Every more-or-less honest opinion poll shows the Christian world shrinking. It's not because the rationale of Christianity is so lacking, that's been known. From Ireland to Tuscumbia, more people are rejecting religion as any sort of truth and are saying so.
Could it be that freethinkers now have a means to form rationalist communities online? Seems that way.
We're using a social medium now. We have the means to express ourselves honestly with less to fear than before.
When I was a kid, and having second thoughts about the religion I had taken for granted, there was no FaceBook, no YouTube, no Tennessee Valley Talks forum. I was alone.
I had no way of knowing that others thought, and had thought, about the things that were forming in my mind. There was no discussion that challenged the religious status quo. Now there is.
What if I had had this forum to which I could refer when I was 17? Would I have been exposed to the idea of searching the Sheffield Public Library for the works of Robert G. Ingersoll and the true nature of local heroine Helen Keller? Would I have been encouraged to explore the problems with my, and other, religions? Would I have found friends with whom I could discuss the issue, pro and con? Perhaps. I don't know how many yoots frequent this particular forum, but I can tell you with certainty they are fearless in their use of Google and Yahoo with regard to any topic about which they are curious. They seek out alternates to so-called Common Wisdom. They are much more intellectually flexible than I had the chance to be at their age. I envy them that.
And it's not just the kids. Adults who have been enslaved to religious orthodoxy are finding common cause with other like-minded adults in their own intellectual liberation. It used to be that the lone person who called the Talking Snake a ridiculous fiction was the crazy one. No more. Later this month, half a million people will descend on Washington, DC to announce that reason, not superstition, is not only OK, but necessary. Without modern social media, would the four people from one small town, the thousand from a large city, and their cohorts be able to assemble at the Reason Rally? Maybe, but it would have been enormously difficult, and would have been resisted much more effectively.
Thanks for reading. YOU are part of the solution to the batspit-craziness of religion, just by reading this. Regardless where you stand. You see, here in the open market of ideas, where evidence not only counts but is available, your point of view is necessary. All opinions are welcome, and the better ones will win. That's why the fastest-growing religious opinion in the country is "None of the Above".
DF
