Religion As A Cyber Society Essays - Monastery, Cyber,

Religion As A Cyber Society The exponential growth of the Cyber society and Cyber culture within the Internet has not gone unnoticed by the ?religious community.? As I write, church web sites are being published and electronic prayer groups zip by in modems and wire networks across the globe. Even isolated monasteries like the Monastery of the Christ in the Desert (see sidebar) are able to send their Benedictine messages from their cloister in New Mexico. New age religions also use the [virtual] soil of the Internet as the center of their ?virtual church? (see end of the Cyber society Observation for links on religious web pages). With these in mind, it is safe to write that Religion has seamlessly incorporated itself within the realm of Cyber society. The presence of Religion in Net Culture is not an unforeseen trend. Although Religion and Modernity does not have the best relationship, Religion has learned that they need to conform with the current trends of technology to survive. Religion sees Modernity (in hand with secularization) as a threat to spiritual well-being and existence of its churches. Today for example, membership in Christian denominations is decreasing and the number of priests is on the downward slope as well. The declining trends are placed on modern individual's tendency to think of religion as ?neither good nor bad but simply irrelevant.? (Encarta ?Religion?) Another reason lies in the prestige appropriated to science, the body of knowledge that made no reference to spiritual gods and the foundation of all the technologies that made human life easier. The religious organizations recognize the decline in membership and religious passivity of the general populace. Instead of going condemning the technology, they adapted to it and used it to perform their evangelical work. Evangelicalism originally means ?personal commitment to Christ and the authority of the Bible (Encarta ?Religion?).? Evangelicalism can also mean the spreading of God's word. History witnessed the churches' efforts to ?convert? people with the help of discovery and innovation. For example, the invention of the movable press type by Johann Guttenberg in Germany changed the painstaking effort of copying the bible by hand. Anyone can now access a bible anywhere they need it. With the invention of the television and radio came the TV and radio evangelists, spreading the ?word of their God? and converting the masses. Many churches actually own stations and record studios that would help establish the stability of their religion. The birth of the Internet, however is a w hole new platform altogether. As a cyber deacon in one the new-age religions puts it (with exaggerated confidence and modulated voice), ?The Internet has the potential of evolving into the greatest communication tool of all time (Busch 1).? The Internet is sometimes scorned as the menace and heralded as the savior of society. How has the Internet worked for Religion? The Internet, for one, has become the primary breeding ground for New-Age churches and religion, usually creating a ?virtual church? in the confines of their web pages. New Age Movement: ?A new form of spirituality that offers individuals the opportunity to reconnect with mystical dimensions of the self and thus the wider cosmos?relationships that are typically obscured by secular culture and often are not addressed in biblical traditions?. (Encarta ?Religion?) Some of these New Age Churches include Cosmosofy, Digitalism and The First Cyber Church of the Scientific God. Most, if not all of the cyber churches try to create a church that combines love for God as related to science. For example, Digitalism is a modernized religion based on the wonders of technology and Buddhism. The First Cyber Church advocates a love for God and mankind with good science as foundation. As a whole, these new religions try to meet anybody's spiritual needs. Traditional Churches and denominations have also taken advantage of the Internet. Many of these religions have established web pages, like the Vatican, Qabalah (for insight on Jewish Mysticism) and Anglicans Online to name a few. A list of traditional churches and their links are found at the end of this paper. The old religions like the New age religion uses the Internet to spread their message of faith with the aid of the technologies

Hillary Clinton and Universal Health Care

Hillary Clinton and Universal Health Care Hillary Clinton is perhaps most remembered during her tenure as the first lady of the United States in the mid-1990s for her unsuccessful push for universal health care, a controversial proposal seen at the time as a radical overhaul of the way Americans received coverage that drew strong opposition from both the drug and health insurance industries. The cornerstone of the plan was a mandate on employers to provide health insurance for all of their employees. Later in her political career, Clinton supported a mandate on Americans - not businesses - to purchase health insurance for themselves as part of a broad proposal to rein in costs and boost value and quality in the nations network of private health insurers. Clinton unveiled her newer proposals in her American Health Choices Plan during the race for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. Said Clinton in September 2007: My plan covers all Americans and improves health care by lowering costs and improving quality. If youre one of the tens of millions of Americans without coverage or if you dont like the coverage you have, you will have a choice of plans to pick from and youll get tax credits to help pay for it. If you like the plan you have, you can keep it. Its a plan that works for Americas families and Americas businesses, while preserving consumer choices. That same individual mandate became a part of President Barack Obamas health care law. Hillary Clinton and Universal Health Care Hillary Clinton was the first lady to President Bill Clinton in 1993 when he appointed her to chair the Presidents Task Force on National Health Care Reform. The president had warned in his inaugural address that the administration would face staunch opposition from powerful lobbies and special interests who would attempt to derail its efforts to provide coverage for all Americans, and he was right. Congressional Republicans opposed the plan, the public saw it as too complex and bureaucratic, but perhaps the kiss of death was the tremendous amount of criticism it received from health insurance industry, which went too far as to produce a multimillion-dollar television campaign against the proposal. The Clinton health care overhaul billed as the centerpiece of Bill Clintons presidency and a path to ensuring some 37 million Americans who had no coverage, died for lack of support in Congress in what was considered a major defeat for the administration and political setback for Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton Revises Health Care Proposals Clinton emerged with a new set of plans to ensure every American during the 2008 race for the Democratic presidential nomination. She said she had learned from her mistakes in 1993 and 1994 when the Clinton administrations proposals were too complicated, and that she had the scars to show for it. Clinton portrayed her new American Health Choices Plan as being one modeled after the health care program through which members of Congress are covered. The new array of choices offered in the menu will provide benefits at least as good as the typical plan offered to members of Congress, which includes mental health parity and usually dental coverage, Clinton said in 2007. Hillary Clintons plan would have required Americans to purchase health insurance and required insurers to cover everyone regardless of whether they had preconditions. It would have provided tax credits to Americans who couldnt afford to purchase health care and paid for them by rolling back the so-called Bush tax cuts on those earning more than $250,000 a year. Clinton said at the time her plan would have resulted in a net tax cut for American taxpayers.