[Vision2020] Religion may not survive the Internet

Sat Jan 19 21:03:31 PST 2013

Religion will survive the internet.  It'll just be more personal / individualistic rather than gullible masses being part of 'The Borg'.

Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2013 17:13:42 -0500
From: art.deco.studios at gmail.com
To: vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: [Vision2020] Religion may not survive the Internet

                            Wednesday, Jan 16, 2013 11:30 AM EST                        

                                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, 
				    Alternet

                            Topics: 
                                        AlterNet, 
                                        Religion, 
                                        Neil degrasse Tyson, 
                                        Atheism, 
                                        Internet, Politics News                        

                        Enlarge  

                                        This article originally appeared on AlterNet.                                    

 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 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” marketing campaign.  The Southern Baptists Convention voted to rebrand themselves. A hipster mega-church 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 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 big picture insights that may dampen the most extreme hopes and fears.  Anthropologist Jennifer James, 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. Then again, maybe Iam talking about Tyson in a sense, because in his various viral guises—as a talk show host and tweeter and as the face 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 to marry nonbelievers. It is why Quiverfull 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!) Religions have spent eons honing defenses 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 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, NOVA, TED, RSA Animate, and Birdnote.
 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? 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, 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, and these are catalogued at places like Evilbible.com.  Alternately, a student writing about holidays can find a proclamation 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 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, and they cover the range of sects:  Evangelical, Mormon, Jehovah’s Witness, and Muslim. There’s even a web home for recovering clergy. 
 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, Parenting Beyond Belief, or The Foundation Beyond Belief.
 Interspiritual Okayness. This might sound odd, but one of the threats to traditional religion is interfaith communities 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, spread across cultures and regions, across both secular and religious wisdom traditions. 
 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 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.”
 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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