Can modernisation and religion go hand in hand ?

Hi Alok I feel modernisation has little to do with religion and spirituality if not superstitions. Even a tech savvy person can be highly religious with all associated rituals and traditions. Even the top notch scientists believe in the omnipotence of God and Religion! They even abide by the intricate traditions of the church. Having said this, modernisation might just have effects on religion. There would be more sects and sub sects with different set of rules and norms inside each religion soon. In fact there has been a lot of dissection lately. Me personally, feel that the importance of religion is the fact that brings people together and the feeling of oneness cannot be better imparted than through religion, but if that be the case! Sadly, this is not the case. Religion has been an excuse to wars, animosity and shrewd world leaders have taken help of religion to have their last say! What else could be more gross! I digressed, Alok. But what I want to say is that religion and our adherence to it is largely socialistic. It depends on the society, and most importantly family background. We grow up following our fathers and fore fathers and they grow up imbibing theirs. As per that, modernisation has little to do with religion. However, a lot of superstitions which were in practice in name of religion have been corrected. But then, this had nothing to do with religion whatsoever. I just hope that people do not fight in the name of religion for no religion preach that! Religion should be something, that brings inner peace and world sanctity, more love and more tolerance. Don't you feel Akbar was more modern than any of us today? The way he founded DIN E ILAHI with supposedly all good aspects of all religions, religion couldn’t have been better than this! Tolerance is something that we really need to work on today!

Yes, they can. Modernization makes people disconnected from a lot of things. Yes, technology "brings us closer" by bringing us the internet, air travel and such but it has also widened the gap in the individual and community. Many workers now no longer can tell which part of the whole they are in their company. Most of us spend more time in the car than with people we care. A lot of us spend more time with our co-workers that we really are not friends with rather than make friends with our neighbors. Modernization has made men more "individualistic" and more territorial too thus losing that sense of belonging. And I think this is where religion should come in. Whatever the belief is, religion gives this sense of belonging to the individual. PS- You might want to read Durkheim's Elements of Religious Life and also Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. You may find them interesting.

I believe that religion is definitely moving with the times so to speak and embracing modernization on many levels; but the question in my mind is whether it is moving fast enough? Society has changed considerably throughout the history of mankind and will continue to do so. Yes it is vital that traditions and rituals be maintained from generation to generation but there also needs to be modernization of core theologies etc as well. Many of the belief systems today may be struggling to maintain certain stabilities because the up and coming youth are struggling to find affinities with them. All technology ultimately does is allow religious messages to be shared and presented by means far more advanced than ever before. But these technological advances also mean that it is far easier to establish spin-offs and followings of beliefs that deviate from their original intentions. I think that technology and religion can definitely go hand in hand but there needs to be a far more solid focus on the modernization of the core doctrines. This is obviously a challenge because the more people try to update interpretations the more open they are to becoming watered down in a sense. In order to keep traditions and rituals alive there does need to be a happy medium along these lines so that the youth of today do not see the embracing of these traditions as an obligation; but embrace it openly and willingly because it is speaking to them and drawing them in by using a more relevant approach.

I think religion is something, which is adopted by someone. Modernistion or the use of the latest technology should not have any effect on religious beliefs, I think so. Some technocrates and highly placed successful persons follow their respective religion more or less, despite their water-tight schedules. To follow a religion is a matter of choice for an individual, it hardly matters whether that person is modern or not or stay in highly developed urban area or a rural area.