The Bible is full of dire warnings against worshiping false gods.
So, what does it mean, to worship? Is it to direct one's energy and attention towards something perceived as a non-human source of power and truth?
If so, machine worship is the dominant faith of our time.
A traditional element of many religious rituals is the posture of prayer. It can be kneeling or prostration, but more commonly it is the act of bowing one's head. This is not coincidental. In many cultures, hanging one's head is associated with submission - either to God, a monarch, or some other authority figure.
Of course, context is important. If you see a person walking off a tennis court with his or her head bowed in this way, you might see it a different way: as the posture of defeat.
But most of the time, when you see people in this posture today, they are simply looking at their phones - bowing their heads a thousand times a day to consult the oracle they carry in their pockets.
The connection between the brain and the body is not a one-way street. What you do with your body sends messages to your brain. If, over the course of years, you assume a prayerful, submissive posture many times a day as you consult a relic perceived to be the source of both joy and wisdom, your brain will most certainly come to believe it.
Whether you mean to or not, you are practicing worship of the machine.
In Fritz Lang's cinematic masterpiece, Metropolis, most of the attention goes to Maria, the first android in movie history. It is, again, not coincidental that Maria's name is evocative of Mary, Mother of God. But there is no God in Metropolis. Instead, Lang conjured the ultimate false god: Moloch.
Historically, Moloch was a Canaanite diety associated with child sacrifice. In the Bible, it represents the personification of everything false and corrupt that we might be tempted to worship.
In Metropolis, it is a machine that literally consumes its users.
The imagery of the Moloch machine is usually interpreted as a metaphor for industrialization, and maybe capitalism. But these days, it is barely a metaphor at all.
In the movie, worn-out workers march submissively into the mouth of the machine, sacrificing their lives to feed their master.
How different is that, really, from what we do? We spend our lives slaving for the machine, and although it may not devour us all at once, it most certainly devours us piece by piece, minute by minute.
If humanity is to have a future worth having, one thing is certain: worshipping Moloch will not take us there.
https://expressiveegg.substack.com/p/the-technological-system
Brilliant! An' so right about folks "assumin' the position" (of prayer...) Addin' too it's like Narcissus gazin' inta the pool of his own self-absorbed reflection--tip too far an' comes the Fall / death itself!
Ya might be amused we kinda were thinkin' on the same lines! I wrote about the psy-op EEK-LIPS! with all heads tiled UP in AWE & WONDER to witness hype-in-the-skies (possibly a projection--whuther ya buy it or not)::
from this loooong stack'a mine:
https://thcsofdaisymoses.substack.com/p/the-total-soul-lure-eclipse?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As I said, it’s the SOUL LURE “eee-clips”
A SOUL LURE — means drawin’ folks like flies ta a sugar bowl—a trap? You tell me. Heads uplifted in AWE & WONDER (i.e. vulnerable, prone… pupils wide-dilated) to “receive the event.” That’s how hypnosis happens too. Of course when nature is left untainted no harm is done (quite the contrary). But when they are MANipulatin’ this “lure”—ta great extent—it is like preparin’ the audience for THE SHOW—or perhaps for “the next one” if ya git my drift?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So if our normal vision of "reality" is lookin' forward, ahead--an' we look to the side for "caution" or "worry"--then lookin' UP (to the heavens) or DOWN (prostratin' ourselfs "worship-fully") are the poses of not only worship--but indoctrination if we human beans are guided inta worshippin' "false gods"
I love Fritz Lang DEARLY! (so much I have sit thru ALL the silent Mabuses--subtitle in French no less!-- which some would say is a form of "abuse-y" but I'm a patient soul!) Me an' my goils recently wartched a Lang fave of mine, FURY (it bein' waaaay too timely today--worth a review if ya got the time too!) but now Metropolis is also due a re-view pronto now that I'm seein' this. I'm SURE I'll notice more--Fritz wuz precient!
It's funny as I SO clearly have sharp mem'ries of Robot Maria (in her likeness--kinda like a cyber digital twin--omg!) but forgot (somehow) the hell mouth, the Moloch reference which I'm not so sure I fully got as a younger version of myself--the evil of "the machine" yup, nath I got, but not Moloch, a literal sacrificial deity then unfamiliar... (I did know about the Brazen Bull tho'...)
Anywhoo--time for a review! (Now some directors like Fritz I do kinda "worship" but not as the mindless screen-addicted worship their cell phones, no sirree--I worship his craft, economy, visual brilliance--an' yes, cautionary insights--while we still use only flip phones here in old skool land!) My books are packed but ya likely know Lotte Eisner's The Haunted Screen--that's my kinda cinema (sin-e-ma but all cautionary tales...all worth reviewin'!) That said, there's been pulenty as ya know about movies as a religious kinda experience (dark hallowed houses...lookin' to the light... wull, ya git the metaphors but it all ties in which what'cha write!)