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Has technology killed God?

DayRaven

DayRaven

Beyond the wall
I have often been drawn to the ascetic life style both in a spiritual and material sense (which is just as well as I'm usually skint). I was discussing this elsewhere sometime back about how modern life has people so distracted. We're surrounded by technology, everything is instant and on demand, nobody is out of the loop and we're all easy to reach. Materially we really have never had it so good. I don't mean this to be a rant against the machine (obviously I'm on the internet) but it does make me wonder if in our glitzy, high tech, all needs catered for, society if God (or the question of spirituality in general) is no longer important for many people.

Perhaps I'll put my sack on and sit by candle light illuminating manuscripts.....
 
Sariel

Sariel

Heretic
Not directly, I feel that technology just provides more distraction and less privacy and intimacy with others if we let it. I for one feel that the internet has greatly helped my spiritual path due to having so much information a few keystrokes away. Aside from that, I do feel that we can better connect with the divine if we get out and breathe some fresh air, away from the mundane pursuits of our daily work.
 
ChristineES

ChristineES

Tiggerism
Premium Member
I don't think so. There's always been technology from the invention of making fire on our and the wheel or whatever. That was high technology thousands of years ago.
 
oldbadger

oldbadger

Skanky Old Mongrel!
Good OP!
I try to keep a foot in the old ways, and a foot in the modern age.
This afternoon I was testing 3 slings of differing lengths to see which could throw a stone the furthest, given the same amount of force, and comparing all three against a spear thrower and a 50lb/30" flat-bow. This evening I am communicating with good folks like you... all over the world. I never take either world for granted....... I think that it's a privilege to be within either one. Oh..... and Big G is right there, within everything, every age and everything that is...... well, that's how I see it, anyways! :)
 
Quintessence

Quintessence

Consults with Trees
Staff member
Premium Member
I think it would be in error to suggest that affluence (which seems to be what you're talking about here more than technology) somehow ameliorates the universal human need to have purposeful and meaningful lives. That is the role that religions serve: to inform human purpose in life.

As for gods, considering the diversity of what that can mean, I don't see how anything could make the gods irrelevant. The Spirit of Technology itself is a god, and one that clearly has considerable influence and importance to many people in my culture whether they recognize/call it a god or not.
 
George-ananda

George-ananda

Advaita Vedanta, Theosophy, Spiritualism
Premium Member
Spirituality is just as important as ever. Technology can not make you happy unless you are internally happy. Internal happiness is what spirituality teaches.
 
Skwim

Skwim

Veteran Member
Well, there's certainly some decrease in religious belief and quite a definite upswing in none belief.


"What is your current religious preference?"​
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source


and I think some of this can be attributed to the greater technological advances that are being made, particularly those that impact our daily life. Our focus has seemed to changing a bit from the inner self to the community-interaction self.
 
Nada

Nada

#
DayRaven said:
I have often been drawn to the ascetic life style both in a spiritual and material sense (which is just as well as I'm usually skint). I was discussing this elsewhere sometime back about how modern life has people so distracted. We're surrounded by technology, everything is instant and on demand, nobody is out of the loop and we're all easy to reach. Materially we really have never had it so good. I don't mean this to be a rant against the machine (obviously I'm on the internet) but it does make me wonder if in our glitzy, high tech, all needs catered for, society if God (or the question of spirituality in general) is no longer important for many people.

Perhaps I'll put my sack on and sit by candle light illuminating manuscripts.....
Click to expand...

People are more distracted than ever because of technology.This is true.It has also helped in the spreading of God's message as well.We are witnessing the spreading of God's message like it has never been done before in man's history.Now more than ever, it is getting to more distant places, and helping those who sincerely seek God, find truth.I know with JW.ORG we have been spreading the word of God like wild fire.In August there was an 800% mark up.This site has more languages translated than any other site, including google, and the site for the United Nations.Technology has been great in this aspect.
 
Twilight Hue

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Based on comparisons weighing claims and advances of science technology that diminish the specifics regarding just who and what God is, or was, or has done are certainly placing nails in that coffin. I don't think technology will kill "God" per say
givin the mental intangibles but it's safe to say atm God is nothing like he's alleged to have been and effectually killed already by technology or in the case of Deisim had already left Dodge.
 
DayRaven

DayRaven

Beyond the wall
Of course I never meant "killed" in a literal Nietzschean sense I'm referring more to the need for a God in people's lives. There does seem to be a correlation (at least in western societies) between material well being (which includes technology) and decline in belief in God (though I suspect this may well be for other reasons as well). I don't think this is the case (though I don't know) in Asian cultures.
 
amorphous_constellation

amorphous_constellation

Well-Known Member
With all this technology it certainly seems to make it harder for mythology to occur. Everything is being recorded on some level or another, and the data so far has been free of miracle. In olden times, it wasn't so. Hearsay and rumor had a greater possibility of occurring. The storytelling that developed into mythology was the like the internet to ancient peasants, and the closest myth we have to god nowadays is probably in flying saucers. However, the word was made flesh, and now the flesh is made machine. Technology dives deeper into itself, creating new manuscripts now, and illuminating them with light otherworldly.
 
chinu

chinu

chinu
DayRaven said:
I have often been drawn to the ascetic life style both in a spiritual and material sense (which is just as well as I'm usually skint). I was discussing this elsewhere sometime back about how modern life has people so distracted. We're surrounded by technology, everything is instant and on demand, nobody is out of the loop and we're all easy to reach. Materially we really have never had it so good. I don't mean this to be a rant against the machine (obviously I'm on the internet) but it does make me wonder if in our glitzy, high tech, all needs catered for, society if God (or the question of spirituality in general) is no longer important for many people.

Perhaps I'll put my sack on and sit by candle light illuminating manuscripts.....
Click to expand...
If the question is.. why we always run after technology ?
Ans: because it gives us things, and further these things gives us comfort, and further comfort gives us happiness.

If the question is.. why we always run after happiness ?
Ans: because the happiness which we always get is impermanent, instead of permanent.

If the question is.. why we want permanent-happiness instead of impermanent-happiness ?
Ans: because the origin/home of our soul is a heaven. Heaven is the place of permanent-happiness instead of impermanent happiness.

Thus.. in someway or another, we all are running/longing towards the place of permanent-happiness (Heaven/God) in our own different ways. But, very sadly we always choose the wrong way towards it. :)
 
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DayRaven

DayRaven

Beyond the wall
chinu said:
Thus.. in someway or another, we all are running/longing towards the place of permanent-happiness (Heaven/God) in our own different ways.
Click to expand...

You could argue technology is an attempt to return to the cradle/paradise.
 
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