The first time trying something does not make one into an addict.  Many people can partake of a substance repeatedly in moderation and never become addicted to it.  But many can't as well.  Another part of the nature of addiction is the increasing desire for a better experience.  When television was in its infancy most stations would only have a few hours of programming a day and the rest of the time would air a test pattern.  Probably because it was so new, people who had a TV would spend time just watching the test pattern.

These days programmers are forever pushing the envelope of morality, decency, good taste, and stupidity to get people to keep watching.  The test pattern doesn't work anymore.  We've become immune to that type of "fix."  The frightening thought is, what are they going to do next to keep us watching?  We like to think we are more civilized than the ancient Romans who enjoyed the daily gladiator killings in the coliseum, but is it any different to watch the simulations of the same thing in a movie.

Karl Marx said, "Religion is the opiate of the masses," and others have paraphrased him to say "television is the opiate of the masses."  It seems now we have proof that television acts like a drug.  In Aldous Huxley's, "Brave New World," he went even farther.  In his imagined utopian society, control and order are maintained through state enforced drug addiction.  His version of television allows viewers to wire-in to the characters on the screen and experience all the emotions and actions that they go through.  Things like war and poverty are wiped out, but at the cost of people ceasing to be people.  Free thought is criminalized.

Television is credited more with confusing our thoughts than encouraging freedom of thought.  If television is our drug, who's in control?  Ratings?  Ratings definitely control what gets put on TV, but we still have the choice of whether to watch and what to watch.  If we give up that choice, if we give up thinking for ourselves, we give up on being human.  We become little better than ants.

Marx started Communism, but every Communist country has outlawed religion, especially Christianity, because it encourages free thought.  For Communism to work no one can be better than the state, but Christianity teaches that God is over all.  The Bible teaches in Romans 12:2 "...do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God."  Communism is all about conformity.  Ironically, so is capitalism and commercialism.  Communist countries use television to communicate their propaganda, capitalists use television to get people to buy things.  Communism says everybody is just like everybody else, all are equal.  Commercialism says you need to be like everyone else, not fitting in is the worst sin.

Don't be a drone.  Use your head.  That's why God gave you one.

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