Praying for censorship

Mediawatch-UK’s Summer Newsbrief has just been released. It doesn’t contain much of interest – just the usual self-congratulatory list of “Massah” John Beyer’s media appearances, and a reaffirmation of the perennial confusion between correlation and cause which is their raison d’être.

And a prayer, which we reprint here in full:

Creator God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, enlighten the eyes of our minds, that we may see the path that You have mapped out for us.

Help us always to do Your will, not ours. Give us the grace and determination to speak out against those things that are offensive to You and to us in today’s media-driven society.

You have brought us together as this group to fight for truth, decency and honesty, to protect society – especially young people – from the insidious harm which pervades our world. May we be always aware of the trust You have placed in us, and be strong in living our principles.

Guide us as we seek to discern out future, and send us many more eyes and voices to help in the work which our founder Mary Whitehouse began.

We make this prayer through Christ our Lord.

Oh, so it’s God’s will they’re doing, not theirs. Why didn’t they tell us that before? Maybe we wouldn’t have made so much fun of them if we knew.

It is an interesting fact that if you are a censorious prude, the god you worship is highly likely to be censorious prude too. Similarly, if you are a radical liberal, your god will share your radical liberal views. And if you are a murderous jihadist, so too will be your god.

Is this just a correlation, or could there be some causal factor at work there?


8 Responses to “Praying for censorship”

  1. Andy A says:

    It is an interesting fact that if you are a censorious prude, the god you worship is highly likely to be censorious prude too. Similarly, if you are a radical liberal, your god will share your radical liberal views. And if you are a murderous jihadist, so too will be your god.

    And, oddly enough, it’s all the same god. Mysterious ways indeed!

  2. andrew says:

    truth, decency and honesty

    Where does breaking Wikipedia regulations come into that?

  3. Andy Gilmour says:

    So is kitting-out your God with “special features” (beyond the standards – you know – omnipresence, creation, absolute morality, smiting, wrath, etc) like multiple arms wish fulfillment or some kind of bizarre body dysmorphia??

    🙂

  4. Neil Hoskins says:

    I find myself oddly moved by that prayer. As usual, though, I am unsure as to whether to laugh or cry.

  5. Ricky Smith says:

    Maybe it’s my distant, churchschool childhood coming back to haunt me; the barely concealed guffaws; sides aching with surpressed mirth; my tongue almost bitten through more than once, etc., but I find the whole idea of grown-up humans earnestly praying almost hysterically funny. And that’s before any mention of Mary Whitehouse…

  6. andrew says:

    Some more crap from Beyer covered by Melon Farmers today at http://www.melonfarmers.co.uk/nw06c.htm#Following_George_Bush_on_Crusade…Again

    Note how they talk about “hundreds of thousands” of complaints about TV in the USA as if this is a lot. Let’s have a look at that. We can assume that the amount is less than 1 million, or it would say “more than a million”. We can also assume the amount is no higher than 900,000, or it would say “almost a million”. So let’s say 900,000. If there have been 900,000 complaints about TV in the USA each year, and each complaint comes from a different person (highly unlikely), that still corresponds to just 0.3% of the population of the country.

    Never let the facts get in the way of a good story eh?

  7. Stuart says:

    re the melonfarmer link, for a look at who’s really behind a lot of quasi-religious TV censorship in the US take a look at who’s behind the Parents Television council, covered in ‘Mary Whitehouse on Crack’ at http://www.corporatewatch.org/?lid=2184.
    Think you’ll find it puts it all in perspective.

  8. andrew says:

    re the melonfarmer link, for a look at who’s really behind a lot of quasi-religious TV censorship in the US take a look at who’s behind the Parents Television council, covered in ‘Mary Whitehouse on Crack’ at http://www.corporatewatch.org/?lid=2184.
    Think you’ll find it puts it all in perspective.

    A little off topic, but the Media Research Council, the umbrella organisation of the PTC is funded by a certain Mr Philip Anschutz. The very same Philip Anschutz who had dinner with John Prescott recently. Interesting n’est ce pas?