Our Children & TV, Movies, Video Games, Music, and Internet Violence

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf

Zaytuna Conference

MCA Santa Clara, CA

5/3/14

The Devil’s Traps

• There is a global crisis: the level of inundation of western media is deepening all over the world.
• People have become addicted to video games. 
• The CEO’s of the tech companies do not let their kids near these games. They don’t want them to be zombies, they don’t want them to waste any of their time - they want them to run companies.
• In these games, you can be a terrorist, you can blow things up, you can kill people. They have created 360 degree virtual worlds.
• For me, it is a concern that I have for our children who are becoming addicted to it. 

The Steps of the Shaytan

• It is interesting that before we begin reading Qur’an, even before saying Bismillah, we seek refuge from the shaytan - Authu billahi min ash-shaytan irrajeem. 
• That is because the shaytan will try to lead you astray from the Qur’an. He will try to distort your understanding and your guidance. 
• Shaytan is real. The greatest trick he ever played on mankind is to convince them that he doesn’t exist.
• In Surat Al Noor, Allah says ‘Do not follow the steps of the shaytan’.
• The Prophets have a path - this is the road of good. The demons have a path - this is the road of evil.
• In Surat Al Baqarah, Allah says ‘Shaytan only commands you to evil and sin.’

Movie Violence & Indecency

• Media violence has increased in quantity. It has become more graphic, more sexual, and more sadistic.
• Violence in the Media affects children.
• In the time of the Nazis, they used cartoons for their propaganda. Some people realized how effective cartoons were in sending propaganda messages. But since the word had a negative connotation from the Nazis, they changed it to Public relations - PR. So PR firms are actually propaganda companies. 
• And Disney is part of this. One of the guys that did cartoons for Disney, on Facebook he has for his occupation - defiler of children. 
• A lot of the producers are people who hate religion. Matt Groening for example hates religion and authority. Then we get children that watch these and start having these attitudes in schools. There are teachers that are genuinely afraid of some students. In The Simpsons cartoon, Bart is shown squeezing his father’s neck. The level of violence in Saturday morning cartoons is higher than the shows at night. 
• FTC reported that 80% of R rated movies are marketed to kids under 8 years old.
• 2 out of 3 hollywood films released in 2001 were rated R.
• By the age of 18, they will have witnessed 200,000 acts of violence and 16,000 murders. 
• This violence makes it hard for kids to distinguish between fantasy and reality. Kids under 8 cannot tell the difference between real life and fantasy.

TV violence & Indecency

• If you look at TV, it is increasingly graphic and violent.
• Kids who watch a lot of TV have stunted brain growth.
• People are increasingly in worlds that are not shared - private worlds, wearing ear plugs, so they have very few shared experiences.
• People have developed a taste of violence.
• The average time spent watching TV is 5 hours.
• 99% of households posses a TV in the US.
• There are 2.24 average TV’s in a house.
• It used to be that the family would get together and watch Leave it to Beaver as a family. How did we go from that to Beevis and Butthead? 
• One kid in his room watching porn. Another kid playing games. Husband watching TV, if there is a husband.
• 56% of Americans pay for cable TV. 34 hours a week on average for adults. 24 hours per week for children aged 2-11. It is a low grade addiction.
• 54% of 4-6 year olds, when asked whether they wanted to watch TV or spend time with their father, preferred the TV.
• I guarantee you that there are people who used to visit their family members and now they sit home watching TV. 
• 16,000 TV commercials are seen in a year by the average child. 
• The people that make these commercials have 6 figure salaries. They use the most advanced technology, they have phD’s in psychology, they do studies on pupils, the effect of color schemes, they use sensors on hand and body to study the changes. They spend billions of dollars on this. 

Music Violence & Indecency

• Teenagers listen to 2.5 hours of music a day. 
• The lyrics are very easy to memorize.
• They are learning foul lyrics.
• 1 in 3 popular songs contain explicit references to drug or alcohol use.
• Illicit substances (drugs, alcohol) are references 35 times per hour. 
• A child will hear a reference to illicit substances 30,000 times a year.
• 77% reference to illicit substances in Rap music. 
• Let’s look at the popular band One Direction. They even have a Muslim in there to get the Muslims into it. Muslim girls are being greatly affected by these lyrics.
• Look at the lyrics: ‘Let’s go, crazy crazy crazy till we see the sun. I know we only met but let’s pretend it’s love. And never never never stop for anyone. Tonight let’s get some and live while we’re young. wowoowowowo. Tonight let’s get some.’ 
• And millions of kids are memorizing these lyrics.

Video Game Violence & Indecency

• Effect of Video Games: Obesity, decrease in empathy, physical fights, poor grades, damaged property, violence.
• 70% of restricted games are marketed to kids under 8 years old.
• The average age of game players is 35 - adults should be doing what adults do. Life is not about dancing in the streets. What is going on in this planet? What kind of a world do we live in?
• Physical fights: 40% of females who play video games get into physical fights verses 14% of females who do not. 51% of males who play video games get into physical fights verse 28%. 
• 89% of the content in video games is violent.
• In the game Grand Theft Auto 3 - there are sexual themes, murder, stealing, and you get points for running over an old lady carrying groceries. What is that teaching kids? 
• 300 million have bought this game in the US. 800 million worldwide in sales. It is a 12 billion dollar industry that is very powerful. Parents are not checking the age ratings.
• The boy that committed the Sandy Hook school shooting - he was addicted to violent games. He spent hours everyday on the computer. It was a concern of his mother too. He lived in a basement in a darkened room.
• One of the signs of the end of times is that ‘you will see children filled with rage’. 
• Go home tonight, and encourage your children to get a hammer and smash the games, bribe them if you have to. It is one less demon in the world.

Internet Indecency

• A very serious problem is pornography on the internet. 
• The Middle Eastern countries have higher porn searches than the US. and higher Youtube viewings than the US. 
• Porn websites make up 12% of all websites. 
• It destroys the heart and takes you farther away from Allah.
• It has horrible effects on spiritual life.
• Neurologists have found that long term porn use re-wires the brain. 
• People start to have homosexual tendencies and end up as pedophiles.
• Pedophiles are everywhere in Hollywood. They are very sick people, and they are making the films that we are watching and our kids are watching. These are not family people.
• If you look out there at what is happening to us, you will see the correlation. The increase in internet use coupled with the decline in religion. 

The Satanic Religion

• In the late 14th century, the book Kitab Al Burhan - Book of Wonders - depicts the devil. The Church of Satan adopted this image as their symbol - they named him Baphomet. He has horns, and is crossing his arms and pointing his fingers in a certain way.
• If you look at some of Madonna’s pictures, Lady Gaga, Disney film Maleficent - you will see the exact resemblance to this devil. 
• The way the fingers are pointed - it is a common symbol done in rock concerts.
• This all comes out of Satanism, which is a recognized religion in the US, they even have churches.
• Many of the people in Hollywood are involved in this religion. 
• One of the Occult leaders is Aleister Crowley. He encouraged the Beetles, Led Zeppelin, and John Lenin to learn how to speak backward so they could use reverse lyrics in their records. Talking backward is the language of the demons. 
• Anton LaVey is the founder of the Church of Satan and author of The Satanic Bible and The Devil’s Notebook. In it he says “The birth of TV was a magical event foreshadowing its satanic significance. The first commercial broadcast was aired on April 30th, 1939, at the New York World's Fair. Since then, TV's infiltration has been so gradual, so complete that no one even noticed. People don't need to go to church any more; they get their morality plays on television.” He also says that TV has become, in effect, the major religion of the masses, even calling the television set the Satanic family altar. He says he sees television as the major mainstream infiltration of the new Satanic religion.
• Marilyn Manson is a minister in this church of satan. Manson had thousands of youth renounce God in concerts and embrace the devil. He named himself after Marilyn Monroe and Charles Manson. 

Don’t get depressed

• Don't get depressed by this. Satan has declared war on us. He has weapons he has never had before. We have to take this seriously. This is a war on the mind. Be serious about your life. I am worried. But satan wants to put depression in your hearts. 
• We are a people of real joy- joy with Allah, joy with our prayers. Most of us are in good circumstances and we should be happy about this. We should feel grateful for what we have. 
• My point is not to depress people. I am not here to judge and I am not judging anyone here. I am judging the demons. These people are wolves in sheep's clothing. They have a false light. 
• Don't add yourself to the list of shaytan's victims. He wants to fill you with depression. You are good people. You women are good women and you men are good men. That's why you are here. It's a blessing for us to be here. 
• But we have real serious problems. So we have to take this war seriously and educate ourselves. 
• Allah says ‘O ye who believe! Save yourselves and your families from a Fire’ (66:6) You have to save yourself first so you can save your children.

Q&A 

q: How can I end my addiction to movies. 

Imam Zaid: First you have to want to stop. If you want to stop, you will stop. If you want to stop: don’t buy another DVD, cancel your Netflix, get rid of Hulu or whatever you plug into the TV, cancel your subscriptions. Start reading books, playing with your children, going to the gym, put yourself in the company of people who don’t do it, hang out with them and go out with them. Hadith: a person will be on the religion of their friend. The people in the shows, movies, games, music, videos - if these are your friends, then you will be on the religion of these people.