The Internet is Not Killing Organized Religion

[cbayer]

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/atheologies/6794/the_internet_is_not_killing_organized_religion/

January 28, 2013
By ELIZABETH DRESCHER


It was Col. Mustard in the Pew with a Laptop

A couple years ago, I responded to the assertion by experimental psychologist Richard Beck that Facebook was “killing the church” by insisting that the church was pretty much doing a fine job of that on its own, unaided by new social media. Beck’s argument, briefly, was that the banal social interaction that once filled post-worship coffee hours had been absorbed by day-to-day Facebook interactions. I suggested back then, among other things, that if swapping Jell-O recipes and catching up on local gossip was the main draw of Christian churches and other religions, the smoking gun was hardly digital.

Recently, Valerie Tarico updated the theory over at AlterNet with a more extensive and substantive claim that the internet has allowed various forms of religious dissonance to fly over, tunnel under, and otherwise breach the hard boundaries of traditional religions (by which she generally means narrowly conservative evangelical Protestantism with a touch of Opus Dei Catholicism). “Traditional religion, one built on ‘right belief,’” insists Tarico (who’s clearly never met a Buddhist or a Unitarian), “requires a closed information system.”

By contrast, she argues, the internet—encountered by pretty much everyone, pretty much every day, pretty much everywhere—is an open system that allows believers, seekers, and doubters to encounter scientific information that competes with anti-scientific fundamentalist worldviews. Further, it offers easy access to knee-slappingly funny and enlightening perspectives on “ridiculous beliefs.” Likewise, Tarico reminds us that the internet has allowed for the wide exposure of religious scandals past and present, which has made it nigh on impossible for a reasonable person to sustain any sort of fantasy that religions have ever offered much by way of positive value to the world.

Finally, in a more spiritual than social echo of Beck’s argument, Tarico highlights the ways in which the internet has facilitated the development of both unreligious and interreligious community that replaces the face-to-face religious communities. “The Vatican, the Mormon Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and the Southern Baptist Convention,” she concludes, “should be very worried.”

more at link

[hedgehog]

1. Kind of a side issue here - but the internet was instrumental in my move from the Roman Catholic

Church to the Episcopal Church. I learned a lot about back room machinations, treatment of dissidents and how right wing many of the Roman Catholic bishops are. The Roman Church is moving in a direction I disagree with. At the same time, I learned a lot about the Episcopal Church on-line before I made personal contact.

[cbayer]

3. I think your personal experience is being repeated all over the country

and maybe even the world.

People are leaving more traditional institutions but not necessarily their beliefs or faith. I think those groups that can offer something more in tune with the current culture have an opportunity here.

[trotsky]

2. That's a poorly written piece.

This paragraph betrays the author's ignorance:

Sure, the web has opened a treasure trove of religious, unreligious, and irreligious information that would not have been widely accessible in previous times. Even without this, however, as consistent outbreaks through history of violence toward, and suppression of, those identified as “heretics” or “infidels” makes clear, people were plenty capable of religious dissent and outright unbelief before Facebook made it easier for them to create a global social network.

I need only review my personal story to know how pathetically wrong this is. "...people were plenty capable of religious dissent and outright unbelief before Facebook"? Well of COURSE they were. And look at the response they got! Social media, if it does nothing to help make information available, does one thing extremely well: it makes people aware they AREN'T ALONE. It's OK to doubt. It's OK to reject religious beliefs.

If Facebook had been available to me as a teen, I probably would have rejected my religious beliefs a lot sooner. But I felt alone in my confusion, with no one to turn to.

THIS is the true threat, and the reason the Internet is indeed killing organized religion. And even this author admits such, by contradicting herself in her last paragraph.

[rug]

4. You needed facebook to become an atheist?

[pinto]

5. I don't Facebook, but I've found the internet at large one good resource for looking at options.

And an ironic resource for using that Jesuit school questioning approach to things. Ha. There's a lot out there.

[okasha]

6. I don't do social media at all,

but I will say that the net has been useful in finding other pagan folk in my area, even a Gardnerian group at a UU Church in a nearby city. Now, we NA's aren't much given to running about the woods in the altogether, but there are certainly common threads running through all earth-based religions. We can celebrate together, even if we don't resonate on all points.

[rug]

8. See, now I was able to use Google to find out what a gardnerian group is,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gardnerian_Wicca

[okasha]

9. And merry meet!

I've found the net invaluable for research of all kinds. There are still a lot of reality-free sites, but the same tools that allow us to access them also allow us to do the necessary fact-checking.

[cbayer]

10. My husband is a teller of tall tales.

The internet has seriously hurt his credibility.

[okasha]

11. LOL

I think if I were still teaching, I'd lift my ban on my students' using the net for research. It's certainly helped me in my art courses, though I've got to say there aren't that many nutbag sites about watercolor or ceramics.

[cbayer]

12. I think kids (and many adults) need to be taught much more

about using critical thinking skills when using the internet.

Too many people take everything they see at face value. If it comes up on top in a google search, it must be true.

This is a particular problem when it comes to medical issues.

[cbayer]

7. I don't do facebook either. I don't trust it at all.

The internet, on the other hand, is my source for too many things to name.

Love the jesuits.

[dimbear]

13. Well, on the bright side, they're not into nearly as much terrorism nowadays.

That's a plus for fans of the Jesuits.

BTW, I enjoy the Spanish term for them, "sabelotodo."