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Medium is Not the Message
Are social media tools a blessing or a curse for people of faith? Should we use digital technology to commune with the divine? Does God tweet?
Twitter is not important in itself. Does God write little notes in response to the letters that He receives in great numbers? God also rarely responds verbally to the many spoken prayers addressed to Him. The importance is not in the media, but in the sender of the message. When there is a prayer or a question that has very little meaning to the person who asks it, then the vehicle by which insignificant prayers move from place to place is also unimportant.
One has to remember that in the holiest of places, God is not closer to the people; sometimes, people become closer to God in such places. Pilgrimage is important because crossing the distance and taking the trouble may somehow change the pilgrim. Going to the house of worship next door usually doesn't have the same effect. In the same way, if the tweet is written with tears, it has a better chance of being received.
By
Adin Steinsaltz
|
August 11, 2009; 1:28 PM ET
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Posted by: Navin1 | August 12, 2009 11:04 AM
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Actually, I've been saying it since the days of Usenet: The medium *is* the message.
It was this way with cities, it was this way with writing, it was this way with *books,* it was this way with broadcast, and it's this way with the Net, and still this way with things like 'Twitter.'
Since the Net, and deregulated and unaccountable 'talk radio,' look how much of 'religion' has become about *opinion.*
Moreover, how much longer it takes for any kind of *accord* to sink in, compared to an argument.
The medium is *always* the message.
Looks to me like the 'message' is about to start getting a lot shorter and noisier.
Posted by: Paganplace | August 11, 2009 3:57 PM
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Gita: I am the field and the knower of the field - Krisha.
The medium, the message, and the messanger are one. It is our ego that discriminates so that we can participate in karma.
hariaum