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Religions
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Religion and/of the Future
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Religion and/of the Future

A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2025 | Viewed by 6022

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Randall Reed

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Philosophy and Religion, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC 28618, USA
Interests: religion and technology; method and theory in religion; inaffiliates and religion
Prof. Dr. Tracy J. Trothen

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Religion and School of Rehabilitation Therapy, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6, Canada
Interests: biomedical and social ethics; spiritual and religious health; aging; human enhancement technologies; sport
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We invite you to submit an abstract for an article for our Special Issue on “Religion and/of the Future.” Institutional religions are on the decline in the west, and new patterns of religious and spiritual practice and belief are becoming prevalent. For example, advancements in neuroscience, psychology, and biology have revolutionized the way many people think about their minds, bodies, and spirits. Additionally, technological advancements have facilitated new methods of self-discovery and opportunities for group interaction. With brand new “post-secular” collaborations between ancient wisdom traditions and contemporary science and technology, new ways of relating to the self and the divine are emerging. From the  psychedelic renaissance to the development of wearable tech to virtual reality and artificial intelligence, society, and religion with it, may be remade in a variety of new ways, both promising and dangerous. This Special Issue seeks articles that analyze these and other trends that may affect religion in the future (and even in the present). We welcome work from a wide array of disciplines, including, but not limited to, sociology of religion, history of religions, neuroscience of religion, cognitive and evolutionary science of religion, and ethical or philosophical analyses.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 400–600 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the guest editors ([email protected] or [email protected]) or to the Religions editorial office ([email protected]). Abstracts will be reviewed by the guest editors for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer-review.

Prof. Dr. Randall Reed
Prof. Dr. Tracy J. Trothen
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • religion
  • spirituality
  • future
  • technology
  • artificial intelligence
  • virtual reality
  • new religious movements
  • neuroscience
  • brain
  • well-being

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

11 pages, 427 KiB  
Article
Attention (to Virtuosity) Is All You Need: Religious Studies Pedagogy and Generative AI
by Jonathan Barlow and Lynn Holt
Religions 2024, 15(9), 1059; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15091059 - 30 Aug 2024
Viewed by 1249
Abstract
The launch of ChatGPT in November of 2022 provides the rare opportunity to consider both what artificial intelligence (AI) is and what human experts are. In the spirit of making the most of this opportunity, we invite the reader to follow a suggestive [...] Read more.
The launch of ChatGPT in November of 2022 provides the rare opportunity to consider both what artificial intelligence (AI) is and what human experts are. In the spirit of making the most of this opportunity, we invite the reader to follow a suggestive series of “what if” questions that lead to a plausible settlement in which the human expert and the generative AI system collaborate pedagogically to shape the (human) religious studies student. (1) What if, contrary to the Baconian frame, humans reason primarily by exercising intellectual virtuosity, and only secondarily by means of rules-based inference? (2) What if, even though we train AI models on human-generated data by means of rules-based algorithms, the resulting systems demonstrate the potential for exercising intellectual virtuosity? (3) What if, by deprioritizing mechanistic and algorithmic models of human cognition while being open to the possibility that AI represents a different species of cognition, we open a future in which human and AI virtuosos mutually inspire, enrich, and even catechize one another? Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religion and/of the Future)
13 pages, 217 KiB  
Article
Transhumanism within the Natural Law: Transforming Creation with Nature as Guide
by Daniel T. Crouch
Religions 2024, 15(8), 949; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15080949 - 6 Aug 2024
Viewed by 962
Abstract
Transhumanism is an unsettling prospect for proponents of a natural law ethic. The goal of transhumanism is to fundamentally alter our human nature, while the natural law tradition relies on this nature for producing normative claims. The tension seems clear. But beyond the [...] Read more.
Transhumanism is an unsettling prospect for proponents of a natural law ethic. The goal of transhumanism is to fundamentally alter our human nature, while the natural law tradition relies on this nature for producing normative claims. The tension seems clear. But beyond the need to explore this underdeveloped relationship, it may be that natural law provides precisely the sort of ethical framework—a framework centered on human nature—for best evaluating transhumanism and bioenhancement technologies. Building on the work of Jason T. Eberl and Brian Patrick Green, I articulate how a Thomistic theory of natural law can guide us in a brave new world. Along the way, I note ways in which both Eberl and Green are too limiting in their interpretations of natural law, but in offering these critiques, I hope to bring out how natural law proves an invaluable guide for navigating life in creation—even a creation that has been tampered with. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religion and/of the Future)
17 pages, 265 KiB  
Article
Entropy and the Idea of God(s): A Philosophical Approach to Religion as a Complex Adaptive System
by Matthew Zaro Fisher
Religions 2024, 15(8), 925; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15080925 - 30 Jul 2024
Viewed by 1154
Abstract
While a universal definition of religion eludes the field of religious studies, it certainty seems that people are becoming differently religious rather than a-religious, especially since the latter half of the twentieth century. To explain the enduring relevance of religion in human experience, [...] Read more.
While a universal definition of religion eludes the field of religious studies, it certainty seems that people are becoming differently religious rather than a-religious, especially since the latter half of the twentieth century. To explain the enduring relevance of religion in human experience, this article expands on recent evolutionary and sociological research in the systems theory of religion and develops a philosophical approach to understanding religion as a complex adaptive system. Frameworks of meaning and beliefs communicated by religious systems emerge and adapt in relation to interpretive selection pressures communicated by individuals-in-community relative to entropy’s role in one’s contingent experience as a “teleodynamic self” in the arrow of time. Religious systems serve an entropy-reducing function in the minds of individuals, philosophically speaking, because their sign and symbol systems communicate an “anentropic” dimension to meaning that prevents uncertainty ad infinitum (e.g., maximum Shannon entropy) concerning matters of existential concern for phenomenological systems, i.e., persons. Religious systems will continue to evolve, and new religious movements will spontaneously emerge, as individuals find new ways to communicate their intuition of this anentropic dimension of meaning in relation to their experience of contingency in the arrow of time. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religion and/of the Future)
11 pages, 215 KiB  
Article
Religious Transhumanism as a New Religious Movement: Sketching a Model of the Development of Religious Transhumanism
by Ryan Lemasters
Religions 2024, 15(8), 885; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15080885 - 23 Jul 2024
Viewed by 1448
Abstract
This essay proposes a new model for understanding religious transhumanism by extending existing frameworks that have been useful for predicting the success of new religious movements (NRMs). This paper focuses on the Mormon Transhumanist Association as a case of religious transhumanism that is [...] Read more.
This essay proposes a new model for understanding religious transhumanism by extending existing frameworks that have been useful for predicting the success of new religious movements (NRMs). This paper focuses on the Mormon Transhumanist Association as a case of religious transhumanism that is incongruent with existing models of NRMs, thereby highlighting the limitations of these models. First, I demonstrate how the Morman Transhumanist Association challenges religious scholars’ conventional concepts for understanding NRMs, particularly within anthropology, cosmology, and eschatology. Then, I present a model that effectively accounts for the unique characteristics of religious transhumanist groups, thereby demonstrating and addressing the field’s current lack of an explanatory framework. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religion and/of the Future)
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