After I have lunch at Smokin' Lil's B.B.Q. Pit with my old friend "Jack the Ripper," I'm headding down to NYC to be a voulnteer at the We Media conference.
I'm very curious to hear what these of the upper echelons of the blogosphere have to say about this whole blog thing. Given how Blogger's new search engine is revealing even more opinionated banality in the blogosphere than I'd ever anticipated, I'm concerned about giving blogging more credit than its due (also, take a look at this wonderful article by Michale Bugeja).
The worst, to me, are opnions about what goes on with organized religion by people who know absolutely nothing about theology or about the workings of organized religion. Perhaps I'm most peeved at this because true, reasoned, knowledgeable theologians, not self-proclaimed minsters of the faith, are themselves not all that present in the blogosphere, so the smacked asses of the world are running amock with all manner of ignorance that would never, ever be tolerated by any other academic discipline out there. My gods! don't people understand that most religion reporters, or even journalists who just occasionally write about religion, whether its the NYTimes, NPR, or any other news outlet, has *some* background in theology!
It's not that I'm against people having opinions, but, most individuals who express a particular opinion on a religious matter know more about politics or computer science than they do about religion, but for some odd reason feel they should say just as much about religion as they do about the subject they know something about. Hey...you don't see me having a field day on quantum physics, do you?? And I will usually qualify my opinions about politics by being quite clear that, when it comes to politics, I'm an armchair pundit at best.
Yet, as I mentioned, I think it's theologians' own faults. They're not out there doing good blogs the way in the same manner as many serious journalists. I sometimes think theologians are so busy contemplating their navels that they don't even know there's a blogosphere. Maybe I should go and smack a bunch of *them* in the heads and wake them up to the world. This ain't the middle ages anymore!
Be that as it may, idyllopus has an hysterical blog entry on
vacations and tourist traps, while Moon River's blog continues to reveal beautiful and mysterious images (esp. Félicien Rops' Pornokrates which reminds me of me), Terry plays with stats,, and Sour Duck contemplates theWomen's Autonomy and Sexual Soverenity Movement.
I didn't forget about the meme that Rebecca dinged me on--can't wait to get to it when I get back...
And before I go, I will ding J Leroy on my other blog....
be back soon!
I'm very curious to hear what these of the upper echelons of the blogosphere have to say about this whole blog thing. Given how Blogger's new search engine is revealing even more opinionated banality in the blogosphere than I'd ever anticipated, I'm concerned about giving blogging more credit than its due (also, take a look at this wonderful article by Michale Bugeja).
The worst, to me, are opnions about what goes on with organized religion by people who know absolutely nothing about theology or about the workings of organized religion. Perhaps I'm most peeved at this because true, reasoned, knowledgeable theologians, not self-proclaimed minsters of the faith, are themselves not all that present in the blogosphere, so the smacked asses of the world are running amock with all manner of ignorance that would never, ever be tolerated by any other academic discipline out there. My gods! don't people understand that most religion reporters, or even journalists who just occasionally write about religion, whether its the NYTimes, NPR, or any other news outlet, has *some* background in theology!
It's not that I'm against people having opinions, but, most individuals who express a particular opinion on a religious matter know more about politics or computer science than they do about religion, but for some odd reason feel they should say just as much about religion as they do about the subject they know something about. Hey...you don't see me having a field day on quantum physics, do you?? And I will usually qualify my opinions about politics by being quite clear that, when it comes to politics, I'm an armchair pundit at best.
Yet, as I mentioned, I think it's theologians' own faults. They're not out there doing good blogs the way in the same manner as many serious journalists. I sometimes think theologians are so busy contemplating their navels that they don't even know there's a blogosphere. Maybe I should go and smack a bunch of *them* in the heads and wake them up to the world. This ain't the middle ages anymore!
Be that as it may, idyllopus has an hysterical blog entry on
vacations and tourist traps, while Moon River's blog continues to reveal beautiful and mysterious images (esp. Félicien Rops' Pornokrates which reminds me of me), Terry plays with stats,, and Sour Duck contemplates theWomen's Autonomy and Sexual Soverenity Movement.
I didn't forget about the meme that Rebecca dinged me on--can't wait to get to it when I get back...
And before I go, I will ding J Leroy on my other blog....
be back soon!
posted by Tish Grier at 10:38 AM
4 Comments:
I was surprised and delighted to read that you're attending the We Media conference. Good for you! I hope you write it up in detail so those who can't / won't / never would be able to attend can get a window into what goes on.
A couple of small technical notes: I think the link to Terry is the general url - the more specific one is: http://dailytroll.com/?p=443. And I think the link to the We Media conference in the first para needs to be corrected slightly. ;)
"I'm very curious to hear what these of the upper echelons of the blogosphere have to say about this whole blog thing."
I'm very curious to hear what attendees to Blogher think of Technorati's new "Blog" (beta) toy. Heck, I'm curious what people think in general of it.
Theologians doing blogs: yes, there's a void there. I *think*. I actually haven't looked. So there's a perfect case of "where are all the theologian bloggers? Oh - I haven't looked..." (Sound familiar? ;))
(I very much enjoyed your nature pictures, btw.)
Glad to see you back Tish -- missed your thoughts while you were gone! :)
There are actually theology blogs out there if you search for "theology." Some look like actual theologians, but not the best - i.e., they're affiliated with some specific denomination, with their religious education much more limited than, say, a minister who is also a professor in a leading divinity school.
But I'm not actually crazy about theology, possibly because I was force fed too much all at once in divinity school...
Hey S.D...thanks for the editing
:-) I was in such a rush when I wrote this piece...
Rebecca...thanks! I just can't seem to shut off the brain, that's for sure.
W.G....you're right that some religious people are indeed afraid of offending others. As an undergrad, I found a big emphasis on Christian apologetics because there seemed to be this need to apologize for having faith. Contrast that with some of the evenagelicals, who have no problem not apologizing but also not being all that Christian...as for being an angel, well, neither am I. This blog attests to that. But I understand that there is God and there is The World, and we humans are stuck between the two. We do stupid shit which, in the words of religion, is "sin." God understands that we sin because we are human, and that this is a burden. Jesus was the mediator between us and God. He showed God what it is to be human and, therefore, helped God to have more mercy for our condition. God forgives us if we earnestly petition for forgiveness--we, unfortunately, aren't as merciful to one another. That's the problem.
Paul...I think part of the big problem with divinity school is its force-feeding of so much of one subject in a short time. And that can indeed kill a person's understanding of the world as well as their love of the subject. That can happen pretty much anywhere though. I'll also take your word on theo blogs--I, too, found a few and they were def. skewed to one particular belief system and no real dialogue. That's probably the biggst problem and why I chose not to go to Div school.
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