We often think about how technology has influenced religion, but we rarely question the opposite: how has religion pushed technological advancement? In the case of Christianity, software to share the Bible has been in development for decades and has been shaping tech advancement behind the scenes for even longer. On this episode, we're talking to John Dyer, a professor at Dallas Theological Seminary and the author of the new book People of the Screen that details the entwined history of software and evangelism.

Reading and resource list: 

YouVersion

Hebcal

The Medium is the Message, Marshall McCluhan

Geneva Bible

The Scofield Study Bible

Encountering Peace

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What if AI and religion had a converging relationship rather than a parallel one? In Professor Beth Singler's new book, Religion and Artificial Intelligence: An Introduction, she explores how enmeshed technology and religion are in our current era, and how we as a society may be heading toward the creation and worship of a god-like AI.  

Reading list: 

Roko’s Basilisk or Pascal’s? Thinking of Singularity Thought Experiments as Implicit Religion

The TESCREAL bundle: Eugenics and the promise of utopia through artificial general intelligence

Existential Conversations with Large Language Models: Content, Community, and Culture

The Turing Church

Theta Noir

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The confessional booth is usually a private space for reflection and human connection. But what if, on the other side of the wall, you discovered you were asking forgiveness from a robot? This week, we're talking to Marco Schmid, the theologian at St. Peter's Chapel in Lucerne, Switzerland, about how his church uses AI to guide people to and through their prayer. 

You can read more about St. Peter's Chapel and its AI program on NPR or The Guardian, or join AI Jesus for an interactive chat on Twitch. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Does religion have a role in developing ethical frameworks around technology? On this episode, we're talking to Rabbi Zvika Kreiger, spiritual leader of Chochmat Halev and former Director of Responsible Innovation at Facebook. Zvika and host David Zvi Kalman dive into the Metaverse and discuss how religious leaders can lean into technology, and what separation of tech and religion looks like.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Technology moves quickly – often times faster than governments can create laws to regulate it. So how do we adapt our lawmaking practices to keep up? 

We’re talking to Gideon Lichfield, a journalist and alum of MIT Technology Review, The Economist, and WIRED Magazine, about how lawmaking can keep up with the fast pace of our digital world, and how government and religion mirror each other when interfacing with new technology. 

Reading list: 

Gideon’s newsletter, Futurepolis.

The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt 

Dune by Frank Herbert

Karl Schroeder

Kim Stanley Robinson

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're not allowed to record in synagogue. But what if you're saving a dying culture?

Have a question/tip/criticism? Write to us at our fancy new website, beliefinthefuture.com

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What happens when you take synagogue music out of the synagogue?

Works mentioned

• Jeremiah Lockwood, Golden Ages: Hasidic Singers and Cantorial Revival in the Digital Era

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Greeks dreamed of automata, the Jews of golems, and now we've coded bots into powerful servants. Can our ancient quest for artificial life reveal our ethical obligations to today’s creations? 

Elly Truitt, who holds a Ph.D. in the History of Science from Harvard University and an M.Phil. in Medieval History from the University of Cambridge, is a historian specializing in the circulation of scientific knowledge and objects across Eurasia and North Africa from antiquity to the early modern period. Her work, including the acclaimed Medieval Robots: Mechanism, Magic, Nature, and Art (2015), explores the role of automata in medieval culture and the ethical questions they raised about identity and creation.

Reading List:

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this crossover episode of Belief in the Future with Responsa Radio, host David Zvi Kalman dives into whether using generative AI systems like ChatGPT and DALL-E is a form of theft, drawing comparisons to the Jewish tradition of responsa. Back in the day, medieval rabbis often quoted other scholars without giving credit, but it was within a self-referential learning community. If today’s machine learning models can swiftly scrub the web, disregarding attribution, what kind of culture are we fostering by relying on their extensive 'knowledge'?

Responsa Radio is a podcast that brings the age-old Jewish tradition of responsa to life in a modern context. Hosted by Rabbi Ethan Tucker and Avi Killip, the show explores contemporary questions through the lens of Jewish law and ethics, engaging listeners in thoughtful discussions that connect ancient wisdom with today’s challenges.

Responsa: A body of Jewish legal literature comprising questions and answers written by rabbis to address issues of Jewish law. This tradition often involves finding historical precedents for contemporary questions, including those related to modern technology.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices