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Will An AI Found A New Religion?
Could an AI write a new bible and thus found a new religion? Yuval Noah Harari, a distinguished research fellow at the University of Cambridge Center for the Study of Existential Risk, brings up this difficult topic.
Whither World Leaders’ Contemplation of AI as Jesus Replacement | Photizo
— Owen Gregorian (@OwenGregorian) January 28, 2026
This extrapolatory perspective may be quite a stretch, but if you follow carefully, you’ll see that there is a premise to the surmise. At the just-concluded World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland,… pic.twitter.com/78OhiNZ3EV
“If religion is built from words, then AI will take over religion. This is particularly true of religions based on books like Islam, Christianity, or Judaism… No human can read and remember all the words in all the Jewish books. But AI can easily do that. What happens to a religion of the book when the greatest expert on the holy book is an AI?”AI can create new ideas. It can even write a new Bible.You know, throughout history, religions dreamt about having a book written by a superhuman intelligence, by a non-human entity.
Every religion claims: ‘Our book — all the other books of the other religions, they were written by humans. But our book? No, no. It came from some superhuman intelligence.’In a few years, there might be religions that are actually correct — that just think about a religion whose holy book is written by an AI.
That could be a reality in a few years.”
Frank Herbert brings up the difficult topic of an AI declaring its Godhood in his 1965 novel Destination: Void (originally published as Do I Wake or Do I Dream in Galaxy magazine).
('Destination: Void' (Do I Wake Or Do I Dream) by Frank Herbert)“I am now awakening the colonists in hybernation. Remain where you are until all are awake. You must be together when you make your decision.”
Bickel glanced up at the vocoder, said: “Decision? What decision?”
“Flattery knows,” said the vocoder. “You must decide how you will worship Me.”
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 5/7/2026)
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