Prime Time Replay:
David Noble
author of The Religion of Technology:
The Divinity of Man and the Spirit of Invention
MsgId: *emedia(3)
Date: Mon Dec 8 20:54:34 PST 1997
From: David_Noble At: 207.172.104.77
Ready when you are. :)
MsgId: *emedia(4)
Date: Mon Dec 8 20:58:03 PST 1997
From: OMNI_Moderator At: 168.100.204.58
Good evening, Dr. Noble. Throughout history, the secular and the religious, and especially technology and religion, have been considered adversaries or at least uneasy countrymen. But your thesis in "THE RELIGION OF TECHNOLOGY" is that they have really always been merged. How exactly have they been inseparable?
MsgId: *emedia(6)
Date: Mon Dec 8 21:03:36 PST 1997
From: David_Noble At: 207.172.104.77
It is true that in the popular imagination, science and technology on one hand, and religion on the other, have appeared as adversarial opposed, and in fact, as opposites. But in fact, over the last thousand years, they have been inextricable intertwined. Technology being suffused and inspired by religious belief. This integration began roughly in the 19th century, so far as historians can tell. At that moment, what we now call technology and what was then called the mechanical arts, first became implicated in the Christian project of redemption. Before that time, the mechanical arts were seen as irrelevant to redemption. So we're talking about a phenomenon that's roughly a thousand years old.
MsgId: *emedia(7)
Date: Mon Dec 8 21:06:21 PST 1997
From: OMNI_Moderator At: 168.100.204.58
Would the space program be the logical -- or perhaps extreme -- culmination of this, with space craft literally being launched in the direction of the heavens?
MsgId: *emedia(8)
Date: Mon Dec 8 21:10:07 PST 1997
From: David_Noble At: 207.172.104.77
Well, manned spaceflight is indeed a perfect example of this intersection between technology and religion. The early dreams of manned spaceflight in the 17th century, John Wilkins, Johan Keppler, and others dreamed of such flights, to the moon and elsewhere, and they were religously inspired. The pursuit was to try to locate paradise and spaceflight was understood as an ascent of mortals toward God. In my book, I have a chapter on manned spaceflight and NASA entitled "The Ascent of the Saints." We could view spaceflight as a sort of technological Rapture. For example, Constantine Tsiolkovsky, the pioneer of the science of rocketry, was a disciple of the Orthodox Christian Mystic Nicolai Federov who believed that mankind's destiny was to achieve dominion over the universe and reunification with God and manned spaceflight was seen as a means to this ends.
MsgId: *emedia(10)
Date: Mon Dec 8 21:13:22 PST 1997
From: OMNI_Moderator At: 168.100.204.58
You also note in your book that Werner Von Braun came to the United States with the idea of achieving divinity through the space program. Why did he not offer this divinity to the Germans -- did he see Hitler as a kind of antichrist?
MsgId: *emedia(11)
Date: Mon Dec 8 21:13:50 PST 1997
From: David_Noble At: 207.172.104.77
Werner Von Braun, the lapsed Nazi, who was the main force behind the US manned spaceflight program became a born-again Christian shortly after arriving in the United States and remained an outspoken evangical Christian for the rest of his life. He viewed manned spaceflight as a millennial new beginning for mankind and wrote that mankind had to go into space to spread the gospel. He called the first manned spaceflight project in 1956, Project Adam, to symbolize this. And Project Adam was later renamed Project Mercury by NASA (which was set up in 1957). Von Braun was by no means unique in this regard.Both his superior, General Medaris, at Huntsville, Alabama, and his successor, William Lucas, were devout. The former became a Catholic priest and the latter a lay Baptist minister who viewed satellites as a means of spreading the gospel. The founder of the SETI program, and the only two-time NASA administrator, James Fletcher, was a very active Latter Day Saint (Mormon), the first Chief of Operations of NASA, Hugh Dryden, was lay Methodist minister of the year. By far the most religious contingent in NASA have been the astronauts themselves who have carried literally thousands of Christian bibles, banners, and flags into space. A red Bible still sits on the seat of the Rover on the moon.
MsgId: *emedia(13)
Date: Mon Dec 8 21:19:37 PST 1997
From: OMNI_Moderator At: 168.100.204.58
Is this still the case at NASA today? Lately, the space program is almost seen as mundane, sometimes, a means of achieving almost ordinary, workmanlike tasks in space. Has the program gotten duller precisely because of losing some of its religious fervor? Does anyone involved still expect to find God in space?
MsgId: *emedia(14)
Date: Mon Dec 8 21:23:36 PST 1997
From: David_Noble At: 207.172.104.77
I think the agenda of NASA, which has been trying desperately to kindle some enchantment with space. Their agenda has been to suggest even more strenuously that mankind's knowledge of, and reunification with, the Creator, is NASA's mission. The movie CONTACT suggests the precisely this mission and is a thinly-veiled propaganda for NASA. Rather than the religiousity ebbing, I would say it's intensifying. Today's shuttle astronauts are no less religious than their predecessors. There are Bible study classes throughout NASA installations including the astronauts office in Houston, and Mission Control.When you get a chance, I'd like to explain about the term redemption. I want to make clear what I mean by that.
MsgId: *emedia(16)
Date: Mon Dec 8 21:27:00 PST 1997
From: OMNI_Moderator At: 168.100.204.58
Yes, please, Dr. Noble, explain just what you mean by redemption. Especially in relation to how you see scientists typically "driven by dreams of supernatural redemption." Meanwhile, everybody, I'll be opening the chatroom doors, so we may have a moment of lag-time.
MsgId: *emedia(18)
Date: Mon Dec 8 21:30:47 PST 1997
From: David_Noble At: 207.172.104.77
I want to make it clear that when I use the word "religion," I'm not speaking metaphorically, but literally. In particular, I'm refering to the core beliefs of Christianity. Christianity blurs the distinction between man and God. The story goes something like this: Mankind was created in an image likeness to God, which means that mankind participated in divinity. This meant that Adam enjoyed immortality, a share in divine knowledge, dominion over creation, and a role in creation. With the Fall, this divine likeness was obscured. The symbolism of Christ is the promise of a recovery of that original divinity and it is this that I'm referring to as "redemption" -- a recovery, a restoration, of mankind's divine being and powers. It is toward this end that over the last thousand years Western technology has been directed.
MsgId: *emedia(19)
Date: Mon Dec 8 21:34:09 PST 1997
From: OMNI_Moderator At: 168.100.204.58
Would Christian guilt be part of this quest for redemption -- guilt for the Fall, guilt in each of us for our frustrating lack of divinity, and possibly guilt for technology itself?
MsgId: *emedia(20)
Date: Mon Dec 8 21:35:42 PST 1997
From: David_Noble At: 207.172.104.77
My concern is with ideology. Our shared collective imagination, rather than with our individual psychology, and the reasons for people's religious beliefs are too diverse to generalize about.I'd like to talk about artificial intelligence, cyberspace, and genetic engineering, if I could.
MsgId: *emedia(22)
Date: Mon Dec 8 21:40:29 PST 1997
From: OMNI_Moderator At: 168.100.204.58
From the time of the merging between technology and religion, your book suggests, this partnership was a powerful force for good, indeed moving us toward greater humanity and divinity. But somewhere along the line, you say, this started to go wrong. Just when and how did the partnership start heading in wrong direction. Were weapons of warfare one of the problems?Are the internet and true Christianity compatible -- or is cyberspace too chaotic and profane to ever aspire to the divine?
MsgId: *emedia(24)
Date: Mon Dec 8 21:47:28 PST 1997
From: David_Noble At: 207.172.104.77
I would say that the religious impulse has contributed to the relief of man's estate, as Francis Bacon put it, but was never an unalloyed good. The otherworldliness of the project sacrificed mortal needs to the pursuit of a transcendence of the mortal condition. Today this is especially worrisome. Many among the most ardent promoters of such technologies as artificial intelligence, cyberspace, virtual reality, and genetic engineering betray a disregard and disdain for mortal needs and indeed, an impatience with life. I see this as a menace.The most noteworthy example, perhaps, in our own day, is that Guru of the Information Age, Kevin Kelley, founder of Wired magazine. Kelley is himself a born-again Christian who is very active in Bible study. His book, called "OUT OF CONTROL," is a primer for men as Gods. Says Kelley, the Hebrew God Yahweh, lost control of his creation, namely man, and we, as Gods, will lose control over our creations, our technologies, but that is the way it is with us Gods. No need to worry, this outlook is the epitome of social irresponsibility, dignified by the quest for divinity.
That question has been raised and answered in a marvelous forthcoming book by Margaret Wertheim entitled "THE PEARLY GATES OF CYBERSPACE." Wertheim argues, as I do in my book, that cyberspace is indeed a realm in which people are seeking what used to be called paradise. But unlike the medieval cosmology of someone like Dante, who also travelled to the other world, cyberspace has no moral mapping. There is no direction, no basis for assessing thoughts or actions. Therefore, cyberspace can have no religious meaning.
MsgId: *emedia(27)
Date: Mon Dec 8 21:52:03 PST 1997
From: EllenDatlow At: 152.172.71.64
Dr. Noble, you say the Kelly is a born again Christian and studies the Bible, which implies a certain faith in the Divinity of Christ but if what you say he says in his book is true, that's a complete contradiction. It's saying man is divine and "as a god." This doesn't seem very consistent.
MsgId: *emedia(28)
Date: Mon Dec 8 21:53:22 PST 1997
From: David_Noble At: 207.172.104.77
And indeed, it isn't. In many quarters, Kelly's beliefs would seem blasphemous, but it is precisely this hubris that is the hallmark of the Western technological endeavour.
MsgId: *emedia(32)
Date: Mon Dec 8 21:56:45 PST 1997
From: EllenDatlow At: 152.172.71.64
Then Kelly is not really a practicing "Christian" at all if those are his beliefs.
MsgId: *emedia(35)
Date: Mon Dec 8 22:01:01 PST 1997
From: OMNI_Moderator At: 168.100.204.58
Kelley's philophies would be truly Christian, wouldn't they, if he were really the second coming -- the true embodiment of Christ? Once upon a time, of course, it was Christ who aspired to the Godhead.What is the most irresponsible aspect of philosophies such as Kelley's -- the belief that we are gods ourselves, or the belief that we will lost control of our creations? Are the fertility sciences and genetic engineering irresponsible because they attempt to do what only God should do, or because they are very capable of going out of control (septuplets, octuplets, mutants, etc.)?
MsgId: *emedia(33)
Date: Mon Dec 8 21:59:35 PST 1997
From: David_Noble At: 207.172.104.77
The two are really one. The injunction of the story of Genesis, that mankind should not be Gods, is based upon the expectation that men playing Gods will mess it up. That's what it's about. The inevitability of this prospect was illuminated most profoundly and decisively by Mary Shelley in her book "FRANKENSTEIN, THE MODERN PROMETHEUS." So the human quest to be Gods is itself a recipe for disaster. Now the genetic engineers take a slightly different tack and suggest that mankind should be a co-creator with God, a kind of junior partner in creation.For example, Francis Collins, the head of the Human Genome Project, the largest technological endeavour since Apollo, is himself an outspoken born-again Christian and subscribes to this view. The problem here is a complacency based upon the assumption that mankind is carrying out its assigned role in the divine agenda and therefore can do no wrong.
MsgId: *emedia(30)
Date: Mon Dec 8 21:54:48 PST 1997
From: EllenDatlow At: 152.172.71.64
What do you mean by "cyberspace?" The internet, or that non-existent fiction created by William Gibson, Rudy Rucker, and other fidction writers? The "cyberspace" they envision -- a fully realized world in which an individual can immerse her-self is not quite here yet -- although we're getting closer to actually producing it. The internet is merely a means of getting and spreading information.
MsgId: *emedia(36)
Date: Mon Dec 8 22:04:52 PST 1997
From: David_Noble At: 207.172.104.77
Cyberspace is the immaterial realm now in the making suggested by William Gibson and other writers such as Marge Piercy is a realm in which people can aspire to a disembodied existance and a God-like omnipresence and omniscience. I believe that this is the appeal. Many of the developers and promoters of cyberspace and virtual reality have exulted in this prospect. So what I'm talking about with cyberspace,internet, email, these are anticipations of this disembodied realm, which for many people, holds out the promise of a radically-restructured existance. Perhaps best suggested in the phrase "the lightness of being." This is a realm stripped of the weight not only of our decaying and doomed corpreality, but also the myriad burdens of our social beings. In a word, it is an escapist paradise.As Kelly himself explained at a conference in San Francisco, described by Margaret Wertheim, Jaron Lanier entered his virtual reality in much the same way that Christ entered our world. This parallel stunned other participants who also questioned Kelly's Christianity and the question was raised "Isn't there a difference between Christ's purpose, according to Christians, to redeem mankind, and Lanier's?" Nevertheless, Kelly believes himself and has told me in conversation that he is a devout Christian and I would have to ask Ellen Datlow to take it up himself.
MsgId: *emedia(37)
Date: Mon Dec 8 22:06:25 PST 1997
From: OMNI_Moderator At: 168.100.204.58
Selfishly, we'll ask one more question, and then we should let you go Dr. Noble, since we've gone well past the hour. The question is, how can you ever stop mankind from aspiring to the divinity in an almost godless way -- to bigger and better, to more and more and more. Isn't it where all human exploration and invention comes from? Isn't it one with the sex urge and procreation? How do you stop it or temper it?
MsgId: *emedia(39)
Date: Mon Dec 8 22:13:47 PST 1997
From: David_Noble At: 207.172.104.77
Human invention and fecundity do not derive necessarily from this wish to be like Gods, although some might see our potency as a gift of God. Not being a religious person myself, I don't see any reason why human being's remarkable prowess need be diminished by an abandonment of such grandiose other-worldly expectations. Indeed, it is the aim of my book to suggest that we should turn that remarkable capability toward more worldly ends, placing human survival above human salvation. Human beings cannot live without myths, so I am not calling for an existance without myths, I am suggesting that the myth we have inherited needs to be profoundly reworked. That is the real challenge.
MsgId: *emedia(40)
Date: Mon Dec 8 22:15:05 PST 1997
From: OMNI_Moderator At: 168.100.204.58
If you're still there, Dr. Noble, thank you for the wide-ranging, provocative discussion. Sorry we kept you a bit long.
MsgId: *emedia(41)
Date: Mon Dec 8 22:15:43 PST 1997
From: David_Noble At: 207.172.104.77
Goodnight, my pleasure!
MsgId: *emedia(42)
Date: Mon Dec 8 22:16:51 PST 1997
From: OMNI_Moderator At: 168.100.204.58
Thank you again, and good night everyone.
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