Institut für Religionswissenschaft Gastvortrag: Religion after Data-driven Technologies

Throughout the annals of human history, religion and technology have been fundamentally entwined, jointly sculpting the trajectory of civilizations. Within the Western canon, this coexistence has occasionally been fraught with tension and conflict, manifesting across both practical and theoretical dimensions. Nonetheless, despite intermittent suspicion and animosity, these spheres have persisted as cornerstones of the human saga, and their evolution was not disrupted by the complexities of their interrelation. Over the centuries, a series of delicate equilibriums have emerged, fostering the concurrent flourishing of religion and technology, with each domain reciprocally informing and acknowledging the other. The contemporary epoch, however, confronts these historical equilibriums with the rise of data-driven technologies (DDT). This lecture ventures into the unexplored confluence of traditional religious frameworks and DDT, exploring the ramifications of the information revolution and the inception of data science on the symbiotic bond between religion and technology.