Slashdot Mirror
How the Internet Is Taking Away America's Religion
pitchpipe (708843) points out a study highlighted by MIT's Technology Review, which makes the bold claim that "Using the Internet can destroy your faith. That's the conclusion of a study showing that the dramatic drop in religious affiliation in the U.S. since 1990 is closely mirrored by the increase in Internet use," and writes "I attribute my becoming an atheist to the internet, so what the study is saying supports my anecdote. If I hadn't been exposed to all of the different arguments about religion, etc., via the internet I would probably just be another person who identifies as religious but doesn't attend services. What do you think? Have you become more religious, less religious, or about the same since being on the internet? What if you've always had it?"
access to unfiltered information will make people THINK!
who would have thought? :)
Great video by a Youtuber on exactly this topic: The Internet: Where Religions Come To Die. Religions simply can't survive on the open marketplace of ideas. Religions work by indoctrination, shaming and isolating subjects to get them to believe absurd shit and then try to shield them from outside influences to make sure they don't find out. On the Internet, this ploy simply doesn't work.
Whatever you do, the Internet speeds up personal development processes as huge amounts of information is readily available. Without the Internet you would have come to the same conclusion but it would have taken just a bit longer. Internet can feed both limits of the scale, atheist and believer.
(I attribute my becoming an atheist to myself. I stepped renounced my religion at the age of 8. Simply deduced that there is no such thing as a god from observations and reasoning. That was in the early 70s. Internet would have merely sped the process up.)
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
hardly surprising really, religion relies heavily upon ignorance and superstition. The more information and world views you expose yourself to the more likely you are to come out of the dark ages.
i've heard it said that "if you study one religion you can be absorbed for a lifetime. if you study two religions, you can be done in a day."
the Internet offers.
Learning about reality is a GOOD thing.
Learning that the silly myths and superstitions pounded into your head when you were a child are silly myths and superstitions, and NOT universal facts, is a GOOD thing.
I know it wont be in my lifetime and probably not in my children's either, but someday, humans will shed all religious superstition.
The church has always tried its best to keep people ignorant.
Imagine where mankind could have been by now, if it wasn't for that.
The fruit of knowledge. There was a reason the bible described things as it did. Knowledge isn't just the anti-christ, it's the anti-god.
The replacement hasn't had millions of people killed in it's name. At least not yet...
I'll throw my hat into the ring.
Urge your senators to grant me Imperium and the position of Dictator of the Internet for a period of four years, and I will put every last spammer to the sword upon the sands of the iColosseum. Live streaming available.
Atheism is not new to me. The first time I questioned religion was when I was seven years old, asking my mother, "If God created the universe, then who created God?" Her answer, "God always was", did not sound at all convincing to me. At age 15, when I was finally allowed to choose for myself whether or not to attend church services, I immediately stopped doing so, having considered it a waste of time for as long as I could remember. A few years later I realized that I did not believe in God at all. That was over 30 years ago.
What the Internet did, however, was to introduce me to the writings of authors such as, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris. Their books describe in great detail how religion has caused so much more suffering in the world than it has ever managed to prevent, for example how wars may be started by people, but wartime atrocities almost always require religion to be involved. Ultimately, this is all caused by systems that tell us what to think, immunizing us to argument, so they should be recognized for what they really do: brainwashing.
What to do about it? Education, education, education. Mandatory up to age 21, but available to everyone at all ages and for free. Everyone should be scientifically literate. The best thing a society can do is to invest in itself, and religion just happens to be one of the first things we lose when we learn to think for ourselves.
If education can destroy your faith it's not God you're praying to, it's ignorance.
I knew this when I was 10, and that was in 1950, my total lack of belief in the mumbo jumbo of ALL religion began then and became a certainty soon after that. Family was catholic with all trappings, control, coercion etc....water off a ducks back.
Religion wants a closed ecology - you get your words from the priests, work hard and pray and, oh yes, give me money.
There is no difference between scientology, islam, catholicism or bantu spirit jabber - they are all mechanisms to live free and prosper at the behest of others.
I want the tax exemptions for reiligions stopped, I want them taxed, kick them in the ass.
And on top of that they all seem to thrive on child molestation. It is no joke the way Giles portrays clerics grinning after alter boys - many lives were harmed and criminals protected.
....in other place with a former monopoly of state mandated Atheism....
Mandated for the state, not necessarily the people. What those states had against the organizations promoting religion was that they were a competing viewpoint, a rival political power if you will... which was something those states didn't want to allow. Both Russia and China have religious people in them, and it's fine until they do something that those countries feel is a threat to the governments power in said country.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
I've noticed that religion has affiliated itself more and more with the right wing political party (in the US). During that period the ideas coming from that political party have often designed to pander to deeply religious people, have become nuttier and nuttier. The Republicans recognized that there was a large group of people who were used to doing what they were told by an authority figure and targeted that group to perpetuate their existence, hence the religion/right wing party affiliation, in spite of the fact that the right wing party promotes ideas that are often in direct conflict with the religious- ideas and attitudes about caring about the poor, sick, etc.
It seems that while the original goal might have been for the republicans to insinuate themselves into the religion (Xtianity in its various forms), the opposite has also taken place the religious leaders saw an opportunity to get more control and power and impose their beliefs on a larger population by insinuating themselves into the Republican party. Recently it appears that the Republicans have been trying to distance themselves from their more religious affiliations by making a show of standing up to the Tea party (the religious parasite that is sucking the life blood from the Republican party), but the two are now hopelessly entangled and if religion goes down, they will drag the Republican party down with them.
The next 20 years are going to be interesting.
Should God wait upon you hand and foot, serving your every whim and desire, preventing any pain of any kind because not to, you would consider evil?
Yes. If got is omnipotent, he can do this for everyone and still do infinitely more. And why would you need to "grow" and "mature" in the ways you describe if there were no evil to worry about? It would be a waste of time, and good riddance. As for learning, that can still be done in a utopia.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
No, that still has problems with implied factors.
Specifically, it implies gravity, and that god is bound to the rules of physical reality. If so, then naturally god cannot be omnipotent, as you are implying-- however, if god is not bound by the laws of physical reality, then god can make a boulder that is impossible to lift, yet still lift it.
Your argument relies on there being something infallible that is "underneath" god. (both figuratively, and literally,.) An unliftable object would be a quantum singularity-- You need an impossible surface to support having such a thing sitting on it, waiting to be lifted-- It also presupposes that god is limited by physical reality, rather than what religion implies, which is the inverse. (Physical reality is dependent upon god.) The axioms by which logic and physics are underpinned are based on the constancy of the physical universe, and if that constancy isnt constant after all -- but instead based on the influence of an omnipotent god-- then it does not follow to use it as a means to refute the existence of that god.
With all the implied fallacies in place, you simply become redundant in asserting that god cannot exist within the confines of the physical universe. That's fine and dandy. Physics says that too:
Something like god would represent unlimited energy potential, and thus have unlimited mass energy. Unless god was also of an infinite volume, he would rapidly create the universe's single most extreme black hole in very short order. Since this is not observed to be the case, god clearly does not exist in our universe.
As such, it is illogical to attempt to use logical foundations predicated on this presumption to disprove the existence of such an entity.
The assertion that there are no alternatives to the physical universe we see and interact with does not meet up with recent findings and theory.
So, rather than some infallible truth being presented, all I see is a poorly framed argument that reduces to redundancy, while disproving nothing of consequence.
*Agnostic, in case you were interested.
If your 'knowledge' of the Bible only extends as far as an ignorant half-remembered version of Genesis, then yes.
Specifically, it's not "the fruit of Knowledge" - it's "the Knowledge of good and evil".
The Bible is actually quite encouraging of knowledge, even showing something of a kickarse attitude towards deliberate ignorance:
"An unfriendly person pursues selfish ends and against all sound judgment starts quarrels. Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions ... The lips of fools bring them strife, and their mouths invite a beating ... Before a downfall the heart is haughty, but humility comes before honor. To answer before listening - that is folly and shame ... The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge, for the ears of the wise seek it out."
-- Proverbs 18:1-2,6,12-13,15
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
But it can show you how stupid it is to believe in imaginary creatures and let you make an intelligent decision based on facts, not myth..
The "Internet" is really no different than a library in this case, only you dont have to get your lazy ass out of the chair and drive in...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
More apt than you might think.
Lucifer, as Satan is often called, can easily be translated as "he who brings the light" or "he who carries the light (to someone)", deducting from "lux", light and "ferre", carry, bring. His story is not too different from that of Prometheus, who served that role in the Greek mythology. And they're by far not unique.
In other words, they were "evil" enough to bring light and enlightenment to human, rather than doing as their bosses want and keep them in the dark.
Really makes you wonder who's the bad guy in the whole story. I mean, ponder for yourself, who'd you rather paint as the bad guy in a story? The one that gives you knowledge and information, or the dude that wants to keep you in the dark so you would continue worshiping him rather than going and finding your own way?
When you look at it that way, the Christian God feels more and more like a Goa'uld in Stargate. He sure shares a lot of ideals with how Ra is depicted in the movie.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Apparently you know a thing or two about the bible, maybe you can solve something that has puzzled me for a while now.
God punished Adam and Eve for eating from the tree when he forbade them. I.e. for breaking his law. So far, so good. But why did he put the trees in there in the first place? He's God. He's all mighty. He could have put the trees wherever he pleases. Especially since, being omniscient, he must have known that they will break his law. Being omniscient, he must have known that they will not heed his law. So he punished them for doing what he knew they would do, which he himself could easily have avoided.
Essentially, that makes God a really king size asshole.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I know too many smart highly-educated Christians to think that religion is merely some lack of applied thought.
It's a choice they made, knowingly and subjectively, to have religious faith.
I don't happen to agree with them, but that is their decision.
Especially since, being omniscient, he must have known that they will break his law. Being omniscient, he must have known that they will not heed his law. So he punished them for doing what he knew they would do, which he himself could easily have avoided.
You are missing something: If God is all knowing and all powerful, it follows that God intentionally created Adam and Eve so that they would break the divine commandment. In effect, Adam and Eve may not have followed the word of the law, but they did follow the intention of God. Given how meticulously theologists have been studying and considering the Bible, I would be surprised if someone had not already followed this line of thought and come up with some conclusions.
As I remember it, there are two creation myths in the Bible, and the myth of Adam and Eve is believed to be the older of the two. There is the possibility that the myth of Adam and Eve predates the Jewish switch from many gods to just one (who may not have started out as being almighty), so it is likely that the story was written to be taken at face value.
The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head
Christian zealots. Muslim zealots. Atheists zealots. Maybe it's the "zealot" part that the major problem, since I'm quite sure that nobody has all the answers, yet zealots of all stripes presume to enforce their particular delusions of understanding.
Since we don't like to think of ourselves as broken (and, heaven forbid, agree with what the Bible says about us) some choose the "no God" path.
Incorrect. That is not why people choose to be atheists. I am an atheist because there is no reason to believe that a god exists. Ignorance is not evidence, either.
[End Of Line]
The internet is a series of branches, and atheists want to send their beliefs down those branches, and into your child's bedroom.
No more so than the religious nut jobs. How many times have you browsed to a site thinking it to be a legitimate news site or scientific article only to find that it was a well disguised religious message.
Real religious belief requires blind faith, if someone loses their religion because of the wealth of information on the internet that refutes their belief system then they were clearly lacking in the faith department.
I went from agnostic to atheist after the death of my mother! long before the rise of the internet as we now know it.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law - Aleister Crowley
The internet can be a dangerous place too.
Just like religious services can put you in an "information bubble", so can the internet.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
There would be no atheist zealots if the religious zealots didn't exist.
-g
False. Every "faith" will eventually have it's zealots. Even if that "faith" is athiesm.
"Newspapers: A tiny little part of the internet, printed out yesterday, and delivered to your house"
I know too many smart highly-educated Christians to think that religion is merely some lack of applied thought. It's a choice they made, knowingly and subjectively, to have religious faith.
Skeptics seem to have this assumption that humans are inherently rational, and it's only those who are intellectually weak that let bad/illogical ideas into the mind. I'd argue that this is a bad model because we are forced throughout life to rely on incomplete/inaccurate information from a wide variety of sources... our senses, our emotions, our peers and society at large, etc. Our brains are a very muddy place that was never tidy and logically "clean" to begin with, but we make do (more or less). A purely skeptical species would go extinct questioning the need to plant crops, etc.,
The way I see it, rationality (and the engineered pursuit of it, science) is a skill that must be developed and subsequently imposed on various facets of our worldview. How we select those facets (and how vigorously we investigate them) is a strategic question ("what is my biggest blindspot?") that we're not well equipped to answer (they're called "blindspots" for a reason). And we ALL have blindspots of various topic and magnitude.
In the case of religion, it's particularly hard to investigate these blindspots because adherents have been strongly conditioned to self-identify with the cause. Their parents, friends, community, and everyone they trusted as a child told them "this is what we believe, it is the only way to live a good life, and everything outside of it is corrupt and destructive". Like Tevye says in Fiddler on the Roof, "tradition tells us who we are and what G-d expects of us".
Analytically re-evaluating one's faith as an adult requires a tremendous amount of courage and vigour. To do so, they must overcome:
This is not the only way people leave their faith, but it's relevant to skeptics because it's the "rational" route. I suspect that those who use "emotional evidence" as their primary waypoints for evaluating complex situation have it easier... they see the history of Christanity's/Islam's treatment towards women or they consider how wholly abhorrent the concept of hell is, and then they proceed to reject the system that generated those ideas.
Instead of offering mockery (a tempting practice), skeptics would do better to (1) humbly remember that we all have blindspots, (2) that every population has smart and dumb individuals, (3) that believers make many valuable contributions to rationality/science, (4) and that social and emotional arguments against a faith can compliment their existing intellectual arguments.
-1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
Or, you know, he could have made child birth easy.
Play Command HQ online
Knowing is not the same thing as controlling. God knew what the outcome would be, but the alternative was to create us without a free will... even if only because we would not be presented with the opportunity to choose to things that are wrong.
Can a child who is kept in a fenced yard when they cannot reach a gate mechanisms take any credit at all for staying in the yard of their own volition? The result might be that the child will stay in the yard, which may very well be a desirable thing, but the child still wouldn't be the one making that choice. The point of free will is to give each individual personal accountability for their actions.
This suggests to me that God places a higher value on the merits of freely made choices than we generally do... we tend to look only at the outcome of a choice, and if the ends are undesirable, then we do not take that road, while God seems to evaluate every choice that is made along the way.
In a nutshell, with us, the ends can justify the means, but with God, the means must justify themselves... and somehow, at the end of it all, be worth more than whatever undesirable stuff happens as well, even if as a direct consequence.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Perhaps being an atheist requires blind faith as well. If you are an atheist you have a belief that all hell won't be applied to you for adopting your belief system.
No. You just have to believe that none of the 20 different afterlifes posited by religions is true, instead of believing that one of them is and the other 19 are false.
Even science itself rests upon articles of faith. For example assuming that the laws of physics are the same all over the universe is irrational and arbitrary.
No. Its just the simplest explanation in the absence of evidence to the contrary. Support for it comes from everything we observe of distant stars and galaxies, which seem similar to our own.
That being the case the entire cosmology presented by science becomes very fishy. Quantum mechanics hints that physical reality is not actual and quite an illusion in itself.
No, Quantum mechanics says that at the realm of the very tiny or the very fast, our everyday model of physical reality is not accurate.
We can postulate that all science does is falsely attempt to decode segments of the illusion. It suggests that a rabid, backwoods, Baptist, in a fever of religious excitement and an atheist are as far as logic goes equals.
That must make the rabid, backwoods Baptists very happy.
Atheism isn't a faith. Though religious types like to believe it is. Just another of their false beliefs.
...there's just God when he's drunk." -- Tom Waits
Koans and fables for the software engineer
Well, there's not collecting stamps, and then there's looking for any stamp collector you can find and telling them how stupid they are for collecting little pieces of glue-backed paper and how they are wasting their lives by trying to find more of those pieces of paper.
The former merely follows a personal preference over not collecting stamps. The latter intentionally tries to enforce their view of the hobby of stamp collecting on everyone they meet. (Ironically, winding up being just as annoying as the stamp collectors who insist on showing every person they meet their entire stamp collection and pestering them to start a stamp collection of their own because it's such a fun hobby they don't see why everyone wouldn't want to participate.)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Nope.
Atheism: I'm not playing your stupid game.