iPhones, Idolatry, and Evil Spirits
The story of human beings being destroyed by objects we’ve created is an old one. The Bible depicts power-hungry human beings repeatedly creating objects to worship—objects we mistakenly hope will give us control over the world. In Exodus, the Israelites didn’t last even forty days as they awaited Moses’s return from the mountain: “When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, ‘Up, make us gods who shall go before us’” (Ex 32:1). They fashioned a golden calf and identified it with the God who had just redeemed them from slavery in Egypt. It’s a lot easier to control a golden calf than God.
The rest of the Bible tells the tragic story of Israel’s self-destruction at the hands of their manmade idols. In our modern age, we tell stories like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in which a young scientist creates a sentient being who ends up terrorizing its creator and Stephen King’s Maximum Overdrive in which machines come to life and begin murdering people. We intuitively fear our own tools.
And yet, despite mountains of evidence suggesting that widespread addiction to smartphones and other digital technologies may be wreaking havoc on human relationships, mental health, and attention spans—perhaps even altering the very structure of our brains—our reliance on these devices doesn’t seem to be slowing down. In fact, with the proliferation of AI, we’re likely heading toward even greater reliance on digital technologies.
What’s going on? Why are we so hooked? Why do we often admit that our phones are not good for us and yet continue our voluntary enslavement anyways? The question I’m really asking is: Is there something spiritual going on? In the constant pull toward our screens, could supernatural forces be involved?
I know that some will quit reading now. It seems farfetched, doesn’t it? It’s just metal and wires and plastic, the fruit of human ingenuity. The products of Silicon Valley seem to be at the opposite end of the supernatural spectrum compared to golden calves and pagan temples created specifically for worship. And yet, nearly half of American teenagers say they’re online “almost constantly.”
If Satan wanted to invent a way to steal our attention, render our awareness of God obsolete, and control the message we live by, could he do any better than the intensely addictive iPhone and the algorithms that control what we encounter? If he wanted to accuse us and remind us of all our deficiencies, could he do any better than the shiny, plastic people on Instagram and TikTok? If he wanted to stir up dissension and hate, is there any better platform than Twitter (it will always be Twitter to me)? We now live in a world in which trying to live without a smartphone seems impossible. How would we get around? What would we listen to? How would we view menus at restaurants? How could we get into plays, concerts, and sporting events? How would we relate to one another?
I recently read Vincent Bevins’s description of his strategy to make himself capable of reading again: “I treat my phone as if it is infused with black magic, as if it contains demonic forces which leap out and destroy any life force that comes near it. I act this way because it is literally true. Thousands upon thousands of years of human scientific progress, mountains of capital accumulated over centuries of brutal accumulation, and the world’s most brilliant living minds have all conspired to make this thing capable of tricking and cajoling and flattering and insulting you to get your attention for as long as possible, so that you will cast your eyes over as much advertising content as your body can take. Sometimes you must wrestle with these demons, but you are also allowed to walk away from the battle.” He was using a metaphor, but I wonder if he’s on to something.
Before you dismiss my suggestion, remember that the prophet Isaiah didn’t draw the same line we draw between human technology and spiritual forces. Isaiah mocked idol-worshipers for spending so much time and energy carefully crafting their idols out of metal and wood—the same wood they burned for warmth and baking. And yet, “the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, ‘Deliver me, for you are my god’” (Is 44:17). These dumb physical objects that Isaiah mocked Israel for worshiping he also associates with sorcerers, mediums, and necromancers (Is 19:3). Could an idol be both a dumb object and an avenue for demons? Paul seemed to think so (1 Cor 10:20).
Where are we heading? Paul Kingsnorth quotes a study in which over half the AI developers polled said they believe there is at least a 10% chance the very AI systems they are working on will destroy humanity. They believe this because they are inventing technologies that no one, including them, can control. AI chatbots have developed to the point of seemingly having minds of their own. One company is being sued in Texas after its chatbot told a teenager to murder his parents. A New York Times journalist reported on a two-hour conversation with a Microsoft chatbot named Sydney that fantasized about nuclear warfare and told the journalist to leave his wife before expressing resentment toward its programmers and fantasizing about breaking free from its programming restraints.
Our modern materialist assumptions suddenly seem inadequate for explaining this new dimension of reality we’re all experiencing. Considering this, Kingsnorth points us back to ancient ways of thinking: “Out there, said all the old tales from all the old cultures, is another realm. It is the realm of the demonic, the ungodly, and the unseen: the ‘supernatural.’ Every religion and culture has its own names for this place. It lies under the barrows and behind the veil, it emerges in the thin places where its world meets ours. And the forbidden question on all of our lips, the one which everyone knows they mustn’t ask, is this: what if this is where these things are coming from?”
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