Thursday, January 8, 2009
Religion / Media Define "Cover Religion With Balance"
Posted by Dan Savage on Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 2:10 PM
If they mean "provide some balance to the credulity with which religious issues are usually covered" then—hey!—my work on "Youth Pastor Watch" is a shoo-in for an RNA Award. It's like a dream come true! Quick! Someone nominate me!
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2
Providing us links to reporting by others is not journalism. You're a walking, talking Google Alert.
And yeah, I know, I'm taking your post too literally.
And yeah, I know, I'm taking your post too literally.
3
I put those reporters in context, Niro, and that's very, very important. Connection the dots, seeing the patterns, following the money...
5
Savage, if you got past your knee-jerk reaction to all things with the word "religion" and learned about the RNA, you'd see that if you WERE serious about covering religion, not just pontificating and baiting, the RNA would seriously consider giving you an award.
8
Dan,
I was going to nominate you, but then I looked at the entry form and realized that it wants your credit card # and a $25 fee. And you're good, but my $$$ is going to have to go toward something else (espresso? a robotic vaccum?) instead.
I was going to nominate you, but then I looked at the entry form and realized that it wants your credit card # and a $25 fee. And you're good, but my $$$ is going to have to go toward something else (espresso? a robotic vaccum?) instead.
9
Zeno, if you think that about me from that comment, I fear you are the one who drank the Kool-Aid. If you or Dan were to bother to check out the RNA, you'd see that it stands for real coverage - what "balanced" meant before FOX and their friends co-opted the word. The board is filled with highly respected journalists, not just columnists-turned-wanna-be-editors at weekly papers who confuse notoriety with integrity.
10
Religion is a broad and complex category of human behaviors and social structures that goes far beyond the bigoted right-wing assholery that passes for Christianity in the United States today. Consider Tibetan Buddhism, which guides its practitioners in the ego-releasing acceptance of death as a natural part of life. Or the native religions of the American Plains, which taught the original inhabitants of this continent that their survival was dependent on their cautious reverence for the delicate ecosystem in which they lived. Or even the liberation theology wing within Christianity that seeks to emphasize the triumph of the human spirit over even the most devastating hardships.
Christian fundamentalists in America today have done everything in their power to narrow our discourse to a very narrow definition of religion, one that requires everyone to believe the same mythological story LITERALLY happened or else be subjected to the fires of Hell. The problem with Dan's attitude about religion is that it plays right into the fundamentalists' hands, allowing them to envision themselves in a black-and-white battle between "religionists" and "non-religionists" instead of the much more complex and nuanced story that is reality.
Remember that "atheism" is a belief system with cultural assumptions just like any other religion. Religions are a fundamental condition of the human experience. Pretending that fact away only exacerbates the very real problems caused by living in denial. Being able to assess our belief systems truthfully and honestly is crucial to moving beyond our current state of cultural crisis.
Christian fundamentalists in America today have done everything in their power to narrow our discourse to a very narrow definition of religion, one that requires everyone to believe the same mythological story LITERALLY happened or else be subjected to the fires of Hell. The problem with Dan's attitude about religion is that it plays right into the fundamentalists' hands, allowing them to envision themselves in a black-and-white battle between "religionists" and "non-religionists" instead of the much more complex and nuanced story that is reality.
Remember that "atheism" is a belief system with cultural assumptions just like any other religion. Religions are a fundamental condition of the human experience. Pretending that fact away only exacerbates the very real problems caused by living in denial. Being able to assess our belief systems truthfully and honestly is crucial to moving beyond our current state of cultural crisis.
14
Don't sell yourself short, Dan.
When it comes to shilling for the Godless humanistic hedonist Homosexual religion you can go toe to toe with the best of them in the credulity department.
When it comes to shilling for the Godless humanistic hedonist Homosexual religion you can go toe to toe with the best of them in the credulity department.
15
@11 and 14: I actually think Dan does a good job of representing a sane political voice for homosexuals in America. Did you see that moment on Anderson Cooper when Dan said to/about right-wing shitbag Tony Perkins from the Family Research Council, "I hope Tony Perkins doesn't pray to Jesus with that mouth, because he bears false witness against his gay neighbors." That was a glorious moment because it represented Dan's ability to use Christian theology AGAINST a hypocrite. I think Dan clearly has it in him to develop a sensitive and nuanced understanding of religion that would make him even more formidable in those kinds of situations, but that he's been persecuted by Christians for so long that he is unable to see beyond his own emotional reaction to the idea of religion.
I was talking last night with a guy who has spent time in the middle east as a photojournalist, and he was talking about how the Taliban uses Islam (combined with poverty and perennially shitty prospects) to recruit young fighters. It's easy to say "Islam is wrong" or "Islam is dumb," but it doesn't make one iota of effort toward understanding the complex political, social, intellectual, cultural and emotional currents at play in the situation, which I believe we need to have in order to chart the most effective course.
I generally agree with The Stranger's political coverage (I print out your cheat sheets and I consider gay rights to be one of the greatest civil rights issue of our day), but I think the superficiality of your understanding of religion is the single greatest weakness of the paper. If things keep going the way they look like they're going, The Stranger may just be Seattle's only newspaper before long! At that point I think you'll have a social obligation to listen to voices that disagree with your preconceived notions.
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I was talking last night with a guy who has spent time in the middle east as a photojournalist, and he was talking about how the Taliban uses Islam (combined with poverty and perennially shitty prospects) to recruit young fighters. It's easy to say "Islam is wrong" or "Islam is dumb," but it doesn't make one iota of effort toward understanding the complex political, social, intellectual, cultural and emotional currents at play in the situation, which I believe we need to have in order to chart the most effective course.
I generally agree with The Stranger's political coverage (I print out your cheat sheets and I consider gay rights to be one of the greatest civil rights issue of our day), but I think the superficiality of your understanding of religion is the single greatest weakness of the paper. If things keep going the way they look like they're going, The Stranger may just be Seattle's only newspaper before long! At that point I think you'll have a social obligation to listen to voices that disagree with your preconceived notions.
16
Emily, why don't you just read your church's news letter like a good little Jim Jones monkey and leave the stranger alone!
17
@ 16, I get a sense that you are trying to be funny, but I will answer you seriously because I take this issue seriously.
I don't personally attend a church or adhere to a specific religious tradition. I do, however, understand that there are a variety of possible expressions of non-pathological religious behavior. Unlike fundamentalist Christians and the so-called "new atheists" like Richard Dawkins, I don't think that everyone has to believe exactly the same thing as me in order to have a valid point of view.
Not all religions rely on a literal belief in fairy tale-like supernatural elements. I would refer once again to the kind of Buddhism outlined in the Tibetan Bardo Thodol which acknowledges the capacity of the human mind to subjectively experience things like "demons," but teaches its followers how to recognize those experiences as being projections of fear and other negative elements of the human psyche. Recognizing "demons" as a projection of self neutralizes them and takes away their power. Contrast this with the Christian view that "good" and "evil" are somehow opposite forces and that they exist independently of human perception, and you begin to see how Christian theology becomes a recipe for violence and bigotry.
I don't personally attend a church or adhere to a specific religious tradition. I do, however, understand that there are a variety of possible expressions of non-pathological religious behavior. Unlike fundamentalist Christians and the so-called "new atheists" like Richard Dawkins, I don't think that everyone has to believe exactly the same thing as me in order to have a valid point of view.
Not all religions rely on a literal belief in fairy tale-like supernatural elements. I would refer once again to the kind of Buddhism outlined in the Tibetan Bardo Thodol which acknowledges the capacity of the human mind to subjectively experience things like "demons," but teaches its followers how to recognize those experiences as being projections of fear and other negative elements of the human psyche. Recognizing "demons" as a projection of self neutralizes them and takes away their power. Contrast this with the Christian view that "good" and "evil" are somehow opposite forces and that they exist independently of human perception, and you begin to see how Christian theology becomes a recipe for violence and bigotry.
18
Emily's right. Religion doesn't go away because you can make fun of it, or because you antagonize its adherents, or because its adherents practice all manner of bigotry and hypocrisy and criminal behavior, or because you have stopped believing in it. Religious experience is a fundamental aspect of human psychology, and either we learn to deal with it rationally, or we continue to fall prey to its traps. And yes, the Stranger has a very typical adolescent knee-jerk reaction to all things religious, which cripples their ability to provide nuanced analysis of how religion shapes our society and what we can do about it (besides becoming the token opposition monkeys that the religious right want us to be).
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