Social networks dominated by the godless - Philadelphia atheism | Examiner.com

Il semblerait que les Jedi sont au 10e rang des religions sur Facebook :-)

Social networks dominated by the godless - Philadelphia atheism | Examiner.com

In our overly zealous religious society, many atheists have had a difficult time finding others who value reason over faith. While atheist communities are on the rise in most cities, atheists have created a disproportionably large community on the internet.

When it comes to conversations about religion, atheists are said to dominate YouTube. The number of high profile atheist YouTubers vastly outnumber all the high profile theistic YouTube channels combined. Many atheists YouTubers have even gained something of a celebrity status.

Facebook has also become home to a large atheist community. According to an August, 2009 Washington Post article, “atheist” is the number 3 response to the question of “religious views” on facebook. However, that number may be significantly higher if they counted all the other labels many atheists go by such as Humanist, Pastafarian, Rationalist, Bright, etc. In fact, the religious view of “Jedi” made it to number ten on the list and many Jedi (myself included) are non-believers. Obviously the religious label of “Christian,” which includes all the individual denominations, takes the number one spot but atheists still make up a disproportionably large number of facebook users.

While atheists have formed their own communities on social networking sites like Empire Avenue and Reddit, they have also started to create our own social networking sites like AtheistNexus.org, ThinkAtheist.com, and the newly created AtheistSocial.com. These sites are designed to create a safe place for atheists to interact with each other without being called evil sinners from Christian fundamentalists.

AtheistNexus is the biggest of these atheist social networking sites. ThinkAtheist offers its own brand of “Sunday Sermon” and AtheistSocial is designed to help atheists network their businesses, blogs, and other assorted activities. They also encourage single atheists to connect on a romantic level.

While building a strong internet community is important, atheist must remember that an online community is no substitute for a local community of reason. To help find groups near you, check out UnitedCoR.org.

Please check out the Atheism 101 series for frequently asked topics