I believe the human animal is a very interesting one.

We are capable, through power of the mind alone, of all sorts of nifty things. We can alter our perception of pain, increase or decrease our white cell count, and make all sorts of other changes to the biochemical soup that is our body, with proper mental stimulus. That's the placebo/nocebo effect, and it's capable of some crazy stuff. People with deep spiritual convictions can actually heal faster from traumatic surgery because of prayer/meditation.

I like your computer analogy. The 'sufficiently advanced technology' quote is a personal favorite of mine. In a way, we're creating this strange new world where our primary 'religion/god' is technology. It's a part of everyone's life, like it or not. Some people are our shamans or priests, who speak the sacred (meaning 'apart') language and intervene when things go awry. Like bioemerl, I believe with enough study there is probably nothing that we are capable of perceiving that cannot be explained by natural law, including the behavior of actors with 'free will.'

That being said, I have a fascination with 'Magick.' I'm very interested in the traditional religions/beliefs of my finnish/swedish ancestors, before the Christians got to them. I'm interested in the strange similarities that crop up in mystical traditions around the world. I wonder what dark memories lurk in our species past that drive us to express and experience a lot of the same patterns of thought/feeling/belief. I marvel in mandalas, and fractal imagery, and when I take psilocybin I have an intense perception of the 'sacred geometry' that these images attempt to replicate. It's hard to describe the feeling when you suddenly grasp the dizzying understanding meant to be conveyed in 'turtles all the way down.'