God-Jesus Robot

Sarah highlights that in many ways technology has expanded and strengthened religion. I agree with Sarah's observations; technology in many ways has enabled communication and connectedness where it wasn't before. At the same time, there are also definite detriments connected to the onslaught of technology, not least of all, pushing clashing cultures together. Taking the good and bad together, technology has, simply put, changed religion. This seems like a rather shallow observation, so let's take a step back.

The Greek word, Teknos, originally referred to not what we think of as technology today, but to art. Modern technology and art are not so different, they tend towards different purposes, but are both creations. In the societal shift from the late Paleolithic era to the Pleistocene, we see a change in human society from nomadic hunter-gatherers to a more agrarian and rooted lifestyle. In his article, Guthrie points out this change in lifestyle was accompanied by a shift in the model of religion. I think that it is important to note that a hunter-gatherer lifestyle is nature dependent. Game and edible flora all grow naturally until found and hunted/gathered. The agrarian lifestyle, while still at the mercy of weather, is more calculated. The farmer produces... creates... his own food. The shift from hunter-gatherer to agrarian lifestyle is a shift from being one element or player in nature, to being one who manipulates nature for his own intention. I guess what I'm trying to get at is that the mental shift from hunter to farmer and from less technology to more is reflective of the shift in art, from naturalistic reflective art to abstract but purposeful creation.

What does this tell us about technology and modern religion? If our art and our metaphor reflect our lifestyle and technology, perhaps our hardware software metaphor isn't so far off the mark. Furthermore, if it is as Guthrie suggests, then our religion, which is but a form of metaphor, is reflective of our lifestyle, which is reflective of our climate! Guthrie explains that a shift in the orbit of Earth around the Sun rapidly increased the average temperature of the planet, softening our glacial climates into more temperate ones more favorable to humans, along with many kinda of life. This shift made farming as a lifestyle feasible. This viewpoint is further supported by Jared Diamond in his book Guns, Germs, and Steel, where he argues that all differences in human societal development and culture are resultant from climatic and geographical differences. If this is the case our technology, and likewise our religion, is entirely a consequence of our surroundings.

I must add a disclaimer to this post. I absolutely believe in causality, and to me, it is entirely feasible that religion and our idea of God is only a mental abstract, and completely resultant from our environment. This, to me, does not retract from religion at all. It does not mean that religion is wrong or false, only that it is abstract. If anything, this makes it more diverse in its application and though we must interpret the meaning of its metaphor, as a pure abstraction it is more powerful than it could be any other way.