Davy and Goliath and anarchy

Veggie Tales

If you are familiar with Netflix and how they manage user accounts, you will find that within each account, you can set up user profiles for each person in your family. This allows each person in your family to set their own preferences and viewing lists for their convenience.

Netflix also provides a preset user profile just for kids. So I set that up to allow my kids to pick and choose the shows they want to watch without worry about them being exposed to content for mature viewers.

Well, one day I find that they're watching something called "Veggie Tales" and in the scene that I happen to be watching, they're quoting verses from the Bible. Bells and alarms go off. The magical thinking of young kids and toddlers does not mix well with the Bible. When my kids are old enough to think for themselves about spirituality, then they can make an adult choice to partake in a religion. I would rather not have them indoctrinated by a TV show.

So I try to remove those entries from the selection list for the Kids user profile. I hunt around in vain to find a way to block those entries without success. Then I chat with support at Netflix to make it absolutely clear to them that religious content does not belong in a user profile designed for kids.

I also ask how I can remove that show from the selection list. I'm told that I can't and that I'd have to create an entirely new user profile just for that purpose. I express surprise that they would even allow Veggie Tales to be considered "children's programming" when it clearly has a religious and political objective: the promotion of Christianity above all other religions.

I then request that they remove it from the list and ask when they can do it. They cannot provide a specific date and say that is all they can do for now. A few weeks later, I notice that those Veggie Tales are not in the selection list. Now I don't know if they made the change globally or just for me, but they are gone for now, at least.

I will admit that Veggie Tales presented the topic of Christianity far better than has been done in the past, and that is part of what I want to talk about today. For that experience reminded me of a kids show with a Christian message, a show that I used to watch on weekdays in the afternoon: Davy and Goliath.

My impressions of Davy and Goliath

Davy and Goliath is a stop motion animation series that I saw back in the 70s as a kid. I was watching Gumby around the same time, because I was fascinated with the animation style more than the subject matter. But the one thing that I remember more than anything else about Davy and Goliath was fear.

The plot always turned on Davy doing something of questionable moral character, then paid for it somehow - perhaps we can say that he repented, with the foreboding sense that an all seeing, all knowing god was watching, complete with eerie music to hammer the message home. I liked the animation, but I didn't like the way their message was presented.

Around that same time, I was also treated to babysitting from a sibling troupe of teenagers who preached to us from time to time. We even went to their church a couple of times. I can recall falling asleep while sitting on the bench in the chapel and waking to hear a story of a boy who donated every penny that he had saved to the church. At that point, I had started to put it together that this was not for me.

I also noticed something else. The commercials that aired on the same station before or after episodes of Davy and Goliath. They had a distinctly religious tone to them. The one that I still cannot forget, could be titled, "Children should be seen and not heard". That commercial featured a parent ignoring his kid while talking and asking a question. Yeah, I was starting to put it all together.

Those influences painted Christianity as a way of life where kids are ignored, they are controlled by fear of god, and they are coerced into donating what they own to the church.

Adult Impressions of Christianity

To be fair, there is plenty of good that can come from religion, but I think that good comes when religion is used as a means in pursuit of spirituality. But when it comes to social control, as a set of moral values, I think that religion leaves something to be desired.

Christianity assumes "original sin", the idea that, from birth you're tainted with sin and there is nothing you can do to get rid of it. You can do good and pray all you want, original sin is not going away. From the beginning, you're already at a disadvantage with a punitive, jealous god.

I've looked at Christianity many times, and I find that I cannot subscribe to a religion that basically says that I'm damned no matter what. If there is a god, well, I'd like to be on better terms, and I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for that.

I can recall having some not so happy dreams after watching Davy and Goliath, too. I could hear that eerie music playing in my mind while watching a spotlight shine on Davy as he considers his sins and asks for forgiveness. I get it. After enough sleepless nights, I resolved not to watch it anymore.

After reading the Wikipedia article on this series, I got some perspective. I found that a redeeming feature of the show was that it examined racism, death, intolerance and vandalism. Although the show clearly demonstrates that racism, intolerance and vandalism are wrong, the solution to those challenging behaviors is god. Here, God is a means of social control, not a source of spirituality.

A new definition of 'moral fiber'

I think that many people find some benefits in Christianity, I really do. But then I consider the news I read from time to time, where some wealthy and established politician or businessman is perp-walked for some crime on TV. Then I check out their religion and often find out that they're Christian. So all that reading and teaching and praying could not help them?

I wonder if perhaps, it is not moral fiber that makes character. What makes moral character, in my opinion, is skills. Interpersonal skills. In nearly every case of corruption that I've seen, the pattern is the same. The person engaged in corruption is rich, and seems to have everything he could possibly want: multiple streams of income, a wife, family, multiple houses, cars, vacations, and on and on and on. Yet, that person engaged in some practice, such as insider trading, adultery, bribery, extortion, human trafficking and even murder. It's as if somehow, whatever they had just wasn't enough.

How is it that a man (or woman) can have everything they want and still commit a crime? I think of all those possessions, fame, power and fortune and wonder how committing a transgression against another human being could make them any happier. Did they really get what they wanted? The song, So Cruel by U2 is playing through my mind now. I hear the following verse:

I gave you everything you ever wanted
It wasn't what you wanted

That could easily be a god talking to those people. Time and time again, I find that for many people, wealth, power and freedom are not enough for happiness. There must be something more they need, or else, why would they commit a crime? Why engage in insider trading, wage theft or environmental pollution?

Still haven't found what I'm looking for

I think when someone has everything the think they wanted and still commit a transgression, they're after a sort of high. Adrenaline comes with every transgression. You might recall a time in the past when you might have committed a transgression against someone else. How did you feel about it before you did it? Did your stomach burn with fear, excitement or anger? How about after? Did your chest burn with guilt?

These very strong feelings distract us from an unsatisfactory present. Engaging in a transgression distracts us from the reality that all the money in the world isn't going to make us happy. There must be something more.

Some people turn to charity work. Some turn to exercise like running, hiking or marathons. Some people turn to fantasy in TV, movies and books. However benevolent or innocent those activities may seem to be, there must still be something more to happiness.

Happiness is not in things we have, things we can do, or people we can be with, though all of those things may contribute to our happiness. The lessons of Davy and Goliath suggest that a connection with a god can bring happiness, and it can. Davy and Goliath even suggest that doing the right thing can bring us happiness and that can, too. But there is still something more.

Happiness is a choice, an inside job

What appears to be lost on religion, and Christianity in particular, is the idea that happiness comes from a choice each and every one of us must make to be happy. Making this choice requires no external apparatus for social control. Making the choice to be happy requires no god to do it, though some may find utility in thinking of it that way.

But in order to make this choice to be happy, we must accept everything as it is now, without reservation, and to find the good in our life at this very moment. When we find that good, we must let that be enough.

In Davy and Goliath, it is clear that social control is the objective, and that happiness comes from outside of us. In this case, it comes from God. This idea that happiness comes from outside of us is the basis for Western Materialism.

Acceptance, a conscious contact with a god, making the choice to be happy, all of that requires skills that most people are not taught growing up. When people lack the skills to make themselves happy with what they have, they may spend most of their lives chasing that happiness by achieving, doing, or consuming, for that ever elusive moment of acknowledgement from some thing or someone outside of them.

So what does all this have to do with anarchy?

Using the church or any other religious organization for social control creates the temptation for the church to become the de facto government, all over again. The dominant religion will become a prevailing force that requires membership for protection. Then it will require a government for protection of itself and it's property. And then religious identification becomes a requirement rather than an option in order to secure a human right.

That is what happened after the Pilgrims came to America. At first they didn't have a government, the church was the government. Then more formal governments were formed after the church. This, I believe, is the cause for the following clause in the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

If a religion that becomes established in your neighborhood requires membership and a pledge of allegiance to that religion, then you have little choice but to move or comply. And you may even be prohibited by that organization from moving in order to "save you". Davy and Goliath, at least to me, was about promoting this idea that everyone be a Christian, that everyone can be saved, and that you're better praying to that conception of god, than any other.

I'm an anarchist. Well, I'm a closet anarchist in the sense that I believe that a voluntary society based on voluntary association is desirable and possible, but there is still a lot of work to do before we can have that voluntary society.

To get to a completely voluntary society, we must remind ourselves constantly, that concentrations of power will always lead to corruption, regardless of the institution, regardless of religion, regardless of upbringing. Human beings are simply not equipped with the capacity to rule over a few others, much less a few billion people.

I believe that that the path to a voluntary society, one where cooperation is valued more than competition, is a path built by raising a generation of kids without violence, while teaching them the skills they need to get their own needs met, without violating the rights of others.

While it is true that a voluntary society relies upon reputation as a means of social control, it cannot stand unless kids are raised with the interpersonal skills that are required for a voluntary society to remain voluntary.