Thoughts on Religion
Sean (Grade 10 / Northfield School of Arts and Technology) Posted February 15 2007Theism has united and destroyed civilizations. It brings people together and pushes them apart. Although most religions advocate sensible stances on morality and positive outlooks on life, some stances are nonsensible and, regardless, I find religion scientifically conflicting. Not in the typical Darwinian contention that most skeptics take, but the fine line between artificial and the so-called natural being. The ethical dilemma of growing technology and the possibility of artificial consciousness make this more relevant than ever. It is a difficult deduction to make what qualifies as a real manifestation of the human soul and what is just a by-product of humans growing technology. Where would one draw the line between human and inhuman? If one were to clone himself does ones clone have an embedded soul? I would think that a cloned human has the exact same makeup, societal worth, and emotional qualities as a conceived human. And even if one argued that clones do end up in the same higher plane of existence where does one draw the line? Unborn fetuses; people with extreme disabilities; people in comas? The potential revival of cryogenically frozen humans are all border-line issues not specified by out-of-date religions.
My take on the situation is that in order to integrate religion and technology properly one would have to re-define what exactly it means to be “human.” My theory, in short, is that if there is a heaven, everything goes ends up there. Everything everywhere is a manifestation of consciousness in some way shape or form. Every probability that from “yes” to “no” and the infinite gray area between is an exponential growth of conscious metaphysical energy. The state of consciousness you’re in right now, the state of consciousness you were in a second ago, and every possible outcome of that affecting matter in various ways is permanently saved on a sort of “meta-hard drive” that will exist forever. When one state dies (or state of you), there is an infinite amount of other possible outcomes that your previously alive consciousness can exist in.
For theism to be non-conflicting with science, guidelines such as these would need to be established. Maybe we are all manifestations of a god, or maybe we’re all thoughts on different frequencies in gods head, or maybe the collective universe is God and maybe each individual known consciousness is interlinked composing a God-like figure, or of course maybe God doesn’t exist. But in a modern-age, religion needs to be re-theorized, re-philosophized, and imagined differently to resolve religious conflict.