God and the Internet Session Notes

God and the Internet
  1. What Is The Internet?
  2. What Is The Cybercosmos?
  3. How Can We Make It Safer?
  4. What Are The Possible Ministeries?

  1. What Is The Internet?

    What Do You Use The Internet For?

    1. User Perspective
      • browsing
      • FTP
      • e-mail
      • chat rooms
      • advertising
      • e-commerce
      • VoIP
      • e-publishing: webrings
    2. Engineering Perspective
      • data comm & telecom
      • standards: TCP/IP, PPP
      • routers, hubs, links, ATM, backbone
      • ISPs
      • xDSL
    3. Issues
      What Are Your Concerns?

      Issues
      • information dissemination
      • community
      • dependency on technology

      1. information dissemination
        Information dissemination
        1. free speech vs. censorship
          • anyone can publish
            anything can be published
          • Responsible free speech
          • child protection
          • pornagraphy
          • child pornography
          • hate sites
          • bomb making sites
          • intrusive advertisement
        2. privacy
          • internet entirely public
          • e-mail
          • e-commerce
          • subversive data gathering
          • 1984esque
          • personalization
          • cookies: digital IDs put on your HD

        • subversive data gathering
          (also getting info from kids)
          • without parental consent
          • names, e-mail, postal address, telephone numbers
          • what is info being used for?
          • a number of sites now post use & privacy notice
          • FTC is monitoring
        • child molesters (child porn)
          • anonymity: cyber persona deceptive
          • encourages increase molestation & exploitation
          • to report:
            local police
            NJ State Police (609) 882-2000
            National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (800) 843-5678
            US Customs Service icpicc@customs.sprint.com

    4. Community
      Community
      • internet community: cyber agora
        • attributes
          • chat rooms
          • worldwide
          • democratic (ungovernable?)
          • anonymous
          • home-based
          • distributed
          • on line or distance learning: s. NJ Virual University for over 800 courses offered in state
        • concerns
          • predators
          • addictive
          • alienation
          • destruction of face-to-face communications
      • bifucation
        • poor, non-tech vs rich, tech
        • community access
        • cultural cogency
        • information is power
    5. Dependency on Technology
      Could you survive without technology?
      • electricity?
      • medical care?
      • automobile?
      • internet?
      • Are we becoming dependent on the internet? e-checking? e-commerce?
      • What will happen when the internet predominates shopping?
      • Information gathering?
      • Communications?

  • Cybercosmos

    Biblical and Theological Reflections
    Cybercosmos
    • organized, interactive, seamless milieu of God, humans, and machines
    • bioelectronic ecosystem: organic and interconnected; an electronic web of life
    • emergent co-creativity and collective consciousness
    • co-evolving: technology and humanity co-dependent
    • cybergrace
    • process
    NOOSPHERE
    internet content
    e-commerce
    e-publishing
    webrings
    chat rooms
    http; ftp; smtp; PICS
    Cyber BIOSPHERE
    e-mail
    Netscape Communicator
    Internet Explorer
    AOL
    LOTUS Notes
    ISDN; xDSL; ATM; tcp/ip
    Cyber PHYSIOSPHERE
    PCs
    servers
    firewalls
    routers
    switches
    optical fiber
    satellites
    radio towers
    Gaea BIOSPHERE
    consumers
    engineers
    inventors
    craftspeople
    Gaea PHYSIOSPHERE
    electrons
    elements
    1. Items listed are the tangible pre-requisites of each sphere.
      The actual sphere is in the orthogenesis.
    2. The Gaea Biosphere mediates between the Gaea Physiosphere and the Cyber Physiosphere:
      invention and manufacturing.
    1. Cybergrace: The Search For God in the Digital World
      Jennifer Cobb
      • The divine is woven throughout all of reality in the form of creative, responsive love and evolutionary becoming. In this sense, the divine permeates the very fabic of the universe. p. 12
      • When the creative potential of computation becomes a part of our spiritual awareness, we may find that cyberspace begins to participate in our lives in a deep and meaningful way. p.13
      • internet + humans = co-evolving
      • Cyberspace incarnates the Platonic realm of pure and perfect forms (p.31)
      • Cyberspace is an abstract reality that allows us to live in a communal realm of knowledge and information
      • God is in the connectedness:
      • ... the spiritual basis of the universe is ulnderstood as creative events unfolding in time. (p. 43)
      • Creative process forms the soul of cyberspace. (p.44)
      • If grace is the experience of the divine flowing in our lives, then experiencing the creative process is grace and experiencing it in cyberspace is cybergrace.
      • The net is emergent: its whole is greater than its parts. p 49
        • cyberspace > software + hardware + people => cybercosmos
        • divinity is in the dynamic of the process of feedback loops
      • cybercosmos contains life: the moment by moment unfolding of creativity (p. 55) that is the transcendence of novelty
      • The cybercosmos defines its own possibility space. p. 68
      • orthogenesis: evolutionary force that directs change towards increased complexity and consciousness -- the divine spark (p.83)
      • evolution: physiosphere -> biosphere -> noosphere (p.84)
      • noosphere is the sphere of the mind & consciousness: the collective organism of mind.
      • cybercosmoos instantiates the noosphere
    2. information: The Truth Shall Make You Free
      • Jn 8:32
      • Not just info; but discernment
        More than bare facts
      • what do we do with information?
      • how do we ascertain its truth?
      • what sort of society does high quantities of information create?
        is truth cheapen?
    3. community: The Kingdom of God
      • Shalom: Peace, Justice, Freedom
      • Interconnection
      • Compassion: to be in "passion" with
        Can one have compassion without physical presence?
        Are we on the verge of loosing physical presence?
        Or are we on the verge of transcending to a higher presence?
      • Emmanuel: God With Us
        Is God immanent on the WWW?
        Is God's immanence physical?
      • Forgiveness
      • Responsibility!
    4. Responsibility: Righteousness
      • "what does the Lord requre of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with Your God [Mic 6:8]"
      • what action do we take in regard to what we learn?
      • what action do we take in regard to the social and spiritual impact of the WWW?
      • cross and resurrection:
        turning the internet to a tool of shalom and a community of shalom

  • How Can We Make It Safer?

    1. Our Children
      • Filtering
        Filters:

        Blocking Softwre

        Categories
        • Standard set
        • Optional use
        • non-use risks automatic blocking
        • laws to enforce accurate labeling

        PICS
        • Definition
          • infrastructure
          • associate labels to content
          • facilitate:
            • self-rating
            • third-party rating
        • Status
          • client software: read PIC labels?
          • HTTP servers: distribute labels with documents
          • Proxy servers: filter based on PICS rules
          • Label bureaus: HTTP server distribute third-party PICS label

      • Securing privacy
        • no cookies
        • opt out: junkbusters.com
        • turn off Pentium's universal id
        • beware of registrations: Microsoft installed unique ID numbers onPCs and transmites them to Microsoft
      • Child Safe ISPs
        • Auto filtering of porn, hate
          optional other filters at ISP
        • alerts + info
        • superior, one-stop service
      • Enforcement
        • longer and mandatory storage of e-mail for subpoenaes
        • enhance law enforcement's technical knowledge and ability
    2. One Net
      Principles for the Internet Era
      Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility
      1. There is only one Net.
      2. The Net must be open and available to all.
      3. People have the right to communicate.
      4. People have the right to privacy.
      5. People are the net's stewards, not its owners.
      6. No individuals, organizations, or governments should dominate the Net.
      7. The Net should reflect human diversity, not homogenize it.
      Send comments to onenet-comments@cpsr.org
      Join the open-discussion at http://ww.findmail.com/listsaver/onenet-discuss

      • One Net: total, global interconnection
      • Available to all: for minorities, dissidents, prisoners
      • Right to communicate: right to access exchange, participate, partition
      • Right to privacy:
        • sheltering of personal data from public
        • sheltering of private communication from public
        • right not to participate in communication
      • stewardship: global commons, respect rights of others
      • No dominance: administered, not controlled; cooperative
      • diversity: multi-cultural, not global culture
    3. Disciplining the Net
      • ISPs and info providers take responsibility!
      • freedom => responsibility
      • self-policing, self-censoring

    4. What Are Possible Ministeries?

    Rev. John A. Mills, Pastor, First Congregational Church, Closter, NJ fcclostr@cwn.com