What is the difference?

Theist = Religious

Asexual, apolitical, etc = non-sexual, non-political, etc.

I'm not really an atheist just non religious

What a perfect article to show the usefulness of the internet - for spouting out ideological rubbish.

Where does this guy think religion has been hiding for thousands of years? The major religions and their beliefts exist in full view of the world. The Catholic Church has been challenged from within and from the outside since its inception about everything from the divinity of Christ to the carbon dating of the Shroud of Turin. It's practices on indulgences were challenged by a priest, Martin Luther, leading to the reformation. St Thomas Acquinas in his Summa Theologea directly addresses theological objections to matters of faith.

That says nothing about the internal dialogue that goes on inside a religious person when they test their faith against their reason and conscience.

It is simply laughable that this author thinks religion operates in a closed information system. Doesn't he know a Catholic priest first came up with the theory of the Big Bang?

So what? The internet gives another avenue for that dialogue to continue. The atheistic dream that religion will disappear is just that.

Just like the article notor posted ;)

A belief is accepting something as the truth or fact, without necessarily having seen physical evidence thereof.

A belief is a fervent hope that the universe will turn out to be thus and so despite all reasoning and evidence

Religion cannot and should not be replaced by atheism. Religion needs to go away and not be replaced by anything. Atheism is not a religion. It’s the absence of religion, and that’s a wonderful thing.

Religion is not morality. Theists ask me, “If there’s no god, what would stop me from raping and killing everyone I want to.” My answer is always: “I, myself, have raped and killed everyone I want to ... and the number for both is zero.” Behaving morally because of a hope of reward or a fear of punishment is not morality. Morality is not bribery or threats. Religion is bribery and threats. Humans have morality. We don’t need religion.

Religion is faith. Faith is belief without evidence. Belief without evidence cannot be shared. Faith is a feeling. Love is also a feeling, but love makes no universal claims. Love is pure. The lover reports on his or her feelings and needs nothing more. Faith claims knowledge of a world we share but without evidence we can share. Feeling love is beautiful. Feeling the earth is 6,000 years old is stupid.

Religion is often just tribalism: pride in a group one was born into, a group that is often believed to have “God” on its side. We don’t need to replace tribalism with anything other than love for all humanity. Let’s do that, okay?

Religion also includes fellowship, joy, compassion, service and great music, and those can be replaced by ... fellowship, joy, compassion, service and great music.

Atheism is the absence of religion. We don’t really need atheism. We just need to get rid of religion.

I'm not sure you guys got the point of the article.

As an aside though, how many people do you think have come to the same quoteunquote rational conclusion of Christianity (or any other religion) via internet sources compared to deconversions?

Of course you don't fear death, you have your sound beliefs in religion to give you hope of a life after death, to allow you to not have to worry that your conciesnece will not just fade away and your life to cease and become yet another anonymous footnote of history.

I don't fear death but I still have my beliefs.

What then?

-PB

BIDDEFORD, Maine – When Sister Elaine Lachance devoted herself to a religious life straight out of high school in 1959, her religious order had more than a dozen convents in the U.S. with nearly 260 sisters.
Today, the Good Shepherd Sisters of Quebec, based in Canada, has just five convents in Maine and Massachusetts with 56 sisters. The youngest is 64 years old, and it's been more than 20 years since a new member joined.
Rather than leave the future of the convents to prayer and chance, Lachance has turned to the Internet. She's using social media and blogging to attract women who feel the calling to serve God and their community.
She says she had her awkward moments when she began using Facebook and writing blog posts.
"But I knew I had to go there, that I had to do it," said Lachance, who turned 70 on Sunday. "You have to go where the young people are. And that's where they are."
The number of nuns and sisters has plunged through the decades as more career opportunities for women opened, parochial schools closed and sisterhood became less visible. Generally, a nun lives a cloistered, contemplative life in a monastery, while sisters live and work within their communities.
In the U.S., the count has fallen from about 180,000 in 1965 to 55,000 last year, a drop of nearly 70 percent, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate. In 2009, their median age was 73, with 91 percent of them 60 and older.
At one time, women would join the sisterhood through word of mouth or their personal interactions with sisters, said Lachance, vocation director for the Good Shepherd Sisters. But now, many younger women aren't even aware it's a choice.
For years, Lachance has visited Catholic schools, placed ads in religious publications and attended job fairs to recruit sisters. She's still doing those things, but she has also turned to Facebook, her blog and YouTube. The order also updated its website and hired a public relations company.
It's hard to sell somebody on committing to a religious life, with its vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, in today's world of slick technology, fast cash and material goods, Sister Dorina Chasse said on a recent day at St. Joseph Convent, a home along the Saco River in Biddeford where elderly and sick sisters are taken care of.
"It's hard for them to leave that," Chasse said.
Still, there's been an uptick among women showing an interest in pursuing a religious life, said Patrice Tuohy of the National Religious Vocation Council, a Chicago-based group representing vocation directors for religious organizations.
The NRVC launched a website called VocationMatch.com seven years ago that links young people interested in leading religious lives to religious communities. The site gets about 6,000 inquiries a year.
The Internet is useful for such questions because it offers instant information and is anonymous, Tuohy said.
"For a 20-year-old to think about joining a religious community is an unusual decision, not to mention countercultural," she said. "Someone who's thinking about taking a vow of poverty and chastity goes counter to a culture that promotes sex and money and power."
The Internet has made a huge difference in how religious communities are recruiting, Tuohy said. Besides websites and Facebook pages, some are using podcasts, YouTube videos and chat rooms. According to a 2009 study commissioned by NRVC, 87 percent of religious institutes had used the Internet for vocation promotion in the past five years.
"Many of the religious communities are very savvy," Tuohy said. "I think people find this surprising, but in fact because they're working with young people, they're trying to stay in tune with young people — that's who their market is, young men and women."
Audra Turnbull, 23, turned to the Internet when she felt the calling in college. Inside the chapel at Quincy University in Quincy, Ill., she pulled out her laptop, Googled "nuns" and found a website called A Nun's Life. In time, she checked out dozens of other websites, YouTube videos and social media before getting touch with a motherhouse in Monroe, Mich., where she plans to join the ministry.
Those tools are invaluable for "nunnabes" — wannabe nuns — like her, she said.
"It's hard to find nuns these days to talk to them," she said. "So a sister being interviewed or giving ministry on YouTube has been huge because you put yourself in that place and visualize what you want to be doing."
Turnbull expects to become a sister in two to three years. She's also created a blog of her own called The Awkward Catholic, which takes readers through the process of entering religious life.
For Lachance, she's aiming to use the Internet to spread the word about religious opportunities and what religious life is like.
In the case of the Good Shepherd Sisters, the sisters work with women in distress, including women in prison or leaving it, pregnant single women, single mothers and women with substance abuse problems. They work at schools, food pantries and elsewhere in the community, recognizable through their white blouses, black skirts and vests, and black headdresses with veils.
But sisters also have interests and hobbies just like anybody else. Lachance is partial to Wii baseball and bowling video games, and she and her fellow sisters are big sports fans.
"On Super Bowl Sunday, we were watching with our pizza," she said.
Results have been slow, with only 10 people liking the Good Shepherd Sisters' Facebook page. But Lachance remains optimistic, as does Peggy Spino, her administrative assistant.
Some religious communities have just given up trying to attract new blood, said Spino.
"They say, 'We're not getting anybody. We'll pray,'" she said. "Prayer is great, but you also have to have some action."

I think he just decided that willful ignorance was the best course of action :lol:

Better than them having to hide in fear of being stoned to death, no?



Martin Luther was essentially the start of anti-Semitism within modern Germany, culminating in the rise to power of Hitler. Why mention just the good things he did?



Religion does operate in a closed information system. It's why people were burnt at the stake for reading the bible in English. It's why there is a hierarchy within every major religion where people command other people. It's why people like Christians say things like "the truth has been revealed to me" - Because the information is closed and hidden away. The very idea of an unseen god is the pinnacle of a closed system.

A Catholic priest came up with the big bang theory? Oh.. Well then, how many raped children on the same day?



Maybe in your lifetime. Ignorance is bliss though. I hope for a better world for your grandchildren.

Edited by Draupnir: 23/1/2013 12:24:07 AM

Why are there 3 cats?

What a perfect article to show the usefulness of the internet - for spouting out ideological rubbish.

It's practices on indulgences were challenged by a priest, Martin Luther, leading to the reformation.

It is simply laughable that this author thinks religion operates in a closed information system. Doesn't he know a Catholic priest first came up with the theory of the Big Bang?

So what? The internet gives another avenue for that dialogue to continue. The atheistic dream that religion will disappear is just that.

"religious people are stupid and gullible" - AfromanGT

Well, I know what I'm wearing next halloween.

There will aways be stupid and gullible people around, the internet won't change that.

Best. Costume. Evar.

Given the internet has given rise to a number of colts and is used to attract more and more people to obscure religions (scientology comes to mind) then I would say that Religion is surviving just fine with the internet.

There is no friendly way to respond to this :lol:

His head would explode.
I wonder if he's just willfully ignoring the point that the internet aids those seeking to spread the word as much as it aids those who seek to deny it?

His head would explode.
I wonder if he's just willfully ignoring the point that the internet aids those seeking to spread the word as much as it aids those who seek to deny it?

So how would the author cope with someone converted via internet resources?