When I was in college, I joined a very fundamentalist campus-based church, the International Churches of Christ, which was big in the early 90s. They skipped around the Bible and did a very convincing job in presenting themselves as the only true disciples (I got better).
Nowadays, I could’ve googled them after each Bible study. Not just to check on the group itself, but to check on their claims and verses. Simple claims like how the Bible is divinely inspired and as proof: there are no errors nor contradictions. It can be a persuasive argument in the proper context and hard to look up in a library.
In the 2000s, I could’ve whipped out my phone and found unequivocal contradictions. For instance: When was Jesus crucified?
Mark 15:25 It was third hour when they crucified him
John 19:14-15 At the sixth hour, Jesus wasn’t even crucified yet
ISTM people are being a tad overoptimistic. I venture a guess that not only will religion in general survive, but even dogmatic religions, or at least such sects and denominations thereof as adapt.
I have been an atheist my entire life, a bit over 50 years. For many of those years I didn’t have contact with a single other atheist. After a while, I just got used to that.
The last couple of years I have been getting some social pressure to “find God”. It was fairly depressing until I found some atheist podcasts, Facebook groups, and local IRL groups.
I don’t know if the internet is creating many atheists, but it is sure making it a lot less lonely to remain one.
I spend a lot of time gently correcting misinformation and sloppy logic of “young and dumb” atheists. Recently one was asking if his observation that Scorpios (actually he said Scorpians) have better critical thinking skills than other Astrological signs had any merit. Oy vey!
Okay, so, I skimmed the linked article, and one quote jumped out at me:
This sounds like what a lot of people seem to have been afraid of about the Internet: that with so much information available, no one will be able to tell good information from bad. If anyone can post, anyone can set up a web site, anyone can edit Wikipedia, how can we trust anything?
I could try to explain why this increased skepticism is (on balance) a good thing, but I imagine I’d be preaching to the choir here.
When you were in college, you could have done the same “googling”.
You could have simply gone to the library*, and found books with the same information.
Sure, nowadays, googling on your phone is easier…
But the fact that you didn’t even bother to “google the library” seems to me that it’s not the internet that makes a difference: It’s the individual person’s willingness to question things about religion that is important.
If you have that willingness, you’ll do the questioning. Even in the days before the internet exisited.
If you allow yourself to get stuck in a social circle of small-minded people where asking questions is not welcome, then you won’t ask questions, even though you have the internet in your pocket.
The internet allows a lot of room for expanding your social circle, and asking questions…
But the net also allows a lot of small-minded people to find each other and convince themselves that no questions are necessary, because, gosh…everybody agrees with me!
(* I assume that the library was less than a 5 minute walk from the room on campus where your church group met for the bible study.)
Yeah, but who wants to do *that? *Books are boring. Especially encyclopedias and stuff. Snooze.
Although don’t tell today’s kids that what they’re doing when they mess around for hours on Wikipedia, look up answers when they’re wondering about something, and discuss all kinds of things with people all over the world, is learning things and broadening their minds. Then they’ll probably stop doing it. Because, hey, boring.
Although, I also think we’re all missing the point. Reading the OP’s link, it seems that the apologist in question isn’t really worried about the information as much as the porn. His main concern seems to be that some boy might look upon some boobs with joy, and some poor girl might end up touching a penis. Or hell, even vice versa, but I’m not even sure if that horrible possibility has even reached his mind yet. Let’s all brace ourselves for when it does.
The Internet may be killing Christianity. There are no signs of it killing Islam, which at least outside of the USA is flourishing and spreading and overall becoming more hard-line. Indeed, some prominent critics of Islam who are themselves former Muslims are actually in danger for their lives for their criticism. Furthermore they are even criticized by non-Muslims. The word “Islamophobia” is bandied about frequently, although “Christophobia” is never heard, and anti-Semitism is often cloaked under anti-Zionism.
Since I was a teenager, I’ve always felt that the majority of Atheists/Agnostics were in the closet. Perhaps the anonymity of the internet allows them be more vocal.
It’s also worth noting that Ive never seen a message board or news site whose poster were not mostly Atheist/Agnostics.
I thought rap music was the cause either that or education is the cause.
Bit like when Gutenberg did the whole printer thing and common people got to read the bible, shook a few people up at the time (yes looking at you Catholic Church)
You may have a point. Why I can’t log on to the latest Muhammed comic strip is beyond me. We’ve got plenty of antireligious or non-pious toon strips. (Russel’s Teapot was my favorite a while back.) If I can watch Moral Orel, and Jesus as a squid on Squidbillies, why can’t I watch Muhammed getting protested at his pedo-marriage? Maybe some Westboro nutcases holding signs saying “Allah Akbar Pedo” or something? Why are we so afraid of parodying that religion or alleged savior?
However I never actually thought honor killings were as frequent as they seem to be. Not like Islam endorses that whatsoever, but a village might. That kind of stuff is broadcast daily on human rights boards and it isn’t pleasing to find links linked to news stories supporting it.
I think it’s harder for anyone (religious or otherwise) to maintain wild unsubstantiated claims than it was in pre-internet days. In the last century and before, if a preacher told people about amazing miracles that happened somewhere else, they pretty much had to choose to either believe it uncritically, or reject it.
Now they can just google it, often before the person has finished speaking.
(Bolding mine.) YES, all shall listen! To the lovely indoctrination method of kids worldwide.
I have often rudely complained about xtianity mentally invading young minds (like in Jesus Camp) and shouldn’t be allowed, only opening up young minds and paranoid parents into a world of MORE paranoia and false facts to guide younger people. I can now see why parents of other religions feel it’s necessary to indoctrinate them even earlier than they may understand. Does anyone remember “Tomorrow’s Pioneers”?
I can’t even look up what that cute little girl is up to these days. She’s so well spoken, great camera presence… does she still believe this shit? There’s other great episodes especially when the Muslim Mickey Mouse get trampled by Muslim men and a sick-looking pink bunny rabbit who apparently loves Jews as much as bunnies love dogs and General Woundwart. :rolleyes:
So for the Internet, and its possibility of diminishing religion, knowledge of THIS insane show may only inspire parents of other religions to earlier indoctrinate their kids as some sort of a stand off? War on Christianity? War on religion? Why not?
In trying to inspire young minds into either side of this ideological war, the Internet may only drive people to the sites that only have the false shit parents are looking for to falsely inspire their kids. People just LOVE to have a side. Why it has to be one based on a violent fiction will always evade me.
The number of Asian Buddhists and Hindus converting or have converted to Christianity is far greater than the number of Western converts to these Oriental religions. And from what I’ve seen, a lot of the nominal Buddhists and Hindus are really becoming agnostics and atheists. Both Hinduism and Chinese folk religion have accrued so much superstitious baggage that it makes the mediaeval Church look positively Mohammedean in austereness.
Anyway, I think one way in which the internet could lead to a decrease in religion is in the increased opportunities it affords the non-religious to organise and discover each other, like Kevbo said upthread. The same as with lots of other one-time fringe groups - in meatspace, you might only ever encounter a few, but in forums you find hundreds, thousands. So there’s that.
Christianity will never be able to compete with boobs, they do have a way of persuasion. I can imagine all kinds of scenarios playing out in the McDowell’s or other fundamentalist Christian households on how they were going to handle the boob situation when little Johnnie gets his first peek, and their god forbid he gets a little bit more than that.
I’d like to know more about that if you have time for an example or two or maybe a cite that covers some of it.
And yet we have so many conspiracy-theorists, anti-vaxers and tea-partiers.
Some folks find what they want and are able to ignore the rest. Which is what allows Josh McDowell to maintain his delusion that religious people are more moral than others. Been around religious folk my whole life. Some are wonderful, spiritual people. Most are just about as mean and hateful as any group you could find, and hypocrites to boot.
I can imagine all kinds of scenarios playing out in the McDowell’s or other fundamentalist Christian households on how they were going to handle the boob situation when little Johnnie gets his first peek, and their god forbid he gets a little bit more than that.