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AR 25:39 - The irony in fearing Artificial Intelligence
In this issue:
APOLOGETICS - "how to practice apologetics in the modern, disenchanted Western world"
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE - "heading ... to the worst possible outcome"?
ATHEISM - "influential atheists likely 'preach to the choir'"
TRUTH - 'most science and religion conflicts the result of theologians with older scientific views'
Apologia Report 25:39 (1,496)
October 1, 2020
APOLOGETICS
Cultural Apologetics: Renewing the Christian Voice, Conscience, and Imagination in a Disenchanted World, by Paul M. Gould (Associate Professor of Philosophy of Religion and the Director of the M.A. in Philosophy of Religion at Palm Beach Atlantic University, founder and president of the Two Tasks Institute) <www.bit.ly/35KnRgO> [1] -- reviewer Jacob Haywood (Student Pastor at Grace Baptist Church in Tullahoma, Tennessee, and PhD student in Christian Apologetics at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) <www.bit.ly/3mrPcu3> begins: "Not only does Western culture currently view Christianity as intellectually unconvincing; it now also regards its teachings as morally repugnant. ... Apologists must show that Christianity is not only true but that it is good and beautiful. ...
"Gould's work functions as a catalyst for a fresh way of approaching apologetics as a whole. ... Gould builds upon the apostle Paul's discourse in Acts 17 and the apologetics of C. S. Lewis. ...
"As Peter Kreeft <www.bit.ly/2FuIanM> has shown, reason, conscience, and the imagination guide the human soul and correspond with the three longings of the human soul: truth, goodness, and beauty. ...
"Gould starts with his explanation of disenchantment and the need for reenchantment. He then devotes the remainder of the book to revealing the practical aspects of reenchanting the imagination, reason, and conscience. Meanwhile, he breaks down barriers within the disenchanted to see the truth, beauty, and goodness of the gospel.
"According to Gould, the arts are one of the best means for reenchanting the imagination. ... In his explanation of reenchanting the conscience, he dwells on beauty, revealing beauty as a central component within the biblical narrative. ...
"C. S. Lewis, quoted throughout the book, famously engaged people's imaginations as well as their intellect when writing works of fiction. Frederick Buechner, Os Guinness, James K. A. Smith, and others who have sought to engage the world with the desirability of Christianity are also given a fair representation of Gould's approach. ...
"What makes Gould's Cultural Apologetics an important work is that it combines truths from the library of apologetics literature already available and then uses them cohesively and holistically to draw people to the gospel." themelios, 45:1 - 2020, <www.bit.ly/3mpgotv>
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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
"A Dogfight Renews Concerns about AI's Lethal Potential" by Will Knight -- this update appeared on the WIRED site August 25: "Last week, a technique popularized by DeepMind [the AI division of Alphabet, the parent company of Google <www.bit.ly/32yT04L> and several other former Google subsidiaries] was adapted to control an autonomous F-16 fighter plane in a Pentagon-funded contest [coordinated by their Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)] to show off the capabilities of AI systems. In the final stage of the event, a similar algorithm went head-to-head with a real F-16 pilot using a VR headset and simulator controls. The AI pilot won, 5-0. ...
"Without an international agreement restricting the development of lethal AI weapons systems, [Max Tegmark, a professor at MIT and cofounder of the Future of Life Institute, the organization behind the 2015 letter <www.bit.ly/3koRjgq> opposing AI weapons] says, America's adversaries are free to develop AI systems that can kill. 'We're heading now, by default, to the worst possible outcome,' he says."
Earlier in the discussion, Tegmark also said that "The technology is developing much faster than the military-political discussion is going." (Not that this was totally unexpected.) <www.bit.ly/2Ft9J0N>
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ATHEISM
"Who Is Not Afraid of Richard Dawkins? Using Google Trends to Assess the Reach of Influential Atheists across Canadian Secular Groups" by Maryam Dilmaghani (Studies in Religion, 49:2 - 2020, pp268-9) -- from the abstract: "The analysis shows that the reach of high profile atheists is positively correlated with the presence of strictly-seculars, a proxy for the atheists. The investigation produces no statistically significant correlation between the presence of other types of seculars, namely the unchurched believers and the nominal affiliates, and the search volumes for high profile atheists. This exploratory finding suggests that the influential atheists likely 'preach to the choir,' catering to like-minded individuals, at the exclusion of those with relatively close but differing views on religion and spirituality." <www.bit.ly/3c4zAry>
Our readers may find using Google Trends of value for use in other areas. For example, "Google Search Trends" was likely behind the observation that "Google shows 'the number of people looking up "Enneagram" hovered at the same level until 2017, when it spiked drastically, topping out last summer.'" Another remark in the same item from AR 25:22 notes: "According to Google Search Trends, interest in alignment charts started increasing sharply in November 2016." <www.bit.ly/3c52JTk>
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TRUTH
The Limitations of Theological Truth, by Nigel Brush (professor of geology at Ashland University, Ashland, Ohio) [2] -- reviewer David H. Warren of Brevard, NC <www.bit.ly/3c4gJg8> notes: "This volume is a sequel to the author's 2005 publication The Limitations of Scientific Truth: Why Science Can't Answer Life's Ultimate Questions [3]. Initially Brush had intended to write a book that would harmonize scientific truths with Holy Scripture. But every time he built a bridge between modern science and the Bible, it "would eventually collapse...." Turns out, "science kept altering the shoreline on its side of the bridge. ...
"Brush wrote The Limitations of Scientific Truth to show 'that scientific truth was not superior to biblical truth'. But after the publication of that book, Brush also realized the reverse: theology is not superior to science...." Brush wanted to "dispel the 'myth' that theology trumps science when it comes to the truth [and that it] is somehow purer or less prone to error....
"Some of the interesting ... correspondences between theological and scientific truths include: the days of Creation in Genesis 1 may not have been twenty-four-hour days but may have been symbolic, an interpretation supported by both Philo and Augustine; the Earth is 4.6 billion years old, not 6,000 years old, as many Christians have believed on basis of the genealogies found in the Bible; our galaxy was formed 400 million years after the Big Bang; Noah's flood cannot account for the fossil record and the geological column, in spite of what many Young Earth Creationists claim ('The refusal of Young Earth Creationists to acknowledge established facts causes many people to dismiss belief in creationism as either complete idiocy or downright deception,' quoting Hugh Ross); global warming is a reality that is probably caused by humans burning fossil fuels, contrary to what many Christians today believe; death existed in the garden of Eden before the fall of Adam and Eve; and in the past 500 million years, there have been five major mass extinctions that have removed at least seventy-five percent of all life forms on the face of the Earth. Most of the conflicts between science and religion in the past five hundred years have been the result of theologians holding on to older scientific views that have now been disproved by modern scientists." Stone-Campbell Journal, 23:1 - 2020, pp112-3, <www.bit.ly/2RyRYPP>
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SOURCES: Monographs
1 - Cultural Apologetics: Renewing the Christian Voice, Conscience, and Imagination in a Disenchanted World, by Paul M. Gould (Zondervan, 2019, paperback, 240 pages) <www.amzn.to/33zz8xN>
2 - The Limitations of Theological Truth: Why Christians Have the Same Bible but Different Theologies, by Nigel Brush (Kregel, 2019, paperback, 336 pages) <www.amzn.to/3hCGNAq>
3 - The Limitations of Scientific Truth: Why Science Can't Answer Life's Ultimate Questions, by Nigel Brush (Kregel, 2005, paperback, 304 pages) <www.amzn.to/35IEARx>
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