The Internet is God introduction

There is a story about Krishna as a child mischievously eating clay. Krishna's friends tell his foster mother, Yasoda. Krishna tries to convince her that he has not eaten clay by opening his mouth. Yasoda sees the whole universe in Krishna's mouth, including herself with Krishna on her knee! The Internet is akin to this. We switch on our computers and we see the whole universe; including ourselves with Krishna on our knee, so to speak. One way of approaching The Internet, therefore, is to think about how things are before we turn on the computer. We may be alone or isolated. Or we may be at the heart of a loving family. But going on-line, at the very least, opens up new channels of communication for us. Not everyone has access to The Internet or judges it favourably. But we see the central importance that it already holds in many people's lives – an importance akin perhaps to that of The Church in the Middle Ages – when it is temporarily unavailable. People are suddenly rootless; without their God. I am not suggesting here, needless to say, that every computer screen (like altars in the Roman Catholic Church) should have a martyr's relic within it! This outline can be seen as an exploration of the extent to which the metaphor – The Internet is God – holds true for The Internet, for God and for us. The idea of The Internet as God is therefore used here as a working model for testing out some thoughts on God; all of which have been addressed in religious and philosophical thought and practice over time. Whilst God, should he or she exist, may not be changed by society, our view of God may well be. My contention here is that The Internet throws light on what we call God in all sorts of ways. This does not assume the existence of God; the idea of The Internet as God may help us to approach ideas and ideals that could be called God; whether or not God is a figment of our imagination! In using a metaphor such as the Internet to help our understanding of the metaphysical, we are within a long religious tradition. Christian myth, for instance, is powerful as much for its allusion to truth as for its literal accuracy. Some would argue that The Internet is too worldly to be God-like. I think about this in the section, God is Man. God is often seen as separate from man in religious thought. But, even in Islamic thought where a visual representation of God is prohibited, one way of understanding God (at least for Sufis) is to discover the man whose will is God's will. Few religious scholars would doubt that it is in the world that we find God and so the argument that The Internet is too worldly for God is unconvincing to me.