A traditional religion, one built on “right belief,” requires a closed information system. That is why the Catholic Church put an official seal of approval on some ancient texts and banned or burned others. It is why some Bible-believing Christians are forbidden to marry nonbelievers. It is why Quiverfull moms home school their kids from carefully screened text books. It is why, when you get sucked into conversations with your fundamentalist uncle George from Florida, you sometimes wonder if he has some superpower that allows him to magically close down all avenues into his mind. (He does!)

Religions have spent eons honing defenses that keep outside information away from insiders. The innermost ring wall is a set of certainties and associated emotions like anxiety and disgust and righteous indignation that block curiosity. The outer wall is a set of behaviors aimed at insulating believers from contradictory evidence and from heretics who are potential transmitters of dangerous ideas. These behaviors range from memorizing sacred texts to wearing distinctive undergarments to killing infidels. Such defenses worked beautifully during humanity’s infancy. But they weren’t really designed for the current information age.

***

A brilliantly stated summary of ideas I’ve been thinking about for the last couple of years or so. While broadly-stated “religion” as such is unlikely to disappear from human culture in any foreseeable future, the old monoliths are going away. It’s a done deal.

The emerging 24/7 interconnected Information Age will be what finally brings the old edifices of conventional religion to a state of permanent obsolescence. The sheltered propaganda bubbles that protected the obsolete ideologies from competition and critical scrutiny just don’t work anymore.

The false premises of Abrahamic monotheism don’t hold up to critical scrutiny; they cannot compete in the arena of ideas with our refined and continually evolving understanding of how our world really works, who and what we really are, and the way we should see ourselves.

Understand this, and the last few years of hysteria, desperation and moral panic from the guardians of the expiring Aeons will make a lot more sense. Look for the “true believers” to publicly double down on their rigid dogmatic ideologies for a time. The retreat to ever-shrinking home-schooled, sheltered enclaves will continue. Then look for phony tears of victimhood and persecution when their opinions are not magically exempt from criticism and the rules of evidence.

Others, who follow conventional religions more from conditioning and habit than anything else, will begin to catch on. The emotional implications of such a transition can be difficult (take it from me). Now is the time to encourage the best kind of curiosity in our friends and loved ones, and make the most of the freely-available knowledge and learning at the disposal of most anyone reading these words. Now is the time to question old assumptions about what our options are (i.e., monotheism vs. atheism) and proactively shape the emerging Aeon into one that maximizes actual - as opposed to rhetorical - Life (in the life-worship, “really living instead of just existing” sense of the word), Liberty (i.e., “more, not fewer choices for future action”), and the Pursuit of Happiness for all, not just married religious straight Americans.

Every end of every “world,” every “age,” every Aeon is the birth of a new beginning. This is a great time to begin remaking your own.

XEPER::REMANIFEST::REYN TIL RUNA

—Brother Virgil

Between the sneering contempt of Piers Morgan and the shrieking, pants-shitting hysteria of Alex Jones, there is the voice of Reason.

deconversionmovement:

Former English Literature scholar and children’s fiction author C.S. Lewis has come to be venerated as a paragon of Christian apologetics. “Go read C.S. Lewis! He was an atheist who studied the evidence and then became Christian!” is a common slogan I hear repeated again and again by apologists. They of course ignore my return request to go read Bart Erhman, Hector Avalos, and Robert Price – all New Testament experts and former apologists who turned atheist or agnostic due to a lack of evidence  –  and reason that a cheesy children’s author, whose background was in fictional literature, is somehow a more trustworthy authority.

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Lewis was a philosopher like I’m a figure skater.

(via skepticalavenger)

“To fight the efforts of governments to criminalize speech critical of religion, and to push back against calls for global restrictions on free speech, the Center for Inquiry launches the Campaign for Free Expression. Timed to commence with International Blasphemy Rights Day, the Campaign aims to increase public awareness of threats to free expression, and develop plans to fight back, both in the world’s halls of power and at the grassroots.”

***

Because ideas that can’t withstand criticism are probably wrong anyway.

Jesus was married…? “An obvious hoax! Get real, people!”

Jesus performed miracles and rose from the dead…? “Seems legit…”