The Economics of Publishing About Religion



Once in a while I get mad at myself for not seeing the obvious when the obvious is right in from of my eyes. It happened today. I mistakenly clicked on a headline in a respected site that publishes about religion. I don't know precisely how this site is funded, I recall it asked for donations and maybe has other sources as well. The site needs readers to support it, whether that brings donations, grants or ad revenue. 

The title I clicked on involved whether there was a religious case against cremation. It is estimated that in a few years cremation will be used in 80% of U.S. deaths. In Europe it is already that popular. 

The link makes the case that cremation is a Pagan practice. I'm not certain that is correct because really there is no simple faith representing Paganism. There have and exist today endless variations of Paganism. I've seen Christians assign the term Paganism to agnostics. Agnostics who believe there well may be some force out there greater than that which can be seen but they don't know what the force is. The term "Pagan" seems to me to be a catch-all word. 

When I clicked on the article I wondered if it would be the same old line that the entire body was needed in the afterlife and cremation destroys that option. That was not the case. The article went on and on with the author saying cremation is not a sin. He finally got to his point. The Christian case against cremation, he wrote, is that viewing the body helps the Christian envision a live person in death. God can piece together the cremated body for the afterlife just as he can do it for the body decomposed in the ground. It is seeing the body, he says, that helps people believe in resurrection. I had wasted a few minutes reading this and should have known better.

Of course, the link author provided no evidence of this idea. It is complete nonsense. Yet, it provides an example of why religion does so much better in the marketplace of publishing than atheism. While there seem endless issues and minutia to discuss in religion, atheism has very few. An atheist's article is often about three words long, "Religion is nonsense." There is no readership in that.

The economics of publishing, hard copy or online, favors religion. There is not much money nor pages of argument in atheism.  

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