The Wake

Illustration by Ben Alpert

I had a classmate many years ago. We would talk politics on occasion. It rarely worked out.

See, every single time that I tried to raise an objection to or voice an opinion about something, she would yell “think of the children!” It didn’t matter if it was AIDS, war, health care, welfare, etc. It didn’t matter if I wanted to stop war because it killed children or create universal health care so we could care for children, I was always wrong because I wasn’t “think[ing] of the children.”

We have a word for that kind of rhetoric. The word is “histrionics,” which Merriam-Webster’s defines as “a deliberate display of emotion for effect.” Another word we could use is “bathos,” or false emotion.

Any conversationalists in the crowd know that these two well-worn rhetorical strategies can instantly end any debate. The minute someone starts yelling about children, bigots, Jesus, heaven, hell, reason, Darwin, Hitler, etc., the conversation is over. So, you may wonder, what happens when that is the starting point of a conversation?

As you may know, a series of articles by our own Carl Carpenter on Christian groups at the U has been the cause of great controversy. Since the publication of said articles, the Wake’s online comments section has been ablaze with accusations of irresponsible reporting, bigotry, hatred, and many other varieties of nastiness. Both sides of the debate have decided that the other is responsible for the shitty state of our country. Both sides have condemned the other as intellectual criminals. Both sides have decided to hide behind digital sandbags and call out the other for… well, whatever’s bothering them, really. Hilariously, all participants in this little three-ring circus of semantics have also found time to encourage us to step back and examine the situation holistically. Okay, let’s.

Religion is a touchy subject because criticizing a religion entails criticizing a view of the world that many people believe in with great conviction. Say that God does or doesn’t exist and you’ve upended the universe for a great number of people. Thus, it requires great care and forethought to cogently discuss religion.

Unfortunately, people LOVE shooting off at the mouth about this particular subject. Religion is a topic that invites bathos and histrionics like no other and, really, it’s not hard to understand why. Your religion is your life. Your beliefs dictate, at least in part, how you live the one life you’re given. Start deconstructing that and someone’s gonna get angry.

It doesn’t have to be this way, though. I believe that the reason we as young Americans cannot discuss religion without resorting to insults and grandstanding is that we have forgotten that religion is essentially a personal philosophy. Forget the missionaries, forget Richard Dawkins, forget the huge banners and parades and political candidates. The reason that both religion and non-religion exist is to give people guidance and allow them to live healthy, fulfilling lives. It is not to start wars or kill non-believers or implant chips in your brain or recruit us all into cults, white-robed and smiling, ready to shuffle off of this mortal coil into the great spaceship of the afterlife. If someone wants to use it for that purpose, that’s their problem.

Of course, it’s impossible to remember that when religion is always discussed in terms of “debate.” Really, you can’t have a religious “debate.” The only way that it is possible to discuss the topic is to conceive of different religions as philosophical paradigms that are sometimes opposing and sometime intersecting. If you try and argue that one religious view is right and one wrong, you end up with a huge mess. To wit: our comments section.

It’s that adversarial tone that leads us to make ridiculous claims about this or that religious group ruining the country or turning the political process into a joke. Can we honestly buy that? Isn’t it a little reductive to blame the failure of our political system to remain uninfluenced by religion on two campus groups and one (admittedly garish) banner? Yeah, it is. It’s also deliciously ironic that those same detractors of religion who love to make parallels between religion and authoritarianism can be as single-minded and exclusionary as their perceived opponents. What happened to “treat other as you wish to be treated?” Wasn’t that in a book somewhere? Oh yeah…

Thing is, no one likes to be called stupid or told that their personal beliefs are wrong. If we want to have a conversation about something as intimate as religion, we have to be considerate and reasonable in the language we use. Making allegations and resorting to histrionics will only lead to a deeply divided student population. Furthermore, I’m pretty sure everyone stops listening when you start rattling off conspiracy theories and Bible verses alike.

Think of this exchange not as a debate but as a discussion and our views not as laws but as philosophies. People on both “sides” of the issue (if said sides even exist) need to drop the over-dramatic name-calling and be reasonable. It doesn’t make you a stronger person if you try to strong-arm your opponents into feeling stupid; conversely, staying calm is not a sign of weakness. If there is one glaring flaw in our political process in the year 2008, it’s not the separation of religion and politics but the lack of level-headed discussion.

I’m really getting sick of writing these “don’t be an asshole” editorials, but it’s only out of necessity. We here at The Wake are trying to create a forum for intelligent discussion but there’s always someone to ruin the party. So to all the internet trolls waiting in the wings to complain about and insult the religious beliefs of campus journalists and religious groups alike: think before you open your mouth.

Or, better yet, just don’t say anything at all.