Tonight, 8.30pm SBS. Music Jamboree was comedy gold and I expect this will be the same :D Safran has had a long running interest in religion, so it will be interesting to see what angle he takes. I was suprised to see Jews for Jesus and Ship of Fools on the show’s links page (along with “Virtual Church of the Blind Chihuahua” lol). However I wouldn’t expect much by way of insight, and don’t watch if easily offended! Should be good :)

Seen the 1st 4 eps (preview tapes - should be reviewed in October SC)
It is indeed comedy gold.
I would say its better than Music Jamboree (a big call, admittedly)
The first episode is the weakest - tho’ the Rove fatwa is good value.
However 2,3,4 really are great including funny Mormon film moments, a Catholic priest in Melbourne you have to see to believe and a stomach churning scene involving a poor goat in a voodoo ritual.
Pretty much every sketch hits the mark.
Watch it or regret your life.

As some one who spends part of his ministry in casting demons out of those who have been invovled in withcraft / newage type events including those who have been cursed.

I see nothing, absolutely nothing that has the remotest hint of humor in having someone curse another through a voodoo spell - nor do I see the humor in having a “Fatwa” placed against Rove -

Are you going to laugh if someone actually does “Rove” in because of it?

I read a story in Saturdays paper re this bloke and it really made my stomach churn.

craig

Craig you will be pleased to know that fatwa on Rove has been lifted.

Jo: We have preview tapes and I wasn’t informed?! This is an outrage! If I was in the office I’d storm out of it!! ;D

Hey Luke and company,

I’ve got a copy of the mag Sunday Life by my side. And wouldn’t you know it, there’s an article on Mr Safran. Here’s an extract which relates to tonight’s show:

In the case of John Safran Vs God, Safran says his whirlwind trip through religions and belief systems aims to unsettle “secular left-wing pinkos who are smarmy, cynical and dismissive about religion.....oh, except Buddhism, that’s OK, that’s cool.”

Safran is Jewish who, according to this article, goes home every Friday night to observe Shabbat with his father, sister and brother-in-law. However Judaism does not describe his beliefs, rather it better describes his cultural hertiage.

What I thought is particularly interesting is this:

“....Safran doesn’t have an preconceived agendas or political leanings. People on the Left might think he is on their side but John is not on anyone’s side.”

Hope this adds to your understanding of John Safran and the show tonight.

cheers
Angela

“… Safran doesn’t have an preconceived agendas or political leanings. People on the Left might think he is on their side but John is not on anyone’s side.”

I would have thought that the one thing we ought to have learnt from postmodernism is that no-one is free from preconceived agendas or political agendas. No-one is perfectly objective, we are all shaped in some way by our cultural background, our upbringing, and so on.

Unless Safran makes this claim for himself, of course, this is really just a criticism of the journalism which produces such a naive statement as this.

Way to bring some intelligence to my low brow thread Enkidu :rollseyes:

...lol ;)

The Rove clip was hi-larious, and I loved the rant at the end about atheists with a humanities degree lol :D Watching Safran throw up in Arizona wasn’t particularly pleasant tho :o

In the case of John Safran Vs God, Safran says his whirlwind trip through religions and belief systems aims to unsettle “secular left-wing pinkos who are smarmy, cynical and dismissive about religion.”

After watching the first episode, my thoughts are:

1. It is clear that this [above] is definately Safran’s agenda. And we should thank him for it. The piece to camera at the end was one of the most brilliant apologetics for the existence of God v scientific positivism I’ve seen on TV. Somewhat ironically, perhaps humour is the perfect trojan horse to get God and the Bible discussed seriously by those people smitten by the post-modern left.

2. Although somewhat uneven (The fatwa episode made me feel pretty uncomfortable), there were certainly some very funny moments. Overall, there’s the touch of the comic genius about Safran and I’ll definately be tuning in next week.

(I have to admit, seeing this thread I got quite excited: several of these fora appear to exist solely to host a single thread… *cough*Trinitythread*cough* Which is all very boring.)

“Is it just me?” I’ve been wondering.

Now I have the answer, from today’s SMH:

[quote author="SMH article on TV ratings"]Up against the big guns, a new show about religion could be expected to rate modestly - but John Safran Versus God on SBS pulled in 380,000 viewers in mainland capital cities.

“The ratings show that the program was popular with young men,” an SBS spokeswoman said.

Now I now why I thought the show was unfunny, uninteresting and uncreative. I’m too old.

But then, I never laugh at Seinfeld either, so perhaps it’s just my sense of humour.

I look forward to reading regular updates from fans of this show as to what insights Mr Safran is able to come up with in his supposed search for God, but I won’t be wasting any more of my time trying to watch the show, I’m afraid.

BTW, were there any insights in Monday nights episode? Establishing that a muslim fanatic is, well, a fanatic, doesn’t count.

John Safran vs God

I just thought I’d let you know.  The first show has been quite useful for me in Christian Studies classes at Shore school.  The close of the show re:atheism was helpful and we’re looking at “what makes a cult?” in Year 11 and they enjoyed the Scientology skits.

I am left with the feeling that there will be moments when we will have to take our medicine in this series but it certainly was an interesting episode and had plenty of lol action.  I could have also done without the Peyote segment but he seemed pretty angry at false religion - that promises much and blames the believer for the lack of success.  A reminder to be authentic in our proclamation of Christ.

Thanks Matt. That’s helpful feedback.

Sounds like you are in the right demographic - or you are a teacher of kids in the right demographic.

D Watching Safran throw up in Arizona wasn’t particularly pleasant tho :o

I thought that was an entirely appropriate response to the absolute nonsense of that ‘religion’.

And about how easy it was to obtain a fatwa against Rove on such doctored evidence.....well it made me wonder how often I’ve made very private and silent judgements about others rather than extend understanding and mercy :-(

The first show has been quite useful for me in Christian Studies classes at Shore school. The close of the show re:atheism was helpful and we’re looking at “what makes a cult?” in Year 11 and they enjoyed the Scientology skits.

That’s right. A cult like Scientology has a centralized form of leadership that rules with unquestioned authority, ususally headed by a god-like “saviour” figure to whom loyalty must be sworn. They have a body of convictions, beliefs, and practices set forth boldly as “the truth” while dismissing other teachings as false. Members are commonly made to contribute finanically to the group, giving perhaps 10% of their income. The cults often have socializing sessions to instill psychological dependence on the group. And it often turns out that they have a history of abuses of authority by group leaders.

I’m glad our religion isn’t like that!

The piece to camera at the end was one of the most brilliant apologetics for the existence of God v scientific positivism I’ve seen on TV

I loved that rant too, although I thought it was more a statement about human pride than it was an argument for Christianity. Almost all of us, just like the humanities students, do not have sufficient scientific knowledge to make an informed and objective judgement regarding the creation of the universe. We argue from our ignorance on such matters, pushing whichever personal view we hold. If Stephen Hawking is smarter than us and fully understands big bang theory, and he is an atheist, does that mean that he is right?

it made me wonder how often I’ve made very private and silent judgements about others rather than extend understanding and mercy

Angela got more out of this program than all of us put together.

I have to say, after last night’s episode, Zen Buddhism looks a lot less “zen” when it involves being whacked with a big stick!

“Who are you?” ;)

[quote author="Luke"]"Who are you?” ;)

Ah! I must reread Sophie’s World…

Incidentally, one of the sites I got when I googled “Sophie’s World” and “Who are you” was the following one and it has some interesting discussion questions on it:

Han :)