by Paul Schingle

Created on: May 08, 2010

While I disagree with the premise of the title, I understand what it's trying to say and will give the original person who posed the question the benefit of the doubt.  Technology does not "promote" atheism.  This would indicate a cause/effect relationship and I'm not buying that.  However, I will give you that people who are well-versed in technology; people who follow and pay attention to science; people who are well-read and well-educated will have a tendency toward atheism.  Likewise, people who are atheists are going to be better read in the realm of science and technology.  The common factor is common sense and intelligence.

How does technology advance?  A person with a keen ability with science will have an idea and run with it.  After much hard work and sweat (as Edison said, "99% perspiration"), the once impossible becomes possible.  Fifty years ago, most people would have said landing on the moon would be impossible.  When I was in high school (close to 30 years ago-yikes!), I would never have conceived of the idea of people using computers to interface with each other, as we do now with the internet.  I may have believed that technology possible-but only for the very rich.  But, we have the internet now and pretty much anyone can access it.  Technology makes the impossible, possible.

Now, where do biblical, and other religious, beliefs come from?  These long-told myths and fairy tales came from the mouths of elders-generations ago-to help explain what was thought to be unexplainable.  While largely disingenuous, these stories have been told from generation to generation and led to being believed as fact.  While there may be some modicum of truth behind the stories, as all good myths have, the fact is most biblical stories are just that-stories.  They're interesting sets of conjecture with just a little bit of fact behind them as to make them sound credible-especially to those who are easily convinced-such as the uneducated.

I have been recently reading, "The Origin of Species" by Charles Darwin.  Now, evolution is still a mere theory.  Darwin himself will say that some of his conjecture requires a degree of faith.  He never once said, "There is no doubt man evolved from apes."  Instead, he shows that, through experiential evidence, living, biological creatures (plants and animals) show a tendency to adapt to change, an ability to get stronger/better with change and, over generations, actually evolve into new species.  Yes, it is a theory.  It will probably never be proven beyond doubt, but it is a lot more believable than God making the earth in six, twenty-four hour days and man and the earth having only existed for 12,000 years. 

So, at least to my mind, people who follow technology and believe in man's ability to improve his lot through technology may well lean toward atheism.  And, people who have a natrual leaning toward atheism almost certainly have a higher faith in the abilities of science and technology.  But, I  do not believe that this is a cause and effect relationship.  Instead, the two ideas (technology and atheism) have yet another common thread-that of intelligence.

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