Religion in The Simpsons

10:06 AM | BY ZeroDivide EDIT
Religion is one of the themes on the American animated television series The Simpsons.[1] Much of the series' religious humor satirizes aspects of Christianity and religion in general. However, some episodes, such as "Bart Sells His Soul" and "Alone Again, Natura-Diddily", can be interpreted as having a spiritual theme. The show has been both praised and criticized by atheists, agnostics, liberals, conservatives and religious people in general for its portrayal of faith and religion in society.

Analysis[edit]

Although The Simpsons often mocks religion, it has received support from some religious people and groups. In a 2001 article for The Christian Century, John Dart argued that "the enormous popularity ofThe Simpsons, now in its 12th television season, suggests that religious people have a sense of humor — contrary to the usual wisdom in Hollywood. The program takes more satirical jabs at spiritual matters than any other TV show, yet the erratic cartoon family has an appreciative audience among many people of faith and among many analysts of religion. The reason? Perhaps it’s because The Simpsons is an equal-opportunity satire: it shrewdly targets all sorts of foibles and hypocrisies, not just religious ones. Perhaps it’s also because the show is exceptionally aware of the significant place religion has in the American landscape."[2]
On December 2009, an article published in L'Osservatore Romano, the Holy See's official newspaper, praised The Simpsons for its "realistic" way of dealing with religion. "Homer finds in God his last refuge, even though he sometimes gets His name sensationally wrong. But these are just minor mistakes, after all; the two know each other well", the article said.[3] The Simpson family is often seen attending church, a practice described by Dart as "rarely seen or mentioned in other TV shows."[2] Simpsons creator Matt Groening has also stated that the Simpsons is one of the few shows on television where the family attends church regularly. The characters in the family are often seen praying.[2] William Romanowski, author of the book Pop Culture Wars: Religion and the Role of Entertainment in American Life, noted that "The Simpsons is not dismissive of faith, but treats religion as an integral part of American life. Episodes that I’ve seen are not so much irreverent toward religion, but poke fun at American attitudes and practices."[2]
One episode that heavily features religion is "Bart Sells His Soul" (1995). While discussing The Simpsons treatment of religion in his Drawn to Television book, M. Keith Booker cites a scene from the episode where Milhouse asks Bart what religions have to gain by lying about concepts such as the existence of a soul – and then the scene cuts to Reverend Lovejoy counting his money. Booker believes that this implies that religions create mythologies so that they can gain money from followers. He juxtaposes this with Bart's realization later in the episode that "life suddenly feels empty and incomplete" without a soul, which suggests "either that the soul is real or it is at least a useful fiction".[4] The episode has been used in church courses about the nature of a soul in Connecticut and in the United Kingdom,[5][6] and was shown by a minister in Scotland in one of his sermons.[7] A 2005 report on religious education in secondary schools by the UK education watchdog group Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted) noted that the episode was being used as a teaching tool.[8]

Episodes with focus on religious topics[edit]


Ned Flanders, who in most episodes is a devout Christian, is revealed to be the Devil in "Treehouse of Horror IV"
dismay. The family goes to the track and takes a seat at the very back of the spectator stand causing Lisa to be disappointed because she wanted to go hiking. They are surprised to see Ned Flanders and his family, who came not to see the race but to see the high levels of safety used by the drivers. Later, a squad of cheerleaders is giving out free T-shirts by firing them from air cannons into the crowd, and Homer rudely demands one. Irritated by his antics, Maude goes to buy some hot dogs. Homer draws a target on his chest with ketchup and gains the attention of the cheerleaders. They send a full salvo of T-shirts in his direction, but Homer bends down at the last second to pick up a bobby pin on the ground. Maude returns from the concession stand at that exact moment and is hit by the t-shirts and sent screaming over the edge of the bleachers, hitting the concrete parking lot below. As a crowd quickly gathers, Dr. Hibbert pronounces Maude dead.
Everyone offers their condolences to Ned, and Bart reluctantly spends time with Rod and Todd by playing a Christian video game with them. Even Homer decides to stop acting in a rude manner towards Ned, instead accompanying him back home after the funeral and giving him a goodnight kiss as a gesture of friendship. He also talks with Ned later that night when Ned is unable to sleep due to his loneliness and now having to raise his sons as a widower. Homer reveals to Ned that he parked in the ambulance zone, unintentionally preventing the ambulance from reaching Maude and thus eliminating any chance to rescue her. To help his neighbor get on with his life, Homer secretly makes a videotape of Ned to show to single girls across Springfield. This tape includes Ned taking a shower and footage of Marge giving birth to Maggie that Homer failed to edit out from the final cut. Ned gets to date several women thanks to the tape, including Lindsey Naegle and Edna Krabappel. However, all of the dates are unsuccessful.
On Saturday night, Ned prays to God, but begins to lose faith and becomes angry with him when he feels he is not getting any response. The next morning, Ned is still angry and tells his sons that he will not be going to church, scaring them. Guilt-ridden, he later rushes to church (apologizing repeatedly to God the whole way). Upon entering, he sees a Christian rock band, Kovenant, performing. He is attracted to the singer, Rachel Jordan, who sings about not losing faith in God because he is always there for people. Inspired by the song, Ned later assists Rachel in loading some equipment onto her truck (to which Marge asked Homer to do too but he overreactingly refuses) and confides in her of his loss, with which she sympathizes. He and Rachel become acquainted, but she quickly has to leave for the next stop on the band's tour.

During a church service, Bart tricks the congregation by distributing the lyrics to a hymn titled "In the Garden of Eden" by "I. Ron Butterfly", which is actually the psychedelic rock song "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" by Iron Butterfly,[3] that the unwitting parishioners and organist proceed to perform for 17 minutes. Reverend Lovejoy demands that the perpetrator step forward, with threats of fire and brimstone, at which Milhouse snitches on Bart. As punishment, Lovejoy assigns them both (Milhouse for snitching) to clean the organ pipes. Bart is indignant with Milhouse, who claims he feared damnation of his soul. Bart proclaims that there is no such thing as a soul and for $5 agrees to sell his to Milhouse in the form of a piece of paper saying "Bart Simpson's soul". Lisa warns Bart that he will regret selling his soul, but he dismisses her fears. However, Bart soon finds that Santa's Little Helper and Snowball II seem hostile towards him, automatic doors fail to open for him, when he breathes on the freezer doors at the Kwik-E-Mart no condensation forms, and he can no longer laugh at Itchy & Scratchy cartoons. Suspecting he really did lose his soul, he sets out to retrieve it.
Bart attempts to get his soul back from Milhouse, who refuses to return it for less than $50. That night, Bart has a nightmare about being the only child in Springfield who does not have a soul. Lisa taunts Bart with a dinnertime prayer leading him to make a desperate, all-out attempt to get the piece of paper back. Bart crosses town to where Milhouse and his parents are staying with his grandmother while their house is beingfumigated. The visit turns out to be fruitless; Milhouse had traded the paper to Comic Book Guy at the Android's Dungeon. A frustrated Bart spends the rest of the night camped out in front of the Android's Dungeon in order to be at the shop when it opens.
The following morning, an annoyed Comic Book Guy tells Bart that he no longer has the piece of paper but refuses to reveal to whom he sold it. Bart walks home in the rain, then in his room he prays to God for his soul. Suddenly, a piece of paper with the words "Bart Simpson's soul" floats down from above. Bart discovers that Lisa had purchased the piece of paper. While she explains philosophers' opinions on the human soul, Bart happily eats up the piece of paper. Realizing how uninterested Bart was in about her lecture about the human soul, Lisa tells him that she hoped he learned his lesson from this. At night when Bart goes to bed, he and his soul are having fun with their quirks, proving that Bart did learn his lesson in the consequences of selling his soul.
In the subplot, Moe wants to expand his customer base by turning his tavern into a family restaurant called "Uncle Moe's Family Feedbag". The stress of running a family restaurant by himself ultimately unnerves him, and he finally snaps at a little girl. The restaurant is a failure, forcing Moe to revert the restaurant back to a run-down tavern

Ancient Jew migration to Britain--The Trojan Origins of European Royalty!

10:02 AM | BY ZeroDivide EDIT

According to the British historian Nennius a group of people, under the leadership of BRUTUS, invaded England some 1100 years before the Messiah and set up a dynasty of British kings. WHO was this Brutus; and WHERE did he come from? The legends and histories of the ancient world trace Brutus and his throng back to Italy and, through his ancestors, BACK TO THE TROY OF HOMER! Read the fascinating story of an Israelite refugee from Egypt who founded the famous city of TROY on the Dardanelles and started several lines of Jewish kings that are still extant in Europe today!
John D. Keyser
When the wind blows through the stone walls and battlements on top of the mound of Hissarlik, the sounds of clashing armies echo through the ancient ruins. With a little imagination the heroes of Troy can be seen walking the streets and defending the walls against the encircling Greek armies on the plain of the Troad below.
This site of ancient Troy, four miles from the Aegean Sea and four miles from the Dardanelles of western Turkey, is full of ghostly figures and mythological scenes of the ancient world to those who love the epic poems of Homer. For the readers of the classics amongst us, this is heady stuff!
After the memories of battles fought and the tragic lives of the Homeric heroes faded from human consciousness, the story of Troy and the Trojans was deemed to be fable by following generations. While retaining a core of truth, the ancient histories became confusing stories of almost nonsensical proportions, elevating the heroes of the past to super-human and godlike statue. These stories, spun by the bards and storytellers, became part of the bulk of Greek legend and lore.
The Legends of Troy
The legends claim that the oldest town in the land of Troy (the Troad) was founded by Teucer, who was a son of the Scamander (a stream of Crete, according to John Tzetzes, the 12th century Byzantine poet and grammarian) and the nymph Idaea. During the reign of Teucer, DARDANUS -- son of Zeus and the nymph Electra -- drifted from the island of Samothrace in the Aegean to the Troad, following a great deluge in the Mediterranean area. After he arrived in the Troad, Dardanus received a grant of land from Teucer and married his daughter Batea, shortly thereafter founding the city of DARDANIA at the foot of MOUNT IDA. On the death of Teucer, Dardanus succeeded him as king, and called the whole land DARDANIA.
He sired Erichthonius, who begat TROS by Astyoche, daughter of Simois. Tros named the country TROY (after himself) and the people TROES (TROJANS). By Callirrhoe, daughter of Scamander, Tros had three sons -- Ilus, Assaracus and Ganymede. From two of Tros' sons -- Ilus and Assaracus -- sprang TWO SEPARATE LINES; Ilus, Laomedon, Priam, Hector; and Assaracus, Capys, Anchises, Aeneas.
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