Johanna would like me to remind Tim that if he'd had a monkey on Drive things would have gone very differently.

Wonderfalls had a monkey, and it also only got to air 4 hours. IJS.

there's this faithless scam artist bilking old ladies out of their retirement money with smoke-and-mirror "miracles," and god's sense of humor is to give the dude the ability to perform miracles...but only when no one is around to witness it, and in such a way that it's just a hair over onto the ambiguous side so the event could be Scully-ed... Except he's never entirely sure it's a miracle or an accident, because he has no faith.

I have no idea if this is exactly the concept or not, but what you describe reads just brilliant to me.

Now, I do realize that I come to the whole question of religion from a completely different angle, not even because of who I am, what I believe in and what I do on my daily life, but mainly because of what I'm not.

I'm not an American, I have no clear idea regarding the actual day-to-day part religion plays in people's lives, and the different streams and ways-of-thought and practice that come into play. I don't know what stresses and pressures it causes in different communities, how the differences are being fought-over and settled. I don't really know how religion is being milked for money or power or any-other-thing in the USA. Pretty much, I only know that even what I know of my own religion is different across the ocean. So I don't really know anything about *that*, too.

Religion is a very tricky business here, what with the connection to local and somewhat wider politics, the friction between groups with a different set of beliefs and so forth. And that's just between the Jewish citizens of Israel, among themselves, without even putting the Islam or Christianity into the mix (and with Jerusalem, you kinda have to).

But the discussions and arguments about the whole topic, despite their turning-into-a-shouting-match potential, are always fascinating, to me. I mean, the very topic of what you mentioned, miracle-or-accident, interests me in so many levels. I love it that the interpretation of the event can always be left to the observer, that the way your thoughts about the matter have already been beforehand is pretty much what determines the way you're going to see whatever comes next.

I also love it that even if it is just a series-of-events which have a low statistic probability, you can still claim that the place in which their took place, their timing, stuff like that - *this* is in fact the miracle aspect of how things went along, and not just the event itself. And then you can get inside the whole question of G-d creating the world and how and did s/he put inside rules that they can't break themselves or what.

And that's even without getting into the whole aspect of "would you believe in a deity even without the existence of miracles", which is another thing that I find interesting, and which those short few sentences made me think about. And I didn't even mention the while "a good man who suffers through bad things, and a bad man who goes through good things" and -

OK, shutting up now. I shouldn't throw such large paragraphs over a show which is still at such an early stage, right? Um, oops.

I shouldn't throw such large paragraphs over a show which is still at such an early stage, right?

Pfft. Of course you should. It's lovely and proper and you.

Fabulous! A new Tim show means more Nilly. Hurry Tim.

I'll take every large paragraph from Nilly that I can get.

OK, shutting up now. I shouldn't throw such large paragraphs over a show which is still at such an early stage, right? Um, oops.

Pfft. Of course you should. It's lovely and proper and you.

Sits in the corner with smonster. And Nilly. Grins widely.

I think religion is a fascinating topic. It's so important to so many people, whether they're religious or not. The way I read the description, the show will mine what for me is the most fascinating aspect of religion: the junction where the inspiration of God and the fallibility of people meet.

I think I may already be on season 2 of this show. Have I mentioned how much I love it already? I may have to watch other ABC shows just to express my appreciation for this one.

Also, dude? The God I work with? Would totally pull a trick like that. He thinks he's funny. Also, he apparently thinks we're funny.

Your religion or lack thereof may vary.

Wonderfalls had a monkey, and it also only got to air 4 hours. IJS.

It wasn't a real monkey. A real monkey with its own wee fingermonkey.

They could have matching outfits, too.

I totally recognize the God Liese works with. Go figure.

Also, I vote for a monkey with a finger monkey. I'm not even in to monkeys all that much, but that just sounds fun. And kind of creepy. But mostly fun.

How many years have you monkey people been watching Tim's shows, again? You know he'll just traumatize us all with something like The Monkey King or that damn cursed toy monkey from the Stephen King story...