{"id":302,"date":"2014-11-14T17:33:00","date_gmt":"2014-11-14T17:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/11\/why-the-internet-is-slowly-strangling-religion.html"},"modified":"2014-11-14T17:33:00","modified_gmt":"2014-11-14T17:33:00","slug":"why-the-internet-is-slowly-strangling-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/11\/why-the-internet-is-slowly-strangling-religion.html","title":{"rendered":"Why the Internet is Slowly Strangling Religion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
While the burgeoning atheist movement loves throwing conferences and selling books, a huge chunk\u2013possibly most\u2013of its resources go toward the Internet. This isn\u2019t borne out of laziness or a hostility to wearing pants so much as a belief that the Internet is\u00a0uniquely positioned<\/a>\u00a0as the perfect tool for sharing arguments against religion with believers who are experiencing doubts. It\u2019s searchable, it allows back-and-forth debate, and it makes proving your arguments through links much easier. Above all else, it\u2019s private. An online search on atheism is much easier to hide than, say, a copy of\u00a0The God Delusion<\/em>\u00a0on your nightstand.<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
In recent months, this sense that the Internet is the key for atheist outreach has started to move from \u201chunch\u201d to actual, evidence-based theory. Earlier this year, Allen Downey of the Olin College of Engineering in Massachusetts examined the spike in people declaring\u00a0they had no religion<\/a>\u00a0that started in the \u201990s and found that while there are many factors contributing to it\u2013dropping familial pressure, increased levels of college education\u2013increased Internet usage was likely a huge part of it, accounting for up to 25 percent of the decline in religious belief. While cautioning that correlation does not mean causation, Downey did go on to point out that since so many other factors were controlled for, it\u2019s a safe bet to conclude that the access to varied thought and debate the Internet provides is persuading people to drop their religions.<\/span><\/div>\n
But in the past few months, that hypothesis grew even stronger when a major American religion basically had to admit that Internet arguments against their faith is putting them on their heels. The Church of Latter Day Saints has quietly released a series of essays, put together by church historians, addressing some of the less savory aspects of their history, such as the practice of polygamy or the ban on black members. The church\u00a0sent out a memo<\/a>\u00a0in September telling church leaders to direct believers who have questions about their religion\u2019s history to these essays, which they presented as a counter to \u201cdetractors\u201d who \u201cspread misinformation and doubt.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
While there are plenty of detractors who will share their opinions offline, there\u2019s little doubt that the bulk of the detractors plaguing the church are explaining their views online, which is why this has become a problem now for a church that used to act like it could\u00a0exert total control<\/a>\u00a0over believers\u2019 access to information.<\/span><\/div>\n
Read the rest here<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While the burgeoning atheist movement loves throwing conferences and selling books, a huge chunk\u2013possibly most\u2013of its resources go toward the Internet. This isn\u2019t borne out of laziness or a hostility to wearing pants so much as a belief that the Internet is\u00a0uniquely positioned\u00a0as the perfect tool for sharing arguments against religion with believers who are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy the Internet is Slowly Strangling Religion<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"While the burgeoning atheist movement loves throwing conferences and selling books, a huge chunk\u2013possibly most\u2013of its resources go toward the Internet.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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