"Man is not a machine..." Interesting new evangelical statement about artificial intelligence...

https://mindmatters.ai/2019/04/new-evangelical-statement-on-ai-is-balanced-and-well-informed/

A "robot priest"?!? 
https://pjmedia.com/…/china-introduces-ai-robot-priest-to-…/
This reminds me of Jesus' words: "And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. So do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him."
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/…

Memorial Day greetings!  May we remember what is truly important.

Here are two topics which some may find interesting.

- World Magazine's multipart issue on the state of 'courtship', dating, marriage, etc among contemporary young American men and women, both Christian and NonChristian - http://www.worldmag.com/articles/18064  and  http://www.worldmag.com/articles/18065   and  http://www.worldmag.com/articles/18060

- Nicholas Carr on "Is Google Making Us Stupid?"  and  "Switch off and think"  (I am now going to switch off my computer.  Goodbye!)

Here are two interesting articles I came across tonight.

1. The first is a spicy commentary about a prediction Donald Miller wrote for CNN about religious trends in 2011.   http://teampyro.blogspot.com/2011/01/open-letter-to-donald-miller.html
I read Donald's book "Blue Like Jazz" a couple years ago, and I think Frank Turk's comments are right-on.  Frank makes great points about the true gospel (of repentance and forgiveness, truth and love) that Jesus Christ preached.  Jesus was an "extremist"... a "radical"... in the best possible way...

2. The second one is about how Francis Chan recently left his 4000-member California church because he felt it was becoming too focused on him rather than on Jesus Christ.  http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/12/22/%e2%80%9cchristian-famous%e2%80%9d-pastor-quits-his-church-moves-to-asia/
Here's a quote from the article:
In his world of big conference crowds, multiple services each week, and instant access to social media, the notion of pastoral care had begun to change. His fame was straining his work as a pastor. “When there is a large constituency, there’s a lot of voices,” he said. “It makes you arrogant or it makes you want to shoot yourself. When thousands of people tell you what they think, how can I be quick to listen, like the Bible says? I don’t want to be a jerk and tune everyone out. At the same time you, can’t love every single person and answer them.”

Francis is so right about that.  And I highly admire him for his action.  The whole idea of the salaried pastoral "job" is not quite Biblical, it seems to me (though pastoral/elder roles are Biblical and voluntary financial gifts to assist them in their work are Biblical)... as are the large buildings and other trappings of modern institutionalized "church".  (For more thoughts, see my posts on Steve Atkerson's book 'House Church', e.g. http://tim223.xanga.com/725607096/house-church-reading-notes-ch10-20/ ).

Fame sometimes comes, as God's gifts attract attention.  But the modern church paradigms tend to put more pressure on pastors/elders than God intended for them to bear.  They are asked by Western culture to be CEOs of veritable religious corporations, spending their energies on building projects and christian community center programs, instead of God's charge that they take care of His people.  They are asked to be the man at the top of a pyramid of authority and honor, instead of God's paradigm:  "Do not be called leaders, for One is your Leader, that is, Christ."  Matthew 23:10

Joshua Harris commented in the above article on Francis Chan's decision: "...Not every pastor of a big church should leave.”  Whether or not Joshua is right, I suggest that every pastor of a church should seek to multiply himself; to work himself out of a job; to disciple and raise up other men to lead and teach and preach... and disciple others.

Taking a paid job as "pastor" or "clergy" in a Western institutionalized church is not necessarily evil, and I have been blessed by the friendship and preaching and mentorship of many such men over the years.  But it is a dangerous position, filled with perils and pressures that are unnecessary and not required by the Biblical plan for God's Church.

All of that to say, I admire Francis Chan for his action, and I pray that God will use him with even greater effectiveness in the future as he serves smaller groups of people.  May his desire be granted: that people interacting with him would come away thinking not about him, but about Jesus Christ.

Here are some recently read books with a short blurb/synopsis, in case you might be interested in reading them too.   My previous set of reviews was September 12, 2009 if you want to read more (use the "Posting Calendar" link at the lower left side of this page).

- Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, Volume 1, by Michael Brown - great book... addresses a lot of "I couldn't possibly consider Jesus my Messiah, because I'm Jewish, my whole family is Jewish, etc" and "Didn't Christians persecute the Jews for thousands of years?" type questions.  There are an amazing amount of carefully cited references... great resource!  There are three more volumes... I look forward to reading them...

- Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Genome by John Sanford - Excellent book.  Thanks to Rich for giving it to me!  The gist is that random mutations are slowly destroying the human genome, little by little, inexorably, and neodarwinian evolution (natural selection + random mutation) is not only unable to create new genetic information, but unable even to maintain our current genome.  This implies that our genome was originally created essentially perfect by an Intelligent Designer, some thousands of years ago.  The book needs some editing to make it a little less redundant, and the pictures are a little corny (sometimes he seems to be aiming for a lay audience, and sometimes for a scientific audience), but overall the points he makes are excellent.

- The Future of Justification, a response to N.T.Wright - by John Piper - great book... closely written theological rebuttal to NT Wright's New Perspective on Paul.  Piper does a good job of showing why justification is God's "forensic"/legal "writing us down NOW as if we're innocent", and how this individual forgiveness-of-sins is the heart of the gospel.   (as opposed to the NPP heresy, which teaches (similar to the RCC) that justification is God's eschatological pronouncement at the end of time that we are "in the covenant community", based on the good works that we've done during our lives through His enabling(/"infusing") power).

- Overcoming Sin and Temptation - by John Owen (new edition by Kelly Kapic/Justin Taylor) - Excellent book!  Deep reading, difficult old english, but great thoughts on putting to death sin by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Overall summary: (1) It is extremely important to be putting sin to death in our lives... "be killing sin or it will be killing you". (2) the ONLY way to kill it is by the power of the Holy Spirit, not by accountability partners, or more Bible reading, or setting rules for oneself, or telling oneself "I'm better than that", or self denial or self-flagellation, or any other type of human-power-based approach to attempting to make oneself more righteous.

- Evolution: greatest hoax on earth - by Jonathan Safarti - All of Safarti's books are worth reading.  This one dissects Richard Dawkins' latest book "Evolution: the greatest show on earth" which claims to present the most powerful and up-to-date evidence in favor of evolution.  Safarti's book carefully goes through Dawkins' claims and dispassionately blows each one out of the water.  It is a "polemical" book, but a rational, evenhanded polemic overall.

- Head, Heart, and Hands - by Dennis Hollinger - Thanks to Tom for lending me this book.  Hollinger makes the point that some Christians are wired to be more "head" (intellectual)-oriented, others "heart" (emotional)-oriented, and others "hands" (practical, gift of helps, social-justice/soup-kitchens/etc)-oriented.  He makes the point that all aspects are necessary, and we need to understand our own selves and be willing to grow in the other two areas.

- The Edge of Evolution - by Michael Behe (a RCC biology prof who believes in common-descent of man and apes, and in an old earth, but not that darwinian evolution can explain all of it) - fascinating in-depth look at what (darwinian) evolution can and can't do, using the specific examples of malaria and sickle-cell anemia resistance to malaria.  Pro: Behe is an expert on this subject, and also tries to make it accessible... he well demonstrates his point that evolution can make small destructive changes to genetic information that sometimes confer "resistance" to a particular disease, but it cannot cross the multiple-improbable-step gap to create new biological features and innovations and genetic information.  It's a little difficult to get through all the biology - I made it about halfway and then stopped for a while.

- Signature in the Cell, by Stephen Meyer - great book!  It's basically about how evolution has no plausible way to create novel genetic information (in our DNA).  Meyer reviews all the theories and shows how they don't work (and contradict each other).  The only reasonable explanation is intelligent design...   The only downside to this book is that it's so long!  If it could be shortened, it would be better.

What interesting books have you been reading lately?

Regarding the "crash" (collapse of peace and economic prosperity in the USA and beyond) which some people (including myself) see on the horizon...

underlying cause:
- millions of individual unsaved Americans, a collective nation turning gradually further from God (we were never God's chosen people, and we were only a "Christian nation" in the sense of being composed of a high percentage of people espousing Christianity or judeo-christian morality (e.g. one might just as well say that we used to be a "Caucasian nation" or some other such originally shared characteristic), and not in the sense of possessing a divine national charter)

proximal causes:
  ==>> abortion (twenty thousand precious unborn humans murdered per week in America)
-> recognition of homosexual 'marriages'
-> abandoning Israel
cultural factors leading to the decline
- divorce, homosexuality and the breakdown of the family
- removing the Bible from the public square (especially schools) and requiring secularistic science teaching
- affluence --> laziness (engineering school enrollment, etc)
- feminism (more girls now going to college than boys, divorce epidemic, etc, cf. Mohler articles such as http://www.albertmohler.com/2009/10/23/feminism-unfulfilled-why-are-so-many-women-unhappy/
http://www.albertmohler.com/2010/02/09/newsnote-where-are-the-young-men/
http://www.albertmohler.com/2010/02/05/newsnote-masculinity-in-a-can-fight-club-at-church-and-the-crisis-of-manhood/
http://www.albertmohler.com/2009/10/28/the-divorce-divide-a-national-embarrassment/)
- media evil: Hollywood movies, tv shows, pornography, etc

factors in the predicted coming economic collapse of the USA and subsequent one-world government
Global:
- sovereign debt (of many nations, e.g. Greece, Spain, Ireland, Britain, and the USA...)
- oil dependency - for transportation, food growing and transporting, manufacturing, energy, etc
- nuclear Iran (dilemma: if pre-emptive attack of Iran, risk losing 'world goodwill', if wait/sanctions, risk nuclear war and/or an EMP-bomb attack against Israel, Europe, USA, etc) http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-time-to-act-against-iran-is-fast-approaching/?singlepage=true
USA:
  - national sovereign debt - $14 trillion and growing - now equal to 100% of the 2010 GDP
- continued expansion of government entitlement programs like welfare, unemployment, disability, medicare, etc
- social security collapsing due to borrowing - e.g. paying out more than it takes in, starting 2010 http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/539411/201007061804/Are-Overdue-Reports-Concealing-ObamaCare-Impact-On-Medicare-.aspx
- the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - approximately $1 billion spent so far
- the subprime mortgage crisis due to Clinton-era FreddieMac/FannieMae intervention - http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerkimball/2008/09/29/who-caused-the-biggest-financial-crisis-since-the-great-depression/
- 12 million illegal immigrants taking up millions of dollars in local services
- high personal credit card debt, $8000 average per household
- the Obama $700 billion 'stimulus' bill of 2009
- the national healthcare bill of 2010, taking effect gradually over the next 5 years
- Bush tax cuts expiring in 2011

Predictions
  - something will trigger a global economic meltdown
- runaway money-printing / inflation will occur in USA and the dollar will lose most or all of its value (cf. Argentina, Zimbabwe)
- some level of national turmoil will occur, especially acutely in the cities with riots when gas and food run out
- Christians will experience major persecution

At some point, the world will transition to a one-world Islamic government and everyone who accepts the new world leader will receive an implanted RFID microchip allowing them to buy and sell.  However, the timing of the transition is not known... the USA meltdown might occur many years before the world transition, or within a few weeks or months.   God might grant many more years to the earth before bringing the final end of the age.

Recommendations
- http://tim223.xanga.com/722854326/preparing-for-the-coming-distress/ (Rejoice in Jesus Christ all day long!    and prepare in a few prudent earthly ways)
- Pray for revival in the USA...
- More ideas: www.transitionus.org  ,  www.postpeakliving.com

God, please break her ipod
Extract her from her self-imposed cocoon
She's trying to retreat from the cold harsh world
She doesn't realize that she is part of the problem
Open her eyes to the people
All around her
Who need her friendship and love
That she can give to them only if she is secure in God's love for her
And if You break her ipod
Or give her enough love to turn it off

God, please break his xbox
Spinning illusions of a world more colorful, more vivid, more fun
Greedily and mindlessly slurping up the hours of his life
He thinks he is living the better life
But he is feeding on ashes and missing the hard subtle magnificent joys
Of reality
God, please break his xbox
Or give him a taste for turning it off and living real life, with You and for others

God, please break their television
Open his eyes as he sits in front of it every night watching the game
To see his wife cooking dinner and longing vaguely for the conversations they used to have
To see his son struggling with his homework only a room away
To see his daughter wishing she could see his eyes show the same interest in her that he shows
In the game
Open her eyes as she talks through the week of the next time she will see Lost or the soap
And trade in her precious hours for fake laughs and fake thrills
And wishing for a better husband and mocking the one she has
God, please break their television
Or give them the vision to turn it off and weave their family's life together

God, please break her computer
Show her that three real friends are better than three hundred facebook friends
An hour of face to face conversation more memorable than ten pages
Of instant messages
An interested conversation with her neighbor more satisfying than an hour of surfing the web
Taking her little brother out to eat and talk more lifechanging than comparing dresses online
God, please break her computer
Or give her the judgment to turn it off and shape history

God, please break his radio
Open his eyes to see his daughter sitting next to him in the truck
Silent
Longing to deeply talk with him
But too shy to try compete with the radio
Besides she's tried before and failed - why seek again?
And he's tried before and been hurt - why open up again?
But if only she could see how close they could be if
If she would try again
And he would make himself vulnerable
God, please break his radio
Or give him the courage to turn it off and engage

God, please let them see You in your glory
And forget all amusements and electronic distractions as You fill their gaze
Teach them to count their days as they slip away one by one until their predetermined number is completed
And give them delight in the warmth of your beauty and incredibly passionate love that gave up everything for us
In Jesus Christ

And me too God, please

interesting science news:

a new source of oil...  (not to be confused with the other related new source, which is also interesting)

brain computer interface used for virtual reality training...

and, get this, "Liquid Trust".    heh.   lol.    hmmm.

I'm sure some have you have already seen this documentary about global warming (hint: the hype may well be based on faulty science).

But if you haven't, it's worth taking two hours to listen to and think about (especially if you can do something else during that time - dishes, laundry, whatever... multitasking to 'redeem the time...' 

Here's a powerful quote from near the end:
"I think one of the most pernicious aspects of the modern envionmental movement is this romantisation of peasant life, and the idea that industrial societies are the destroyers of the world.

The envionmental movement has evolved into the strongest force there is for preventing development in the developing countries.

I think it's legitimate for me to call them anti-human.  Like, Ok, you don't have to think humans are better than whales, or better than owls, or whatever... if you don't want to, right.

But surely it is not a good idea to think of humans as being scum.  ..That it's ok to have hundreds of millions of them go blind or die or whatever.   I just can't relate to that."

Patrick Moore - cofounder of Greenpeace

Does anyone else see an ironic/amusing parallel between the burgeoning "Space Elevator" project and the ancient Tower of Babel?

Also, goodbye Bob the Tomato... we will miss you.