Shannon's model for communication is not only a good model for the Mathematical Theory of Communication, but can also be seen as a model for religion itself. My experience with religion is limited to Christianity, specifically Lutheranism; however, in order to keep this relevant and a little less monotonous, I'm going to take on Christianity as a whole, and how it is, I think, changing.
Shannon's model spoke of the information source being the person/machine generating the message. In the case of Christianity, I will say the information source is God, Jesus, Holy Spirit... Triune Self.
The transmitter in this model is the encoder of the message.. let's say for religion it would be the individuals who wrote the Bible - the prophets, deciples, etc.
The channel is the way the signal is transmitted: religiously - by the Bible.
The receiver decodes the message from the original signal. In this instance, the receiver would be the religious leaders - pastors, fathers, pope, etc.
And finally, the destination is the person or thing at the other end: us.
With this series of information, the concept seems pretty straight forward, with little room for error (besides the fact that human beings tend to misinterpret and confuse actual meanings of Biblical teachings). But for this case - we're going to pretend that what God means when he spoke the words of the Bible are actually what are being told through this pathway. The problem occurs with the noise source. This noise source as seen as a signal interference, which can actually be considered the incapability of man to understand the Biblical teachings, inaccurate translations, as well as the complete lack of understanding for what the Bible is actually teaching.
For example. The biggest deal in the news these days with the "crazy right-winged Christians" is not only the fact that clearly because I'm a democrat and believe all people were created equal am going to Hell, but also that the Boyscouts CANNOT have gay boys and men involved in their program. Apparently, the Bible talks somewhere about the Boyscouts of America and gay people being an abomination so tisk tsk no can do. Well, I can't tell you this for sure, but I'm pretty positive that the Bible does not say anything about the Boyscouts OR gay people being an abomination to God's earth. Now, before I go on a complete tangent about where Christianity has been going in this country, I would like to request that people stop using these "noise sources" as truth. If we're all sticking to the New Testament here, and I'm pretty sure in this blog we are, since I'm talking about Christianity, all of this hate, maltreatment, judgements, and bigotry (ehem Fox News) should actually be absolete, yes? I mean, my goodness, didn't Jesus feed the poor, heal the sick, disapprove of the rich tax collectors, and actually have all of the basic attributes of a liberal?
What really brought up this analogy of the noise source for me is that as I was watching the news about the boyscouts story, a woman came on the screen and stated "I speak for all Christians in saying that no gay people should be allowed in the boyscouts". I was not only horrified by lack of acknowledgement to the basic human principle of everybody being created equal, but also to the fact that my religion is now being seen as a negative term. Do I even want to tell people I'm a Christian anymore? I don't want to be seen as a crazy lady that wants to picket clean air or stop the poorer individuals in my community from having a place to live.
The idea of Christianity seems to be known now as more of an intollerant group of people than what it originally was suppose to be about... Maybe it's good that I'm going into the field of psychology.. a lot of people these days seem to need a good psychiatrist or heavy dose of meds to regain a goodness of heart.
I agree that Christianity is headed in a different direction, and as a Christian,I'm not sure how I feel about it. While I also agree that part of the problem is the noise source, I think the other part is the receiver who is decoding the messages. There are so many pastors/priests who are older than 50, and seem to refuse that the world is changing. So as the receivers who are decoding the message, they are decoding it from their perspective, which is not necessarily the same as the young-mid adult generation who are the reason for this changing world. As the receivers send the information to the destination, the people of their church, the information is biased. Those people who believe 100% of what the pastor says never really have a chance, just as the destination doesn't have a chance in getting the right code if the receiver decodes the message incorrectly.
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