Technology and Religion

Our origin is a great mystery, but it may not be so mysterious soon. Research into the “God Particle” in Geneva is being undertaken, to try and recreate the same conditions that resulted just after the big bang. It is known that the creation of the world with all the steps involved, all the chemical processes and exact sequence of events, was a very rare thing to have occured. In fact the odds were against us, so it seems that there must have been someone or something behind the engineering of this sequence of events. There must be some purpose that we are here. The fact that humans have been given the capacity to produce endless amounts of bits of information, reveals that we are intelligent agents, but for what purpose? I do not know. In the human body, our DNA is made up of proteins, which are engineers in themselves, very complex machines, really. But now that we know how they work, we can change our evolution patterns. We have become engineers of life itself, and this is not something we had real direct control over hundreds or thousands of years ago, this is a new emerging science. So where do we draw the line? And now that we have cracked these DNA codes, we are trying to reverse engineer the process to find answers…is this what our engineer would have wanted? It seems that technology has become the new religion, as we put so much faith in it…

3 Responses to “Technology and Religion”

  1. Liam says:

    Technology has become another thing a lot of people are content to not understand, and so will blindly put faith in it. It seems to be the more I learn, the more I discover there’s more things to learn. It strikes me a lot of people will rely on technology, religion, or many other things, to avoid what are otherwise very uncomfortable realities.

    Of course the agnostic in me immediately takes issue with the idea we need a purpose, that we, our planet, or the universe could not have come about through ‘natural’ forces, and if Hera and Zeus are really that concerned with us trying to uncover some understanding about the universe we’re living in. : )

  2. Henry Balen says:

    According to some cosmological theories there are an infinite number of universes each with different physical properties. If this is the case then at least one (or more) of them would be our Universe. This may mean that our Universe is rare, but does not mean that the odds were against us and therefore does not mean that there has to be a creator.

    (This also ties in with the quantum computer – which some says relies on a multiverse…)

  3. sieber says:

    Take a look at today’s editorial column in the NYTimes, reporting on the “God Gene”. In the column Nicholas Kristof claims that we have a genetic predisposition to religion (I use the word “claim” instead of reports because he’s writing as an editorialist and not a journalist). He writes “the evidence is explored in “The God Gene,” a fascinating book published recently by Dean Hamer, a prominent American geneticist. Dr. Hamer even identifies a particular gene, VMAT2… People with one variant of that gene tend to be more spiritual, he found, and those with another variant to be less so.”

    Of course, Kristof, bless his equivocating heart, never distinguishes between superstition and spirituality in the possible role of the gene. Indeed, superstition may have unique evolutionary advantages, for instance, preventing us from an overreliance on the empirical and compelling us to rely instead on our intuition. But, hey, the column is about selling newspapers.