My older son has been watching a lot of the History Channel lately.  I’ve been questioning it’s credibility and my son says, “Notice they use the words “maybe”, “possibly” and “could be"”.  I don’t know.  Just before Halloween they said, “A could be made that Christianity was originally vamporice” or something like that.  I going, “Now, I would buy the idea that it was based on previous myths, because I’ve studied that, but that is questionable.” Last night they said, “Aliens could be watching us to see what we do with our nuclear programs.” Not to mention other far out statements about aliens.  Come on!

Now I do not deny the possibility that there are people on other planets and they may or may not have dropped in to find out about us, but why would they be THAT interested in such a violent species as humans?  That seems a bit far fetched.  Then there was the possible interest in volcanic activity here on earth for energy for their space ships.  These seem to me to be far fetched statements.

Has anyone else seen the History Channel lately and questioning their credibility too?  Their statements lately are becoming a bit too much for me.

I wouldn’t dismiss the history channel entirely because I’ve seen some great stuff on it.  It does, however, have some real bunk.  If you think the histroy channel is bad, check out A&E;’s documentaries.  They love showcasing haunted houses.  Once I saw a show on A&E;about American Atheists and Madalyn Murray O’Hare.  It treated the whole of the organization as a subversive and scandalous.

A good general rule of thumb is to retain a level of skepticism no matter what we are watching.

I’m not a regular TV viewer (I don’t even have cable or satellite ), but I usually watch The History Channel in my hotel room when on business trips.  As erasmusinfinity says, it sometimes has some good stuff.

On occasion I have found them to be less than objective.  They seem to like to make things such as conspiracy theories appear more plausible than they are in reality.  I think that is because they are entertainment first, and history second.

To me an understanding of history is important, and while some of their histo-journalism is occasionally questionable, I guess its better for the general public than no exposure at all.  And who knows, perhaps once in a while one of their dramatic presentations, “literary license” and all, will get someone interested enough to actually follow up by reading a book on the sublect! 

Whenever I see something distressing on a television program I try to send them an e-mail criticizing their handling of the situation.  If it’s a commercial program, I send a copy to the sponsor.  I think we should all do this because they figure that 99% of people don’t bother voicing their concern.  That means each letter we send is given more strength than we might expect.  Even a minor shift away from the nauseating mythology and attacks on disbelievers would be a benefit.

Unfortunately, it’s often difficult to track down an address to which to send the e-mail.

Occam

Well, from what I’ve seen lately on the History Channel, which is when my son has it on because I hardly watch TV, it’s not been very impressive to me.  I’m very skeptical of what they say because of what they have said.