Crowdsourcing God: Where the God idea came from, how it changed, and how new technology is changing it again

by Christopher Burns

An impertinent meditation on the idea of God and how it has changed from Augustine to Asimov, from the wrathful Jehovah of Moses and Michelangelo to the faceless ecumenical being of modern times. Where did the idea come from? What do the changes tell us about us? How will the radical new networking technology change the idea again? When we are all empowered to share our thoughts, to underwrite a cause or overthrow a government with a few clicks, to whisper in private on a worldwide scale, then the wisdom and power of a distant God may seem somehow diminished. Trust, solace, guidance, inspiration and fellowship that have been the exclusive promises of religion for two thousand years are now a moment away on the internet. And tomorrow, through augmented reality and a vastly more powerful infrastructure, we will all be gathered in a new kind of digital cathedral. The book follows this question through the lives and ideas of Charles Darwin, Billy Graham, Nietzsche, Freud, Durkheim, and others to the speculations of Arthur C. Clarke, Star Wars, and Grace Hopper; from prehistoric cave paintings to the collective minds of the latest science and technology prophets. How will the idea of God change in the future? What if God 2.0 is us?

This is a draft of a book to be published this summer, and the author is crowdsourcing the manuscript for corrections, criticisms and editorial suggestions. Send to Crowdsourcing@theseashellpress.com, or post your comments on Facebook. All contributions are seriously welcome, and helpful contributions will be acknowledged in the final publication. Those who purchase this draft ebook from Amazon will be able to download the final published version from Amazon later at no additional charge. Thank you for your help.

193 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 20, 2016

About the author

NARRATOR:

Christopher Burns has performed in the London and Broadway performances of Stones in His Pockets and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. He holds a Master of Fine Arts in acting from NYU and a Bachelor of Arts in comparative literature from Colorado College. In addition to Broadway, Christopher has appeared onstage in numerous New York City and regional shows as well as on TV and film.


(source: Dreamscape)


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