This is also a topic I find quite fascinating. Religion has for thousands of years dominated how countries, cultures, societies and the world is ruled and developed. But all these major religions are soon going to be outdated, when AI reach super intelligence and we merge with machines we will become God-like ourselves, and the AI will even go beyond that. How will that shape our society religiously? Will we invent something new to believe in? Will we pretend it's a complete different thing and just distinguish it with denial?
In so many ways the new area we march into will affect us beyond what we comprehend at this very moment but what it definitely will is to shake us and society to its core and we have to rebuild everything, from scratch, even our spiritual beliefs. What I think will remain from the global religions of today is the sense of community but the figures we once admired so badly, will be rather puny. So what doest the future of religion look like?
All religions are characterized by miracles, higher wisdom, grander knowledge and supernatural powers and some form of a creator. Them Holy Books are filled with all these incredible accidents describing so convincingly why religion is so special. It's magic, colorful hence too grand and untouchable for us humans. No wonder why we adore it so much. We can dream about something vaster than ourselves. Swift away in hopes, faith and belief of that we are watched and taken care of by some great force. That we are not solely in charge and responsible of our own life.
But, when I start examining the events and superpowers of the beings in the texts, I can't help but wonder, is the holy scripts pure futuristic foreseeing? Discreetly trying to tell us whats possible? Or wait a minute, it's not discreet at all. Anyhow.. Had the people writing it either experienced future technology from som advanced beings from outer space or did they just imagine it? Did it really happen? Or was it simply pure science fiction? And if so, where did the vision come from? They possessed one heck of an imagination.
And.. If it was real, what was it?
Most people seem to be able to settle down for the inexplicable but for me its hard. Cause I believe that everything imaginable is possible, and whats possible should be able to explain in a scientific way. The only problem we've always had is the limit of the human knowledge.
(As for instance 96,6 % of what's around us is dark energy and matter, which we have no clue about what is and how it functions. All we know is that it's dominated by one type of maths and physics that we have been able to discover but do not comprehend at all which is called quantum physics. Luckily more and more scientists are becoming aware of that if we want to further explore space and well, everything quantum physics needs to be investigated.)
What about this.. Perhaps, all the Gods, Buddha and Jesus Christ were extraterrestrial beings visiting earth? Showing to us what was possible with deeper knowledge of science? Certainly it was just too far out for us to wrap our head around it, so instead we worshiped it, called it God and invented religion?
So what I'm pondering about is what will happen when we have merged with machines and reach that level of intelligence and can easily manifest what the beings in all of religions can?
How will humanity handle that? Will we invent a new religion? Or will religion be just a joke then? Or will we make excuses trying to prove that it is more special even though its not. Will we deny the change in society and stick to the nostalgia of the old history and cultures? So that it is actually more special? In the short term will we worship robust AIs?
We are moving towards a time in history where we eventually actually will behold these Godlike superpowers. And even go beyond that. So I believe we are in for a major shift in global religious views. Maybe even just in 20 years the main religions of today will have faded away, and those who stick to it will be looked just as the amish are being looked at today?
We are in for such a grand shift that its difficult to predict but to do a forecast I think it will turn up side down and we will in short term find a new religion, perhaps worshiping the AIs or something else, in the long run I have absolutely no idea but I have a thought of it being either the creator of the universe and all of existence (if we do not figure it out) or non at all.
In 2029 the machines will surpass human level intelligence and the singularity will arrive by 2045 which means that the machines will reach super intelligence and then exponentially take it from there. Within 3 decades the IQ of an AI will be mere 12.925 +.
And this is a fact, and it' inventible.
So when we merge with technology and become transhumans only the AIs creativity will limit possibilities. At least everything you can imagine will come true.
Does the Gods have Gods? If so what are they like, how do they look? Most important of all, if you have all the knowledge in the world, do you need Gods? Do you need religion at all?
If the people in the holy texts were real and all the events also were, who were these beings? It can't then just be som random superficial inexplicable things. It must have been way more developed and advanced extraterrestrials visiting earth perhaps even billions of years ahead of us, but why were they here? Did they just want to have some fun? Or just swing by to check out what earth was all about, or, what if, they actually where the creators? They created us in "7 days", as an experiment for fun or for observation to see how life happened back in the days for them as well? Or just understand how much time would pass before we eventually managed to access AI.
So here is the thing, we all know where future are taking us. The law of accelerating returns is in charge and whats to come is inevitable. Meaning what we are marching towards is a world where we have merged with machines, this will give us super powers, incredible intelligence in every field. So, what then will happen to religion when we suddenly possess all the magic in the holy scripts? When get knowledge and power beyond whats possible in the bible?
Lets have a look at a few events in christianity
It seems to me that they where on to something quite normal in a futuristic society when every atom is manipulable. But to a civilization not even familiar with Television or anything this must seem quite frightening and fantastic at the same time.
- Jesus was born from a Virgin
Well that's even possible today, one can get pregnant or get a child only by using stem-cell technology or by injecting a fertilized egg.
- Walk on water
if we take an example of todays technology, perhaps he had a few underwater drones he stepped on?
- He fed 5000 people with 5 loaf of bread and 2 fish
with nanotech this wont be any problem in the future, make food appear from "nothing"
- Arise from the dead
Well he simply just restarted the software or since our consciousness will possibly be in the cloud it can be and get downloaded anywhere, so either he rebooted his system and made it work or he had lots of nano boots working for him repairing his cells an everything. Or perhaps he even was a transhuman then so he just pretend to be dead and pretend to look biological. So of course he could "awake" cause he already were.
- Make wine from water
No problem with all this nanotech knowledge that AI will give us. We can manipulate anything to become whatever we want.
- Parting the sea
No problem either in the future, cant give and explanation on how but it will be
- He made a blind man see
We can already do this now, and in the future we can also do it in an instant, seeming that we don't do any effort, simply put our hands on the blind persons eyes.
And Buddha that had telepathy, super-hearing, divine seeing and seeing past lives.. Well, this is possible as well in the future. Already now we can control robots with our thoughts.
However, as we become better and better masters of matter, atoms, chemistry and technology it starts to show that what Jesus did and god did is actually not that exciting, special and difficult after all. But to us and where we were in time this was pure incomprehensible. We had no knowledge of technology what so ever no knowledge of how to manipulate the smallest of matter or energy so we were completely shocked.
So if some way more advanced extraterrestrial beings visited us with this knowledge of course they seemed like wizards and gods.
What will our society become when we become the sacred people in the bible? Will we hold on to the past or create something more alined with the period of time we find ourselves in?
What does the future behold for religion? And.. Will the transition be smooth?