A bloody long article, but interesting, and I'm pleased to have been introduced to the Deep Civilisation page that it comes from. That's my toilet reading sorted for the next few weeks – thank you.

There were humans long before there were gods...we did alright.

All hail the robot overlords !!!

New gods? Greed,exceptionalism and super humans... apologies,you know that

Just what I thought. Jesus has a hollow head.

If gods and the supernatural do not exist, then like anything that does not exist, they are blank unwritten tablets. Therefore you can write on them anything you wish, and they can pretend to fulfill any need you wish, and they are because of that limitless in scope and variation, and can be endlessly reinvented, and so also can most of human culture. Is it therefore any wonder, they can be so easily and cheaply made and marketed by pretenders ?

In the novel Moby Dick, the cabin boy falls over the side of the boat and is left floating in the empty ocean for several hours, without sight of land or ship. When he is found it is discovered that several hours without being able to touch anything solid, locate himself, know where anything else is or which way he is facing, have sent him quite mad. This is a good a metaphor for humans trapped in the cultures which they make for themselves. Like spiders caught in their own webs they can not touch the sides or escape, or find contact with objective reality. Which is why the anti-cultural element of science is so valuable, it main defining feature and perhaps our only hope.

I couldn't help but think in terms of idealism expressed as ideologies.

More of the same but different I expect!

Satoshi will be worshipped. Bitcoin followers will search far and wide for his presence. A new bitcoin sect will appear destroying the fiat money system one by one.

Gee really? China, India, thousands of years of civilization with masses of "small" gods, all European civilizations and South America ditto, Greeks, Romans with their pantheons......WTH are you talking about?