November 07, 2007

If Religion Is So Popular Why Is It Never On Digg?

The point is often made that religion is more popular now than it ever has been and that Atheists are still a tiny minority with no say, no power and no influence.

If that is the case why has a pro-religion article never made the front page of digg and never made the popular list on reddit? surely if religion really was as popular as claimed stories promoting it would be submitted to digg and followers would certainly 'digg it'.

Over the last month or so our blog (GBG) has made the front page of digg on numerous occasions, Twice offering evidence for evolution [2], Once promoting videos which will be played to presidential candidates asking questions about the role of religion in politics and once promoting Richard Dawkins and the prospect of him writing a book for children.

It seems strange that the "popular" idea of religion in it's entirety should be beaten by one single blog that is only a few months old.

No doubt the argument will be made that digg isn't a suitable outlet for religion as it is a site that mainly caters for technology, but if that is the case why has a blog about Atheism been so popular on digg?

I think the answer is right in front of our faces. The answer is that religion isn't that popular anymore. Atheism is more popular than ever and the youth of today are intellectually aware and interested in articles that promote logic, reasoning and arguments based on observable, testable evidence.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who voted on the videos. Hopefully the votes you cast should keep at least one of the videos in the top ten for the next week and we will have a question (maybe 2) put to the presidential candidates. No doubt i will make another post about the videos after the answers are given. Thanks again.

And to the christians who tried to rally the troops and down vote the videos, better luck next time, i guess your numbers just aren't comparable to the numbers amassed by the Atheist movement.

6 comments:

  1. It's very simple, 3,000 people do not mkae the majority. Say there are 7,000 people who look at digg on a regular basis. I would say that is a fair assumption of how many people look at digg. 3,000 people vote for something. 4,000 people didn't. How can you say that is the majority?

    'It seems strange that the "popular" idea of religion in it's entirety should be beaten by one single blog that is only a few months old.'

    You haven't beaten anyone. You have not disproven God, or any religion.

    'why has a blog about Atheism been so popular on digg?'

    Why are cars so popular on Digg? Because the majority of people who vote for things on Digg want to see it. Also,it may not be just athiests who vote for most of the posts that made front page on Digg. As I have stated before, I am a Catholic and I believe in evolution. I think I actually dugg those evidence for evolution ones because people who don't believe in evolution don't know too much about science. I also think religion and politics should not be mixed. As long as he/she is a good leader and cares for the people and doesn't involve his/her religion, I don't care if they believe in the Force. Also just because it is dugg does not mean they support it. You forget people digg things about police brutality all the time, yet they do not support it. They are informing the other digg users about what is happening.

    I guess what I am trying to say is not to jump to conclusions. I know this entire thing was scatterbrained, but I tried to answer as many points as possible.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This was on Digg today, about Bibles being banned at the Beijing Olympics

    http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/264115.aspx

    ReplyDelete
  3. Great blog! I really like your conviction and sincerity towards the topics you present. Thanks for stopping by blog too.

    I think if you have to choose between an obsolete fairy tale that's been on rerun for two thousand years or a modern forum of thought that asks challenging questions and engages the use of rational thought for positive change, atheism is going to be the more interesting subject.

    Everything else is just the same bland, manipulative, supernatural junk people have been spoon fed for ages. You can only be told so many times that you're a worthless piece of crap in danger of hellfire before it gets old.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I believe you have fallen prey to what is called the availability heuristic. This happened when you assumed that your rough estimation of the number of front-page posts on digg.com is at all representative of an abstract and probably unmeasurable "popularity" index of religion. Furthermore, I would be pressed to say that the nominal contribution of this blog to front-page articles about atheism on Digg has "beaten" the "'popular' idea of religion".

    Although I am a Christian, I often visit atheist websites with an open and inquisitive mind, but would like to see more of the kind of logic exemplified in the works of secular thinkers and even Christian apologists. Please keep writing though, and don't be afraid to "see what you're up against" as it were, by reading something like "Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Also now creationism and ID are old hat Atheism is the next daft religion to make fun off. So this is probably why more people look for atheism on digg I know its why I do

    ReplyDelete
  6. I've enjoyed many of your blog posts but this was outright foolish. Look up "selection bias" on Wikipedia. I also recommend this article on observation selection. The low percentage of religious-advocacy links on Digg is no more evidence for the popularity of religion than the low percentage of atheist-advocacy flyers on a church bulletin board is evidence for the popularity of church worship.

    Your best posts are ones which are not scatterbrained. Rather than simply apologizing for it, please try to avoid it. If not, you risk damning your own cause with faint praise. Also, your awful grammar (and sometimes spelling) does not speak highly of your intellect, which is too bad because I've found myself agreeing with much of the spirit of what you say and have found many of your posts compelling reading. Yet it's hard to justify sending my friends to your site when you fail to argue soundly for your own cause, or fall so short of eloquence, and sometimes even of literacy.

    I encourage you to keep posting, and to attend to the details of clarity of thought and language, and thereby become a more persuasive advocate for your opinions. Many of them are mine, too, and I'd love to see them better presented. Thank you, and I hope I haven't offended with my criticisms here.

    ReplyDelete