Rethinking the 'religion of technology' thesis

The following study is an attempt to ascertain the most adequate way to understand the relationship in modernity between religion and technology. This relationship is first analyzed by looking at a common way in which technology has been categorized and discussed as representing the religion of modernity. The first chapter critically evaluates several popular and scholarly works which contain arguments for understanding that the modern world participates in some kind of 'religion of technology.' The inadequacies of these arguments are shown to arise from the problematic ways in which they invoke the meanings of both religion and technology. The suggestive possibility of viewing religion as a kind of technology leads to a consideration of how technology is being understood in the field of the philosophy of technology.;In chapters three and four the work of two of these North American philosophers, Don Ihde and Albert Borgmann, is analyzed to evaluate their responses and reactions to the metaphysical and onto-theological interpretation of technology. Their interpretations contain an inherently religious understanding of modern technology which leads to the conclusion that there is neither religion nor technology in modernity, but only religious technology and technological religion.;The possibilities raised by this state of affairs are explored in the conclusion. The work of these philosophers of technology reveals how the study of religion in modernity would benefit from understanding the quotidian and material way in which religion is manifested technologically and technology religiously. Avenues of future research can address issues regarding globalization, cross-cultural technology implementation and how to understand the place of religion in global techno-culture from the development of a new praxis -oriented philosophy of technology-religion.;The second chapter discusses the influence and responses to the conflation of technology and religion as manifestations of the same phenomenon in Euro-American philosophy. Influenced by German philosopher Martin Heidegger, this stream of thought takes as axiomatic his contention that "technique is the metaphysics of our time." The currency of the 'religion/technology' philosophy in European thought leads to a critical body of work amongst some North American philosophers concerned with a practical approach to technology.