However, a more egregious deceit in the story is revealed as it unfolds. Rather than being a tale of a man who is transformed instantly into a beacon of faith due to a life-threatening illness, the conversion actually took more than twenty years to take effect. It began with questions about why he survived after waking from a month-long coma induced by the aneurysm.<\/p>\n
“That question started Shamsi-Basha on a 20-year journey that he says led him to Jesus Christ. He began reading the Bible and was baptized in 1996, but he says it took another 10 years of challenges — including a divorce, his father\u2019s death and becoming homeless — before he fully accepted becoming a Christian.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
So contrary to Fox’s portrayal of this incident as a miracle enacted by the waving of a magic wand over some poor soul, it is actually a story that has almost nothing to do with the illness from two decades prior, and more the result of relentless and prolonged hardship that is often the inspiration for people to grasp onto the notion of a higher power in their desperation for relief and peace of mind.<\/p>\n
Regardless of what one chooses to believe about this man’s experience and spiritual conversion, it is pathetic (though typical) that Fox decided to exploit the story and present it in such a deliberately misleading fashion. It is further evidence that Fox is more interested in acting as missionaries than as journalists. And since the subject of this article has also written a book about his journey, Fox also gets an opportunity to practice its other religion: the holy sacrament of commerce.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Over the years Fox News has been properly criticized for its brazen political partisanship, rabid anti-Obama crusading, and support for a far-right, corporate-friendly, Tea Party agenda, but less has been mentioned about their religious bias for Christianity and open proselytizing. Sure, we all remember the annual “War on Christmas” campaigns and the efforts to discriminate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Faux Miracle From Fox News: Christian Brain Defect Saves Muslim Man?","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1,698],"tags":[33],"class_list":["post-10639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-religion","tag-fox-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-2LB","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13633,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=13633","url_meta":{"origin":10639,"position":0},"title":"Fox News Celebrates Supreme Court Decision Upholding Christian Theocracy","author":"Mark NC","date":"5\/5\/2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America includes a stipulation that the government \"shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.\" The legal interpretation of that clause, with more than 200 years of precedence, holds that proceedings of official bodies of government may not\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Fox News Theocracy","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnews-theocracy.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnews-theocracy.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnews-theocracy.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":19962,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=19962","url_meta":{"origin":10639,"position":1},"title":"On Fox News: Religious Intolerance Is An Atrocity Unless It’s Practiced By Christians","author":"Mark NC","date":"7\/26\/2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Last week Megyn Kelly of Fox News featured a segment that was crammed full of outrage over the bigotry demonstrated by the extremist ISIS brigade that is terrorizing much of Iraq. As ISIS marches through the nation that was fatally destabilized by George W. Bush and his confederacy of liars,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Fox News","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnews-convert-christians.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnews-convert-christians.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnews-convert-christians.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":10243,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=10243","url_meta":{"origin":10639,"position":2},"title":"Fox News Presents: Islamophobia On Parade","author":"Mark NC","date":"7\/28\/2013","format":false,"excerpt":"For years Fox News has been the central clearinghouse for bigoted attacks on the Islamic faith. They have featured anchors and guests who assert that all Muslims are terrorists. They openly oppose freedom of religion when it is Muslims who are seeking it (remember the Ground Zero Mosque?). They virulently\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6198,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=6198","url_meta":{"origin":10639,"position":3},"title":"Religious Extremists Are Indoctrinating Our Children","author":"Mark NC","date":"1\/16\/2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Over the weekend there was a horrifying display of propaganda broadcast into the homes of unsuspecting football fans. It was disguised as an advertisement and brazenly exploited young children in pursuit of an evil plot to brainwash America with the demonic dogma of a foreign, middle-eastern religious cult. Just watch\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":55051,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=55051","url_meta":{"origin":10639,"position":4},"title":"Alex Jones Joins Trump and Fox News in Exalting Putin for Becoming More … Christian?","author":"Mark NC","date":"10\/11\/2022","format":false,"excerpt":"It takes real chutzpah for Alex Jones to continue to present himself to the public after having been ordered to pay nearly $50 million to some of the families of the children murdered in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre that he said never happened. He accused the families -\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Fox News, Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnews-carlson-jones.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnews-carlson-jones.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnews-carlson-jones.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":29729,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=29729","url_meta":{"origin":10639,"position":5},"title":"Bill O’Reilly Opposes Theocracy – Except For America And Christians","author":"Mark NC","date":"9\/24\/2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The dean of Fox News hypocrites has once again demonstrated why he is so revered for his ability to be oblivious to his own self-contradictions. Bill O'Reilly is notorious for his blustery argumentativeness and shallow grasp of substance. But he truly excels at making ludicrous statements that are often at\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Bill O'Reilly","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/oreilly-no-idea1-e1452118927184.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10639"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10639\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10643,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10639\/revisions\/10643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Fox](\"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/Pix\/FoxNews\/fox-news-pray-250.jpg\")
Sure, we all remember the annual “War on Christmas”<\/em> campaigns and the efforts to discriminate against Muslims who have the effrontery to want to build mosques so that they can practice their religion as the Constitution guarantees. But little notice has been paid to the increasingly televangelical tone of Fox’s programming. More and more, Fox broadcasts stories whose only purpose is to shore up faith in Christianity.<\/p>\n