The article is devoted to analyzing the processes of digitalization in the religious sphere and the attitudes of clergy and ordinary believers towards the integration of digital technologies into religious practices, as well as the gradual erosion of the boundaries between the sacred and the profane resulting from the use of artificial intelligence. Using the examples of Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and new cults, it examines such innovations as mobile applications for ritual support, robot monks, AI preachers, virtual churches in metaverses, holographic projects simulating religious authorities, and quasi-religions. The empirical basis consists of informal interviews with clergy and parishioners of Orthodox churches and mosques in Kazan (n=12). It was revealed that attitudes towards technological innovations vary not only between confessions but also within them, revealing a generational divide. Young people are more often willing to accept digital forms of religious interaction, while older age groups insist on the inadmissibility of replacing live communication with clergy with machine algorithms. Special attention is paid to the phenomenon of “dataism” and attempts to create Syntheistic cults (for example, the “Way of the Future” church by E. Levandowski), where artificial intelligence is endowed with the attributes of a deity. The author concludes that the digital transformation of religion leads to contradictory consequences. On the one hand, new opportunities for religious education and interaction open up (such as mobile applications and virtual assistants). On the other hand, the threat of desacralization and the replacement of genuine interpersonal contact with artificial simulation increases, provoking ethical and theological debates about free will, moral responsibility, and the limits of what is permissible in the spiritual sphere.
The article is devoted to analyzing the processes of digitalization in the religious sphere and the attitudes of clergy and ordinary believers towards the integration of digital technologies into religious practices, as well as the gradual erosion of the boundaries between the sacred and the profane resulting from the use of artificial intelligence. Using the examples of Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and new cults, it examines such innovations as mobile applications for ritual support, robot monks, AI preachers, virtual churches in metaverses, holographic projects simulating religious authorities, and quasi-religions. The empirical basis consists of informal interviews with clergy and parishioners of Orthodox churches and mosques in Kazan (n=12). It was revealed that attitudes towards technological innovations vary not only between confessions but also within them, revealing a generational divide. Young people are more often willing to accept digital forms of religious interaction, while older age groups insist on the inadmissibility of replacing live communication with clergy with machine algorithms. Special attention is paid to the phenomenon of “dataism” and attempts to create Syntheistic cults (for example, the “Way of the Future” church by E. Levandowski), where artificial intelligence is endowed with the attributes of a deity. The author concludes that the digital transformation of religion leads to contradictory consequences. On the one hand, new opportunities for religious education and interaction open up (such as mobile applications and virtual assistants). On the other hand, the threat of desacralization and the replacement of genuine interpersonal contact with artificial simulation increases, provoking ethical and theological debates about free will, moral responsibility, and the limits of what is permissible in the spiritual sphere.