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- Creators: Barrett, The Honors College
Description
This essay explores the role of religion, science, and the secular in contemporary society by showing their connection to social and political legitimacy as a result of historical processes. In Chapter One, the essay presents historical arguments, particularly linguistic, which confirm science and religion as historically created categories without timeless or essential differences. Additionally, the current institutional separation of science and religion was politically motivated by the changing power structures following the Protestant Reformation. In Chapter Two, the essay employs the concept of the modern social imaginary to show how our modern concept of the political and the secular subtly reproduce the objectified territories of science and religion and thus the boundary maintenance dialectic which dominates science-religion discourse. Chapter Three argues that ‘religious’ worldviews contain genuine metaphysical claims which do not recognizably fit into these modern social categories. Given the destabilizing forces of globalization and information technology upon the political authority of the nation-state, the way many conceptualize of these objects religion, science, and the secular will change as well.
ContributorsBianchi, Joseph Anthony (Author) / Bennett, Gaymon (Thesis director) / Wetmore, Jameson (Committee member) / School of Humanities, Arts, and Cultural Studies (Contributor) / College of Integrative Sciences and Arts (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
With the increasing presence and importance of machine learning, artificial intelligence, and big data in our daily lives, there comes the necessity to re-evaluate how magical, enchanted lines of thinking may or may not survive alongside the turn of the century. There exists a set of connections between magic and the aforementioned field of technology, in that this specific field has the potential to become sufficiently advanced and complex as to cause unpredictable problems down the line. This discussion will explore several different topics ranging from the comparisons between magic and technology to the dangers of these systems being “black box” and rather ambiguous in how they turn data input into prediction output, all central to the idea that this increasingly tech-focused world should be thought about in a magical and re-enchanted way, especially as legislation is drafted up and decided upon that can determine how these impressive new technologies will be regulated going forward.
ContributorsRodi, Michael (Author) / Ostling, Michael (Thesis director) / Blanco, Eduardo (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor)
Created2022-05