Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
Yo! Believers: here's a challenge for you.
So, here's the challenge: convince me that Christianity isn't just about making a buck.
Specific venue: bible publishing.
My example: Today's NYT article
The Bible as Graphic Novel, With a Samurai Stranger Called Christ
From that article:
Publishers with an eye for evangelism and for markets have long profited by directing Bibles at niche markets: just-married couples, teenage boys, teenage girls, recovering addicts. Often the lure is cosmetic, like a jazzy new cover.
Sales of graphic novels, too, have grown by double digits in recent years. So it makes sense that a convergence is under way, as graphic novels take up stories from the Bible, often in startling ways. In the last year, several major religious and secular publishing houses have announced or released manga religious stories.
***
The Manga Bible sold 30,000 copies in Great Britain, according to Doubleday. The print run in this country is 15,000, and it sells for $12.95.
And:
In the past decade, as consumer products have been directed at niche markets and religious services tailored to different groups, publishers have made more money by creating Bibles to serve certain groups, said Lynn Schofield Clark, director of the Estlow International Center for Journalism and New Media at the University of Colorado.
A few years ago, for example, the religious publisher Thomas Nelson issued a Bible for teenage girls called Revolve, which looked like a glossy magazine. It sold 40,000 copies in a month, Ms. Clark said, a staggering number for a Bible.
It's worth reading the rest of the article. So, let's hear it - is not the driving motivation to make a buck rather than convert souls? Are not publishers perfectly happy to water down the "message" in the bible, even pervert it, just for sales to nominal believers?
Jim Downey
Bookmark/Search this post with:
Sorry, but someone trying to
Sorry, but someone trying to make a buck off of religion has been around longer than the written word. Someone trying to make a buck off of anything under the sun has been around just as long. I can see an atheist taking this many directions that I might feel like I had to explain, but this is definitely not one of them. That is like me flipping the question and saying:
So, here's the challenge: convince me that Atheism isn't just about making a buck.
Specific venue: New Atheist publishing.
Specific example: Richard Dawkins.
Nope. I wouldn't expect anyone other than the RDbots to go around foaming at the mouth or shout "HERETIC!!!".
The Buck Stops Here
I agree with you. Why are you sorry?
Would you like to try and re-phrase that? You are not making much sense at all. You can see an atheist taking what in "many directions"? You might feel like you "had to explain" what, exactly?
Please be as concise and as cogent as possible. Thank you.
Sure thing. Sheesh. That's an easy one.
Atheism is not "about" anything at all. It is a word used to describe a person in whom god-belief is absent. That's all. Nothing else. To give the word additional attributes is not rational. It is exactly the same as saying, "Convince me that "bald" isn't about just making a buck."
It. Makes. Zero. Sense. It is a statement that is literally sense-less.
What does that make you?
"New Atheism" and "New Atheist" are made-up, bullshit catchphrases designed to reduce a fellow human being to the status of "other", or not-human.
You know, like "wop", or "wetback".
Are you suggesting that Richard Dawkins is not allowed to make money from his writing in your little narrow-minded theocratic world? Why? Because he thinks that your infantile magical happy-land fantasy is dangerous?
Goodness. You're just so cute when you stomp your little feet like that.
And so we see the deterioration of the typical god-botherer into a disjointed, puerile, incoherent, sneeringly self-satisfied babbling schoolyard bully.
Sad really.
Looks more like a reductio ad absurdum to me
I know I'm late to the show, but ...
I think he is suggesting that if you apply the same line of "reasoning" to atheism that you do to Christianity, you can come to the absurd conclusion that atheism is all about making a buck.
Note that you used the definition of atheism to point out how absurd it is to say that atheism is all about making a buck. One can likewise point to a reasonable working definition of Christianity and note that there is nothing about making a buck either. Of course, defining what "Christian" means is a heck of a lot messier and trickier than defining what an atheist is, since there are so many Christian sects with varying theologies and even morals, but that makes it even harder to justify the claim that Christianity is all about turning a dollar.
not manga
Manga style, maybe, but unless the artwork's being done in Japan this wouldn't be Manga, it would be a Graphic Novel however. Although in Japanese "manga" technically just means "comic book" among English speaking fans Manga means "Comics that come from Japan", comics that come from Korea are Manhwa, and manga-style comics that come from an English speaking nation are OEL (Original English Language) Manga. Country of origin matters, because Korean manhwa has the technical style but lacks the depth in many instances, and American manga has the look about it that makes you realize that the publishers see that the manga style is popular among consumers but have no idea why it is so they just copy. That's not to say that non-Japanese people can't write a good story, but you can't just slap together a comic with an art style that's similar to manga and a hack-job story and call it manga, because many fans can tell a fake when they see it.
Ah, A Purist...
I see that arguments over words and names are not confined to religion.
While I am not a big fan of Manga or Anime, 2 of my 3 grown kids are hard-core, and the oldest has been learning Japanese (self-taught) in order to listen and read them in the original language. I have heard from them that the debate about what is considered "Pure" anime or manga is far from settled, except in the minds of the "True Believers". There is so much cross-cultural influence that I cannot tell whether Bleach, Full-Metal Alchemist or even Howell's Moving Castle are "Real Anime" or "Hack-job stories". And I'm not sure that it matters one whit anyway. But I can be an existential agnostic (i.e. Manga exists, and I don't care where it came from) about this issue and still enjoy them. And let the True Believers™ on either side fight it out.
"I believe in preaching to the converted; for I have generally found that the converted do not understand their own religion." -G.K. Chesterton
Watering Down
It seems obvious to me that the enlistment of new media for spreading holy stories de-mythologizes the message. Yes, you get wider exposure, but it becomes progressively more shallow. Eventually, religion becomes just another product, just another fad. God as chewing gum, or sports shoes.
Once you throw religion onto the same market as other entertainments, you open it up to even greater competitive pressure. On any particular Sunday, if SuperJesus has to compete with TV, YouTube, iPod, Sprint, Wii and Digg, the market share of religion has to take a serious whack.
Interesting too to think that the Internet, with readily available sermons and religious readings, might be killing churches. Just as a lot of "bricks" businesses are being out-sold by their "clicks" competitors, the profit of physical churches has to be suffering due to all the online availability of churchy stuff. Watching churches consolidate and close in my local area, I have to believe it's something like this.
Finally, the story of Anonymous vs. Scientology went viral and had what I believe to be a worldwide impact. I'd be surprised if 50 million people didn't hear the story, and I think Scientology will take a substantial hit in membership and income, as more and more people find out just how nutty they are.
I see this as the seed of a greater recognition that ALL religion suffers from irrational and cultish elements. First L. Ron Hubbard, tomorrow Pope Palpatine!
eh.. . why not?
I wouldn't complain if they made a Manga book about Zeus or Thor - - nor does it bother me if they do one about Jesus. Money. Art. Whatever.
If you really want to see that it IS all about the money, just read Deuteronomy. They stick in the part about cold hard cash right in the middle - - it looks like a classic attempt to bury the key clause of a contract in a mountain of specious bullsh*t.
Lot
It would be interesting to see the manga take on the story of Lot. If you know what I mean.
Updated Chick Tracts
A manga version of the bible seems to me kind of an updated version of the Jack Chick tracts.
There is enough sex and violence in the old testament to make some pretty good manga but making Jesus in to "tough guy" reminds me of that segment of the film UHF where there's a commercial for Ghandi II.
The operative term
The way you phrased the question seems to revolve around the word "Just". To me that this implies a purity of motive that I cannot delve into without having personal knowledge of the people who make the decisions. I don't doubt that there are some who may have said "Here's a market...", but I doubt that was their only motivation.
And I don't buy that they are "watering down" or "perverting" the message, at least not deliberately (excepting a couple of well known offshoots of Christianity- but that, too is an opinion). I do think some go farther than I would in their attempts to update the message for more modern niche markets, but I am willing to give the benefit of the doubt, at least initially.
So, no, I won't try to defend the publishing houses any further than to say that I don't believe their sole motivation is to make a buck, but I won't deny that it is a partial one.
"I believe in preaching to the converted; for I have generally found that the converted do not understand their own religion." -G.K. Chesterton