The Digital God

As humans charge up the steep slope of technological innovation, digital age media increasingly shapes our perception of everything--even spiritual matters. The next stage of spiritual development may be the product of a digital interface between our own image of the divine, virtual reality technology that produces real perceptions, and with devices that stimulate areas of the brain associated with spiritual experience. This book explores the influence of digital media on spirituality and the impact of the digital environment on our experience of the spiritual world. The author predicts a future in which digital technology and neuroscience will combine to create a new understanding of the divine. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

He is the Cyber-Age Krishna, Destroyer of the Evil Kansa A runaway kid from the most powerful family in Hyderabad, Kanu is a twenty-two-year-old hacker. His mission in life is to destroy his uncle, Rana, and take control over Sathyamev Computers, a billion-dollar company originally started by his father.Together with the beautiful Darshu, a journalist crusading against corruption, Kanu sets out to expose a mega financial scam at Sathyamev. His only weapon: ingenious computing skills.

A runaway kid from the most powerful family in Hyderabad, Kanu is a twenty-two-year-old hacker. His mission in life is to destroy his uncle, Rana, and take control over Sathyamev Computers, a billion-dollar company originally started by his father. Together with the beautiful Darshu, a journalist crusading against corruption, Kanu sets out to expose a mega financial scam at Sathyamev. His only weapon: ingenious computing skills.

Theologian and high-tech consultant Jennifer Cobb combines her expertise to create a new theory of the Divine in the Information Age. As computers and artificial intelligence systems become more sophisticated, the question of whether we can find spiritual life in cyberspace is beginning to be asked. CyberGrace: The Search for God in the Digital World is a bold, thought-provoking, affirmative answer to one of the most intriguing inquiries of our time. Until now, an unbridgeable schism has separated the world of the spirit and that of the machine. According to an increasingly compelling concept known as emergence, the gulf may be an imaginary one. Fifty years ago, Jesuit paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin combined his lifelong passions of God and science to predict the emergence of cyberspace, based on his studies of evolution. Using Teilhard's theories as a starting point, Jennifer Cobb asserts that as technical systems become more complex--with simple, predictable mechanisms coalescing into hierarchies of increasing organization--something elegant, inspired, and absolutely unpredictable simply and suddenly "emerges." Many observers today see this "hand of God" showing itself in disparate disciplines, from evolutionary theory to artificial intelligence--and especially in the furthest realms of cyberspace, where brute computation seems to give way to divine inspiration. CyberGrace offers paradoxical evidence that our machines may be conduits to a deeper spirituality. With daily headlines announcing dizzying advances in science and information technology, many people wonder about their--and their children's--ability to lead lives imbued by a sense of the sacred. In the new world, where the search for spirituality may seem scattered and unfocused, Cobb brilliantly uses the most popular and prevalent phenomenon of our times--the computer--to find a world filled with meaning and love.

Selfies are ubiquitous. They can be silly or serious, casual or curated. Within moments, smart phone users can capture their image and post it across multiple social media platforms to a global audience. But do we truly understand the power of image in our image-saturated age? How can we seek God and care for each other in digital spaces? Craig Detweiler, a nationally known writer and speaker and an avid social media user, examines the selfie phenomenon, placing selfies within the long history of self-portraits in art, literature, and photography. He shows how self-portraits change our perspective of ourselves and each other in family dynamics, education, and discipleship. Challenging us to push past unhealthy obsessions with beauty, wealth, and fame, Detweiler helps us to develop a thoughtful, biblical perspective on selfies and social media and to put ourselves in proper relation to God and each other. He also explains the implications of social media for an emerging generation, making this book a useful conversation starter in homes, churches, and classrooms. Each chapter ends with discussion questions and a photo assignment for creating a selfie in response to the chapter.

A strikingly original exploration of what it might mean to be authentically human in the age of artificial intelligence, from the author of the critically-acclaimed Interior States. • "At times personal, at times philosophical, with a bracing mixture of openness and skepticism, it speaks thoughtfully and articulately to the most crucial issues awaiting our future." —Phillip Lopate “[A] truly fantastic book.”—Ezra Klein For most of human history the world was a magical and enchanted place ruled by forces beyond our understanding. The rise of science and Descartes's division of mind from world made materialism our ruling paradigm, in the process asking whether our own consciousness—i.e., souls—might be illusions. Now the inexorable rise of technology, with artificial intelligences that surpass our comprehension and control, and the spread of digital metaphors for self-understanding, the core questions of existence—identity, knowledge, the very nature and purpose of life itself—urgently require rethinking. Meghan O'Gieblyn tackles this challenge with philosophical rigor, intellectual reach, essayistic verve, refreshing originality, and an ironic sense of contradiction. She draws deeply and sometimes humorously from her own personal experience as a formerly religious believer still haunted by questions of faith, and she serves as the best possible guide to navigating the territory we are all entering.

Our Veggie friends return in three new Digital Pop-up (TM) board books, each written especially for pre-schoolers.

During over a half century of teaching the Gospel to millions of people, face to face, in nations worldwide, Dr. T.L. Osborn and his associate minister and wife, Dr. Daisy Wasburn Osborn (now deceased), discovered seven basic, vital secrets or principles concerning God's BEST in life. The fundamentals have been tested and proven in the living arena of human experience all over the world. The Osborns have taught them to Buddhists, Muslims, Shintoists, Hundus, animists, fetish worshippers, Christians, and atheists - to people of most of the major cultures and religions of the free world. This Classic on Human Value is an inspiring guide to the discovery of self-dignity in God's redemptive plan. The energizing power of these vital truths is life-changing. You Are God's Best will free you from the demeaning influence programmed into you by negative religious tradition, and will open the door to new hope and to a new lifestyle with God as your best friend.