Monday, March 16, 2015

Robots, Jesus, and Eternal Life




Monday night I was on Facebook and saw a friend post that he was going to get some silly little robot.  I watched the video of this little thing that can take pictures and turn around, make calls and read your messages out loud to you.  A little more searching about this little thing told me that it was recently crowd-sourced for 200% of its goal.  A little more searching led me to an article about why this little robot is really not that useful.  Because this robot can’t move itself other than to turn, it really doesn’t do much.  Our smartphones can do a better job because they know when you are home.  I agree with him, it just doesn’t seem that practical.  But I don’t really like all that much automation anyway. 

Reading about robots somehow led me to an article in The Guardian (link at the bottom) about Google buying up top robotics companies and hiring a guy named Ray Kurzweil.  I’d never heard of this guy, but apparently he’s predicted some pretty crazy things.  Bill Gates has apparently said that Ray is the best person at predicting the future he’s ever met.  The author of this article also said that this Ray is obsessed with living forever and believes that in just 10-15 years technology will help him to do this.  He believes that death is a tragedy.  His daughter, in the apartment when the author was there, said “What I think is interesting is that all kids think they are going to live for ever . . .”

I found this all quite interesting.  The man is talking about robots being able to learn and “language is the key to everything.”  This is in the bible.  Proverbs 18:21, Life and death are in the power of the tongue.  He is trying to teach robots to be like humans and he believes that they will be really smart but will just help us or something.  It is all strangely justified because I agree with him and his daughter, death is a tragedy.  What I completely disagree with is his view of Jesus, and all religions, because he hasn’t met the true God who made his very soul and everything he’s ever seen.  He doesn’t know that Jesus is profoundly different from any other religion, including the one he believes in: technology.  Religion is self-serving in any form.

Death is a tragedy, but Jesus is the way the truth and the life. He came that we can be set free and live eternally.  Making robots to think better than we do is so strange to me.  We are made in the image of God and he is The Creator, naturally we would create things.  However they will never replace a human being.  They just won’t have the same value; they will never possess a soul. What makes a human more valuable than a robot?  Did God himself make robots?  No, he made people who, like him, could choose.  Out of his great grace, and then patience, he gives us the choice and waits for us to come to him or refuse him. 

While some people like Ray Kurzweil are focusing on living forever and making predictions about the future technically there are people being killed violently in many parts of the world and America is rapidly falling away from God and allowing our government to get bigger and bigger as it goes further and further in debt.  Wars continue to be waged, people continue to be married, and most people are able to eat and drink.  But, Jesus is coming soon with his heavenly host of angels to take back the world that is rightfully his, and eternal life and peace will be swift to follow him.





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