According to posts on Survivor Sucks, this season is stacked with fundie christians. In addition to Blair, the baseball player gave a lot of money to Prop 8.

They must figure if it doesn't affect ratings, why bother.

Well if they make another big deal about it this season I'm going to start to demand they let Jews and Muslims on there to do the exact same thing.

Its gonna start to get annoying that a reality game show is becoming by proxy a huge supporter of one specific religion out of nowhere.

Yeah, wonder why they decided to only highlight this fringe religion that just recently emerged out of nowhere? It's not like it has millions of followers or has been around for thousands of years.

I see you conveniently left out the rest of Evan's post, while at the same changing the meaning behind the part of his post that you did quote.

Thank you.

I actually don't mind Christianity being a focus on Survivor. Since it is reality(ish) TV and there isn't any scripts, what the contestants do is up to them. Matt in season 22 was a great example of someone finding great comfort in his faith to battle in duel after duel; it was compelling stuff. I'd be much more offended if the show allowed set-aside time for prayer, provided bibles, or had a cross on the set.

And this is coming from one of our most secular posters in the religion threads

As moderator of the DVDTalk Survivor game I was reluctant to respond to this, but assuming the information is accurate about all I can do is keep participants on the honor system to not look at spoiler sites.

Have there been any Muslims on the show yet? I'd love to see that, just for the social part of the game (who would embrace him/her; who would shun them simply because of their religion). Actually, thinking about it, they should try an international SURVIVOR some year...with representatives from different countries, so even language proves to be a barrier. I'm guessing Probst doesn't want a team of translators, or it would have been tried.

It wouldn't be that hard. All they would need to do is recruit fluent English speakers. For example, I was able to see Asian version of The Amazing Race and they recruited contestants from Hong Kong, South Korea, Philippines, India, Japan and other countries and yet the entire show was in English. In fact, a Japanese brother - sister team spoke English so well that I started to doubt how much they had actually lived in Japan.

????

I was poking a little fun at Evan's misplaced modifier ("out of nowhere"), but I genuinely was confused by his suggestion that Survivor has somehow become a "proxy" to support one religion.

It would be perfectly fine with me if all of the contestants were atheists (a high percentage act that way anyway) or members of other religions (and I am deliberating calling atheism a religion). The point is that I haven't noticed any specific attempts made to recruit only Christians vs. other beliefs (or non-beliefs).

Having loved the early years of Survivor, I've been a harsh critic of many of the changes made in the show in recent seasons (the biggest criticism being the return of past 'favorites' for the umpteenth time).

Haven't looked at the profiles of the new contestants, but I wouldn't care to see the show turn into a Sunday School lesson, either. There are other venues for that, and while I think that the players ought to be able to discuss families, work, and other things other than strategy, anything can be overdone, so I'm not disagreeing with Evan on that score. I just don't think it has been overdone that much, although there have been several contestants who bonded over their beliefs. I think you ought to discount Russell's nephew, who was over-the-top with his conflicts with his behavior & stated beliefs.

creek, I feel its certainly been overdone over the last 2 cycles.

You're absolutely right that up to now there really hasn't been anything like this but even with only two cycles having gone by I feel like enough is enough and its gotten enough air time that it feels like its been here even longer.

And if it turns out that it happens again this season (either first or both cycles) I'd really like them to let other religions have the same chances to do the same thing. If nothing else for a sense of balance.

That would certainly be fair. I think it would be refreshing to see other religions represented. I don't agree with them (to do so would be inconsistent with a belief that there is only one true faith), but that doesn't mean I don't feel they shouldn't be represented or that it wouldn't be interesting to hear their views.

Since Survivor 'recruits' a sizable number of contestants from agencies and actually 'creates' characters such as nerdy Cochran (to the point of suggesting that he wear sweater vests), they might as well select someone based upon minority (in this country) beliefs. Amazing Race had a Muslim team (or Sikhs...don't remember), but they only lasted for a couple of installments before going out.