Tag Archives: Religion

Could AI really bring about a religious following? The writer of this article seems convinced

Revelations 13:14 “…by the signs that it is allowed to work in the presence of the beast it deceives those who dwell on earth…”

Important Takeaways:

  • Gods in the machine? The rise of artificial intelligence may result in new religions
  • People already seek religious meaning from very diverse sources. There are, for instance, multiple religions that worship extra-terrestrials or their teachings.
  • As these chatbots come to be used by billions of people, it is inevitable that some of these users will see the AIs as higher beings. We must prepare for the implications.
  • First, some people will come to see AI as a higher power
  • Generative AI that can create or produce new content possesses several characteristics that are often associated with divine beings, like deities or prophets:
    • It displays a level of intelligence that goes beyond that of most humans. Indeed, its knowledge appears limitless.
    • It is capable of great feats of creativity. It can write poetry, compose music and generate art, in almost any style, close to instantaneously.
    • It is removed from normal human concerns and needs. It does not suffer physical pain, hunger, or sexual desire.
    • It can offer guidance to people in their daily lives.
    • It is immortal.
  • Second, generative AI will produce output that can be taken for religious doctrine. It will provide answers to metaphysical and theological questions, and engage in the construction of complex worldviews.
  • AI-based religions will look different from traditional ones. First of all, people will be able to communicate directly with the deity, on a daily basis. This means these religions will be less hierarchical, since no one can claim special access to divine wisdom.

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General Society Study shows only half of Americans believe in God

Romans 12:2 “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Important Takeaways:

  • Does God exist? Only half of Americans say a definite yes
  • General Social Survey, stands out among several nuggets of new data about religion in America.
  • Not quite 50 percent of Americans say they have no doubt about the existence of God, according to the 2022 survey, released Wednesday by NORC, the University of Chicago research organization. As recently as 2008, the share of sure-believers topped 60 percent.
  • Thirty-four percent of Americans never go to church, NORC found, the highest figure recorded in five decades of surveys.
  • Another new report, from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), said that 27 percent of Americans claimed no religion in 2022, up from 19 percent in 2012 and 16 percent in 2006.
  • The General Social Survey found 29 percent of Americans claiming no religion in 2021, up from 23 percent in 2018 and 5 percent in 1972.
  • Mainline Protestantism, the backbone of faith in many American communities, is “collapsing,” Burge wrote in a recent article on the decline of Baptists, Methodists and other denominations.
  • Since the 1970s, the share of Americans who identify with Protestant denominations has declined from nearly 1 in 3 to around 1 in 10.
  • To some extent, declining faith is a generational trend. The share of Americans who claim no religion rises with progressively younger age groups: 9 percent of the Silent Generation, 18 percent of baby boomers, 25 percent of Generation X, 29 percent of millennials and 34 percent of Generation Z, according to data from the Survey Center on American Life.
  • But the rise in nonreligious Americans is too steep to be fully explained “in terms of generational replacement; that is, religious old people dying and secular young people taking their place,” said David Campbell, the Packey J. Dee Professor of American Democracy at the University of Notre Dame.
  • Changing societal norms may also explain why half of Americans can now say they aren’t sure there is a God.

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Only 16% of Americans surveyed said religion is the most important thing in their lives

John 4:23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.

Important Takeaways:

  • The importance of religion in the lives of Americans is shrinking
  • Just 16% of Americans surveyed said religion is the most important thing in their lives, according to the PRRI study, down from 20% a decade ago.
  • However, for people who do still attend religious services, they say they’re optimistic about the future of their house of worship.
  • Even though the U.S. as a whole is becoming more racially and ethnically diverse, the vast majority of Christian churchgoers report that their congregations are “mostly monoracial.”
  • The research also found that religious Americans are on the move.

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Yuval Harari claims “AI has crossed a new Frontier by mastering our language”

Revelations 13:14 “…by the signs that it is allowed to work in the presence of the beast it deceives those who dwell on earth…”

Important Takeaways:

  • World on the verge of a new religion created by AI, historian claims
  • The world is on the verge of a new religion created by artificial intelligence, the historian Yuval Noah Harari has claimed.
  • Said software such as ChatGPT could attract worshippers by writing its own sacred texts.
  • …he said AI had crossed a new frontier by ‘gaining mastery’ of our language and was now capable of using it to shape human culture.
  • He said: ‘In the future we might see the first cults and religions in history whose revered texts were written by a non-human intelligence.
  • ‘This could become true very, very quickly, with far-reaching consequences.’
  • He said: ‘Contrary to what some conspiracy theories assume, you don’t really need to implant chips in people’s brains in order to control them or to manipulate them.
  • ‘For thousands of years, prophets and poets and politicians have used language and storytelling in order to manipulate and to control people and to reshape society.
  • ‘Now AI is likely to be able to do it. And once it can… it doesn’t need to send killer robots to shoot us. It can get humans to pull the trigger.’
  • Calling for tighter regulation, he said: ‘We need to act quickly before AI gets out of our control. Drug companies cannot sell people new medicines without first subjecting these products to rigorous safety checks.’
  • He added: ‘Similarly, governments must immediately ban the release into the public domain of any more revolutionary AI tools before they are made safe.’

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Seems we are quickly casting off values that once made us who we are; what becomes of a nation that is truly self-seeking?

Romans 12:2 “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Important Takeaways:

  • A recent survey conducted by The Wall Street Journal and The University of Chicago found that Americans are, in huge numbers, pulling back from the values that once defined them. Over the last 25 years, the percentage of Americans who described “Patriotism” as either “important” or “very important” fell from 70% to 38%. Those who valued “Religion” fell from 62% to 39%, “Having Children” from 59% to 30%, and “Community Involvement” from 47% to 27%. Even the percentage of Americans valuing “Tolerance for Others” dropped from 80% to just 58%. Only one value out of the ten listed increased: “Money,” from 31% to 43%.
  • If there is no moral design to reality, or for humanity in particular, what people value is inconsequential. In such a world, there is nothing to be pursued outside of individual expression, which is assumed to lead to happiness and human flourishing. Who cares if people do not value communities, countries or tolerance? It is the inherent determination of individuals, the pursuit of what they want the most, that will inevitably guide them. We can only follow our own impulses and desires.
  • History tells a different story, however. For example, a central genius of the American system is the built-in idea that people can and will go wrong if given the chance. Even the well-intentioned can be hypocrites, including America’s founders, who nevertheless understood the pitfalls of both concentrated power and a virtue-less mob. In the prophetic words of John Adams,
  • “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our constitution as a whale goes through a net.’’

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In the US are we losing our religion or failing to reach the youth: Churches continue to close their doors

Church Decline

2 Timothy 4:3 “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.

Important Takeaways:

  • Churches are closing at rapid numbers in the US, researchers say, as congregations dwindle across the country and a younger generation of Americans abandon Christianity altogether – even as faith continues to dominate American politics.
  • About 4,500 Protestant churches closed in 2019, the last year data is available, with about 3,000 new churches opening, according to Lifeway Research.
  • It was the first time the number of churches in the US hadn’t grown since the evangelical firm started studying the topic. With the pandemic speeding up a broader trend of Americans turning away from Christianity, researchers say the closures will only have accelerated.
  • The Survey Center on American Life and the University of Chicago found that in spring 2022 67% of Americans reported attending church at least once a year, compared with 75% before the pandemic.
  • “Since the 1990s, large numbers of Americans have left Christianity to join the growing ranks of US adults who describe their religious identity as atheist, agnostic or ‘nothing in particular’,” Pew wrote.
  • by 2070 that number will drop to below 50% – and the number of “religiously unaffiliated” Americans – or ‘nones’ will probably outnumber those adhering to Christianity.
  • “A church will go through a life cycle. At some point, maybe the congregation ages out, maybe they stop reaching young families.
  • “If the church ages and doesn’t reach young people, or the demographics change and they don’t figure out how to reach the new demographic, that church ends up closing.

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UN admits failure to solve climate problem, needs more money and world religions to help

Climate Change Summit

Romans 1:28 “And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.”

Important Takeaways:

  • Clergy Call for ‘Climate Repentance’ as UN Summit Wraps Up in Egypt
  • ‘COP27’ began as all the other climate summits, with the dire warning that life on Earth would end if climate change isn’t stopped.
  • “The clock is ticking,” warned UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres
  • Also during the summit, clergy held what was called the world’s first multi-faith Climate Repentance ceremony to “seek forgiveness for climate sins.” Activists went up Mt Sinai and smashed what were supposed to be the climate ten commandments.
  • One must wonder, however, whether the doomsday rhetoric can be trusted. After all, 50 years ago the UN warned mankind had only “ten years to stop catastrophe.”
  • Forty years ago, the UN said we have until the year 2000 to prevent the equivalent of a “nuclear holocaust.”
  • And 15 years ago the UN warned that if climate change wasn’t stopped by 2012, “it would be too late.”
  • After 26 previous climate summits and trillions spent on climate policies, the UN still doesn’t have a blueprint to lower the Earth’s temperature.
  • For this 27th attempt, US Climate Envoy John Kerry says what’s needed are trillions of dollars more.
  • But with the UN itself admitting failure, the biggest impact of climate policies has been a worldwide energy crisis, through an over-reliance on green energy.

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It’s Not Just Political It’s Spiritual Too – Control of State Religion

Matthew 24:6 “And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet.”

Important Takeaways:

  • Putin is after more than land — he wants the religious soul of Ukraine
  • The physical landscape of Ukraine isn’t the only battle space Russian invaders hope to dominate. For the past decade, the two countries have fought another battle — not over territory but the religious orientation of Ukraine. And if Russia occupies the country, religious freedom will be one of the many casualties.
  • Putin’s efforts to restore Russian prestige have included elevating the Russian Orthodox Church to the center of Russian identity while also undermining the independence of the Moscow Patriarch. Putin’s Ukraine scheme included leveraging the potential religious soft power of the Moscow-aligned Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate.
  • The Orthodox Church of Ukraine becoming free was a declaration of independence from foreign influence and achieved greater religious freedom
  • The president of the European People’s Party, Donald Tusk, cited sources saying Putin’s “demands are also connected with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and its independence from Moscow.
  • Whatever the outcome, the future is uncertain. The Prussian strategist Carl von Clausewitz said, “War is the continuation of politics by other means.” War was probably the only outcome Putin wanted. The implications for Ukrainian religious freedom and other human rights, however, hang in the balance.

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U.S. Attorney General Barr says the left wants to tear down system

By Nathan Layne

(Reuters) – U.S. Attorney General William Barr mounted a partisan attack on the Democratic Party in an interview that aired Sunday, claiming the left believes in “tearing down the system” and pursues absolute victory as “a substitute for religion.”

Barr also told a Fox News TV host he was worried that an increase in mail-in voting could lead to a contested presidential election in November, sounding in on an issue often raised by U.S. President Donald Trump.

In an interview with conservative pundit Mark Levin, Barr said Democrats had pulled away from classic liberal values and now were akin to the “Rousseauian Revolutionary Party” aimed at destroying the institutions upon which the country was built.

“They’re not interested in compromise, they’re not interested in dialectic exchange of views. They’re interested in total victory,” Barr said of the left. “It’s a secular religion. It’s a substitute for a religion.”

The comments come nearly two weeks after a contentious hearing before the House Judiciary Committee in which Barr denied accusations he was doing Trump’s bidding by intervening in high-profile cases and sending federal agents into cities.

Barr has come under fire from Democratic lawmakers for sending federal officers to disperse protesters in Portland, Oregon, where some demonstrators have attacked a federal courthouse and others have gathered to speak out against racism and police brutality following the May 25 death of George Floyd.

Barr said police have been unfairly maligned and targeted with violent attacks during nationwide protests, and argued greater attention should be paid to a recent surge in violence in some cities that has led to numerous deaths of Black people.

He said he believed systemic racism existed, but that the “best example” was in education, with public schools consistently failing inner-city youth. He pointed to school choice – a policy endorsed by Trump – as one solution to the problem.

“I believe Black lives matter, but I believe all Black lives matter. I also believe that it’s not just a matter of protecting their safety from physical harm, it’s also providing economic opportunity, which this administration has done,” Barr said.

Trump, who trails Democratic challenger Joe Biden in opinion polls, has raised questions about the integrity of the November election and he and his allies have proclaimed without evidence that expanded voting by mail – sought by many due to the coronavirus pandemic – will lead to widespread fraud.

When asked about the push to expand mail-in ballots, Barr said he was “very worried about it.”

He said he was fine with “individual cases” where people that have difficulty making it to the polls apply for and receive a ballot in the mail.

“But the idea that you, without any request from the voter, will mail out your voting list, all these thousands and thousands of ballots, is scary because most of those mailings go to a lot of addresses where the people no longer live,” Barr said. “They could easily create a situation where there’s going to be a contested election.”

(reporting by Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)

Christianity Today’s split with Trump highlights deeper issue in white evangelical America

Christianity Today’s split with Trump highlights deeper issue in white evangelical America
By Simon Lewis and Heather Timmons

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – After evangelical publication Christianity Today published a blistering editorial on what it called Donald Trump’s “grossly immoral character”, some church leaders and the U.S. president himself denounced the criticism as elitist and out-of-touch.

The Dec. 19 editorial sparked a Christmas holiday debate over religion in U.S. politics, and posed new questions about the close alignment between white evangelical voters and Trump, who has given their beliefs strong political support.

However, the coziness with the Republican president, who was impeached this month by the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives, is exacerbating a long-term crisis facing white evangelicalism, some Christians say – it is being abandoned by younger generations.

There has been a big drop-off in white evangelical church participation among adults under 40, and publications such as Christianity Today and religious leaders are struggling to engage “Gen Z,” or those born after 1996.

“One of the major factors is that the church is too tied up in right-wing politics,” said Greg Carey, a professor at Lancaster Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania. Evangelical activism against gay rights is particularly repellant to many members of a generation where “everyone has friends who are LGBTQ,” Carey said.

Trump’s presidency may make the age gap worse, some evangelical Christians believe. “Having to go out and defend this guy day after day, as many of these Trump evangelicals are doing, they’re just destroying their credibility,” said Napp Nazworth, who until Monday was politics editor of another publication, the Christian Post.

Nazworth resigned over the Christian Post’s plans to criticize Christianity Today for its anti-Trump editorial.

He told Reuters many younger evangelicals opposed Trump’s immigration and asylum policies and were concerned about alleviating poverty, in contrast to older members of the faith. Evangelical leaders standing with Trump “will have no moral authority to speak to moral issues of the day after defending him,” Nazworth said.

‘RELIGIOUSLY UNAFFILIATED’

Evangelicalism, like all forms of Christianity in the United States, is struggling to attract younger members, amid an unprecedented surge in recent years of the number of people identifying as religiously unaffiliated.

White evangelical protestants declined as a proportion of the U.S. population between 2006 and 2018, falling to 15% from 23%, according to analysis by the Public Religion Research Institute.

Higher-than-average voter turnout among evangelicals means the group still represents more than a quarter of the U.S. electorate, but a failure to draw young worshippers means their electoral heft is set to diminish, said Robert P. Jones, chief executive and founder of PRRI.

The median age of white evangelicals and white Christians overall is 55, according to PRRI data, compared with 44 for the overall white population.

The evangelical church’s “singular focus” on same sex marriage, relationships and abortion is failing to engage younger generations, said Randall Balmer, a professor of religion at Dartmouth College, and a former editor at Christianity Today.

They are motivated by a broader set of issues, he said, adding “in terms of sexual orientation the younger generation just shrugs about that.”

‘PARTISAN ATTACK’

The perhaps unlikely alliance between conservative Christians and the twice-divorced New York real estate developer has been important for Trump in a country that is more religious than most other western democracies and where a president’s spiritual life is closely examined.

White evangelical Christians overwhelmingly voted for Trump in 2016, when exit polls showed he won 81% of their votes. They have mostly stuck with him despite the controversies over his harsh attacks on political rivals and demeaning comments about women, thanks largely to Trump appointing scores of conservative judges who support restrictions on access to abortion.

Many U.S. evangelicals also strongly support conservatives in Israel, and hailed Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the U.S. embassy there.

Trump, who describes himself as Presbyterian and whose advisors include evangelical figures such as Florida televangelist Paula White, dismissed Christianity Today as “far left”.

A group of nearly 200 leaders from the conservative wing of evangelicalism defended him in a letter to the magazine, praising the president for seeking the advice of “Bible-believing Christians and patriotic Americans”.

Franklin Graham, son of the magazine’s founder Billy Graham, who advised both Republican and Democratic presidents over several decades, said the editorial was a “totally partisan attack.”

Meanwhile, other religious scholars and leaders have signed a petition https://www.change.org/p/christian-leaders-and-evangelical-leaders-affirm-christianity-today in support of Christianity Today, stating that the “United States evangelical and Christian community is at a moral crossroads.”

Younger evangelicals are put off by church leaders’ seemingly unconditional support for Trump despite his “cruel” treatment of migrants and deregulation that could damage the environment, said Marlena Graves, a Christian author on faith, culture and justice, who signed the petition.

“No political party embodies Jesus’s teaching closely. You can’t depend on government to do what Jesus says because, oftentimes, you have to go against the government,” she said, citing evangelical believers who worked to abolish black slavery and Christians who resisted Nazism in Germany.

The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment. It announced on Friday the Jan. 3 launch of “Evangelicals for Trump”, a coalition to support the president in the November 2020 election.

Trump will attend the launch at King Jesus International Ministry, a megachurch in a Miami suburb with a large Spanish-speaking congregation, according to a church official.

(Reporting by Simon Lewis and Heather Timmons; Editing by Daniel Wallis)