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