Religion is a topic badly represented in the Media. Journalists tend to treat stories with religious aspects with kid gloves. They seem to fear offending someone’s religious beliefs–if the religion being discussed is Christianity, Judaism or Islam. Religions other than those three are often treated as inconsequential superstitions.
NPR once ran a story about how to become a Muslim over the telephone. I’ve never heard them run a similar story for becoming a Hindu or a Buddhist. There’s an unspoken assumption among Western journalists that the three desert religions that originated in the Middle East are the only “real” religions.
The adherents.com site lists 22 religions with estimates of the number of their adherents:
- Christianity: 2.1 billion
- Islam: 1.5 billion
- Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: 1.1 billion
- Hinduism: 900 million
- Chinese traditional religion: 394 million
- Buddhism: 376 million
- primal-indigenous: 300 million
- African Traditional & Diasporic: 100 million
- Sikhism: 23 million
- Juche: 19 million
- Spiritism: 15 million
- Judaism: 14 million
- Baha’i: 7 million
- Jainism: 4.2 million
- Shinto: 4 million
- Cao Dai: 4 million
- Zoroastrianism: 2.6 million
- Tenrikyo: 2 million
- Neo-Paganism: 1 million
- Unitarian-Universalism: 800 thousand
- Rastafarianism: 600 thousand
- Scientology: 500 thousand
All religions matter greatly to the people who follow them. Religious belief influences behavior. Religion should be treated with as much candor as any other topic in the news.
I will be adding links to my essays on the topic below.
Mel Gibson’s Sadistic Jesus Movie
Spinning Pilate: Misrepresentation of the Roman Provincial Governor in Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ This is a slide presentation I delivered at the 2008 Popular Culture Association conference at Albuquerque, New Mexico. It is not for the faint of heart.
NOTE: I’ve uploaded the slideshow, but can’t make it work. Stay tuned.
For more details, you can read my notes for the slide show.