Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies

Communication, Artificial Intelligence and the human being’s self-discovery in the digital universe

2025-12-03T10:39:01+02:00

In the post-truth world, Artificial Intelligence has a significant impact on communication, relationships and human identity, on spirituality, art, culture and politics. In order to understand the profound transformations that take place as a result of the development of communication technologies and the increasingly prominent presence of Artificial Intelligence, I turned to the analyses of the philosopher Aurel Codoban.

From this perspective, digital technologies determine radical changes in the way in which the human being relates to himself and to otherness, including the radical otherness represented by AI. Relating to otherness helps man to understand his uniqueness, especially in terms of personal experience and his creative function. While Artificial Intelligence can have extensive knowledge and can be a very good content generator, creativity remains, for now, the prerogative of the human being understood as a “holographic shard” that reflects the singularity of life. In the differentiations between Artificial Intelligence and the human being, I insisted on spiritual factors, on symbolic understanding and on the awareness of uniqueness built in relation to otherness.

The transformations brought by the digital world force us to rethink communication practices from the perspective of the reconstruction of the self and the recovery of the spiritual dimension of the human being, with all the symbolism implied by the image of placing man at the center of existence as such. Technological alienation must be overcome by cultivating creativity, interiority and meaning in a digital universe saturated with cultural content.

From the Philosophy of Bat to Nonduality

2025-12-03T10:44:46+02:00

Revisiting the article of Thomas Nagel, What Is It Like to Be a Bat? as well as the hard problem of consciousness, the present article tries to identify a solution to the possible matter-consciousness dualism and to the irreducibility of consciousness to simple material processes. This possible solution has in view the Hindu metaphysics, namely Vedantic non-dualism and that of Trika school from Kashmir. According to the latter, everything is Consciousness that limits itself to become Self-conscious. What we perceive as our own consciousness is actually a monad - that is, a whole, which fractally and holographically represents the Whole of Absolute Consciousness. Not only do Indian philosophies have this nondualistic vision, but also a series of contemporary Western philosophies bring back the issue of panpsychism. Therefore, the Simulation Theory can be linked to Abhinavagupta’s theory of existential limitations (Kañcukas) and with the universe as a reflection (Vimarśa) of the Light of Supreme Consciousness.

AI and GenAI as Tools in the Hands of Islamic Terrorist Organisations

2025-12-03T10:48:33+02:00

The paper demonstrates that AI, and currently GenAI, enable Islamic terrorist (jihadist) organisations to feel increasingly confident in the world of modern information and communication technologies. AI and GenAI have become highly effective tools in the hands of jihadist organisations, and their ease of use, wide and nearly unlimited availability combined with weak safeguards make them what can be described as intensifiers and catalysts of jihadism. GenAI provides a space for an almost revolutionary transformation of jihadist operations in terms of speed, efficiency and scale, while also allowing them to wage an effective “hallucinatory war”. The use of AI and GenAI by jihadist organisations focuses on three main areas: 1) personalised propaganda and disinformation; 2) interactive, selective recruitment and radicalisation; 3) combat applications and use on the battlefield (autonomous vehicles and drones). In this context, the religious and philosophical perspective is crucial. A challenging and problematic issue is AI’s alignment with societal values and Islamic teachings, and its potential use by jihadists.

Cyber-Theology of The Polis: Renegotiating The Ethics of Participation In The Age of AI

2025-12-03T10:54:53+02:00

In the digital age, the interplay of technology, theology, and politics presents novel challenges to public morality. Cyber-theology of the Polis offers a normative framework integrating ethics, spirituality, and digital realities. This study addresses the rise of cyberculture by developing cybermorality—an ethical approach to technology use that upholds human dignity. The research employs conceptual analysis to examine and harmonize key concepts in theology, ethics, and digital technology. Digital technology carries an ambivalent impact: while it enhances transparency, it also threatens democratic accountability through algorithms and cyberactivism. Principles of digital justice and agency integrity are emphasized to ensure fair, inclusive, and humane political participation. Furthermore, truth as relationship rejects reducing truth to mere data, stressing the critical importance of trust in the digital sphere. Theology serves as a prophetic voice against algorithmic dominance, providing an ethical-spiritual framework for a just, autonomous, and dignified digital society.

Philosophical and Theological Implications of Artificial Intelligence Developments in Political Communication: Indonesia’s Experience

2025-12-03T11:03:20+02:00

This study examines the philosophical and theological implications of artificial intelligence (AI) in political communication within Indonesia’s diverse religious and socio-political context. The 2024 presidential election marked a significant shift, as generative AI tools such as avatars and targeted messaging influenced campaign strategies. The purpose is to explore how AI challenges traditional concepts of human agency, authenticity, and moral responsibility in political discourse. This study employs a qualitative systematic literature review, drawing from the interdisciplinary sources on AI, ethics, and communication. A case analysis of Indonesia’s 2024 election was performed to contextualize these issues. The frameworks from communicative AI theory and theological ethics are applied to deepen the analysis. Results highlight tensions between rapid technological innovation and Indonesia’s religious-ethical values. These tensions reveal the need for nuanced policies that uphold democratic integrity and respect pluralistic beliefs. The study concludes that collaboration among technologists, policymakers, and religious leaders is essential to address AI’s impact on political legitimacy. This work contributes to integrating communicative AI theory with theological ethics and philosophy, offering guidance for pluralistic societies managing AI-driven political communication.

An apparently adorable tool: Using ghiblification in political communication

2025-12-03T11:07:48+02:00

PR specialists in political communication go with the trend; in 2025 they started using a tool inserted in ChatGPT, to “ghiblify” images, a word which made its way into vocabulary, but not (yet) into traditional dictionaries. “Ghiblification” refers to the process of generating images that mimic the art of the Japanese filmmaker Studio Ghibli. As Studio Ghibli is successful worldwide, so is the tool.

In order to understand the global success of Ghibli Studio anime, the study explores some of the myths and archetypes underlying their stories. Then it moves its focus on the ghiblification feature, both successful as well as sparking controversies, while looking at the ethics of using it. The research further concentrates on political communication and the official postings with ghiblified images of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. As politicians become 2D characters in new narratives we are looking at the reason why the tool is so popular across cultures. The main question regards the underlying values politicians wish to be connected to and the myths and archetypes from the collective unconscious their ghiblified images point to. Because universal myths and archetypes are once again used to build bridges between politicians and their public.

Committing to the Simulacrum: Negative Theology and the Ontological Crisis of the Political Event under Platform Capitalism

2025-12-03T11:11:49+02:00

This article explores the philosophical and theological implications of artificial intelligence within political communication, focusing not on technological functionality but on the ontological, ethical, and symbolic transformations it enacts. AI no longer operates merely as a tool of mediation but as a structural reconfiguration of political subjectivity, agency, and discourse. Drawing on the work of Jean Baudrillard, Alain Badiou, Slavoj Žižek, Walter Benjamin, Ernst Bloch, and Giorgio Agamben, the paper argues that AI functions as a simulacrum of participation, supplanting political will with predictive modeling, transforming truth into statistical probability, and replacing deliberative agency with interface-driven feedback. Central to the article is the analysis of contemporary political imaginaries as radically ambivalent: utopianism and techno-eschatology converge in platform capitalism to neutralize the Event in Badiou’s sense. AI’s predictive infrastructure forecloses the ontological surprise necessary for political rupture, thereby simulating futurity while eliminating messianic time. At stake is not merely the instrumentalization of political discourse but the annihilation of the very conditions under which political truth can emerge. Yet even within this saturation, the article locates residual theological motifs—errors, glitches, ruptures—that escape systematization and open a field of negative political theology. Ultimately, the article proposes that resistance in the age of algorithmic governance must take the form of fidelity without referent, of silence, interruption, and refusal to participate in the liturgy of feedback. In the face of a simulated totality, the possibility of the Event survives only as a structural glitch—a theological excess irreducible to computation, and thus the last site of political hope.

Artificial public space: Using AI to reframe the political discourse

2025-12-03T11:16:22+02:00

The article is devoted to an analysis of the AI’s influence on the political discourse. Artificial intelligence technologies are used not only for intelligence and new types of weapons, but also for interference in the politics of states. Such interference is carried out to reformat the existing public discourse that supports social order and create an artificial discourse dominated by generated narratives and political themes. The article examines the hypothesis that, in the context of secularization, the problem of the relationship between politics and religion is one of the significant topics of discussion within political philosophy. The growing influence of artificial intelligence on politics can be seen as one of the consequences of secularization and religion’s loss of its ability to shape political discourse. The authors intend to explore the mechanisms and cases of such reformatting of public discourse using AI to demonstrate an essential aspect of the application of artificial intelligence in politics to establish dominance or distort the meanings that support the order of a particular society. Contemporary politics is shaped by digital communication, which has radically changed the concept of publicity, participation in political discourse, and its structure. The networked communication landscape of digital platforms has replaced the unified, hierarchically organized media space of industrial society. In this new political reality, artificial intelligence technologies are attracting increased interest from states, which are increasingly focusing on their strategic potential and viewing them as a factor in the radical shift of the present that will determine the contours of the future. The prospects for their application cover all areas of state functioning, from the economy to culture, from security to education. The authors also present examples of using AI to gain political influence as a strategy of informational war and propaganda.