End-Times Idol Hiding in Plain Sight? Technology, AI, and the Spirit of Antichrist

Idols and idolatry have become antiquated concepts, long neglected by the modern megachurch pastors in lieu of more crowd-pleasing topics.

This has been left to Old Testament scholars and assiduous seminary students writing stodgy old thesis papers on ecclesiology.

Sadly, it isn’t just the concept of worshipping false gods that has gone out of style. Worshipping the one true God has as well. We have been told ad nauseum for decades that we are living in a time of scientific revolution. Socially engineered “eras” have been coined such as the age of technology, the computer age, the information age, the digital age, the silicon age, and the new media age. We are told that we are evolving as a species through these advancements in science and technology, and these discoveries and inventions will outmode the need for any type of “organized” religion.

But I contend that we always have, and we always will be spiritual beings. And we always have and we always will have technology. Science and technology are not replacing religion, so much as they are becoming the neoreligion of the 21st century and beyond.

According to philosopher, computationalist, and award-winning video game designer, Ian Bogost, who also holds a joint professorship at Washington University as director and professor of the Film and Media Studies program in Arts & Sciences, and the McKelvey School of Engineering:

…we’re not living in an algorithmic culture so much as a computational theocracy.

Here’s an exercise: The next time you hear someone talking about algorithms, replace the term with “God” and ask yourself if the meaning changes. Our supposedly algorithmic culture is not a material phenomenon so much as a devotional one, a supplication made to the computers people have allowed to replace gods in their minds, even as they simultaneously claim that science has made us impervious to religion.

It’s part of a larger trend. The scientific revolution was meant to challenge tradition and faith, particularly a faith in religious superstition. But today, enlightenment ideas like reason and science are beginning to flip into their opposites. Science and technology have become so pervasive and distorted, they have turned into a new type of theology.

Let’s pause a moment to define a term. An algorithm is “a finite set of unambiguous instructions that, given some set of initial conditions, can be performed in a prescribed sequence to achieve a certain goal and that has a recognizable set of end conditions.”

To Bogost’s point, that definition could be interchanged perfectly with the biblical, Old Testament concept of the Torah—a finite set of unambiguous instructions (the Law/Covenant), given some set of initial conditions (blessing and curses), performed in a prescribed sequence to achieve a certain goal (peace with God, salvation) and that has a recognizable set of end conditions (eternal life or eternal damnation). In this sense, the algorithm is the techno-Torah of our generation. And lest you think I’m speaking metaphorically; the Torah quite literally is an algorithm. The original text was written in paleo, with no spaces, no vowels, and no punctuation—much like binary code.

Bear the Bogost quote in mind as we consider the words of Jehovah spoken through the prophet Jeremiah in Jeremiah 23:26-27 (KJV):

“How long shall this be in the heart of the prophets that prophesy lies? Yea, they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart; which think to cause my people to forget my name by their dreams which they tell every man to his neighbour, as their fathers have forgotten my name for Baal.”

If we no longer live in a theocracy, but in an algocracy (to coin a new word, if I may) then the high priests and prophets of today are the scientists and the tech giants—the Elon Musks and the Geordie Roses of the world. And what are the ends of their dreams? Innovation. Advancing economic development. Better quality of life. Life extension. Social equality. Education.

No, the end goal of all their dreaming is the same as it was in the days of Jeremiah—to cause humankind to forget the name of their Creator in exchange for the name of Ba’al; and in doing so, transmogrifying the image of man into the image of the beast. In this book, we examine exactly how they are doing this right now, right under our noses. But first, we must define some terms.

Idolatry 101

The modern Christian understands an idol to be a thing that is venerated, worshipped, or adored. Grammatically, the word idol is classified as a noun—a person, place, or thing. But interestingly, the Hebrew word for idol is an adjective—a word that modifies (or gives richer detail to) a noun. For instance, in the sentence, “I own a red car,” car is the noun and red is the adjective enhancing the description of the car. The Hebrew word for idol as used in Leviticus 26:1 (cited at the head of this chapter) is Strong’s Hebrew 457, elil (ליִלֱא). It does not mean an object of extreme devotion, a likeness of something, a symbol, or an object of worship. The Hebrew sense of the word elil is insufficiency or worthlessness, which are both used as adjectives to enhance a noun, as in worthless gods or insufficient deities.

But because modern Americans are more influenced by Greek thought than they are by Semitic thought, they have adopted the Greekunderstanding of an idol. The Koine word for idol is Strong’s Greek 1497, eidolon (εἴδωλον). Eidolon means, “an image (for worship). By implication a false god.”

An article titled “Ancient & Modern Idols” found on the Early Church History website states, “Idol comes from the Greek word eidolon meaning ‘appearance, reflection in water or in a mirror.’ An idol is simply the reflection in stone, wood, or metal of the person who hand-made that idol.”

I am not sure where the idea of the water or the mirror comes from as it is not typically referenced in any dictionary definitions of the word idol; however, if I had to guess, I would speculate that the link between idols and demons may tie back to the ancient methods of scrying. “Mirror scrying is an evolved form of water scrying. When it became possible to build mirrors they were regarded as being like water that was fixed into one place.”

The “Ancient and Modern Idols” article cites no sources; but according to the Thayer’s Greek Lexicon, the meaning of the word eidolon (going all the way back to the Classical Greek of Homer) is simply, “an image, likeness.”

Quoting directly from Thayer’s lexicon: “εἴδωλον, εἰδώλου, τό (εἶδος (cf. Winers Grammar, 96 (91); Etym. Magn. 296, 9), in Greek writings from Homer down, an image, likeness, i.e., whatever represents the form of an object, either real or imaginary; used of the shades of the departed (in Homer), of apparitions, specters, phantoms of the mind, etc.; in Biblical writings (an idol, i.e.).”

Apart from the New Testament, secular Greek literature utilizes eidolon as an image or idol, but the concept is expanded to include a double, apparition, phantom, or ghost. In fact, the ancient Greek understanding of an eidolon is like the German concept of a doppelgänger, which is described as a “spirit-image of a living or dead per-son; a shade or phantom lookalike of the human form.”

This literary contrivance was utilized by Homer, Euripides, and Greek poet, Stesichorus. Homer uses this gambit to give Helen of Troy life after death; while Euripides and Stesichorus both use the idea of eidolon in their writings as evidence that Helen herself was never in Troy at all but rather, an apparition of her likeness appeared there in her stead.

This concept carried forward into modern American literature as well. A great example can be found in Edgar Allen Poe’s poem Dream-Land where, “…an Eidolon rules over a realm haunted by ‘ill angels only’ and reserved for the ones whose ‘woes are legion’ and who ‘walk in shadow.’” Three decades after Poe penned Dream-Land, Walt Whitman authored a poem of the same name and expanded upon the concept, making room for even more apparitions and lifeforms to be absorbed into the eidolon pantheon.

Author and scholar Frederic Carpenter, in his 1942 article, “Walt Whitman’s ‘Eidolon,’” writes, “In Whitman’s use of the term we can see the concept broaden to include the idea of an oversoul composed of the individual souls of all life and expanding to include the Earth itself and the hierarchy of the planets, sun, stars, and galaxy.”

What appears at first blush to be extreme artistic license on Whitman’s behalf may be hitting closer to home than any previous definition. We will be delving into this idea in greater detail as this book unfolds, as there appears to be some rather arcane connections between idols, doppelgängers, stars, and planets. But for the time being, let’s direct our attention to the New Testament.

First John 5:21 (NKJV) says, “Little children, keep yourself from idols.” John is not prohibiting people from owning artistic sculptures, dolls, or stuffed animals; but rather, is exhorting believers to “guard oneself from all manner of fellowship with heathen worship.” Similarly, Paul warns the Corinthians to not be as the idolaters (1 Corinthians 10:7). The word cited therein (as in 1 John 5:21) is eidólolatrés, meaning a server or worshipper of something worthless or insufficient. Which, under the auspices of the first Commandment, would be the worship of anything other than Jehovah God, not simply a commendation to not own art or sculptures carved out of wood or stone. This also harkens back to Jeremiah 23:26-27, where an idolator is identified as one who forgets the name of Jehovah for Ba’al.

When we think about the idols of the past, we think of sacred pillars, Asherah poles, obelisks, altars, columns, black stones, steles, etc. Our mind typically envisions crudely carved rocks and boulders—eyesores (or tourist traps!) on the side of the road. Even when mentally envisioning the tablets that the Ten Commandments were first carved on by the finger of Jehovah—we don’t picture the beautiful lapis lazuli stone cut from the floor of heaven, but rather some generic-looking limestone props held high above Charlton Heston’s head on some old Hollywood movie poster.

But the reality is, the people of antiquity had just as much appreciation for beauty and aesthetics as we do today (perhaps more), as reflected in their artwork, fashion, and architecture. These “rocks” and “stones” used as tablets, altars, oath stones, steles, and idols were often made of choice metals and precious stones such as lapis lazuli, emerald, ivory, onyx, Shaligram, marble, bronze, silver, and gold.

But perhaps the most interesting of all the rocks deified by the ancients is that of the baetyl. According to the Encyclopedia Brittanica, “A principal sacred object in Arabian religion was the stone…such stones were thought to be the residence of a God, hence the term applied to them by Byzantine Christian writers of the 5th and 6th centuries: ‘baetyl,’ from bet’el, the house of god.”

In Christianity, when we think of Bethel, we think of a city—a place named “House of God” by Jacob after laying his head upon a stone and seeing a stairway to heaven. We know there was something extraordinary about this stone, because we are told in Genesis 28:18, “Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it.”

Philip Neal, author of Two Nations That Changed the World, America and Britain, Their Biblical Origin and Prophetic Destiny, states within Appendix 5—Jacob’s Pillow Stone, The Prophetic Stone of Destiny—that upon anointing the stone with oil, Jacob declares:

“Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it.” Frightened, he added, “How fearful is this place! This is nothing but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!” (Exodus 28:16-17). Jacob is inspired. He takes the “pillow” he had been sleeping on and sets it up as a “memorial stone”—and anoints it with oil. Then he renamed the place Bethel “house of God.” Exodus 28: 20-22: “Then Jacob made a vow, saying, ‘Since God will be with me, and will keep me in the way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to put on, and I come again to my father’s house in peace, then shall the LORD be my God. And this stone which I have set for a pillar shall be [symbolic of] God’s house. And of all that You shall give me, I will surely give the tenth to You.’