[Vision2020] Religion may not survive the Internet

[Art Deco]

 Wednesday, Jan 16, 2013 11:30 AM EST  Religion may not survive the
Internet
<http://www.salon.com/2013/01/16/religion_may_not_survive_the_internet/>
There's a reason churches are struggling to maintain membership, and
it has
nothing to do with Neil deGrasse Tyson By Valerie
Tarico<http://www.salon.com/writer/valerie_tarico/>,
Alternet <http://www.alternet.org/>

Topics: AlterNet <http://www.salon.com/topic/alternet>,
Religion<http://www.salon.com/topic/religion>,
Neil degrasse Tyson <http://www.salon.com/topic/neil_degrasse_tyson>,
Atheism <http://www.salon.com/topic/atheism>,
Internet<http://www.salon.com/topic/internet>,
Politics News <http://www.salon.com/category/politics/>
[image: Religion may not survive the
Internet]Enlarge<http://media.salon.com/2013/01/shutterstock_124709164.jpg>
 This article originally appeared on AlterNet <http://www.alternet.org>.

[image: AlterNet] <http://www.alternet.org> As we head into a new year, the
guardians of traditional religion are ramping up efforts to keep their
flocks—or, in crass economic terms, to retain market share.  Some
Christians have turned to soul
searching<http://www.buzzfeed.com/annanorth/are-young-evangelicals-sick-of-sexual-politics>
while
others have turned to marketing. Last fall, the LDS church spent millions
on billboards, bus banners, and Facebook ads touting “I’m a Mormon.”  In
Canada, the Catholic Church has launched a “Come
Home<http://www.catholicscomehome.org/>”
marketing campaign.  The Southern Baptists Convention voted to rebrand
themselves<http://awaypoint.wordpress.com/2012/06/27/oops-rebranding-of-southern-baptists-reveals-more-than-intended/>.
A hipster mega-church<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/magazine/11punk-t.html?_r=0>
in
Seattle combines smart advertising with sales force training for members
and a strategy the Catholics have emphasized for centuries: competitive
breeding.

In October of 2012 the Pew Research Center
announced<http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/10/09/us-usa-religion-unaffiliated-idUKBRE89813G20121009>
that
for the first time ever Protestant Christians had fallen below 50 percent
of the American population. Atheists cheered and evangelicals beat their
breasts and lamented the end of the world as we know it. Historian of
religion, Molly Worthen, has since
offered<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/23/opinion/sunday/american-christianity-and-secularism-at-a-crossroads.html?_r=0>
big
picture insights that may dampen the most extreme hopes and
fears.  Anthropologist Jennifer
James<http://www.jenniferjames.com/introduction/index.htm>,
on the other hand, has called fundamentalism the “death rattle” of the
Abrahamic traditions.

In all of the frenzy, few seem to give any recognition to the player that I
see as the primary hero, or, if you prefer, culprit—and I’m not talking
about science populizer and atheist superstar Neil deGrasse
Tyson<http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/12855.Neil_deGrasse_Tyson>.
Then again, maybe Iam talking about Tyson in a sense, because in his
various viral guises—as a talk show
host<http://www.uproxx.com/music/2012/12/watch-neil-degrasse-tyson-and-wu-tang-clans-gza-talk-science-music-philosophy/>
 and tweeter <https://twitter.com/neiltyson/status/253680452240547840> and
as the face<http://www.webpronews.com/neil-degrasse-tyson-talks-about-being-a-meme-2012-03>
on
scores of smartass Facebook memes—Tyson is an incarnation of the biggest
threat that organized religion has ever faced: the internet.

A traditional religion, one built on “right belief,” requires a closed
information system. That is why the Catholic Church put an official seal of
approval on some ancient texts and banned or burned others. It is why some
Bible-believing Christians are
forbidden<http://bible.cc/2_corinthians/6-14.htm> to
marry nonbelievers. It is why
Quiverfull<http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nolongerquivering/about/> moms
home school their kids from carefully screened text books. It is why, when
you get sucked into conversations with your fundamentalist uncle George
from Florida, you sometimes wonder if he has some superpower that allows
him to magically close down all avenues into his mind. (He
does<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deqPVE5KmtM&list=UUuff10A6JeheV__mso67QdA&index=1>
!)

Religions have spent eons honing
defenses<http://awaypoint.wordpress.com/2009/09/16/christian-belief-through-the-lens-of-cognitive-science-part-6-of-8/>
that
keep outside information away from insiders. The innermost ring wall is a
set of certainties and associated emotions like anxiety and disgust and
righteous indignation that block curiosity. The outer wall is a set of
behaviors aimed at insulating believers from contradictory evidence and
from heretics who are potential transmitters of dangerous ideas. These
behaviors range from memorizing sacred texts to wearing distinctive
undergarments<http://awaypoint.wordpress.com/2012/07/06/are-mormon-underwear-magic-between-the-sheets/>
to
killing infidels. Such defenses worked beautifully during humanity’s
infancy. But they weren’t really designed for the current information age.

Tech-savvy mega-churches may have twitter missionaries, and Calvinist
cuties may make viral videos about how Jesus worship isn’t a religion, it’s
a relationship, but that doesn’t change the facts: the free flow of
information is really, really bad for the product they are selling. Here
are five kinds of web content that are like, well, like electrolysis on
religion’s hairy toes.

*Radically cool science videos and articles.* Religion evokes some of our
most deeply satisfying emotions:  joy, for example, and transcendence, and
wonder. This is what Einstein was talking about when he said that “science
without religion is lame.” If scientific inquiry doesn’t fill us at times
with delight and even speechless awe at new discoveries or the mysteries
that remain, then we are missing out on the richest part of the experience.
Fortunately, science can provide all of the above, and certain masters of
the trade and sectors of the internet are remarkably effective at evoking
the wonder—the spirituality if you will—of the natural world unveiled.
Some of my own favorites include Symphony of
science<http://www.symphonyofscience.com/videos.html>
, NOVA <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/>, TED <http://www.ted.com/>, RSA
Animate<http://www.thersa.org/events/video/animate/rsa-animate-the-power-of-networks>,
and Birdnote <http://birdnote.org/show/shorebirds-not-shore>.

It should be no surprise that so many fundamentalists are determined to
take down the whole scientific endeavor. They see in science not only a
critic of their outdated theories but a competitor for their very best
product, a sense of transcendent exuberance.  For millennia, each religion
has made an exclusive claim, that it alone had the power to draw people
into a grand vision worth a lifetime of devotion. Each offered the
assurance that our brief lives matter and that, in some small way, we might
live on. Now we are getting glimpses of a reality so beautiful and so
intricate that it offers some of the same promise. Where will the old
tribal religions be if, in words of Tracy Chapman, we all decide that Heaven’s
here on earth <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYcJ9J5DggU>?

*Curated Collections of Ridiculous Beliefs.* Religious beliefs that aren’t
yours often sound silly, and the later in life you encounter them the more
laughable they are likely to sound. Web writers are after eyeballs, which
means that if there’s something ridiculous to showcase then one is
guaranteed to write about it. It may  be a nuanced exposé or a snarky list
or a flaming meme, but the point, invariably, is to call attention to the stuff
that makes you roll your
eyes<http://awaypoint.wordpress.com/2012/10/20/test-your-knowledge-of-wild-weird-and-outright-wacky-american-religious-beliefs/>,
shake your head in disbelief, laugh, and then hit Share.

*The Kinky, Exploitative, Oppressive, Opportunistic and Violent Sides of
Religion. *Of course, the case against religion doesn’t stop at weird and
wacky. It gets nasty, sometimes in ways that are titillating and sometimes
in ways that are simply dark. The Bible is full of sex slavery, polygamy
and incest<http://awaypoint.wordpress.com/2012/03/29/captive-virgins-polygamy-sex-slaves-what-marriage-would-look-like-if-we-actually-followed-the-bible/>,
and these are catalogued at places like
Evilbible.com<http://www.evilbible.com/>.
Alternately, a student writing about holidays can find a
proclamation<http://www.thanksgivingnovember.com/the-first-thanksgiving-proclamation.html>
in
which Puritans give thanks to God for the burning of Indian villages or an
interview on the mythic origins of the Christmas story.  And if the
Catholic come home plea sounds a little desperate, it may well be because
the sins of the
bishops<http://awaypoint.wordpress.com/2012/06/20/%ef%bb%bfeight-ugly-sins-the-catholic-bishops-hope-lay-members-and-others-wont-notice/>
are
getting hard to cover up.  On the net, whatever the story may be, someone
will be more than willing to expose it.

*Supportive communities for people coming out of religion. *With or without
the net (but especially with it) believers sometimes find their worldview
in pieces. Before the internet existed most people who lost their faith
kept their doubts to themselves. There was no way to figure out who else
might be thinking forbidden thoughts. In some sects, a doubting member may
be shunned, excommunicated, or “disfellowshipped” to ensure that doubts
don’t spread. So, doubters used keep silent and then disappear into the
surrounding culture. Now they can create websites, and today there are as
many communities of former believers as there are kinds of belief. These
communities range from therapeutic to political <http://ffrf.org/>, and
they cover the range of sects:  Evangelical <http://new.exchristian.net/>,
Mormon <http://www.exmormonfoundation.org/>, Jehovah’s
Witness<http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/jehovahs-witness-experiences.php>,
and Muslim <http://ex-muslim.org.uk/>. There’s even a web home for recovering
clergy <http://www.clergyproject.org/>.  Heaven help the unsuspecting
believer who wanders into one of these sites and tries to tell members in
recovery that they’re all bound for hell.

*Lifestyles of the fine and faithless.* When they emerge from the recovery
process former Christians and Muslims and whatnot find that there’s a whole
secular world waiting for them on the web. This can be a lifesaver,
literally, for folks who are trapped in closed religious communities on the
outside.  On the web, they can explore lifestyles in which people stay
surprisingly decent and kind without a sacred text or authority figures
telling them what to do. In actuality, since so much of religion is about
social support (and social control) lots of people skip the intellectual
arguments and exposes, and go straight to building a new identity based in
a new social network. Some web resources are specifically aimed creating
alternatives to theism, for example, Good without
God<http://harvardhumanist.org/good-without-god/>
, Parenting Beyond Belief <http://parentingbeyondbelief.com/>, or The
Foundation Beyond Belief <http://foundationbeyondbelief.org/mission>.

*Interspiritual Okayness. *This might sound odd, but one of the threats to
traditional religion is interfaith
communities<http://www.worldprayers.org/> that
focus on shared spiritual values. Many religions make exclusive truth
claims and see other religions as competitors. Without such claims, there
is no need for evangelism, missionaries or a set of doctrines that I call
donkey motivators (ie. carrots and sticks) like heaven and hell. The web
showcases the fact that humanity’s bad and good qualities are
universal<http://faculty.plts.edu/gpence/html/kohlberg.htm>,
spread across cultures and regions, across both secular and religious
wisdom traditions <http://religioustolerance.org/>.  It offers reassurance
that we won’t lose the moral or spiritual dimension of life if we outgrow
religion, while at the same time providing the means to
glean<http://www.wisdomcommons.org/> what
is truly timeless and wise from old traditions. In doing so, it inevitably
reveals that the limitations of any single tradition alone.  The  Dalai
Lama, who has lead interspiritual dialogue for many years made waves
recently by saying as much: “All the world’s major religions, with their
emphasis on love, compassion, patience, tolerance, and forgiveness can and
do promote inner values. But the reality of the world today is that
grounding ethics in religion is no longer adequate. This is why I am
increasingly convinced that the time has come to find a way of thinking
about spirituality and ethics beyond religion altogether.”

The power of interspiritual dialogue is analogous to the broader power of
the web in that, at the very heart it is about people finding common
ground, exchanging information, and breaking through walls to find a bigger
community waiting outside. Last year, Jim Gilliam, founder of
Nationbuilder, gave a talk titled, “The Internet is My
Religion<http://www.internetismyreligion.com/>.”
Gilliam is a former fundamentalist who has survived two bouts of cancer
thanks to the power of science and the internet. His existence today has
required a bone marrow transplant and a double lung transplant organized in
part through social media. Looking back on the experience, he speaks with
the same passion that drove him when he was on fire for Jesus:

I owed every moment of my life to countless people I would never meet.
Tomorrow, that interconnectedness would be represented in my own physical
body. Three different DNAs. Individually they were useless, but together
they would equal one functioning human. What an incredible debt to repay. I
didn’t even know where to start. And that’s when I truly found God. God is
just what happens when humanity is connected. Humanity connected is God.

The Vatican, and the Mormon Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and the Southern
Baptist Convention should be very worried.


-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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