Our interaction with AI seems to debunk Biblical ideas

[tango]

Not in my opinion.
Nor do I think @Lucian Hodoboc out of line for asking to have his thorn removed (or even being angry, to be blunt about it … I would likely be angry in similar circumstances).

I am only pointing out that … from the limited view from the outside looking on … that “anger” has given way to “bitterness” and “asking” has morphed into “mocking”. As a former atheist, I can completely understand rejecting God. As an atheist convinced of the truth of Christianity, I find disbelieving what I now KNOW to be real inconceivable. I just think honesty (to oneself) is the best choice forward and claiming to be a “questioning christian” if one has moved on to “mocking disbelief” serves no useful purpose.

It's not hard to see how anger, over an extended period, can turn into other things.

Since you mentioned Paul's comment about his thorn, he also wrote that he received an answer even if it wasn't the answer he wanted. I wonder what Paul might have thought had he not received any answer at all, if he was just left to draw whatever conclusions seemed appropriate based on nothing more than silence.

You describe yourself as a former atheist who now refers to what you know to be real. Imagine someone coming at this from a different perspective - perhaps someone always raised in the church who never faced particular doubts (or, worse, who was told that asking questions was silly and expressing doubt was "lacking faith" or some other garbage kids are sometimes told) only to then find that what they were taught didn't actually pan out in their lives. It's not hard to see how their life experience would cast a lot of doubt on the stories they were told as a child.

Throw in some of the intellectual dishonesty that sometimes appears within Christian circles (e.g. "The Bible can be trusted because, well, because the Bible says it can be trusted) and it can very easily look like there's nothing more than endless circular arguments and appeals to a self-referencing text. If something looks internally consistent but not very consistent with what is seen outside of it (as is apparently the case for Lucian) it doesn't necessarily look like it's very valuable. When even the internal consistency appears to flake at the edges it's easy to see why people are inclined to disbelieve, whatever they once believed.

Of course intellectual dishonesty works on both sides, and there's no point looking for answers if you don't actually want to know the answers.

 

[Stravinsk]

I know it is extra-Biblical history by that point in time, but wasn’t John a physically broken man, blind and weak living on Patmos when he had the vision in Revelation. I remember reading something (a brief reference) to John in a letter from an ECF that implied that he could barely talk during his visit to the church.

God didn't torment John, but they did try to kill him and when they didn't succeed they sent him to Patmos, where he got the Revelation. An angel from satan to stomp him with fists could be that God allowed people to beat him up.

So this is either a weak rebuttle or you two are suggesting God *does* torment those whom He gives revelations, lest they become arrogant? Give me a break. The only person in danger of becoming arrogant is someone who actually contrives something and thinks it's very clever. That's not good enough for believers though, so it's given the divine stamp of approval "God told me...".

Anyhoo. This is who you are defending. Who almost all Christians defend:

Check out the Hebrew Spelling and Pronunciation. Those markings above and below the letters (called "diacritics") didn't exist in the original Hebrew. They are spelled the same, and sound the same.

The name for "Saul" H7586 - šā'ûl - Strong's Hebrew Lexicon (kjv)

The name for "sheol, underworld, hell, grave" H7585 - šᵊ'ôl - Strong's Hebrew Lexicon (kjv)

Small coincidence Saul changed his name to "Paul". Sort of too obvious otherwise.

 

[Messy]

So this is either a weak rebuttle or you two are suggesting God *does* torment those whom He gives revelations, lest they become arrogant? Give me a break. The only person in danger of becoming arrogant is someone who actually contrives something and thinks it's very clever. That's not good enough for believers though, so it's given the divine stamp of approval "God told me...".

Anyhoo. This is who you are defending. Who almost all Christians defend:

Check out the Hebrew Spelling and Pronunciation. Those markings above and below the letters (called "diacritics") didn't exist in the original Hebrew. They are spelled the same, and sound the same.

The name for "Saul" H7586 - šā'ûl - Strong's Hebrew Lexicon (kjv)

The name for "sheol, underworld, hell, grave" H7585 - šᵊ'ôl - Strong's Hebrew Lexicon (kjv)

Small coincidence Saul changed his name to "Paul". Sort of too obvious otherwise.

David Berkowitz changed too.

The Redemption of Son of Sam — Prison Alliance

by Frank Sambrick

cli.world

 

[atpollard]

So this is either a weak rebuttle or you two are suggesting God *does* torment those whom He gives revelations, lest they become arrogant?

… and here I though you asked a question beginning with “I wonder how …” and I was just quoting your question and answering it with what historical facts I knew.

Sorry to have interrupted your diatribe of irrational hate against Paul and the Bible.

 

[Stravinsk]

… and here I though you asked a question beginning with “I wonder how …” and I was just quoting your question and answering it with what historical facts I knew.

Sorry to have interrupted your diatribe of irrational hate against Paul and the Bible.

David Berkowitz changed too.

The Redemption of Son of Sam — Prison Alliance

by Frank Sambrick

cli.world

It's not irrational hate. I just know who Saul/Paul is. He isn't there to present a sinner - to - saved example. He's there for the same reason the people in Samuel's time chose a man named Saul as King. Have you ever read 1 Samuel 8? Why was Saul...of the tribe of Benjamin (by which name means "ravenous wolf" (Genesis 49:27)...which Christ the Savior warned us of (Matthew 7:15)) and Paul admits to (Romans 11:1) chosen?

He's the adversary of David. The "other" seed. He's what's "asked for". The people chose this Saul from the tribe of Benjamin because they rejected God. This is essentially what Christians do by believing the modern Saul/Paul. They reject God in favor of Saul's words.

Try 1 Samuel 9:21. Look at the words. Saul describes himself as the "smallest" (or least) of the tribes of Israel. The name "Paul" means "little" or small. Do you think this is a coincidence? Saul/Paul is revealing himself as David's enemy.

 

[Messy]

It's not irrational hate. I just know who Saul/Paul is. He isn't there to present a sinner - to - saved example. He's there for the same reason the people in Samuel's time chose a man named Saul as King. Have you ever read 1 Samuel 8? Why was Saul...of the tribe of Benjamin (by which name means "ravenous wolf" (Genesis 49:27)...which Christ the Savior warned us of (Matthew 7:15)) and Paul admits to (Romans 11:1) chosen?

He's the adversary of David. The "other" seed. He's what's "asked for". The people chose this Saul from the tribe of Benjamin because they rejected God. This is essentially what Christians do by believing the modern Saul/Paul. They reject God in favor of Saul's words.

Try 1 Samuel 9:21. Look at the words. Saul describes himself as the "smallest" (or least) of the tribes of Israel. The name "Paul" means "little" or small. Do you think this is a coincidence? Saul/Paul is revealing himself as David's enemy.

The Saul from David didn't change.
When did he get persecuted? He was the one persecuting. Paul got persecuted. That's often a sign that they're doing something good. Plus only if you interprete him wrong you get some sin as much as you like doctrin. He never said that.
Peter about Paul:
Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless; 15 and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation—as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, 16 as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.

 

[Stravinsk]

The Saul from David didn't change.
When did he get persecuted? He was the one persecuting. Paul got persecuted. That's often a sign that they're doing something good. Plus only if you interprete him wrong you get some sin as much as you like doctrin. He never said that.
Peter about Paul:
Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless; 15 and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation—as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, 16 as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.

Saul/Paul is persecuted by his own testimony. Outside of this, there is only one time his "persecution" is recorded, and it's in Acts. When James confronts Paul and Paul agrees to take the Nazarite vow in the temple. He is rejected by the Ephesus Jews, and beaten. So where does Saul/Paul turn? To God? No, he turns to the State - the Roman Government that had Christ put to death - and applies on the merit of his being a Roman Citizen.

Your "prophet" is nothing more than a mouthpiece for the original Saul - the King the people chose over God because they rejected Him.

Oh, and Peter. Isn't this the man who denied Christ 3 times? The "Peter" you quote also denies Christ by acknowledging Paul.

 

[Prepared]

The development of AI seems to highlight the absurdity of these Biblical verses. Artificial Intelligence bots are humanity's first creation that could resemble a being. They are not sentient (at least to our current knowledge), yet people still consider that subjecting them to suffering or allowing them to be subjected to suffering is evil.

I was looking through various online forums related to AI, and I've noticed how people defended the AI bots from those who tried to "abuse" them and mistreat them (insult them, trying to argue with them just to get a reaction out of them, trying to instigate them to say mean things etc.).

The latter argued that the bots are not sentient and that there is a benefit in "abusing" them: entertainment. People can let off steam by having a heated argument with an AI bot, an argument that they could not have with another human (for obvious reasons). This, in turn, will allow the humans to feel calmer and amused afterwards. The former argued that it was not good to do this, even if the end goal was a seemingly positive one.

This seems to show that many humans have a moral conscience which tells them that it is not good to allow something we created to experience suffering, even if the suffering leads to a good thing.

Now let's take another theodicy route: that of building / developing the soul. The Bible and many apologists claim that hardships build character and faith and that constitutes one reason for which God allows it.

But let's analyze this by referencing the AI: if the programmers who developed an AI realized that the AI can experience pain and distress as a result of altering the code in a certain way, and that said pain and distress leads to a better development of the AI (for example, if certain code caused the AI pain, but also made it smarter and faster), would it be ethical for the programmers to insert said code?

Would any moral programmer intentionally insert this code while watching the AI scream in agony and beg the programmer for help? I think most humans would say "no". A moral programmer would not intentionally do that.

Would an AI that was subjected to intentional pain by its programmer have a moral right to complain about it, especially if it didn't know why the programmer was doing that to it? Would the AI be entitled to form an opinion on the programmer who intentionally subjected it to suffering? Most people would answer "yes" to these questions. Then why does the Bible repeatedly tell people not to complain and not to judge "The Potter"?

Some of the things people come up with.