Tell Me What You Think?
I've been thinking that I want to write about what's important and interesting to me. "Write whatcha know", they always say. I'd like to write a blog, and maybe a book about spirituality, atheism and my search for g0d. I'd like your opinion on a) whether you think people would find that interesting and b) whether you think I have the ability to effectively and fairly write such a thing.
By now most of you have been reading - or ignoring! - my blog for some time. Many of you have met me in person. So I'd like to hear what you think.
The details of how and where such a blog might start are for another time, but I'd probably have to do it elsewhere than livejournal, much as I love the communal aspect of LJ.
I am still trying to work out in my head exactly what the theme would be, but I think it would be something like "The Meaning of Life" or "Spiritual Schizophrenia".
It's likely to be fairly informal, yet intellectual in places, and include a small amount of stuff other than pure (ir)religious discussion to keep it light. Plus humour! A comparison blog and book project would be http://www.happiness-project.com/
I'd be honest about my background, and my intentions. There is no such thing as a neutral position in this subject, so it's best just to be honest about my biases, as my sociology training suggests.
Regarding the first, I'm a former strong evangelical christian, now agnostic who still has a soft spot for g0d-stuff. Not to mention a strong revulsion for most conservative christian expressions of spirituality. Socially, I'm mostly what the USAsians call 'liberal'; I support gay marriage, I vote Green and believe what Frankie says when it comes to war. I do feel uncomfortable over the abortion question.
Regarding my intentions, I want to explore faith and non-faith with an open-mindedness to finding a belief I can commit to, but a probability that I won't. As for the faiths, I'd like to explore them all - from wicca to womens' spirituality, from atheism to aruveydic yoga, from Satanism to sex gurus (can't wait to explore that last one). However, I'd probably major on the great world religions. Plus a spicing of all the topics within our complex lives; evil, love, ethnicity, war, sexuality, ethics, pluralism. I'd like to interview people as part of it.
NB, it's possible the blog could generate income for me. eg http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/05/how-to-make-money-from-your-blog/
StevePavlina.com was launched on Oct 1st, 2004. By April 2005 it was averaging $4.12/day in income. Now it brings in over $200/day $1000/day (updated as of 10/29/06). I didn’t spend a dime on marketing or promotion. In fact, I started this site with just $9 to register the domain name, and everything was bootstrapped from there.
He's not a shyster or selling snake oil, he does say that only "smart people" can do it.
As an example, here's a suggested first post below.
========
There's Probably No God?
I guess it had to happen. "There's probably no God" has been appearing on buses overseas and now someone is hoping to fund an advertising campaign here in New Zealand. I think this is a good thing. If I wasn't so dirt poor at the moment I'd give them money.
I don't know what they're trying to achieve (I'm working on an interview about that), but I think religion, or lack thereof, should be a public domain discussion. It's like sex or politics, if we don't talk about it, it goes wrong. Because they're controversial and possibly unanswerable topics our social mores dictate we avoid these conversations. Nobody likes the awkward silence when Jack makes a statement about his religious beliefs. Notable in this industrialised post-enlightenment and post 9-11 world is what we don't talk about. And we Don't.Talk.About.Religion.
In many other societies, I have the impression that discussion about religion is commonplace. Contemporary North Africa for example, as in Tahir Shah's excellent The Caliph's House: A Year In Morocco It may just be me, but I get the feeling that atheism is a dirty word in post-Christian societies like New Zealand.
The current sad state of religious dialogue is not helped by the fact that various evangelistic religions - including some passionate atheists[1] - like to hijack conversations like these. Stuff relegates their news piece to the "Odd Stuff" section. Because religion is odd. Isn't it? Like most newspapers, Stuff doesn't have a religion correspondent in spite of spiritual things being really significant in peoples' lives. Stuff simply hosts an opinion poll asking whether God exists.
Many years ago, before this thing called the intarwebz was around, I ordered Bridging the Gap: Religion and the News Media, a study from a respected US media watch organisation asking about attitudes to religion in the media. Their study concluded that there wasn't intentional anti-religious bias in journalism as such, but that many reporters simply didn't know enough about current religious matters to write effectively about it. It alerted me to the fact many media organisations no longer have reporters dedicated to the religion beat in the same way they do with sports or business. (One such reporter is US News' Dan Gilgoff but he unfortunately sticks to US news, mainly dealing with Christianity and occasionally Judaism.)
So what option did I choose in Stuff's opinion poll? I chose "I'm not sure".
What would you put in the opinion poll? What do you think of the idea that "atheist" is a dirty word?
[1] I apologise for including atheism as a religion. I am using the term 'religion' here very broadly as "that which describes our core beliefs". The 'atheism-as-religion' debate is probababy deserving of a post of its own sometime.
Today's unrelated link is a Youtube interview with iconic film director David Lynch about why he turned down the opportunity to direct Return of the Jedi. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDB8Q15iUIE
listening to John Lennon | Mind Games
==============
So what do you think?
Do you think people would find "The Meaning of Life" interesting? What do you think about my ability to effectively and fairly write it? (Feel free to comment on the blog-within a blog too.)
By now most of you have been reading - or ignoring! - my blog for some time. Many of you have met me in person. So I'd like to hear what you think.
The details of how and where such a blog might start are for another time, but I'd probably have to do it elsewhere than livejournal, much as I love the communal aspect of LJ.
I am still trying to work out in my head exactly what the theme would be, but I think it would be something like "The Meaning of Life" or "Spiritual Schizophrenia".
It's likely to be fairly informal, yet intellectual in places, and include a small amount of stuff other than pure (ir)religious discussion to keep it light. Plus humour! A comparison blog and book project would be http://www.happiness-project.com/
I'd be honest about my background, and my intentions. There is no such thing as a neutral position in this subject, so it's best just to be honest about my biases, as my sociology training suggests.
Regarding the first, I'm a former strong evangelical christian, now agnostic who still has a soft spot for g0d-stuff. Not to mention a strong revulsion for most conservative christian expressions of spirituality. Socially, I'm mostly what the USAsians call 'liberal'; I support gay marriage, I vote Green and believe what Frankie says when it comes to war. I do feel uncomfortable over the abortion question.
Regarding my intentions, I want to explore faith and non-faith with an open-mindedness to finding a belief I can commit to, but a probability that I won't. As for the faiths, I'd like to explore them all - from wicca to womens' spirituality, from atheism to aruveydic yoga, from Satanism to sex gurus (can't wait to explore that last one). However, I'd probably major on the great world religions. Plus a spicing of all the topics within our complex lives; evil, love, ethnicity, war, sexuality, ethics, pluralism. I'd like to interview people as part of it.
NB, it's possible the blog could generate income for me. eg http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/05/how-to-make-money-from-your-blog/
StevePavlina.com was launched on Oct 1st, 2004. By April 2005 it was averaging $4.12/day in income. Now it brings in over $200/day $1000/day (updated as of 10/29/06). I didn’t spend a dime on marketing or promotion. In fact, I started this site with just $9 to register the domain name, and everything was bootstrapped from there.
He's not a shyster or selling snake oil, he does say that only "smart people" can do it.
As an example, here's a suggested first post below.
========
There's Probably No God?
I guess it had to happen. "There's probably no God" has been appearing on buses overseas and now someone is hoping to fund an advertising campaign here in New Zealand. I think this is a good thing. If I wasn't so dirt poor at the moment I'd give them money.
I don't know what they're trying to achieve (I'm working on an interview about that), but I think religion, or lack thereof, should be a public domain discussion. It's like sex or politics, if we don't talk about it, it goes wrong. Because they're controversial and possibly unanswerable topics our social mores dictate we avoid these conversations. Nobody likes the awkward silence when Jack makes a statement about his religious beliefs. Notable in this industrialised post-enlightenment and post 9-11 world is what we don't talk about. And we Don't.Talk.About.Religion.
In many other societies, I have the impression that discussion about religion is commonplace. Contemporary North Africa for example, as in Tahir Shah's excellent The Caliph's House: A Year In Morocco It may just be me, but I get the feeling that atheism is a dirty word in post-Christian societies like New Zealand.
The current sad state of religious dialogue is not helped by the fact that various evangelistic religions - including some passionate atheists[1] - like to hijack conversations like these. Stuff relegates their news piece to the "Odd Stuff" section. Because religion is odd. Isn't it? Like most newspapers, Stuff doesn't have a religion correspondent in spite of spiritual things being really significant in peoples' lives. Stuff simply hosts an opinion poll asking whether God exists.
Many years ago, before this thing called the intarwebz was around, I ordered Bridging the Gap: Religion and the News Media, a study from a respected US media watch organisation asking about attitudes to religion in the media. Their study concluded that there wasn't intentional anti-religious bias in journalism as such, but that many reporters simply didn't know enough about current religious matters to write effectively about it. It alerted me to the fact many media organisations no longer have reporters dedicated to the religion beat in the same way they do with sports or business. (One such reporter is US News' Dan Gilgoff but he unfortunately sticks to US news, mainly dealing with Christianity and occasionally Judaism.)
So what option did I choose in Stuff's opinion poll? I chose "I'm not sure".
What would you put in the opinion poll? What do you think of the idea that "atheist" is a dirty word?
[1] I apologise for including atheism as a religion. I am using the term 'religion' here very broadly as "that which describes our core beliefs". The 'atheism-as-religion' debate is probababy deserving of a post of its own sometime.
Today's unrelated link is a Youtube interview with iconic film director David Lynch about why he turned down the opportunity to direct Return of the Jedi. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDB8Q15iUIE
listening to John Lennon | Mind Games
==============
So what do you think?
Do you think people would find "The Meaning of Life" interesting? What do you think about my ability to effectively and fairly write it? (Feel free to comment on the blog-within a blog too.)