Why technology is religious

I grew up in a small suburb in Northern Italy, where Catholicism is more than just a belief system.

Beneath the surface of their benevolent exterior, there may have been a subtle desire to take charge, even if it was only for the local fundraiser. Religion played a significant role in everything from community events to youth activities, giving the local priests a power that was as pervasive as it was unspoken. Participation in community life was inextricably linked to the prevailing Catholic values. This narrative was so dominant that stepping outside meant distancing oneself from the community. In the Pulitzer Prize-winning words of David Foster Wallace, trying to explain Catholicism to my fellow co-residents would be like trying to explain water to a fish.

I grew up Catholic, and then I distanced myself from the Church in my early teens. I didn't have a strong rationale for doing that. I was sick of a pretentiously benevolent scaffolding of trite morality and thought I knew better. I thought the rational argument for the existence of God was all I needed to provide my life with some trajectory. So, for the past 15 years, I abandoned any desire to go deeper, I departed from religion, and I branded myself as an atheist. Little did I know.

How unique is my experience, though?

People all over the world are not that into religion anymore, especially in wealthier countries. Today, the West is moving away from religion just like other prosperous places, and the U.S. is losing its religious touch faster than many other countries. You've probably noticed this happening around you, too.

There are a bunch of reasons why religion's on the decline, but a big one is changing views on having lots of kids. For ages, societies typecasted women as just for having babies, looking down on stuff like divorce, contraception, and non-reproductive sexual behaviors. Most religions were all about having a big family, especially when infant mortality was high, and people didn't live as long.

In the U.S., politics has also played its part. Since the '90s, the Republican Party's stance on issues like same-sex marriage and abortion, backed by conservative Christian views, has pushed away some, especially young liberals, while the Catholic Church started losing followers amid news of sexual abuse scandals, which made a lot of people rethink their Sunday mass attendance.

Sure, it's hard to conceive a religiousness comeback, especially in the West.

Seculars like my teen self don't understand religiousness beyond religion because, frankly, they don't know enough about religion to recognize it. The first objection I would have made to this argument a decade ago is that I don't believe in the existence of God in the same way I don't believe in the existence of elves. I, therefore, can't be religious.

Antonio García Martínez explains that religion isn't just about gods, rituals, sermons, or faith. These concepts are primarily associated with Christianity. Other religions, such as Buddhism and Confucian ancestor worship, do not have explicit deities. Judaism or Hinduism, for example, focuses more on practice than beliefs. Actions matter more than thoughts. Religion is a value system that governs societal behaviors before it is a belief in God.

Like in the first law of thermodynamics, religion is never created nor destroyed in any given society but merely transformed from one form to another. In 1965, 50%+ of Americans were Protestant. Now that number is less than 10%. This collapse of mainline Protestant churches created a moral vacuum in American public life, and since this intense spiritual hunger had to be filled, religion invaded politics. Antonio calls this the Steady State Theory of Religion: religious fervor doesn't ebb and flow. It's just differently directed at any given time.

There's no less of religion now than ever before.

Two of the most sophisticated contemporary intellectuals, Ross Douthat and Peter Thiel, are Christians. Thiel is heavily influenced by Rene Girard, one of the greatest Judeo-Christian scholars of the past century. Orson Scott Card is a Mormon. He has been one of the most influential writers in recent decades. Knausgaard's books are full of Christian confessional memoir tradition. Ferrante is a Catholic writer (even though she's a skeptic).

In tech, Patrick Collison, though "theologically lapsed," is "culturally embedded in Catholicism." American Dynamism investor Katherine Boyle is helping lead a counter-narrative of faith in America. Trae Stephens was raised in a Protestant tradition and developed a "deep connection to [his] mission, [his] quest in life is a profession of vocation." Sheryl Sandberg considers Judaism her home and super important to her in life and death. OpenAI's messiah Sam Altman, though not particularly religious, is culturally very Jewish, too. When ousted by the OpenAI board on a Good Friday, ~700 of his disciples vowed their loyalty, even if it meant moving to Microsoft. On the third day after his ousting, Sam rose from the dead to fulfill the promise of redemption for AGI.

The last one may have been a stretch, but you get the point. So, is religiousness making a comeback?

Perhaps. I see that both secular "left progressive" and "libertarian" traditions — both highly secular in their current forms — are not so innovative right now. There is a lot of recycling; their most essential thinkers probably lie in the past, not the future. That opens up a lot more wiggle room for religious thinkers.

The decline of religious practice in the West has led to constellations of ideas like Wokeness, which can be seen as a replacement for traditional religions like Christianity. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the story is told from the victim's side. Think of Cain and Abel, Moses leading the Jews out of Egypt, and Christ as the innocent victim of Pontius Pilate. If you map the woke religion in this Judeo-Christian context, it is not wildly divergent. It's one toggle switch away.

But a secular movement imitating a religious narrative is nothing new. Tolstoy wanted to be more Christian than the Christians, inciting the revolution of the poor, the oppressed, and the victims. We are dealing with a lot of the same themes. It should come as no surprise then that Pope Francis, in this light, is often called out for his socialist views, which often favor the oppressed.

My Catholic upbringing comes in handy as I try to spot the residue of religiousness in disguise within contemporary secular culture. The new priests of the Church of Woke call people to their great temples of political correctness. They hunt ruthlessly for heretics, with the same zeal as the Inquisition of Roman Catholic Spain.

Christianity says we're all born with sin because of Adam and Eve, and we can't fix this alone. Wokeness has a similar idea, but it's about the past of people with white skin. Christianity talks about big sacrifices to make up for humanity's sins. Wokeness demands forsaking property, status, and career and rejecting heretical ideas, books, films, friends, and even family. Christianity values being holy and pure. Wokeness also wants to purify your existence from microplastics, fossil fuels, and biases. Christianity teaches that you need a priest to connect with God. Wokeness also provides a caste of academically trained priests who set the rules that you shouldn't question to avoid being shunned.

But here's the real difference.

Religious and seculars alike have been historically very concerned with the cult of the victims. But the issue is that by having these concerns about the victims, you end up victimizing other people. People did a lot of things in the past. Yet, somehow, wokes pretend to have an absolute sense of who the victims are. Here's the factual difference between religion and secularism – Christianity says none of us are pure victims. Only Christ is. Everybody betrayed Christ. It wasn't the Jews or the Romans. So there's no chance anyone could be better.

Alright, what do you do with all this bad history then?

The woke version is that we must separate good people from bad people. Hence, you have to punish evil people and provide reparations for the good ones. The Orthodox-Christian version is that the history was wrong, BUT you must find a way to forgive. There is some balance that Orthodox Christianity tries to strike. The reality is – and I suspect many now feel this way – history wasn't that bad, and people are pretty done feeling guilty about history.

What they still need to be done with is their need for meaning.

People are seeking meaning that they feel isn't provided by institutional Christianity. Still, not even by secular "left progressive" and "libertarian" groups, which are currently not very innovative and are losing their influence, creating an intellectual vacuum for religious thinkers. There are many different reasons why institutional Christianity is in trouble, but the fundamental problem is that you can't rationalize. There's too much of a need for meaning. The woke religion filled the vacuum. It is worse than what it replaced, but more is needed for what was before.

There is a religion-shaped hole in every person.

We have found an answer to this in secular times, turning not merely to one new God but a whole pantheon. For those who value nature, we provide the climate god, who will demand endlessly costly sacrifices and condemn all climate-change deniers to a painful demise. For those looking for a bit of fun, we have the pleasure gods, encouraging a continuous pursuit of self under the cover of "you deserve it" (or, in its more understated and medicalized variant, "self-care"). Standing above all the others, the Zeus of this pantheon is the God of Woke. This great deity is unknowable and undefinable, continually changing its form, expecting its acolytes to slavish devotion and acts of incredible mental and doctrinal contortion.

The faithful must tear down their traditions, social networks, citizenship, and ancestry and then, having thrown all else upon the fire, calmly stride into the sacrificial flame, proclaiming their eternal unworthiness.

Wokeness is indeed a religion. But the associated God provides no grace, faith, or redemption.

I think an honest appraisal of its effects might induce seculars and fence-sitters alike to reflect on the trade they've made and perhaps be tempted to hearken back with fondness to the "bad old days" when religious life was centered on, well, religion.

So, where do we go from here?

The mean reversion to religiousness will start within the tech intelligentsia first. Let me explain.

Generally, when people talk about technology, they don't involve religion. In academic circles, where atheism is the default, religious views on technology aren't taken seriously. These views often reject tech progress without really understanding it. Religion comes into the conversation mainly through the idea that technology, rather than a God, will save the world.

Silicon Valley has long ignored religion while appropriating its language. Some pockets of crypto, Elon Musk, and, until recently, the Effective Altruism movement enjoy a cult-like following led by messianic leaders. Direct-to-consumer shoe brands have faithful evangelists. And very early investors in start-ups are literally referred to as "angels."

The infiltration of the language of religion into the tech parlance is more than just a coincidence. It's not that technological progress needs religious guidance. Instead, it's the nature of technology that naturally brings religious thoughts and ways of thinking to the forefront. This is due to the characteristics of the medium itself, not because of specific actions or intentions of technologists or religious people.

Technology is fundamentally religious.

Let's talk about TV. Different media types significantly affect us, both inside and outside. McLuhan said that the medium is the real message, meaning we must understand how these communication tools shape us into who we are. Essentially, they're like an extension of ourselves!

TV is seriously powerful! It can reach anyone, anywhere, anytime. And it's created a world where we're experts at imagining things that aren't even real. This has greatly impacted our society, both technically and socially. It's led to a lot of what Disney calls "Imagineering." That's a fancy blend of “imagination” and “engineering.” TV has shaped our culture to be all about dreaming up and building new things.

Which isn’t in and of itself a bad thing!

We weren't supposed to worship the TV or its stars. BUT. Because of technology at the time, imagination became more powerful and influential than religion. Instead of taking responsibility for the present, we imagined a better world and tried to make it happen. We celebrated, created, and broke free from old ways of thinking. No gods or souls were necessary.

Any product of the human imagination created by the right “Imagineers” would be suitable for humanity and the world—a thesis readily applied to computers, which became ever more "visionary" and friendly-looking under the leadership of "Imagineers" and computer people like Steve Jobs. The televisual medium fostered and broadcasted the message that the Internet was the culmination of the right people imagining the right things. Through online tech, everyone's imagination would be equally emancipated to the benefit of all.

What could go wrong?

Until the election of Donald Trump, most technologists and lay people gave the same answer: nothing! But Trump's election attuned everyone to the reality that our machines did not listen to or care about our fantasies, no matter how pure. Suddenly, critics from inside and outside the tech establishment arose with panicked messages about how our digital devices would not save politics but destroy democracy instead.

Trump was hardly the only manifestation of trouble in paradise. From Brexit to Brazil, from Putin to Palestine, the liberal international order was suddenly in mortal peril due to populists, nationalists, and autocrats with the audacity to use new tech to their advantage. Most of the hysteria surrounded social media, which relied on digital tech-like servers but delivered a patently televisual product.

We are already seeing the great reboot of "Imagineering" institutions into religious ones. John Lennon's call to "imagine no religion" has been dumped in favor of the commandment that humans and machines alike must internalize, systematize, and evangelize "woke" doctrines. People uncomfortable with the duties, claims, and responsibilities of religion must accept that their machines have forced them into a world where—culturally and psychologically—they must join a religion or die.

Economics and engineering answer the “how,” but it’s religion (or religions in secular clothes) that answers the “why”. There are no atheists in the, well, anything.

Humans are incapable of living while staring into the abyss of total materialist nihilism, not to mention their looming mortality, for very long. Those who genuinely internalize that view are likely in a dark pit of drugs, clinical depression, or both. Religion is a set of rules and beliefs that only a few people interested in truth care about. Most people don't give a shit about the truth or understand it. They just wanna let their hair down at an ABBA cover band concert.

The last one may have been a stretch, but you get the point. So, is religiousness making a comeback?

I grew up Catholic, and then I distanced myself from the Church in my early teens. I didn't have a strong rationale for doing that. I was sick of a pretentiously benevolent scaffolding of trite morality and thought I kPerhaps. I see that both secular "left progressive" and "libertarian" traditions — both highly secular in their current forms — are not so innovative right now. There is a lot of recycling; their most essential thinkers probably lie in the past, not the future. That opens up a lot more wiggle room for religious thinkers. new better. I thought the rational argument for the existence of God was all I needed to provide my life with some trajectory. So, for the past 15 years, I abandoned any desire to go deeper, I departed from religion, and I branded myself as an atheist. Little did I know.

It’s s weird to think that religion could exert such influence on community life. In that small town, the Church was the hub of cultural activities, social events, and financial administration. The religious leaders, including the pastor, priests, and sacristans, shepherded the community through the Word of Christ. The altar boys collected donations to renovate the community center and build a new basketball court. The Church organized charity raffles, football tournaments, and eveI grew up Catholic, and then I distanced myself from the Church in my early teens. I didn't have a strong rationale for doing that. I was sick of a pretentiously benevolent scaffolding of trite morality and thought I knew better. I thought the rational argument for the existence of God was all I needed to provide my life with some trajectory. So, for the past 15 years, I abandoned any desire to go deeper, I departed from religion, and I branded myself as an atheist. Little did I know. n ABBA cover band concerts, which I wish I could forget. I even learned woodworking at Church. Religion was about more than just tasteless round wafers and purple robes. It was a way of life for the community.