Now that we have AI, do we really need God?

I confess the AI conversation makes me a bit uneasy. It has for quite some time, but now that its general application and participation is rapidly advancing among us, it really has me shuddering a bit. I’ve always seen my physical nature as an essential ingredient in my learning and experience. The notion that I can “have” an experience without actually “having” it feels not only foreign but wrong. Life isn’t just a mind game, after all, it’s a people game. You, me and everybody else.

Yes, AI is coming. No, I can’t stop it. And I can see, by listening to the many arguments of its various “creators,” what a valuable tool it can be to “speed our workflow,” and “enhance our capability.” What a time saver it will be not having to search through all those references, or pour over all those documents in order craft the perfect paragraph, synthesizing all I’ve learned. All of this will be done for us! What a relief this artificial intelligence will be.

It’s not really artificial, though, is it? It’s hand-crafted by many hands, many millions of hands? All of us contributing to the vast store of human knowledge that is scannable — today’s podcast called it scrapable — and thus readily available for harvest. Now AI can ascertain all of this in the blink of an eye, shuffle it according to your personal instructions and deliver it to your inbox with a tone, a voice, a personality, suitable to your specifications. Pretty ingenious. Makes me look look like a genius. (which I just had to google because the one is not spelled like the other, go figure) All I could ever want is right at my own fingertips. The easy way — per someone else — and no one is the wiser. Heck, if everyone is doing it, it’s the only way to keep up, right?

Honestly, it is tempting right now to ask ChatGPT to go ahead and write me a Kinesthetic Christian post. Let’s see: write a 500 word blog post on … whether AI, umm, replaces the Incarnation… Geez, I can’t even come up with a proper query. My brain doesn’t seem to work right without my fingers at the keyboard or my pen on the page.

With practice perhaps I’ll get better at asking AI the right question. Then, of course, once I know what to ask, there will be no point in thinking about this, let alone writing about this. Those who are interested will simply have their say. We can debate, you and me, my bot against yours. I’m not sure how we determine who wins. I guess it’s always a draw.

But, if you’ll indulge me, let’s for a moment think about the Incarnation the old fashioned way. We read or perhaps we’ve read or we’ve heard that the “Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” Why? Here at the Kinesthetic Christian we’ve always understood that, it was to make God real to us, tangible for us, human like us. To allow us to see God in action: living, breathing, eating, sleeping, tasting, touching, speaking, listening, doing and not-doing. And somehow, even over and across the centuries, to do it with him. To feel with him, as he felt, so we can feel with him in our here and now, as we try to make sense of our circumstances and dwell among others trying to do the same.

I mean, don’t you catch yourself asking, why was I even created for this world — riddled as it is with difficulty, disaster and heartache. As I write, Turkey and Syria are reeling in the loss of 10’s of thousands from earthquake, yet they search the rubble desperately seeking lives to save. Ukraine is under deadly bombardment from ever more Russian firepower, yet they stand and fight, sustaining each other until overcoming their intruders is accomplished. People of Iran are risking their lives in protest over the treatment of a young girl by the “morality police.” And that is just scratching the surface of it all.

In each of these maybe our answer to the “why” is plain: everywhere there are people in need who need each other. Tangibly, heartily, physically, emotionally, and in all the ways a body can be sustained. With food and water, shelter and warmth, calls and comfort. With presence. None of this can AI supply. And, of course, it’s not meant to. It’s just a tool placed now in the hands of people. Flawed people. Faulty people. Misdirected people, yes. But also, in the hands of the best of us; there is the best of us in all of us. Perhaps that’s what the One Incarnated came to say. Even AI can’t put that into words.

Years ago I participated in a Bible study group where one of the participants attended only irregularly and, when he did, he brought some outlandish commentary and some off-the-wall suggestions. For instance, once he asked, “Why is the Bible scripture? Why not the newspaper or the comics? Couldn’t God just as well use these?” As I was quite new then to the faith, I shuddered and retreated from his questions, letting others manage these outbursts.

But, somewhat to my surprise, this young man was always welcomed back around that study table. In fact, his attendance was so sparce, he got applause when he showed up. And that got me wondering… what kind of a God would allow this kind of questioning?

And there was my answer: any Creator who would allow — no, create — creatures with the capacity to so freely and daringly question, explore, challenge and frankly to contend in the ring with the Divine, now THAT that was a God worth believing in. In fact, that was the only God worth believing in. And even getting to know — by the means I have available: my ears, my eyes, my nose, my touch, my taste, my thinking, breathing, feeling, heart-beating self. My only self.

Will AI make this blog obsolete? Perhaps. But as far as I can tell, God knows what God is doing. I wonder what that God has planned for AI.

Disclaimer: I did not ask AI to write this blogpost.

Kinesthetic Christian: Write, Rest, or Revise?

Dear friends,

May I call you that? You, who faithfully (or only occasionally) read what I write here at the Kinesthetic Christian?

I regularly struggle with what it means, and what I mean, when I say I am a kinesthetic Christian. It is easier to say what I don’t mean:

• I don’t mean you have to exercise to be a K-Christian.
• I don’t mean to make you fit so that you can be a K-Christian.
• I don’t even mean you have to move to be a K-Christian.

What I do mean is that, as one who believes there is a God and that God is with us always, God lets us know that. The question asked of my life is: How do I know this God?

We can’t see God. We can’t touch God. Can’t actually hear, taste, or smell God. By virtue of these ‘special’ senses, the ones we learned about in elementary school, I can’t know God. I surmise that experiencing God through these sensations would overwhelm us, and the ancients said that such an encounter would kill us.

But, I believe God does offer evidence of His presence through our general senses. He appeals to the somato-sensory system, the body’s peripheral senses: pressure, temperature, pain, touch, vibration, position, and posture. Usually we associate these sensations with interactions in the world, but they seem more than that. We’ve been burned. Our hopes are crushed. Our heart has been softened. Our mind convinced. We are moved. All of these we can and do experience, and we live to tell about it. God is gentle with us.

As a K-Christian, when I say God moves me, touches me, inclines me, leads me, or taps me, I mean that I sense something about the circumstance or in the story or the interaction which speaks to me of God. It’s on-going evidence, if you will, that I as the kinesthetic detective keep discovering. By virtue of this blog, you have allowed me to share it.

While movement is fun, responsible movement needs direction. No matter how much we like running, our aim is the finish line. We don’t just keep rounding the bases, we head for home! I am seeking direction for the KC blog, and I’d like your impression regarding what seems right for the KC. Would you please kindly vote or offer comment?

1. Select, edit and organize the KC postings (# >500) into categories and perhaps seek publication
2. Start fresh and offer contemporary responses to the writings of my Pastor Grandfather
3. Give it all a rest. You’re starting to repeat yourself.
4. Get over yourself and just keep writing.
5. Other?

As I offer this list, I feel a bit like I am side-stepping my responsibility to choose or discern what’s next. If that is true, I’m sure God will let me know. But, honestly, as I don’t know who’s reading this, I don’t want to short change anyone who has followed my blog and now will be disappointed with a new direction I take.

God has created me uniquely for a purpose, and I am meant to respond to that with my life. So are you. I am eternally grateful for your support.

What are words worth?

So…much…information. So many words. Whatever you want, it’s out there. After a bit of searching and some perseverance, you’ll find what you’re looking for: instructions, images, insight.

As a writer I ask: Do I have the words you want? How will you know until I give them to you? And after you have them, you don’t need to pay me, you have what you came for. It’s the information age. Information comes cheap. Everybody will offer it to you. Take it and go.

Even if my words are good or helpful or wise, they are free. Their worth comes from what you do with them.

• take them to heart
• apply them
• be entertained by them
• share them
• sit with and make more of them

And I have no control over this. Now, my words are yours. You “pay me” by:

• coming back to read
• subscribing to the blog
• referring me to a friend
• bookmarking me
• “liking” me on facebook

You pay me by taking action on my words. And I will never know it. It’s a pay-it-forward kind of economy. A give and take and give away.

I work for less than minimum wage. And yet more than anyone knows, except the One who knows all hearts, sees all things, and has His own system of accounting.

I pray that the words of my keyboard and the meditations of our hearts might be acceptable to You, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. ~ Psalm 19:14