There’s been a lot of portrayal of smaller religious groups on television lately. South Park’s treatment of Scientology is probably best remembered, but this season’s two-parter Go God Go parodied atheism with a theme I’ve often used in debates with anti-religionists. Namely, that even if all religion was done away with people would still find arbitrary things to fight about.

The rival Cartoon Network has had some interesting portrayals of religion in its Adult Swim shows this season. One episode of Metalocalypse  followed one of the characters as he explored different paths, including atheism and the Church of Satan. Each in turn was as boring to him as the last; even Satanism, which he expected to be “hardcore.” This Sunday’s Moral Orel, itself a parody of Davey and Goliath, also mocked the Church of Satan in a surprisingly accurate way.

This just goes to show how flimsy one of the arguments for Christian persecution in the media is. The aforementioned shows go to show that Christianity isn’t the exclusively the butt of jokes in mass media. Not that making fun of a religion is anywhere near the same thing as persecution, anyway. It should also be noted a fair amount of humor at Christians’ expense comes from Christians themselves. In my opinion, any religious tradition worth its salt should be able to laugh at itself. Just look at the rich heritage of Jewish and Unitarian Universalist self-deprecating humor.