this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2026
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So you're going to have to flag Teletubbies as blasphemous, since Jerry Falwell publicly condemned the show due to Tinky Winky.
If you’re just going to find any religious nutso to make your argument, I don’t think you’re really arguing in good faith.
I watched the Teletubies a lot in my teenage years with my baby sister and there was no mention of religion I can remember. Someone guy carrying a handbag is offensive to homophobes, nothing to do with religion at all.
This whole topic was about adding a B as part of warnings for media, to specifically warn people that might be upset if it happens to specifically be offensive about religion. I don’t see why that could be a bad thing when a quick Google search is saying 85% of the world is identifying as religious.
The problem is you're counting on the censors to be reasonable, unbiased and even-handed with these judgments. The reality is, they won't be like that - at least not 100% of the time. They can and will be influenced to slap the label on simply because the powers that be don't like something, and give "blasphemy" as an excuse. Now, all of a sudden, you have a biased ratings system creating new cultural issues and inflaming tensions that didn't exist before.
My opinion on this is simple - if you don't like it, don't watch it. If you have children and you care about monitoring their media diet, review media first before they consume it. That should be the parents' call, not outsourced to a ratings/censorship group that can be influenced. If you're part of a religious group who makes recommendations against certain pieces of media, that's fine if you want to follow your group, but those classifications should not have any bearing on the rest of society outside of that group. And finally, governments should have no business declaring what is and isn't blasphemy - everything is blasphemous to someone, and it could never be fully inclusive to all belief systems.
But there is no censorship of media being suggested here.
Simply a warning at the start of the movie to say “If you don’t like that it could be considered blasphemous, then don’t watch it” same for your kids or whatever.
This may seem a bit different, but it’s the only example I can think of to explain my view. I’m into True Crime podcasts, but often, if the podcast includes crimes against children, there will be special warnings ahead of every episode. Simply because it upsets a lot of people and they don’t want to hear it.
I hold the view that wether you agree or not with another persons views, there is no need to be offensive.
Adding a letter in front of a movie that says “this may be offensive to anyone with the well known religious beliefs” hurts nobody.
Jerry Falwell was a significant Baptist pastor who had a large congregation. He founded a college and also was a significant conservative activist. You could say he was problematic, but he was a significant religious leader.
I don’t know about him but it doesn’t change what I originally said.
Billions of people are religious, if they were all so problematic, the world would not function as it does now.
The reality is most people are quietly following their religion alone at home. Some crazy guy is gonna be louder and more on TV, but that doesn’t mean he represents all.
It’s really funny when you look at “leftist” Americans for example. They say they didn’t vote for Trump so don’t judge them for his actions, but they ignore that no religious people got to vote for any of those radical and loud few in a position of power either.
You dismissed a highly ranked and influential religious leader because you didn't agree with the take. This isn't a crank, but someone who had a large congregation and was influential in one of the larger religious organizations in the USA. It goes back to my argument of defining blasphemy. If a major pastor says something is is blasphemous, did that require a warning?
I am not in USA. I don’t know about him, and nobody I know knows of him. He isn’t Jesus. He is nobody as far as I know, and religious text does not talk about whatever rich man in a rich country is trending at the moment.
It may seem problematic to you specifically that someone around you is popular and spreading hate, but if you look a bit further around the world, he isn’t anything. Most religious people overall don’t know about him, especially when you consider that there are many religions besides Christianity too.
So only Jesus can define blasphemy?