Faith 2.0: Religion and the Internet

The RSA in association with the Tony Blair Faith Foundation presents the Faith 2.0 conference.

Opening Address: Emma Murphy, school of government affairs, Durham University, Ruth Turner, chief executive, Tony Blair Faith Foundation and Joanildo Burity, director of faith and globalisation programme, Durham University

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[The RSA]

The RSA is an independent, secular organisation which encourages discourse and debate and as a secular organisation does not endorse any particular views put forward.

[AsianSuperNinja]

7:13 "Organize a conference on religion and internet"

Yea, there are two problems with that:

1) Where are the other religions? They are only displaying a singular, ethnocentric, and ignorant view of the affect of religion on internet.

2) Religion is personal. These type of conferences discussing religion do not do anything but create more separation and hate in this world. Why don't you just interpret the Bible (or any other religious text) for yourself.

[Stian Sivertsen]

The internet is a place where religion comes to die.

[felpaluche]

They might gel

[tommyk1214]

Guess im a rascist then. I would like to deport all the adults who still believe in Santa Claus aswell. I'll help load the trains even. One big "summercamp for gullible and naive people" somewhere in eastern Poland.

[KyleRumCinco2012]

QUEEF.

[Provoker7]

@bluefootedpig

Anyway, those were just my two cents. I'm glad to see you took the time to watch the video! It's something I don't usually expect from a dialogue in the YouTube comments section. :-)

If you've got any videos you can recommend, feel free to send me a link.

[PoweredByMagnets]

Stay on topic. Muslims don't have anything to do with creationism. I didn't argue a damn thing about muslims -- they aren't even in the discussion. I'm arguing that it's unnecessary to even mention creationism because a simple course in biology will do away with it. The problem is clearly education and it's unsurprising since amercia's math and science rankings are abysmal. And no, the fact that your cube mate is clueless doesn't make my point moot.

[Provoker7]

@bluefootedpig

Does Buddhism have absolute laws or stakes to claim? Some variants do, notably Zen Buddhism as practiced during World War 2, but I can imagine a religion that doesn't do either of these things. Which is fine and which should be encouraged; exceptions are to be expected when Christianity alone already contains more than 30,000 subgroups. But notice how this limitation does not apply to Tony Blair when he defends the notion that "religion is a force for good in the world".

[bluefootedpig]

Well, at least in the debate he made several comments about having absolute laws and stakes to claim in all religions, but Buddhism pulls away from that completely. He might have just made the mistake of grouping all religions into one, or perhaps not knowing the basis of some religions as they are many and varied. I think that Fanaticism is a mental disease, to which the person will pick anything to be fanatic about. Religion is just one outlet.

[Provoker7]

@bluefootedpig

Does Hitchens make that mistake? It's possible he was speaking in context. I know Hitchens' stance on faith, and to him it doesn't make a difference whether it involves one god, many gods or no gods; faith is a "mind-forged manacle", insofar as it refers to metaphysical beliefs that have no basis in science (often in spite of overwhelming amounts of evidence).

Blair was correct, but it's a pretty moot point. Nobody claimed fanaticism is exclusively rooted in religious belief.

[bluefootedpig]

The vast majority of people don't understand evolution. Hell, my cube mate has no clue about it, and he is far from religious. So your point is moot. And why not? you think that maybe because we don't know anything about Muslim way of life doesn't fuel the anti muslim movement in America? As they claim they are taking over the world, yet have no idea about the very basics of their belief? You honestly think it has NOTHING to do with it? And to write it all off is close minded.