{"id":5290,"date":"2012-10-08T13:58:11","date_gmt":"2012-10-08T17:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/?p=5290"},"modified":"2012-10-08T13:58:25","modified_gmt":"2012-10-08T17:58:25","slug":"fending-off-near-occasions-of-sin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/10\/fending-off-near-occasions-of-sin.html","title":{"rendered":"Fending off near occasions of sin"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/p>\n

Late last week,\u00a0Xanthate asked<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I got to ask, as a Christian, how do you feel comfortable watching media which frequently glamorises violence, non-married sex, and other sins? I\u2019m a recent convert, and I\u2019ve chosen not to watch\/read this sort of stuff, so I\u2019m interested to hear your thoughts.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I don\u2019t watch much TV, just\u00a0The Thick of It<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>(for the vigorous and inventive invective) and\u00a0Switched at Birth<\/em><\/a> (for the ASL practise). \u00a0So I don\u2019t run into much sex on either show. \u00a0(Plenty of wrath-as-humor on\u00a0The Thick of It<\/em>, though). \u00a0Since I\u2019m a pretty unromantic person, this isn\u2019t the kind of temptation I spend much time worrying about.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

People\u2019s mileage may vary, but here\u2019s the kind of bad media consumption that I try to curb (and haven\u2019t really done enough): reading people who annoy me and who I don\u2019t expect to learn anything from. \u00a0I\u2019ve made some attempts to purge Google Reader of feeds (religion-related or political) that just tick me off.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think these authors have something interesting or worthwhile to rebut, and they haven\u2019t made critiques I find thought provoking. \u00a0Sometimes I justify their inclusion on the grounds that it\u2019s defensive reading \u2014 maybe they\u2019ll slam one of my posts and I\u2019ll want to know, but this isn\u2019t a sufficient reason. \u00a0After all, I can rely on Google Analytics to tell me if I\u2019m suddenly getting a lot of incoming visits from a takedown piece (or just count on one of you to notice I haven\u2019t replied and comment). \u00a0And anything sufficiently interesting will probably get picked up by one of the bloggers I like and respect.<\/p>\n

Reading dumb stuff I disagree with is practicing contempt and complacency. \u00a0It doesn\u2019t spur me on to curiosity; it just gives me an opportunity to tsk tsk boring arguments and feel superior. \u00a0And keeping them around to rebut is just puffing myself up \u2014 the world will keep spinning whether or not I reply to everyone wrong on the internet<\/a>. \u00a0Better to focus on questions where I have some weird\/helpful reframing than wasting time answering dull questions posed in bad faith.<\/p>\n

The other category of reading I tend to avoid is writeups of people\u2019s problems that I have no business knowing. \u00a0Anything related to Charlie Sheen<\/a> falls into this category. \u00a0Basically anything where I\u2019m not going to do something practical with the information, the information isn\u2019t inherently beautiful (like smallpox trivia is), and the subject of the information is in pain that I\u2019m not acting to mitigate.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

(Oh, and one of the big reasons I wanted to reply to\u00a0Xanthate\u2019s question is that I haven\u2019t done as well I should in cutting myself off. \u00a0Writing this post shamed me into dropping five<\/em>\u00a0bad feeds from Google Reader).<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Late last week,\u00a0Xanthate asked: I got to ask, as a Christian, how do you feel comfortable watching media which frequently glamorises violence, non-married sex, and other sins? I\u2019m a recent convert, and I\u2019ve chosen not to watch\/read this sort of stuff, so I\u2019m interested to hear your thoughts. I don\u2019t watch much TV, just\u00a0The Thick […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,48],"tags":[132],"class_list":["post-5290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-debatetactics","category-morality-in-practice","tag-pride"],"yoast_head":"\nFending off near occasions of sin<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Late last week,\u00a0Xanthate asked: I got to ask, as a Christian, how do you feel comfortable watching media which frequently glamorises violence, non-married\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/10\/fending-off-near-occasions-of-sin.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fending off near occasions of sin\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Late last week,\u00a0Xanthate asked: I got to ask, as a Christian, how do you feel comfortable watching media which frequently glamorises violence, non-married\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/10\/fending-off-near-occasions-of-sin.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Unequally Yoked\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-10-08T17:58:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-10-08T17:58:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/jefrank.files.wordpress.com\/2011\/11\/ie9.png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Leah Libresco\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Leah Libresco\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/10\/fending-off-near-occasions-of-sin.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/10\/fending-off-near-occasions-of-sin.html\",\"name\":\"Fending off near occasions of sin\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-10-08T17:58:11+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-10-08T17:58:25+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/#\/schema\/person\/17ee17592b35b40040d5f5f7ea5ab464\"},\"description\":\"Late last week,\u00a0Xanthate asked: I got to ask, as a Christian, how do you feel comfortable watching media which frequently glamorises violence, non-married\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/10\/fending-off-near-occasions-of-sin.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/10\/fending-off-near-occasions-of-sin.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/10\/fending-off-near-occasions-of-sin.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Fending off near occasions of sin\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/\",\"name\":\"Unequally Yoked\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/#\/schema\/person\/17ee17592b35b40040d5f5f7ea5ab464\",\"name\":\"Leah Libresco\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/20e1e6a3a94c4e7928687804a41d888d?s=96&d=mm&r=r\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/20e1e6a3a94c4e7928687804a41d888d?s=96&d=mm&r=r\",\"caption\":\"Leah Libresco\"},\"description\":\"Leah is the author of Arriving at Amen and Building the Benedict Option. 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