Is the internet killing religion?
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“When a new technology, such as the printing press or the Internet, unleashes massive cultural change, the challenge to religion is immense. Cultural developments change how God, or the ultimate, is thought of and spoken about,” Cheryl Casey wrote.
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Ok, if babies aren't born atheist (not believing in god{s}), then tell us exactly what god{s} they are born believing in.
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They don't believe, and nor do they disbelieve. You should learn what being an atheist actually means, this discussion might actually be productive.I don't need a sky daddy to give me a reason not to slit my wrists. Nor do I need the threat of hell to be a good person. I pity anyone who does need those things.
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I don't need a strawman argument to point out how pointless your contribution really is on this subject.BTW, believers always love to drag out communist dictators, but at the same time deny their own such as the half jewish catholic known as Adolf Hitler. Why aren't his crimes counted in the religious column? It seems like dishonesty to me. The same goes for countless other believers who murdered millions upon millions. And please don't use the 'no true Scotsman" fallacy.
Also, no leader murdered in the name of atheism, unlike the countless ones who did it in the name of religion.
So you count a guy with a very unconventional religious beliefs, who in semi-private despised Christianity, try to invoke the 'no troo Scotsman' fallacy, (and indeed no Christian has ever killed in harmony with the teachings of Christ. As you and many others have pointed out, killing is not against atheism. Atheism's only tenet is of unbelief in God(s). Therefore, mass murder cannot be against the tenets of atheism) yet try to pretend away the mass butchery by atheists, in order to promote atheism? And its not only the 20th century. Perhaps you might like to learn about the French Revolution as well. You may as well say black is white. Perhaps you have a 'no God' delusion
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“When a new technology, such as the printing press or the Internet, unleashes massive cultural change, the challenge to religion is immense. Cultural developments change how God, or the ultimate, is thought of and spoken about,” Cheryl Casey wrote.
Yes, and the spread of ideas will never harm the truth.
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They don't believe, and nor do they disbelieve. You should learn what being an atheist actually means, this discussion might actually be productive.
That's getting a bit snotty.
Atheists don't believe in god{s}.
Babies don't believe in god{s}, until someone fills their heads with lies.
So you count a guy with a very unconventional religious beliefs, who in semi-private despised Christianity, try to invoke the 'no troo Scotsman' fallacy, (and indeed no Christian has ever killed in harmony with the teachings of Christ. As you and many others have pointed out, killing is not against atheism. Atheism's only tenet is of unbelief in God(s). Therefore, mass murder cannot be against the tenets of atheism) yet try to pretend away the mass butchery by atheists, in order to promote atheism? And its not only the 20th century. Perhaps you might like to learn about the French Revolution as well. You may as well say black is white. Perhaps you have a 'no God' delusion
OK, so you played the "no true Scotsman" fallacy. Good for you.
You confuse murder IN THE NAME OF vs MURDER BY.
See, you are being a hypocrite here. If an atheist does something wrong, you blame atheism. If a believer does something wrong, you blame the individual or whatever else you can find to keep it from being viewed in anyway related to religion.
Maybe you should read your bible for once. There's some pretty nasty stuff in there, unless you think god sending a bear to kill a bunch of kids for laughing at a man for being bald. I guess you like slavery too, since that's a good thing in the bible. What about joyfully throwing babies down the rocks below? What about slaughtering entire villages, except the virgin girls who are then used as sex slaves? Yeah, this is where you try to throw in massive amounts of apologetics to justify and distance yourself from what the bible says.
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Don't forget about the whole mass genocide that is called for in several places… Or maybe I should mention that the bible condones rape marriages, child slavery, the execution of homosexuals, and a few other things. These are reasons why I say that the bible should NOT be used as a book of morals by any standards.
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I knew at a very young age the bible wasn't for me (and also caused my mother's questioning of faith) when I was never given an explanation as to how if incest was forbidden where did all the babies come from.
By the time we got to the holy ghost I knew I was no longer a christian.
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That's a big part of why I have turned more to the native methods of doing things. Granted, they do not have any physical proof of a great number of details, however in trying to "debunk" (for lack of a better term) their methods or otherwise question them, I have never actually been able to find any proof of any sort that either proves that it isn't true or that otherwise contradicts something else in their methods and teachings.
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.
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So, in this instance, the internet is not killing religion. I am not exactly sure which "native methods" are being employed but still a religion. May have to work on my tax the church campaign so we're able to collect some cold hard cash from the religions that don't have physical churches!
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**The Internet opens up new ways of thinking to those living in homogeneous environments..
It also allows those with doubts to find like-minded individuals around the world!
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Internet is a tool. A powerful information tool. I dont think is killing religion though. But it provides other points of view and that may "wake up" people who want to.
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I really can't believe society is so low these days! They should not be so dramatic!
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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 lineinternet is just a form to get it easily
check my public acts tumblr: aroundthere-vids.tumblr.com 
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If internet helps people get over religion that is great. But the other side is also using it to gain new followers, so that can be problem as well.
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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 lineinternet is just a form to get it easily
I totally agree.. the Internet makes though the whole process much easier..
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I'm kind of on the fence about this one… On one hand, there are religious groups that use the internet to send out their "message", on the other hand, there are too many anti-religion groups out there who want nothing more than to silence every religion. That's the down side of a world-wide network. To some extent, the internet does "kill" religion as it offers a more scientific perspective to the outside world, which most religions do not exactly like.
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.
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I suppose one could make this very simple and say sometimes good people do bad things and bad people do good things. Since we have never known world without religion and will not for many centuries, if ever, it impossible to objectively measure its presence or absence.
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.
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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
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Religion is a thing of trust..
Of how you are brought up!
That's something you initially do before learning about PCs, Internet and such stuff.
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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. :))
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that's the total opposite. internet permit nut jobs ( islamist) to spread their shit though the world. that's why in my country government now is able to track any website and anyone who connects to the hundreds of website that turn poor kids into terrorists and want them to go into Syria to become Jihadist. That didn't existed before internet: terrorism was way more difficult : you couldn't recruits as much as now. Here guys with no connection to terrorist group, solely on the base of internet, committed murders against jews because they were brainwashed with islamist stupidities. Before internet that wasnt possible, you had to be part of a terrorist organization.
But others crazy things like scientology also greatly improved. Also retarded theories are spread over the net way more than real knowledge : like Hiv is a myth that doesnt exist and so on.. the reason is simple : People with low IQ will tend to watch youtube which is the greatest place ever for all kind of crap. It's always easier to watch a video than reading books after books..
Now of course I'm in a country where religion basically doesnt exist anymore, our school is atheist and to us, even americans are look really really "strange " (to be polite) to us with all their "god this , god that".. Religion here come with the millions of poorly educated north african and middle eastern guys, and these immigrants use the internet to spread their craziness among native low IQ guys from here.That's also a reason why homophobia has greatly increased as a result of islamists invading our country. So no, Internet help the raise of islam in europe and europe will be islamist within 50 years. as a general rule the OP should always says about what part of the world he's talking about, because it might be true ( I dont know) that in some asian countries or in south america, internet help people to think by themselves and concurs to their emancipation, but in other part of the world where people are already emancipated from religion, the opposite is happening.
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