Ok, first off, total newb to home theater, so bear with me. I am setting up my Samsung LCD 850 model, Sony Blu-Ray deck with an Onkyo HT-S7100 home theater system. My question is is there a way to set up the system so that for normal TV viewing, the receiver does not need be used? Everything passes thru the receiver via HDMI out to the TV.... Thanks!

Can you define normal TV viewing? Do you mean watching regular cable, satellite or OTA broadcast?

You might have to toggle an audio out option on your cable box to do so.
On mine, I have HDMI out to TV, but Digital out for audio to the receiver.
So the audio setting on the Cable box is set to "digital out".
If I wanted to watch and hear TV without the receiver on, I just toggle the audio out from "digital" to "HDMI".

Just like altpensacola said. Go into the setting menu > audio > then to the sound input/output