the 1940s. They're probably equally as innocent in the neo-cons who send young boys off to steal oil in 2003. And equally innocent are the money launderers who wash the money of drug smugglers and terrorists but never actually kill anyone with their own hands. They simply share in the spoils and proclaim themselves "innocent".

[T Town Jake]

18. Nope, they're pretty evenly balanced...

...but you're going to get some posters here who bitch about THC because they don't drop to their knees and fawn every time Howard Zinn bats an eyelash or Noam Chomsky grunts.
And if you have occasion to wander into any of the freeper sites discoursing on the subject, you'll find they bitch pretty regularly about THC being too liberal or "left-wing."
Tells me THC is probably pitching pretty regular towards the middle.

[housewolf]

38. If both sides complain

Then I guess the channel is doing a good job of balancing the perspectives.

Someone else commented that they had seen more B* ads than Kerry ads prior to the election - but I don't think that necessarily reflects a bias in the programming.

[LWolf]

22. I don't know.

I watched it a little the first year, back in the 90s, it was available to me. I left it behind after that first year, and never watched it again.

I don't know about religion, but I know it is slanted towards war. Very little human history, apparently, involves anything but weapons and warfare. At least, not the history the History Channel thinks is important enough to air.

That may have changed, since I haven't watched in a decade. :shrug:

[chicagiana]

24. I've seen their biblical history shows ...

The things they say would have gotten you burned at the stake 200 years ago.

They go into all kinds of re-examination of biblical history and explore alternate translations such as:

"Red Sea" vs "Sea of Reads"
"Walking on the Water" vs "Walking on Water"

They air shows talking about an inspiration for a allegorical Noah and exploring his Bablyonian couterpart/inspiration Gilgamesh.

They even explore the gnostic and apocryphal gospels including the "Gospel of Mary" that transforms Mary Magdelane from a whore into the wife of Jesus and heir to Jesus' work (above Peter).

Sorry, but no fundamentalist or evangelical I know would undermine the premises of their own faith.

The History Channel is not biased towards Christianity. Though I do think they're biased towards WWII and "In Search Of" ;-)

[w4rma]

26. Probably not towards Christianity. Who owns the History Channel, now?

I bet it some big corporation and not many of those beasts are acting very Christian, imho.

[Moloch]

40. A&E owns the History Channel now....

I'm not quite sure who owns A&E

[mainer]

30. Doesn't History Channel advertise on AAR?

I don't think History Channel's biased, but it IS a commercial enterprise. So it plays to the biggest audience -- which is interested in Biblical history.

I'm an agnostic, but I love programs about ancient and Biblical history.

[Nadienne]

32. Doesn't WalMart also advertise on AAR?

You might be right about the history channel playing to the biggest audience... But I think that people interested in religious validation would sooner turn to a Christian network than the History channel...

[chicagiana]

36. Like the 700 Club ...

Pat relates LOTS of history as does the raving lunatics who compose most of "christian broadcasting". Of course, it's pretty much all 100% wrong. It's a few isolated facts surrounded by a hateful spew.

[Nadienne]

37. A few isolated facts

that they use to "prove" that they are right and everyone else is wrong and going to hell, so you might as well kick them on their way down...

[housewolf]

41. You are braver than I am

to turn on the 700 Club. I'm afraid I'd throw something into the tv if I had it on!

No, my tv is usually tuned to c-span or c-span2, except when Congress is in session and I can't take them any longer. There are lots of interesting panel discussions and speeches on, and every weekend c-span2 runs "BookTV" with presentatioins about non-fiction books.

[lectrobyte]

31. I don't know the exact ownership, but I used to be a fan. They

seemed at one time to have reasonable shows that were fairly interesting. Now, I find either 1) that drill sergeant guy doing an infomercial for the military, 2) the modern marvel of the rate of fire of the A-10 warthog gatling gun or 3) the history of business PR wieners.

[otohara]

33. The Discovery Channel - Completely Slanted

pure propaganda when it comes to telling the truth about US involvement in foreign policy in ME.

[liberalmom]

34. Isn't history written by the winners?

In the current state of humanity, it seems to be phony fundamentalist Christians who are nothing more than neocon scum.