How Religion is transformed by Technology and Media

Prem Chawla
Aug 26, 2017 · 4 min read

Loy (2002), a professor of Buddhist and theoretical philosophy, stated religion is a spiritual fulfillment method. It was formerly adopted to find mysteries of life and death, to create aspiration for later life, to crave for transcendence, to fulfill sense of lack, to invent concept of moral justice, to teach dwellers about the origin of the universe, and to specify roles or functions of each thing. Nevertheless, Mauw (2015), an American theologian and philosopher, noticed that the importance of religion has reduced incessantly because some functions have been displaced by modern religious faith and new belief systems, including technology and media. The aim of this writing is to apply technological determinism theory to explain how religion becomes less important than it used to be as a result of the advancement of technology and media.

To elaborate the idea, firstly, because mass media, both printed and broadcast, frequently publicizes the fact that churches and religious attendees support criminal activities, American Catholics lost faith in churches and religious leaders, leading to the creation of protests and the growth of irreligious model. For instance, as reported by BBC News (2014), in the Netherlands, many people boycott the Catholic churches after BBC News revealed that child-raping priests do not receive punishments from Catholic public officials although they severely abuse children and women. This situation obviously link to the concept of technological determinism in the sense that media plays an important role in influencing people in a society to generate a new social movement in spite of conflicting with traditional beliefs and cultures.

Secondly, after modern scientists realized that everything that exists in the world can be proved by scientific method, widespread use of scientific method to prove old religious beliefs challenges credibility of religion, resulting in the increasing number of irreligious populations in many parts of the world. For example, priests once encouraged Christians to believe that the Sun revolved around the Earth and that the Earth was the oldest planet. However, many Christians lose their faith in religion because scientists and media producers provided reliable evidence to reject the earlier assumption. This example link to the concept of technological determinism in the sense that the growing advancement in education, media, and technology influences people to support scientific observation rather than trusting unverifiable information that once believed by them.

Lastly, as wrote by MIT Technology Review (2014), the ubiquity of the internet is also noticed as an important factor that encourages people to pay less attention to basic religious concepts. To clarify the point, since researchers, experts, and other internet users are allowed to share knowledge, to criticize outdated doctrine, and to introduce new belief systems, people are driven to lose faith in religion. For example, Rob Schock wrote, “Priests should encourage people to have enquiring minds. They should encourage people to question assumptions and to consider different ways of looking at things, but priests actually teach people to have close mind.” (Schock, 2015) This made people think that Bible schools are not educational institutions because the schools indoctrinated students to admit ambiguous doctrines and outdated practices instead of encouraging students to seek truths from credible facts. By indoctrinating people consistently, aggressive behavior and violence are created in a society. For example, The Quran motivates Muslims, “And be not weak hearted in pursuit of the enemy; if you suffer from pain, then surely they (too) suffer pain as you suffer pain….” and “Fight with them until there is no more fitna and religion should be only for Allah.” (TheReligionofPeace.com, 2006) As a result, Muslims start fighting against non-Muslims for the purpose of protecting religion and punishing non-believers. This example links to the concept of technological determinism in the sense that the growing number of social media users and the development of the internet gradually determine the transition of religious structure and values, regardless of social, economic, and political barriers.

In conclusion, by applying technological determinism theory, we can acknowledge that the growth of media, scientific method, and technology plays an important role in making religion becomes less important than it used to be.

References

BBC News, (2014). The child abuse response — BBC News. [online] Available at: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-25757218 [Accessed 25 Aug. 2017].

Loy, D. (2002). A Buddhist history of the West. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Mauw, R. (2015). The Role of Religion. [online] First Things. Available at: http://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2015/03/the-role-of-religion [Accessed 25 Aug. 2017].

MIT Technology Review, (2014). How the Internet Is Taking Away America’s Religion | MIT Technology Review. [online] Available at: http://www.technologyreview.com/view/526111/how-the-internet-is-taking-away-americas-religion/ [Accessed 25 Aug. 2017].

Schock, R. (2015). I Lost My Faith In Church. [online] Tentmaker.org. Available at: http://www.tentmaker.org/testimonials/robschock.html [Accessed 25 Aug. 2017].

Thereligionofpeace.com, (2006). The Quran’s Verses of Violence. [online] Available at: http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/quran/023-violence.htm [Accessed 25 Aug. 2017].

)
Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade