http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20010327/3177358s.htm
Great minds reflect on how God fits into the equation The curiosity that
makes technologists shine puts faith to the test
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 scientific-like
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.