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Ask HN: Computer science has a hidden agenda to kill religion?
The invention of the internet and related technologies has had a devastating impact on religion.
One must wonder whether computer scientists at some point realized that this would be the outcome and actively worked to bring it about faster via their research.
Do you think this is the case?
- pierrefar 16y agoThe invention of the internet and related technologies has had a devastating impact on religion. Really? The internet is a communication tool and as much as it enables atheists to communicate and be vocal, it is enabling religious people to do the same.
- amichail 16y agoIt's pretty clear that one side is winning convincingly though.
- DanielStraight 16y agoThis viewpoint is necessarily skewed by the communities one joins. If you spend time in atheism-focused or atheist-populated communities, it's only natural you would think atheism is the dominant viewpoint on the web. The converse is also true. In any event, your proposition (that the internet was invented to kill religion) brazenly violates Occam's razor and, without a smoking gun, is very difficult to believe.
- pierrefar 16y agoYes and yes! I have some very religious family members and friends and sometimes when I talk with them, you would think the internet = Jesus and nothing else (perhaps Facebook too). When I talk with other friends and the communities I frequent, it's atheism or you're a psycho.
- anigbrowl 16y agoYou have considerable faith in your own assumptions.
- getonit 16y ago> it is enabling religious people to do the same The irony is lost, apparently.
- getonit 16y agoYou say that 'one must wonder'... why? Why does this one particular field of knowledge need a hidden agenda to behave exactly as all other fields of knowledge, ie, incremental progress?
- J3L2404 16y agoInformation is dangerous to institutions that rely on inflexible dogmas. Adapt or perish.
- iamdave 16y agoI'm having a very hard time swallowing the pill that computer scientists, of all the things the technology can accomplish, would spend their time actively making it better just to piss of deists.
- anigbrowl 16y agoYour question erroneously assumes a unity of purpose among computer scientists. Some may oppose religion and work to undermine it; others may not, or may not consider the effect as devastating as you suggest it is. The internet seems to me to weaken religious institutions, but also to increase religiosity.
- iwwr 16y agoCirca 1500, the debate in educated circles was whether the printing press had a hidden agenda to harm Catholicism. It did and it was glorious.
- getonit 16y agoThe most printed book in history is the bible... mind you, it's also the best weapon against religion, if you can just get people to read it.