Ugh, every time I read that thing it just gets more and more wrong. How on earth does Mother Brain equal distributed authority? The entire point of PS2 (at least IMNSHO) is that people traded their autonomy away to a centralized power - Mother Brain - and in doing so became weak and lazy. It's absolutely about dependence on technology, but more about dependence on central authority. A more apt comparison would be to the Bush administration.
Anyway, it's well known that Mike is a neoconservative and has an intense personal dislike of communism, and also has a tendency to latch on to the three or four items that he thinks "prove" his particular take on something and ignore everything else. He's just cherrypicking issues from the game without considering the larger picture.
On the original question - Mother Brain very much *was* a God to the people of Algo, wasn't she? Controlling every aspect of the environment, with an army of machines at her disposal to enforce her will, with the "good" people being given every comfort of life for nothing while her enemies are constantly attacked? I could pretty easily see the more simpleminded people falling into a position of worship, all that considered. It's not all that different from what a real God would be like.