They’re doing a story on how the internet has affected religious belief, and are looking for someone who left faith because of the net.
We would like to interview an atheist who had grown up in a faith community, but chose to leave religion because of the internet. We would be very grateful if they would share their story with us and how they think their lives may have been different if they didn’t have a means to access the wealth of online information or communicate with other atheists.
Oh, boy. Do they realize what kind of deluge they’re inviting? If you fit that description, contact information is available at the link.
For their next act, will they seek someone who “chose to leave religion because of the library.”?
What does the internet have to make you leave religion that isn’t already in the Bible?
Nobody, i guess there’s PZ, helpfully pointing out the crackpottery of religion, for a start.
I’ve noticed that none of the essays on WIAAA have credited PZ, however. Maybe PZ is keeping them back?
The search function over at Reddit is pretty bad, but among the “Thank you” posts one finds a lot of inspiring stories.
And PZ would be proud that people credit both the “soft” and the offensive approaches to arguing against faith and religion.
Left religion long before the internet and scarcely noticed doing so. It has certainly helped refine my thinking on the issue, and made me more aware that just leaving isn’t enough.
You think most Christians read the Bible????
(Apart from which, there are other religions, you know.)
It would be brilliant if this went viral and she got literally millions of responses. The panic filled response from the faithful would also be hugely entertaining.
From Elizabeth Ann Duffy’s letter:
“There is also plenty of anecdotal evidence of an increase in the number of atheists since creation of the internet. However, there are very few recorded personal accounts.”
Someone on the production staff of the program has not done much research into the subject have they? Please BBC, you can do better than this.
The internet certainly helped solidify my beliefs by giving me access to such things as Richard Dawkins, and various online resources that unfortunately escape me right now.
Before I started seeking out such information, I’d started describing myself as agnostic – in that I didn’t know or care if a god existed, because they (if they did) obviously didn’t care about us. (Agnostic Deism?)
It’s simple, people:
TEH INTERNETS, WHERE RELIGIONS COME TO DIE.
Alas, I left religion long before the Internet.
i left faith because of my personality plus education, not teh internetz. It definitely sped up the process, because of great amount of easy accessible information, but i’m far from attributing some kind of causality to my nonbelief.
Hey, maybe it’s one step closer to having a non-godbot greet me in the morning on Thought for the Day.
Arguments? Forums where people will discuss the issue? At least, I’ve heard there are such places. On the other hand there is something to the idea that you can’t be rationally talked out of a position you didn’t get into rationally. On the gripping hand, not all people and ‘beliefs’ are identical and we’ve had people post here explaining how learning some science did actually convince them of the invalidity of a previously swallowed religious bolus.
No, there’s not! That’s complete bunk. Otherwise, how does anyone get out of religion? (For that matter, how does anyone get out of believing in monsters under the bed?) What percent of religious believers do you think were talked into their beliefs by rational (or even rational-esque) discourse? What percent do you think even made a decision to join a religion, rather than just being told what religion they were when they were four? They all deconvert just fine if they look at the logic and the evidence.