Remembering Jeffrey Weiss

"Every religion is crazy, by definition, to a nonbeliever." — Jeffrey Weiss

I miss Jeffrey Weiss. He wore multiple hats at The Dallas Morning News. For a while, he covered the Richardson ISD. Remember the days when The Dallas Morning News assigned reporters to Richardson? I do. For a while, he wrote for the Religion section of the newspaper. Remember when The Dallas Morning News even had a Religion section? I do. Writing for "Politics Daily" way back in 2010 (see, I told you Weiss wore many hats), Weiss called for a movement against “political nastiness,” coining the term "civilogue" for more civil speech in the public square. I do miss Jeffrey Weiss.

---

What reminded me of Jeffrey Weiss is a profile of the New York Times columnist Ross Douthat in The New Yorker by Isaac Chotiner. Particularly, these paragraphs, which made me think of Weiss's law about all religions being crazy to nonbelievers:

In one column, Douthat offered his own approach to assessing fringe ideas. “To be a devout Christian or a believing Jew or Muslim is to be a bit like a conspiracy theorist, in the sense that you believe there is an invisible reality that secular knowledge can’t recognize,” he explained.

“But the great religions are also full of warnings against false prophets and fraudulent revelations. My own faith, Roman Catholicism, is both drenched in the supernatural and extremely scrupulous about the miracles and seers that it validates. And it allows its flock to be simply agnostic about a range of possibly supernatural claims.”

Source: Isaac Chotiner.

Now, this is my take on Chotiner's take on Douthat. Douthat should have stopped after his first sentence, where he finds similarity between Christians, Jews, Muslims, and conspiracy theorists. Whereas Weiss uses plain language and unambiguous assertions, everything Douthat says after his "but" sounds like he's walking back that first sentence. He hedges, he qualifies, he softens the impact of his words. He says being a Christian is "a bit" like a conspiracy theorist. He differentiates "great" religions (like his own, Roman Catholicism) from the "fraudulent revelations." Whereas Weiss forces readers to examine their own religion, Douthat offers readers comfort in feeling that their own supernatural beliefs have a reasonable foundation.

Douthat is a deeper thinker than I am, but Jeffrey Weiss's plain speaking provokes deeper thoughts. I miss Jeffrey Weiss.

---

"Invisible realm,
Douthat walks back resemblance
to conspiracy."
—h/t ChatGPT