Religion and technology

Qingu

One of the most common myths of our generation is the "rise of the machines." We create technology, and then that technology turns on its makers. This myth has antecedents in many religions, from the golem myth in Judaism to the oldest religions where primordial gods (the titans, Apsu and Tiamat) gave birth to new generations of gods (Zeus, Marduk) who turned on them.

A lot of people view technology as a sort of polar opposite to religion, mysticism, or God. For many people, an idealized religious person resembles an ascetic who lives apart from society (and thus, technology) and spends his or her time contemplating a god.

However, every major religion today is wholly dependent on technology—specifically, the technology of the codex, or book. Islam could not exist without the Quran, and the Quran is simply a piece of technology. Similarly, Bibles are codified selections of scrolls (themselves pieces of technology), bound in a single volume. Hindu sacred texts were not written down as coherently as the Bible or the Quran, and there was a long history of oral recitation in India, but various versions of these stories and laws were eventually codified.



Many of these religions is more than just dependent on technology. They venerate their technological basis as holy. The Bible and Quran asserts themselves as holy documents—as divine pieces of technology. The Mahabharata and Ramayana, in their texts, claim to have been recorded by Ganesha under instruction from holy men (Vyasa and another dude who's name begins with a V). While believers do not worship the books, they do worship the ideas expressed in the pages of these books, and follow the moral guidelines the books proscribe. For much of Christian and Islamic history, insulting or contesting these pieces of technology was considered blasphemy and punishable by death.

Richard Dawkins talks a lot about this, saying that religions can best be understood in terms of memes (ideas that replicate). Memes are really nothing more than learned behaviors of varying complexity. Technology, on the other hand, is something more. A piece of technology—like a stick-spear—requires a meme to create, but to some extent it also contains the meme, the instructions that lead to its creation. If memes are like genes, than pieces of technology are like phenotypes—they are idea-patterns that have hardened into physical bodies. When exposed to brains capable of reverse engineering, a spear contains instructions and the ability to create more spears.

Today, there are probably a lot more Bibles and Qurans than spears in the world. Holy books are the most widespread pieces of technology I can think of. They replicate with remarkable fidelity over the years. And unlike less powerful pieces of technology (like spears), they have the ability to move and control human beings. For much of history, human societies arranged themselves and their societies in accordance with what they believed to be instructions in these books. Muslims even define people according to their allegiance to these books, e.g. the "people of the book." Perhaps the biggest reason these pieces of technology are so widespread is that they contain instructions which effectively move humans to make more of them.

Chinese printing bibles:

In this context, then, "religion" can be defined as the process by which certain pieces of technology reproduce.

I realize that a lot of people probably prefer to view religion from other contexts, such as ideas about gods and human cultures. I don't necessarily think that these contexts are mutually exclusive with the context I'm talking about here, and I'm certainly not arguing that this is the only way or the best way to understand religion. But I think it's an interesting way to discuss religion. So discuss!

Quid

God dammit I'm not scrolling left and right to read your text.