Certain individuals and distinct minorities within society have always had the ability to make their views known to the masses. This has historically been achieved through wealth or power: the rich could manipulate the press, a king could make his opinions law, or a totalitarian leader could censor speech and open discussion. More significant to my discussion however, is how religious personalities and spiritual leaders have dictated the type of material and information that is distributed to their respective followers.
For the majority of human history, a particular religion or set of beliefs have been prevalent in countries or regions, if not entire continents. An interesting, albeit overly simplistic, visual timeline of religious influence can be seen here. This has come, in virtually every case, with the existence of an individual or group that dictates what should be preached, and how certain events should be dealt with according to their system of beliefs. Here lies, I believe, a monumental problem that has existed for millennia, but that can now be resolved with the proper use of Web-based technologies.
My personal experience with religion and mass market faith starts when I was quite young. I grew up in a moderately religious household, was baptized, went to a Catholic school, and attended church relatively often. I was always rather inquisitive though, and in a Baptist church youth group around 11 years old I began to see huge discrepancies and flaws in some of the ideas we were being taught. I asked questions frequently, but after receiving few, if any, adequate responses to my observations, I had to admit that religious ideas just didn't seem to sit right in my mind. I gradually withdrew from the youth group, excused myself from church attendance as often as possible, and started actively avoiding any conversations that could make me have to explain my "abnormal" views.
After years of internal debate and external deflection of any religious discussion, I began to observe that I was not alone in my indecision. It was not until I discovered the open and anonymous environment of the Internet that I could truly express my opinions, and hear about other that had similar views to mine. I quickly saw how enormous the non-religious/Atheist community is, and was able to re-asses and refine my own views by hearing other more educated individuals speak on the topic.
The point is, my personal experience and growth in spiritual and religious matters would have been completely impossible had it not been for the amazing resource and 'many-to-many' facilitating technology that is the Internet. I would have been solely exposed to, from every angle - the media, politics, social interactions - the other more "accepted" view on religion that has existed for over three millennia. Had I been born 400 years, 200 years, or even 70 years ago, my personal ideas would have been dismissed as threatening, unfaithful, and even blasphemous. The inter-connectivity and mass communication environment of the Web has allowed me to not have to ignore my opinions, but expand and strengthen them instead.
I am now completely open about my religious views, and will debate the issue with anyone that has the capacity to think critically, and retain a somewhat open mind. I owe this spiritual confidence entirely to the wonderful technology of the Internet, and believe that this is a resource that can be used similarly in many more ways in the future, and one that hopefully will be able to positively reach millions more individuals as it has with me.
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