Religious leanings
1 June 2007 by vastleft
Media Matters studied how much MSM coverage is devoted to conservative vs. liberal religious leaders. The results are striking:
- Combining newspapers and television, conservative religious leaders were quoted, mentioned, or interviewed in news stories 2.8 times as often as were progressive religious leaders.
- On television news — the three major television networks, the three major cable news channels, and PBS — conservative religious leaders were quoted, mentioned, or interviewed almost 3.8 times as often as progressive leaders.
- In major newspapers, conservative religious leaders were quoted, mentioned, or interviewed 2.7 times as often as progressive leaders.
While this typist is no fan of organized religion, I’m very glad to see such studies conducted.
The main reason why religiosity has become so disturbing in America of late is that the Falwells, Robertsons, Dobsons, and Haggards have had a political bully pulpit that makes them the seemingly official voice of all Americans who consider themselves Christians. It’s been their way or the highway to Hell, if you get your news and punditry from mainstream sources.
Sure, I roll my eyes a bit when I see Al Gore in his wonderful pro-reason book (full report coming soon) avow, “I consider Jesus to be my Savior…” (p.59). And I wince whenever I see anyone, say, indoctrinate their children into religion or use it to justify an IED attack.
But there is a world of difference between progressives like Gore and the authoritarian, fundamentalist Christianists of the Grand Old Party.
In today’s media narratives, the Al Gores, John Kerrys, John Edwardses, and Jimmy Carters aren’t considered true Christians, true patriots, true Americans, or true anything else. Those who self-identify as religious are told in numerous ways that those statesmen are strictly trayf.
Why? Because today’s mass-market brand of religion is not the “love-thy-neighbor” variety. It’s simply a platform for the haters and featherbedders to ride Jesus’ coattails into positions of power, so they can feed the meek to the mighty, leaving us little recourse but to mix metaphors in disbelief (and in disbelief).
People who are smart enough to know the difference between religion and reality are smart enough to know the difference between people whose faith is a relatively benign foible and those for whom it’s a free pass to unbridled and unholy power.
The last two presidential elections don’t speak well for our God-fearing fellow-citizens’ ability to make this distinction. The media, of course, have played a huge role, by reflexively waving the nastier end of the religious stick on our TV screens and front pages, ushering in a sanctimonious cronyocracy that considers “reality-based” to be a pejorative.
It is a certainty that our next president will be a “person of faith.” Will the American public choose the candidate who wears that (for some) reassuring label most ostentatiously… or the one who most deserves our faith?
(via)
1 June 2007, on 7:14 pm
The media must tahe a lot of the blame. A second factor: fundies have much, much bigger mouths.
1 June 2007, on 8:09 pm
OV,
Excellent point. The hellfire-and-brimstone types have several advantages when it comes to media coverage. Their cartoonish positions make for colorful TV and press quotes than you get with more nuanced types, they’re publicity hogs by nature, and their angry voices of “rectitude” and threats of boycotts and such are intimidating to the spineless media.
1 June 2007, on 8:14 pm
Another distinction worth noting is between the Al Gores and Jimmy Carters, who are outspoken about the excesses of the religious right, and those like Barack Obama and Joe Biden, who would gladly tear down the separation of church and state in a pathetic grab for votes.
1 June 2007, on 8:37 pm
As far as I can remember, Carter was the only “christian” president who actually bothered to live anything like a “christian.”
And our standard lying, power-mad, mass-murdering “christian” conservatives have been shitting all over the man ever since. Nothing makes the fakirs more angry than getting beat at their own game by someone who actually plays by the rules.
That said, FUCK THE RELIGIOUS! It is time for secularists to start running for public office on the merits of rationalism and secularism. Many millions of people just wish the jesus-jumpers would shut the fuck up and let people do their jobs, and there is a growing discontent among the more liberal believers as well.
Over the last few years, most of the criticisms of America have been coming not from anti-war protesters, not from victimized gays, not from marginalized greens, but from spoiled brat conservative christians who still haven’t realized that their share of the American pie isn’t going to get much bigger. They are like thieves who try to call the police when their victims reclaim the loot. So they scream ever louder and herd the sheeple to their advantage whenever possible. What else can they do? It’s been thirty years or more since any educated, responsible, thinking adult has wanted anything to do with them.
1 June 2007, on 8:41 pm
What pisses me off most is the way the loud mouthed uberfundies, when faced with logical arguments counter to their own, then cry “foul!” and claim they’re being oppressed.
You can’t be oppressed, assholes, when you’re the dominant paradigm!
1 June 2007, on 9:56 pm
Guys, off topic… this is Martian from the “Martian Anthropologist”. As you all know, I’ve grown weary of that political/religious blog and am just posting on my personal one.
However, if you remember, I posted a $10,000 reward for proof that God exists some time ago. Now I have a wacko that’s written a book. He’s sent it to me in pdf format.
It’s very poorly written but this guy won’t leave me alone.
First of all, whoever is in charge, would you mind if I do an occasional post here at gifs as well?
If you would rather I didn’t, I’d still like someone to post an entry for me on this, and I can upload this to a server so that all can download it.
I’d love for you guys to do a quick scan of the book and get your comments. I bet I could even convert it to an html webpage, and just provide a link that way as well…
Let me know what you think, guys.
Michael (Martian)
1 June 2007, on 10:10 pm
RE: “Because today’s mass-market brand of religion is not the “love-thy-neighbor” variety. It’s simply a platform for the haters and featherbedders to ride Jesus’ coattails into positions of power, so they can feed the meek to the mighty..”
I love that bit.
1 June 2007, on 10:18 pm
Michael, I have sent you an email about your request.
1 June 2007, on 10:56 pm
Thanks beepbeep!
But perhaps I should have said “shroudtails.”
2 June 2007, on 7:51 am
Vastleft hit it and hit it dead center. Falwell, Robertson et al figured out that if you take people who are insecure, have little, crave certainties, and there are elites who treat them with contempt because of their education and economic status, and derision because of their dentition or clothing, or craving for some certainty in the face of living on the edge of both society an large and disaster and you have a pretty good audience if you play it right. Give them a supreme authority, hope for something better, exclusivity, and better yet, devine REVENGE against those “outside” and you have a winner. I heard this in my younger days, I’ve heard it recently. “They” without jesus are out there; corrupt, sinful, unsaved, and willfully so. They turn up their noses at gentle jesus, and it’s wrong. Some of their leaders tell them to do something about it. There’s one way, a difficult narrow path, and YOU are on it. It’s the only one. Pretty heady stuff.
People attracted to power smell that like a steak dinner and come a-runnin’.
2 June 2007, on 1:38 pm
Great post, vastleft!
Yeah…and, perhaps, a bit tangentially…the media has been an almost totally impotent bunch of wimps when it comes to anything of rational substance. When it comes to presenting resistance to any and all of the Jeebus ass kissers, it’s like: “Remember!…Let’s not (seriously) rock the commercial boat!”.
I’ve been noticing that for years now; the media, for the most part, has been letting politicians get away with all their religious ass kissing, and ‘authors’ like Warren (Porpoise Driven Strife), are given SERIOUS consideration on CNN etc., with no substantial rebuttal.
Also…I don’t know how many times the so-called Journalists like Wolf Blitzer, f’rnstance, end up saying “thank Gawd” after a story, for something that was only REALLY solved or implemented due to some poor human doing their job right.
[Actually, I kinda like 'Wolfy' in CNN's "Situation Room"; and Cafferty, a bit more.]
Sarge…
Your comment: ““They” without jesus are out there; corrupt, sinful, unsaved, and willfully so. They turn up their noses at gentle jesus, and it’s wrong.”…reminded me of something completely tangential.
Yeah…”Gentle Jesus”!
Some time ago, here at GifS, we discussed a humorous topic concerning a sort of “bumper sticker revision kit”.
‘You know’…like stick on legs to ‘convert’ a fundie fish into a Darwinian version?
I bring that up, ’cause I was coming into my apartment building a few days ago; and a van was parked by the entrance sidewalk. It was obviously owned by the carpet installers working in the apartment next to mine.
Anyway, amongst several bumper stickers was one on the driver’s side stating: “Real Men Love Jesus”…
Now…unsurprisingly, I start thinking things like: “Oh…those REAL men!”…and of course,in retrospect…”Let’s not let those real GALS off the hook, either?”
I think you guys know where I’m going on this? Yeah…I wish I had (the devious mental wheels grind exceedingly fast?) a kit with ‘ready to stick on’…legs…and words like: “Delusional…Kiss-ass…Horny…Sniff…Fuck…Fucked up…Wanna Fuck…________(you fill in?)”
What’s that?…Of course! YOU do the appropriate ’serendipitous’ configuration?
But, most importantly…don’t get caught!
Oy Vey!
2 June 2007, on 5:02 pm
Sometimes things DO work out like you said, though unintended. My parents were for a time delegates from their church to the Southern Baptist Convention, and one year (I was but a callow lad then) they had some seminars in other places than the main meeting hall, a couple of theaters were used in the town.
We went to one such, and there was a marquee which welcomed the conventioneers of the SBC. They neglected to take down part of the former movie announcement, so under the greeting were the words, “Where The Hot Wind Blows”. Some people were offended, but my father opined that the owner knew what he was talking about.
3 June 2007, on 12:24 am
I agree that the liberal religionists are probably benign and are horrified that Robertson and Dobson “speak” for them.
And I hold the media totally responsible. It’s very convenient for them to book the attention whores, who are guaranteed to keep the ratings up. No one, it seems, wants to watch and/or listen to the Jim Wallises and other pastors the moderate to progressive types – they’re too gentle and low-key (read: boring) for the christo-zombies.
But because the “nice xians” haven’t taken the media to task, or found a way to torpedo the Dobertson-Juggernaut, they, by default, give the fundies a free pass.
As I said to VastLeft in an email about this, the liberal xians serve as a heatsink, dissipating the heat that the fundies should be feeling. And aren’t, because the liberal xians resent criticim of their “faith”. F*cking enablers…
Or, as Neil says in comment#9 on Suffer the little children…:
Well, Neil, now we are. And don’t they just hate it!
3 June 2007, on 1:35 pm
Naomi,
Fundamentally, as it were, I don’t disagree with your heatsink metaphor.
One often encounters progressive religious folk who look askance at our outrage about the way religion has gotten all up in our grille in recent years.
They expect us to respect all religion, rather than joining us in vehemently opposing the most toxic forms of it and in acknowledging how pernicious kneejerk faith in faith so frequently is. Nice folks that they may be, they are part of the problem.
Some, though — notably Al Gore and Jimmy Carter — have been blunt and articulate about the hazards and excesses of the religious right.
While I’d prefer that everyone got off the religion kick entirely, it would be major progress if more people would at least allow a critical eye to be cast upon it and would speak out when they see religion being particularly noxious.
I’ll quote from our e-mail exchange, as well:
“It will be a very healthy thing if more mildly religious types start seeing themselves as very different from the Christianists. Perhaps that’s a gateway step toward them weaning themselves off the hokum entirely.”
3 June 2007, on 3:53 pm
So noted, VastLeft.
Weaning politicians off the need to suck up to the christianists would be a great first step. After all, the FFs decreed “there shall be no litmust test…”, did they not?
3 June 2007, on 9:17 pm
I would like to point out that Jim Wallis might be liberal, but he decries him the seculars just as bad as the hardcore fundies do.
In his book he complains that democrats are too interested in courting the secular vote. One imagines that he holds his nose while typing the word ’s e c u l a r’.
4 June 2007, on 1:22 pm
Hi vastleft, read your article (obviously) and found it very interesting. I am a pastor of a church in PA, so I obviously call myslef a Christian, but I do have to agree with many points you made, particularly about certain fundamentalists and their big mouths. I am very frustrated by those who, as you described, use Christianity to get political power and use their influence as a bully pulpit. It deeply saddens me that this has been most Americans’ exposure to what “Christianity” is. That is why I stand by the expectation Jesus himself placed on anyone who wanted to follow him – basically (and I’m paraphrasing) that our lives must be lived in obedience to his teaching, and that we ought to become more and more like him as time goes by. Sadly, this is the opposite of the lives that so many live that call themselves Christians, particularly those in the public eye. I want to apologize on behalf of all those who have gicen us such a bad name (i.e. being closed-minded, homophobic, labeling atheists as sex-crazed, homosexual pagans who are damned to hell). My hope is that we can indeed have an open, reasonable discussion about our beliefs, as I definitely don’t believe that faith and reason are mutually exclusive. Anyway, that’s enough rambling fir now. If you have any comments or would like to chat about these things, please feel free (as I am the guest here, lol, not you). Thanks
4 June 2007, on 2:17 pm
Aaron, wow…you pastors sure do spend lots of time on the “evil” internet surfing around on atheist sites.
(I also responded to your other comment on another post.)
Aaron, I know you were addressing vastleft, but felt I wanted to jump in here. There is so much more evil to Christianity than you care to admit. If you just read your Bible for what it actually is, and really take notice of the evil and violent parts, and then you may not even be able to follow your religion any longer. Most atheists/agnostics at this site were once Christians and we finally “saw the light” and recognized religion and Christianity for what it really is. And we often have Christians come by and apologize for other Christians and making the claim that these people are not “true Christians” when in fact, according to your holy book, the more prejudice, the more homophobic, the more intolerant, the more violent, the more hateful people are against those who are different, the more “christian” they actually are.
5 June 2007, on 3:33 pm
bill o’reilly begoth geraldo begoth paula zahn begoth dirt tampons that mingled with dirt jizz rags in the trash and begoth tucker carlson
6 June 2007, on 4:16 pm
I do not want to sound pessimistic but I am going to say so any way. The reasons why nothing is happening is because no wants to step on any one toes. It is one big social game that most people are playing. Even so you tell or at least help them, they [Christians]will rebuke an argument even so they do not know anything.
The only way I can see anything changing is if someone stands up for their beliefs and fight the notions like Susan B. Anthony and Martin Luther King.
6 June 2007, on 6:41 pm
Aaron,
I appreciate that you are critical of some of the hateful blowhards in religion today.
I’m slowly working my way through the Bible, but as of Exodus 16, I’m absolutely horrified by the terrible messages it sends.
I’ve got a ways to go until I get to the Jesus stories, but anyone who states that “our lives must be lived in obedience to his teaching,” is selling something I ain’t buying, especially when it comes from questionably translated documents written decades after his death and thousands of years ago.
I’m always up for an “open, reasonable discussion about our beliefs,” though your definition of reasonable and mine may well differ.
Methinks faith in ancient supernatural stories is one of those places where “faith and reason *are* mutually exclusive.”
I can have faith that David Ortiz will come through with a clutch hit (usually, like any baseball player, he doesn’t, but he does it often and heroically, so I continue to have a little faith), and faith that the sun will “come up” tomorrow (a lot of documented history and science suggest it will), but having faith that God sent his only begotten son, born of a virgin, to be crucified to cleanse the world’s sins and that he bodily ascended to heaven — that kind of faith strikes me as silly at best.
I’m sorry that you and so many other people are deeply attached to profoundly believing in such myths, and I wish it didn’t seem disrespectful to say so — I don’t desire to be disrespectful — but banking so much on such a belief is a foible a reasoning person ought to find quite disturbing, and appropriate to criticize.
If you find certain Bible stories or characters inspiring (as metaphors, as fiction), I don’t have any beef with that per se, though I look forward to catching up with parts of the Good Book that strike me that way.
7 June 2007, on 6:40 pm
Ah, vastleft, the joys you have ahead of you in your bible study! Sodom and Gomorrah yet? King David’s successors? Jael and Sisera, Judith (if you have that version), Jezebel eaten by dogs–
Oops, I almost let slip some spoilers; have fun.
7 June 2007, on 10:54 pm
Eve,
I’ve been to Sodom and Gomorrah, but the others are all in the offing.
Of those fateful towns, my take was: