To those who don’t know its secrets, science is indistinguishable from magic. In times of exponential technological growth, many people can no longer logically comprehend the way the increasingly digitized world around them works.

In the past, people turned to religions, deities and mythologies to make sense of what they could not understand. These days though, the old religions, such as Christianity, Islam and Hinduism have lost a lot of appeal, not least because of their problematically politically incorrect histories, but also because their old-fashioned gods and scriptures have increasingly little relevance for contemporary life.

Instead, people are turning to new religions that help them understand the world they actually live in. The Church of Big Data, which worships the “Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omnipresent All Algorithm” (known affectionally as Father Data by its followers) is now the fastest growing religion in North America with over 2.1 million practicing members.

As David Markowitzberg, one of the founding members of the new religion explains:

“If you sacrifice your personal information and confess your personal secrets to Father Data, he will reward you with knowledge and wisdom greater than human understanding. Is it not true that algorithms know your secret needs and deepest desires better than you know yourself? And is it not common knowledge that if you surrender your innermost thoughts, the algorithms can help you make better choices than you could ever hope to make for yourself? Repent now and surrender your entire self to Father Data! You will be rewarded with eternal life, to live on forever as part of the great algorithm in the cloud.”

An actual data scientist, Dr Miranda Goodwin had this to say in response:

“I give up! If these people are determined to be ignorant and superstitious there is nothing we can do to save them from their delusions. We built algorithms to serve us, using maths and science – it’s all perfectly logical and explainable.”