The Sopranos... Not Evil?

I was watching the Sopranos tonight and was pleasantly surprised by the appearance of a good born again Christian who tries to bring Tony to the Lord. And even more surprisingly: he was portrayed in a very fair manner, even giving opportunity to preach something very controversial -- that dinosaurs and man roamed the earth together. I say controversial because within the evangelical community there is some disagreement as to how to explain dinosaur bones that date to millions of years ago when we know for a fact that the earth is only 6000 years old. There is no mention of dinosaurs in the Bible, so man has been left to his own devices to figure out the answer. I was taught that the devil put them there to trick us into believing in science and that the Bible is not true. Some believe that we and the dinosaurs co-existed, while scientists "invented" the technology to lie about the age of the bones. Personally, I believe the former, because I know it's true deep in my heart, but I know my brothers in Christ who believe the latter are good, God-fearing Christians, so I am willing, open minded person that I am, to consider they're version of things. And in defense of their position in the face of Tony Soprano's very good question -- how could dinosaurs and man lived together in Eden, since vicious beasts like a Tyrannosaurus Rex would certainly have terrorized the paradise -- God must have created dinosaurs after our fall to make us miss the glories of Eden all the more.

I also enjoyed Tony's neighbor in the hospital, not, of course, because I liked listening to his blather about the meaning of life and life, in general, but because I appreciated God's wrath coming down in the form of cancer. It was such a fitting punishment for the man's speaking of filth, for without his larynx he could no longer preach the message of the devil.

And Sopranos can, sometimes, be so complicated, giving me lots to ponder. In this episode it was the quandary of Paulie, who found out his aunt -- a nun -- was actually his mother, while the person he thought was his mother was actually his aunt. Certainly, the nun/aunt/mom was whore, having sex out of wedlock and while she was a nun, no less. But then rather than abort Paulie, she did the Christian thing to do -- have the baby. But then again she was a nun, which is evil, since women should not be nuns and have no place in the church, except to listen to their preachers and run bake sales. So I was really torn considering her situation -- was the woman evil? And it really was the perfect question for me to marinate in, for it reminded me that God is the ultimate judge in these things. This, of course, is not to say we simple humans cannot condemn clear cases of filth and sin like homosexuality and abortion, but for complicated cases like Paulie's aunt, we should simply pray for the person, administer some form of punishment -- not too harsh, of course -- and watch them carefully to ensure they don't corrupt our society further.



But back to the Sopranos