Is the internet destroying religion?

[StealthySkeptic]

In terms of access to information, I don't think the internet has given us the great shift that occurred with the moveable type printing press. If people are interested in knowledge then books have been a good source for the last 500 years, and perhaps encouraged a deeper knowledge than the often 'short and shallow' type of knowledge communicated on the internet. I tip my hat to public libraries before the internet.

So, no. If anything the internet just seems to have shortened attention spans and dumbed-down the discussion, present company excluded of course :-) I don't see it as greatly changing people's views, or at least not more than books and libraries used to anyway.

Am I sounding old? :-)

Even the movable type printing press, which did wonders for the Reformation and helped finally broke the domination of the Catholic Church over Europe, could not possibly have delivered information as fast and concisely as the Internet does now. Of course that brings downsides, but there is a strong correlation between the rise of the Internet and the rise of irreligion in the West and Australia.