Technology Versus Religion The Religious-Tech Adaptation (original) (raw)
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The question concerning technology and religion
Journal of Lutheran Ethics, 2012
As digital technology permeates more aspects of our cultures, the relation of technology to religion has drawn particular attention. Representatives of some religious groups have rejected, others have embraced, the novel media and capabilities that digital (and especially 'online') technology afford users. This essay argues that the more salient aspect of the crisis derives from the unfamiliarity of particular technologies more than from their alleged intrinsic qualities and capacities. Religious deliberation concerning technology will do best to consider a tradition's long trajectory of engagement with (or avoidance of) technology.
Religion in an Age of Technology
Zygon, 2002
Technology raises important religious issues and not only moral ones. Given that technology is about transforming reality, these issues are different from the issues that arise in dialogues on religion and science that are primarily after understanding reality (e.g., cosmology, physics, and evolutionary biology). Technology is a multifaceted reality-not just hardware but also skills and organization, attitudes and culture. Technology has been appreciated as well as considered a threat but is best understood contextually and constructively.
Key Trends in the Transformation of Religious Consciousness in the Digital Society
Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies, 2019
The paper is devoted to the issue of identifying the main trends in the transformation of religious consciousness under the influence of digital modernization of modern society. The methodological basis of the study is constructionalism which allows us to understand religious consciousness as a construct that is transformed under the influence of digital technologies. The paper also relies on the theory of "compensation of the negative consequences of modernization" by G. Lubbe, in which religion is a way of compensating for the erosion of identity in the global world, as well as the loss of stable semantic guidelines in a world of accelerated obsolescence of experience. The paper determines that religious consciousness is polarized during the identified transformations which include "direct", "instrumental" and "functional" changes. This polarization is expressed in the fact that the growth of liberalization, rationalization and pluralization of religious consciousness and the simultaneous reaction to these processes in society lead to an increase in the value of conservation, fundamentalist ideas in the religious consciousness of a digital society. Based on this, it is concluded that the growth of religious fundamentalism is directly related to the intensity of the negative consequence growth of digitalization, globalization, acceleration and rationalization of the life of society as a whole, as well as in the same direct connection with the intensity of modernization of religion itself.
The Oxford Handbook of Digital Media Sociology, 2021
This article focuses on the role of digital media in the shift toward a “post-secular society.” Whereas classical sociologists presented technology and religion as incompatible by depicting technology’s spread as a powerful force of rationalization, disenchantment, and, ultimately, secularization, such assumptions have been contested as modernist ideologies rather than empirical assessments. By reviewing the literature thereon, the authors suggest, firstly, that traditional religions spread through digital media; secondly, that religious contents play a large role in digital media; and, thirdly, that there is an emergence of religions of digital media, placing digital technology itself at the center of religious speculation. As a consequence, the authors argue that this digitalization of religion makes clear that sociological assumptions about the incompatibility between technology and religion and related theories about progressive secularization and disenchantment have become prob...
In: Funk, M. (ed.), 'Transdisziplinär' Interkuturell', pp. 313-329, Königshausen & Neumann , 2015
Usually contemporary technology is understood to belong to secular mo-dernity. But how ‚secular' and ‚modern' are our technological practices and culture? In this essay I argue that if we want to better understand technology, thinking in terms of a rupture between modernity and pre-modernity is inadequate. I show that Judeo-Christian forms of thinking still pervade modern technological visions and could help us think about what I call the ‚delegated spirituality' of the artefact, but that our encounters with particular technological artefacts make possible other kinds of spiritual experiences which we can make sense of by referring to non-modern religion such as animism. I also argue that ‚transfigurations' are only possible if we assume the radical instability of meaning. I conclude that all cultures, including ours, can be described as ‚techno-religious' forms of life which have a spiritual-material history. The rather exceptional idea of secularization is itself part of such a particular history, and does not exclude breakthroughs of the sacred into technological worlds.
Contextualizing Current Digital Religion Research on Emerging Technologies
Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies
This article provides an overview of contemporary research within the interdisciplinary arc of scholarship known as digital religion studies, in which scholars explore the intersection between emerging digital technologies, lived and material religious practices in contemporary culture, and the impact the structures of the network society have on understandings of spirituality and religiosity. Digital religion studies specifically investigates how online and offline religious spaces and practices have become bridged, blended, and blurred as religious groups and practitioners seek to integrate their religious lives with technology use within different aspects of digital culture.
2024
The Digital !Religion "The Digital !Religion" explores the concept of a "Digital Religion" not in the sense of a traditional religion, but as a vehicle for individual emancipation and spiritual evolution. It will argue that Digital Religion-in spite of its title-is a radical break from traditional religious acts, one that stresses rational thinking, individual freedom and a closer link to a universe's consciousness.
Religion and the New Technologies
MDPI - Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute eBooks, 2017
, Wired published a controversial article entitled "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us" by Joy (2000), co-founder and chief scientist at Sun Microsystems. In this article, Joy called for a moratorium on research in three technological fields-artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and genetic engineering. He noted that, while we were poised to make rapid technological advances in each of these three areas, our understanding of the ethical questions these technologies would inevitably raise was lagging far behind. Fearing that a convergence of these technologies could be deadly, Joy writes, "We are being propelled into this new century with no plan, no control, no brakes. Have we already gone too far down the path to alter course? I don't believe so, but we aren't trying yet, and the last chance to assert control-the fail-safe point-is rapidly approaching." The intervening years since Joy's warning have indeed brought significant advances in each of these technologies-Deep Learning, nanobots, CRISPER-Cas9, just to name a few. While a moratorium on their development was never in the cards, Joy was right about one thing. These technologies have huge implications for how human life will unfold, indeed, for what it might mean to be human in the coming decades. Each holds great promise-for new medical cures, for new materials, and for new insights into our world. They will bring great wealth to some and could ease the human condition for many. However, as Joy warned, each of these technologies also brings the possibility of great peril. Science fiction writers have explored the worst-case scenarios. But we need not go to extremes to find reasons for concern. Artificial intelligence may not surpass human intelligence in the foreseeable future, but it is likely to soon displace many workers from their jobs. Nanotechnology may not end in the whole world converted to "grey goo," as engineer and futurist Eric Drexler once suggested, but we do not know what long term effects nanoparticles, and other technological innovations, could have on the environment. Genetic manipulation may not end in biological warfare, but it is likely to exacerbate the divide between those who can afford it and those who cannot. For good or ill, these technologies will change the way we work, live, think, and love. Thus, it makes sense to approach them from a religious perspective. How do these technologies change our understanding of ourselves, our place in the world, our relationships to one another, the way we face death, or our relationship to God? These are not new questions. Since the first humans fashioned weapons and clothing and controlled fire, humans have been using technology to master our environment. French philosopher Jacques Ellul describes the purpose of technology as "to defend man" (Ellul 1964, p. 405). Through technology we seek shelter from the elements and from predation, cure from sickness, and ways to make our lives safer, longer, and more comfortable. But our technologies go beyond a defensive role. Early humans also mixed paint and fashioned brushes in order to express their awe of the natural world. Technology provides us with means for communication and creation. Through the three new technologies Joy mentions, we seek not only to make our lives safer and easier but also to create new intelligences or to use genes or atoms as the building blocks of a species or material that has never existed before. In so doing, we risk making fundamental changes to both the world around us and to our very nature as human beings. Are we, therefore, "playing God?" Is this a proper role for us? If it is, how do we exercise such tremendous power wisely, with humility and compassion?
DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY AS A TOOL OF SECULARIZATION OF CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY?
GLOBAL CHALLENGES – SCIENTIFIC SOLUTIONS II, 2020
Abstract. The subject of the article is to show the manifestations of the relationship between digital technologies and social changes in technologically developed countries in terms of the functioning of religion. The issues of using digital tools by religious institutions and the faithful were discussed. Selected examples of biotechnological solutions in relation to the concept of transhumanism were discussed. Examples of robotization of religious rituals were also considered.
2024_Cyber-Theo: Reflections on the Theological Roots of Contemporary Digital Technologies
Proceedings of the Paris Institute for Advanced Study (Vol. 21), 2024
Digital technologies that permeate our everyday lives are primarily introduced to us as "new." The advancements in Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, and Augmented Reality open fresh avenues of human experience. However, the promises of digital technologies, the desires we aim to satisfy through them, the powerful imagery they cultivate, and the narratives surrounding them are far from new. In fact, they are deeply rooted in foundations shaped by religions over millennia, experienced concretely by human communities, and articulated into concepts and dogmas through theological reflection. This article aims to outline a research program to illuminate this intricate and often controversial background, and to understand how concepts and ideas from theological traditions transform throughout contemporary technological evolution, ultimately shaping the discourses and metaphors we use to describe our experiences with new technologies today. Firstly, a methodological introduction will address conceptual pairs such as continuity/discontinuity, disenchantment/re-enchantment, new/archaic. Secondly, key issues such as haptic icons, representation and presence, bilocation, resurrection, divine vision, free will, creation out of nothing, will be examined in the mirror of exemplary case studies selected from the contemporary technoscape.