Without the Holy Spirit there is no church, no church service, no pastor, no sermon, no ministry, and no life. All you then have is just humanistic mush. But we now want to replace even God in our lives, and some churches are happy to go along with this. Sorry, no true Christian ever will. God words without God are nothing. ‘Church services’ without God are nothing. Religious rituals and ceremonies without God are nothing.

Many of the folks pushing things like transhumanism, AI, posthumanism and so on have often made clear the religious nature of their endeavours. They see all this as a new religion offering full and final salvation – but of a radically different sort than traditional religion does.
While many atheists and secularists are enthralled by the bright promises of a new technological future, others with a religious bent are also a part of all this, and are quite happy to tell us how old religions are being transcended and replaced in this world of AI and techno-futurism.
A critic of all this, James Herrick, has written extensively about these matters. In one 2017 collection of essays he offered this summary statement: “Transhumanists speak confidently of achieving goals such as technological immortality, creating computer deities, and radically altering the human race through technological enhancements including genetic and nanotechnological interventions.”
And in another 2017 book he puts it this way:
Religious categories such as miracle, resurrection, eternal life, and God are now contested territory, with old-style spiritual religionists pitted against new-style technological ones. It is no longer a question of science vs. religion, but of new scientific religions vs. old traditional ones.
 A number of observers have suggested that we are currently witnessing the emergence of a powerful new technological religion. Some embrace the possibility while others detect in it serious dangers. As narratives that mingle an aggressive technological agenda with spiritual aspiration, technofuturist myths address the longing expressed by artificial intelligence specialist Hugo de Garis to “invent something” that would satisfy spiritual longing “and satisfy the criteria from your intellect, from your knowledge, from your science.” For de Garis this dream of wedding spiritual longing to technological realities constitutes “a kind of scientifically-based belief system that energizes, that creates a vision, that excites.” De Garis labels this hope, “the idea of god building.” Neuroscientist Sebastian Seung, a critic of Transhumanism, secures the point in writing, “The Bible said that God made man in his own image. The German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach said that man made God in his own image. The transhumanists say that humanity will make itself into God.” Yet, the ethical details of this new technological religion are conspicuously absent from the discussion. De Garis, Seung, and many others raise the question: How should we think about the religious aspirations present in the Transhumanist vision?
Two recent items making headlines around the world illustrate the sort of brave new techno-religious worlds we are heading to. And these matters should concern not just Christians but all of us who care about the road we are now travelling on.
The first comes from something Yuval Noah Harari recently has said. You remember him: the atheist, homosexual historian who is often associated with Klaus Schwab’s World Economic Forum and the Great Reset mob. He routinely says stuff that is all rather shocking, and his latest offering was no different. As one report states:
Harari — who has written Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century — spoke last month about the future of AI and said it may soon greatly influence spirituality:
 “It’s the first technology ever that can create new ideas. You know, the printing press, radio, television, they broadcast, they spread the ideas created by the human brain, by the human mind. They cannot create a new idea.
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Draw conclusions. I personally have very strong beliefs about God as the one and only Creator, about Jesus Christ as God’s only Son, about our need for salvation through Christ alone because of our sins, about the resurrection of Jesus, and about a number of other issues. And when we come to strong conclusions, most of us want to share those conclusions with others. But we should do this with humility. After all, if you have arrived at the truth, the great thing that you have to offer is not yourself, but the truth.

In formal debate, participants prepare themselves to be able to articulate and defend a certain side of an argument. But they often are not told until right before the debate which side they will need to argue. For example, they may know that the debate is about the death penalty, but they may not know whether they will be arguing for or against it.
Because of this, debaters are forced to learn both sides of an issue. In fact, they are forced to know both sides so well that they would be able to effectively argue for positions with which they disagree.
This skill—the skill of articulating both sides of an issue—is one that is in short supply in American culture. Most debates that we observe on television consist of two people trying to outshout and demonize each other. This is because it is much easier to dismiss opposing arguments than it is to understand them.
And most of us opt for the easy way more than we realize. We do this by listening to podcasts, reading books, and watching shows that reinforce—rather than challenge—our beliefs. It is more comfortable to think that the other side (politically, theologically, or in relationships) is immoral or foolish than to think that they may have arguments that would challenge us.
Proverbs 18:17 says, “In a lawsuit, the first to speak seems right until someone comes forward and cross-examines.” In this verse, Solomon says that wise people make sure that they know both sides of an issue before drawing a conclusion. Because this practice is so rare in our culture, I want to offer four ways that we can follow Solomon’s wise words and pursue understanding both sides.
1. Assume there is more to the story.
I have three sons. When one of them comes to me with a story about how his brother attacked him, I find myself being skeptical. I am not skeptical that a conflict occurred. I am simply skeptical that the conflict arose because of one completely innocent victim and one unprovoked perpetrator.
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Wine can only be furnished in times of stability. Poignantly, wine then represents rest. Wine needs deep roots, hardy vines, and vats stored with the leisure to ferment. The Mosaic Law seems at first to overlook the wine offering, but as the promised Canaan rest drew near, wine took a more prominent role in the worship of God’s people.

When we think about the sacrifices and offerings in Moses’ Law we most likely jump to thinking about the bloody offering of a lamb. While this is certainly the most prominent offering found in the Law, it isn’t the only one. Like the great Storyteller He is, God hints at another kind of covenantal offering in Exodus 29:40, where wine is poured out along with the sacrificial lamb.
In the thorough sacrificial instructions in Leviticus this drink offering gets very little mention and scarcely any description of how it should be performed. That is until it’s mentioned in connection with the Feast of Weeks––what we would call Pentecost (Lev. 23:13).
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