Will spirituality be more decentralized in future?

I see more decentralization of spirituality in future as organizations utilize technology to keep in contact with adherents and believers. This will allow cyber churches which we already have but with a much more interactive mode of expression than currently experienced by people. The end of many bricks and mortar churches may be at hand.

Cyberchurches should be centralizing faith, everywhere on the world there are internet cafes where you can just type in "www.yourcyberchurch.com" and pray. More centralized than a web server is hard for a big community. I don't think technology decentralizes faith, it's the last thread holding people who are far apart together in their faith.

I agree that a cyber place of worship can bring people together that normally would not come together. But when you physically separate a group of people and you replace their connection with a technological substitute, then I think you are also separating people with technology.

Thus, technology has the ability to do both: separate and bring together people.

That is not necessarily a bad thing and it can be a good thing.

In the not too distant future VR will perhaps be part of the possibilities and that shuold bring that 'power' back to the cyberchurches. You can scare the sh*t out of people who are afraid of heights by extremely ugly VR heights, so why can't you keep church-goers together by a virtual priest?

Good points. Since I believe that reality is merely a hologram anyways I find little to disagree with here. I do wonder how the physical bond and spiritual connection affect us in all of this experiencing of reality though?

Perhaps I go a bit far in technology but I still believe feelings and senses are electrical signals interpreted by the brain. If possible and ethically correct you could implant a chip in the spinal chord that you could plug into a computer, which makes you feel whatever you want. This may sound ridiculous but on the other hand so were computers and TV's lots of years ago. The more we learn the more we can imitate... aura's could perhaps be reproduced to simulate other's presence.. this is pure speculation of course but I think that any self-respecting spiritual connection can cover greater distances than a foot or two physical connection will be harder as mentioned, but you must not wish too much

what you describe is that which is suggested in the Matrix trilogy of films which I am quite fond of.

I believe they portray the truth of human existance but not exactly as shown in the films.

I believe that living creatures are all chemical reactions and machines physiological reactions. If coincidence can create life, why can't we simulate it?

One of the only flaws in the matrix theory is that machines would not be so stupid as to use humans as powersource. Our body turns chemical energy into heat or electricity, but at a very low temperature, so we have a very low efficiency which is around 12%. The machines would be smart enough to build a machine to change food into energy with a higher efficiency than that, so humans would only be consumptors of what the machines need. But all that's off-topic

Coincidence can create life but it takes design to make it better.

The machines used humans as an energy source for three reasons:

1. It was all they had as an energy source in a destroyed world.
2. It was a way to displace, control or use humans which had become their natural enemies.
3. I suspect that humans produced much more energy then we may believe using straight physics as a measure, for example what about psychic or spiritual energy?

It takes design to make it better? Dude, you should read up on a little Darwin
Evolution is getting things better all the time. Coincidence leads to adaptation. If a white butterfly settles on a brown tree near a cat, he's dead meat. If he happens to have a genetical mutation in him which makes him a little bit darker he has more chance that the cat doesn't see him. In cases he will still get eaten, but no species is perfect yet
I'm not sure if I already said this somewhere but it fits the subject: The human body seems very complicated and ingenious, but when you look at quantum-mechanics it's all very straight-forward. Design would have made us a lot better than we are.
I believe we are straying from the topic post by post

Darwinism does not explain humanity as we find it today nor most of what else we know of in this world. Current science admits this but because it is hostile to creationism due to the conflict between the scientific method and faith based approaches to existance the scientists must maintain a weak' theory.

I think that the comments are very much related to the topic here. We equate centralization with design or central control. Decentralization with chaos or lack of control on the other hand. But these are generalizations that do not accurately describe all possible situations.

If a creator made everything in the universe and was therefore a part of everything but gave freedom of action, thought and choice to all of creation. Then we would have centralization as well as decentralization at the same time.

Is this evolutionary or a sign of a certain level of advancement? I think so. Therefore spirituality may be more decentralized in future as a belief system: maybe as an individual belief system.

So what you say is spirituality decentralizes for the group, but centralizes for the individual, thus bringing the center to ourselves instead of another. Interesting

Darwinism can't explain everything, but neither can any religion. Darwin was a man and therefore his theory has its gaps and cracks and becomes vague where it is most interesting, so does religion.

I do not necessarily believe in 'advancement', it's 'movement' all right but every + has its -... Centralization has its ups and downs, so finding the right balance would be the idea I guess

Yes agreed, religion has its faults and frequently it was 'massaged' to project power rather than to inform or illuminate.

That is why I do not believe in any one faith but examine several of them. I think it is more useful to observe the nature of prophets for example like Christ, or Mohammad or Moses. They are living examples of an approach to the spiritual realm that we can understand and find useful. Religion is a corporation that produces products but does so for a profit and is most concerned with its own survival over the ages. I believe that the catholic church is the world's largest and oldest corporation for example.

But religion does have value for those that starve for some enlightenment and have none. A little is better than none but do not allow them to own you is all I say.

You said it, mate!

When you have nothing you would be likely to take religion on with both hands completely and not think about it, little being better than nothing, and thought could destroy what little you have.

Well one hopes that hunger drives the hungry to seek out new food.

I saw an interesting show on TV today about an ex-convict that converted to Islam. This guy had been a hardened criminal and here he was embracing Islam because it gave him 'discipline' in his life. Surprisingly he felt that this was the first time his life had any meaning and he could experience any freedom?

All I have to say is do what works for you. Who am I to judge. That person enjoyed the sacrifices he made to something he believed in.. something bigger than himself.