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FutureProofing

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Series examining the big ideas that are set to transform the way society functions

Series examining the implications - social and cultural, economic and political - of the big ideas that are set to transform the way society functions

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FutureProofing: Faith

02/05/2018

Faith

BBC Radio 4 - FutureProofing, Faith

Does science now challenge religion to destruction, and what happens to faith in future?

How technology is disrupting the beliefs and practices of traditional faiths, and how it is providing the foundations for a 'new religion' for the 21st century and beyond.

FutureProofing presenters Timandra Harkness and Leo Johnson put their faith - and lack of faith - to the test in a journey from the Middle East to Silicon Valley, to find out how technology is disrupting the beliefs and practices of traditional faiths. They also discover how data and tech might provide the foundations for what influential thinkers like Yuval Noah Harari have dubbed a 'New Religion' for the 21st century and beyond. 
FutureProofing: Faith includes encounters with leading thinkers such as Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks; a leading member of President Trump's Evangelical Advisory Panel Robert Jeffress; and the world's most prominent humanist Professor Stephen Pinker. They reveal how traditional faiths and secularists are facing the challenge from technology. 
As the potential of technology to both explain the universe and deliver incredible power develops. so many of the features and promises we have found in older religions are being provided for and challenged by tech. From mind-uploading which offers the prospect of immortality and resurrection to algorithms that could suggest exact optimum life choices for us according to our genes and social circumstances. FutureProofing's presenters learn how the functions of religion could be taken over by technology and the search for the meaning of life be challenged by the accelerating pace of science. 
Are data and technology about to supplant the traditional sources of faith and information about ultimate meaning in our world? And will this mean a very different kind of faith emerges in future? 

Producer: Jonathan Brunert.

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