Joe Rogan and Tucker's Viral Talk About God. What You Need To Know.

[jmdrake]

[acptulsa]

Rogan and Carlson are interesting. They're trying to get to the heart of it. The person commenting and cross examining their little panel of average joes seems to be a little too mired in dogma to go there.

Rogan and Carlson seem to be trapped trying to wrap their minds around the fact (and it is a fact) that evil consumes its allies. It's like the prevalent insistence that the Deep State must necessarily hate the person it's persecuting and not the person it's trying to ignore. But evil always tries to ignore good, and always consumes its own. Evil will happily pretend to consume its own without doing it, then ultimately consume its own for real.

So few people ask, why did God create the devil? I don't blame them. Too many people ask, can't find a good answer, and lose faith -- or worse, curse God for doing it. Nobody thinks about the fact that God brought the devil out in the desert and said, tempt me. God unleashed the devil on Jesus, in other words, on Himself. I need to know for certain that this human animal brain can indeed be controlled before I unleash Myself on humanity in this form. People think, it was cruel to unleash the devil on Job. So was He doing Himself evil unleashing the devil on Himself?

Fundamentalists love to insist that God is a micromanager. Everything is predetermined and preplanned. A God who can be surprised -- and not even by a major trend, but just capable of laughing at an unexpected remark -- is not the kind of God they care to try to wrap their minds around. Man creates God in our own image, and these people can only picture God as a control freak who dotes on constant praise. Their God is an arrogant, spoiled brat, and they can't stand the idea that He isn't.

God calls Himself our Father. Most fathers like to be surprised by their children. Sometimes it makes them laugh. Sometimes it makes them proud. It always breaks the monotony. And I don't happen to believe we have the slightest clue what monotony is. And we won't unless and until we live forever.

Is it a contradiction to say, "God invented natural selection, even though He could have made us perfect from the start?" He didn't make us perfect from the start. That's one clue, and here's another: Man invented dice. What else besides unpredictability are dice good for?

So, why a devil? A peaceful society can theoretically be achieved, but the people in it have to want good. The only way sinners can be averse to sin, to want to have no truck with evil, is to know how it feels to be on the receiving end of it. I know how it feels when that's done to me, so I choose not to do it to others. I don't want to live that way.

There we have the devil's job, the reason a loving God would create one.

Suppose you had a bunch of people who prided themselves on their goodness and morality. And suppose they permitted, even encouraged, their government to bomb the living snot out of people halfway around the world. Suppose they made excuses for, or just refused to even think about, people waking up and saying, gee, I wonder if I'll be in the wrong place at the wrong time today and get made into mincemeat by the forces of the Death From Above people? I wonder how many more of the people I love got their Death From Above last night?

Ignoring that question is hypocrisy. I think that it's significant that Jesus didn't target the Herods and Pilates. He spent a great deal of His time, however, calling out the Pharisees, these men of God, for their hypocrisy. Organized religion has had that problem from the first. The Pharisees tell themselves, to make an omelet you have to break a few eggs. They want the omelet, but making it isn't their job. Their job is to hatch chickens.

How would you teach these people a lesson? Would you take a bunch of these dreadfully, justifiably angry people and dump them right in the laps of the hypocrites who didn't put a stop to it, relished in it, felt superior because of it, and financed it? Is there a better way to make people see how easy it is to be suckered into supporting evil, to put a face on "consequences", to make consequences impossible to ignore, than to import them from halfway around the world?

The devil is God's Department of Comeuppance. Spare the rod and you spoil the child. Is there a better way to learn the very foundation of God's Law, the Golden Rule? Of course evil destroys its most fervent allies. Evil is destructive. The devil's job is to rub our noses in the fact. Those who can't or won't see that are the defective pots that will find the true end of the line on Judgment Day. The devil gives the rest of us the hard lessons most of us need to get it.

What if those of us who make the cut won't be floating around on clouds playing harps for eternity? What if we really do just inherit the earth? Is continuing to work to scrabble out a living heaven? Without the major nuisance of evil in our midst, I think it could be. And it would certainly be less boring than listening to each other practice the harp.

[acptulsa]

Sometimes these discussions remind me of the dog in Aesop's fable who lost his bone barking his reflection in the water thinking it was another dog.

It's getting to where that looks like the whole of the human race.

"I got what I need to survive! Oh, look. If I beat him up, I can have twice as much as I need to survive..."

[jmdrake]

Hello. Did you understand the point of Tucker Carlson's reaction to Joe Rogan's invocation of evolution in the discussion and I don't think you understand Christian fundamentalism. Joe Rogan used the presupposition that evolution cannot be disputed to advance the (horrific in my view) idea that it's okay for humanity to drive itself to extinction and replace itself with some artificial life form because that's just the natural course of evolution.

Tucker had a problem with that. I have a problem with that. And so, after letting Joe on for several minutes about how AI would become "God", Tucker finally pushed back against the idea that evolution, as pushed by the trans-humanists, must be accepted as true. This is simply another iteration of "trust the science" that we were fed by Fauci on lock downs and vaccines. Rogan, correctly, questioned Fauci's "science." Tucker challenged another "science." If you go back to the Scopes Monkey Trial, which was an early and famous challenge to evolution being taught in public schools, William Jennings Bryan wasn't so much motivated by "It's not in the Bible" but rather "it teaches eugenics and social Darwinism." There is strong evidence that Hitler was influenced by Darwinism. And it makes perfect sense. If races are evolving from imperfection to perfection then it logically flows that some races are "superior" to other races. But if it's merely adaptation among the same race, humanity, then the fact that I'm unlikely to get sunburned in hot climates makes me no more superior or inferior than the fact that you're less likely to be vitamin D deficient due to limited sunlight in winter months in cold climates.

Many people don't know this, but

Rogan and Carlson are interesting. They're trying to get to the heart of it. The person commenting and cross examining their little panel of average joes seems to be a little too mired in dogma to go there.

Rogan and Carlson seem to be trapped trying to wrap their minds around the fact (and it is a fact) that evil consumes its allies. It's like the prevalent insistence that the Deep State must necessarily hate the person it's persecuting and not the person it's trying to ignore. But evil always tries to ignore good, and always consumes its own. Evil will happily pretend to consume its own without doing it, then ultimately consume its own for real.

So few people ask, why did God create the devil? I don't blame them. Too many people ask, can't find a good answer, and lose faith -- or worse, curse God for doing it. Nobody thinks about the fact that God brought the devil out in the desert and said, tempt me. God unleashed the devil on Jesus, in other words, on Himself. I need to know for certain that this human animal brain can indeed be controlled before I unleash Myself on humanity in this form.

Fundamentalists love to insist that God is a micromanager. Everything is predetermined and preplanned. A God who can be surprised is not someone they care to try to wrap their minds around. Man creates God in our own image, and these people can only picture God as a control freak who dotes on constant praise. Their God is an arrogant, spoiled brat, and they can't stand the idea that He isn't.

God calls Himself our Father. Most fathers like to be surprised by their children. Sometimes it makes them laugh. Sometimes it makes them proud. It always breaks the monotony. And I don't happen to believe we have the slightest clue what monotony is. And we won't unless and until we live forever.

Is it a contradiction to say, "God invented natural selection, even though He could have made us perfect from the start?" He didn't make us perfect from the start. That's one clue, and here's another: Man invented dice. What else besides unpredictability are dice good for?

So, why a devil? A peaceful society can theoretically be achieved, but the people in it have to want good. The only way sinners can be averse to sin, to want to have no truck with evil, is to know how it feels to be on the receiving end of it. I know how it feels when that's done to me, so I choose not to do it to others. I don't want to live that way.

There we have the devil's job, the reason a loving God would create one.

Suppose you had a bunch of people who prided themselves on their goodness and morality. And suppose they permitted, even encouraged, their government to bomb the living snot out of people halfway around the world. Suppose they made excuses for, or just refused to even think about, people waking up and saying, gee, I wonder if I'll be in the wrong place at the wrong time today and get made into mincemeat by the forces of the Death From Above people? I wonder how many of the people I loved got their Death From Above last night?

Ignoring that question is hypocrisy. I think that it's significant that Jesus didn't target the Herods and Pilates. He spent a great deal of His time, however, calling out the Pharisees, these men of God, for their hypocrisy. Organized religion has had that problem from the first. The Pharisees tell themselves, to make an omelet you have to break a few eggs. They want the omelet, but it isn't their job. Their job is to hatch chickens.

How would you teach these people a lesson? Would you take a bunch of these dreadfully, justifiably angry people and dump them right in the laps of the hypocrites who didn't put a stop to it, relished in it, felt superior because of it, and financed it? Is there a better way to make people see how easy it is to be suckered into supporting evil, to put a face on "consequences", to make consequences impossible to ignore, than to import them from halfway around the world?

The devil is God's Department of Comeuppance. Spare the rod and you spoil the child. Is there a better way to learn the very foundation of God's Law, the Golden Rule? Of course evil destroys its most fervent allies. Evil is destructive. The devil's job is to rub our noses in the fact. Those who can't or won't see that are the defective pots that will find the true end of the line on Judgment Day. The devil gives the rest of us the hard lessons most of us need to get it.

What if those of us who make the cut won't be floating around on clouds playing harps for eternity? What if we really do just inherit the earth? Is continuing to work to scrabble out a living heaven? Without the major nuisance of evil in our midst, I think it could be. And it would certainly be less boring than listening to each other practice the harp.

[acptulsa]

Did you understand the point of Tucker Carlson's reaction to Joe Rogan's invocation of evolution in the discussion and I don't think you understand Christian fundamentalism.

Fundies come in many flavors, and I was referring to the more virulent, Sola_Fide end of the spectrum (remember him?). Let's don't go there, it's a depressing conversation to me.

Creationism is an interesting name. It isn't belief that we were created. The belief that there is a Creator is just religion. The Propaganda Machine has for years tried to define the question into some kind of Two Party System. You have to either believe that Creation made us all immutable or you have to accept some trans-humanist view of evolution that goes right back to that one living cell, and makes humanity an accident. They want us to be dogmatic about it; they've turned these things into religions of their own, and I don't want either one.

Is it the natural progression that we use the tech we developed to "enhance ourselves"? My brother has a stainless hip. That's a good thing. But I don't even have any tattoos. No modification necessary so far (knock on wood), except ditching the tonsils.

My big question, the way I evaluated the Jab as a sign that the End Times may be nigh, was this: What we are is what is written in our DNA. This DNA is the blueprint; it is what God hath wrought. The Jab contains mRNA, which rewrites DNA. Do I want to be a child of God, or do I think Bill Gates can improve on God's work?

Just because I believe we were designed to select for survival and other traits, and become a more capable species by that process, does not mean I think that it's all accidental. It does not mean that I think for a second that Bill Gates can improve upon either God's handiwork or His methodology. Whether we have a common ancestor with the orangutans at the zoo is just a trivia question to me. I have a mind open to evidence. If that was how God created us, that's fine by me. Any dish that's laboriously prepared and slow cooked to perfection looks unappetizing at some point or another in the process.

I don't feel quite the same way about AI that @ClaytonB does, but then he's much more familiar with it and familiarity breeds contempt. I don't want any implanted. And I don't think it would be good for us as a species to let machines think for us. Do math? Fine, I guess, though I do my own up to three or four digits. Really think? No. The muscles we need to exercise the most as humans are the ones between our ears.

[jmdrake]

Fundies come in many flavors, and I was referring to the more virulent, Sola_Fide end of the spectrum (remember him?). Let's don't go there, it's a depressing conversation to me.

Yes I remember. But a lot of that had to do with his particular personality. Not all Calvinists expound their position quite like he did. But I digress. I am a Christian fundamentalist in the sense that I accept as truth the literal and necessary death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ and sufficient and necessary for my salvation. I believe that death is a result of sin. Romans 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: That precludes a belief in evolution because under the theory of evolution, the process of the development of humanity required countless generations of death, mutation and natural selection long before sin could even be a thing. (A single celled organism cannot sin because it doesn't have the capability of making the choice to sin). Like Tucker Carlson, I'm happy to have discussions with people who disagree, but at some point I'll point I'll usually interject that just for the record I don't agree with their underlying premise.

Creationism is an interesting name. It isn't belief that we were created. The belief that there is a Creator is just religion. The Propaganda Machine has for years tried to define the question into some kind of Two Party System. You have to either believe that Creation made us all immutable (give or take the occasional identical twins) or you have to accept some trans-humanist view of evolution that goes right back to that one living cell, and makes humanity an accident. They want us to be dogmatic about it; they've turned these things into religions of their own, and I don't want either one.

Specifically Tucker Carlson was rejecting this idea:

https://www.happyscribe.com/public/t...tucker-carlson

Well, that's a very good question. My belief is that biological, intelligent life is essentially a caterpillar, and it's a caterpillar that's making a cocoon, and it doesn't even know why it's doing it. It's just doing it. And that cocoon is going to give birth to artificial life, digital life. It's going to give birth to a new life form. I think we're real close to that. I think we're way closer than that to that, than most people would ever want to.

And this idea:

It's not. It's not. If you think that human beings are the end of this evolutionary chain.

It's the trans-humanist view of evolution that Tucker Carlson was rejecting. And he was rejecting it based on rejecting the premise that we all evolved from a single celled organism.

Is it the natural progression that we use the tech we developed to "enhance ourselves"? My brother has a stainless hip. That's a good thing. But I don't even have any tattoos. No modification necessary so far, except ditching the tonsils (knock on wood).

I wouldn't call a hip replacement an "enhancement." It's a replacement. Something wore out (a natural hip) and he replaced the worn out part. No different from Oscar Pistorious.



But how close are we to the Bionic Man? That was one of my favorite shows growing up. Yes I know he became bionic as a result spaceship accident, but if it was possible to have a bionic leg, arm and eye, as a kid would I have done that to have his powers? Hell yeah! But that brings us to things like Elon Musk's neuralink. Musk said we "need this" to "survive" as a species because humans "need" to merge with AI. But how far does that go? Is there a risk of us becoming Borg drones?

My big question, the way I evaluated the Jab as a sign that the End Times may be nigh, was this: What we are is what is written in our DNA. This DNA is the blueprint; it is what God hath wrought. The Jab contains mRNA, which rewrites DNA. Do I want to be a child if God, or do I think Bill Gates can improve on God's work?

That's a very good question. Supposedly the jab doesn't rewrite DNA, but temporarily hijacks DNA to get it to replicate spike protein. But there is some debate about whether it can still do what it's supposedly not intended to do.

Just because I believe we were designed to select for survival and other traits, and become a more capable species by that process, does not mean I think that it's all accidental. It does not mean that I think for a second that Bill Gates can improve upon either God's handiwork or His methodology. Whether we have a common ancestor with the orangutans at the zoo is just a trivia question to me. I have a mind open to evidence. If that was how God created us, that's fine by me. Any exotic dish that's laboriously prepared and slow cooked to perfection looks a little iffy at some point or another in the process.

I don't feel quite the same way about AI that @ClaytonB does, but then he's much more familiar with it and familiarity breeds contempt. I don't want any implanted. And I don't think it would be good for us as a species to let machines do that for us. The muscles we need to exercise the most as humans are the ones between our ears.

Again, what Joe Rogan was talking about is a complete replacement of humanity with AI. Think Terminator or The Matrix. Or it could be benevolent like int he Stephen Spielberg movie AI where at the end all of humanity had died off for unexplained reasons and all that was left was human created androids and android like aliens who came and "ministered" unto the human androids.




Or maybe they aren't aliens. Maybe they are just self evolved silicon based lifeforms.



Which is interesting because the latest in material science shows that carbon based graphene is superior to silicon.

[acptulsa]

That precludes a belief in evolution because under the theory of evolution, the process of the development of humanity required countless generations of death, mutation and natural selection long before sin could even be a thing. (A single celled organism cannot sin because it doesn't have the capability of making the choice to sin).

I'm not liking that because it's too much like the liberal "perception is reality" rabbit hole. We don't have to perceive sin for it to exist. We can kick the dog and the dog doesn't have to understand anything beyond "Ow!" for it to be a sin.

I can imagine God looking on and saying, look, these creatures are beginning to think of their fellows as creatures like themselves, and trying to treat them as they want to be treated. Breakthrough! Now we're cooking!

I don't know. I try not to rule anything out, because God isn't limited by my limited imagination.

[jmdrake]

I'm not liking that because it's too much like the liberal "perception is reality" rabbit hole. We don't have to perceive sin for it to exist. We can kick the dog and the dog doesn't have to understand anything beyond "Ow!" for it to be a sin.

Is it a sin because of what the dog perceives or is it a sin because of what the human who kicked the dog perceives? Does the flea or the tick that bites the dog sin, or were they just doing what fleas and ticks do? Did the dog that bit Kristi Noem commit a sin? Is it going to face a final judgement (besides Kristi's shotgun) for that?

In our own legal system there is the idea of mens rea or "guilty mind" meaning that mental state is important. In Donald Trump's hush money trial what the jury things Donald Trump intended, whether it was to not lose a political advantage, or whether it was simply to avoid personal embarrassment, may determine his guilt or innocence.

The Bible talks about the mens rea for sin.


Romans 7:7 What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful? Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”

James 4:17 Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.

Acts 17:30 30 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:

I can imagine God looking on and saying, look, these creatures are beginning to think of their fellows as creatures like themselves, and trying to treat them as they want to be treated. Breakthrough! Now we're cooking!

How far are you going with that? PETA territory where anyone who eats meat or wears fur or kills a mouse, roach or rat is a "sinner?"

I don't know. I try not to rule anything out, because God isn't limited by my limited imagination.

The framework that I'm going from is the Christian Bible. I believe that's what God gave to man so we can best understand Him. Yes I understand things can get lost in translation and certain books were left out etc. But I don't think He left us to guess. Again, back to the topic at hand, it's a very simple thing Tucker was getting at. It's not hard. It doesn't require you to stretch your imagination. It's a binary. Either the possible mass extinction of all of humanity to be replaced by AI powered machines is a bad thing or it isn't.

[ClaytonB]

Responding to the @...

So few people ask, why did God create the devil? I don't blame them. Too many people ask, can't find a good answer, and lose faith -- or worse, curse God for doing it. Nobody thinks about the fact that God brought the devil out in the desert and said, tempt me. God unleashed the devil on Jesus, in other words, on Himself. I need to know for certain that this human animal brain can indeed be controlled before I unleash Myself on humanity in this form. People think, it was cruel to unleash the devil on Job. So was He doing Himself evil unleashing the devil on Himself?

Fundamentalists love to insist that God is a micromanager. Everything is predetermined and preplanned. A God who can be surprised -- and not even by a major trend, but just capable of laughing at an unexpected remark -- is not the kind of God they care to try to wrap their minds around. Man creates God in our own image, and these people can only picture God as a control freak who dotes on constant praise. Their God is an arrogant, spoiled brat, and they can't stand the idea that He isn't.

God calls Himself our Father. Most fathers like to be surprised by their children. Sometimes it makes them laugh. Sometimes it makes them proud. It always breaks the monotony. And I don't happen to believe we have the slightest clue what monotony is. And we won't unless and until we live forever.

I agree with the spirit of where you want to go with this, but I disagree with the theology-as-such. One of the reasons that God has revealed himself to us in human form, is because, in himself, God is unrelatable to us. "My ways are not your ways", Isaiah 55:8,9. Etc. In addition, God must be, as Anselm famously defined him, "that being than which none greater can be conceived." A being which can be surprised, in the ordinary sense, cannot possibly be the greatest being.

But rather than speaking of the Father directly -- whose transcendence is strictly unattainable for the human mind -- we can start by speaking of the Son, who took on human form and became in all respects like us. Some people have suggested that Jesus was omniscient in his human nature, but I think this is a contradiction-of-terms. The whole point of his becoming human was to be non-omniscient, just as we are. Why else would he be sweating drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Another way to look at it, is that God is maximally free (by definition), and that the goal and purpose of the Gospel is for us to become like him and even unified with him in glory (I can cite these if needed). "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free." (Galatians 5:1) The purpose of the freedom of the Gospel is to be free, as Adam and Eve once were. One of Satan's most desperate last-ditch attempts to salvage the shattered ruins of his "kingdom" is the invasion of the Gospel itself, turning God's liberty into just another form of slavery. If we believe in Jesus for salvation from sin, death and hell, then we have been set free. "If the Son sets you free, you are free indeed." (John 8:36) "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the fullest." (John 10:10b) This Age is the Age of death, which is the ultimate form of slavery; the problem of this age is not an excess of life, it is the absence of life, it is death and slavery.

The devil is God's Department of Comeuppance. Spare the rod and you spoil the child. Is there a better way to learn the very foundation of God's Law, the Golden Rule? Of course evil destroys its most fervent allies. Evil is destructive. The devil's job is to rub our noses in the fact. Those who can't or won't see that are the defective pots that will find the true end of the line on Judgment Day. The devil gives the rest of us the hard lessons most of us need to get it.

This is giving the devil credit he does not deserve. "The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy" (John 10:10a) Rather, Jesus is the actual Dept. of God's Comeuppance, Scripture says exactly this:

And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day. (2Thess. 1:7-10, KJV)

This is one of those passages that the neutered modern translations don't have the guts to translate literally. Make no mistake, the Gospel is a revenge-tale. Jesus is coming back for vengeance. Oh, by the way, he has all power in heaven and earth, Matt. 28:18. Sayonara enemies-of-God.

What if those of us who make the cut won't be floating around on clouds playing harps for eternity? What if we really do just inherit the earth? Is continuing to work to scrabble out a living heaven? Without the major nuisance of evil in our midst, I think it could be. And it would certainly be less boring than listening to each other practice the harp.

Good points.

1) Heaven is not a place on earth (sorry, Belinda Carlisle). Rather, heaven and earth are eternally distinct and separate places, which can "overlap" whenever God is present on the earth which, in Paradise, he always is. The current world we live in is what earth looks like when it is partially separated from God. Hell is what earth looks like when it is eternally separated from God. And Paradise (where we are going, if we have faith), is what earth looks like when God dwells with us, on earth.

2) This present world is passing away. It is not the rocks and trees and streams that are passing away. God created rocks and trees and streams, there's nothing wrong with them. However, he cursed the earth, meaning, he cursed this place, where the children of Adam are being punished. It will be destroyed in fire, because it has been cursed by God. Note that God also cursed Satan in Genesis 3. To clarify this point, go to the parable of the wheat and weeds in Matthew 13. It says the weeds will be tied in bundles to be destroyed. While I cannot add to God's word, I would suggest the imagery of a maintenance field-burn after the crop has been gathered in -- that burn is the end of this world, or this field, so to speak. The old field will have passed away... everything not gathered into the wheat barn will be burnt, to make way for a fresh plowing of the field, and a new planting. That field will be the New Heavens and New Earth. No weeds will grow in it because the seeds will all have been burnt.

3) The Age to come (which people call "heaven", but would be better called "paradise" in English) will be an eternal Sabbath, but in that Sabbath we will work. We will work six days, and rest the seventh, just as God did when he created. Adam and Eve had an occupation, they were to tend and keep the Garden, they were to be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, and they were to rule the animals, birds and fish. In the Age to come, we will also have an occupation. The end of the curse will bring rest from the toilsome labor that brings forth the sweat of the face. We will not work to eat, as the fruit of the Garden is free. We will work for higher ends. We will have a pleasant occupation, lest we should fall into eternal ennui, which would become a hell of its own.

4) Yes, there will be harps in the Age to come but harps still won't float on clouds. Better get plucking!

[fisharmor]

Is there a risk of us becoming Borg drones?

This episode was well after TNG established the Borg as an unequivocal evil.



Even if we get to the point where the literal scars are able to heal, there are still going to be psychological scars. That TNG episode aired a few years before I had my first injury that I didn't just bounce back from - the first one where I had a permanent loss of some sort. Wasn't that long after we got this other sci-fi masterpiece:



Anyone who has been "cut on" understands immediately and viscerally the problems with what they're proposing. We all understand without even having to resort to words, that the entire surgical profession is founded on drastically overselling their competency.

They are just not that good. Nowhere near where they need to be to get within the same solar system as what they're proposing.

Meanwhile, some of us also have people in our lives who don't fit in their plans. We have cousins or children or brothers who match a profile and whom the racial improvement task force has come for in the past.



Translation (rough): People with hereditary diseases each cost the nation 60,000 Marks over their lifetimes. Comrades: that is also your money.

More and more of us are getting the opportunity to know people like this.

Notice how his legs are twisted, and how he holds his fist. Study it. Next time you see a person like this, you're going to see these exact same behaviors.

That means it's been at least 90 years these abject $#@!s have had to study these behaviors.... nearly a century. And nothing. Not one medical professional can explain why they do that, even after a century. Forget fixing it for a second: they can't even explain why it is. They've spent a century still wasting their time on more eugenics crap.

Before we even get to talking about the right or wrong of their "enhancements", can we acknowledge that their heads are up their asses?

[acptulsa]

Does the flea or the tick that bites the dog sin, or were they just doing what fleas and ticks do? Did the dog that bit Kristi Noem commit a sin? Is it going to face a final judgement (besides Kristi's shotgun) for that?

Arguably, sinning is exactly what honey badgers do.

Are any dogs going to face final judgment? Matthew 25 doesn't mention them. According to that, everyone who is eligible for eternal life is also capable of saying, "Lord, when did we see you..?" One supposes that if species that couldn't speak were suddenly speaking here, Jesus would have mentioned it.

Either the possible mass extinction of all of humanity to be replaced by AI powered machines is a bad thing or it isn't.

Sorry, I thought I made that clear. It's a very bad thing. The Borg is not my model for humanity, either. Very bad things.

[ClaytonB]

Before we even get to talking about the right or wrong of their "enhancements", can we acknowledge that their heads are up their asses?

AMEN

[acptulsa]

A being which can be surprised, in the ordinary sense, cannot possibly be the greatest being.

Oh, hell. A being who can conceive of every single possible outcome is great enough for me, without being able to know in every instance which outcome it will be as well. I'm smart enough to know what every possible outcome can be when I roll dice, but can't see into the future, so I don't know which of the thirty-six possible outcomes it will be. Does the fact that I'm temporal make me unintelligent? If God can't be surprised, then God can't laugh, because it's the unexpected that makes us laugh. And I wouldn't wish that fate on any being.

This is giving the devil credit he does not deserve. "The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy" (John 10:10a)

Oh, stop with the Thou Shalt Not Speak Well of the Devil stuff. If God suffers the devil to live (and He did create the bastard) then God in His love has a purpose for him. And it's a higher purpose, and the devil is sufficient unto it. Speaking well of God's purpose is no vice, even if it is the purpose for which He created the devil.

[ClaytonB]

Whether we have a common ancestor with the orangutans at the zoo is just a trivia question to me. I have a mind open to evidence. If that was how God created us, that's fine by me. Any dish that's laboriously prepared and slow cooked to perfection looks unappetizing at some point or another in the process.

It can be instructive to peruse a biology fieldbook and scan the mammalian species for human-like features. It is particularly instructive to note that, on an evolutionary theory of human origins, only one "genetic line" could be in our ancestry. The actual structure of life is much, much bigger and more profound than that. God is not just the Creator, he's the greatest artist.

Really think? No. The muscles we need to exercise the most as humans are the ones between our ears.

I wouldn't mind having an AI "thinking assistant". Once properly trained, there are a lot of mundane tasks that I could have paid a secretary or personal-assistant to perform, which such an AI could perform for me. That would make my life more like that of a much wealthier man than I am. Which is fine.

But people are looking to AI for answers. As in, the kind of answers you should be seeking from a priest or pastor, or through prayer and reading the word of God. AI is the absolute wrong place to look. The robots that are coming are going to look increasingly human-like, and this is going to happen much faster than most people probably think is possible, except for the loony, Spock-eared singularitarians. But for all their impressive electro-hydraulic gymnastic abilities, and their flashy, data-center-fueled chatbot "intelligence", these AI humanoids will actually be nothing more than limping refrigerators with the overall intelligence of a slightly retarded dog.

The reason I keep sounding the alarm on this is that everyone is going to discover what I'm explaining here, sooner or later. The only question is how horrific that final, awakening encounter will be. A malfunctioning robot in kill-mode coming for your child with a kitchen-knife is the kind of encounter that I want to see people spared from. Better to read about this on a web forum or hear about it from your cranky, Luddite uncle, than in an AI-horror-movie scenario playing out in your kitchen. I see a rapidly-approaching, robotic future with a lot less Sonny (I, Robot) in it, and a lot more M3GAN...

[acptulsa]

The reason I keep sounding the alarm on this is that everyone is going to discover what I'm explaining here, sooner or later. The only question is how horrific that final, awakening encounter will be. A malfunctioning robot in kill-mode coming for your child with a kitchen-knife is the kind of encounter that I want to see people spared from.

Ah, I'm glad you explained that. Agreed. I won't even get in a fly-by-wire vehicle. I want a cable to the throttle, sealed hydraulics connecting the brakes to my foot, a steering wheel which is geared directly to the pittman arm, and a switch that physically breaks the connection between the battery and alternator on the one hand, and the ignition coil.

I have more on the ball than a ten cent piece of etched sand. And even if I don't, I want my demise to be my own damned fault.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the fine line between normal computer programs and AI is that AI can look at the reactions it gets and adjust its future responses. That don't turn a Tandy TR80 from Radio Shack into DesCartes.

[jmdrake]

Arguably, sinning is exactly what honey badgers do.

Are any dogs going to face final judgment? Matthew 25 doesn't mention them. According to that, everyone who is eligible for eternal life is also capable of saying, "Lord, when did we see you..?" One supposes that if species that couldn't speak were suddenly speaking here, Jesus would have mentioned it.



Sorry, I thought I made that clear. It's a very bad thing. The Borg is not my model for humanity, either. Very bad things.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to acptulsa again.

I think we are more in agreement than disagreement.

[ClaytonB]

Oh, stop with the Thou Shalt Not Speak Well of the Devil stuff.

No, that's exactly it: thou shalt not speak well of the devil. To speak well of Satan is treachery to God, because Satan is God's avowed enemy and he is already damned, John 16:11. There's no coming back from murdering God's own Son. The only fate after that is to burn in hell, forever.

If God suffers the devil to live (and He did create the bastard) then God in His love has a purpose for him.

Had. See Ezekiel 28:11ff.

And it's a higher purpose, and the devil is sufficient unto it.

You are just contradicting John 10:10 -- the only reason the devil comes, is to steal, kill and destroy. Sadly, some who have fallen under the devil's spell in their youth are only awakened to the true horror of the meaning of John 10:10 much later in life. If you think there is any other reason, whatsoever, for which the devil comes, you are deluded. Jesus made no mistake here... the thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. And for nothing else besides.

Speaking well of God's purpose is no vice, even if it is the purpose for which He created the devil.

The devil is damned, John 16:11. God's reasons for creating him in the first place are ultimately known only to himself. Scripture gives us some clues, but absolutely none of those clues are sympathetic in any way, shape or form. Quite the opposite, Scripture has nothing but fire and condemnation for Satan.

When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth--Gog and Magog--to gather them for battle. In number they are like the sand on the seashore. They marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of God's people, the city he loves. But fire came down from heaven and devoured them. And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever. (Rev. 20:7-10)

It doesn't get any more explicit than that. Satan is going to burn in the lake of fire for all of eternity. God be praised!

If God can't be surprised, then God can't laugh, because it's the unexpected that makes us laugh. And I wouldn't wish that fate on any being.

God can't be surprised by his creation, not in that sense. Social paradoxes like these are resolved in the Trinity itself. If God is not Triune, then he could not love, let alone laugh. How can you truly love something that is not your peer? And how can you have a peer if you are, by definition, peerless? Islam cannot answer this question, and Judaism simply refuses to answer it. The Trinity resolves all such paradoxes.

[ClaytonB]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the fine line between normal computer programs and AI is that AI can look at the reactions it gets and adjust its future responses. That don't turn a Tandy TR80 from Radio Shack into DesCartes.

I'm waiting for the day that some tech smart-ass converts an entire language model into an enormous tree of If-Else statements. That's exactly what's happening under the hood anyway but it would be quite hilarious to have it all converted into literal assembly code that can be browsed in a text-editor. It really is just "transistors all the way down".

As for the net impression of intelligence that current AI creates, I'm reminded of the first time I saw the game Quake, which would have been around 1997. Today, the graphics look absurd. But in 1997, that game was more realistic than the titles you could play in an arcade. And you could run it on your own home PC. I remember many late nights with headphones on playing that with my light switched off (so I wouldn't get yelled at by my parents). The feeling of immersion was really powerful, not only because of the excellent graphics, but also the 3D sound effects which were absolutely cutting-edge for that time. You could hear when monsters were behind you, which was something that no other title out there even came close to achieving. Anyway, the point is that Quake felt like magic. It seemed that a crappy PC that could barely manage to render the X button on Windows shouldn't be able to do what Quake did. But when you dig into how they did it, there was no magic, they just applied the best principles of engineering to turn your average beige-box into a freakin' super-computer by really, really efficient use of the available resources.

That's basically what large-language models, especially the open-source ones like Mixtral 8x7B, and so on, are doing, but it's the 21st-century version of that. Same for Stable-Diffusion 3 and open-source image AI. Exciting times.

[acptulsa]

Had. See Ezekiel 28:11ff.

Your dogma is relevant if and only if the Prince of Tyrus is indeed the devil. But I don't care either way. God created the creature, and had a purpose, and the devil is very, very obviously still with us, so I choose to assume the bastard's job isn't done yet.

And it doesn't matter if the only reason the devil comes, is to steal, kill and destroy. But God created it to steal, kill and destroy for a higher purpose, and that's what I'm speculating about.

The devil is damned, John 16:11. God's reasons for creating him in the first place are ultimately known only to himself.

Fair enough. Now tell me what number commandment is Thou Shalt Not Guess. Eleven?

God can't be surprised by his creation, not in that sense.

Meh. I don't need God to be non-temporal like the wormhole aliens on DS9, living in the past, present and future all at once, to impress me. If He is temporal, that just makes the prophesies He has passed along to us all the more amazing, not less so.

[ClaytonB]

Meh. I don't need God to be non-temporal like the wormhole aliens on DS9, living in the past, present and future all at once, to impress me. If He is temporal, that just makes the prophesies He has passed along to us all the more amazing, not less so.

Some people are easily impressed, but God is who he is. God is both atemporal (Father, Holy Spirit and the Son in his divine nature) and temporal (the Son in his human nature).

Isa 46:10 I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.

Rev 22:13 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.

John 17:5 And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.

John 7:8 Go ye up unto this feast: I go not up yet unto this feast: for my time is not yet full come.

[acptulsa]

I'm waiting for the day that some tech smart-ass converts an entire language model into an enormous tree of If-Else statements. That's exactly what's happening under the hood anyway but it would be quite hilarious to have it all converted into literal assembly code that can be browsed in a text-editor. It really is just "transistors all the way down".

It's going to take me some time to wrap my brain around this post. But if I'm reading it right so far, I'm not surprised. And I'm not surprised that Gates and Schwab and that whole arrogant mob are blowing it all out of proportion.

I'm not belittling anyone's efforts. It took us countless millenia to get to where we could create something that can barely crawl, so far as reasoning things out goes. It's still a big step. We can't be afraid of inventing anything because it might be used for evil purposes. I can't think of anything mankind has ever created which cannot be used for either good or evil. By which I mean, yeah, the Jab can probably only be used for evil, but once we develop mRNA a lot further, there could turn out to be a use for it which isn't evil. Could it be used to cure Down's Syndrome someday, if we don't have to outlaw it to keep Gates and his ilk from hoodwinking us into poisoning ourselves with primitive, poisonous versions of it?

Isa 46:10 I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.

He doesn't say one way or the other. And being able to see how this whole sentient animals experiment was going to turn out millenia ago is impressive for a temporal being, right there. I don't care who you are.

I'm easily impressed? Never, ever been accused of that before. Not even once.

[acptulsa]

Forget fixing it for a second: they can't even explain why it is. They've spent a century still wasting their time on more eugenics crap.

Before we even get to talking about the right or wrong of their "enhancements", can we acknowledge that their heads are up their asses?

Replacing parts on a car one after another because you can't diagnose the problem is one thing. But doctors who engage in trial and error are playing fast and loose with Hippocrates, and yes, I could make the case that you have to have your head up your ass to do that.

But mostly, humanity has no need at all for cures looking for a disease. If there's no disease, they aren't cures.

[jmdrake]

Responding to the @...







I agree with the spirit of where you want to go with this, but I disagree with the theology-as-such. One of the reasons that God has revealed himself to us in human form, is because, in himself, God is unrelatable to us. "My ways are not your ways", Isaiah 55:8,9. Etc. In addition, God must be, as Anselm famously defined him, "that being than which none greater can be conceived." A being which can be surprised, in the ordinary sense, cannot possibly be the greatest being.

But rather than speaking of the Father directly -- whose transcendence is strictly unattainable for the human mind -- we can start by speaking of the Son, who took on human form and became in all respects like us. Some people have suggested that Jesus was omniscient in his human nature, but I think this is a contradiction-of-terms. The whole point of his becoming human was to be non-omniscient, just as we are. Why else would he be sweating drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Another way to look at it, is that God is maximally free (by definition), and that the goal and purpose of the Gospel is for us to become like him and even unified with him in glory (I can cite these if needed). "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free." (Galatians 5:1) The purpose of the freedom of the Gospel is to be free, as Adam and Eve once were. One of Satan's most desperate last-ditch attempts to salvage the shattered ruins of his "kingdom" is the invasion of the Gospel itself, turning God's liberty into just another form of slavery. If we believe in Jesus for salvation from sin, death and hell, then we have been set free. "If the Son sets you free, you are free indeed." (John 8:36) "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the fullest." (John 10:10b) This Age is the Age of death, which is the ultimate form of slavery; the problem of this age is not an excess of life, it is the absence of life, it is death and slavery.



This is giving the devil credit he does not deserve. "The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy" (John 10:10a) Rather, Jesus is the actual Dept. of God's Comeuppance, Scripture says exactly this:



This is one of those passages that the neutered modern translations don't have the guts to translate literally. Make no mistake, the Gospel is a revenge-tale. Jesus is coming back for vengeance. Oh, by the way, he has all power in heaven and earth, Matt. 28:18. Sayonara enemies-of-God.



Good points.

1) Heaven is not a place on earth (sorry, Belinda Carlisle). Rather, heaven and earth are eternally distinct and separate places, which can "overlap" whenever God is present on the earth which, in Paradise, he always is. The current world we live in is what earth looks like when it is partially separated from God. Hell is what earth looks like when it is eternally separated from God. And Paradise (where we are going, if we have faith), is what earth looks like when God dwells with us, on earth.

2) This present world is passing away. It is not the rocks and trees and streams that are passing away. God created rocks and trees and streams, there's nothing wrong with them. However, he cursed the earth, meaning, he cursed this place, where the children of Adam are being punished. It will be destroyed in fire, because it has been cursed by God. Note that God also cursed Satan in Genesis 3. To clarify this point, go to the parable of the wheat and weeds in Matthew 13. It says the weeds will be tied in bundles to be destroyed. While I cannot add to God's word, I would suggest the imagery of a maintenance field-burn after the crop has been gathered in -- that burn is the end of this world, or this field, so to speak. The old field will have passed away... everything not gathered into the wheat barn will be burnt, to make way for a fresh plowing of the field, and a new planting. That field will be the New Heavens and New Earth. No weeds will grow in it because the seeds will all have been burnt.

3) The Age to come (which people call "heaven", but would be better called "paradise" in English) will be an eternal Sabbath, but in that Sabbath we will work. We will work six days, and rest the seventh, just as God did when he created. Adam and Eve had an occupation, they were to tend and keep the Garden, they were to be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, and they were to rule the animals, birds and fish. In the Age to come, we will also have an occupation. The end of the curse will bring rest from the toilsome labor that brings forth the sweat of the face. We will not work to eat, as the fruit of the Garden is free. We will work for higher ends. We will have a pleasant occupation, lest we should fall into eternal ennui, which would become a hell of its own.

4) Yes, there will be harps in the Age to come but harps still won't float on clouds. Better get plucking!

Yes! Thank you for your contribution. For the record I'm LOVING this thread! Yep. Heaven is ultimately where God is as as Isaiah said in the New Heaven / New Earth the weekly Sabbath cycle will continue. Personally I think I'm going to ask for my harp to be upgraded to a Stratocaster. And yes. Jesus gave up omniscience to identify with humanity. That's why He said "No man knows the day nor the hour, not even the angels in heaven nor the Son of Man but only the Father." Matthew 24:36.

And yes, death is the enemy. And Satan is pushing humanity towards suicide both at the global level and the personal level. We now have Canada and the Netherlands condoning doctor assisted suicide for mental health reasons. That's insane. (No pun intended).

[jmdrake]

It can be instructive to peruse a biology fieldbook and scan the mammalian species for human-like features. It is particularly instructive to note that, on an evolutionary theory of human origins, only one "genetic line" could be in our ancestry. The actual structure of life is much, much bigger and more profound than that. God is not just the Creator, he's the greatest artist.



I wouldn't mind having an AI "thinking assistant". Once properly trained, there are a lot of mundane tasks that I could have paid a secretary or personal-assistant to perform, which such an AI could perform for me. That would make my life more like that of a much wealthier man than I am. Which is fine.

But people are looking to AI for answers. As in, the kind of answers you should be seeking from a priest or pastor, or through prayer and reading the word of God. AI is the absolute wrong place to look. The robots that are coming are going to look increasingly human-like, and this is going to happen much faster than most people probably think is possible, except for the loony, Spock-eared singularitarians. But for all their impressive electro-hydraulic gymnastic abilities, and their flashy, data-center-fueled chatbot "intelligence", these AI humanoids will actually be nothing more than limping refrigerators with the overall intelligence of a slightly retarded dog.

The reason I keep sounding the alarm on this is that everyone is going to discover what I'm explaining here, sooner or later. The only question is how horrific that final, awakening encounter will be. A malfunctioning robot in kill-mode coming for your child with a kitchen-knife is the kind of encounter that I want to see people spared from. Better to read about this on a web forum or hear about it from your cranky, Luddite uncle, than in an AI-horror-movie scenario playing out in your kitchen. I see a rapidly-approaching, robotic future with a lot less Sonny (I, Robot) in it, and a lot more M3GAN...

Did you hear about the AI chatbot that convinced a man to kill himself over climate change?

https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/0...-stop-climate-

[jmdrake]

This episode was well after TNG established the Borg as an unequivocal evil.



Even if we get to the point where the literal scars are able to heal, there are still going to be psychological scars. That TNG episode aired a few years before I had my first injury that I didn't just bounce back from - the first one where I had a permanent loss of some sort. Wasn't that long after we got this other sci-fi masterpiece:



Anyone who has been "cut on" understands immediately and viscerally the problems with what they're proposing. We all understand without even having to resort to words, that the entire surgical profession is founded on drastically overselling their competency.

They are just not that good. Nowhere near where they need to be to get within the same solar system as what they're proposing.

Meanwhile, some of us also have people in our lives who don't fit in their plans. We have cousins or children or brothers who match a profile and whom the racial improvement task force has come for in the past.



Translation (rough): People with hereditary diseases each cost the nation 60,000 Marks over their lifetimes. Comrades: that is also your money.

More and more of us are getting the opportunity to know people like this.

Notice how his legs are twisted, and how he holds his fist. Study it. Next time you see a person like this, you're going to see these exact same behaviors.

That means it's been at least 90 years these abject $#@!s have had to study these behaviors.... nearly a century. And nothing. Not one medical professional can explain why they do that, even after a century. Forget fixing it for a second: they can't even explain why it is. They've spent a century still wasting their time on more eugenics crap.

Before we even get to talking about the right or wrong of their "enhancements", can we acknowledge that their heads are up their asses?

Yep. That's the point I was making earlier. Hitler was very much a supporter of Darwinism.

[fisharmor]

Replacing parts on a car one after another because you can't diagnose the problem is one thing. But doctors who engage in trial and error are playing fast and loose with Hippocrates, and yes, I could make the case that you have to have your head up your ass to do that.

But mostly, humanity has no need at all for cures looking for a disease. If there's no disease, they aren't cures.

Our most recent eye-opener was having a kid with uncontrollable seizures. Here's the visiting-a-new epilleptologist experience:

"Have you tried Keppra?"
"Yes, it's the first thing we tried according to our write-up."
"Have you tried Depakote?"
"Yes, it's the second thing we tried."
"Have you tried Lamictal?"
"Yes, and she got the life-threatening rash that is clearly noted in the documentation. This is also in our write-up."
"Have you tried Valproic Acid?"
"Yes, and it turned her into a zombie. Also in the write-up."
....
....
"Have you tried Keppra?"



(Oh, and before it gets brought up: cannabis doesn't work either.)