<story><title>The Repressive, Authoritarian Soul of “Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends”</title><url>https://www.newyorker.com/culture/rabbit-holes/the-repressive-authoritarian-soul-of-thomas-the-tank-engine-and-friends/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>linkregister</author><text>This analysis, while novel and interesting to me, is not supported by the bulk of events in the early Old Testament. I will name some examples of God personally meting out the death sentence &lt;i&gt;en masse&lt;/i&gt; as punishment for sin in various books of the Old Testament.&lt;p&gt;1. The Great Flood (Genesis),&lt;p&gt;2. Sodom (Genesis),&lt;p&gt;3. The Plagues of Egypt (Exodus),&lt;p&gt;4. The Exile of the Israelites from the Promised Land (Exodus).&lt;p&gt;Redemption, mercy, and forgiveness are primary themes in the Gospels, and further continue as major themes in the rest of the New Testament. Aside from the Lake of Fire (Hell), which is worse than being killed for being a first-born Egyptian child, references to punishment are secondary.&lt;p&gt;As for Paul&amp;#x27;s opinion of the Old Testament, that is fine, he wrote that opinion. There is no shortage of contradictory and conflicting opinions and facts in the Bible since it is a work compiled, edited, and written by humans.&lt;p&gt;That said, the mainstream Christian opinion that the Old Testament is vengeful and the New Testament is merciful is prevalent for a reason. Paul cannot retcon, try as he might, the events of the Old Testament.</text></item><item><author>humanrebar</author><text>I think the New Testament disagrees with your characterization of the Old Testament. Pretty much the entire New Testament goes on about how the Old Testament is a series of stories about how cycles of rule making and rule breaking do &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; lead to real justice, peace, or life. In particular, both Romans and Hebrews (though not exclusively those books) cite Old Testament stories to make the case that the Old Testament (a.k.a. the law and the prophets) is largely misunderstood to be about a world full of crime and punishment.&lt;p&gt;For example, Romans 1 talks about how people (not a vengeful God) set up the worst consequences for themselves. God&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;wrath&amp;quot; is unfiltered humanity. Romans 2 goes on about how there&amp;#x27;s plenty of blame to pass around (so there&amp;#x27;s no room for &amp;quot;good people&amp;quot; to blame &amp;quot;bad&amp;quot; ones). And Romans 4 holds up Abraham, an Old Testament character, as an example of how life should be lived, in faithfulness to a forgiving God. All through this passage, and in the rest of the book, a case is built from the Old Testament itself.&lt;p&gt;Anyway, I don&amp;#x27;t have strong feelings about Shining Time Station, but I think the Old Testament is more humane, sensible, and subtle than people seem to appreciate. At least the apostle Paul seemed to think so.</text></item><item><author>dmlorenzetti</author><text>The comparison with Mr. Rogers is instructive.  Both shows seem rooted in a minister&amp;#x27;s desire to encapsulate ideals derived from the Bible.  But while Mr. Rogers is New Testament, the Thomas books are Old Testament.&lt;p&gt;Henry, for example, gets punished for the sin of VANITY -- he doesn&amp;#x27;t stop in the tunnel in order to shirk work, but rather to avoid getting his nice new paint messed up.&lt;p&gt;To see the difference between the shows, just try to imagine Mr. Rogers presenting a puppet show about bricking a character up in his room as punishment for not wanting to get his new suit wet in the rain.  And imagine him, in that Mr Rogers voice, saying &amp;quot;I think he deserved that punishment, don&amp;#x27;t you?&amp;quot;</text></item><item><author>paulddraper</author><text>Thomas &amp;amp; Friends is gold.&lt;p&gt;The show is dignified and wholesome. It is always about respect, diligence, and humility.&lt;p&gt;It isn&amp;#x27;t there for stupid antics and wacky laughs. It doesn&amp;#x27;t blast color explosions and ADHD-fueled off-the-charts mind-numbing exuburance to capture kids attention. And it&amp;#x27;s been doing that for decades (pretty much eternity, as far as kids TV goes).&lt;p&gt;Not since Mr. Rogers has there been a better kids TV show.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Fat Controller&lt;p&gt;Better known as Sir Topham Hatt since the 1950s.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Henry must be punished—for life&lt;p&gt;Even in the old non-US version (modern one makes it explicit), it was still evident that he wasn&amp;#x27;t left in their forever, as he showed up again next time.&lt;p&gt;Blue Mountain Mystery [1] A little green engine hides in the blue hills. Thomas learns that long ago, the engine accidentally caused another engine to roll overboard into the sea. He has been hiding ever since, in guilt and fear and shame. Thomas convinces him to return, and the story shows how silly the little engine&amp;#x27;s worries were. It&amp;#x27;s a moral of forgiveness and redemption. (Also, there&amp;#x27;s a great surprise about who that overboard engine actually is.)&lt;p&gt;This crap makes me mad. I have to stop reading stuff on the internet. Go back to watching Sponge Bob or Family Guy or whatever crap you watch with your kids.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;ttte.wikia.com&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Blue_Mountain_Mystery&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;ttte.wikia.com&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Blue_Mountain_Mystery&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>humanrebar</author><text>&amp;gt; This analysis, while novel and interesting to me, is not supported by the bulk of events in the early Old Testament.&lt;p&gt;Fair enough. But my point was that the analysis was the analysis of the New Testament authors. People are free to provide their own critical analysis, but they&amp;#x27;re disagreeing with Peter, Paul, and the Jesus of the Gospels even. I think people that hold this viewpoint and care to be rigorous about it would do well to review their arguments.&lt;p&gt;Regarding your first three examples, in each case the story is about God saving an imperfect group who trusts God:&lt;p&gt;1. Noah and his family&lt;p&gt;2. Lot and his family&lt;p&gt;3. Moses and the Israelites&lt;p&gt;...to back up to Romans 1, the reward for people who want to run their own show is often... their own show to run. They&amp;#x27;ll just be doing it on their own. Earth before the flood, Sodom, and recalcitrant Egyptians are all examples of this pattern. But in each of these cases, God decides not to end the story in just desserts but give people another shot to redeem themselves.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m refraining from commenting on example 4 mostly because I don&amp;#x27;t know exactly which even you&amp;#x27;re referring to (Israel ends up in the Promised Land). But the narrative of the Old Testament is generally Israel deciding to do its own thing over and over, asking for another chance, and getting one.&lt;p&gt;So &lt;i&gt;one&lt;/i&gt; thing people usually have a problem with is the idea that God judges people &lt;i&gt;at all&lt;/i&gt;. This usually stems from a belief that loving people don&amp;#x27;t judge people. This is clearly contradictory to certain tenets of the Bible, including the text of the New Testament. But I think most people, if they stop and think about it, disagree with this sentiment as well. Consider:&lt;p&gt;- A grown man kicks a toddler. The father of the toddler acts like nothing happened. Dad is a loving guy and wants peace more than judgement. No, a loving father is &lt;i&gt;angry&lt;/i&gt; when his family is abused. He expects justice, even.&lt;p&gt;- A teacher doesn&amp;#x27;t particularly like a student so he ignores the student. The mother thinks this is messed up but understands the teacher is his own person and makes his own decisions. No, a loving mother gets &lt;i&gt;angry&lt;/i&gt; when her kids aren&amp;#x27;t nurtured and taught properly. She expects corrective action.&lt;p&gt;In the interest of not writing a novella in an HN comment, I&amp;#x27;ll wrap it up here, so thanks for reading if you got this far. I appreciate the civil discussion.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Repressive, Authoritarian Soul of “Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends”</title><url>https://www.newyorker.com/culture/rabbit-holes/the-repressive-authoritarian-soul-of-thomas-the-tank-engine-and-friends/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>linkregister</author><text>This analysis, while novel and interesting to me, is not supported by the bulk of events in the early Old Testament. I will name some examples of God personally meting out the death sentence &lt;i&gt;en masse&lt;/i&gt; as punishment for sin in various books of the Old Testament.&lt;p&gt;1. The Great Flood (Genesis),&lt;p&gt;2. Sodom (Genesis),&lt;p&gt;3. The Plagues of Egypt (Exodus),&lt;p&gt;4. The Exile of the Israelites from the Promised Land (Exodus).&lt;p&gt;Redemption, mercy, and forgiveness are primary themes in the Gospels, and further continue as major themes in the rest of the New Testament. Aside from the Lake of Fire (Hell), which is worse than being killed for being a first-born Egyptian child, references to punishment are secondary.&lt;p&gt;As for Paul&amp;#x27;s opinion of the Old Testament, that is fine, he wrote that opinion. There is no shortage of contradictory and conflicting opinions and facts in the Bible since it is a work compiled, edited, and written by humans.&lt;p&gt;That said, the mainstream Christian opinion that the Old Testament is vengeful and the New Testament is merciful is prevalent for a reason. Paul cannot retcon, try as he might, the events of the Old Testament.</text></item><item><author>humanrebar</author><text>I think the New Testament disagrees with your characterization of the Old Testament. Pretty much the entire New Testament goes on about how the Old Testament is a series of stories about how cycles of rule making and rule breaking do &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; lead to real justice, peace, or life. In particular, both Romans and Hebrews (though not exclusively those books) cite Old Testament stories to make the case that the Old Testament (a.k.a. the law and the prophets) is largely misunderstood to be about a world full of crime and punishment.&lt;p&gt;For example, Romans 1 talks about how people (not a vengeful God) set up the worst consequences for themselves. God&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;wrath&amp;quot; is unfiltered humanity. Romans 2 goes on about how there&amp;#x27;s plenty of blame to pass around (so there&amp;#x27;s no room for &amp;quot;good people&amp;quot; to blame &amp;quot;bad&amp;quot; ones). And Romans 4 holds up Abraham, an Old Testament character, as an example of how life should be lived, in faithfulness to a forgiving God. All through this passage, and in the rest of the book, a case is built from the Old Testament itself.&lt;p&gt;Anyway, I don&amp;#x27;t have strong feelings about Shining Time Station, but I think the Old Testament is more humane, sensible, and subtle than people seem to appreciate. At least the apostle Paul seemed to think so.</text></item><item><author>dmlorenzetti</author><text>The comparison with Mr. Rogers is instructive.  Both shows seem rooted in a minister&amp;#x27;s desire to encapsulate ideals derived from the Bible.  But while Mr. Rogers is New Testament, the Thomas books are Old Testament.&lt;p&gt;Henry, for example, gets punished for the sin of VANITY -- he doesn&amp;#x27;t stop in the tunnel in order to shirk work, but rather to avoid getting his nice new paint messed up.&lt;p&gt;To see the difference between the shows, just try to imagine Mr. Rogers presenting a puppet show about bricking a character up in his room as punishment for not wanting to get his new suit wet in the rain.  And imagine him, in that Mr Rogers voice, saying &amp;quot;I think he deserved that punishment, don&amp;#x27;t you?&amp;quot;</text></item><item><author>paulddraper</author><text>Thomas &amp;amp; Friends is gold.&lt;p&gt;The show is dignified and wholesome. It is always about respect, diligence, and humility.&lt;p&gt;It isn&amp;#x27;t there for stupid antics and wacky laughs. It doesn&amp;#x27;t blast color explosions and ADHD-fueled off-the-charts mind-numbing exuburance to capture kids attention. And it&amp;#x27;s been doing that for decades (pretty much eternity, as far as kids TV goes).&lt;p&gt;Not since Mr. Rogers has there been a better kids TV show.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Fat Controller&lt;p&gt;Better known as Sir Topham Hatt since the 1950s.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Henry must be punished—for life&lt;p&gt;Even in the old non-US version (modern one makes it explicit), it was still evident that he wasn&amp;#x27;t left in their forever, as he showed up again next time.&lt;p&gt;Blue Mountain Mystery [1] A little green engine hides in the blue hills. Thomas learns that long ago, the engine accidentally caused another engine to roll overboard into the sea. He has been hiding ever since, in guilt and fear and shame. Thomas convinces him to return, and the story shows how silly the little engine&amp;#x27;s worries were. It&amp;#x27;s a moral of forgiveness and redemption. (Also, there&amp;#x27;s a great surprise about who that overboard engine actually is.)&lt;p&gt;This crap makes me mad. I have to stop reading stuff on the internet. Go back to watching Sponge Bob or Family Guy or whatever crap you watch with your kids.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;ttte.wikia.com&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Blue_Mountain_Mystery&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;ttte.wikia.com&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Blue_Mountain_Mystery&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>geowwy</author><text>&amp;gt; ...the mainstream Christian opinion that the Old Testament is vengeful and the New Testament is merciful...&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s not mainstream Christian opinion. It&amp;#x27;s called Marcionism and it&amp;#x27;s universally condemned by mainstream Christianity.</text></comment>