God Had to Have A Sense of Humor

Returning from internship and reuniting with classmates for senior year at seminary was a time for telling tales of our experiences.  I don’t know how much they were embellished, or whether I even heard them accurately, but here are some I remember:   

One student hated dogs, and dogs reciprocated.  Worship was over and people were milling around and talking, and the intern, fully vested in his robes, started down the aisle for the front door when a bulldog appeared.  The intern turned and ran back up the aisle as best he could with those vestments, and jumped over a railing at the front of the sanctuary.  The dog went through the railing and managed to bite him on the leg before he could be rescued – didn’t break the skin and everyone was laughing.  

It was a hot summer’s day and no a/c in the old building, so the intern stripped to his boxers before putting on his vestments and, you guessed it, their elastic wasn’t up to the task and the boxers fell down around his ankles right there in front of God and everybody.  

Startled by the shots of an honor guard, one intern lost his footing and slipped part-way into an open grave.  

Factual or not, stories like this give me new perspective when I take myself too seriously.  I’m on a journey now over the meaning of an honest “God-concept” in today’s scientific world where old world-views and scriptural factuality are questioned.  But sometimes I think that God has to have a sense of humor and when I ponder spiritual things I need reminding that my vision is human and limited, and I hope I can laugh together with “the source of my being” when things get hilarious. 

Artificial Intelliegence

The human race will be finished, probably in the next century.  

So says Nick Bostrom of Oxford University as reported by Kathleen Miles in the Huffington Post.  If I understand Bostrom’s thesis correctly, the culprit is not going to be microscopic bacteria or viruses, but rather microscopic semi-conductors engineered by humans to produce AI, Artificial Intelligence.  

Artificial Intelligence fully developed produces Superintelligence, or the ability to do all the things the human brain can do, only far better and faster.  Then the next step is the obvious elimination of humans entirely since they would be unneeded and a burden.  

Bostrom states that the only solution to this problem is control of the development of AI.  In order to do this, everyone on the planet needs to be in accord and this won’t happen as long as human egos keep producing warfare and destructive governments and economic systems -- including predatory capitalism.  In other words, the human race needs to get its act together in order to face this and other threats to its existence.  Is this going to happen before AI is prematurely loosed on the planet for money and profit, or we fail to develop the technology to move an asteroid out of our orbit because we’re bombing each other?  

This is about the gospel, which works against “conventional wisdom” on so many levels.  Instead of focusing on survival, the gospel points us to the common good.  Instead of focusing on dominance, the gospel points us to service.  Instead of stirring the negativity of fear and anger and judgment, the gospel leads us to grace and trust in a loving God.  The gospel is not just relevant, it’s everything.  

I think we all need to get back into the fight: the fight to love others as much as we love ourselves, maybe more, and re-learn to love ourselves if that has been taken away.

Defense and Offense

How many people, when they are frightened, don’t do well loving others?  

If someone is seen as a threat to a person’s livelihood, pride, sense of honor, or life, isn’t the first response often to fight back?  Would the human race be killed off if we didn’t do this, and if that is true, then how does Jesus’ command to love one’s enemies work?  

I get the impression from reading Paul that he habitually and unwillingly did, or had to do, things that he knew offended nature and the will of God – this from a person deeply committed to the teachings of Jesus.  

It’s World War One and a German soldier is pinned down in a bomb crater with a French soldier who he has mortally wounded.  The French soldier can’t speak anymore, but is able to reach into his pocket and pull out a photograph of a woman and two children, his family.  It’s then that the German soldier realizes that he has killed another human being in defending his own life and it breaks his heart. 

I think we cross a line when we glorify “defense” over all else and use defense as an excuse to commit offense.  We’ve become morally lazy, and it’s easier to shoot through a closed door and kill the girl on the front porch who is begging for help in a dark and strange neighborhood, instead of speaking to her.  I would be more willing to call myself Christian were I to work harder at calming my own spirit, taking some risks, and persistently struggling with moral issues that, at first, seem to have no solution.