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This essay explores the potential for generative artificial intelligence (G-AI)[1] to facilitate spiritually augmented feedback loops. Here, spiritual augmentation refers to the evolution of the felt impact of a spiritual tradition and/or practice. Spiritual augmentation involves reducing the time it takes for a spiritual practice to become biologically efficacious (or the point at which a…
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If only a portion of current predictions about AI are correct, it will indeed be a revolutionary technology. AI is different because it can talk to us, debate with us, and even refuse us. Hundreds of millions of people have used it, and billions of dollars have been spent and made from it. And yet…
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Ever since cartoons were created as a medium of political and social commentary, they have been used to both criticize and uplift religious communities. The anti-Catholic cartoons of Thomas Nast and Jack Chick are easily recognizable, but interestingly, among twenty-first-century Catholic communities in Europe and the United States, Catholics themselves have been creating caricatures of…
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This article focuses on Pope Francis activities on Twitter and understanding the way of using this kind of social media by religious authorities. By examining Francis’s tweets from half a year of his pontificate (from September 13, 2013 to March 16, 2014), the author offers an in-depth overview of methods for studying the presence of…
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This lively book focuses on how different Jewish, Muslim, and Christian communities engage with new media. Rather than simply reject or accept new media, religious communities negotiate complex relationships with these technologies in light of their history and beliefs. Heidi Campbell suggests a method for studying these processes she calls the “religious-social shaping of technology”…
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This chapter argues that while the fields of religion and social movements tend to keep to themselves, both fields would reap benefits with greater intersection. The chapter offers two main rationales for pursuing this intersection. First, broadening our contemporary conception of social movements to include religious movements allows for the inclusion of new cases –…
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“My first long haul flight that didn’t fill up and an empty row for me. I have been blessed by the algorithm ”.
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This exciting volume explores how religious meaning is generated and performed in our present digital media ecosystem. It uses the spatial metaphor of a third space to visualize the mobility of everyday religion and to explore the dynamic ways in which contemporary subjects imagine, produce, and navigate new religious and spiritual places.Comprised of seven original…
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As the availability and use of media platforms continue to expand, the cultural visibility of religion is on the rise, leading to questions about religious authority: Where does it come from? How is it established? What might be changing it? The contributors to The Media and Religious Authority examine the ways in which new centers…
