(Seventeen-minute read)

The truth is we can’t be quite sure.

Since the beginning of human history, worship has played a central role in people’s lives.

The day of humanity worshipping the sun has long gone and the threat of an all-powerful God (or gods) watching for anyone who steps out of line might have helped to keep order in ancient societies, but this is not so in modern today societies.

There is no question but that the progress of the internet into people’s lives is having a profound effect on human culture.

We all agree that something new is taking shape. Many regard this as a form of salvation while others see this as yet another fall.

The developers of nuclear weapons, space exploration and artificial intelligence may be propelled by religious desires, but they are sustained by military financing and the results of their labours are more powerful governments, a more pernicious status quo, and a more preeminent elite of technocrats.

Another words TECHNOLOGY IS TURNING US INTO AUDIENCES.

So what is the reality behind this word worshipping in a world that is being driven more and more by Algorithms feeding off each other?

We are allowing algorithms to progressively restrict our decision-making capacity in ways we don’t notice.

There is not the room here to exam every aspect of worship but let’s try to look with a free-thinking mind at it from the perspective of the three main existing religions.

When one looks at the world I wonder how much this “religion for life” still exists or will exist which binds wounds and ties the fragmented and diverse bits of our lives together.

These days “Worship” might be the word someone chooses when trying to describe a particular sound or style of music so we will attempt to look at it from the point of view of the three main religions.

Religion, it seems, comes from the Latin “re-ligere”, which has to do with “tying” and “binding” which is exactly what our global monopolism like Google/Facebook and there like are trying their best to achieve.

We have experts in worship. We have books on worship. We have seminars and teaching on how to conduct worship. We have the latest state of the art audio and projection systems in churches. We no longer need hymn books. It’s all on the screen or screens before us. We have well-trained worship teams to lead us. Worship abounds in evangelical churches.

Yet, in all of this are we pleasing God? Is he the centre of our worship?

The days that worship is God’s idea are numbered.

The days that it is what he created us to do, are going.

Worship has become all about us our tablets or whatever shiny piece of kit you carry around with you and can’t stop checking every five minutes is making religion less and less to do with everyday life.

We now have a limited and even incomplete view of what worship truly is all about.

True worship should have the proclamation of the Word of God at its centre and everything else should take their place behind it.

Worship is first and foremost exaltation.

Biblical worship, then, involves exalting God above all other objects.

But why do we witness widespread enchantment with technology and at the same time, a worldwide resurgence of religious fundamentalism has occurred?

The chances of the technology itself becoming religious on its own remain farcical.

However, the enthusiasm so many people have with technology is often rooted — sometimes unknowingly — in religious myths and ancient dreams.

This is unfortunate because technology has proven itself capable of causing terrible problems for humanity, and one of the reasons for this may be the religious impulses people are ignoring.

For a thousand years in Western culture, the advancement of the mechanical arts — technology — has been inspired by deep religious desires of transcendence and redemption. This is no longer applies as the promise of transcending nature, our bodies, our human natures, our lives, our deaths, our history, etc, is increasing as fast as the ice is melting.

If you don’t recognize and understand how religious and technological transcendence have developed together, you’ll never be able to successfully counter them — much less recognize when they might be developing within you as well.

Today, the religious impulses underlying technological advancement take two general forms: using explicit religious doctrines, particularly Christianity, to explain why technology should be pursued and using religious imagery of transcendence and redemption removed from traditional religious doctrines but without their losing any motivating power.

Although currently obscured by secular language and ideology, the contemporary resurgence of religion, even fundamentalism, alongside and hand-in-hand with technology is thus not an aberration but simply the reassertion of a forgotten tradition.

Artificial Intelligence with its algorithms is an attempt to divorce thinking from the human mind.

The human brain becomes nothing more than a “meat machine” and the body as a “bloody mess of organic matter.

What is worship all about? Who is worship all about?

“Worship” in the title of a project is an effective marketing tool that often boosts sales.

The verb “to worship” is mentioned in the Quran 106 times in the Bible 25 times!

In Hebrew you have Shachah means “to bow down, prostrate”; abad: “to serve.”

In Greek, you have proskuneo and latreuo, which mean “to kiss the hand kneeling” and “to serve, minister to” respectively.

In the Quran, which literally means the ‘oft-repeated,’ worship involves every aspect of life. Worship is the very purpose of existence. It does not require a person to enter a place of worship nor embrace monasticism.

However, for an action to be regarded as worship, it must be performed with the pure intention of pleasing God. So God sent Muhammad as His final messenger to humankind is revealed in the Quran, God’s last scripture.

It must be noted here that while Muslims esteem all of the prophets sent by God, including Jesus and Muhammad, they do not worship any of them. In fact, worshipping anyone besides the One God is strictly prohibited in Islam.

Therefore, the concept of worship in Islam encompasses not only the outward religious duties, but also the development of a strong moral character, good relations with people, and striving for just and harmonious societies.

Salvation in Islam like Christianity is connected with doing good deeds and refraining from bad ones.  

However, worship in religious terms blurs the line between ‘religious’ and ‘worldly,’ because practically any action can become spiritual in nature and is rewarded by God.

For example, nearly all religions indicate that what the human being worships is not necessarily what he says he worships but is what or whoever occupies his mind most of the time.

For various reasons, many people have come to believe that Muslims worship a different God than Christians and Jews. This is totally false.

The Arabic word “ALLAH”  contains a deep religious message due to its root meaning and origin. This is because it stems from the Arabic verb ta’allaha (or alaha), which means “to be worshipped”. Thus in Arabic, the word “ALLAH” means “The One who deserves all worship”. This, in a nutshell, is the Pure Monotheistic (one) message of Islam.

Another words worship is exclusive to Allah, who is the only one able to accept it, or not.

On the Allah side of worship, he has 99 different names, but any form made up in the mind that ascribe any form to Allah is absolutely against the guidance and teachings of Islam.

While in the Christian side there are millions of images to concentrate on when worshipping.

What image should come into your mind when you hear the name of Allah?

Allahu Akbar: “Literally “God is great” in Arabic. Should be a phrase that is no more troubling than when you hear a Christian saying “Thank God.

Unfortunately, it is now a term coined by terrorists and is the biggest act of heresy to shout God’s glorious name when committing the worst crime against God.

We mustn’t allow terrorists or agendas of fear to own any of the words, concepts, or devotions found in the sacred text of a quarter of the world’s population. That would give them exactly what they want. And God is far greater than the ugliness committed in His name. “Allahu Akbar…”

In Hinduism, God has the ability to manifest into any kind of form and shape. There is only one Supreme God which exist at two different levels of reality.

We must take a long, hard look at ourselves and answer honestly:

Are we looking to technology to escape the human condition with all its problems and disappointments? Or are we instead looking to enhance the human condition, flaws, and imperfections notwithstanding?

When an ideology, a religion, or a technology is pursued the purpose of escaping the human condition where problems and disappointments are a fact of life, then it shouldn’t be at all surprising when those human problems are not really solved, when human needs are not entirely met, and when new problems are produced.

And even if we lose sight of the Christian, Muslim and Hindu gods and all the rest, superstitions and spiritualism will almost certainly still prevail.

As soon as we found ourselves facing an ecological crisis, a global nuclear war or an impending comet collision, the gods would emerge.

The world must evolve to reach maturity. And the work of God will be accomplished in this evolution.

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.