The Techno-Religion
Adherents of a new faith
We are living in different time periods.
I write every issue a day before I send it.
So, when I mention time points and periods, like yesterday, today, three days ago,
It is at the time of writing.
Not the time you are receiving it.
I hope we are understood on this now.
When we think of religions, our minds seem to go to towering stone cathedrals, incense and devotees counting prayers with beads.
Your mental image of religion may differ from my description. This may be because you are more familiar with religions other than Christendom.
And the chances are that you are bombarded with expressions of religion.
Billions of people all over the world profess one faith or the other.
Christianity's dizzying number of denominations, sects and churches is an umbrella for over 2 billion people. This is followed closely by Islam with over a billion professed adherents.
The numbers are clear: the world is essentially religious.
Despite rising atheism and the deliberate secularisation of modern society, religions don't seem to be going anywhere soon.
Almost universally, religious motifs are bold and conspicuous.
They stamp themselves to the ground and scream, "See, I'm here".
Why are we religious?/ Where did religions come from?
Anthropologists have offered several fuzzy attempts at answering these questions.
More sadly, the 'answers' are so varied and conflicting. And there are so many "authoritative" opinions that one publication opined that it seems there are more theories than theorists.
What is worse?
Prehistoric people didn't leave behind any treatises explaining why they invented rituals.
And fossil bones can't tell us anything about what ancient people really believed in and why?
I think it's time we accept that what we have are at their best: educated guesses.
And we may never know.
However, even as religious expression continues to wax, the question of the existence of God is a debate that seems to have quietened.
Once, the world was roughly divided into two groups:
the faithfuls, who adamantly advocated that God or gods existed and swore that anyone who disagreed would suffer forever in a fiery hell,
And the "ungodly" who betted that either God had never existed or he had stopped existing at some point.
For this second group, today's sermons were yesterday's bed time stories taken too literally.
This dichotomy doesn't seem to linger till today.
Is there a God or not? Most people don't seem to care.
They may attend a local church or engage in other religious activity like yoga and horoscopes, but for them, it is not a really big deal.
Certainly not something to moderate heated debates over.
We'd rather pick two athletes and argue who's better.
In this present techno-consumerist age, the decades-long coronation of the individual over unseen guardian spirits, a new religion seems to be emerging.
And from the most unlikely of places.
Faith as a crowbar
Our human species demonstrated certain unique qualities that pushed us from mere African apes to unarguable globe-sweeping dominance.
Well, we know it wasn't just tool-making.
Other human species, like the Neanderthals, were also adept at fashioning oil lamps and flint needles.
What we have discovered is that the human trick was our ability to cooperate.
Unlike other animals which are stuck with unchanging patterns of coalitions, hierarchies or social castes, humans can morph their societal structures.
Armed with an unparalleled communicative dexterity, and a brain that could fashion imagined realities, we built cultures, nations and corporations.
While common chimpanzees follow rules set by an alpha male, which is further constrained by their animal behavioural patterns, humans can transform our own rules in unique ways.
One way we do this is the slow development of ethical systems.
Religions are mostly good as ethical systems.
What is good, what is bad, and why?
This moral definitions are very significant for gauging acceptable mores. We mark certain behaviour as acceptable within the framework of values.
For most religions, values were handed down by divine personages through human representatives, and modes of behaviour prescribed in accordance with the imperative of the inherent sacredness of these directives.
Coupled with the fear of divine punishment, even though they may be meted out by human actors in less than cosmically gruesome ways, such as public shunning and excommunication, religion helped to rein human excesses.
The human turn
Humanism, emerged in defiance to this ethical system built on superstition.
It crowned human values, mores which guaranteed freedom and dignity and argued for the supplantation of the sacred.
Man replaced the sacred. As the crown of evolution, his needs, interests and abilities were to be prioritized above every other consideration.
Human rights, justice and equality were the gospel. Individualism over collective
Where tech is brewed
Silicon Valley is the geek's home planet. From this open enclave, precious technology into the world.
The best of the innovators from this land are our modern-day prophets and saviours.
They are giving us the gifts that religion promised us.
Prosperity, better health and comfort.
And they are also charting the trajectory of our human destiny into unforayed territory.
**To be continued**