When Technology Becomes Belief

An analysis of Techno-Liberalism as a political faith movement and its parallel with traditional religion.

This is part 3 of a five-part series examining the influence of Big Tech and its Techno-Liberalism ideology from philosophical, religious, and political perspectives.

There is an uneasy and competing relationship between Techno-Liberalism and religion. Techno-Liberalism is the dominant social and political force in the world today and one of the most powerful universal movements since the Reformation.

Techno-Liberalism finds traditional religions irrelevant, viewing their absolute dogmatic structures as an impediment to societal growth.They believe their algorithms and technological solutions far superior to anything that religion, traditional customs, or even past governments and systems have ever provided.

Politics and religion are near-synonyms. Both establish and regulate laws, rules, moral values in order for a society to function. The difference is that the traditional religious systems identify the Divine as the final authority, and modern politics relies on social consent, secular reasoning, and scientific analysis, while undergirded by an ideology such as capitalism or socialism. Instead of worshiping a creator or the supernatural, it focuses on innovation, science, and engineering.

Techno-Liberalism falls within the category of an all-embracing political movement.

However, Techno-Liberalism shares the same enthusiasm as religious movements for the shaping of a better and stable world. This political and economic theory has an emotional attachment, giving hope for a better future if we simply believe and support their aims.

David F. Noble, author of The Religion of Technology would disagree. He believes that techno-liberalism is a religion. He sees technology’s historic development as a means to recover mankind’s lost divinity and deliverance.¹

Patrick J. Deneen, an American political scientist, believes the power shift is so profound that technology is our culture, and furthermore is “a tradition-destroying and custom-undermining dynamic that replaces cultural practices, memory, and beliefs.”²

Another view is that modern religion is inapplicable for the modern world and should be ignored. Neil Postman: In his highly quoted 1992 book, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology was very critical and leery about the newfound powers of the tech revolution. He concluded that religion would be a casualty, arguing that the tech revolution finds old systems and traditions such as religion, family, politics, history, invisible and irrelevant. They do not fit into the new paradigm of the synthesis of technology, capitalism, and algorithms. Therefore they are unnecessary to address with their outdated ideas. All these categories find a new definition under the technology canopy of life and living.³

To every Old World belief, habit, or tradition, there was and still is a technological alternative. To prayer, the alternative is penicillin; to family roots, the alternative is mobility; to reading, the alternative is television; to restraint, the alternative is immediate gratification; to sin, the alternative is psychotherapy; to political ideology, the alternative is popular appeal established through scientific polling. There is even an alternative to the painful riddle of death, as Freud called it. The riddle may be postponed through longer life, and then perhaps solved altogether by cryogenics. At least, no one can easily think of a reason why not.⁴

He continued that science is now our final authority in all human matters.⁵

The historian, philosopher, and best-selling author, Yuval Noah Harari, believes humanism is the framework for the current western world order and empowered by modern technology. Because of this, religion has lost its status to influence modern society. Humanism, according to Harari, usurps “the part that God played in Christianity and Islam,” and it now singularly “gives meaning to the cosmos.”⁶ He asserts that religion is focused on order while science is about power.⁷

Harari maintains that the traditions and practices of traditional faiths are based on presuppositions that omit genetic engineering, computer science, biology, and artificial intelligence. If you want to understand how the world works, operates, and be a contributing member of society, one should be reading scientific journals, not the Scriptures.⁸. The power has shifted from Mecca, Jerusalem, and Rome to Silicon Valley. The Valley has “little to do with God, and everything to do with technology.” ⁹

What will happen if this belief system in technology doesn’t meet expectations and lead to one or all of the following: higher rents and mortgages, increased food costs, lower wages, more taxes, higher unemployment, and costlier medical services? A parallel to such a condition was the results of the French Revolution, where the average person became less well-off because of the social and economic policies enforced by a corrupt new ruling class. It led to their overthrow and the rise of Napoleon and totalitarianism as a solution.

Another result could be the over-regulation of Big Tech where any advancements would be slow, forced to submit to conservative and suspicious oversight bodies and procedures.

This question is further contemplated in an upcoming article titled The End of Techno-Liberalism.

Next up is Part 4. Christians in the Age of Techno-Liberalism

1. The Religion of Technology: The Divinity of Man and the Spirit of Invention. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 1997. Pg.6
2. Patrick J. Deneen. Why Liberalism Failed. New Haven: Yale University Press. 2018. Pg. 96
3. Neil Postman. Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology. Vintage Books. 1993. Pg. 71
4. Neil Postman. Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology. Vintage Books. 1993. Pg. 54
5. Neil Postman. Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology. Vintage Books. 1993. Pg. 58 “In the Middle Ages, people believed in the authority of their religion, no matter what. Today, we believe in the authority of our science, no matter what.”
6. Yuval Noah Harari. Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow. USA: Signal. 2017. Pg. 259
7. Yuval Noah Harari. Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow. USA: Signal. 2017. Pg. 231
8. IBID Harari. Pg. 322
9. IBID Harari. Pg. 409