Noosphere

The Internet. What will the Church think up next?

Many people claim to have have invented the internet, or the culture around it (Cyberculture). But the church thought it up first. This is our position and we will stand by it until others bring forth some earlier dates, thus forcing us back to the annuls of history to find another patron saint. This is what we do. Everything is from the devil, until it becomes useful and acceptable, and then we find our innovative heros who were players back when the game was starting. And then we regret burning them. William Tyndale, comes to mind.

The Internet has existed as a concept in people's minds, long before computers and broadband. There have been many attempts to visualize what has already been imagined. History is still adding innovators and poets to its records. One of them is important to us.

In 1938, a Jesuit priest named Pierre Teilhard de Chardin spoke of a "sphere of thought" enveloping the earth. He referred to this "planterary thinking network" as the "Noosphere". Some date Chardin's teachings on this back to 1925, giving a special place for the church in the conception of cyberspace. Either way, it was a long time before Al Gore or any of us were alive.

We don't need to get all RAH-RAH about the internet or new media. That is a sure sign of old age -old people have an infatuation about technology (along with thinking that all music is too loud and all clothes are too baggy). But it is true that we are in the beginning stages of a new reformation, a renaissance of sorts. One that is giving a physical representation to the way we already view the world. So lets try and understand where we are and make the most of it.