Download or read book Technology and Theology written by William H. U. Anderson and published by Vernon Press. This book was released on 2021-01-05 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Technology is growing at an exponential rate vis-à-vis humanity’s ability to control it. Moreover, the numerous ethical issues that technology raises are also troubling. These statements, however, may be alarmist—since Telus would tell us “The Future is Friendly”. The Modernist vision of the future was utopic, for instance Star Trek of the 1960s. But postmodern views, such as are found in Blade Runner 2049, are dystopic. Theology is in a unique interdisciplinary position to deal with the many issues, pro and con, that technology raises. Even theologians like Origen in the third century and Aquinas in the thirteenth century made forays into Artificial Intelligence and surrounding issues (they just didn’t know it at the time). Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Transhumanism raise questions about what it means to be human. What is consciousness? What is soul? What are life and death? Can technology really save us and give us eternal life? Theology is in a unique position to handle these questions and issues. This book also has practical applications in terms of ecclesiology (church) in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic—both in terms of what it means to be a church and in terms of the sacraments or ordinances. Is there such a thing as a “Virtual Church” or must we gather physically to constitute one? Are Baptism and Communion legitimate if one is not physically in a church building but are “online”? This book struggles with these and many other questions which will help the scholar or reader make up their own minds, however tentatively.
Download or read book God Technology and the Christian Life written by Tony Reinke and published by Crossway. This book was released on 2021-12-09 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What Does God Think about Technology? From smartphones to self-driving cars to space travel, new technologies can inspire us. But the breakneck pace of change can also frighten us. So how do Christians walk by faith through the innovations of Silicon Valley? And how does God relate to our most powerful innovators? To build a biblical theology of technology, journalist and tech optimist Tony Reinke examines nine key texts from Scripture to show how the world's discoveries are divinely orchestrated. Ultimately, what we believe about God determines how we respond to human invention. With the help of several theologians and inventors throughout history, Reinke dispels twelve common myths in the church and offers fourteen ethical convictions to help Christians live by faith in the age of big tech. Biblical, Informed Look at Technology: Written by the author of 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You and Competing Spectacles: Treasuring Christ in the Media Age Gathers Ideas from Industry Experts and Theologians: Interacts with Christian and non-Christian sources on technology and theology including John Calvin, Herman Bavinck, Wendell Berry, and Elon Musk Educational: Discusses the history and philosophy behind major technological innovations
Download or read book The Religion of Technology written by David F. Noble and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2013-01-23 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Arguing against the widely held belief that technology and religion are at war with each other, David F. Noble's groundbreaking book reveals the religious roots and spirit of Western technology. It links the technological enthusiasms of the present day with the ancient and enduring Christian expectation of recovering humankind's lost divinity. Covering a period of a thousand years, Noble traces the evolution of the Western idea of technological development from the ninth century, when the useful arts became connected to the concept of redemption, up to the twentieth, when humans began to exercise God-like knowledge and powers. Noble describes how technological advance accelerated at the very point when it was invested with spiritual significance. By examining the imaginings of monks, explorers, magi, scientists, Freemasons, and engineers, this historical account brings to light an other-worldly inspiration behind the apparently worldly endeavors by which we habitually define Western civilization. Thus we see that Isaac Newton devoted his lifetime to the interpretation of prophecy. Joseph Priestley was the discoverer of oxygen and a founder of Unitarianism. Freemasons were early advocates of industrialization and the fathers of the engineering profession. Wernher von Braun saw spaceflight as a millenarian new beginning for humankind. The narrative moves into our own time through the technological enterprises of the last half of the twentieth century: nuclear weapons, manned space exploration, Artificial Intelligence, and genetic engineering. Here the book suggests that the convergence of technology and religion has outlived its usefulness, that though it once contributed to human well-being, it has now become a threat to our survival. Viewed at the dawn of the new millennium, the technological means upon which we have come to rely for the preservation and enlargement of our lives betray an increasing impatience with life and a disdainful disregard for mortal needs. David F. Noble thus contends that we must collectively strive to disabuse ourselves of the inherited religion of technology and begin rigorously to re-examine our enchantment with unregulated technological advance.
Download or read book Theology and Technology written by Carl Mitcham and published by . This book was released on 1984 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Anti Human Theology written by Peter M. Scott and published by Hymns Ancient and Modern Ltd. This book was released on 2010 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Due to the vigour of its re-engineering of the world by its technologies, western society has entered into a postnatural condition in which standard divisions between the natural and artificial are no longer convincing. This title develops an 'anthropology' that doesn't repeat Christianity's history of anthropocentrism but instead criticises it.
Download or read book A Christian Field Guide to Technology for Engineers and Designers written by Ethan J. Brue and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2022-04-19 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Technology and its power are both old and new—as is the wisdom needed to envision, design, and use it well. In this field guide for Christians studying and working in technology, case studies, historical examples, and personal stories encourage readers to ask harder questions, aspire to more noble purposes, and live a life consistent with their faith as they engage with technology.
Download or read book Networked Theology Engaging Culture written by Heidi A. Campbell and published by Baker Academic. This book was released on 2016-09-20 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Theological Implications of Digital Culture This informed theology of communication and media analyzes how we consume new media and technologies and discusses the impact on our social and religious lives. Combining expertise in religion online, theology, and technology, the authors synthesize scholarly work on religion and the internet for a nonspecialist audience. They show that both media studies and theology offer important resources for helping Christians engage in a thoughtful and faith-based critical evaluation of the effect of new media technologies on society, our lives, and the church.
Download or read book Theology Ethics and Technology in the Work of Jacques Ellul and Paul Virilio written by Michael Morelli and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-06-17 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Theology, Ethics, and Technology in the Work of Jacques Ellul and Paul Virilio examines biographical and textual connections between sociologist-theologian Jacques Ellul and philosopher-phenomenologist Paul Virilio. Through an examination of their embeddedness in the socio-historical context of postwar France, Michael Morelli identifies a relationship between these critics of technology that bears the marks of a nascent theological tradition. He shows from various vantage points how Ellul and Virilio’s nascent tradition exposes technology as modernity’s primary idol; and, how these thinkers use multiple disciplines—including history, sociology, philosophy, phenomenology, theology, and ethics—to resist the perilous consequences of the modern world’s worship of power and the kinds of technologies this misdirected worship produces. Jacques Ellul’s death in 1994 and Paul Virilio’s death in 2018 may have prevented the maturation of this nascent theological tradition, but this book will aid in this tradition’s ripening through the presentation of an illuminating way to read these two unique, prophetic intellectuals.
Download or read book Religion and Technology in India written by Knut A. Jacobsen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-06-04 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religion tends to flourish when technological developments create new possibilities for communication and representation, and simultaneously change as a consequence of these developments. This book explores intersections between religion and technology in India, at the present and in the colonial past, and how various forms of techno-religious intersections transform and open up for new religious practices, discourses, communities, and institutions. With focus on Indian contexts and religions, it discusses various empirical and theoretical aspects of how technological innovations create, alter, and negotiate religious spaces, practices and authorities. The book provides rich and multifaceted empirical examples of different ways in which technological practices relate to meanings, ideas, and practices of religions. The techno-religious intersections generate several questions about authority and power, the politics and poetics of identity, community and place, and how religious agency, information, and experience are mediated, commodified, and adjusted to new demands of societies. The chapters explore the Hindu, Jain, and Sikh traditions in relation to new technological developments and media, such as photography, new means of visualization, TV serials, mobile phones, and online communication. The book will be of interest to academics studying modern and contemporary India and South Asia, and especially the role of religion and technology.
Download or read book Seculosity written by David Zahl and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2019-04-02 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the heart of our current moment lies a universal yearning, writes David Zahl, not to be happy or respected so much as enough--what religions call "righteous." To fill the void left by religion, we look to all sorts of everyday activities--from eating and parenting to dating and voting--for the identity, purpose, and meaning once provided on Sunday morning. In our striving, we are chasing a sense of enoughness. But it remains ever out of reach, and the effort and anxiety are burning us out. Seculosity takes a thoughtful yet entertaining tour of American "performancism" and its cousins, highlighting both their ingenuity and mercilessness, all while challenging the conventional narrative of religious decline. Zahl unmasks the competing pieties around which so much of our lives revolve, and he does so in a way that's at points playful, personal, and incisive. Ultimately he brings us to a fresh appreciation for the grace of God in all its countercultural wonder.
Download or read book Theology and Technology Volume 1 written by Carl Mitcham and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2022-07-21 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published nearly forty years ago as a spiritual successor to Carl Mitcham and Robert Mackey’s Philosophy and Technology, the essays collected in the two volumes of Theology and Technology span an array of theological attitudes and perspectives providing sufficient material for careful reflection and engagement. The first volume offers five general attitudes toward technology based off of H. Richard Niebuhr’s five ideal types in Christ and Culture. The second volume includes biblical, historical, and modern theological engagements with the place of technology in the Christian life. This ecumenical collection ranges from authors who enthusiastically support technological development to those cynical of technique and engages the Christian tradition from the church fathers to recent theologians like Bernard Lonergan and Jacques Ellul. Taken together, these essays, some reproductions of earlier work and others original for this project, provide any student of theology a fitting entrée into considering the place of technology in the realm of the sacred.
Download or read book Cyborg Theology written by Scott A. Midson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2017-10-30 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In particular, Donna Haraway argued in her famous 1991 'Cyborg Manifesto' that people, since they are so often now detached and separated from nature, have themselves evolved into cyborgs. This striking idea has had considerable influence within critical theory, cultural studies and even science fiction (where it has surfaced, for example, in the Terminator films and in the Borg of the Star Trek franchise). But it is a notion that has had much less currency in theology. In his innovative new book, Scott Midson boldly argues that the deeper nuances of Haraway's and the cyborg idea can similarly rejuvenate theology, mythology and anthropology. Challenging the damaging anthropocentrism directed towards nature and the non-human in our society, the author reveals - through an imaginative reading of the myth of Eden - how it is now possible for humanity to be at one with the natural world even as it vigorously pursues novel, 'post-human', technologies.
Download or read book Technology and Religion written by Noreen Herzfeld and published by Templeton Foundation Press. This book was released on 2009-06-01 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Technology is changing all the time, but does it also have the ability to change us and the way we approach religion and spirituality? In Technology and Religion: Remaining Human in a Co-created World, Noreen Herzfeld examines this and other provocative questions as she provides an accessible and fascinating overview of the relationship between religion and the ever-broadening world of technology. In order to consider fully a topic as wide as technology, Herzfeld approaches the field from three different angles: technologies of the human body—such as genetic engineering, stem cells, cloning, pharmaceutical technologies, mechanical enhancement and cyborgs; technologies of the human mind—like human and artificial intelligence, virtual reality and cyberspace; and technologies of the external environment—such as nanotechnology, genetically modified crops and new agricultural technologies, and energy technology. She takes a similarly broad approach to the field of religion, focusing on how these issues interface with the three Abrahamic traditions of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Throughout, readers will find nuanced examinations of the moral and ethical issues surrounding new technologies from the perspectives of these faith traditions. The result is a multifaceted look at the ongoing dialogue between these two subjects that are not commonly associated with one another. This volume is the third title published in the new Templeton Science and Religion Series.
Download or read book From the Garden to the City written by John Dyer and published by Kregel Publications. This book was released on 2011-07-13 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Believers and unbelievers alike are saturated with technology, yet most give it little if any thought. Consumers buy and upgrade as fast as they can, largely unaware of technology’s subtle yet powerful influence. In a world where technology changes almost daily, many are left to wonder: Should Christians embrace all that is happening? Are there some technologies that we need to avoid? Does the Bible give us any guidance on how to use digital tools and social media?
Download or read book From Human to Posthuman written by Brent Waters and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-22 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Technology is one of the dominant forces shaping the emerging postmodern world. Indeed the very fabric of daily life is dependent upon various information, communication, and transportation technologies. With anticipated advances in biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and robotics, that dependence will increase. Yet this growing dependence is accompanied with a deep ambivalence. For many technology symbolises the faith of the postmodern world, but it is an ambivalent faith encapsulating both our hopes and fears for the future. This book examines the religious foundations underlying this troubled faith in technology, as well as critically and constructively engaging particular technological developments from a theological perspective.
Download or read book Carl Schmitt Between Technological Rationality and Theology written by Hugo E. Herrera and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2020-06-01 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Carl Schmitt, one of the most influential legal and political thinkers of the twentieth century, is known chiefly for his work on international law, sovereignty, and his doctrine of political exception. This book argues that greater prominence should be given to his early work in legal studies. Schmitt himself repeatedly identified as a jurist, and Hugo E. Herrera demonstrates how for Schmitt, law plays a key role as an intermediary between ideal, conceptual theory and the complexity of practical, concrete situations. Law is concerned precisely with balancing the extremes of theory and reality, and in this respect, Schmitt associates it with philosophical thinking broadly as being able to understand and explain the tensions in human experience. Reviewing and analyzing prevailing interpretations of Schmitt by Jacques Derrida, Heinrich Meier, and others, Herrera argues that the importance of Schmitt's legal framework is both significant and overlooked.
Download or read book Innovation Theology written by Lanny Vincent and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2017-02-24 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Innovation Theology: A Biblical Inquiry and Exploration invites seminary leaders to explore an uncharted territory--theology for innovating. This unexplored terrain of practical and applied theology holds gems of substantive and practical wisdom for innovating in the marketplace, society, and church. Innovation Theology brings theological perspectives to the challenges of innovating and promises to transform how we make sense of change and where (and why) we choose to innovate. Innovation Theology makes the case that God continues to create and continues to invite us, through change, to co-create new value for others (i.e., innovate). Innovation Theology explores where discovery, invention, and value creation intersect (or not) with the intentions of God. Not to be confused with workplace spirituality, business ethics, or critiques of technology, theology for innovating can encourage scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs to aim their innovating toward the common good, not just in response to the invisible hand of the market. Innovation Theology invites us to make meaning before money, aim for plumb lines before bottom lines, and reattach extrinsic to intrinsic value. The one for whom all things are possible is interested, invested, and engaged in innovating. Are we innovating with him, or not?
