Does God use a computer?
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Does God use a computer? This was one of the final questions I asked my best friend before saying goodbye the night before we flew back to the United States.
It wasn’t a ridiculous question. At least I don’t think it is. It’s genuine. When I look at what we can create and do with our finite minds and resources and then I couple this with a belief that God is all knowing, I start to wonder things like, what if what makes God capable of being God is that he has very powerful technology to assist him.
For example, we believe that God hears and answers every prayer uttered by his children. Siri, Alexa, and Google are able to answer the questions and queries of anyone who owns one of their devices simultaneously. I can ask Siri a question and receive an answer in West Virginia at the exact same time my brother is asking a different question in Bedford England.
Also, consider that as Latter-day saints we believe that God has a body of flesh and bones just like our own, which to my understanding means that he can only be physically in one place at any given point. What if the visions people have are holograms or virtual reality? What if when angels appear they hand prophets a VR headset and say, “watch this”.
Joseph Smith had a seer stone that he would look into to translate The Book of Mormon. I likewise can ‘look into’ my smooth, rounded iPhone and translate most modern languages into a different one.
If ancient and modern prophets had no concept for todays technology, how else would they have describe it other than “the gift and power of God”.
If we could go back even as little as two-hundred years with all that we have now, it would appear miraculous, mind-blowing, and magnificent. Virtual and augmented reality, information super-highways, algorithms, apps, artificial intelligence.
I don’t think mortality is a computer, like the Matrix or Avatar, but what if technology is what allows God to know each of his children, to know where they are, what they are saying, thinking and feeling? Google knows where all of it’s users are and what they are doing, and often what they are saying too.
What if technology is how God opens the eyes of our understanding. It’s been said for years that the brain is the most powerful computer.
We can send signals and messages between two iPhones over a network. What if there is something similar we don’t yet understand in our brains that allows God to transmit messages to us.
Would this change your feelings towards him? Would it matter if this is how God was able to do all that he does? I am not suggesting this is how it all works, but as I see the increasing pace at which technology advances, I have to ask to what end and purpose would mankind be inspired to do so if it didn’t have some connection to our becoming like him.
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