| Celestial Big Brother - the bigger picture |
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Although not of course myself admitting to watching the programme, it appears that contestants on Big Brother are basically untalented, unpleasant strangers who are put together in a closed world in which they are deprived, humiliated and generally manipulated in ways calculated to produce the greatest social friction and emotional upset. There is of course a prize for the winner of the contest and as we're now at the end of the 7th series, it must be assumed that they all know what they're letting themselves in for. I suspect though that each of them is also self-deluding and so believes that he or she will be the exception to looking a complete prat. Each time there is a new series, we see the screw being turned, with ever-weirder people appearing and ever crueler treatment by Big Brother. In fact some commentators would say that we have already passed the line which separates entertainment from sheer cruelty. So far, although there has only been emotional ‘pain', it may be that physical pain will follow - perhaps they will introduce gladiatorial contests next! The moral values applicable to such programmes are difficult to define - the contestants are after all consenting adults - but we would all draw the line at the infliction of permanent harm on them in the name of entertainment. The trouble is that evidently most religions believe that God is the ultimate Big Brother. There is indeed a respectable argument that we need to be prodded and poked and generally have our lives made difficult so that we might develop and mature as human beings. But this particular Big Brother goes further. He keeps us confined in an intrinsically very dangerous world which he admits to having created; he wrings his hands while he watches us being put through the physical and mental suffering which disease and natural disasters bring in their wake. Why would a loving God do this? He surely cannot think that the wiping out of whole communities or individual family members or the infliction of crippling diseases will produce better social interaction between those who remain, such that it would render such terrible suffering, death and destruction somehow all worthwhile. What is certain is that any human being going even a thousandth of the way in that direction would be condemned as a fiend of the worst type and imprisoned for life. But the great religions still tell us that there is some good reason behind all of this. That if we are only patient and have faith, then we will understand it all when we arrive in the afterlife. Of course, we may find instead, as we pass through the doors of the Big Brother house expecting to be interviewed by a celestial Davina McCall and applauded by a crowd of angels and well-wishers who have gone before, that there is in fact no-one there to greet us and, worse, that we will not even be able to engage Max Clifford to negotiate with the Daily Mail for the sale of the rights to publish the story of how we were duped. for a more detailed treament of suffering and the Judeo-Christian view of God, please click here |