| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Passover Commercialism | ||||
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Happy Passover, from American Dharma
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Dharma Laughs: Passover, The American Way
Happy Passover, from American Dharma
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Little Fish In a Big Sea: The Religion Blogosphere
A very interesting multi-part report on the Religion Blogosphere...some of my favs, such as a few of the beliefnet blogs, Religion Dispatches, and Killing the Buddha getting some major mentions. Talk about Little Fish in a big sea over here at American Dharma. haha.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Bodhaka: On the Separation of Church and State
So I just finished reading (quicker than I'd like to, but that's school work for you), this really interesting book by Philip Hamburger called Separation of Church and State. Although perhaps its a little long for light reading (almost 500 pages, omg!)... it wasn't too complicated to understand. Pretty much, what Hamburger's main argument is (spoiler alert!) is that Thomas Jefferson's famous interpretation of the "wall between the seperation of church and state" within the first amendment is just that: an interpretation, created in a letter to a group of Baptists in Connecticut who had written to the sitting president. What Hamburger does, is trace this idea of "separation of church and state" from the 17th through the 20th centuries and what it meant from its anti-clergical and anti-establishment origins (freedom of to practice your own sect of Protestantism), to its anti-Federalist political mobilization by Jefferson's Democratic-Republicans to protect attacks against Jefferson and to target Congregationalist New England, its anti-Catholic agenda in the 1800s, and its official legitimization by the Supreme Court in the 20th Century as a "fact" of the Constitution and the Founding Father's intention (although it clearly wasn't, given the history).
As many of my readings on American religion have done, this book helps me to continuously reconsider the dichotomies that exist in the American conception of religion and its supposed opposing force: secularism. Unabashedly being forever scarred by Catherine Bell's theories of ritualization she establishes in her book Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (in a good way, I swear!), where Bell suggests that we rethink the idea of ritual not as an object, but rather as an idea in motion: a process of ritualization. It is in this same way, through my critique this past winter of the Journal of Religion and American Culture and even considering this book, I'd like to think of these supposed American religious dichotomies: not as opposing forces, but rather as ideas in motion, constantly creating and recreating each other. I almost think this was the idea that Hamburger was trying to get at (though I could be wrong, I tend to read in my ideas into books). I think just to close out the thought, I'm going to just paste the end of my response paper...it comes to the conclusion of the idea I'm trying to consider and work through (sorry if it repeats what I had said about Bell):
Keeping all this in mind, it seems almost foolish to consider the United States as anything more or less than a Christian nation, and a Protestant one at that. However, still in our modern mythology of our secular-ness, Jefferson’s letter has been mapped upon the Constitutional law, and the intention of our founders seen as a purely secular one. This idea has worked with the dichotomies that also are drawn upon when considering Church/State, such as private/public, religious/secular, and Protestant/Catholic. In his conclusion, Hamburger states that “no state or church can develop its laws and beliefs in a cultural vacuum, separate from the other institutions in society” (489). With this in mind, as well as Hamburger’s entire history of the separation of Church and State, perhaps we should reconsider secularism as a fluid idea as opposed to an objectified one (a la Catherine Bell’s idea of “ritualization”). That if the separation of church and state has never been a static and rigid separation of religion and secularism, of public and private, perhaps we should stop considering secularism as opposed to religion, but rather as working in fluid motion with it: “Ironically even as religion has been separated from politics, politics has become, in a sense religious” (491). Church and state is perhaps not separated by a ridged wall, as Jefferson mused in his letter, but rather a porous wall.
As many of my readings on American religion have done, this book helps me to continuously reconsider the dichotomies that exist in the American conception of religion and its supposed opposing force: secularism. Unabashedly being forever scarred by Catherine Bell's theories of ritualization she establishes in her book Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (in a good way, I swear!), where Bell suggests that we rethink the idea of ritual not as an object, but rather as an idea in motion: a process of ritualization. It is in this same way, through my critique this past winter of the Journal of Religion and American Culture and even considering this book, I'd like to think of these supposed American religious dichotomies: not as opposing forces, but rather as ideas in motion, constantly creating and recreating each other. I almost think this was the idea that Hamburger was trying to get at (though I could be wrong, I tend to read in my ideas into books). I think just to close out the thought, I'm going to just paste the end of my response paper...it comes to the conclusion of the idea I'm trying to consider and work through (sorry if it repeats what I had said about Bell):
Keeping all this in mind, it seems almost foolish to consider the United States as anything more or less than a Christian nation, and a Protestant one at that. However, still in our modern mythology of our secular-ness, Jefferson’s letter has been mapped upon the Constitutional law, and the intention of our founders seen as a purely secular one. This idea has worked with the dichotomies that also are drawn upon when considering Church/State, such as private/public, religious/secular, and Protestant/Catholic. In his conclusion, Hamburger states that “no state or church can develop its laws and beliefs in a cultural vacuum, separate from the other institutions in society” (489). With this in mind, as well as Hamburger’s entire history of the separation of Church and State, perhaps we should reconsider secularism as a fluid idea as opposed to an objectified one (a la Catherine Bell’s idea of “ritualization”). That if the separation of church and state has never been a static and rigid separation of religion and secularism, of public and private, perhaps we should stop considering secularism as opposed to religion, but rather as working in fluid motion with it: “Ironically even as religion has been separated from politics, politics has become, in a sense religious” (491). Church and state is perhaps not separated by a ridged wall, as Jefferson mused in his letter, but rather a porous wall.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Today in American Dharma: Man Faces Prison for Taking Daughter to Church
Family Feud Over Faith
Perhaps its just me, but sometimes I think people take the idea of "freedom of religion" and manipulate it for their own ends. In this case, I honestly think this guy is doing it to stick it to his wife. What do you all think? Does the court, by the way, have the right to restrict the husband from sharing his religion with the daughter? I feel like there's something missing to this story. I know this isn't particularly significant, but I haven't written in awhile...and it is, nonetheless, and interesting issue (when you make it in the large scale).
Perhaps its just me, but sometimes I think people take the idea of "freedom of religion" and manipulate it for their own ends. In this case, I honestly think this guy is doing it to stick it to his wife. What do you all think? Does the court, by the way, have the right to restrict the husband from sharing his religion with the daughter? I feel like there's something missing to this story. I know this isn't particularly significant, but I haven't written in awhile...and it is, nonetheless, and interesting issue (when you make it in the large scale).
Monday, January 18, 2010
Just a few quick articles on the Hume v. Buddha Incident
What Would Buddha Do?- Stephen Prothero - one of my former professors and unofficial advisor (in my mind) says it in a way classier way that I was able to express my frustration haha.
Unforgiven: Brit and Tiger and the Problem of Speed-Cycle Grace- Peter Laarman Just a nice lil article. I'm a total geek for RD. I'd love to write for them one day.
Meanwhile, school starts in two days and I hope to actually reflect much more often about what I'm reading there for it may be of some interest (if anyone reads this blog anyway). I trashed the Bento thing also, I got bored with it. Oh well. :)
Unforgiven: Brit and Tiger and the Problem of Speed-Cycle Grace- Peter Laarman Just a nice lil article. I'm a total geek for RD. I'd love to write for them one day.
Meanwhile, school starts in two days and I hope to actually reflect much more often about what I'm reading there for it may be of some interest (if anyone reads this blog anyway). I trashed the Bento thing also, I got bored with it. Oh well. :)
Friday, January 8, 2010
Today in American Dharma: Fox News Offends the Dharmic Traditions in an Epic One Two Punch
First of all, Happy New Year 2010 everyone! Let's start it off with some good old fashioned American religious-intolerance, shall we?
I try not to show my sometimes liberal socio-political bias (I will acknowledge that sometimes it exists), but I want to put it out there that I am not a fan of Fox News. Not so much because I am anti-republican but rather anti-insensitivity. This week was an epic one two punch for Fox News as they managed to offend two religions of Asia.
The first offensive remark came from Bret Hume while discussing the sex scandals of Tiger Woods:
In this clip Hume remarks that Woods would be better off a Christian than a Buddhist because he needs the kind of redemption only Christianity can offer. Now, far be it from me to blast Hume for his own personal opinion and religious conviction, but it does seem uncalled for that a supposed "objective journalist" make such a statement. Or am I being naïve that objectivity belongs in journalism? I know Fox News doesn't have a good track record and that the idea of the cable news networks is about talking heads with opinions, but honestly, has Hume gone too far? Or is the entire liberal media, and myself, overreacting?
The second clip comes to insult another of Asia's "isms": Hinduism. On his show Glenn Beck, probably one of the most dramatic news anchors I have ever witnessed had this to say about Hinduism's most holy river, the Ganges:
And of course... insulting others: Back, Bath and Beyond
So what do you all think? Were all these allowed b/c of freedom of speech or is there somewhere we must draw the line??
I try not to show my sometimes liberal socio-political bias (I will acknowledge that sometimes it exists), but I want to put it out there that I am not a fan of Fox News. Not so much because I am anti-republican but rather anti-insensitivity. This week was an epic one two punch for Fox News as they managed to offend two religions of Asia.
The first offensive remark came from Bret Hume while discussing the sex scandals of Tiger Woods:
In this clip Hume remarks that Woods would be better off a Christian than a Buddhist because he needs the kind of redemption only Christianity can offer. Now, far be it from me to blast Hume for his own personal opinion and religious conviction, but it does seem uncalled for that a supposed "objective journalist" make such a statement. Or am I being naïve that objectivity belongs in journalism? I know Fox News doesn't have a good track record and that the idea of the cable news networks is about talking heads with opinions, but honestly, has Hume gone too far? Or is the entire liberal media, and myself, overreacting?
The second clip comes to insult another of Asia's "isms": Hinduism. On his show Glenn Beck, probably one of the most dramatic news anchors I have ever witnessed had this to say about Hinduism's most holy river, the Ganges:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| The Temple of Hume | ||||
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And of course... insulting others: Back, Bath and Beyond
So what do you all think? Were all these allowed b/c of freedom of speech or is there somewhere we must draw the line??
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Today in American Dharma: Mormon Senator Writes a Hanukkah Song
Only in America?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/us/politics/09hanukkah.html?_r=2&hp
Thoughts? Opinions? Yay Pluralism?
On a side note: it is quite the catchy song. haha
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/us/politics/09hanukkah.html?_r=2&hp
Thoughts? Opinions? Yay Pluralism?
On a side note: it is quite the catchy song. haha
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