Would You Be an Atheist Without the Internet?

Wow, great question. I’ve been floating down the intertubes since about 1994, which is well before I deconverted, so I can’t say for sure, but I like to think the answer is yes. The internet was great for helping me learn about the rest of the world beyond my red state small town upbringing, but the first non-Christians I met who liked to talk about their lack of religion (they were both agnostics) I knew from “real life” and a lot of what sent me down the road from conservative Christian to liberal Christian to agnostic to atheist was just from talking to other people and reading books.

I’m not sure I would be an atheist without the Interweb. I was calling myself an agnostic and a skeptic and a doubter before I started blogging and reading other blogs… but it was the atheist blogosphere that got me really re-thinking atheism.

It’s not what tipped me over the edge. What tipped me over the edge was The God Delusion. I was an agnostic when I started that book, and an atheist when I was finished with it. But I’m not sure I wold have gotten interested in the book if it hadn’t been for the atheosphere. (And the atheosphere, combined with The God Delusion, is definitely what got me spending so much time thinking and writing about it.)

Well I, for one, was an atheist long before Al Gore 😉 invented it.
I was wearing a “I swear to God I’m an atheist” tee-shirt back in high-scool in 1979.

I owe my atheism to the website Fark. I was a Farker for many years. There are many pigheaded and stubborn people on that site who won’t accept the limited amount of evidence for any religion. As an Christian, trying to debate that stubbornness was difficult. I felt taking the debate to the Internet was necessary. It took several years to turn that same stubbornness on my own faith. Soon, I became a skeptic.

I became an atheist before the www, but I did learn a lot on local BBS forums. So, I am not sure if that counts.

I would like to think that yes, I would be an atheist even without the Internet, but I can’t be sure. I was an agnostic before I got access to the internet, so atheism is not that big a step forward. But I also believe it would have taken me a lot longer to admit I’m an atheist without the Internet.

Almost the same information one finds on the Internet can be found in the library, but the effort one puts into finding answers is different, and the time it takes to find the answers is different too. One has faster and better access to materials and information on the Internet.

Gosh, probably not. At the time that I deconverted, I strongly believed in free skeptical inquiry into all things, including religion, but I was also instinctively ashamed to research into my doubts. The internet helps because browsing the internet takes relatively little commitment, and can be done in quiet solitude at home. If it required going to a bookstore or library, I might never have invested the effort.

But then again, even if I hadn’t done any outside reading, I’m pretty sure I still would have found the apologetics I learned in high school to be unconvincing. In fact, we were told that they’re not supposed to be completely convincing (you need faith as well). I’m not sure I would have accepted that excuse.

I know that I would not be an atheist today if I had not had the interweb. It was the atheistic ideas that were so bluntly and openly expressed on the internet (and almost nowhere else) that led me doubt my former christian faith and eventually led to my atheism.

I think so. I never really bought into the whole God thing and my disbelief occurred without the internet and due to school. I’ve always had a critical opinion of it.
It’s not until recently that I started searching out fellow a-theists online.

I’ve always been an atheist, but it was only a year and a half ago that I found Austin Cline. From there, I started reading other atheist blogs.

I was a pre-net athiest. Now, after many years as a lone athiest, I have other athiests and skeptics to listen to and talk with.

I think I would still be an atheist, or maybe an ‘agnostic’, but I would be an isolated and lonely one. I’d probably still be going to church and beating myself up over not believing any of it. Like back in the days when I didn’t believe, but wouldn’t admit it to myself because I thought there was something terribly wrong with disbelief of Christian dogma. Bleh, that would be a depressing fate.

I would be an atheist without the internet but I would likely not be involved in atheist activism.

I was an atheist for a few years before I ever thought to “google” atheist. I would still be an atheist, but more in the closet without the www, not to mention I would be less inclined to engage “fundies” in debate. :0)

My ascent into atheism began well before the internet, so yes, I would be an atheist without it.

The internet didn’t exist in 1977 when I decided it was a bunch of hooey so no, it was not part of the equation. The Book of Mormon was probably the last straw that turned me into a heathen. The internet has however made me more comfortable with being an atheist – prior to the internet I felt like a leper and now I know it’s most everyone else who has the mental virus, not me.

I realized a few years ago I’ve actually always been an atheist, but I was raised Southern Baptist and always did what made the adults happy. It was someone I met on the internet that started me on to realizing what I really believed. I think the seeds were already there (people telling me how I should feel and how well I should remember the day I ‘got saved’ [I’m told I was 5. . .], and I didn’t feel that way or remember the event). I’m thinking I would’ve come around eventually, but it would have taken a lot longer.

I was always extremely agnostic, and did not care about the exact label. After 9/11 attacks, I started being curious about Islam and the belief system that led the hijackers to to their deed. I ran into excerpts from End of Faith by Sam Harris and realized that I was an atheist. (On the Internet). Christopher Hitchens comments about being an anti-theist have some appeal to me, but I don’t think I’m really that sort of an activist.

I would have been an atheist either way. It wasn’t anything particularly on the Internet that changed my mind, it was actually books that I had read.

Also I’m pretty sure there were atheists before the Internet.

I started down the atheist path sometime around 1978, so the internet didn’t have any affect on my journey. I find it invaluable now, though. 🙂

10% of my atheism is due to a fellow atheist friend at the time.

90% is due to the Internet, which at that time included the FAQ on the alt.atheism.moderated Usenet newsgroup, which he introduced me to. This was ’92 maybe? Those were the days when a 14.4 modem could still get you places. But it was still the Internet.

What I realized after I read all that material was that I had been questioning whether God existed all along (I was nominally Lutheran, but unpracticing). I was an atheist from that point on.

The God Delusion solidified my will to be open about it, and encouraged me go out and find the atheist community and really be a part of it.

I was an atheist before the Internet, but the Internet confirmed my rationality because, I know that:

If there was a god and it intended there to be an Internet, I would have been born with one.

The Internet gave me more knowledge about atheism although I’ve been an atheist even before the Internet age. It is so nice to know that a lot of people are like me.

I rejected the bible at the age of about six, but then converted to Paganism when I was in my teens. If I hadn’t hopped onto a religion forum during a period of doubt, I would probably still be a Pagan. I’m thankful that there were so many supportive atheists who were able to show me the debunks of everything that had previously convinced me.

I’m so much happier now as an atheist 😀

Without the Internet, I would probably still be an atheist, but I think a much more lukewarm one – more of a “meh, who cares?” atheist than a “religion is irrational” one. I say probably because I never thought faith was a big honking deal, even as a child. Mostly I found church and everything to do with religion boring and incomprehensible; I can’t remember ever having a moment of inspiration from it.
It’s possible that the Internet just jump-started the process and that my philosophy classes in university would have worked just as well to quash any remaining traces of belief, but I can’t really say. It does occur to me that it might have worked the other way and the Internet could have made me a more devout believer where otherwise I would just not think about it too much.

Eventually I would be, but I would have lived many more years of frustration with my cognitive dissonance. I am so glad I live in the era I do now, where I can have access to all opinions equally, and decide for myself.

Looking back, atheism was inevitable. The truth is I always had moments of doubt and mainly looked to apologetics to mollify my skepticism. While it was a single word on the internet that led me to read the book that started me on my road to atheism (“redactor”) it was reading a book offline and wanting to “know the Bible better” that really unleashed all my skepticism. Ironically, it was also at this time that I read Jack Chic’s (on his website) take on the TRUE translation of the Bible – the KJV. That also piqued my curiosity about the origins of the Bible. The rest is godless history.

As much as my mother likes to blame my atheism on the internet, it wasn’t anything on the internet that caused it. I just realized that I didn’t agree with the church’s intolerant beliefs (which required realizing that the church HAD intolerant beliefs. My mom’s church doesn’t preach them, but the feelings are there in the congregation), and after that I started questioning ALL of it’s beliefs.
I would still be an atheist without the internet, albeit a very lonely one.

Yes-my atheism started out as a simple early-teenage rebellion mostly as a result of music I was listening to and a Catholic upbringing. I met a good friend of mine (the first atheist I knew of) at a Christian summer camp, and she was confused when I went up to Communion during one of the three masses during the week. I had been doing it out of habit and to not upset my parents. The next biggest step was hearing Julia Sweeney’s “Letting Go of God,” which was only recently (a span of about 6-7 years in between the two events).

I’ve been an atheist my entire life, and as I’ve noted before, I find the idea that anyone could genuinely believe in any sort of god incomprehensible.

On the internet, and elsewhere, you will find exactly what you are looking for – nothing more, nothing less.

Thanks for that bit of projection, Dutch.

All I suggest is that a completely self-contained and self manufactured universe, manufactured from nothing by chance, and yet governed by rational, immutable laws at the fundamental level – and subsequently capable of supporting ‘life’ and all its foibles – is, in my opinion, pretty implausible. I find it much more plausible and believable that an external intelligent (replace with complex if you will) force caused it to be. Furthermore, I believe that this ‘force’ was responsible for the acts attributed to God in the Bible, and quite frankly, if he calls himself Yahweh, then I’m inclined to believe him.

Do you, in all honesty, not see how utterly stupid that is? Seriously?

Nicholas said:
The burden of proof does not lie on atheists at all, nor do I suggest it does. All I suggest is that a completely self-contained and self manufactured universe, manufactured from nothing by chance, and yet governed by rational, immutable laws at the fundamental level – and subsequently capable of supporting ‘life’ and all its foibles – is, in my opinion, pretty implausible. I find it much more plausible and believable that an external intelligent (replace with complex if you will) force caused it to be. Furthermore, I believe that this ‘force’ was responsible for the acts attributed to God in the Bible, and quite frankly, if he calls himself Yahweh, then I’m inclined to believe him.”

Do you KNOW that the “universe” is “completely self-contained” and “self-manufactured” “from nothing but chance”? Prove it!

How do you “KNOW” that it was “YAHWEH”? I claim that ODIN, in his fall from the tree of life, Yggrasadril, and his death and rebirth during the fall, while mastering the runes during the fall, is the true founding of the universe. Never mind the universe HE (ODIN) lived in before THE MASTERY. YOUR god yahweh is yet another imposter in the pantheon, and Thor’s hammer is made of IRON, which is going to perform TOTAL destruction on that bronze chariot. Superstitious twit.

Wow, my question hit the big time! Thanks Hemant.

A couple of key points of my deconversion process happened due to the internet. It’s likely I would not be an atheist now without the it. I think I would still get there though, but it would have been a longer and more painful experience.

I didn’t need the internet to make me an atheist–although technically I suppose I’m an agnostic–because I’ve always been very skeptical. Perhaps a little more so these past several years as I learned more about the world, but a.) there weren’t enough dragons in the story of Christ for me to find it interesting and b.) my ability to believe in anything, even completely fictional deities that exist in their fantasy universes, is broken. That and I hate being wrong.

yup, without a shadow of a doubt.
Ironically A thread titled “why don’t you believe in god” started it all for me.

Probably so, I was always skeptic about everything, my religion included. When I started reading the bible I was surprised not only it was so evil but that it was so patetically anti-intellectual and anti-skepticism.

So I became an agnostic without the internet, but it was thanks to the Internet that met amny other worldviews, even talked to people of other religious backgrounds and read many holy books.

I also learned about neurology and psychology and realized we are our brains so in the end the Internet played a vital role in my evolution to atheism.

No, I’d still be an atheist without the internet. The philosophy section at the local library is a great place to sow the seeds of doubt. 🙂

But disconnected from other atheists, I think I’d be far more likely to be a “I’m just not religious” atheist than a more assertive skeptic of religion. Plus, I think exposure to retarded Christian apologetics online over the years has done much to solidify my conclusion that religion is ultimately a mistaken endeavor at best and a shameful act of willful self-deception at worst. All with the best of intentions of course, but embarrassingly untenable none the less.

For me the philosophical question of God’s existence was already settled, before I was on the internet.

However, the internet has changed my attitudes about religion, as an institution. In particular, Hitchens’ and Dawkins’ videos made me see how vulnerable these institutions really were, and how much dissent there truly is against religion.

Yes, without a doubt, but I’d be a less vehement one. It’s not the sites like this that cause it, either, but the unending inundation of religious crap that makes it so.

I was an atheist long before the internet became widely available, indeed I can’t remember a time when I actively believed in god (although I do remember vomiting, Damien-like, on the steps of Sunday School about the age of three or four and having to be taken home as I was screaming and refusing to go in!)

The internet has been wonderful in terms of letting me find out more about atheism i.e. interesting books and the problems faced by atheists in other countries. I reckon overall the access to information granted by the internet must have had a massive effect worldwide in guiding people towards a more rational and skeptical worldview.

Thankfully I was born with a functioning brain so the god thing always seemed like a total whack job idea, the internet just confirmed it………………

Without a doubt yes I would be. My atheism started at a very young age – maybe around 10ish, and that would be in the late 70s early 80s, long before the web was even dreamt of, and the internet was just an academic curiosity.

What the modern internet/web has done however is make me much less likely to apologise for my atheism because I know that there are so many more of us around that I had originally thought.

I was an atheist long ago. The internet certainly has introduced me to many others, such as yourself with similar disbeliefs. I tried Young Life at one time, but it just didn’t make any sense. Not much more sense than the Roman/Greek/Norse myths.

Do you think you would be an atheist today if the Internet did not exist?

I became an atheist in the mid-1980s, when I did not have internet access.

I owe mine to Stephen Jay Gould, but not the internet. Seeing how evolution was responsible for the appearance of humans made religion (which was never really that big of a deal to me) unnecessary.

The internet certainly helped me along and I probably wouldn’t be as staunch an atheist as I am without the tubes. The RRS and their Blasphemy Challenge were really what helped me come out as an atheist.

I was an atheist from the day i was born, as i have always lacked a belief in a god. When i became more interested in the topic, the internet allowed me to get arguments and counter-arguments for both sides, which helped solidified my rejection of theism.

I would be an atheist without the internet, but i wouldn’t know much about it.

Nicholas said:

“All I suggest is that a completely self-contained and self manufactured universe, manufactured from nothing by chance…”

“CHANCE”?… boom.. you just lost the argument.

There was no chance involved whatsoever and the beginning of the Universe is likely more complex than your brain (or mine) could ever comprehend. It’s likely there were trillions of trillions of combinations that didn’t work before life began.

Allow me to simplify with an analogy: The “chance” of you winning the lottery is astronomical however, someone has to win it, and you buy a ticket every week. Now, on the day you normally buy a ticket, you get up, have a shower, eat breakfast, drive to work, hit some traffic because of an accident ahead, work on that report you were given, and decide to go have lunch. While out to lunch the service is slow and you have to run to the store to buy a ticket. You hold the door for a woman and then wait for her to buy her ticket. You buy your ticket, go back to work and find out the next day you didn’t win. The lady ahead of you in line did win, however you never find out it was her that won, only that you didn’t.

Now, was it the traffic that caused you to be behind that split second? Because you chose an egg instead of toast for breakfast? The fact that you took an extra five seconds brushing your teeth? Maybe you stopped to get gas? The poor service at the restaurant? How about the extra two minutes you took to finish that last page of the report before lunch? Perhaps one of the other million or so decisions you made up until the point you bought that ticket.

The fact is that if any one of these scenarios had been different, you may have been the winner, and because those scenarios played out the way they did, the woman won. However all of that is irrelevant because if you never find out that that the woman ahead of you won the lottery, then you’ll never become aware of the things that didn’t go right in order for you to lose. Is that chance?

Things don’t happen for a reason, things just happen. If we don’t know the other possible outcomes and the failures that prevented them, then it appears that the actual outcome may have most certainly happened by chance.

Chance, random and accident are all words creationists use to over-simplify evolution and/or the origin of the Universe. Ironically, their belief of how it all began is a far more simplistic, and child-like view.

The seeds of total non-belief were planted when I was 8, and fully sprouted when I was 16, back in 1984, way before I became aware of “the net” being a prolific way of life for me. So the answer for me is “Yes, I would be an atheist without the Internet.”

I admit that the various interwebs have made me feel less lonely, that I wasn’t alone, but my belief structure would not be affected.

Interestingly the internet has been an excellent resource for my development as a Christian, theres all sorts of people on the tubes!

“CHANCE”?… boom.. you just lost the argument.

I don’t think he was trying to argue anything, just stating his (perfectly logical) point of view.

I have been an atheist for over thirty five years so I think my answer is yes – but the internet certainly helps in getting to know others!!

I don’t think so. Reading about the Dover trial online and following links to Pharyngula were what pushed me into full-on atheism. If I hadn’t found a community of boorish, abrasive skeptics to engross myself in, I’d still be an apatheist.

brycey said:

I don’t think he was trying to argue anything, just stating his (perfectly logical) point of view.

Anytime the words “chance”, “random” or “by accident” are used to describe evolution or abiogenesis, the explanation has now entered the precise antagonistic definition of logical. If one does the slightest bit of research on natural selection and abiogenesis, you’ll find that using words like chance, is tantamount to prefacing an explanation of the central nervous system as, “nothing special”.

It cheapens the sheer magnitude and wonder at the complexity of the process and frankly, as soon as it’s referred to as “happening by chance”, the presenter loses all credibility.

Science doesn’t rely on “points of view”, it relies on a much more involved method, and rather than me simply pointing out the flawed “point of view”, I tried to explain why it’s flawed.

Give a “point of view” on how your favorite football team may perform in their next game. Don’t give a “point of view” on the creation of life, particularly if you’re going to sully it by using the word “chance” to discredit it.

Anytime the words “chance”, “random” or “by accident” are used to describe evolution or abiogenesis, the explanation has now entered the precise antagonistic definition of logical. If one does the slightest bit of research on natural selection and abiogenesis, you’ll find that using words like chance, is tantamount to prefacing an explanation of the central nervous system as, “nothing special”.

If you think chance doesn’t exist, you should read up on quantum uncertainty (true physical randomness), it’ll blow your mind! 😀

Thank God Iam an athiest.Istopped praying since 1980.I just stopped praying I stopped begging & that was the end of god in me.This Universe the sun the moon the stars the planets,earth the air,water could not be made by any intellgense or any god.Man made GOD.Life sprung on earth by the combination of energy&. chemicals thats my opinion.

I can’t help but notice how intolerant many of you are of the guys who commented as non-atheist… calling him stupid and stuff. Are all theists [sic] this “nice?” or are you only nice and tolerant of other atheists?

Jenny, it’s not “intolerant” to note that a comment was stupid. I did not make any general assessment of Nicholas’s intelligence; it’s quite possible that he’s a very bright guy, but that certainly did not come through in his amply stupid comment. It’s also rather obnoxious to post condescending, off topic comments as he did, yet you criticize us… interesting.

I think I’m nice enough–for instance, I’m giving your inane comment a genuine answer, which is a great deal more than it deserves, don’t you think? Anyway, our (atheists) only common trait being a lack of belief in any gods, you’ll find that our beliefs and behaviors span a wide spectrum.

I’m 45 years old and was raised in an agnostic/atheist home, so my answer is yes, I became an atheist without the internet. In fact, I was confounding little fundie kids and asking questions they had no answers for in the 1970’s, the Dark Ages before home computers. I will say though the internet has opened up communities for me that I did not have before.

I became an atheist in the late 70s, so the Internet didn’t play a role for me.

Joe said:

Don’t give a “point of view” on the creation of life, particularly if you’re going to sully it by using the word “chance” to discredit it.

I feel I must respond to this advice. I did not give a point of view on the creation of life, rather I was expressing my point of view on the creation of the universe itself.

If someone were to claim that cartons of milk kept appearing in their fridge, completely out of thin air, I’m sure most people would be a bit skeptical. Similarly (but to a greater degree), I am skeptical of the sheer mass, energy, fundamental fabric, time and rational laws of this universe simply popping into existence from nowhere.
I have heard the arguments of brane theory, that how this universe was simply the collateral spin-off of two ‘parent universes’ colliding in higher dimensional space – thus the big bang. However, I find this thinking flawed because it assumes an eternal ‘multiverse’. (if it does not then the question of original creation is as unanswered as ever)

If this ‘multiverse’ is eternal then it will have experienced an infinite amount of time, thus experiencing an infinite amount of entropic decay. Why look at our own universe, all the mass in it is slowly evaporating away as stray photons, given enough time, it will be a sea of photons with lonely wandering black holes interspersed (and thats just one FINITE universe lifetime).

I would also respond to J Myers’ comment about calling comments stupid and such. Please, genuinely, tell me why. I would love to hear your opinion. (also I think a more general case is that peoples’ beliefs and behaviours span a wide spectrum ^_^)

I was an atheist for a number of years before I was first active on the internet in the early 90s (mostly via usenet groups and mailing lists). So I’d be one without the internet.

But I’d have thought about it a lot less, I’d be unaware there are as many of us as there are, and I’d be a lot less active.

Im 36 and I started questioning my strict christian (assembly of God) upbringing around 1996. I had no computer then but I got a few of my concerns met through books I would find at Barnes and Nobles or by slowly changing my world views and then honing them on the internet years later…I feel like Ive left the ranks of the mindless religious zombies but I still feel surrounded by them!

I wouldn’t be surprised either way. I’m sure it helped. You don’t usually get to ask these questions in church after all, since they don’t exactly encourage people to use their brain. Good luck meeting atheists in the environment I had growing up… When your family is strictly conservative Christian, you don’t know anything else. When you are threatened with having no food or being kicked out of the house if you don’t go to church with them, your options are limited. The internet allowed me to discuss things that the society around me was suppressing.