Re: Islamic channels
MTV does not try to indoctrinate you with religious beliefs, that's the difference. There is something called balance, which even Islam is fully supportive of. Even the Prophet discouraged reading prayers to the point where you were forgetting to tend to your responsibilities and live your life, so I don't understand how a 24 hour channel on Islam even plays into Islam's advice on balance between deen and duniya. You'd think a truly muslim channel would be more like some of the other channels - where they show a mix of news, dramas, and religious shows.
There is something called an "ego" and don't think the "religious" population is any less prone to it.
In a country where everything else seems to be going to hell, all these people can do is start 24 hour religion channels? Seems a bit off, don't you think?
And also remember, there is no such thing as "clergy" in Islam. If you read up on a topic, and wanted to be on a show to teach a topic, you could very well do it too. You do not need to have some Mufti or Mullah title to pull that. But that's not what I see. I see a small group of people who keep coming up in all the shows as if they're some set of Pakistani clergymen or something, which they are not.
What's worse isn't even that its a 24 hour channel. Plenty of religions have those (I wonder what your views are on EdTV?). Its that these shows mostly involve one maulvi sitting in front of a camera passively lecturing you about a topic, admonishing you about your behavior, and basically behaving like a father does to his misbehaved children. Not exactly what someone wants to tune into after coming home from work or school. There are almost no hosts that an average secular layman can relate to. There is sometimes intimidation in the way the hosts behave and in their mannerisms. And as a poster above said - its like they have no roshni/noor to their faces. This is scary stuff. If you want to have a 24 hour religion channel, then it really needs to be revamped. What I've seen of QTV previews is enough to scare me, and I'm not expecting much out of other shows. Is there a particular show you think defies my theories? Please post up a youtube video or something, and we'll analyze it.