Lately when I turn on the NatGeo channel, I've found one of two varieties of show on:

1. We Question Something In The Bible And Conclude You Should Not Believe In Christianity

2. APOCALYPTIC DOOM NAO!!!!1!!

Their documentaries appear invariably to leap to dramatic conclusions which aren't really borne out by the evidence, while simultaneously entertaining the wildest flights of fantasy because "it's within the realm of possibility."

I just watched a documentary looking at the story of Noah's Ark, which concluded with the statement, "The story of Noah is most likely just the story of a guy who saved his family and pets on a little round boat, and got blown into mythic proportions," mostly because they couldn't figure out how Noah built a boat that wouldn't sink.

The very next show was about how the Mayan "prophets" have predicted the violent end of the Earth and all mankind as we know it when the Long Count ends on December 21, 2012. Anyone who knows anything about the Mayan calendar can tell you this is hogwash.

Every time I've turned on NatGeo, I've watched a show about how the Gnostic Gospels should not only be given the same weight as the Four Gospels of the Bible, but are preferrable precisely because they were excluded from the canon; or how earthquakes and polar shifts and all sorts of awful disasters might conceivably occur TOMORROW and destroy everything you hold dear.

Scholarship is questionable in these documentaries, and their phrasing is deliberately obfuscating, leading viewers to accept their alarmist advertisements even when the arguments or evidence they provide say otherwise. So long as it's a sensational conclusion - and one that casts doubt on the claims of Christianity - it's considered ideal fodder for NatGeo to air.

Their documentary on Islam, however, very carefully tiptoed around any questions of the origins of that religion, preferring instead to say, "Well, there are divisions in how the Quran is interpreted, and some people have suggested that the militants are exaggerating." I guess knowing that someone may try to kill you for questioning their religion makes you treat it with kid gloves. Just ask Roland Emmerich.

So much for "educational" TV.