One note that I'll add: if we want to make "religion" palatable to hackers, there is a way in: reincarnation research. The reason I say this is that, as I menti

One note that I'll add: if we want to make "religion" palatable to hackers, there is a way in: reincarnation research. The reason I say this is that, as I mentioned in another post, hackers like to experience things directly, understand them at intimate levels, and improve them, which makes the immutable, transcendent, unprovable and irrefutable "truths" offered by religion unappealing. 500 years from now, we'll still have no scientific evidence either way regarding the existence of God, and there will be millions of people on each side of the debate. However, empirical reincarnation research (e.g. the work of Ian Stevenson) can be done, and early results are promising. It's not enough, at this very early stage, to "prove" that reincarnation occurs after death, but it could provide a lot of interesting insights into what we are as humans, using methodology that scientifically-minded hackers would approve.