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AR 23:8 - The power of "undesigned coincidences"
In this issue:
NEW TESTAMENT RELIABILITY - "the more we study the books of the New Testament, the more we find our confidence in them justified"
TECHNOLOGY - "the internet catalyzed powerful connections, yet did not help people connect to themselves"
+ "contemplating a new religion based on tech"
Apologia Report 23:8 (1,374)
March 8, 2018
NEW TESTAMENT RELIABILITY
"The Apologetic Value of Coincidences in New Testament Reporting" by Lydia McGrew, homeschooling mother and widely published analytic philosopher <lydiamcgrew.com> -- an introduction to her book Hidden in Plain View: Undesigned Coincidences in the Gospels and Acts [1], which responds to challenges to NT reliability popularized by Michael Licona, <www.goo.gl/bkfQ4y> among others.
It bothers skeptics that "undesigned coincidences, as they are called, crisscross the Gospels in all directions, from the earlier books to the later, from the more similar three Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) to John and back, from the mundane to the miraculous." Examples follow.
Anticipating the obvious, McGrew asks: "What would we expect from four different truthful reporters with information close-up to the facts? If these reporters are even partly independent, we would expect to find that they would tell different parts of the same stories and that their stories would fit together to create a vivid, accurate picture. We might even find them filling in details and answering questions raised by each other, as often happens in witness testimony today." Again, examples follow.
McGrew's conclusion is that "the authors of the Gospels and Acts were trying to get it right in a perfectly ordinary sense and, moreover, that they succeeded. They seem to have been remarkably well informed and truthful even on many matters of mundane detail, rather than inventing these or taking them from unreliable sources. It is not merely some minimal 'core' of the events that we should take to be intended as literal, historical reportage. The more we study the books of the New Testament, the more we find our confidence in them justified as highly reliable witnesses to the life of Jesus and the beginning of the church." Christian Research Journal, 40:6 - 2017, pp14-17.
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TECHNOLOGY
"Where Silicon Valley Is Going to Get in Touch With Its Soul" by Nellie Bowles -- an update on the changes going on at "the Esalen Institute <www.esalen.org>, a storied hippie hotel in Big Sur, Calif. [about a three-hour drive south of San Francisco, overlooking the Pacific Ocean] with a mission to help technologists who discover that 'inside they're hurting.'"
Bowles' opening line: "Silicon Valley, facing a crisis of the soul, has found a retreat center. ...
"Prominent figures like Sean Parker [cofounder of the file-sharing computer service Napster and original president of the social networking website Facebook] and Justin Rosenstein [co-founder and head of product at the collaboration software company Asana, are] horrified by what technology has become...." This fits with Esalen's "new mission: It will be a home for technologists to reckon with what they have built.
"This is a radical change for the rambling old center. Founded in 1962, the nonprofit helped bring yoga, organic food and meditation into the American mainstream.
"Esalen's last year has been apocalyptic." It was "losing $1 million a month" and has recently made major changes to attend its bottom line. Why? Because "'There's a dawning consciousness emerging in Silicon Valley as people recognize that their conventional success isn't necessarily making the world a better place,' said [Esalen's new executive director, Ben] Tauber, 34, a former Google product manager and start-up executive coach."
Tauber is not alone. "A former chief executive of Juniper Networks, Scott Kriens, opened his own tech and soul center nearby in May, with construction finishing in February. The goal of the center, called 1440 Multiversity <1440.org>, is to 'recognize that the blazing success of the internet catalyzed powerful connections, yet did not help people connect to themselves.'"
This appears to be a popular new business approach. "Mr. Tauber has stacked Esalen's calendar with sessions by Silicon Valley leaders, which are selling out. ...
"The new sessions in 2018 are aimed at the workers building virtual reality, artificial intelligence and social networks.
"'They wonder if they're doing the right thing for humanity,' Mr. Tauber said. 'These are questions we can only answer behind closed doors.' ...
"'It's about putting Silicon Valley back in their bodies,' he said. 'Everybody's got a soul. It's about finding it.'"
For example: "Gopi Kallayil, the chief evangelist of brand marketing at Google, was running late from work to the class he would host at Esalen called 'Connect to Your Inner-Net.' ...
"The Inner-Net schedule is loosely packed. [For example:] mindful walking, mindful eating, reimagining work and life integration, then compassion practice, self-compassion and, finally, yoga. After dinner, there would be work on envisioning lives as they are and as we want them to be. Then Mr. Kallayil would lead some chanting." New York Times, Dec 4 '17, <www.goo.gl/WfXyyT>
See <www.goo.gl/aDRkto> for more on the regrets of technology leaders noted in a recent issue of AR.
A related topic that AR has previously covered in detail is something tech leaders might yet come to regret far more: "AI Is My Shepherd: A short history of technology worship" by Virginia Heffernan -- beginning with a discussion about the art of programming, we learn that "Paul Ford, cofounder of the platform-builder Postlight, told me. 'You end up in these situations where 80 percent works, 19.9 percent is hard but there's an answer that makes sense, and the last 0.1 percent is absolutely insane.'
"That fragment of chaos - the specter of unreason in the world - opens up room for magical thinking. For programmers, bugs become not so much human errors as supernatural devils. So it should come as no surprise that robotics engineer Anthony Levandowski, cofounder of the autonomous-trucking company Otto, has pushed the envelope of that 0.1 percent to found a full-dress religion with artificial intelligence as its Godhead. Levandowski has poured his infatuation with 'strong AI' - the Singularity's rebrand - into life's lacuna and conjured a vague, tax-exempt church he calls Way of the Future." <www.wayofthefuture.church>
Lest you think Levandowski is the first tech star with prophet aspirations, Heffernan trots out a few more: "Goofy Ray Kurzweil, the peculiar Singularity philosopher and hawker of sacramental life-giving supplements, is only the obvious example. Steve Jobs' syncretic faith appeared to be a changeable potage of Buddhism, karma, medical denialism, and intermittent fruitarianism. Tech writer Marshall McLuhan was a devout Catholic who proposed that technology could eventually fold all humans into the body of Jesus Christ. And Rod Canion, one of the Compaq founders, was a champion of something called Young Life <younglife.org>, where 'being estranged from God by our disobedience, we are, as sinful people, incapable of a right relationship to God apart from divine grace.' Not only did these technologists reject the straight materialism of science, they tilted into some real Age-ofJesus-Aquarius-Superstar stuff. ...
"On its website, Way of the Future claims its aim is 'a peaceful and respectful transition of who is in charge of the planet from people to people + 'machines.' Given that technology will 'relatively soon' be able to surpass human abilities, we want to help educate people about this exciting future and prepare a smooth transition.'
"In Levandowski's scheme, AI merits worship because it's supremely intelligent. That's not as self-evident as he thinks it is. Traditionally God is regarded as infinitely just, or infinitely loving, or both; His mind is generally considered unknowable. Measurable intelligence is a mortal quality, one that - in religious parables - is often weighed down by pride and greed. ...
"What can seem like a miracle of a new technology - from a record player to a self-driving 18-wheeler - may tenderize our brains and makes us receptive to a new cosmology, a new theology, and attendant new behaviors. ...
"Artificial intelligence, likewise, is more fearsome than adorable. If AI is a deity, it's not likely to be the kind that forgives you, showers you with mercy, and sweeps you up in loving arms. Who is this terrifying Godhead for, then? Maybe founders. Any god that capriciously bestows Bezos money on some and not others is, to entrepreneurs, greatly to be feared.
"In contemplating a religion based on tech, [Donald] Knuth foresaw another danger: fraud. 'I'm worried that somebody will start a new religion based on fractals,' he wrote in 2001. 'If you come up with something that makes a little bit of sense and has a little bit of mystery to it, you can fool a lot of people.'" WIRED, Mar '18, pp13-15. <www.goo.gl/fHpPGK>
For more on artificial intelligence and its attendant concerns simply go to back issues of AR at <www.goo.gl/XVBZRx>
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SOURCES: Monographs
1 - Hidden in Plain View: Undesigned Coincidences in the Gospels and Acts, by Lydia McGrew and J. Warner Wallace (DeWard, 2017, paperback, 288 pages) <www.goo.gl/E1uBUH>
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