Atheist vs Christian Wife Swap. | Page 1 | !!!The Green Apple Undertow!!! - [the random subforum] | Guild Forums

Celestial Fireflies

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Posted: Sat Jan 09, 2010 8:44 pm

My boyfriend & I were lounging about recently and Wife Swap was on, so we decided to watch it. Surprise, it was an atheist vs Christian episode! I thought how they portrayed both families, err, interesting, to say the least...

Christian family:
- The parents take care of 6 kids who are all well-behaved and well taken care of.
- Loves to go outside and play sports.
- The parents have a healthy and happy relationship.
- Father is a preacher who preaches love.
- They all feel happy and fulfilled.
- The mom is gorgeous.
- Throughout the show, they were firm on their beliefs and remained unfazed about any of it.

Atheist family:
- The oldest son does all the chores, the two toddlers "get dumped at" daycare.
- The mom "afraid" of the outdoors and spends all day playing Sims 2 "instead of" taking care of her kids.
- The dad spends "all of his time" on his "anti-God" radio. He's "obsessed" with it and it barely supports his family.
- The wife "HAS" to clean "to the husband's standards" when the older son is at school.
- The family "has few friends".
- The kids "have to be quiet" when they come home from school and "HAVE" to watch TV or play on the computer so they "don't disturb their dad".

neutral So, right off the bat, I could tell that there was a gigantically obvious slant. God makes your life happy, and without him there's no possible way you can know how to lead a happy and fruitful life on your own. You need the strength of GOD to venture outside and learn how to not be afraid of the outdoors and other people! And it's GOD who teaches you how to love your spouses and kids-- there's no possible way for you to do it on your own! Ugh.

Then there's the fact that the show was so heavily edited (and the fact that they blatantly lied) to demonize the atheist family and put the Christian family on a pedestal. I mean, the entire show wasn't completely skewed, but they definitely ran with the "Christian good, atheist bad" direction. The atheist husband's website has a page about it, which links to a deconstruction of the entire episode and how things were pieced together to give that image, and an interview by the husband and wife about the whole show.

Anyways, I don't exactly know what the point of this thread is (hence it being put in the random category). I just saw it and it bothered me to the point where I wanted to point this kind of crap out and vent about it a bit to people who would probably understand why it's so frustrating. I know that this episode aired 4 years ago, but it still frustrates me. The fact that they perpetrated the myth that atheists can't lead happy lives, and that we don't know how to love because we're so consumed with hating God, to such a wide audience makes me mad.

Your thoughts on this?

Posted: Sat Jan 09, 2010 10:04 pm

To be fair, (though I'm not sure if it's the same show you're talking about), they also showed this at one point: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3mDLsyn6ns

Not that that makes atheists look any better, (The other family were pagans) but still...

Oh, and the fact that the Christians have 6 kids = Bad to me. For God's sake, (pun intended) there are millions of children without homes on this planet, and you have the self-righteous conceit to multiply yourself without even considering adoption? That's disgusting.

Lethkhar

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MiniSiets

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Posted: Sun Jan 10, 2010 3:51 am

I haven't seen the episode and haven't really read up on this particular situation so I'm not sure what exactly to think of it yet. Sounds interesting though. I think I'll definitely listen to a couple of those MP3s listed on the page you linked to in order to get an idea of who this "Infidel Guy" is. So far from what I've listened to though the guy seems pretty nice, so if the episode did in fact portray him in a fairly negative light, I think I would be a little angry, but not surprised.

The stereotype seems to be that an atheist sits around all day ranting about how much he/she hates god, but the reality is most of us rarely ever think about it except when we come home on our free time and feel like venting about it on the internet. In my regular everyday life, I don't really speak to anyone on the subject. It's mostly just a side hobby of mine to argue about philosophy and religion.

Posted: Sun Jan 10, 2010 8:53 am

Lethkhar

To be fair, (though I'm not sure if it's the same show you're talking about), they also showed this at one point: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3mDLsyn6ns

Not that that makes atheists look any better, (The other family were pagans) but still...

Oh, and the fact that the Christians have 6 kids = Bad to me. For God's sake, (pun intended) there are millions of children without homes on this planet, and you have the self-righteous conceit to multiply yourself without even considering adoption? That's disgusting.

If you could only bitchslap through youtube.

I remember watching a part of this episode in the past. I remember it pissed me off too, but... It's a very stupid show. You can't expect much from it. It's not very surprising... But it surely gives us a bad name. Funny thing is, were it the other way around, some Christian organization would rise a cry against it. I'm sure there was no major protest over this.

Im A Little Pea

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Captain_Shinzo

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Posted: Sun Jan 10, 2010 11:28 am

I love the part where the husband tells how the show has done this before.
That saddened me...
However, what do you expect?
The show is to portray what opposite people, or just people. who negatively act like in another home. That is what the show is based off.
So, if I was the producer and I wanted to get a bunch of viewers for a show, not only would I do a Atheist vs. Christian episode but also make the Atheists look bad to get the high Christian watch votes.

I feel as though this Atheist family can sue for some kind of film laws.
False advertisement, human rights, something.
I also can't help but feel annoyed with the Christian mother for taking the Atheist edited film part and turning it into her own show 'The Christian Gal".

Posted: Sun Jan 10, 2010 1:24 pm

Lethkhar

To be fair, (though I'm not sure if it's the same show you're talking about), they also showed this at one point: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3mDLsyn6ns

Not that that makes atheists look any better, (The other family were pagans) but still...

Yeah, it's a different show. It's the same exact concept, but it's called Trading Spouses. It's no better in terms of portraying them in certain ways; I heard the crew purposely put stuff out that would send her off the handle. I think Wife Swap has another Christian vs. atheist episode, too, and it sounds like they pulled the same crap. I haven't seen it, so I don't know if they did.

MiniSiets

The stereotype seems to be that an atheist sits around all day ranting about how much he/she hates god, but the reality is most of us rarely ever think about it except when we come home on our free time and feel like venting about it on the internet. In my regular everyday life, I don't really speak to anyone on the subject. It's mostly just a side hobby of mine to argue about philosophy and religion.

And that's exactly what they made it look like. It's disappointing that a show would have to resort to this, but hey, as long as they're not the one getting death threats, right?

Captain_Shinzo

I love the part where the husband tells how the show has done this before.
That saddened me...
However, what do you expect?
The show is to portray what opposite people, or just people. who negatively act like in another home. That is what the show is based off.
So, if I was the producer and I wanted to get a bunch of viewers for a show, not only would I do a Atheist vs. Christian episode but also make the Atheists look bad to get the high Christian watch votes.

I feel as though this Atheist family can sue for some kind of film laws.
False advertisement, human rights, something.
I also can't help but feel annoyed with the Christian mother for taking the Atheist edited film part and turning it into her own show 'The Christian Gal".

I know, and I mean, it's not like I expected anything less from a television show, but it still makes me sad that they had to resort to this, and secondly that I can't really find much speaking out against this. I guess it just serves as a reminder of how so many people view us in a negative light based on empty assumptions, and that's why it bothers me.

And, yeah, what they did was pretty much slander. However, I was listening to the couple talk about it, and they pretty much signed away their rights to sue. They talked about how the contract threw up some red flags, stating that the show reserved the right to use the footage as they see fit and create fictional characters using them or something. The woman apparently explained it away by saying that sometimes they can't remember the order and won't always get things right.

I'll tell you one thing: this has opened my eyes as to just how much editing can really go on. I mean, I already knew I couldn't believe everything I saw on TV, and I knew that shows, especially of these sort, use a lot of editing... I guess I just didn't realize to what extent they did and how smoothly they can do it without the viewer even realizing that a scene has just been cut and spliced together.