“Playing God? Yes!” Religion in the Light of Technology

If we appeal to God when our technology (including medicine) fails, we assume a " God of the gaps." It is religiously preferable to appreciate technological competence. Our successes challenge, however, religious convictions. Modifying words and images is not enough, as technology affects theology more deeply. This is illustrated by the history of chemistry. Chemistry has been perceived as wanting to transform and purify reality rather than to understand the created order. Thus, unlike biology and physics, chemistry did not provide a fertile basis for natural theologies. It is argued that an active, transformative role of humans is appropriate in biblically inspired religions and called for in the light of imperfections and evil in the world. When the expression "playing God" is used dismissively, as if we trespass upon God–given territory, a theologically problematical association of God and the given order is assumed. A different view of the human calling can be articulated by drawing upon the Christian heritage and by developing an antinatural religious naturalism.     

Religion/Technology, Not Theology/Science, as the Defining Dichotomy

Science and religion are incommensurable: one cannot use centimeters to measure volume. Science's proper cognate is theology. Science and theology are human activities that are basically conceptual (partly fallible) frameworks for explaining experience. Religion and technology, by contrast, involve and control or limit human practice and experience : they involve "sensate" reality—people and things. The study of the interaction of these four terms (or any two) must use the terms more precisely.
Science as practiced today has become scientism , another theology. Technology is, without any doubt, the world's most powerful and fastest growing religion.
Minor squabbles among theologies, including science, must continue, but it is the tensions between technology and the established religions that will define this century. Battles on three fronts are already clear: the environment, globalization, and economic gaps. But whole–person healing, the replacement for high–tech reductionist modern medicine, is the most significant, because it will undermine science, which has hitched its wagon to this falling star.
The end of fundamental science is upon us, because it has been so successful. Science will be increasingly applications–driven, and it will be judged by results. Here, it has met its nemesis in wholeperson healing that incorporates integrative medicine. Scientists must now reconsider their role in society. It will not be easy to accept a humbler position. Moreover, the vague allusions to spirituality by scientists need a more authentic commitment to praxis in lifestyle.     

How Science Is a Resource and a Challenge for Religion: Perspective of a Theologian

Religion is characterized by the attempt to create a worldview, which is in effect the effort of worldbuilding. By this I mean that religion aims to focus on all of the elements that make up a person's world or a community's world and put those elements together in a manner that actually constructs a total picture that gives meaning and coherence to life. In this activity of worldbuilding, science and religion meet each other at the deepest level. Science makes a fundamental contribution to this worldbuilding effort and also poses a challenge. There are good grounds for this twofold role of science: (1) scientific knowledge is basic to any worldview in our time, and (2) science and its related technology engender new and often confusing experiences that require inclusion in any worldbuilding.
The challenge of science is that its contribution does not easily accommodate worldbuilding because of the factors of chance, indeterminacy, blind evolution, and heat death that are ascertained through scientific knowledge. Science is a resource for us in that the features of its knowledge can lend actuality and credibility to worldbuilding.
Religion needs science for its worldbuilding if its interpretations are to be credible and possess vivid actuality. Science needs religion because, unless its knowledge is incorporated into meaningful worldbuilding, science forfeits its standing as a humanistic enterprise and instead may count as an antihuman methodology and body of knowledge.     

道德、宗教和文化的完整性:对跨文化伦理学及公共政策论的意义

分析传统对宗教与道德之间关系的两种模式（A）与（B）都是过分偏激容易引起误解。它们所代表的观点亦不容易在实践中可以持续。（A）模式坚持道德必须直接地依赖宗教作为它的惟一来源。（B）模式则认为道德应完全独立于宗教。然而,欧洲启蒙运动所追求的一种具普遍性和独立于宗教的理性伦却明显已经“破产”。因为并没有任何一个群体能够完全摆脱它自身拥有的历史、文化与宗教遗产。提出一个辩证法的模式,即认为宗教与文化应有一个相互依赖、相互诠释的关系,一个群体／社会的文化完整性才得以保存。这模式对跨文化伦理对话以及公共政策的讨论都具有相当的意义。     

Assessing and Measuring Spirituality: Confronting Dilemmas of Universal and Particular Evaluative Criteria

The spirituality of humanity is increasingly acknowledged, but it is variously defined and interpreted because of the diverse normative frames of reference for evaluations. Many of these are based upon religious and philosophical ideologies that disagree with each other about the characteristics of spiritual health and illness. Indicators of spiritual wellness acceptable in some groups often are inappropriate for groups with different values. An inescapable reductionism complicates all spirituality measurements. Scales intended to be universally valid have many deficiencies. They override distinctive norms of minority groups and contribute to their mistreatment and victimization. Using only universal measures contributes to the loss of verifiable knowledge. Suggestions to resolve such problems combine particularistic and universal strategies for clinical assessments and scientific research.     

Introduction: Special Issue on Spirituality and Adult Development, Part II

This article reviews the purpose of the 3-part Special Issue on Spirituality and Adult Development, described in the Introduction to Special Issue Part I (J. D. Sinnott, 2000). It also outlines the contents of Part II. Developing adults express their belief that spirituality plays a key role in their development, yet developmental psychologists have given comparatively little attention to this factor. Also the concept of spirituality has seldom been considered separately from that of religion. The purpose of this special issue is to begin to remedy this neglect. This introduction is a summary of the 7 empirical and theoretical articles that form Part II of the Special Issue on Spirituality and Adult Development.     

Religion,Health, and the Psychology of Religion: How the Research on Religion and Health Helps Us Understand Religion

An increasing replication of studies find a correlation between religious belief and practice and mental and physical health and longevity. This paper discusses some of the implications of this research for the ways in which religion might understood psychologically. Most interpretations of this data focus on the presence of one or more mediating variables. This paper argues that the presence of these mediating factors helps us understand more precisely some of the ways in which religion actually does impact on human life and in what the psychological uniqueness of religion actually consists.     

Digital Irreligion: Christian Deconversion in an Online Community

What is the role of the Internet in a possible trend toward secularization in the United States? This case study seeks to elucidate the process of online deconversion by examining religious exit narratives (called “extimonies” by participants) as posted in a forum for ex‐Christians from 2005 to 2017. Echoing Mauss and Ebaugh, deconverts on the site went through a role exit involving a three‐part, but intertwined, intellectual, emotional, and social process. The online community provided an interactional space for them to construct and practice new secular identities, to explore doubts and process emotions arising from the deconversion process, and to prepare themselves for offline interactions with believers. This case study also suggests that the Internet and online communities may provide spaces for the highly religiously committed to explore deconversion and role alternatives.     

What's Behind the “Nones‐sense”? Change Over Time in Factors Predicting Likelihood of Religious Nonaffiliation in the United States

The proportion of people in the United States who identify as unaffiliated with any religious tradition (Nones) has risen steadily since the 1990s. Empirical investigations have examined this phenomenon, and point to a range of sociodemographic and associational variables as significant predictors of religious nonaffiliation. To build on these, the research reported here uses nearly five decades of General Social Survey data and binary logistic regression to examine change over time in the direction and size of effect on the likelihood that various factors predict religious nonaffiliation. While some factors (like age and political orientation) behave as expected over time, other factors decrease in their effect on likelihood (e.g., residence in the Far West), lose effect on likelihood (e.g., being college‐educated), or never showed likelihood of effect in the first place (e.g., residence in New England).