:love:**

But there's no denying the fact that, starting from the dawn of modern international communication, skepticism has increased dramatically. And, certainly, with my generation (Gen X/"Millennials"), who have grown up with very globally-oriented perspectives no doubt thanks to the internet which allows them to freely and openly communicate with literally anyone from anywhere around the world, we have been exposed to a wide diversity of different worldviews (and thereby religions and belief systems) simply as a matter of fact. This has allowed us to see the rest of the world without a religious superiority complex, something that every single generation before us has struggled to do. Simply being exposed to the fact that there are other religions that have actual human followers who are not really any different than us aside from surface-level cultural differences, being made aware of the existence of other belief systems, has led many, many more of today's youth to understand the logical truth that none of them can really be any more "correct" than any other, and thus, instantly debunking the validity of the claims of most religions.

It's hard to believe something that has no basis in reality when you realize that billions of other people believe entirely different things for the exact same reason.

However, in terms of morality systems of Abrahamic faiths, the internet certainly has damaged or been a huge challenge to those

Is the internet killing religion? I certainly hope so, as I view religion as both deleterious to the mind and the pocketbook.

Why do you think so?

:cheesy2:

One thing I can say is, I see religious people get more religious using the internet lol. But on the side note, before I know my way around the internet, everyone  around me is very religious that I thought I was weird and I never really voice out my opinions that I know may offend them. After knowing about the internet, I found out there were a lot of people who have the same views as I do ;D. It also helped me change a lot of perspective about my beliefs and what was thought to me at school and churches. :))

Good for you!

::)

Of how you are brought up!

That's something you initially do before learning about PCs, Internet and such stuff.

I do not think that the internet itself is responsible for declining faith around the world.

As they say, "knowledge is power", and I think this is the true driving force behind the change. More and more people are continuing to tertiary education, literature that openly advocates atheism is no longer taboo and there are an ever increasing number of people who openly criticize religion.

As others have mentioned, this process began long ago, well before the internet. That's not to say the internet has not played a major role in this—the very nature of the internet has surely accelerated this process.

I agree

However, with regard to babies or very young children, they will poke out a sibling's eye or push anything off the table and break it.  Not intentionally in every case, but in many cases.  The point being children are interested in self to the exclusion of everything else.  So it follows, I think, that while religion won't guarantee everyone to be good all the time, it asks people to try. I can't imagine how the mass of people would behave without this foundation of even trying.

Another good example - I went to Unity for a while.  They almost always talked about light and love, higher consciousness etc. and seldom about sin and "wrong."  They never spoke with denigration about any other religion but strongly implied one did not need a list of sins as most of Christianity has.  Many many younger adults took this to mean "do whatever you personally feel is right" where the older people raised in "traditional" Christianity had a very different interpretation.

Ultimately, I don't know what the answer is.  I have said this in other philosophy/religion posts - often it seems we exchange one set of problems for another.  People of earlier times were taught sex after marriage, especially women (purity/virginity etc.)  Now people live together (when I was kid it was called "living in sin".) and reproduce, moving from partner to partner.  Still a great many are unhappy, personally and sexually.  I think looser moral codes benefit the attractive more, they may flit from flower to flower without nearly as much social disapproval…..And while not directly related to the subject at hand, money and attractiveness argue against polygamy since if a few men had all the women, many men would have none, causing social unrest........the much larger point being philosophy and religion at its best seeks to understand human behavior and hopefully modify it for a larger societal goal.

So the argument could go either way really... It's all a matter of where you go looking on the internet. There are even people (and I am one of them) who are dead set against the churches being tax exempt. That's just plain wrong in my view because it allows the richest organizations in the world the ability to avoid having to pay any taxes, thus contributing back to their communities, while the members of said churches suffer and on the most part, a lot of them struggle to make ends meet.... It just doesn't make sense.

No, it doesen't even make sense for me

Yes, people can become atheist by reading some things on internet, seem diferent opinions, etc
but this is information, you still can do it off line

internet is just a form to get it easily

I totally agree.. the Internet makes though the whole process much easier..

Yes, people can become atheist by reading some things on internet, seem diferent opinions, etc
but this is information, you still can do it off line

internet is just a form to get it easily

It also allows those with doubts to find like-minded individuals around the world!

**

By the same token, when I myself have tried a few of their methods for accomplishing certain things, I actually found it quite interesting that each and every time without fail, there was some sort of freak coincidence (or so it seemed at the time) that happened to magically fall in line with exactly what I had put out to the universe to ask for. Granted, there are some basic ground rules that need to be taken into account when doing that kind of thing, however I still can't shake it off as bing just a coincidence, especially seeing as how every time that every time that I have opened myself to their ways and gave things a try, I always saw results.

By the time we got to the holy ghost I knew I was no longer a christian.