Analog Faith in a Digital Age

[NeoGreen]

https://religionandpolitics.org/2021/03/17/analog-faith-in-a-digital-age/

Analog Faith in a Digital Age
By Eli Gottlieb,March 17, 2021

Data from around the world indicate that religious belief is in decline. This trend began long before the internet and social media were invented. But it has accelerated and intensified dramatically since their arrival. According to sociologist Jean Twenge, between 2004 and 2016, religious belief among young adults “fell off a cliff.”

(snip)

Secularization is a complex process. It includes not only declining belief but also declining participation and observance. And it has many sources—economic, political, social and intellectual. Nevertheless, a key factor in the decline of religious belief among millennials and Gen Z seems to be what distinguishes them, as digital natives, from all previous generations: their use of internet and social media.

(snip)

In other words, the internet influences not only what we believe but also how we believe. We are shifting from analog to digital not only in our modes of communication but also in our conceptions of what belief is and how it works. The idea of belief as a continuous variable measured in degrees of certainty is being replaced by the idea of belief as a binary function of zero or one, or “all in” versus “all out.”

Worth repeating:
The idea of belief as a continuous variable measured in degrees of certainty is being replaced by the idea of belief as a binary function of zero or one, or “all in” versus “all out.”

I implore Atheists to remember this when engaging with self-proclaimed religious, it's not a binary world. Everyone is on their own path, help the religious along, as gently as possible, do not buy into the binary view. Very few of us have always been as skeptical as the day we were born or, for that matter, as we may be today.

Just sayin'

[CrispyQ]

1. How to engage with the self-proclaimed religious.