Technology should be influenced by religious and social values - Essay Example

Ortega y Gasser found that man and technology began together (Gasser, 1941), and technology has always facilitated man’s functioning beyond the limitations of his natural self. Thus, technology, religious and social values are mutually interdependent, and contribute to each others’ growth (Newman, 1997). “Religion is universally acknowledged as one of the primary forms of human experience and culture” (Newman, 1997, p.1), and from ancient times till the present day, religion continues to have social significance.

Moreover, contemporary humanistic social scientific scholars have reinforced the approach that religion is vital to achieve a clear understanding of social values and culture. Thus, even Sigmund Freud, the severe critic of religious illusion, stated that “religion has ruled human society for many thousands of years” (Freud,1964, p.60). Significantly, technology and culture have a historical, and even pre-historical relationship, and several cultural theorists have found technology to have a greater social importance than religion.

For example, according to Thorstein Veblen, “in the growth of culture, as in its current maintenance, the facts of technological use and wont are fundamental and definitive” (Veblen, 1964, p.v). These assertions made by scholars do not refer to technology in the sense of the latest electronic gadget purchased at the local store, but to innovations and technical skills that have helped man to employ the basic principles of agriculture, to build houses, to weave cloth, to make tools, create weapons, manufacture simple domestic utensils such as cooking pots, cooking ovens, cutlery, and in making basic furniture (Cardwell, 1972).

Even a simple human community needs a fundamental level of such technology if it has to rise above the level of primitive existence experienced by wandering food-gatherers. The purpose of technology is to transform nature into