In Jerry Seinfeld's latest interview, he discloses how he used tenets of Scientology to improve his interpersonal communication and performance skills, going so far to say as "It's all technology."
In another article also posted today on msnbc, tech is used to create Jesus 2.0. The proliferation of Christian based, or faith based websites is being touted as shifting the way we worship.
Now I use a few websites myself for theological questions - enduringword.com being one. But does this really change the way I worship? I'm definitely getting more information, perhaps more quickly than in the past when I would have waited for an opportunity to talk to someone with expertise in the area I had questions about.
In the Jesus 2.0 article, this quote disturbed me, and really gets to the point of this post.
"Spark Networks spokeswoman Gail Laguna argues that religion has a real power to pull together a niche market online" (my emphasis).
Not addressed in this article is how these online sites are being funded. Pop up ads? Donations? Specific churches funding them? When Seinfeld took Scientology classes, how much did he have to pay for them.
I'm finding this recent conflation of technology and religion, all the while ignoring the undergirding economic forces, highly disturbing.
Slate.com has quite a few instances of this, albeit a bit more implicit. "Blogging the Bible" was quite popular on the front page for a few months. There was recently a bit of buzz concerning the man who lived every rule (really?) of the Bible for an entire year. Now, journalism, especially online journalism, is a bit trickier to unpack in terms of economics, besides the fact that journalists want to get paid. But in the case of the Biblical guinea pig, he had a book coming out describing his experiences.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
letters
In the past year and a half, three close friends moved to San Francisco, Kansas, and Singapore. Add to that my graduating around the same time and no longer having an excuse to foray from the Eastside over to Seattle = stalking friends on Facebook for information on their quotidian pastimes.
I love writing letters. I've asked various friends for their home addresses in the hopes of maintaining pen pal relationships with at least a few that have minutes to spend jotting down their life on paper. And I received my first return from that small effort yesterday. My one friend from Kansas wrote me a beautiful note (her handwriting is sooo much better than mine) and expressed her hopes that we could become even better friends through writing. I definitely think we can, but I asked myself why is it easier to maintain a friendship for some with letters, some with emails? Being in the letter department, which seems to be fast dying, I'm especially curious.
Now, my friend and I are both writers/Engl majors, and we both tend to like the idea of writing in general. The connotations of some old (now dead) British dude writing a classic fable by the hearth side with quill pen and ink on parchment hold infinitely more novel appeal for us than email.
How about Facebook? Well, the layout doesn't seem especially conducive to long letters about personal feelings, aspirations, hopes and dreams. One would have to use up half the page to equal the size of a normal hand written letter. Plus, the Wall is public, and messages are (possibly) checked by moderators.
Yet this whole tech thing isn't going away. What space do letters occupy in the era where we have both Facebook and pen and paper? (It was via Facebook that I got my friend's address) Hopefully the novelty of the letter will keep a few devoted people pushing through hand cramps in honor of this form of communication.
I love writing letters. I've asked various friends for their home addresses in the hopes of maintaining pen pal relationships with at least a few that have minutes to spend jotting down their life on paper. And I received my first return from that small effort yesterday. My one friend from Kansas wrote me a beautiful note (her handwriting is sooo much better than mine) and expressed her hopes that we could become even better friends through writing. I definitely think we can, but I asked myself why is it easier to maintain a friendship for some with letters, some with emails? Being in the letter department, which seems to be fast dying, I'm especially curious.
Now, my friend and I are both writers/Engl majors, and we both tend to like the idea of writing in general. The connotations of some old (now dead) British dude writing a classic fable by the hearth side with quill pen and ink on parchment hold infinitely more novel appeal for us than email.
How about Facebook? Well, the layout doesn't seem especially conducive to long letters about personal feelings, aspirations, hopes and dreams. One would have to use up half the page to equal the size of a normal hand written letter. Plus, the Wall is public, and messages are (possibly) checked by moderators.
Yet this whole tech thing isn't going away. What space do letters occupy in the era where we have both Facebook and pen and paper? (It was via Facebook that I got my friend's address) Hopefully the novelty of the letter will keep a few devoted people pushing through hand cramps in honor of this form of communication.
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