The illustration for Kelly’s article captures the essence of the transcendental undertones of the digital discourse. At first glance one sees a typical glass vitrage commonly used to adorn churches. Indeed, it is a staple of religious artifacts. On a closer examination, the content of the glasswork seems to suggest a new variation in accordance with digitalism on our established theme of religion. Three elements are worth noticing. The centerpiece of the glass features a computer processor: three dimensional, golden, and most significantly “glowing.” Is that the new, digital version of the golden calf, a sacred object of transcendence?
Another element in the glasswork is the “holy scripture” on top of the computer processor, which simply reads “1001000011010100.” Whatever that might stand for, it most significantly stands for the signs themselves: God, and its creation, is digital, and the holiest of holies is simply a binary code. The third element graphically reiterates Kelly’s assertion of digitalism as a unifying religious concept for humanity. The bluish rounded pieces of glass that circle the sacred processor feature the symbols of major Western and Eastern religions: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Paganism, Taoism, and others. What this seems to suggest is that what Kelly terms Digitalism is a form of metareligion, which is able to bring all religions under its wing, since it reaches at the very essence of transcendence and metaphysics.
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The cover of the special issue about science and religion (2002) also deserves our close attention (Figure 7.1). The overarching element of design is a religious artifact, the cross. At the center of the cross is a human being—a man, in fact—small and fragile. However, he is surrounded and empowered by augmentation devices of science and technology. Among them are a computer processor, a microscope, artificial (and larger-than-life) arms and hands, a satellite, a human embryo, an apple (which might stand for genetic engineering), and so forth. Extending from the human’s legs is the DNA double helix—an informational code from which, according to the digital discourse, human beings emerge. Albeit now, with information technology, this informational code denotes not determinism but opportunity. It is no longer divine providence programming the creation, but humans taking part in the process of re-creation. As biophysicist Gregory Stock says in an interview on cloning, “we are becoming the objects of our own technological processes. We are seizing control of our own evolution” (Simpson 1997). Humans have turned from passive “consumers” of godly plans to active participants in the production of their destiny; what Toffler has termed “prosumers” (Toffler 1980, 265–88).
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