How Technology Impacts Religion
“Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt” (Richard P. Feynman). Consider stories from the Bible explaining the creation of mankind or the Qur’an’s depiction of Muhammed who is considered the Prophet of God. Modern technology can validate events reflecting minor flaws, however, faith continues to remain strong among many followers. Ultimately, the goal is to examine if the growth of technology impacts religion. Of the many tools in technology, the internet reached a global total of 3.408 billion users in 2016 compared to 412.8 million in 2000. A recent study conveyed the effects of Internet use on religious exclusivism on children and political parties: “Downey shows that Internet use decreases the likelihood of religious affiliation, while increases in Internet use since 1990 “account for about 20% of the observed decrease in affiliation” (482). Technology has allowed advances in scientific discoveries and social media to impact religion.
The year 1632 marked one of the first instances where technology improved scientific research in astronomy. By using a crude refracting telescope, Galileo was able to refine the magnification of his lens from 8x up to 20x to determine the geocentric model that all planets revolve around the Sun. His theory challenged the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church, which followed the heliocentric model that all planets revolve around the Earth resulting in him being placed under house arrest for the remaining nine years of his life. Despite proving a fault in the Bible, Galileo was religious: “God is known by nature in his works, and by doctrine in his revealed word” (Galileo Galilei). In summary, how can a religious man who factually disproved an accepted concept impact religion? Galileo was careful in spreading his religious works as he knew it would cause backlash. At first, Galileo stated that the Bible can never be incorrect and that interpretations might be false as passages are difficult to understand:
Not only contradictions and propositions far from true might thus be made to appear in the Bible, but even grave heresies and follies. Thus it would be necessary to assign to Good, feet, hands and eyes, as well as corporeal and human affections such as anger, repentance, hatred, and sometimes even the forgetting of things past and ignorance of those to come. These propositions uttered by the Holy Ghost were set down in that manner by the sacred scribes in order to accommodate them to the capacities of the common people, who are rude and unlearned.
He recognized that mankind would not accept his findings, especially “one that removed the world from its comfortable place in the center of heavens and made of it just another planet” (160). Galileo sparked a new age of scientists willing to disprove beliefs. Campanella described him as “another Columbus” (160). He had a strong desire to fight against his conviction with the church and other scientists to shift their view of the world. As a result, a new generation of Christians including Charles Darwin, Isaac Newton, and Johannes Kepler emerged who continued to remain religious, and strived to solve scientific discoveries.
One of the most famous scientists to succeed Galileo was Charles Darwin. Before the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species in 1859, Christians were certain that God was the creator and birthed life to organisms. Darwin’s discovery explains how there is no creator in this world, only a series of evolutionary adaptations. Since this debunked a common religious belief, it launched a series of debates between the scientific and religious community: “Modernists were feared and pursued as enemies within the ranks of the faithful, more dangerous and insidious than all the enemies outside the church” (82). How did evolution impact religion? Darwin’s theory of evolution brought doubt to the biblical text: “Most importantly they had the effect of bringing the Biblical narrative of the early history of man into doubt” (178). Before Darwin, Rousseau and Lord Monboddo hypothesized the theory of evolution, however, Charles Darwin was the first to defend it through an advancement of science and technology. As a result, some churches slowly began to assimilate evolutionary biology within the context of traditional doctrines. Here lies the confusion. Why would churches recognize evolutionary biology when it challenges the creation of mankind? Author John C Greene explains the modern-day revelation that mitigates the conflict between science and religion:
the historic conflict between science and religion will be greatly mitigated, since religion and revelation are conceived to deal with those aspects of reality, especially the value aspect, which are inaccessible to science. It would appear, then, that, although evolutionary biology has done much to stimulate a rethinking of the doctrines of revelation and inspiration, it has by no means relegated them to the limbo of exploded ideas.
For example, evolution may explain the development of mankind, however, God decided the progression and creation: something science cannot disprove. Clearly, there was a shift in the interpretation of the Bible.
The improvement of technology improved the accuracy of carbon dating, which helps archeologists date the age of an object. Archeologists have used this to compare Egyptian chronology to the timeline set by the Bible. One discrepancy lies between Noah’s flood in 2348 B.C. and Zoser’s pyramid from 3150 to 2920 B.C. Noah’s flood is a biblical story of a great flood that surged into the Black Sea. The flood destroyed everything in sight, which would have included Zoser’s pyramid, however, carbon dating proves that creation of the pyramid dates to before the flood. Once again, the accuracy of a biblical story is challenged, however, how does it impact religion? While some may argue that it reduces religious participation, religious scientists have used modern methods to prove the validity of biblical stories. Mark Siddall, a famous research scientist combined carbon dating and geological patterns to model the great flood. After staging the model of the Black Sea as it was thought to have been 10,000 years ago, Mark ran a simulation and validated the possibility of a massive flood: “A rapid flood, on the other hand — triggered by an earthquake or by rapid erosion of the Bosporus sill — would have had a different effect. Siddall’s model shows that the powerful jet of water released by such a dam break would defy the Coriolis force by its very momentum and would be free to take a random course” (719). Essentially, an earthquake or erosion can trigger the extreme case of a massive flood that can take its own course. Although Mark admits that it could not have flooded the whole Earth as told from the tale, he reasons that the interpretation is wrong as Christians in the B.C era were limited to their surroundings. Unlike today, they were unable to communicate with individuals around the world, thus they believed that the whole world was also flooded. How can proving the possibility of Noah’s flood and explaining the inaccuracy of the biblical interpretation impact religion? In this case, technology validates religion: “If nothing else, the new models have pointed Black Sea researches to the next step in their fieldwork, says Liviu Giosan, a marine geologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts and one of Siddall’s collaborators” (719). Since Noah’s flood was possible, Giosan believes more research needs to be done to examine such unique geographic events. Modern-day biblical interpretations can now use Mark’s research to accurately explain the origins of Noah’s flood.
Social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter allow users to share a content publicly. Social media users can follow certain pages, accounts, or threads that relate to topics of their interests. The percentage of 18 to 29-year-old adults who use social networking sites has increased from 33% to 83% from 2006–2014. In 2016, Americans spent an average of 4 hours every day consuming data from social media. An average person opens Facebook 8 times per day, Instagram 6 times per day, and Twitter 5 times per day. Clearly, there has been a rise in social media usage over the past 10 years. Before the rise of social media in 1997, sharing content was limited, however, now that around 79% of Americans have access to social media, connecting with people is much easier. As a result, social media can influence how groups of individuals are portrayed: “Muslim women are portrayed by the Western media either as veiled victims in need of liberation in foreign lands because of a lack of free choice, or a threat to the Western societies in which they reside because of their choice to adopt traditional Islamic dress” (51). Muslim women were feared in western society, however, companies such as Nike promote athletes on social media to embrace their religious affiliation by posting pictures of them. For example, Nike advertised Roqaya Al-Ghasara, a 2008 Olympic athlete who was fully covered and wearing a hijab during the women’s 100-meter sprint on social media pages including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Social media has liberalized the traditional Muslim religion for women. A study was done to examine 25 females at a university in Iran on their use of Facebook, and its effect on religious customs. Measures showed a decrease in the number of Muslims worried that others will criticize their level of hijab and embarrassment of pictures with improper hijab that are seen by their friends compared to a similar survey taken in 2011. Originally, Muslim women had strict restrictions for playing sports, however, social media has influenced teams to embrace their religious beliefs. As a former captain of her basketball team at Texas A&M in Qatar, Sahar Elrefai strived to inspire her predominantly Muslim team to embrace their faith in religion: “I am hoping to be a good example of showing that, even though there are religious restrictions wearing the veil and some girls are not allowed to play in front of men, you can still carry on and play sports.” As a result, her basketball team, did not feel as if religion impacted their performance.
“I have always thought it curious that, while most scientists claim to eschew religion, it actually dominates their thoughts more than it does the clergy” (Fred Hoyle). There will always be a conflict between technology and religion, however the only way to mitigate it is if both sides respect each other. Ultimately, scientists need to understand that if they cannot disprove the existence of God, then they must accept the possibility of the existence. On the other hand, religious individuals must accept some error in biblical stories proved by scientific findings. In conclusion, technology has impacted, modernized, and liberalized religion through scientific discoveries and social media.
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