How the Internet Is Taking Away America's Religion 1037
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?"
Re:More various (Score:1, Informative)
Except no, they don't. At most, religions have a few reasonable ideas to do with morality, but they are also filled with almost as many terrible ideas on what morality is, so you still have to (as with all things) inspect them and decide if they are valid or not using reason. If you have to do that, religion has no value whatsoever.
We are much better off inspecting the world for ourselves, and looking at all information. Religion has it's place as a historical artefact, but religion itself is long past it's sell-by date - there is nothing inherently valuable in relgion any more. Every role it used to fill has been replaced by something better, because religions are bullshit cults.
"Taking away" (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Knowledge (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Knowledge (Score:3, Informative)
Two words: free will.
There is more merit in a person doing the right thing when they actually have the opportunity to do the wrong thing.
That Adam and Eve may have done the wrong thing and brought down what may arguably amount to a curse upon all of nature supposedly does not diminish the merit of even a single person who, despite being tempted to do wrong when the opportunity presents itself, makes a deliberate choice to do the right thing instead.
That said, I cannot imagine that any person would have made the same choice God did.... we probably would have considered the consequences of disobedience to be greater than the significance or importance of free will, and most likely would have preferred to create a race of robots who can only do what they are told because the choice to do something other than what they are told would not be presented to them.
The Epicurean Paradox (Score:5, Informative)
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P... [wikipedia.org] :
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'.
Re:Knowledge (Score:5, Informative)
At first glance, it does indeed seem like the God in the text is a giant a-hole. Why put the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the garden in the first place? To answer that, we need to lay some ground work to properly interpret the story:
1) Remember that the ancients did not have a scientific worldview. Today we understand that things I drop to the ground fall because of gravity. Gravity works because the Earth is a huge sphere with an enormous amount of mass. The sun sets and rises because the Earth rotates. Seasons progress at the rate they do because the Earth rotates around the Sun. In other words, life is orderly and predictable because the laws of Physics, Chemistry, etc, are orderly and predictable. But the ancients had no knowledge of this. Instead, they explained the world through mythology. So, in the Ancient Near East, the reason the world is orderly is because a long time ago, the "good gods" came in and beat up/killed/banished the "bad gods" and then set up order in the universe (e.g. the Marduk/Tiamat myth of Babylon, or the Baal/Mot myth of Caanan).
2) Genesis is written in the form of Ancient Near Eastern creation myths. Those ancient creation myths wanted to explain this fundamental question: "Why does the world work the way it does?" Genesis answers that question: A long time ago, God (YHWH) came upon pure chaos (the Hebrew of the passage makes that very clear. Google: "Genesis tohu vevohu"). He then systematically pushes it back to create perfect order. This is why the world works the way it does...because God set it up in order.
3) The Bible never claims that God is omniscient. In fact, good Jewish/Christian theology claims that he's not. Does God have all power? If he does, then (low hanging fruit) he could make a rock so big that he couldn't lift it. But then that's a logical impossibility. Here's a better question: could the God of the Bible create a being with free will and force that being to love God? The answer is no. So by definition, there is at least one thing (maybe two, if you count the rock example) that God cannot do. So, a better formulation of God's state is that (according to the Hebrew Bible) "God has all the power that can be had, but some things cannot be accomplished by power."
So now we're ready to talk about the garden (which is, remember, more like a story or a parable). God creates these two beings and puts them into paradise. Imagine a world where there is nothing bad and you KNOW that God exists (because you talk to him frequently). So now how exactly does God let them choose to love God or not? (Because remember: there must be a choice) The answer (at least, the ancient Hebrews) was to place a clear choice before Adam and Eve. The Tree represents free will. And the Tree represents the choice that everyone makes in whether or not they will love God or turn their backs. To the ancient Hebrews who wrote this story (probably finalized from earlier oral tradition around 500 BCE), the clear choice between following God or not had been made when the people of Judah chose to follow other gods. Thus, God kicked them out of the garden (the "promised land") and sent them into exile into a hurting world. The garden story is not just one which orients the reader to the world, but specifically to the present world (the one they lived in at the time).
Let me know if you have any questions. This isn't a sacred cow to me. Cheers.
Re:Knowledge (Score:5, Informative)
The spectrum from most devout religious to least:
Deist: one having belief in deity
Theist: one having theological belief (deity not necessary, "generic spiritual")
Atheist: One without theological belief
Anti-deist: against the idea of deity
Anti-theist: against the idea of religion
A: prefix meaning "without"
Acapella: music without accompaniment
asexual: without sex
Athiest: person without theism
Atheism is not a religion, like 'not collecting stamps' is not a hobby.
I don't collect stamps, and I don't make a hobby of not doing it. I don't care about it at all. Nor do I care if other people want to collect stamps.
I am an atheist, and I actively like people who are gullible enough to believe devoutly, devoutly believing they will burn in hell for harming or stealing from me. I wish more idiots did. (as well as the brilliant religionists, whom I'm very glad are wise enough to follow the 10 commandments because they're a good idea for all my neighbors.)