By Kevin Maney
USA TODAY
Magdalena Yesil, a prominent venture capitalist, found God because of
computer programming. Kim Polese, chairman of Marimba, and Shikhar
Ghosh, a founder of several technology companies, see elements of God in
the connectivity of the Internet. Peter Cochrane, former chief scientist
for
British Telecom, concludes from his work in science that there is no God.
How do leaders of the technology industry view God? In a sense,
technology and God seem at opposite poles. Technology works because of
hard facts, mathematical equations and the logic of software. God is
ephemeral and spiritual, made real by faith more than facts. It would
seem that technology, and the people who create it, might lean toward
godlessness.
Yet more than ever in society, God and science seem to be compatible, if
not converging. You can see it in a host of books out over the past year,
with titles such as Russell Stannard's The God Experiment: Can Science
Prove the Existence of God? You can find it in talks at organizations such
as the American Scientific Affiliation, which is devoted to the topic of
science and Christianity. And you can hear it in the words of today's tech
leaders.
In lengthy interviews with more than a dozen CEOs, venture capitalists
and entrepreneurs in the industry, most expressed a strong belief in
either the God of tradition or some kind of higher, godlike being. The
conversations were often fascinating, showing that these business minds
have spent a lot of time trying to figure out the big questions about God
and life. In most cases, greater knowledge of technology and science has
led to greater conviction that some form of God is out there.
God is in the details
For some tech leaders, technology has played a role in a personal
journey. David Roberts, co-founder of Web-enabled e-mail company
Zaplet, grew up in a religious home. As a teenager, he was drawn to
science. ''By the time I was 18,'' he says, ''I was not an atheist but
was
strongly agnostic. Parts of me were against the idea of all religion not
backed up by science.''
As Roberts dove more deeply into science while a student at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a manager at the CIA, and an
executive in Silicon Valley, he found reasons to change his mind. ''Today
I'm more certain in my belief in God than in the car I'm sitting in,''
he says
over a cellphone.
Roberts details many reasons for his shift. But one is both unusual and
rooted in technology. ''How could God be ever present?'' Roberts asks.
Is it
possible for God to actually watch over every being, or is that a grand
myth? It's probably one of the more difficult questions about God. But
Roberts tried thinking it through in the realm of technology.
In a sense, God has long been thought of as a single, all-powerful
supercomputer, and it stretches faith to see how one entity could be
involved with every creature. Yet, Roberts says, if you think in terms
of
computer chips, they are getting smaller to the point of microscopic, and
they are increasingly being embedded in everyday items, from
eyeglasses to baseballs. In coming years, billions of items will have a
bit
of intelligence and a tiny radio tag that will let them send and receive
information, connecting back to data networks and bigger computers. If
God is an advanced, higher being, wouldn't he operate that way? Perhaps
his is a diffuse information network. ''Then it's easier to think about
the
idea that even 4 billion humans can be very easy to observe or influence,''
Roberts says.
Like Roberts, Yesil, now a venture capitalist at U.S. Venture Partners,
turned away from religion early on. She grew up in Turkey, which is
largely Muslim, as an Armenian Christian. As a teenager, she moved
toward science, ''and I believed that faith and a belief in God was for
people who couldn't explain things scientifically,'' she says.
She moved to the USA to attend college and started taking heavy
programming classes. She eventually worked as a software logic
designer. The job was so detailed and precise, she realized that no
matter how logical she was, she'd make programming mistakes, as every
programmer does. ''This logic of mine that I'd thought was perfect had
incredible shortcomings,'' Yesil says. ''I began realizing that, with a
lot of
things, if you can't explain it analytically, it doesn't mean it's not
real.''
Over the years, she returned to a belief in God and is again a practicing
Christian.
The idea of the holy
Technologists often come up with scientificlike theories that help them
explain the existence of God or a higher being.
Polese was trained as a biophysicist before moving into software at Sun
Microsystems and later founding Marimba. That background has led her
to believe that as humans discover and use science and technology, we
are evolving toward a higher consciousness. ''Evolution is about matter
moving toward spirituality,'' she says. In that sense, the Internet is
an
important development. Because it can connect everyone everywhere, it
makes physical presence less important. We can exist on another level --
a slightly higher consciousness. Plus, the hum of millions of collective
voices on the Net is itself a level of consciousness that floats above
that of
individuals.
''It's not a mistake that the Internet came along when it did,'' Polese
says.
If God is the highest consciousness, she says, then ''I believe that science
and technology are bringing us closer to God, not separating us.''
For different reasons, Ghosh, whose latest company is Waltham,
Mass.-based Verilytics, also finds a sense of God in the Internet. Ghosh
grew up in India, a Hindu by belief though his family didn't much practice
the religion. Today, he is not particularly religious, but he reads and
thinks about spirituality.
''In the Christian way of thinking,'' he says, ''there is God up there
and man
down here. In a lot of Eastern religions, that distinction is not at all
clear.
God is in everyone, and people are connected through that. The concept
of
God is a universal connectivity -- a sense that everything living is
connected with everything else.''
Perhaps, Ghosh says, the Net is an important step toward that concept of
God. ''Suddenly there is a surface level of connection you can have with
all
sorts of forces around the world.''
Many of those interviewed say that the more they know about science,
the more they are in awe of the elegance and beauty of the universe --
a
thought that leads them to some concept of a higher being as the creator.
Randy Isaac, chief of IBM Research, calls it ''the mystery of the beauty.
Why is the universe beautiful and understandable? That's a key coupling
point that gets me back to God -- God that created a universe that's
beautiful and understandable.''
Others, in fact, find that their understanding of science separates God
from the natural world. Arno Penzias, former head of Bell Labs and a Nobel
prize winner, has worked intently with science -- from DNA strands to
cosmic forces. Science, he says, ''is able to describe the world, but it
doesn't explain it. Everything I do is done through bodies that obey the
laws of physics. But I still believe love exists, and it's more than
biochemistry. That's where it goes past physical sciences.'' Penzias was
born a Jew in prewar Germany and escaped at age 6. He believes in God
and still practices Judaism.
Varieties of religious experience
Not everyone interviewed has used science to find God. For some, science
nullifies the idea of God. ''God? I think it's a highly unlikely proposition,''
says Cochrane, who in the past year left British Telecom to form Concept
Labs in Berkeley, Calif. He was raised going to church every Sunday but
now describes his version of God this way: ''There is all this material
lying
around in a void universe, and it's a matter of physics, clusters and things
happening and parts formed -- it's way beyond the human imagination.
My overall thinking is that if I have a belief, it's in the human race
-- that
we'll ultimately do the right thing.''
Jeff Hawkins, chairman of Handspring, was brought up in an non-religious
family. His ventures into science and technology make him skeptical
about God. ''I don't believe in a personable God. There's zero evidence
for
it. It goes against all logic,'' he says. ''That's not to say the universe
might
not have a design to it. If we figure out what that is, it may be elegant
and
profound and have a reason. But it's clear that it operates on a set of
principles. It's self-running. It's not being guided.''
For a few tech leaders at the other end of the spectrum, the immersion
in
science and technology has done little to change or shake an undying
faith learned from childhood. Isaac of IBM is that way. So is Walter
Agumbi-Okwany, born in Mombasa, Kenya, and now CEO of tech company
Adoyo Digital Solutions, based in Milledgeville, Ga.
''I strongly believe that everything in place came as a result of God's
plan,'' he says. ''God allowed us to make significant advances in science
and technology simply to alleviate suffering, adapt to our ever-changing
world and make our lives easier.'' He describes himself as a born-again
Christian.
George Conrades, CEO of Akamai Technologies, says he is a ''deep believer
in God.'' To him, science is one thing. God is quite another. ''It's orthogonal
to me,'' he says. ''God is infinite grace and unconditional love. I don't
think
we're going to find that in nanotechnology.''
One point that's clear is that leaders in technology think about God and
science and search for answers. Rarely, they say, do they do so publicly,
usually because of concerns they might offend customers or employees
or perhaps clash with contemporaries who believe differently.
But it's a topic churning through their minds nonetheless. While these
people are pushing nature to its known limits to bring us amazing
computers and Internet connections and wireless devices, they are often
left with a sense of wonder about the side of everything that is
spiritual.
"Great minds..." was published in the USA Today on March 27th, 2001