Communicating Religion

     The other day in class we discussed Claude Shannon's impact on data communications. Using his system of Boolean circuitry he designed a way to accurately transmit data faster and with less power consumption using binary code. Binary code is the most basic way any information can be broken down. Binary code is made up of binary strings, which are segments of a specified number of digits (often 8) holding a value of either 1 or 0. In each binary string of 8 there are a possible 255 variations which makes a wide number possible characters available for each string. There are various coding systems used to interpret binary code, the one I used in my example below is ASCII.

     Shannon's work has had an incalculable impact on technology today, but has also shifted how we think about information. Below is an image roughly showing how Shannon's system works, however I made up the terminology to illustrate my next metaphor. In this post I want to briefly discuss religion's role in interpretation of information and how that is drastically changing due to the technological era.
     If we think about early religious communities (no, not Scientology-- long before the modern era) and the role they played we can observe a few things. First, community is absolutely necessary. We are not known for being strong, swift predators, nor capable, enduring grazers, and before any hint of modern technology we wouldn't stand a chance out in the wilderness alone. Cooperation is one of the biggest factors in our success and a species. Our strong communities come from our ability to exchange information and learn from each other is responsible for the progress that's marked our history.
     These early communities, in order to be successful, develop a system of interpreting the world around them. This can be likened to your cell phone receiving that 5 string code which it interprets using ASCII and places in context by determining font, size, placement ect. Religion to the early community is as ASCII is to the cell phone. When early communities needed to understand their experiences they developed a language to make sense of life. These beliefs were expansive, explaining natural disasters, crop cycles, fertility, death-- just about every facet of life.
     As time progresses, communities expanded and significant scientific advancements are made we shift how we interpret the world drastically. Communities collide and science arises as the common language to interpret the world around us. In the educated world many people still believe that an earthquake is an act of God, but they also hold the primary belief that it is a result in shifting tectonic plates. As we continue to educate our global population and develop a global community using the internet we can see more and more people using science to help them interpret the natural world-- but what does this do to religion?
     Due to scientific research and readily available information provided by the internet many religious beliefs that operate to understand the natural world are slowly dissolving.  We once used religious beliefs as our coding system to understand all life experience, but now we are separating what information we interpret with science and what we interpret with religion. Popular religious belief will shift to concern itself only with the spiritual world, operating to provide answers where science cannot, in order to be accessible to our growing global community. Personally, I find this type of religious belief far more appealing.