July 6- 31, 2020
(we will be meeting every weekday over Zoom at 9:00 am US Pacific time)
Week one: Philosophical Reflections on the Virtual Age
Monday July 6: Introduction;
- Introduction to the co-evolution of religion and technology
- Models for understanding technology’s relationship to society
Tuesday July 7: communication technology and religion
- Mimetic religion
- Oral Religion
- The Axial Revolution
Wednesday, July 8: Critique of Scribal Religion Mimetic Sacrifice
- Archaic Religion: Mimetic Desire, Violence and Religious Sacrifice
- Plato’s Axial Critique
- Jesus’ Axial Critique
Thursday, July 9: The Print Revolution
- Paper and Print
- Print Christianity
Friday, July 10: Rational Religion
- Medieval Axial Arguments for the Existence of God
- Geometrical reason—objective orientation
- Deism and Design—third person orientation
Week Two: Theological Reflections on the Virtual Age
Monday July 13: The religion of subjectivity
- The apotheosis of the self: first person orientation
- Romantic Critiques of Industrial Technology: second person orientation
Tuesday, July 14: The virtual self.
- Virtual self
- Demons of the virtual self
Wednesday, July 15: Cyberpsychology: Patrick
- Cyberpsychology and Virtual Therapy
Thursday July 16: Virtual ontology
- Distributed agency and the internet of things
- Distributed cognition: embodied, embedded, extended
Friday : July 17: Latour’s philosophy of religion
- The Technology of Religion
- The Religion of Technology
Week Three: Virtual Theology
Monday July 20: spirituality online: Nithin and Artur
- Religion as Refuge
- On Virtual Ritual
Tuesday,July 21: Transcendence: technological and religious.
- Artificial intelligence and the singularity
- Teilhard and Transhumanism
Wednesday, July 22: introduction to the second axial age
- Inter-religious dialogue as a model for evangelizing a secular and pluralistic digital culture.
- Laudato Si’s critique of technology and adding ecology to faith and justice
Thursday. July 23: Virtual Theology
- Virtual trinitarianism: God as a network of divine personae
- Creation: Our Reality as God’s Virtual Reality
Friday, July 24: Virtual Theology (2)
- Avatar Christology
- Virtual Mysticism
Week four: Digital Evangelization
Monday, July 27: High school and college digital ministry
High school digital evangelization: Christian Astran (Jesuit High, LA, ministry)
College digital evangelization: Meredith McKay (Gonzaga Mission and Ministry
- Virtual Ecclesiology
Tuesday, July 28: Digital evangelization around the globe
Wednesday, July 29: student presentations:
Thursday, July 30: Student presentations:
Saturday August 1: debrief?