i'm not interested in deifying anything. meister eckhart put it well: "God free me from my idea of God." divinizing stuff is fair game though. reductionist materialism (what huston smith calls "scientism")is in many ways a throwback to the old christian world-hating dualism: the idea that matter is worthless or evil. that's not the only game in town. esoteric spiritualities tend to be based on the idea of finding or co-creating the divine in all things, ourselves, our environment, and yes, our equipment. If you find the divine anywhere then computers are no problem. there is no need to confuse them with consciousness: turing machines have assisted spirituality for a long time, from the monks who invented clocks to tell them what time to pray to chaos magicians doing online rituals with cutup machines.
Isn't there a quote that "If there is no god, man will make his own." (or something fairly close, I think.
Can't say that I've ever deified(sp?) computers or other machines, gotten some sort of almost spiritual connection to them, yes, but worshiping, no. That and I tend to consider the whole worship thing a serious waste of time anyway.
I don't understand the universe, where we came from, where we go when we're dead, and dozens of other things. Those I can entertain the notion of something more powerful than myself playing a role.
But computers and machines I understand. We built them. How can we deify something we've created?
I don't see a fundamental difference in the mechanations of the universe and those of a computer. Both are very complex, and both have emergent properties to various degrees.
I deify technology somewhat as it expresses my own ability to create and manifest complexity in the universe. I don't worship the product, but rather the process of creation.
Just a note: as the community founder, this is *more* than welcome here, and I love the discussion you've started. I was out of town for a few, so I'll make a few more comments once I've slept and recovered, but this is just what this community is for.
At war? Not my Science, not my Religiont3knomanserApril 1 2005, 02:05:28 UTC
Seriously, for as long as I can remember, even back in that good ol' Baptist Sunday school, I was spinning heresies that tied religion and science back together, ditching the dogma and instead seperating spirituality from fact. Or tying them together. Or whatever. The point is, I've never seen a divide- I only see stupid people.
Perhaps, you've stated the reason that we've brought back the old religions- they offer something that the steel and electrons lack, and the steel and electrons give us something we lack.
Threats aren't the only reason to seek a higher power, or, in my path, to be one. Just everyday life can do that- you don't need a famine to turn to god, how about a healthy dose of early twenty-first century angst?
Nobody that I know of is diefing technology- I don't think you can be a technofetishist and really diefy the tools. The technology is a gateway to understanding, from being a slick upgrade to the good-ol' tools, to providing a new set of metaphors and concepts that we can use to explain the world.
Re: At war? Not my Science, not my ReligionomegixApril 1 2005, 19:49:47 UTC
There are some (and let me clarify that I disagree with these) that have diefied technology by stating that there are a new breed of familiars in the internet. They have taken reality, which is wires and protocols, and turned it into a happy magical land where fairies float around in the packets and guide your data to its destination. This is perhaps, in my opinion, the most ignorant deification of technology I have ever heard of.
Another example of deification is the belief that the internet is already joined with the collective unconsciousness. I take this one a little more seriously, but equally as wrong. In short time we may be able to emulate telepathy through technology, and when that happens, who knows? But it hasn't happened. The internet was constructed by man, and we know how it works. How can we deify it?
Divination I won't touch. If you can do with with chicken bones I'm sure you can do with with an ethernet card.
Re: At war? Not my Science, not my Religiont3knomanserApril 1 2005, 20:33:01 UTC
My understanding of the claim, which is one I'm willing to accept, is that the technology has become a new habitat for entities that have existed, and has also become a breeding ground for new ones. My experience suggests that this is true- and it is not a diefication of technology- it's a recognition that cyberrealms are as spiritual in nature, not that technology itself is a god.
While I wouldn't say that the Internet is part of the collective unconsious, I think any animist would have to recognize it as an extremely powerful consiousness.
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Can't say that I've ever deified(sp?) computers or other machines, gotten some sort of almost spiritual connection to them, yes, but worshiping, no. That and I tend to consider the whole worship thing a serious waste of time anyway.
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Those I can entertain the notion of something more powerful than myself playing a role.
But computers and machines I understand. We built them. How can we deify something we've created?
I don't see a fundamental difference in the mechanations of the universe and those of a computer. Both are very complex, and both have emergent properties to various degrees.
I deify technology somewhat as it expresses my own ability to create and manifest complexity in the universe. I don't worship the product, but rather the process of creation.
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Perhaps, you've stated the reason that we've brought back the old religions- they offer something that the steel and electrons lack, and the steel and electrons give us something we lack.
Threats aren't the only reason to seek a higher power, or, in my path, to be one. Just everyday life can do that- you don't need a famine to turn to god, how about a healthy dose of early twenty-first century angst?
Nobody that I know of is diefing technology- I don't think you can be a technofetishist and really diefy the tools. The technology is a gateway to understanding, from being a slick upgrade to the good-ol' tools, to providing a new set of metaphors and concepts that we can use to explain the world.
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Another example of deification is the belief that the internet is already joined with the collective unconsciousness. I take this one a little more seriously, but equally as wrong. In short time we may be able to emulate telepathy through technology, and when that happens, who knows? But it hasn't happened. The internet was constructed by man, and we know how it works. How can we deify it?
Divination I won't touch. If you can do with with chicken bones I'm sure you can do with with an ethernet card.
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While I wouldn't say that the Internet is part of the collective unconsious, I think any animist would have to recognize it as an extremely powerful consiousness.
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This leads to all sorts of questions. Like, what entities? How do they breed there? Why is the internet considered a realm?
And just to expose my own ignorance, what is an animist?
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