Are We Really Trying?
Do pundits really "get" any religion outside their own?
We shouldn't be surprised that we battle so hard over the meanings of Islam when this happens. Called "Chronology of the mainstream media's religious ignorance," blogger Eric Sammons summarizes recent events quite tellingly:
Step 1: Confession iPhone app released to help Catholics prepare for confession.
Step 2: Catholic media accurately reports about the app.
Step 3: Secular media picks up story and screws it up, claiming the app proposes to replace confession, with headlines like “Confess via your iPhone and be app-solved of sin”
Step 4: Vatican reminds everyone that absolution cannot be given via an iPhone.
Step 5: Secular media continues in their ignorance, stating, “Vatican bans iPhone ‘God app’”
It sometimes makes you wonder if they are even trying…
Agreed. Does anyone really try to "get" another religion? Or are we too colored by prejudice and/or our own beliefs?
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May '10
Re: Are We Really Trying?
I agree that few in the media even so much as try to "get" Christianity. Lots try (and usually fail) to "get" Islam, Buddhism and other religions.
Among serious people, there are many who really do try their best to grasp the essentials of others' religions. If you don't believe in it yourself, it's impossible to "get" it the way a believer does, but it's not impossible to be fair and accurate in analyzing its teachings and practices.
May '10
Re: Are We Really Trying?
In not just religious discussions, but in any discussion, I wonder if communication has become too David Letterman-esque-- we attempt such irony and cleverness at every turn at the expense of actual communication, like it's somehow embarrassing or square to speak in a non-ironic voice.
Dec '10
Re: Are We Really Trying?
*shrugs* lazy journalist are lazy. I don't think religion has anything to do with it. Its a matter of culture or rather subculture. I mean just think about every time you see a subculture you belong to misrepresented in the media and reflect for a moment that you are not unique in that regard. Everyone's subculture is distorted by the media both as a result of laziness and a desire to sell. To me this incident is no different then the media called Grand Theft Auto a murder sim or clamming the Final Fantasy 7 lead to a school shooting.
Re: Are We Really Trying?
Yes, Katie, there certainly should be a distinction between willful or lazy ignorance (as in the above example) and just a "missing the point" kind of ignorance that may or may not be based in a genuine openness to learning.
For anyone who is serious about any religion, it seems near impossible that one could fully and accurately "analyze [another's] teachings and practices" without trying it for a while. Analysis requires some compare and contrast, too, doesn't it? I say this not in any judgement of those who try with the best possible motives, but simply as someone who couldn't possibly suspend my own religious beliefs to really, truly be "objective" about another's.
I also make a distinction between reporting facts and/or believers' actions/words and a kind of religious "punditry" which seems odd, at the very least.
Nov '10
Re: Are We Really Trying?
The secular media wants to paint Christianity as a constructed religion. So, any opportunity they can to make it seem like we are still trying to figure it out, to make it up, to adjust it to the times, they will use. Unbelievers will see it as confirmation of why they've rejected "organized religion."
Having said that, if you turn confession into some kind of clinical experience that requires rituals (sorry, traditions) in order to receive absolution, you are inviting the criticism. I don't read anything in the bible that prescribes a certain prayer to be said to a certain person, followed by certain other prayers to be said so many times. My first confession as a former Catholic I was a nervous wreck. On the way up to the priest I dropped the little book they give you, and all the other kids snickered at me. I can tell you, seeking God was furthest from my mind. Confession is a matter of the heart, between you and God, and turning it into a ritual that you have to do just so perpetuates the idea that the religion is constructed.
May '10
Re: Are We Really Trying?
One of my pet peeves (I'm like the crazy cat lady, except with peeves; the apartment's crawling with them) is journalists who are paid to give opinions and say things like "what you must understand is that Iran is Shia and al Qaeda is Sunni." Which means precisely nothing, but they're counting on that little factoid to convince the audience that they're really super-smart.
May '10
Re: Are We Really Trying?
I don't find religious punditry at all odd, though it's extremely difficult to do it well. I think it can only be done well by a genuinely religious person. But I disagree that you have to "try on" another religion in order to understand it and write about it.
Great novelists do it all the time--I mean, put themselves imaginatively into a character's religion in such a way that convey its essence convincingly.
Mark Twain's Joan of Arc and Frank Werfel's The Song of Bernadette are two instances of non-believers portraying Catholic faith in a way that Catholics can recognize, endorse, and even learn from. Both books deepened my faith.
I am not a Hindu and have never been to India, but Rudyard Kipling and Rumer Godden, among others, have helped me feel my way imaginatively and sympathetically into that faith and that world view.
Rudolf Otto, William James, and Martin Buber are all non-Catholic philosophers of religion who have taught me much that is profoundly true about my own religion.
I've learned a lot about Islam from reading memoirs and other things.
May '10
Re: Are We Really Trying?
Ursula Hennessey
For anyone who is serious about any religion, it seems near impossible that one could fully and accurately "analyze [another's] teachings and practices" without trying it for a while. Analysis requires some compare and contrast, too, doesn't it?
Does one need to become a liberal in order to "compare and contrast" it with conservatism?
Would you not agree that there are many conservatives who understand liberalism as well or better than your average liberal?
Re: Are We Really Trying?
katievs: ...
Great novelists do it all the time--I mean, put themselves imaginatively into a character's religion in such a way that convey its essence convincingly.
All great points, Katie. We can agree to disagree on the "odd" part.
Do you think an atheist can do it well? Or does one have to understand *a* faith to understand any faith, do you think?
Perhaps, through art, one can approach the true meaning of religion in a way that is more honest/accurate than something that attempts to lay out an argument for or against a religion or an element of a religion. In such cases, the words lack the thought and time meant to spend with or around something. Novelists, perhaps, are more open to allowing impressions and feelings and the passage of time to shape their words. More in the "spirit," if you will.
Re: Are We Really Trying?
katievs
Ursula Hennessey
For anyone who is serious about any religion, it seems near impossible that one could fully and accurately "analyze [another's] teachings and practices" without trying it for a while. Analysis requires some compare and contrast, too, doesn't it?
Does one need to become a liberal in order to "compare and contrast" it with conservatism?
Would you not agree that there are many conservatives who understand liberalism as well or better than your average liberal? · Feb 10 at 6:39am
Actually, I do think words fail in most cases, in trying to define liberalism and conservatism, either from within or from the other side. It is perhaps not as mystical as religion, but still very difficult to get correct with language alone.
May '10
Re: Are We Really Trying?
Definitions fail much more often than words.
Re: Are We Really Trying?
All arguments/essays/articles generally assume or present certain definitions as part of the setup or intro.
Jan '11
Re: Are We Really Trying?
The same dilemma occurs in language. (cf Wittgenstein, Quine). You simply need a critical mass of experience in order to reliably navigate through it.
Quine tells the famous story of the linguist who followed a tribe on the hunt. They came to a clearing, in the middle of which was a rabbit. The tribesmen whispered to each other, "gavagai." The linguist wrote down in his journal, "gavagai = rabbit." But later, they came to another clearing with a different animal, and the tribesmen also whispered the same word: gavagai. Only then did the linguist realize that gavagai could have meant "breakfast" or "animal" or "target," etc.
Some systems like culture, language, religion, etc. require a host of assumptions functioning in the subconscious that steer the brain toward the correct interpretation at any given time. Amateurs stumble on alien systems and they make the associations that their own system makes, without realizing that different systems make different associations.
Jun '10
Re: Are We Really Trying?
I agree with katievs that one does not need to try on a religion to understand it to some degree. I do not need to "try on" Islam to know that I do not want to be part of it.
That being said, during my conversion to the Greek Orthodox faith a coworker asked me why I was changing religions. I was active in my Protestant church at the time. I corrected her, that I was not changing religions only denominations. However, it didn't take long after my baptism into the Orthodox Church to realize that she had been correct. Profound differences were not visible from my earlier perspective, although I was preparing to invest my life in the Church.
Often, however, people really do not make any effort to understand. I've heard priests say things such as "Protestant churches don't have crosses on them." A drive through just about any town will prove them wrong.
I appreciated the reference to Rumer Godden. Her conversion to Catholicism helped me in my decision to convert from Protestantism. I read her biography, after having read much of her fiction, during that time.
Oct '10
Re: Are We Really Trying?
Although some of this may be written off as journalistic laziness, journalists seem to be consistently lazy in one direction. They'll lazily belittle religious people as hypocritical, intolerant, close-minded, etc. In this case, the headline of the misguided article says that you can confess via your iPhone, but the last paragraph of the same article states that the app "is not intended to replace confession..." The same paper follows up with a headline painting the Vatican as dictatorial (the headline could have been, Vatican Clarifies use of iPhone in Confession), when that same paper already said that the iPhone could not be used for confession. To cover their mistake the paper finds it easy to portray the Catholic Church as rigidly autocratic. What bothers me is the media's ease in lazily portraying certain religions in a negative light while overlooking the short-comings of others.
May '10
Re: Are We Really Trying?
Journalists are not lazy. They are just willfully ignorant. Specialty comes after the fact when editors assign a reporter to a beat.
"Susan, I've decided to make you our religion beat writer."
"Bob, am an atheist. I know nothing about religion."
"That's alright. You can Google it. And by the way, Archbishop Dolan is giving a speech tonight at 7 at Catholic University. I'll need about 700 words of thoughtful coverage and commentary by 10:30 if we're going to make the first press run."
By the time a journalist really figures out what he's covering, it's time to move them up or out.
May '10
Re: Are We Really Trying?
All the points regarding the journalism profession and attitudes toward religion, much less Catholicism are apt. But I am also just struck by the inanity of the app in the first place.
Yesterday I read about a foundation giving additional funding to an app intended to prevent students from dropping out of school. It doesn't get much lazier than that.
May '10
Re: Are We Really Trying?
I expect one can understand another worldview about as well as one can understand the opposite sex. One doesn't need to devote ones life to study to get a basic understanding, but the nuances are never fully grasped.
As with any subject, sources make a big difference. All religions and worldviews are misunderstood even by many adherents. A Hindu of the Brahmin (priest) caste from Indonesia once told me that most Hindus don't realize that their many "gods" are actually various manifestations of one God (less like the Christian concept of the Trinity and more like avatars). Other Hindus would dispute that, no doubt.
After studying Confucianism in college, Christianity strikes me as a blend of Western and Eastern concepts; truly catholic.
This is the most common criticism of the Catholic ritual of confession / reconciliation.
The reason the priest is involved is because he acts as both Christ and a member of the community. We believe that every sin is an offense against not only God but our fellow human beings, because it separates us from both. So we apologize and make amends to both.
May '10
Re: Are We Really Trying?
One of the key principles of the school of philosophy I studied in (phenomenological realism) was that definitions often interfere with apprehension, by causing the mind to deal with a concept rather than a real thing.
Husserl coined the motto of phenomenology: "Back to things in themselves".
Some realities are too rich and deep and fundamental to lend themselves to handy definitions. But we can analyze and intelligently discuss such things, even without being able to capture their essence in a definition.
Take love. I can say, "One who love desires good for his beloved." In so saying, I have gotten at a true, important feature of love--one that sets it off from other things that are sometimes confused with love. But I haven't offered a definition. And if I offer it as a proposition, I want my interlocutor (who is evaluating its truth) to compare against the reality of love, not a definition of love.
Do you see what I mean?
Oct '10
Re: Are We Really Trying?
I don't even know where to start with this. If you're not Catholic, or haven't been properly educated on the sacrament of reconciliation, then your understanding of it being merely a "ritual" makes sense. It's incredibly wrong but it makes sense. Short version: confessing privately to God is not on par with receiving the sacrament. The Catholic Encyclopedia does a thorough job of explaining it but the first section will cover the basics if you're pressed for time.
As for the media - I'm not surprised they get it wrong because Catholics themselves generally don't demonstrate even a nodding acquaintance with their own faith - outside of the nuts and bolts of the mass, anyway. (For the record I include myself in that category although I am making an effort.)