IS THE INTERNET HELPING TO SPREAD THE FAITH?

The Iona Institute

Is the internet helping to draw young people to the faith? This is the question Catholic convert and podcaster ‪MahonMcCann asks at ‪Iona Institute's latest youth⁠ conference called 'God or the Machine?'. Among other things, Mahon describes how it was online faith-based material that initially led him out of atheism and into Christianity.

In an extremely engaging, original and ultimately positive talk, Mahon says:

Yes, there are definitely terrible dangers online and especially on social media

Yes, social media is creating a kind of race to the bottom where the worst behaviour often attracts the most attention

Yes, social media is disorientating an awful lot of young people and scrambling their values

But this is also causing a growing number of people to seek a safe harbour

That safe harbour can't be secularism or relativism because they only disorientate people further

Christianity does provide a safe harbour. It offers meaning, purpose, transcendence, community, a proper set of stable values

Ultimately and ironically, it's not religion that is being doomed by social media, AI and virtual reality, it's secularism.

A fascinating talk.