"Son of God died today. Crucified by Romans. FML"

Whilst eating my tea last night, I happened to catch the first ten minutes of Emmerdale, and was presented with the Dingle family having a philosophical debate about the causes of suicide. While all their hypothetical reasoning was all well and good, and surprisingly profound for their characters, they failed to mention a deliciously ironic reason - soap operas. Probably not Emmerdale, since their most depressing moment of the night was an awful actor saying "I want to die" in a very monotonous voice, not really heartstring tugging-stuff. Similarly, Coronation Street has far too much humour and normailty to be considered depressing. So yes, I'm only referring to Eastenders.

I've never been massively into Eastenders, so I can't say from personal experience that it causes depression (although the Danielle/Ronnie story moved me to writing a song about it), but I'm going to assume that when a TV show ends with an "if this story has emotionally crippled you, please call this number" message, it's a depressing show. I had heard, though it was never confirmed, that some people have genuinely attemped (and possibly succeeded in) suicide because of something that happened in Eastenders. I find it quite funny that a show set in a rough part of London is allowed to broadcast content that makes people want to kill themselves, but the characters have to call each other "pillocks" because of the timeslot.

This is why I prefer American TV shows. Take Battlestar Galactica, for instance. Everyone always brushes it off as a sci-fi show, and therefore refuses to watch it, but it's so much more than than. Almost every single character was perfectly written, the acting and scripts and backstories combined into making completely grounded and genuine humans... in space. Sure, the plot is a tad ridiculous, and there are several space battles scattered around the series, but most of the time I was watching it, I completely forgot it was a sci-fi; to me, it was a character piece.

Do you remember Martin Fowler on Eastenders? He had one facial expression, was always hoarsely shouting, thought working on a fruit stall was a suitable career and ended up getting a girl pregnant, hitting her boyfriend with a car, then marrying her. Does that sound like a believable human being to you? Now take Gaius Baltar on BSG. He was a very intelligent man who was ashamed of coming from such a poor farming background, and so pushed himself to achieve his dreams. He worked hard, but still retained a secret love for his home and his family. I don't know anyone who wants to work in a shop all their life, or has killed someone and married their girlfriend, but I do know people who have gone from zero to hero without being alienated by their newfound social status. So there we go - somewhere, lost in the ravages of space, flying around in a giant spaceship that can travel faster than the speed of light, are people more realistic than Londoners.

My only problem is that a lot of decent shows are ending, or have already ended. Actually, that's my second problem, my first problem is that I've gotten halfway through a blog entry and have no idea what I'm going to write next. I'd consider writing more on how all my favourite shows are finishing, but I doubt you'd want to read that. Yet I honestly can't think of what else to write. Isn't that just typical of this generation? What on earth am I going to discuss once the things I do discuss have finished contributing anything new to talk about? Do I repeat everything I've already said, or do I stay quiet for eternity? I think this may be touching upon the lack of originality topic from my previous blog entry; have we actually spoken about everything in the world now? Is there nothing left to talk about that hasn't already been talked about?

Of course not, I'm just being ridiculous for the sake of it to keep up with my doomsday persona. Take a look outside and you'll notice that not everything is awful, I just say these things because I, for some reason, am a lot better at complaining than I am at praising. Why do you think I keep mentioning the 2012 apocalypse? It's never going to happen, although try telling that to the fools who think it genuinely is, I just say it because I think it's a suitable plot point; if you were trying to justify why things are bad at the moment, wouldn't you blame to apocalypse as well? The point I'm trying to make, though, is that I do my best not to shove my conflicting views down others peoples' throats. Which is more than I can say for the folk at Westboro Baptist Church.

I only found out about these deplorable people recently, having been in a mass MSN conversation where people were discussing them, and came to the conclusion that Supernatural was right. I always thought these people might exist somewhere, but hoped they were just a myth. Now I know they're real, what else might be real? Ghosts? Demons? Jim Davidson? All our nightmares are coming true people, these hideous creatures are among us. Check under your bed, carry garlic with you, don't trust your neighbours. Just be prepared, lest you fall foul of these insane religious bellends without the adequate tools to fight them off with!

I actually do hate them. Their problem is that they're so determined they're right that it's utterly impossible to make them change their mind, or at least look at something from every angle. Present them with a completely logical argument that invalidates something they've stated as fact, and they'll say "Don't question the Word of God!" or something. How convenient it is to have an all-knowing, all-powerful being with a fetish for keeping secrets on your side. How on Earth are we supposed to compete with that? I'm not trying to say I abhor religion or religious people because I don't, and I'm a very spiritual person myself (though not devoted to a single religion, as such). But why are there people in this world that have to take everything so literally? The Bible is there for people to get a decent sense of morality, it's there to show people what the fundamental aspects of being a decent person are, it isn't literal, people didn't actually come back to life or have their blindness cured or get full off a tiny bit of bread and fish. It's more of a set of guidelines than actual rules; you don't see pirates discussing the literal meaning of parley, do you?

I sent a strongly worded e-mail to these people, basically taking the passages they adhere to so vehemently and explaining how they're doing the exact opposite of what these passages say, and asking them how to explain some glaring inconsistencies and hypocrisies in their statements. If they ever respond, I'll post the results onto this blog. That's if I haven't already killed myself watching Eastenders.