TV, Internet, Radio and Press

Horoscope in Orthodoxy

The word “horoscope” was searched 14.191.324 times by 2008. Yes! You read right, for 14 million times the term “horoscope” was sought last year, which means that Romanians are very interested in the horoscope, and many of them read it almost daily hoping that they will be fine. Among the most searched words on the internet, the word “horoscope” is the fifth. How strange! A country of mostly Christians Orthodox is interested in the “horoscope forecasts”.

Many people read horoscope in newspapers, on net, on TV, in the subway station. I wonder who makes these horoscopes. There are hundreds of types of horoscope in a day. Are journalists also astrologers? They all “read the stars”? My godson had worked at a local newspaper for several years in Galati and told me how they made the horoscope… A colleague of theirs, a journalist; grabs to write what comes in her mind, something that may not always resemble with what yesterday or last weeks was published.

So are horoscope made in all publications … quickly inventions, adapted to practical aspects of life, aimed at everyone (work, home, partner, money, friends, etc…) that can be fold to as many people and may seem more reliable..

So, now that all has been said, I think that a few hundreds of newspaper in Roamnia, hundreds of magazines and hundreds of internet sites, in one single day have more than a thousand of predictions of a sign…. which normally do not match each other, but all are invented. Well, I can do a horoscope if I want! I can do a horoscope for a whole month, or a year round, because it doesn’t seem difficult…one day I write well, the other the worst, to be a balance, and that’s all. It’s easy!

Horoscope is only an illusion of what could be…it has no conection with reality; it is read by many people as only “for fun”, so unfortunately wasting his life.

Rather than searching for a beautiful forecast in the horoscope today, which certainly will not come true, I better ask Lord to help me. Why dreaming of what I want instead of asking Him every morning?

Orthodoxy and horoscope have nothing in common. Orthodoxy is True in every aspect of our life and we will live like this until the end of the world with God.  Horoscope is a lie, a children’s play which slyly do away with God from the scheme of life. No matter how innocent it may seem,  horoscope is idolatry… It’s like a child would wait for a “furniture forecasts” waiting to receive a toy, than to ask his mother to buy it. Furniture forecasts are horoscopes “read” in stars, the home is the world we live in, mother is God who loves us and is always waiting to help us, and the child it’s me, the one who want a better life.

Horoscope in Orthodoxy is actually sin in Orthodoxy…

Horoscope is a sin and must be confessed, is the beginning of unfaith, and is like turning our backs to God…It’s a shame you receive the Eucharist and the next day you try to read forecasts of devil.

TV and the terror of advertising

The terror of television installed in the modern world is not caused solely by the amplification of violence, but also of danger and threat.

Arthur Berger stresses:

As you watch TV more and more, you see more ads that promise you a better life, sexual pleasure, happiness and all sorts of other things. To the extent that people will not afford these things, they will feel more and more hazed.

Henry Lefebvre in his book Everyday life in the modern world, observing the terror imposed by the culture of consumption through advertising and television, says:

Those who cannot consume are terrorized by feelings of failure and maladjustment, and those who consume face at the other end of the spectrum the issue of choice (in some cases, even the terror of choosing), and the anxiety caused by the uncertainty that their choice won’t be that good.

Advertising promises beauty, health, love and happiness for those who buy the products presented, but threatening innerly, or explicitly with their loss in case of not buying the services or products presented. In the TV society, women are terrorized by the idea of losing their brightness; their skin and hair will be damaged unless they use miraculous balsams, promoted by advertising; they will become repugnant getting fat (the beauty model promoted is a fin sexy woman, even skeletal – see fashion models); they will no longer be admired by men if they don’t know to put in value their body through clothes or other objects of beauty.

Young people have often a inferiority complex and they are terrorized by the idea that they don’t look like actors in the movies, they do not have the charm, muscle, money, car or other things that advertising deems necessary to be successful. Husbands they will stress their selves to ensure to their wives and children which others can offer their families – things or comfort that advertising suggests that they should have.

Young children suffer that they do not have their friends toys, or the same things or pleasures. Both men and women are stressed by the thought that at any given time, they will not be liked and loved by others, because they cannot meet who knows what bodily or intellectual performance (idealized on small screens) …

Television teaches the viewer what to expect from others and what or how it should be to achieve the ideal of happiness (of course not true happiness, because however, the two are different).

The world is terrorized by the advertising messages industry, by the idea that we need to change our clothes, things, cars, homes or life, and that we should have fun as well, now when we are still young and now when we still can. Bombarded by ads, surrounded by tempting offers, people begin to wish they had those things.

Hence begins the race to get through. Women ask men, children – parents, and men stars searching for money through work, sacrifice or loans, to acquire the things they want and so the race continues.

(Virgiliu Gheorghe – Ştiinţa şi războiul sfârşitului lumii)