Alright, let’s get real for a sec—have you ever seen people camping outside an Apple Store for the latest iPhone? Or heard someone talk about AI like it’s the future saviour of humanity? 🤖📱 The way people treat technology these days, it’s starting to look a lot like a new kind of religion.
Think about it—Tech has its own gods, rituals, and even prophets. People follow it blindly, evangelise its wonders, and put their faith in the unseen algorithms that rule our lives. So, have we swapped temples for tech stores and sacred texts for Twitter threads? Let’s dive in.
Tech’s Holy Figures: From Jobs to Musk
Every religion has its prophets, and in the tech world, visionary leaders become modern-day messiahs.
- Steve Jobs – The minimalist monk who preached “Think Different.” His keynotes were basically sermons, and his products were designed with almost religious devotion to perfection.
- Elon Musk – The eccentric billionaire who wants to take humanity to Mars. People hang on his every tweet like divine scripture, and Tesla owners treat their cars like sacred relics. 🚀
- Mark Zuckerberg – The architect of the digital afterlife where your data never dies. Facebook and Meta are shaping the very way we connect, remember, and even grieve.
These figures inspire fierce loyalty, just like religious leaders. Fans defend them no matter what, and critics? They’re treated like heretics.
Our Rituals: Tech Worship in Action
Look around—our daily tech habits are eerily similar to religious practices.
🔹 Morning Prayers = Scrolling Social Media – The first thing most people do when they wake up? Check their phone. Instead of saying morning prayers, we bow our heads to glowing screens. 📱
🔹 Tithing = Subscription Fees – From Netflix to cloud storage, we faithfully pay monthly fees to keep access to our digital blessings. 🙏
🔹 Pilgrimages = Product Launches – Fans travel miles to be the first to get their hands on a new gadget. A new iPhone drops, and people queue overnight like it’s Black Friday at the Gates of Heaven.
🔹 Sacred Texts = Terms & Conditions – Okay, nobody actually reads these, but they shape our digital lives. Just like religious doctrines, they tell us what we can and can’t do.
🔹 Heaven & Hell = The Cloud vs. The Dark Web – Your data lives in the ever-present “cloud,” but stray too far, and you might end up in the murky, forbidden underworld of the internet.
Faith in the Unseen: Do We Trust Tech Too Much?
Religions often require faith in things we can’t see, and technology? It works the same way.
- Algorithms control what we see online, but do we know how they work?
- AI systems make decisions, but we don’t fully understand their thought process.
- We trust GPS, Google, and ChatGPT more than our own instincts.
We don’t question tech because it “just works.” But blind faith in AI can be dangerous—deepfakes, biased algorithms, and privacy concerns are just a few of the ethical nightmares lurking beneath our digital utopia.
So, Is Tech Replacing Traditional Religion?
Well, it’s complicated. Religion provides meaning, purpose, and connection, and technology does some of that too. But it also isolates us, making our relationships more transactional than spiritual.
This ties into my previous article Is Religion Becoming Irrelevant in a Tech-Driven Age?—where I explored whether modern life has outgrown traditional faith. But here’s the twist: instead of rejecting religion, we might just be reshaping it.
Final Thoughts: Are We Better Off?
Technology is not inherently bad—it’s changed lives, saved lives, and connected the world. But when we put absolute faith in it, we risk losing the ability to think critically and question its impact.
So, are we worshipping tech? Maybe not in the way we think of religion traditionally. But if we’re replacing old gods with new ones, we should at least ask:
💡 Are we followers, or are we thinking for ourselves?
References
- Apple is obviously a cult – CNET
- Aligning AI with human values – MIT Technology Review
- The Rituals and Ceremonies of Digital Life – Medium
- Is Religion Becoming Irrelevant in a Tech-Driven Age? – rem.my
What do you think? Has technology become the new religion, or are we just adapting to a digital world? 🤖✨