5 pages with 2 reading materials
Writing
Hi, this paper have a specific structure requirements, reading the instruction carefully and follow it to write this paper please
two reading: you can only use these two readings as references and you HAVE to use two quotes from each reading in each body paragraphs.
1. Franklin Foer: “Mark Zuckerberg’s war on free will”
2. Karen Armstrong:”Home religiosis” (I do not have the fully reading, so I put the notes for this reading in the attachment and you can use the quotes from there)
Question: Karen Armstrong, in “Homo Religiosis,” argues that certain core principles were common among various spiritual traditions dating from the Paleolithic era to the early modern period: 1) an understanding of the ultimate nature of reality as something that suffused and animated all life, objects, and natural forces; 2) a recognition that religious discourse was not to be taken literally or by faith alone, as spiritual understanding could only come through the practice of ritual; and 3) a conviction that religious truths were only accessible when we were ready to give up selfishness and greed, placing others before ourselves. This second principle will be our focus for this paper, as you identify how ritualized action becomes belief. Armstrong writes: “Religion was a matter of doing rather than thinking” (17). Through diverse practices (ceremony, initiation, art, meditation, everyday activities, and so on), adherents experienced the divine and belief was made reality. In “Mark Zuckerberg’s War on Free Will,” Franklin Foer discusses how algorithms and the use of social media can lead to mechanical thinking and a corresponding belief in the “engineering mindset.” Your job is to contemplate the above, taking both Foer and Armstrong into consideration, and then respond to the following prompt:
How might the use of algorithms, as well as our current relationship to digital technology, serve as rituals that reinforce belief in the engineering mindset?
