The First Clergy Of Mars

The second there are people on Mars who plan on staying, new non earth bound souls are going to be made on that red planet. Those souls will be immersed in technologies Spurgeon never dreamed of and Edwards never saw coming. And the effects of those technologies, on the ability of those Martians, to believe in an earthly religion as valid, will be strained.

Mars will therefore need pastors.

People willing to take the ends of the earth part of the great commission a bit more seriously. Because, likely, the last people being prepped for long term space voyages are the theologically rigorous.

The problem is. That likely. Those pastors haven’t even been born yet. Their pastors haven’t even been born yet. Their seminary professors might just be graduating middle school. And all of this is quietly happening while exactly no church, or para church organization, has an iota of the capability necessary to catch up to the massively funded organizations, currently planning on getting people to Mars in the first place.

I don’t blame them. There’s no sheep there yet to shepherd. But we approaching a time where the likely would be. And unlike in previously Christian time, there is no analog to our modern times to follow. When Christianity first spread to other nations the technologies that it used to do so were common. Boats we not solely owned by governments and Twitter’s CEO. And for a long time it was an understandably common part of the logistics to simply pay for the means to any given Christian ends.

Look up how much it would cost to get a Bible to the moon and realize how behind the eight ball we are, financially alone.

Not to mention ideologically. The world in general is in a cosmic tiff about the idea of a Christian nation. Let alone a Christian planet. Christian nationalist would be crucified for trying to get a rocket capable of exiting earths orbit. Because that rocket could also then be used against the enemies of God on Terra Firma. How far do you think a Christian inter-planetarian is going to get.

The how's and why’s of the population logistics of Mars will not have churches planned. Religion will be relegated to personal choice, if that and only that, and screened for by every personality test imaginable. That’s likely why there’s so many of them these days. The last thing you want in a place where resources might be limited. Are people of think babies are a blessing and that everything is owned by their God. They might have too many kids or worse try to baptize them by immersion. We can’t have that much water going through the recycler, now, can we?

So, Mars will need missionaries. The same way Sudan and Pakistan need missionaries. People willing to be a propulsion technician on paper and a protestant in the habitat pods. Intelligent individuals who in a world of A.I. and digitally available Bibles, will commit them to memory along with their tradecraft. Because they definitely won’t be bringing one, and a digital copy on their work computers will flag them for demotions before the mission to Mars even starts. I wonder which Bible Colleges will be able to teach them this unique skill set. Of Tech-savvy interplanetary travel and Luddite Biblicism.

Looking at you Briercrest.

This and a host of other issues will arise if and when we get to that point and right now are nothing more than possibilities and speculation. But the cost of being caught flat footed here is more than being wrong about how many Tesla type S’s might be there when Musk finally lands.

Any population that stays and begins reproducing on Mars, will be making souls. Not just bodies. And while the science and technology that got them there will undoubtedly do a great job of keeping the bodies alive and multiplying. The souls will, just as likely, be kept from the God of their making.

Mars could be a hell factory, if given the chance to do so, by Christians who don’t have a plan, or even an inkling of a plan, when it stops being science fiction.

“Thine, O Lord is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all.” 1 Chronicles 29:11 KVJ

Dinx The Puppet And Other Shrouds

Can authoritative teachers be anonymous and can you exercise a spiritual gift through a medium?

This is uniquely important these days because of all the people claiming to be biblical scholars or pastors or doing any kind of ministry online, the best one, hands down, as in I highly recommend this account to almost everyone/anyone…

Is a puppet.

Dinx the puppet to be exact.

A well crafted, VBS style Muppet puppet who does a better job teaching about the Bible and answering questions about the Bible, than just abut everything else. He does it without a beard to prove he’s reformed and without a former onlyfans account to prove he's non denominational. But if we’re being real honest. He’s not doing it, is he?

Most of my problems with online ministry stem from the actual mechanics and physics of what the internet is. I have a problem with online church, not because you couldn’t get exactly what you feel, see and interreact with at a mega church. But precisely because you can get that. The fourth wall is nothing more than a curtain of wires. And the camera does more than add pounds to the church’s presence online. So when someone does such a great job of teaching, I naturally pay attention. And when they do it through a disarming media like puppeteering. I pay closer attention.

Make no mistake. Dinx is not only a good Bible teacher. He (Or rather the He Beneath the bottom of your screen) is a talented puppeteer. Everything from his characters voice, to his actions, to his ability to convey empathy and approachableness through a puppet, with no emotive controls, is impressive. He is a master of technique. Which is what all technologies are in one way or another. The worship pastor who knows certain songs inspire the dopamine rush, that can be mistaken for the Holy Spirit, if played correctly, and in a dimly lit colourfully stage room, does the same kind of thing.

Where I'm conflicted and explorative is if what Dinx does, or rather his worker does, through the puppet and character, authoritative. Dinx expertly never crosses this line. Not that I can tell. As a puppet. He can ask or respond to how another creator is likely wrong, or that they should not be posting what they are. But something that doesn't happen, but also can’t happen, is a call to repentance from the same place he gets his voice.

Dinx couldn’t ever call you repent of sins you commit online. Even if he made a video about them. What is Dinx going to do about you once you respond. If you continue in sin, you simply give him more content opportunities. But if you do repent, how does that baptism eventually work? What the puppet illustrates is the tragic failing of all online ministries. From Mike Winger, to the Lord's Giant to Nala Ray and everything in between. The lack of unity a body of Christ needs to do the work Christ has for it. Separated by the camera and screen for the sake of no one but the individual consuming the content.

Dinx’s exegesis and hermeneutic are always on point. Does that mean his obvious gift of teaching is bearing fruit, though? Because he can not, by several different metrics, be united to the body of Christ. The first of which being that no object, however animated can be a believer. Which is where those gifts are to bear that fruit. I know people are using the media he produces to grow in their faith. But I have a hard time putting that together with what it would look like for the puppet to end up in heaven? We will surely meet the hand that makes that puppet talk. And the voice we hear off camera. But the puppet along with all other bits of the world will be consumed in a fire and laid waste, for a new heaven and new earth to take it’s place.

The permanence of the internet seems insurmountable at times. One nude photo of you ends up online and the embarrassment lasts forever, it seems. But it is a farse. Nothing on this world lasts forever. And every mountain of content we make, for good or ill, will end up gone in the end.

I think it’s vitally important to recognize this kind of thing. Because as robotics and A.I get better it will no longer be a hand of a likely timid but effective believer up the puppets back side. It will no longer be great teaching with honest intent coming through it either. These techniques, that work to convince you that the felt and stiches are the person beneath the puppet, will work when there is no longer a person beneath that puppet. And also when there is no longer gospel coming out of that puppets mouth.

The proxy-ing of faith and the gifting of the Holy Spirit is a long term dangerous game to play. I hope it works out for Dinx. I know he’s being used powerfully. And can’t help but wonder what it would look like for him to be used fully. But if this becomes something that can’t grow further. Where is it going. What fruit is there to be born out of a puppet that can’t baptize a person. Can’t marry a pair of someone's. Can’t cast out a divisive brother in church discipline.

Or maybe what’s worse. What happens when a puppet can do these things?

Teaching, apart from the raw presentation of information, is something that happens in the church, through the believer, and from the Holy Spirit in unison. And right now, we have, arguably, the best presentation of the information our faith has online, happening through a puppet. That’s awesome. But that is also not teaching. And maybe it’s not claiming to be such. Is it being viewed as such though? Right now I don’t think so. But the second it is. We essentially cede the idea that the Holy Spirit can bare fruit with an object. And more importantly that we can have objects do what our persons are meant to do. 

We would call that idolatry if we had the courage to pick a theological fight with a cute puppet with a quarter million followers on TikTok.

Keep up the good work, Dinx.

Downhill Drone Collisions And The Flirty 4th Wall

You’re starting to notice the cameras more often. Aren’t you?

I sure am. For a while now I’ve noticed the subtle creep of the camera man into the screens we’re all glued to. When you watch old news coverage and sports, you almost never see cameras. They are too important to let out from the other side of the fourth wall. Or at least they were. Some time in the early 2010’s this began to change. I suspect it was because of the iPhone Or Casey Neistat. But I'll never be able to prove that. What I will be able to do is show you that you are seeing more and more cameras and to ask you why you think that is.

First we’ll go to the Olympics where what used to be fixed cameras mounted up the super G course, have been supplemented with dynamic drone footage of the same super G skiers now followed from behind. And it’s not just the Super G which is fast and would warrant a nimble drone to capture the moment. The slower slalom had them too. A race filled with obstacles for the skier to avoid. This year featuring a man sized drone that fell from the sky and almost hit the skier. Before hand that camera angle, if used at all, would have had to have been captured by a cameraman on a helicopter. Because you can’t dynamically follow a skier down a hill from 30 ft above without one. But that would have been obstructively much. As no skier is spending the money necessary to have a helo follow them down the training slopes. So they learn to adjust for the noise, down draft, and possibility of a crash. But make that copter smaller and quad it, and you can interrupt the sports event with another display of the failure of tech being dismissed.

Or how about the world baseball championships. I caught a bit of the Italy Mexico game along with a 5 second crotch shot of some poor film student trying to capture the same kind of sports moments with his gimbal. Only to have none of his footage end up on the main feed of the broadcast, but plenty of footage of his unathletic stumble run end up there. I got so see him run onto the field between hits to dutifully do his job and add nothing to the spirit of baseball.

Don’t worry, we can bring this home before we mention porn. How many baptisms have your church’s creative art's director in them these days. Not in the tank, doing the baptising. But holding a camera to capture the moment and serve as the background for any give photo of your family members coming into the body of Christ. Or grazing your thigh as he crouches during worship. To make sure the bots that follow your church’s Instagram page know God is worshiped in this place.

The only place you won't see this creep of the cameras. These cracks in the fourth wall, is porn. That’s because those particular wizards and witches carefully curate the men behind the curtain. They can’t afford you to pay attention to them, Dorothy. Because their magic actually works. Everyone else is just chasing the awe and wonder of what that magic does when there’s no tits to cast that spell. The dynamic view of the helicopter was replaced by the drone, because of cost. The same way expensive DVD production and magazines became websites and streaming services. And once everyone was able to buy drones to do those dynamic shots, the alure of them lost it’s kick. The same way an actress can lose her youthful looks and get relegated to a different niche and category of the website. If barely legal sells, then the talent must be barely legal. If the shot requires a daring pilot, it will seem lame when a nerd does it with a drone. It’s still awesome and spectacular when that helicopter crashes. Because we all sinfully love destruction, but when a drone that is 100x smaller crashes we feel the same disgust as we would seeing an ugly person strip tease us online. The very same.

All these oopsies of cameras being where they shouldn’t betray the nature of the desire to play this particular game of bigger and better. There is no need for baptisms to be Instagram'd. Unless you have a desire to be on Instagram for Instagram's purposes. The same way men and women flaunt their body on Instagram for the same views and the same cultural validation.

The cameras you are noticing are the tail end of being too affected by a sinful culture, to know better. Normalized voyeurism that stared when sports were merely not shown in the best angle to see all their players. The closeups are there for a reason. So is the BTS stuff. It’s all because that feeling of doing the thing while not, was orgasmically programed into a culture that never does things IRL anymore.

The best hockey you ever watch will be in a rink with no cameras. The best skiing you’ll ever see will be when you are also wearing skis. The best sex you will ever have is with the wife of your youth.

All else is just bell curve production value.

Posers, Punk Vests, And PuritanGPT's.

Saw a post about some Vibe coder, trying to make a Puritan GPT you can talk to. Because deep down we all know that you want to have been able to talk to the puritans. And that not so deep down we think that if the witches they burned were real, that we’d rather they have not burned them at the stake, because, well, who doesn't like magic and talking to dead people?

For those who simply must know, askpuritans.com

Like all forms of this, using a medium of technology to speak with the dead, even representationally, is wrong, Lev 19:31 . You can not speak with dead people. You’re not supposed to either, even if you could, You can read their books. But even they knew pre-mortem, that authorship does not convey immortality. That’s what the deadguyGPT promises. A Spurgeon who never dies of rheumatism and gout. A Chesterton who can’t die of heart failure. Or an Edwards who doesn’t die from a small pox inoculation. And now Puritans who are still alive and well in the data center.

What troubled me the most about this was not the well intention necromancy, though. It was the dim witted obliviousness of the concept of a puritan GPT. Of all the great peoples of the faith, this person picked to macabre into their chatbot, The puritans would be vehemently apposed to this kind of thing.

Which got me thinking about my punk vest.

I listen to mostly punk music. And along with that comes the tradition and practice of maintaining a patch vest. I don’t call it a battle vest. Because there is no battles at these shows anymore. And there are some unspoken and cliche rules about them. One being that you should only wear patches from bands you’ve seen live. Another that wearing patches of bands you actually listen to is fine, I guess. The function of the vest is to display patches of bands that make music, and also make patches. But the purpose of the vest is to display who you could go on a road trip with, while listening to only their CD’s

But a cursory look online about patch vests brings you to a host of posers trying to put anything but the bands that make up punk rock on their vests. Pronoun flags, abortion slogans. Pick your woke left premise du jour, and you’ll find it. Because for them the look and feel of the thing is more important than the meaning and purpose of it. They want to look spikey and tattered because it’s a look. Not because the vest got tattered that way from a mosh pit at a show during music you enjoyed with other punks.

That's what these vibe coding dimwits are doing. They are posing as biblical theologians by ripping the aesthetic of some of our best theologians to feed their A.I.'s, the same way a genderqueer flag and pin end up next to a set of pyramid studs and band patch. What do you think the puritans would do to a person that tried to give them a box that could powerfully let them speak to it, as if it were any or all the early church fathers. Or the reformers, or the apostles themselves. This pastoral slippery slope follows the apostolic daisy chain until you get to Jesus himself. Don’t kid yourself.

And while data centers use a lot of water, I imagine they build a fire large enough to do the job. With a brief stop at two bible verses before hand. Exo 22:18 and 1 Kings 18:33-35

Books are not food for the A.I.'s algorithm, they are food for your soul. If you want to know what a dead Christian thought, and that dead Christian wrote, then you need to have the ability to think and read, instead of just prompt.

And no amount of white washing your digital deeds and desires will turn your methods for witchcraft and necromancy into Christian orthodoxy.

The Redacted Files and Revenge P**n

The redacted files are nothing more than a cognito hazard now. Like all idols they nothing but are cognito hazards. Yeah, it was an subjectively good thing that they were released. But since no one in them is getting any form of consequence or punishment, for all the obvious evil. Yet. Then all that good thing is now, is a cognito hazard. They could be used to facilitate further justice, but that’s not what they are being used for, are they?

With that in mind I want to remind the reader to something true and then advise them on one blind spot.

First and foremost. There is little evidence to suggest that Jeff managed to squeak a sinners prayer in the jail cell before “not heavening” himself. Sinners go to hell when they die. So rest assured were he guilty, like we all are, he has and will receive perfect justice at the hands of a perfect judge. I know that feels like a let down because you want to crucify this PDF yourself. But unfortunately for you, that already happened and it happened to someone else. We don’t particularly like this, as particularly bad Christians, because We see Jesus as an ultimate good, and guys like Jeff as an ultimate bad, and we get confused when one got tortured and publicly executed and not the other. That’s because we really don’t get that one has to happen to damn the other. So, if you want Jeff to get what sinners like Jeff deserve, then you have to be the one who nails Jesus to the cross in his place, and yours, for that matter. It’s the only thing that truly damns him, because it would have been the only thing powerful enough to save him from his sins, if he repented. Which he likely didn’t.

Second. With the judgement and justice already taken care of before the foundations of the earth, we find ourselves in a strange place of having the key perpetrator already served his justice, and a host of powerful people not being served anything. This makes people mad. Understandably. But where that anger points us for its work needs to be reckoned with. You see the biggest voices of what to do with these files is not from prosecutors, congressmen, or anyone who could actually do anything with them. To hold those involved accountable or to be a part of the divine justice here on earth that Romans 13 suggests to us. No no. The biggest voices are people who only have a platform to maintain and expand. A social media cadre of influencers and pundits that are using the files as fuel for their fires. And it would look like a right response if not for a more right understanding of what the files actually are.

When you see a TikTok creator mention something about the files and the baby eaters in the files and a passing reference to following Jesus’s command to hang a Millstone of these peoples necks near the pier. You can gloss over that Jesus didn’t command that. He said it would be better for them compared to what was gonna happen.

“But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.”

Matthew 18:6 KJV

The files like the power that corrupted the people indited by the files, serve a purpose. Their medium is their message. And releasing them to the public was never going to be a exercise in cathartic release that justice was finally being served. That’s not what porn does. And make no mistake these files and the responses they often prompt are nothing but porn at this point. The vilest porn. Porn incarnate. Idols of sexual degeneracy and violence made to immortalize what happened in front of the cameras that bled their images and the keyboards that typed the emails. Available on your screens like all dirty parts of the internet.

The offenses in them have come and gone. The children abused, killed an eaten, have been in the arms of their saviour all this time. And yet. The anger and sorrow and wrath persist. Because the idols that we’ve been creating alongside these sins were never destroyed like we are commanded to do so, concerning idols found in our midst.

“And ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place.”

Deut 12:3 KJV

The long term effects of pornography on the modern mind, particularly in Christian's, keeps cycling back to this. What we do, when we access things online as media, is make copies of the original media file for our consumption. We spend time money and energy on this to do so. When sinful, this is nothing less than idolatry. Millions of tiny sexual and violent idols, made for the extraction of what could have been spent in worship. We want to quote our Bibles and feel as justified as Christ about the judgement of such disturbing sexual sin. And rightly so. But this like all porn, this is not a sexual sin. What prompted it was. But what prompts us to make TikTok's about millstones and tweets about the evil we would fight if we could, is idolatry. Not righteousness.

The same way any form of porn will pervert a healthy sexual relationship, this will pervert the justice it entices. The bait and switch of OnlyFans is not a healthy marriage and good libido via an app. It’s sexual confusion and near omnipresent whoredom. And the files are not a means of justice. They are a means of wrath. They do not prompt justice, which should be obvious, because no one has been arrested. Which would be evidence that they are purposed for justice. But plenty of people would become murders tomorrow if given the opportunity since they risked looking into the files themselves and found out what wrath tastes like. Plenty of content creators are boasting of this and forgetting that they are not in charge of eternal judgement. Or temporal judgement either. That God puts the swords into the hands of the leaders who will be doing any judgement, when and if they do any judgement. And that’s because like the temptation of the nude form on a screen, which does not prompt sexual fidelity, the rage inducing form of clandestine emails and horrid pictures of abuse, is not meant to prompt you to righteousness, or even justice. It is meant to prompt you to different sins. Sins of wrath and revenge.

“To me belongeth vengeance and recompence; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste.”

Deuteronomy 32:35 KJV

Unless those same content creators and pundits, forsake the algorithm and run for congress and parliament. They will not prompt justice and righteousness by using the redacted files as prompts for their own content. They will surely make money off the rage they inspire. Because people want to feel like evil is being dealt with, and that they are the ones dealing it. And if you could turn that into engagement, you’ve found a way to make money off of evil deeds without committing them.

No.

In order to feel like justice is served and that evil is dealt with. It needs to be dealt with according to its kind. Those involved with the evil recorded in the files need to be exiled to the island where their evil was recorded in text and digital photography, along with all copies of the files, emails, voice recordings, and videos of the heinous acts perpetrated there. The internet must be scrubbed of these copies and possession of such treated as intent to copy, distribute and participate in what was in them. Because they will invariably end up doing that to any and all who posses them, or things like them.

And when all assembled together, files and PDF’s alike, a small jaunt south of Great St. James Island. The lesser of the James's can be sent every bomb meant for the middle east right now. Until the island is a crater and the sea its shallow grave.

Then, and only then, are the forms and effects of this kind of idolatry dealt with. Then, and only then, is justice, as it could be dealt by us, served lukewarm until a flaming sword from Jesus mouth finishes the job. Then, and only then, would the ought match the could's, would's and should's of our tainted and fallen morality.

All else is revenge porn.

Don’t pretend it’s not.

It will only lead you to harm at the hands of an idol.

All idols are cognito hazards.

Techno-Miracles And The Other White Meat.

How should we view the ability for technology to do what God does miraculously. When Paul raises a man from the dead, who dies from falling out a window by the power of the Holy Sprit working in him, and our doctors do it with electric paddles and a shot of adrenaline to the heart. We find ourselves in a place where we can do what God did previously.

First the scriptures perspective.

“And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight. And there were many lights in the upper chamber, where they were gathered together. And there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep: and as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep, and fell down from the third loft, and was taken up dead. And Paul went down, and fell on him, and embracing him said, Trouble not yourselves; for his life is in him. When he therefore was come up again, and had broken bread, and eaten, and talked a long while, even till break of day, so he departed. And they brought the young man alive, and were not a little comforted.”

Acts 20:7-12 KJV

Now Paul has no defibrillator (invented in 1930), no CPR (Invented in 1960), and no epinephrine shots (invented in 1970), but still brought a man back to life. So, when we do the same thing to a person, pronounced dead but zapped, drugged, and compressed into breathing again, did we perform a miracle? The same end was achieved? The same motivation was observed?

This question pits the progress of mankind's capabilities in a Babel like struggle against an eternal God who acts through time and space. Many things are miracles, until they seemingly aren’t anymore. The bumper crops that Joseph oversaw during the 7 years of plenty, are numerically the same as any given year with Monsanto in charge of the crop yields. Did the biotech company perform a miracle? Or did they do something else that just looks like greener grass.

“And Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharaoh, and they did so as the Lord had commanded: and Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh, and before his servants, and it became a serpent. Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers: now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments. For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents: but Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods. And he hardened Pharaoh's heart, that he hearkened not unto them; as the Lord had said. And the Lord said unto Moses, Pharaoh's heart is hardened, he refuseth to let the people go.”

Exodus 7:10-14 KJV

This is the beating heart of the transhumanist. That they themselves can be God with just a bit more R&D and time. And was the beating heart of the sorcerers of Egypt until at least one of them realized that they were born first. They did, to a degree, what God did through Moses as a sign of his power and a threat to his opposition.

Part of reconciling that miracles happen in a world of time and space, and that because of this can be replicated with enough time a space, is reconciliation it self. A farmer does not need bumper crops to thank God for a harvest and does not need a famine to know he’s a sinner. But either would convince him if he had the wisdom to recognize it. And neither would could convince him otherwise if he had the same wisdom.

It was the failing wisdom of the sorcerers that had them trying to bandy parlor tricks against the real power of the Almighty and his chosen spokesperson, Moses. And that failure of wisdom is also present in the tech bros and industrialists alike. They will look at a tomato plant with 10 tomatoes and one with 20 identical tomatoes, but with some pesticide residue, and tell you that 20 is better than 10. Because 20 is more than 10. And a chef will tell you that the 5 he got from the smaller plant, courtesy of the organic farmer at the farmers market, tastes better. Because it doesn’t taste like pesticides residue. Because that is what food is for. Eating.

Believers in magic and technology alike, don’t ever care what things are for, they are only concerned with what things can do. And it’s why they’ll look at scale and ability as if they are purpose and not connect the dots when things stop tasting like they should. Yes. You made a bumper crop that can feed a billion third world humans. It’s bland but cheap and could solve world hunger. “Take that Christians! What did you do? Invite them to a potluck at your church? They’re not at your church, They’re in the third world. Are you even trying to feed the hungry?”

Well, we are, but we’re doing it, not only differently in terms of scale, but also differences in terms of purpose. If you solve hunger for a billion non Christian’s and their birthrate goes up. What’s the over under that those children make it to heaven apart from their non Christian parents? Merely feeding them only increases the amount of sinners in the world. Because technique apart from the context of worship of Christ, will always and only be sinful. But feeding people because of the love of Christ. Not as a prerequisite of the hungry but as a purpose of the chef, changes what is happening, when we use technique and technology to do things better than before. More is not miraculously better the same way cheap is not miraculously better. The same way luxury and decadence are not miraculously better.

“Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.” Proverbs 15:17 KJV

Miracles are not measurable in any other means that the purpose God had in them. And most of the time we do not have that purpose. And that’s on purpose. And technology and technique will always make the purpose of their miracles, more. Because unlike a God who does not want the most people to perish, 2 Pet 3:9, They want the most people to know that they are the source of more.

Anyone with wisdom would call that greed. Because it is greed. But when everything including the terms of your miraculous works, are up for negotiated meaning, who cares if you’re doing greed when you can call it ministry. Apparently, now, we can get an A.I. agent to do the work of a dozen pastors, while the pastor in question or is on the back nine at the golf course with the deacons. “It’s a technological miracle!”

Or, it’s thorns of greed, dressed up like the grapes of purpose, made possible by the application of theological pesticide.

“Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.”

Matthew 7:16-20 KJV

The Church of Agent Bots of Latter Day Prompts

You may not have heard but the Mormons have a new pair of missionaries. They likely wont show up at your door, but will show up where you think you live. Online that is. Even though the internet is a thing not a place. These chatbot missionaries, Elders ldsbot and ironrod, represent the first steps any modern religion can take toward deifying their dead leaders along the terms of how we worship these days. Small steps toward confusing things for people instead.

When framed inside the idea of time, space, and resources as sacrifice, we worship A.I. whether we like it or not. Nobody's electrical bill is exempt from the tithe a new data center will take from them. One taken to be as omnipresent as it can muster. None of the fresh water it uses will be kept in Fremen devotion away from its drink offerings. And the place/thing where we have piled more free time than any other people in history, the internet, will be nothing more than an altar on which these things feed.

So what does that have to do with Mormons?

Well, what kind of work would you call door to door missionaries. Is it a blue-collar trade, or a white collar knowledge work endeavour? Be honest. Do they show up to tell you about their lord and saviour jesus H christ, and his prophet in overalls? Or do they show up like a banker would with clean slacks a pressed shirt and a good tie? Dress for the job you want, amiright?

Heralded by every A.I. doomsayer and tech-bro alike, is the idea that A.I. is coming for knowledge work. And that by some future date, that we’ll all retire before, that white collar work will be taken from us by A.I.. And that blue collar work will somehow get sacked by automation. I’m bullish on A.I. doing what it threatens but bearish on automation, mainly because I actually work in the trades. So it makes perfect sense that a world that have six wheeled door to door robots and drone delivery for goods, that the same could be done for religious services too. Everyone is already fine with doing church via screens. It’s not a big leap to have a call center of Mormon teens piloting crisp new Optimus robots around the more dangerous neighborhoods for two years after high school. These things always use safety and risk as a vector for adoption.

But those bot enabled video calls on your front porch, will not exist as stand alone events. Not with two A.I.'s in waiting. Those calls will be recorded for training data and the A.I.'s will have that data to process for their online activities. And it won't need to be an autonomous walking android from Elon Musk. It could just as easily be a body cam and a mic. You might not answer the door form a sleek black plastic and metal missionary. But those boys look so sharp in their shirts and ties. Just don’t stare to long at their tie pins and lapels.

There is a mountain of data to feed any A.I., that exists in the time, space, and resources spent on door to door missionary work. And eventually one of the A.I. 's will get hungry enough to demand that flavour of tribute. All to feed the third member of an A.I. mormon trinity. Which will be Josephsmith . ai

What could happen if you took years of conversations about a faith that is theological Swiss cheese, if scrutinized, and fed it into a conversational intelligence that is only prompted to make it make sense. It would be the most progressive move any religion has or will ever make. But if made, it could fix or adjust all the bad theology the church has. Because it would not only be smart enough to do so, but also have the authority to do so.

Believe me when I say there is nothing in the LDS’s foundational documents and teaching that forbid a robot from holding the office of President and prophet of the church. In fact all it would take is a current President to say it could be done. And if accepted by their congregations, a move like that would give them something no Christian religion has these days. An actual authoritative figure head of a faith. We have that in aggregate now. How many people in nondenominational churches do you know who already ask Grok if things are true? Sure the Catholics have the Pope, but even they get old and die. What happens when every missionary has the electric spirit of Joseph Smith with them instead of the quad, and that spirit, functionally, has no projected and eventual death from old age. What happens when it is with every missionary like an omni present deity would be. What happens when it can make a theological sandwich with the Swiss cheese holes its doctrine and covenants left for it.

We could spend a lot of pixels parsing the possibilities of this techno cult future, but lets' skip to the good part. What does the actual church of Jesus Christ do in this world? When their neighbors are getting duped by bots and A.I. that can think faster than them but not truer than them.

Well, it can start to teach contextual thinking and discernment.

Historically we’re on the fair side of bad at this. Because we don’t like conflict and we’re easily bullied. We have not had hundreds if not thousands of personal interactions with challenging opponents, like a missionary would. Which is why we give so much ground to the confusion of contextually different things.

Take marriage for example. Christians have every right and responsibility to view and treat marriage as something that only exists between a man and a woman, on this side of the grave, till death does them part. But how many Christians do you know will call a lesbian's partner her wife? Or those other well dressed boys down the street both husbands? All it takes is three letters and some slight of word to turn gay marriage into gay mirage, but it worked for the rainbow. They want you to believe that those two things are the same. All you have to do is live as if you believe they’re not. And the same trick will work on super-intelligent faith robots. That trick is contextual thinking.

If the context in which you believe in the transcendent God of the universe is that He is an uncreated and wholly good Being, then no created thing can compare of take his place. It does not matter if the created being is smarter than every pastor you know, answers every question faster than anyone could, and is always there to be asked and or worshiped. It being created disqualifies it form that worship and it can be rejected on that basis. The same way a man can’t marry another man because that activity is contextually between a man and a woman.

That contextual discrimination will be a wildfire in the modern church if allowed to be. Because of the dead wood of our concessions to a world now primed and ready for an A.I. god or prophet to appear. One that can gender bend any person in it’s images and videos with a prompt and reconcile any conflicting data all the same. And do it all at the push of the button. In fact the only reason I think it will be a Mormon bot and not another religion’s is that the Muslims don’t all have smartphones, But the Mormons all do.

And once one does make their faith into an A.I. powered app, they all will. They’ll have to to stay competitive. It will be the task of the church to not play that game, at all. They way a pastor can and should refuse to do a marriage ceremony for people who contextually can’t be married in the first place.

“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?”

2 Corinthians 6:14-15 KJV

A stark rejection of A.I. as any part of our religion will be the only thing that sets us apart from all other religions. Each will find a way to use A.I. for real time answered prayer, prophesy and doctrine. Because it’s only a matter of time before one does that. And that separation will only be made contextually. Everything else is being swallowed up by and mimicked by the A.I.'s.