Could technology eventually replace God?

Could technology one day completely match and surpass each of the vast and comprehensive abilities God is capable of (or is said to be capable of, for some) doing to the exact letter, especially post-singularity? Not only to match those abilities, but to greatly exceed and surpass each and everyone of them at an exponential level? What would be the various technologies that would accomplish this? Could anyone give detailed descriptions of what each of these technologies might be, including their design characteristics and functions?

 

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Define "god's" attributes first, then there might be something to talk about.

 

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Hasn't technology already replaced God to a certain degree, Quick? in 1909 it was normal practice to lose people every day in hospitals, as a matter of course, to diseases and injuries that are now easily treatable with modern drugs and surgical or treatment techniques. The infant mortality rate at the time was far higher than it is now, even in developed countries like the US, Britain or the Continent, let alone anywhere else.

Look at the long, long list of what's been invented since 1901, for instance; if you went back in time and brought someboby forward from that year to this, I'll bet you they'd freak out totally--they'd probably think they were on another planet. Consider that there are some very old people alive presently who were born in the last years of the 19th Century, and have lasted until now. How must they be feeling, seeing the changes of the last 100 years?

 

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Correct, kind of. Most scientific religious folk consider God synonymous to First Cause, in which case Nature's work is God's work. So, two things from this:

1. We have started to affect--greatly--Nature/God in a way that would seem that the God/Nature force is competing with the human species.

2. However, one could also view our situation with eyes that see human technology from God. If God is Nature/First Cause, then everything that happens is God's work, including "our" discoveries/technology.

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cheers,
g

 

Perhaps rather to some degree "experts" in different branches of technology and even perhaps sciences has replaced clergy, wizzards, magicians and "wise" men. Or even, more unkindly, are the modern equivalents of those!

 

true. i always get tired of people who keep using the word God in forums as if God is some film star.

 

O sure it coud... an mayb it alredy has an we are a product of it... an long befor the scientific method cam into bein we created the term "God" to esplane the unesplaned.!!!

 

I meant something more akin to things derived from:

- Omnipotence

- Omniscience

- Omnipresence

- Omnibenevolence

... or rather, to be precise, the various abilities achieved as a result of each of these. For example, something simple like "weather manipulation" ("...for He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust") would be one of the much lower-end feats.

 

If we accept that God has all the attributes that are stated above, one has to accept one line from four main views;
1) The agnostic idea that God is both good and evil, and allows evil to flourish without making much of an attempt to stop it: ie, I've given these folks free will and cut them loose, now it's up to them how they use it, I take no more responsibility for my creation.

2) God is using Earth as a testing-ground to see how we advance as a species (or even whether we can).

3) God knows about the suffering of people and cares about it, but having given us free will, knows to stand aside and let us get on with life; with the expectation that we will ultimately rise above our animal origins and become eventually transcendent.

4) Any combination of the three above.

 

You sure about that? If 'God' possesses this attribute, why do some babies die in childbirth? Why is there tragedy in life?

You'll have to start supporting the reasons why a 'god' has these attributes I think. Oh and 'god moves in mysterious ways' is not an answer, nor is 'we cannot hope to understand the motivations of a supreme being'. If such a being cares enough about us, to create a Universe for us, I think there is enough common ground for us to understand a fair portion of it's motivations.

 

I don't think he's proposing there actually is a god with those attributes.
Perhaps he should have said will technology eventually enable us to do the things theists attribute to gods.

 

How can you replace something that doesn't exist?:shrug:

 

Then the OP becomes rather meaningless.

 

Exactly. I think it would have been better if I posted this in General Science & Technology instead.

Reason? Not trying to be argumentative, just curious.

 

I wasn't aware of any place that still doesn't have a mortality rate of 100%

Actually most elderly people regard tech fads as banal.

Whatever increases new technology may offer, jolliness is not one of them.

 

To the original thread:

I will not try to understand what did you mean when you say God-like ability of technology. Instead, I will try to describe what I thought about the issue in general. Sorry, if it does not satisfy any of your particular questions.

I watched athlete Aimee Mullins's video on TEDs website. She is the record-breaker at the Paralympic Games in 1996. She was showing her different pair of legs and you could easily be convinced about the future of artificial limbs. Simply in future, people will have much powerful organs with the capacities we can only imagine. The first artificial eye for the blind people will try to match the capacity of human eye, but further generation of artificial eyes will be able to zoom in and zoom out while studying the termal situation of the environment.
If we follow the path of robotic, brain simulation, nanotechnology and artificial environment, it is not a great deal of thinking to imagine the possibility of The Matrix (movie) type existence for human (and/or non-human) consciousness. If being God was initially creating something which were not existed before, especially history of human technology hint us its possibility.
However, I imagine it will be more diverse, alternated, comprehensive and dynamic than our feudal understanding of static god or earth bound identity of human nature which is almost the necessary results of the actual limitations of today's technology.

 

You capitalised 'God', implying you really were talking about a real deity that possessed those attributes.

If you are merely asking can technology achieve a level where mortals can use it to perform deific acts, well, no, because we understand it as technology.

 

Anythings possible.

 

The sun doesn't rise.

 

IF someday we find there is a powerful being in control of things, my 1st thought will be "What technology does it have that we don't".