is the internet god?
have we uploaded our humanity to the cloud?
For someone who claims not to believe in God I sure spend a lot of time thinking about her, pondering her existence; acutely aware of the worthiness I lack to kneel before her, if she dared glance my way. Sometimes, in the dead of night, when the world finally closes its eyes and there’s no one left to watch me, I sit cross-legged on the floor, imagining what I would pray for if given the chance: would I plead for forgiveness? Would I find myself selfless enough to end world hunger with one swift request? Would I mistakenly behest a sin disguised as mercy and spend the rest of my life apologizing for it? Truthfully, I revel in my self-indulgent musings about God because I enjoy the idea of having someone else to blame, someone else to swallow the evilness I spend each day choking down. I’m probably just worried about dying alone, naked and afraid. Perhaps if I believed in God, I would confess to her and not to you, dearest reader. But that wouldn’t be any fun, now would it?
Full transparency, I’m writing this while sipping on my second glass of wine, acutely aware of my mortality for reasons I’d rather not share, so forgive me if these musings feel half-cooked or lacklustre. Tipsy writing always comes across as a bit wistful, doesn’t it?
Each night, I sit on my tiny balcony and watch the sun set, dreading the cloak of darkness that inevitably drapes around me as the warmth of the day abandons me and I’m alone with my jealousy, suddenly envious of those lucky enough to have a diluted sense of faith to nestle into as sleep beacons forth. When I look back at my early 20s, I can’t help but wonder if I would have foregone slipping into the haze of substances and toxic relationships had I felt the ghostly embrace of God—any God. Would a better version of myself be writing this if I had found comfort in the gospel, if I subscribed to bible verses? Probably not, but the life unlived invariably haunts you, leaving you with the kind of unhumane guilt only religion can summon.
Although my religious inclinations remain hollow, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about Gods and spirituality and modernity and society and how we relate to each other and why the world feels so full of hate and how anyone politely deals with getting 10 spam calls a day &&&. The only through line I’ve discovered—the singular road that connects us all—is the internet; a fundamentally pantheistic public forum that, since its inception, has been a breeding ground for conflicting deities and ideologies.
Deviantly, the internet has become a God; its myriad online spaces functioning akin to a church, one we’ve locked ourselves in, unable to escape. We’ve pioneered a peculiar faith that exists only behind our screens, constructed through our repeated interactions within the ether. We confess our deepest, darkest secrets under a throwaway account on Reddit; we twiddle our fingers in prayer, hoping our crush follows us back on Instagram; we gather around Twitter threads discussing gossip the same way old ladies whisper beneath the cross. While these interactions mimic connectivity—bordering on community—they never truly fulfill us the way showing up in person does. Religious institutions breed such loyal followings because of the sense of belonging and community they provide, the foundation all else is built.
The internet can only offer temporal illusions, never eternal verities.
As a self-proclaimed digital native, I consider the internet a dear friend of mine, but recently, I sense it’s morphed into an evil entity. Were the skeptics right all along? Was the internet created to ruin my life, distort my reality, and destroy my dignity, all while simultaneously undermining societal order and warping our perceptions of a fair and balanced world?
I’m aware I’m unable to answer those questions by myself, that my relationship to the internet will remain muddled, that it doesn’t exist in black and white. It’s neither good nor bad; it simply is. I imagine those who are religious cycle through similar predicaments with their own faith, always wavering a fine line that never feels fully stable.
A God is only as powerful as its believers perceive it to be; it remains in power only when held up by collective faith, through institutions and communal prayer. Most of us visit the internet more frequently than any other place of worship. We forego critical thinking in exchange for an algorithmic feed that dictates our beliefs, stances, and our way of thinking, retreating into echo chambers out of a desire for comfort and community. Take one look at TikTok comment sections and you’ll see they’ve become singular, akin to bible verses and gospel chants. We idolize our favourite creators the same way we do bishops, returning to their page daily to be told what to wear, what to do, what to believe.
The concept of discerning the internet as a spiritual entity isn’t new. The MIT Press published an article last year on how society—specifically the tech world—is so fixated on technological advances that it has “spawned beliefs and rituals that resemble religion” and that “our computing culture has become so ubiquitous and insular, so devoted and devotional, that it repeatedly recycles the tropes of traditional religions.”
Alexander Bard, the founder of Synetheism—an emerging religious movement that proposes humanity uses technology, particularly the internet, to construct a new, universally relevant deity, a “created God”— has believed that the internet is God for quite some time now. He says, “The internet is 7 billion people connected together in real time, and if that isn’t the holy spirital, then I don’t know what it is.”
The emergence of AI has only exaggerated this standpoint, with multiple AI religions starting to spawn across the internet, finding vulnerable victims, many of whom quickly descend into AI-induced spiritual-psychosis.
I reckon it’s time we add AI to the long list of false prophets.
We’re beginning to be pinned against one another the same way those who kneel before a God different than our own always have been. Uncertainty breeds faith quicker than anything else. We find ourselves in unstable times, and when people are unsure of what the future holds, they do their best to find answers however they can.
Look around you and you’ll see the masses with their noses stuffed in their phones, the same way many used to be shoved in the bible. It’s a tale as old as time: You don’t like my God, I don’t like yours. I’m right, you’re wrong. Except in this modern retelling, our Gods are algorithms pining our biases and prejudices against one another with no cohesion or narrative. We’ve begun praying to an interactive book that keeps changing, as we put on blinders and look to the machines to prove our humility, and humanity, to us.
That leaves me with my final question. Can faith exist without soul?