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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?"
The Antichrist
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.
This has been going on in most Western countries since before the internet, mainly in the 60s and 70s. America is just late to the game.
So probably the biggest time-waster in human history is being supplanted by a new biggest time-waster ...
I have definitely become even more religious, but my variety has increased. Thanks to the Internet I am exposed to more faiths, and can see the merit in each one. For your information, I attend a Mormon church - as a non-member - when I'm near one, but am sympathetic to Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism. Each has truths to share with you; none should be a box for you to hide in. Remember what King Monkut of Thailand said to the Christian missionaries: "What you teach us to do is good; what you teach us to believe is silly."
Are a bunch of noisy cunts who pretty much make up for the difference by never shutting the fuck up.
At least in Western Europe, it's been true for a long time that the more highly educated you are, the less likely you are to be the slave to the memes of some religious sect. The Internet is, fortunately, gradually increasing levels of education generally.
Religion and it's many splintered (and violent) factions are one of the last remaining serious problems holding back the advancement of humanity.
The Riddle of Epicurus
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If God is willing to prevent evil, but is not able to
Then He is not omnipotent.
If He is able, but not willing
Then He is malevolent.
If He is both able and willing
Then whence cometh evil?
If He is neither able nor willing
Then why call Him God?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We should start taxing churches in this country as well. It's pretty clear religion has not stayed out of politics.
And they've really bent the tax free system we put in place that the church paid no taxes. Now they move everything under the umbrella of the church to enjoy tax free status.
It's gotten corrupt. Take it away.
We need the money and they have enough to build giant monstrosities used two days a week. It's wasteful. Tax them like anybody else.
Half a million churches spread across the country paying no taxes. It's bullshit.
While the internet did not make me an atheist, it did made me a better informed atheist with better arguments. It also showed me that I was far from alone.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
Not quote as John may have meant it, but oh so true.
Considering that the U.S. is dominated by 1) militant fundamentalist christian religion, 2) military-industrial complex religiously believing in U.S. geopolitical supremacy which happens to be quite lucrative, and 3) a money-power worshipping fundamentally cynical and corrupt wall street - lobbyist - political power complex which worships themselves as god on earth, I would say that taking away even a smidgen of America's religion would be a nice trick.
FWIW I personally have not changed in terms of belief despite being highly steeped in the Internet and science. I don't go to synagogue, but I have a little bit of faith that is inculcated deep down, that sometimes makes me feel communally connected to people, nature, the universe. I don't know the answer, whether it is some entity, brain linked to quantum reality, or just an artifact of our brain makeup that happened to be a good thing from a darwinian perspective. This has not changed since I was a child. I survived reading the bible, carlos casteneda, illuminati, etc. Probably science fiction affected me more than anything else. One thing I can say, I wish I had the Internet when I was little. It would have given me unlimited educational opportunity, whereas I wasted years languishing in public school and then spent years trying to find the Internet it having heard whispers about it (it was not in existence on a large scale then). I starting with bbs, compuserve, and some engineers who mentored me, but finally had to build my own ISP to start the Internet in the country I am living in now (I am an American living overseas).
The Internet opens you up to many views, which is having a good impact I think on society, but much of it comes from a willingness to hang out in communities that provide such views. In other words, you get more viewpoints by hanging out on BoingBoing (my other main site besides slashdot) than by just using search engines. You can use the net to prop up your own believes and find targets to rail against too. The net won't change fundamentalists, but it may change people who could otherwise be coopted by them, since fundamentalism is just power hungry cynical bastards using both ancient and modern mind control tools (biblical writings, political power structures, so-called miracles, vulnerabilities of the psyche, pseudoscience, etc.) on naive shmucks who don't have critical thinking defenses. In that sense the net might reduce fundamentalists in the next generation who disbelieve evolution, but it might increase scientologists which appear to be a destructive meme, a plague on society.
Humans obviously have a belief circuit that is exploited by organized religion. Whether that is just psychology or tied to something real, it has nothing to do with the state of utter fundamentalist chaos that is ripping the America to shreds, the shreds being preyed upon by cynical power-seekers. You only have to surf the offerings of typical American cable tv after reading zerohedge or even slashdot to get unbearably nauseated. So it would be a nice trick and any amount we can tone down religion in the U.S. where it is visible, will a very good thing, it would be an act of self preservation.
I still don't understand why people drop Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, but stick with Jesus. Hasn't everybody read The Emperor's New Clothes?
thegodmovie.com - watch it
On the contrary, internet has given me a faith: Science
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)
I was born atheist and just stayed that way. Thanks mostly to my grandparents who didn't try to indoctrinate their children in any religion (although one of my grand-grandparents had been an actual priest).
Well, I guess I have to thank a bit the religion-condemning totalitarian regime me and my parents grew up under.
TL;DR: No, the Internet did not influence me at all in this regard.
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.
Your friends tells you about this thing which he believes in and tries to convince you. But you're not sure.
Do you:
a) Go along with them, get absorbed, spend hours listening to their arguments, ask around a circle of friends that you share with him about their opinion? (i.e. imagine pre-Internet generations where if you didn't know someone personally, or were a part of a group, you didn't even get to meet them, let alone communicate extensively)
b) Go to your social network online, look up vast resources, have the arguments for and against in front of you, find out all the dirty secrets, cliques, etc. hear tell from friends-of-friends-of-friends about things they do and believe in?
It's just a product of information availability. And it works both for and against us now. It's now harder to quash rumours started by a random person with no basis from spreading but it's much easier for such rumours to reach the ears of the interested - even if subject to court order in some cases!
And it's not just religion. It's products, services, celebrities, charities, you name it. Before, you didn't have a source of information likely to know both sides and the in and outs of everything that you could consult confidentially and extensively and get THOUSANDS of peoples opinions in a matter of minutes. Now it's a click away and you're taught to use it for school research before you're able to write.
On a personal note, I'm agnostic, so it's no great surprise to me that the more facts people have available to consult, the less seriously religion is taken. "Faith" is something I see as laziness - "I don't want to check this fact, I'll just trust it's true" isn't the best principle to live by. In fact, it's that exact principle that is being eroded by the simplicity of fact-checking nowadays (even if not perfect, there are still good sources of actual fact rather than common belief out there).
Religion has been on a bit of a death-spiral for years. My country is pretty much turning churches into nothing more than pretty historical buildings that you visit and feel obliged to drop a coin in the box to pay for your nice photos of the stained-glass. My father-in-law is religious and bemoans the complete lack of religion in his local area - he visited dozens of churches before he found one with any kind of active services, and they didn't suit his preference.
By contrast, he says that the US is a much more faithful country and you can still draw crowds of tens of thousands at certain churches.
But I think that's more about celebrity, and the older generation, than anything to do with religion itself.
Religion is dying a little, but to be honest we were in a kind of renaissance of religion the last couple of hundred years anyway.
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."
I'm pretty sure it was "Catholic School" that's to blame for my atheism. Every time I meet an atheist (you know, down at the Church of Atheism) it's always the same story -- they spent some number of years in a Catholic School. Sometimes it's a little, sometimes it's a lot, but there's always some there. Sure this is anecdotal, but it's common enough that someone could probably get a research paper out of it.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
However, we do know that religion is transmitted through contact. Both social contact and personal contact. See e.g. [Alderman, Derek H. 2012. "Cultural Change and Diffusion: Geographical Patterns, Social Processes, and Contact Zones." 21st Century Geography: A Reference Handbook (Vol. 1), SAGE Publications (edited by Joseph Stoltman), pp. 123-134.]
This is born out by the empirical data that people who're born in Muslim society tend to take Islam as their religion, whereas people who're born in devoutly Christian, Judaic, Shinto, or Animistic society tend to adopt those. In particular, the hypotheses of "Divine intervention" and "Very Personal Contact With God" aren't needed to model this kind of data. Social proximity (for which spatial proximity is a proxy) does the job adequately and is by far the simpler hypothesis.
Hence it's very reasonable to hypothesize that as social interaction patterns tend to shift to the Internet, transmission of religious beliefs follows suit. This hypothesis is not contradicted by, and dovetails nicely with, the survey data the article refers to.
Another data-point that fits this theory are examples of young or otherwise easily influenced people embracing fundamentalist Islam because of the websites they hang out on. Which incidentally is one of the reasons why organisations like the NSA and GCHQ are so interested in the Internet.
So all in all, the article is somewhere in-between an-interesting-idea-presented-in-a-blog post (it doesn't do any literature review, it doesn't place the question or the data within a recognised theoretical framework (even though suitable and persuasive frameworks such as the one sketched by Alderman exist), it doesn't present the data or the estimation results) and competent research.
But the one thing it's *not* is "Pseudo Science", simply because it (wisely) doesn't make any pretense at being scientific. Note the difference please.
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.
For myself, the issue was information, namely the history of the Christian Church (there can't be 'one true faith' if literally everything in your religion was plagiarized from other religions) and evolutionary psychology. And it came from traditional paper books.
The impact of the Internet is more likely the revelation that atheists are not the vanishingly small fringe group that religious people want to believe.
Yes, because blindly believing in fairy tales will definitely provide the answers people seek, and not just bullshit that other people made up. How very creative.
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It is actually a good thing if people are 'losing their religion'. It simply means they've started thinking for themselves and questioning things.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
Well I thought that'd be obvious. If you're at the top of the food chain in that, uh, religion, you get to have buckets and buckets of other peoples' money and live like a king. Not so good if you're at the bottom end though.
The internet may kill religion, but it doesn't kill faith. Religion being defined in this instance as cultural observances, unquestioned metaphysical assumptions and ceremonies, and faith as things one deeply believes and part of who you are, not merely what you do (to fit in).
And, I suspect, most people of faith who have thought about it deeply have no problem with that. I'd much rather people were sure of what they believed, and actually thought about it, argued about it, and made a real statement about what they believed, rather than just accepting what they are brought up with.
I think that the internet - and in fact any meeting with outside ideas - is the best way to kill nominal 'religion'. However, I'd make a guess that many people actually find a new faith, or find their faith hugely challenged or restructured. I know formally agnostic people who got into 'new age' mysticism and became (in some form) Buddhist through reading and learning online.
I am a follower of Jesus, who I believe is the son of God. ("Christian" being a very loaded term, especially in the USA). Many of my friends and others who believe the same as I do have been strengthened in their faith by discussions and videos online. Many churches don't bother actually exploring scripture in a critical or even structured way - but plenty of people online do. Video serieses by John Piper, Rob Bell, Nicky Gumbel, John MacArthur, and many other "thinking preachers" have been instrumental in my building a faith which is able to accept alternative viewpoints without freaking out.
C.S. Lewis was an Athiest, but became a Christian at university, and encountering views which challenged his view of the world so much he had to re-examine his own philosophies. I know plenty of others who came to faith at university, and a few who did online.
So. I'm a believing, 'born again', totally convinced Jesus-freak, with friends who are Athiest, Buddhist, Muslim, Agnostic, straight, gay, married, divorced, rich, poor. Their views do not destroy mine, and I will not try to destroy theirs. And I accept the fact that my views can only really be solid if I can engage with them in civilized discourse, and can understand and appreciate (even if I totally disagree with) them.
To those who call themselves Athiests here - how many of your friends hold views as strongly as you do, but which are completely contrary to your own?
Many people become Christian because they worry about relevance. An after-life makes the here-and-now less relevant, and there's less of an onus on making your mark, you just "have to follow the rules".
The Internet creates that sense of permanence. You post photos, you document your life, you create music, images, apps, stories, blog entries, etc. etc.
People realise that blogging on Sunday morning makes them feel better than going to church, and there you go...
The internet isn't "taking away" anything. Stop trying to make it sound like an aggressive action. People can't be forced to give up their religion. Even if you beat it out of them, all you can really do, at best, is prevent them from practicing it when people are looking at them. But I suppose "How the internet is convincing people to be less religious" doesn't have quite the same ring to it.
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.
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.
At the moment we are just seeing what is happening when a formally almost monopolistic marketplace is opened up: The former monopolist loses market share and the competition gains market share. But this does not mean the former monopolist is going to disappear, it will just shrink a lot. And while Christianity has decreasing market share in the US and Western Europe, in other place with a former monopoly of state mandated Atheism, Christianity and other religions are gaining market share. E.g.: In China and Russia.
Jan
Getting rid of religion is one of the most rational things a society can do, religion is the single most damaging force ever invented and at the same time one of the most irrational.
Basically you can sum up catholic / Islam based religions in this fashion;
1. An invisible man who was never created invents the universe and does a very piss poor job it.
2. He then populates earth with two people based off the same DNA source ( Eve is created from Adam ).
3. God forgets to remove a tree that is put on earth that apparently causes Sin ( of course he invented Sin as a way to not be held accountable for his actions ).
4. He then kicks Adam and Eve out of the garden because he can't forgive what he created, Adam and Eve procreate like rabbits, even thou science tells us they couldn't of made many healthy children with one DNA set.
5. God gets pissed and kills everyone several times, instead of forgiving what he creates ( no one can explain that ).
6. Finally after proving he's either a really bad engineer or just a hurt and suffering junky he decide he has to suffer by being human and having himself killed. (I guess his S&M obsession was to strong and he finally had to get the big one off).
Now what possible level headed human could support this insane ideal? What I just outlined is EXACTLY what the bible explains. You can argue or you can say I didn't read it correctly but strip off the extra BS and what I stated is exactly what the bible states. I didn't do a good job capturing the parts where God tells man to openly rape little girls and commit mass killings.
Lets just review some of the other wondering lessons we can learn from religion:
1. Gay people are evil and should be put to death by stoning.
2. Little girls who are virgins are to be raped, otherwise kill them.
3. The universal father can't be held accountable for his actions, but he demands totaly and unquestioning loyalty.
4. When things get bad and you need to forgive sin, have yourself killed for what you create. ( hardly all powerful ).
5. If you don't cut off parts of your body or have sex in special position you're going to hell.
etc.. etc... etc..
Lets not even start with Mormonism, where you take Christianity, which is crazy and add two dashes of total bat shit to it. Islam takes Christianity and adds on society segmentation and insane gender segmentation, combined with the fact most Muslims have the maturity of three year olds and they claim the Quran tells them to kill ( which is doesn't ).
Religion is what most people consider morally superior, but if you can't explain how the extreme negatives fit in, then why should you be allowed to use the extreme or neutral positives? Religion is not a good force in the world, it's not rational, it's not moral and it's not a system of belief we should be passing on. If the internet is helping to end this insane system of sick, disturbing, mentally and emotionally twisted beliefs then so be it, and I'm glad!
http://www.angelfire.com/nd/ki...
The Prince and the Magician
Once upon a time there was a young prince, who believed in all things but three. He did not believe in princesses, he did not believe in islands, he did not believe in God. His father, the King, told him that such things did not exist. As there were no princesses or islands in his father's domaines, and no sign of God, the young prince believed his father.
But then, one day, the prince ran away from his palace. He came to the next land. There, to his astonishment, from every coast he saw islands, and on these islands, strange and troubling creatures whom he dared not name. As he searched for a boat, a man in full evening dress approached along the shore.
"Are those real islands?" asked the young prince.
"Of course they are real islands," said the man in evening dress.
"And those strange and troubling creatures?"
"They are all genuine and authentic princesses."
"Then God must also exist!" cried the prince.
"I am God," replied the man in full evening dress, with a bow.
The young prince returned home as quickly as he could.
"So you are back," said his father.
"I have seen islands, I have seen princesses, I have seen God," said the prince reproachfully.
The king was unmoved.
"Neither real islands, nor real princesses, nor a real God, exist."
"I saw them!"
"Tell me how God was dressed."
"God was in full evening dress."
"Were the sleeves of his coat rolled back?"
The prince remembered that they had been. The king smiled.
"That is the uniform of a magician. You have been deceived."
At this, the prince returned to the next land, and went to the same shore, where he once again came upon the man in full evening dress.
"My father the king has told me who you are," said the young prince indignantly. "You deceived me last time, but not again. Now I know that those are not real islands and real princesses, because you are a magician."
The man on the shore smiled.
"It is you who are deceived, my boy. In your father's kingdom there are many islands and many princesses. But you are under your father's spell, so you cannot see them."
The prince returned home. When he saw his father, he looked him in the eyes.
"Father, is it true that you are not a real king, but only a magician?"
The king smiled, and rolled back his sleeves.
"Yes, my son, I am only a magician."
"Then the man on the shore was God."
"The man on the shore was another magician."
"I must know the real truth, the truth beyond magic."
"There is no truth beyond magic," said the king.
The prince was full of sadness.
He said, "I will kill myself."
The king by magic caused death to appear. Death stood in the door and beckoned to the prince. The prince shuddered. He remembered the beautiful but unreal islands and the unreal but beautiful princesses.
"Very well," he said. "I can bear it."
"You see, my son," said the king, "you too now begin to become a magician." -
--Adapted from "The Magus" by John Fowles
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
Give internet for free already :)
So the internet is causing people to reject their silly belief that "there is a god" and replace it with an equally silly belief that "there is no god".
Get behind me, Internet!
No, there isn't. If you're serious, then i highly suspect you don't understand the meaning of the word "evidence." There isn't even evidence that he actually existed. There is written record of the church creating the mythology surrounding the name Jesus that they use today (The First Council of Nicaea), but that's about it. There is a complete absence of corroboration that he lived, as there are no Roman records (records common and abundant at the time) that cite him, and his first mention in the writing of Josephus is a fairly obvious forgery, it being neither in his tone or style of writing, and added into a margin, with the additional complete omission of any reference in a prior work by the historian.
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.
I've checked the rate of growth of my church. Wars and the great depression had a lower growth rate than during this recession. Still the membership of my church is growing. Sitting home and surfing the web may make people less likely to seek out the society of a church. What's funny is the assumption that this is a good thing. I rarely post to these self congratulations postings of atheists. Atheists will continue to pat themselves on the back. You cannot give an atheist any evidence that they will accept, as they refuse to look just like those who claim the world is flat. Atheists will stand in line at a church's soup kitchen and deny that there is any reason for people to come together to help others. They will claim the religion is the cause of all the problems in the world, even though many horrible world leaders like Stalin were clearly atheist. Don't think that just because I stop arguing with you that your ideas are correct. It may be that I realize it is pointless to argue with those who cannot think. There will come a time in your life when you need help. You may continue to deny it. But realize that God will be there even if you do not believe.
This is why we can't have nice things
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
It is not internet directly but one of its byproducts, the ability to talk with a large number of people outside your immediate social group.
This is a very powerful thing, you are a product of environment, when exposed to a larger environment the echo chamber of the ideas repeated by those close to you diminishes.
Whatever you're smoking- I want me some!
Yep. And some people spend so much time opposing religions and calling themselves atheists, that atheism essentially becomes their new religion-like thing.
I was raised in a Roman Catholic family, was baptised, took communion, got confirmed and married in the church, and ended that association in 1993, when after my wife and I separated and divorced she decided she wanted our marriage of 7 years and one child anulled, and had that granted. I didn't respond to the petition as by then, I figured that if through a few words and mumbo jumbo by some shaman here on earth, our marriage never was in the eyes of the Lord, then to hell with the Lord, he must be nothing but made up nonsense, too. Thanks to the internet, I've connected with people and made friends with folks who think like I do -- that there really isn't any magical guy in the sky looking down on us all, and this after a full read of the Bible and a lot of personal reflection.
It's a sword that cuts both ways. On the one hand, the internet brings everyone out into the middle of a diversity of thought. On the other hand, it provides a powerful way to find out more about what you believe...and everyone believes something as our ability to have first-hand experience and new ideas in our own short lives is very limited. We have to rely mostly on other people's ideas and experience passed down through time and shared. Ultimately, if God is acting in our midst, then the internet will be a means for God to reach more people and enter their hearts.
Andrew Gelman, statistics professor and blogger, has characterized the Technology Review article as "horrible" and a "monstrosity" on his blog. He is an MIT graduate. Correlation does not imply causation. It's clickbait, too.
"Mit der Dummheit kaempfen Goetter selbst vergebens." - Schiller
And you think the internet is any different? ..lol
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 ----
I'm pretty sure that I know what the definition of evidence is.
You're using a definition of the word that people don't expect. It's easy to say that evidence exists even if it's complete bullshit, but when you say there is evidence for something, usually people will think you mean that it is good evidence.
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The Internet simply destroyed the argument of authority. Whoever has access to the Internet has to possibility to check facts, and will be exposed to debunk of the BS, affirmation of the BS, BS ate my balls, BS's tweets. "Authority says so, it must be true" is doomed with the ease of checking, although this is somewhat balanced by the ease to forward BS you hear on your Facebook account, itself balanced by obsessive compulsive nerds like myself who take a pride in debunking it in less than 12 seconds.
Then seven years ago smartphones came along, and even at the bar BS is easily debunked. Some story some dude tells at the bar can't leave a mark in people's subconscious anymore.
I became an atheist when I was about ten or eleven years old. I was sure of myself at the time.
Twenty years later, I have some serious doubts about it, and have retreated to agnosticism. That's partly because the Internet has given me easy access to all sorts of information about philosophy, religion and politics. I was able to read what the other side actually thought, not what my side said they thought.
I could say that the Internet destroyed my faith in atheism, but I know that you guys really hate the implications of statements like that, so please take it as a (trollish) joke!
What I would say, not as a joke, is that the Internet has not stopped people believing weird and/or stupid things. In fact it has strengthened all sorts of weird beliefs, some weirder than anything in the Bible.
You're an immobile computer, remember?
Jesus is a bit too far away from being a simple invention.
Nope. Just because lots of idiots believe in fairy tales doesn't make them any less silly.
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What is evil to me may not be evil to you which may not be evil to God.
Cybernetically, and mathematically: That which increases the complexity or awareness of the universe is good.
This is what life does, life is good. Extinction reduces complexity, and is not good. Knowledge and exploration increase awareness and are good. Censorship and falsehoods are not good. War is not good unless it will prevent more death than it causes. Genocide is not good, it reduces complexity.
The computation becomes more complex when you factor in the actions that are not good for the few, but benefit the many. Goodness is not a boolean, it is a scalar, and is relative when comparing the outcomes of a choice. Prisons limit the exploration and awareness of the universe for some to prevent their limiting of the greater goodness of others. Given the complexity of all involved one can even determine the degree of risk that should be taken to rehabilitate the dangerous. Imprisoning the innocent is not good.
Humans emerged from a bloody evolutionary path, they can not help this, but it increased their complexity faster than that of the plants. Now count the neurons and cells of the creatures and plants and learn just how good it is to eat.
The only real problem is that one can not see into the future, so only predictions can be made as to how good a choice will be, but we can analyze the past, and with a big enough computer with enough input you can discern what is good.
Evil on the other hand is a term that is mired in the meaningless muck of all things humans find detestable. Frequently one will ignore that everything flows and proclaim ridiculous statements such as, "Lying is evil", or "Killing is evil", when in reality lying can sometimes produce more goodness than the false information prevents, some call these "white lies". Are white lies evil? Some would say yes, others would say no. The fact remains that the act of lying is not good, but sometimes it is beneficial for the greater good. The same goes with killing.
It is not that Evil or "being bad" is hard to nail down, it is that humans have defined evil so broadly that it is a meaningless term. It covers everything from thought crime to selfishness to destruction of the universe. Your lack of coordination is not good since it caused you to stub your toe. The action killed some cells and perhaps limited your ability to explore, perhaps the pain even distracted you from doing more good yourself, thus it is not good. If we could analyze the probability lattice wherein you did not stub your toe we could figure out whether it was ultimately good for the universe that you did so.
We can also limit the sphere of influence to the event itself, those surrounding you, etc. and determine how much stubbing your toe affected the goodness within a subset of space-time. You are free to blame the engineer of your abode for not making the corner that stubbed your round, and even proclaim that corners are evil, but it may even lead to your designs affecting hardware and UI designs as the CEO of a successful tech company. Then, arguably, your toe stubbing may have been good for you even as you set out to round every rectangle's evil corners. Note that if every rectangle is rounded then it reduces the complexity of the shape categorization of the medium, thus is not good in general unless you are exposed to non rounded rectangles elsewhere: A different UI or design theme, or a door jamb for instance...
If you are questioning your religion, the Internet, and any other media presenting information on the topic, make a difference.
But it's not like whenever you open a random page there's a pop-up telling you to lose your religion.
Maybe there is another reason for losing religion ie. the breathtaking progress of technology that just happens to be coincident with the growth of the Internet. Why should a person have to believe in a quasi-magical deity when time and again, technology shows us how to make 'magic' happen?
How could you not doubt religion in a world where technology makes us gods?
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
If it does, there never was a faith there to begin with. What happens STRENGTHENS what's there, in these cases, that the person thinks more of other humans' opinions than of God's. "One with God is a majority" (Martin Luther.) The Internet has shown me how crucial is faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord as I've seen how lost and darkened is the thinking of so many people ("water is complex"? really? Is that what passes for "science" now?)
Cranky educator.
correlate to the number of pirates?
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Don't pick a side, don't be part of the control system.
You don't need to pick a side. If you lack a belief in a god, you're an atheist. It doesn't matter that you don't want to be labeled; inevitably, some labels will apply to you, due to how they are defined.
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I was never religious, being on the Internet and having access to so much knowledge made me less so but it had the effect of making me think, in a truer sense, that there is "more".
Not a personalized anthropomorphic God, but something.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
You do.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
No, the Internet is the same as books, tv, etc., but more easily accessible, and it's of course more easy to post your own content for others to see. I've seen so much bullshit on the Internet, but the same holds true for books and television. You have to do some research to find quality sources.
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Interesting how this gets posted on Sunday morning, a time when people of faith are particularly likely to be offline doing other things. Deliberate attempt to skew the discussion, or just failure to think things through?
There is a difference between having faith in God and practicing a religion. I agree that the Internet is shedding light on the flaws in most religions, and therefore discouraging people and possibly turning them away. That does not mean that those people who are opting out of a religion are losing their faith in God (or whatever higher power). It merely means that they are realizing that religion is based on humans, and humans are subject to the same flaws as everyone else.
Or maybe it's all the cat pictures.
In my case, Catholics and Fundy Christians made me an atheist.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
(records common and abundant at the time)
You're confused.
Required reading for internet skeptics
Correlation is not causation.
This might be the most important part. The internet shows you that it's OK to disagree with the people directly around you, because you aren't alone in your opinion.
Unfortunately this also works both ways, and emboldens crazy fringe beliefs as well.
Whose numbers have greatly increased since the advent of the Internet.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The internet is a series of branches, and atheists want to send their beliefs down those branches, and into your child's bedroom.
You're making the parent's point, you just don't realize it.
Required reading for internet skeptics
If Jesus is the son of God, then you shouldn't be worshiping him like you do (that would be putting someone else before god, Exodus 20:3)
And if Jesus IS God, then he never really died, just merely faked his own death.
Can't have it both ways
But I sure have made the 'Pope Cry' a lot since first gaining access.
It appears some people have rushed to assume that the primary causation in the drop of religious activity is knowledge. However, the researcher says that the internet accounts for about 25% of the drop and theorizes that of that 25%, knowledge could be a large factor. But there is a another factor that was not mentioned that is common on the Internet and I suspect also in the larger but still unknown region of 50% causation. Entertainment. I suspect that entertainment correlates not only to a drop in religious activity (particularly among the more easily distracted) but the measured drop in friendship depth, increase in loneliness, violence, etc. I think we need to figure out our mental health in the same way we are figuring out our physical health. Then we can measure the effect of certain types of recreation in a similar way to how we measure the effect of eating unhealthy or not exercising.
"his first mention in the writing of Josephus is a fairly obvious forgery, it being neither in his tone or style of writing, and added into a margin"
I'm no historian, but it sounds like you aren't either? Wikiped says >.
There's also: "Scholars generally view these variations as indications that the Josephus passages are not interpolations, for a Christian interpolator would have made them correspond to the New Testament accounts, not differ from them"
Now, you might be 100% right that it is all a pile of lies, etc. But if modern scholarship has almost universally acknowledge the authenticity of a "fairly obvious forgery" you might need to expand your case a bit.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
I put it in bad enclosure, I guess:
"Modern scholarship has almost universally acknowledged the authenticity of the reference to "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James" [13] and has rejected its being the result of later interpolation"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J...
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
See the current issue of 'Skeptic' Jesus as a person probably existed, although the evidence is scant, a few biblical historians (some Jewish) believe he existed.
He apparently was an apocalyptic preacher among many that the Romans killed for causing too much trouble.
As far as the teachings in the New Testament - I think they were a mishmash of what folks taught then and what was imported along the trading routes from the far East. Like the Golden Rule (Do not do onto others ...) which was orginally taught by Confucious 1,000 years before Christ.
And of course, his divinity was/is complete horseshit.
Of all the religions teaching the same things back then, I think Christianity got the lead because of the conversion of Constatine's conversion. If he didn't convert, Christianity wouldn't have gotten that lucky foothold and have taken over the Western World.
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.
And I could have just as easily said that people like you would eventually change your minds in some way, and it would be just as valid to make the same comment right back at you. There is no point to be had in baseless statements.
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Originally, a liberal arts degree was supposed to teach a person how to think independently. History, political science, anthropology, psychology, sociology and so on, forced you to see different world views and solutions. It actively worked against the kind of drone-like social programming instituted by public schools and trade-school-only mentality of universities. Naturally, "liberal arts" was slowly propagandized into a dirty word. Politicians *hate* citizens who think, and won't toe the line. The internet, which no politician was bright enough to predict or evaluate, has blown that out of the water. Kids today are more likely to read news on rt.com or reddit.com than NBC, NPR, Fox, MSNBC or any other USA-centric propaganda outlet.
Mayhem may well ensue. :)
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
people like you would eventually change your minds in some way
People like me? What would I change my mind about?
You're not being very clear.
Required reading for internet skeptics
I'm saying the same thing could be applied to anyone, and for any reason. That is, if you were referring to when he said, "The world is going through a period of hedonism atm and like any "mood swing" they will get bored and seek salvation eventually. When they realize the internet cannot provide what they seek, people will turn back to faith and look inside for answers."
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You know of a court of law that accepts documents authored after all of the alleged eye witnesses were conveniently dead as evidence?
"Present day we can use the internet to actually see where our donations go" - you've got access to the preachers bank accounts?
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
I'm wondering if you intended for your statement to be this broad:
seems like you're targeting one of the world's many religions here...
is Knowledge also "anti-buddah" and "anti-allah"
what about "anti-confuscious"?
science is not "anti" anything....it is a method for consistently and comparatively observing the universe & sharing what we learn
Thank you Dave Raggett
more fool you if you can't learn.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Education leads to agnosticism, buying into another belief system(science ftw!) teaches you atheism.
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
It's important to note that the threshold to "prove" causality in any way in this kind of study (anthropology) is ridiculously high.
This study does not meet it by a long shot...few could just becuase of the complexity of the language & concepts.
"religion" is so many things to so many people, unless you take great care in defining terms, you will have mass confusion from your respondents...
with the "religion" example, some fundamental independent born-again Christians would answer like an atheist to question about "religions" because many are taught that only ***Organized*** church groups on a large scale are "religion"
they consider themselves "spiritual" not "religious"
that's just the start...**the whole study is founded on this error**
this is "Reefer Madness" level error...
we all know if a girl takes one hit of marijuana she will become uncontrollably attracted to men of other races
Thank you Dave Raggett
great point...holy shit I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed this...
this study's research design drives me absolutely insane...
just imagine what conclusions you could jump to if what the researchers in TFA did could ***actually*** establish causation!!!
you're right on...I'm the product of 18 years of fundamental indpendent baptist education (yes undergrad too)....YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT...
this is about feeling safe to be *honest* not any sort of societal shift
Thank you Dave Raggett
I'm blaming hard science fiction for myself.
led to interest and hobbies and then career in science and engineering.
I'm an attorney. I'm pretty sure that I know what the definition of evidence is as it applies to the law that I practice and so has no real bearing on this.
FTFY
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
The internet is destroying my faith - not my faith in God, but in humanity.
I have a son. I allow him to play hockey even though it could result in a serious injury or even death. I let him date girls even though he could get his heart broken. When he was two, I let him work his way up and down flights of steps. And yet I love him and would give up my life for him. I see the big picture even when he doesn't.
You are not God. You cannot see all possible outcomes. If you could see the future and know for certain your son would die in his next hockey game, would you let him play?
God allows people to die in ridiculous misfortunes every day, and is ostensibly capable of preventing them. You say that God may have a different definition of "evil" than we do. That may be true. But the riddle was written in our language, using our definition, and I still fail to see a flaw.
Last post!
Unfortunately not abundant enough to even get a decent idea of what Julius Caesar got up to - we've got to rely on the unashamedly biased view of Po from many years later for most of that. The reason the Pompeii excavation is such an enormous deal is because it's uncovered a lot of things we don't have records of.
Maybe it's because the internet make people think?
I mean, most people believe that you shouldn't believe everything you find on the internet. So, I suspect this results in a lot more source checking, who wrote the article/point of view, and why.... you know, lots of analytical and critical thinking and reason... looking for evidence, formulating hypotheses, testing hypotheses and coming to fact/evidence based conclusions.
These are all things that are poisonous to faith. There's an irony in this; from what I understand, a significant number of the clergy lose their faith in the process of becoming ordained or shortly after. Religious qualifications aren't the best for finding decently paid work outside of religious organisations so they're pretty much stuck with a decision that they made when they had stronger faith. Is this the old stereotype of the "priest who's lost his faith"?
organized religion = earthly politics man always creates god instead of worshiping him.
The Internet once again gets too much credit. Johannes Gutenberg started it all.
How can any expression of ideas "take away" your religion?
The only way that could happen, I would think, is if such expression of ideas prompted to government to stop being secular. Which is exactly what a lot of religious people want.
> Honestly it's hard to imagine more hate spitting out of modern westerners
No hate coming from the religious? Ever hear of 9/11?
Some things never change
access to unfiltered information will make people THINK! who would have thought? :)
Unfiltered information is not necessarily correct information. A peer reviewed scientific journal is an example of filtering. Filtering is not necessarily a bad thing, it depends on the who and why of the filtering.
People sometimes think more emotionally than critically, are easy to deceive. The anti-vaccine movement grew with the internet too.
Mormon girls are EASY!
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
> 1. Gay people are evil and should be put to death by stoning.
Same fate for people who work on the Sabbath, disobedient children, woman who lie about being virgins, adulterers, and so much more.
The bible strictly condones slavery - except for Israelites.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P... :
Epicurus is generally credited with first expounding the problem of evil, and it is sometimes called "the Epicurean paradox" or "the riddle of Epicurus":
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" - 'the Epicurean paradox'.
Koans and fables for the software engineer
> There is evidence that Christ came back from the dead. If he did in fact return from death, then he is who he claimed to be.
But Christ *is* god, so he could have never really been dead.
The internet just spreads information.... and much as disinformation quicker then normal. So maybe its starting to show the farce that the current religions are, Don't get me wrong I love religon, it helps set moral values that people wouldn't already have... and for the most part it works. The problem is the people who misinterpet or change them to fit a few. They are generally the ones who hate the internet or things that spread knowledge since they don't want there hidden agendas discovered.
...there's just God when he's drunk." -- Tom Waits
Koans and fables for the software engineer
If it wasn't for the Internet, I'd never have found out about the time-cube and become a Cubist.
http://www.timecube.com/
Table-ized A.I.
Because on the Internet you get called out for pretending to know something you don't know. Well, unless you pretend to know something or someone trendy.
I just came here to point the unreligious to the notion of philosophical naturalism. If you are unreligious, naturalism might help crystalize your worldview.
...There isn't even evidence that he actually existed...
Only if you create a novel, idosyncratic definition of "evidence" that does not apply to most of the rest of ancient history. And you grossly overestimate how "abundant" surviving Roman records actually are.
The absence of any physical contemporary artifacts bearing the name "Jesus" is no surprise.
Did you know that before 1961 we did not have a single physical artifact attesting to the existence of Pontius Pilate, even though he was the Roman 'ruler' of Judea for ten years? A single inscribed stone turned up in that year, and remains the sole contemporary physical evidence of his existence. It would be an extraordinary surprise to find any similar physical evidence of Jesus, lack of such is what would be normally expected.
There are several non-Christian sources that refer to Jesus and which modern critical scholarship indicates were not later interpolations by Christian scribes: Tactitus, Suetonius, Pliny the Younger, Josephus (no, it is not regarded as an "obvious forgery"), and Mara Bar Serapion. Most ancient historical figures (who were not rulers) are known only from references in later accounts.
There is written record of the church creating the mythology surrounding the name Jesus that they use today (The First Council of Nicaea), but that's about it.
You are showing that you really, really don't know what you are talking about. We have a substantial number of early Christian/Gnostic documents from the 2nd century AD (not later copies) that document accounts of Jesus going back many decades. The earliest is from around 120 AD, only about 90 years after the death of Jesus. The Gnostic manuscripts are particularly valuable since they represent a branch of the Jesus tradition that was ultimately rejected by the Church, they are not dependent on the "official" texts.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
I'm the reason that you became an atheist perusing the internet. I'm one of the many who helped you to realize what you now know. I was an atheist before. The Internet is how I can procreate -- the internet is my crusading ground.
I'm not alone.
> "Using the Internet can destroy your faith.
Oh God I hope so.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
Before the internet I had no religion. If the internet were to take away my religion I would be anti-religion...? Hmm... Hasn't happened. I also have not become pro-religion either. My views have not changed as a result of the internet.
I am pro-reason. When religion catches up then we can talk.
Explain FoxNews.
The connection strikes Me as questionable because, if We are going to compare anecdotes, My faith has only strengthened the more I have used the internet. For example, game theory in some ways backs up Christianity's Golden Rule, one recent Slashdot article suggests religion packages multiple psychological and/or physiological benefits better than just about any other institution, information on M-theory (which I would not have been able to access as readily without the internet) suggests the universe originated in a way which may be inherently untestable just like religion, the vehemence with which Some present hostility to People of faith simply because such Persons are People of faith leads Me to wonder just how much do said professed "Skeptics" are "Skeptics" because They genuinely doubt all religions or whether They are "Skeptics" because They are what Some might call "Assholes". If the internet has caused Some to lose Their faith, it may be such Persons were pre-disposed to doubt to begin with and the internet merely gave that final "push" instead of the internet taking Someone devout and transmogrifying Them into, say, Richard Dawkins, Jr.
"I'm not sure what your point was here."
from my comment above:
the point is, GP said science was "anti-Christian" and "anti-god" and I said it's not anti-anything....it is a method for consistenly and comparatively observing the universe and sharing what we learn
Thank you Dave Raggett
Well said. Faith is not diminished by learning more truth, it is enhanced by it. The more intensely I've scrutinized my own faith, the stronger it has become. One of the things I love about the church I belong to (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) is that we are encouraged to seek learning and understand others' points of view. The Internet facilitates that.
It seems that there is a growing philosophy that science and education are incompatible with a belief in God. The prevalence of this idea (evidenced in many comments here) is widespread across the Internet (and the world generally), and influences to that effect persuade many to abandon both their religion and, in many cases, their belief in God. A worldwide culture emphasizing this artificial division, spread via the Internet and other means, could be at the heart of the phenomenon described in the article.
On Easter Day 1800, in St. Paul's Cathedral, London, six people took Communion. SIX. Clearly wasn't the fault of the internet.
I would argue the Christian Right and all the televangelist scandals of the 80's did MUCH more to turn people away from religion.Then factor that most of us X-gens from that era have gone on to raise families who we don't introduce to religion and it multiplies from there...
Umm, what's the difference between the bible and tales about Santa Claus? Seriously? A little bit of historical truth with piles of lore on top?
thegodmovie.com - watch it
Proof? No. Evidence? Plenty. The evidence thus far uniformly indicates that everything about "you" is brainops, which in turn are manifestations of mundane physics, that is, well within the bounds of what we already know of physics.
What do we know?
On the side that is evidence for things happening in the brain, we know that various portions of the brain are key for various types of thinking, memory, sensory processing, glandular and organ control. We know that when these regions are drugged or damaged, those areas of cognition and other brain function are impaired or stopped; and that in the case where permanent damage is not done, those functions return. Cutting the corpus callosum does just what we'd expect, it's 100% consistent with our presumption of brainops. Injuries and lobotomies; sensory impairment and stimulation. Further, on the small scale, the brain's neuron structure has served as a model for us to build computing systems that operate in interesting and suggestive ways. Children without brains do not function. People with unusual brains (think Einstein and savants) function in unusual ways. Large waste loads in the bloodstream that reach the brain reduce acuity and many other metrics. Anesthetics of various types provide anywhere from none to partial to complete shutdown of brainops, and you go with it.
On the side that is evidence for things outside the brain not having anything to do with it, we know that magnetic fields of great intensity have little effect; certainly magnetic fields of typically extant intensities have no detectable effect. Likewise, gravity -- flip you upside down, you can still think, etc. Likewise electric fields -- hang around a radio transmitter or a power pylon or a Tesla coil, you're still you with no significant interference. We even know why -- the various layers of skull and fluids and membrane form an excellent shield for just about anything that can't actually put several watts per centimeter into the target.
What do we know that indicates that "we", in any way, shape or form, are an intermediary for an external soul? Nothing. What do we know that indicates that there's more going on than mundane physics? Nothing.
At this point, it's kind of like the big bang. We don't have the actual, resolved answer in hand, but we have a *lot* of evidence that only points one way. Because of this, scientifically speaking, until or unless someone comes up with evidence for external force or coupling, the way to bet is: It's brainops all the way down (apologies for unauthorized recasting of turtle metaphor.)
If you don't want to bet that way, then that's great: go research your idea, and bring back the data, because data pointing in some other direction would be amazingly delicious. But... if you just want to sit there and ignore the evidence we have, claim that an idea you have with no evidence at all behind it is more likely... well, all I can say is you've left science behind and you're well into faith.
But science, in and of itself, does have a lot of evidence on this matter. Repeatable, consensually experiential evidence. It all hangs together extremely well. Everything, no exceptions, points to the "I" as being an emergent function of brainops. The consequence of software running on the hardware, to strain a computing metaphor.
If the science is right -- which there is no reason to doubt at this point, no evidence pointing any other way -- then when the brain shuts down, you go out like a candle that's out of wick, tallow and oxygen. You're where you were before birth, which is to say, nowhere. No brain = no you.
If the evidence is wrong or only pointing at an intermediate system of some kind... well,
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Theist means "belief in a god or gods." From there, many divergences, all with their own interesting takes.
Atheist means "without belief in a god or gods." From there -- same thing. Many divergences, all with interesting takes.
Across that divide, the atheist stands on one side of a very distinct chasm, and all Christians, Jews, Muslims, etc. legitimately stand on the other. Most -- not all, but most -- arguments I see from atheists are about the reasons to be on their side of the chasm. In this sense, rolling fundies in with the most vague ideas of a god or gods and so forth is both appropriate and understandable. It may not be comfortable, but it really is what it is. Belief, or lack thereof.
When a theist brings up something specific -- say, a claim that the earth is 6k years old, or that Jesus was a real historical figure -- then atheist arguments tend to focus on the claim. That's because those claims are part of the theist reasons to advocate for their side of the chasm. And when theist A does not agree with theist B, there tends to be very fertile ground for someone to protest, "but that's not what we (or all of us) believe", which may be true enough, but doesn't address the actual back and forth that was going on, that is, between those that do believe that particular thing, and those that see that as invalid.
I hope that was clear. I tried. :)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
If we're randomly sticking pins into phrenological mutuality, how about this one? (my personal favourite):
Catholic sex abuse cases:
Pederastic institutions tend not to poll well. The only surprise is that it took this long.
Coincidence? I think not.
My observation is that the "belief device" seems to be an aggregate made of of various amounts of fear, gullibility, emotional pain, ignorance and something I can't put a single word to, but characterize as "an unwillingness to settle for the actuality that we legitimately don't have answers to some questions." Any one of those things, or any combination of them, can be enough to trigger the leap of faith, and as you say, this is entirely independent of intelligence per se. Once that leap has been taken, trying to reverse it is very, very tough -- it's a different mode of thinking and frankly, it's not rational, which tends to cripple rational arguments right out of the gate.
It certainly has proven to be an extremely useful lever to manipulate the population towards particular goals, some of which are often quite secular in nature, such as accumulating wealth, taking advantage of the sexual instincts, focusing power.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Many atheists are angry not at religion, but at what the religious have done to them. From blue laws to the subjugation of women to vilification of sexuality to 9/11 to bibles in courtrooms and required oaths to god and silly sayings on our money and all manner of other current-day evil, atheists have legitimate gripes that they are being abused for no other reason than those contained in religious thought.
Some go further and are mindful of religion's evil history, such as the crusades, the inquisitions, witch burnings and the like, taking those as cautionary tales of just how black and evil theism can get when it becomes the rationale that underlies the actions of the government. It tends to make us at least... twitchy, about modern day religion. Religion's current abject misbehavior when it interfaces with government very much appears to be a forewarning that perhaps we'd best get in there and put a stop to it, hence activism and negative characterizations (generally accurate ones, too.)
I don't hate religion -- in fact I have a large religious library and find it fascinating in terms of human behavior and can only appreciate and love the amazing art that it has brought to society from architecture to sculpture, painting and even some jewelry -- but I can sure tell you that my reaction to the various theist interferences with everyone else's politics, legal system, and even day to day life is nothing kind at all.
When theism can be characterized as a mode of thought kept to one's self and used to guide one's own actions, with great respect for, and isolation from, the actions of others, I have no problem with it whatsoever.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Yes, a friend of mine was fired back in 1962 for screwing a female student of 16. She came and sat in the front row with no panties and let him have a look, but in such a way that others were unaware. They soon screwed, he was fired they got married, but she was so hypersexual that she had lovers up. I used to visit him and hear the goings on. He did not complain. He was a Jewish nerd and the left over sex was enough for him.
I would like to see the per capita stats on this. Teachers outnumber priests 10 to one.Priests went after boy. Teachers in general had consexual sex with usually girl who wanted higher marks, or were hypersexual. I met one of those, it was fun while is lasted, but I could not have sex 2-3 times per day 7 days per week, which she wanted. I would not tolerate the infidelity, so stopped calling her.
Priests were true predators, and I place forced homosexual predation by a priest as more serious than consensual sex by teachers. I am sure a small number of the boys were also gay, so that portion was consensual.
So what actually| changed your mind was the exposure to different views, which made you question your own for the first time.
If you'd gone to the local library, or had a teacher who asked you to question things, the same thing would have happened eventually.
The Internet was not the cause - just the vector.
Oh, it's not. But it's a fact that Earth was created in 6 days and that 6000 years have passed since, yes? That's a fact. And should be taught as such. But the whole stuff that contradicts itself, that's all parables and metaphors.
You don't expect me to take that argument serious, do you?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Atheism is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Correlation != causation. The internet may not be causing the increase in atheism. Both are increasing at the same time, but we'd need to do more checks to make sure the two facts are related. Also increasing in the world's population, the average temperature, the number of exoplanets. We could also link the rise of atheism to the decrease in the number of pirates (but that's been done).
Meantime, I suspect it's to do with rise in information availability. People still read books away from the Internet, y'know.
Now, where did I put my copy of 'God is not Great'...
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
Well, too bad, because some labels will apply to you regardless of whether or not you want them to.
[End Of Line]
The atheist believes the sun will rise tomorrow and acts accordingly. This is a very well founded believe but it is a belief nevertheless and acting upon that belief is to act as though the other possibilities will not obtain.
Seastead this.
I shouldn't be surprised at the number of people who don't think critically about the so-called "Epicurean paradox" -- after all, it's in the interests of atheists not to think critically about it.
The paradox is resolved thusly: God is an experimentalist and the Universe is his experiment. He rarely interferes because he wants to see how things play out on their own. This does not make him malevolent; it merely makes him a good experimentalist.
I suppose since he is unable to completely foresee the outcome of the experiment, this shows that he's not omnipotent. (But that's fortunate for us, because he wouldn't have bothered with the experiment at all if he could completely foresee its outcome.) While not omnipotent, any entity that can create a buttload of matter and energy, as well as the laws of physics that govern their interactions, is still pretty damn powerful.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
I think the key is when you have multiple independent sources double-checking the filtering. In the case of the Catholic Church of old, they were the ones holding all the keys to the filter. You couldn't double-check their filter and proclaim them wrong. Well, you could try, but it wouldn't end well for you.
Nowadays, someone can submit an article in a peer reviewed scientific journal declaring X. That's filtered information. However, other scientists will test X and will either declare that it holds up or will debunk it. They can double-check the filtered information without fear of reprisal.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Her answer, "God always was", did not sound at all convincing to me.
Her answer was problematic, to be sure, but the alternative -- "the universe just created itself, and the sublimely elegant laws of physics just wrote themselves" -- is even less convincing.
religion has caused so much more suffering in the world than it has ever managed to prevent
Now you've become intellectually dishonest, by covering up these facts: Stalin, atheist, caused 43 millions deaths, and Mao, atheist, caused 45 million deaths. (For good measure, it should also be noted that "In adulthood, [Hitler] became disdainful of Christianity... It is generally believed by historians that Hitler's long term aim was the eradication of Christianity in Germany... Hitler repeatedly stated that Nazism was a secular ideology founded on science.")
If you truly want to minimize suffering, and had to choose between an occasional Sept-11-style attack with 3000 deaths perpetrated by religious fanatics, and a Mao-style genocide with 45 million deaths perpetrated by atheists, you'd choose the religious fanatics every time.
One wonders how history would be different if Mao, Stalin, or Hitler had believed there to be a whit of genuine authority behind the commandment, "You shall not murder."
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
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.
Buddists might be an exception to that. Being poor and humble is a key part of their story...
But they have found a way to live free, and there are many of them? So their 'teachings' are a burden society bears unwillingly, but bears it it does even benign and passive burdens are a cost to society - excessive?
This is perhaps a great time to address the charitable status of religion. A new Kickstarter project has just begun to produce a full length documentary on the tax benefits that religions receive. It is called 'Pennies from Heaven'. This is a professional production that we hope will receive airtime on public television as well as on the net. A trailer for the documentary can be found below:
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...
Instead of realizing the obvious:
"The internet allows people to make their own mind up, using unbiased data."
Lets automatically assume:
"People dont believe in my religion and wont accept my biased beliefs. The internet should be blamed"
I love you Americans for simplicity, if not completely blinded :)
So wish I had mod points to vote up.
kers at the wrong moment What happens when you catch stock tic
It could be that people are just getting better educated.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
No. There are not two types. There is just one. Simply being annoying isn't a separate branch or something.
Example Vegans. One type. They don't eat meat or dairy products. That is it.
There are Vegans who do this quietly as a personal preference, and those that expound it at every chance they can to say meat is murder, and how disgusting you are for doing so. There is a name for that, they are called assholes. It doesn't make them more or less Vegan.
Just because you are Muslim, Christian, Atheist, or Vegan, does not preclude the chance that you might also fall into the category of asshole.
That said, technically many of the actually branches of Religion have actual tenants about spreading the faith, or converting the heathens, while Atheism is simply a lack of belief in any of that nonsense. So in actuality some basically incorporate being an asshole within their faith, while for an Atheist it might merely be a personal choice... :)
Religion provides a sense of community (just like going to a football game does, but not seasonal). A sense of community makes one live longer and happier. So a sense of community is good. The Internet provides a false sense of community. So, IF this virtual-community makes one live longer and happier, then it is a good substitute for religion. I think Slashdot readers get a great deal of community from Slashdot, for example, and I hope (as one) that it results in a longer and happier life (after controlling for lack of exercise, etc. in my models).
"There is no god but allah" - well, they got it half right.
I have been fighting for years against religion, "the great orgasmatron". Kewl to see that I am not alone. Wit less religion, the US of America can only become a better country.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Sitting on your fat ass insulated from the real world behind a computer screen for hours every day makes born again atheists...
The promise of the internet seems to have panned out to be just as great as the promise of television.
It hasn't affected my beliefs one bit except for Learning the goals of of one are "convert or die".
Yeah, right, before religious groups could brainwash people and it was hard to verify the validity of the crap they were being fed, now it's easy to understand the bible was written 300 years after Christ, by a bunch of politicians that called themselves the Catholic church. Humm, yep, religions are doomed.
Wrote a novel called WE that while most attribute to the birthplace of the concept of Utopia/Dystopia within science fiction, it is very applicable to religion and the concept of God and faith.
It is a very old question/premise. Control VS Freedom and Knowledge VS Ignorance
If you think about it Heaven is pretty much the embodiment of a "Utopia" if you believe what many religions expound. The basic premise is that God has a bunch of rules that you must follow, and you get in. Fail to do so, and you go someplace else. So you give up control for happiness. The question is asked, you have your Freedom, but are you more happy for it. The same can be said of Knowledge, which was represented by the apple, that was used to kick Adam/Eve out of the garden of Eden (another Utopia representation). Again God is demanding control for your happiness, when when they elect for individual choice, are cast out. Belief in the "leader" can bring comfort to some, and also believing whatever they are told, not knowing many of the ills. One could also argue that Freedom and Knowledge might just make you miserable.
I won't ruin the book to say what happens in the end, but throughout the book there are many religious parallels (and general philosophic arguments) .
Anyway worth a read for anyone that wants to think a bit more critically about the topic as a whole which isn't entirely one sided. Even has a bit of a dig using evolution, which if you think about the rhetoric today, must have been a pretty big deal when the book was written in the 1920's.
Post-Snowden, I am losing my faith in the internet.
--
There is an infinity of numbers between 2 and 4, but none of them is 6; thus, the infinite monkeys conjecture is false.
Everyone is religious. Its just that some call their religion their "belief system".
All belief-based acts are acts of faith. And all actions are based on beliefs.
Baloney. Atheism is non-religion. Don't insult me by calling me religious.
For some that's science, religion, or lack of religion. After all, Atheism is faith in ones self. Most of the posts seem to be rantings, for or against "something", but I think INT_QRK is closest with his/her tagging zealots. I'm pretty much live and let live. I don't care about a person's race religion, or even persuasion, UNTIL they can not engage in a rational discourse. As soon as any religion or group tries to convert me, or get me to accept them by force, intimidation, threats, or shouting down anyone who disagrees with them, I'm likely to vote against anything they want or stand for. Used to be you could see just how well founded, or secure a person was in their belief, by being able to discuss rationally those beliefs with someone of opposing beliefs. The liberal arts have mostly been indoctrination for several generations...or more. Some colleges and universities are worse than others with the schools being destroyed by political correctness. Colleges and universities are "supposed to be institutions of learning. They are not democracies to be run by students, or aren't supposed to be. Be it any religion, atheists, or any other group that feel they have to resort to shouting down the opposition makes them sound like spoiled kids that didn't get their way.. That goes particularly for those who resort to threats, intimidation, and violence. As for educated voters. I've found many politicians quite willing to listen to the voters. Thing is, very few voters ever contact them. They hear from special interest groups and unhappy voters, but very few "concerned citizens" that have any understanding of the issue about which they write. It's those zealots that get their attention, although, I think the rantings probably head straight for the round file. Most of those go to a co-op with the instructions:"standard form letter". Yes, there are those who have their own agenda and could care less what those who put the in office want. Although I'm not a conservative, I find the Liberals are far more likely to reply with form letters than the conservatives. Maybe that will change if they lose control of both the house and senate. Conservatives consider me a liberal and liberals consider me a conservative.
You sound much like a creationist. You want people to seriously consider entertaining narratives as a plausible truth. As if there were a higher, better power, that however can't be bothered to make itself unambiguously clear to us idiots. And then you hijack physics.
I don't believe the Hebrew creation myth, not for a nanosecond, so I'm guessing I don't meet your definition of "creationist." If you think the possiblity that the laws of physics didn't simply write themselves is "entertaining," so much the better, I suppose. That hadn't ocurred to me.
I have as much right as anyone to put forth theories about the origin of the laws of physics, so I respectfully reject your use of the word "hijack."
By the age of 8 I realized that I was jerked around by all religious people I met until then. And that, based on simple logic, god simply could not exist.
So having been jerked around by religious people has something to do with this. I'm sorry you were jerked around. My belief about the nature of God is probably quite different from that of the jerkers.
May I suggest that no one should make ironclad commitments to conclusions they reached when they were 8. My adult mind, after extensive studies of university physics, has reached a different conclusion than your 8-year-old mind reached.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Stop and think for a moment. What is it that people do when they get on the internet and nobody is watching? It's not reading about religious, intellectual or moral discourse ...
And who knows, that might have a major effect ... :-)
Love without logic is insanity. And vice versa.
god is 'invoked' for virtually everything people do, countless times daily....you're lumping all of them into one context and it just hurts the conversation
what you describe, when ignorant (usually southern and poor) people refuse to change some arcane rule or behavior that should have changed long ago but survived due to bigotry excused as 'faith' or 'religion'...
that's one, very narrow, very obnoixious, virtually intolerable time people talk about 'god'....it's intellectually reductive & makes us all dumber to lump any use of the term 'god' into that one context
also, 'god' of course isn't only a christian word...the point was that science isn't "anti" any religion or belief system....
science is constructive...a system to construct knowledge & share/verify it with others...
technically that is "anti-ignorance" in the same way that saying medicine is "anti-sickness"....it's technically true but it is just a "truism"
Thank you Dave Raggett
I will go against the crowd here, and say that Internet helps me with my faith. It gives me free access to the life and writings of saints. It gives me access to the original words of people like the pope, and lets me contrast them with the reporting often given in the media. It gives me a connexion to a community of Christian people. And it lets me realise that most of the counter arguments to religion are nothing new, and have been debunked by great minds centuries ago. I recently came across a site dedicated to Fatima that had me entirely revisit the (very low) standards I had for my own faith and life.
Information on the net about religion is a little like information on sex and love. Good luck trying to understand what true love is by going to porn sites! Same thing trying to understand what the true love of God is The first post I see here equates knowledge to the antichrist. It's funny, because it's typical of the derisive "information" you can find on the net, which combines some familiarity with basic concepts and utter ignorance of what's really behind them. Yes, the original sin derived from knowledge of good and evil. No, this does not mean at all that the catholic church condemns knowledge! A good lie has to be believable, and you know who the master of all lies is
I'm really sorry to hear that the original poster became an atheist by reading about religion on the Internet. He was already away from faith, since he said that he would have identified himself as religious without attending service (aka not really religious). If you don't attend service, chances are you did not personally meet God yet. For most christians, faith means a personal encounter of some sort. Trying to use internet arguments against my faith is a bit like trying to use porn as a proof that my wife's love is not real
-- Did you try Tao3D? http://tao3d.sourceforge.net
As I learn all the debunk vs debunk stuff, it's got me accepting:
- There are some important unexplainables
- Ignore:
-- infighting
-- religous history
-- ceremony without benefit
So now I'm more spiritual than religious. I look at cross-religion wisdom and see what applies to my life, is repeatable, regular, or frequent. I find patterns, make hypotheses and apply them just like with any scientific practice. "Centers for Spiritual Living" groups think like this.
Science & open-source build trust from peer review. Learn systems you can trust.