There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true. —Soren Kierkegaard. "…truth is true even if nobody believes it, and falsehood is false even if everybody believes it. That is why truth does not yield to opinion, fashion, numbers, office, or sincerity–it is simply true and that is the end of it" – Os Guinness, Time for Truth, pg.39. “He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God’s providence to lead him aright.” – Blaise Pascal. "There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily" – George Washington letter to Edmund Randolph — 1795. We live in a “post-truth” world. According to the dictionary, “post-truth” means, “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” Simply put, we now live in a culture that seems to value experience and emotion more than truth. Truth will never go away no matter how hard one might wish. Going beyond the MSM idealogical opinion/bias and their low information tabloid reality show news with a distractional superficial focus on entertainment, sensationalism, emotionalism and activist reporting – this blogs goal is to, in some small way, put a plug in the broken dam of truth and save as many as possible from the consequences—temporal and eternal. "The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it." – George Orwell “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” ― Soren Kierkegaard
U.S. — After winding up in debt from blowing through $1.2 billion in just three months, Vice President Kamala Harris called in to the Dave Ramsey Show to ask for some financial guidance.
“One point two… billion dollars,” repeated Ramsey slowly, attempting to wrap his mind around the story. “And you say you did this in just three months? Meaning, you spent half a million dollars every hour, even while sleeping, for three straight months? Oh… my… gracious. Where do I begin?”
Always the professional, Ramsey began by gathering more background information about Harris’s financial situation. “So, you’re saying you also just got fired?” asked Ramsey, incredulous. “No job prospects, except fast food? Okay, well let’s talk about those expenditures, to see if there are any assets you purchased during your spree that you could sell to pay off debt. You paid a rapper to twerk?? No, I don’t believe you can sell twerks back, I don’t think it works like that.”
At publishing time, Ramsey had reiterated to listeners that the envelope system could have easily prevented this tragic billion-dollar spending spree.
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Artificial intelligence has become ubiquitous in modern society, but, despite its broad presence, its effects — whether good or bad — remain a mystery.
Nashville-based Pastor Russ Ramsey, an amateur art historian and author, recently appeared on CBN’s “Faith vs. Culture,” where he talked about concerns he has over the prevalence of AI, especially as it pertains to artistic expression.
“I’ve avoided AI in every way, shape, or form,” Ramsey said. “Because I’m a writer, I don’t ever want to not be the one who’s writing the words that I use, even if they’re not as precise or tight as an AI generator might make a paragraph.”
The crux of Ramsey’s concern with AI is simple yet profound: it doesn’t have a soul.
Ramsey’s argument is rich in biblical truth. While Scripture isn’t perfectly clear about the parameters of the soul, the Bible’s writers, each of whom were inspired by God (2 Timothy 3:16-17), are unambiguous in their acknowledgment that — as beings made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27) — humans are firstly souls and secondarily bodies.
In Acts 2:41, for example, the Apostle Luke referred to human beings who received salvation as “souls.”
“Part of what makes so much of the art that we go visit in museums so powerful is it’s made from someone with a soul and somebody who has experienced suffering,” Ramsey explained. “AI doesn’t know what suffering is and AI doesn’t have a soul.”
“So technically — and even creatively — we can see things we never would have imagined seeing before, but it’s not coming from someone who’s wept,” he continued. “It’s not coming from someone who’s buried a loved one. It’s not coming from somebody who’s been caught in sin and had to repent. And, in that sense, my concern is that, culturally, we’re moving to a place where we’re trying to normalize avoiding those parts of the human experience that really are integral to spiritual growth.”
While Ramsey certainly addresses the issue of AI from a Christian perspective, it’s a topic that has, in recent years, garnered a great deal of consternation.
Last year, Hollywood actors went on strike over a host of matters, including the use of artificial intelligence in celebrities’ performances. Studio executives and actors were battling over whether performers’ images could be scanned, paid for a day of acting, and their likenesses used by film and television studios in perpetuity, according to Wired.
Needless to say, the conversation about AI and its role in society is not going away. So it’s important to have conversations about a biblically moral approach to its use and value.
You can watch our full, wide-ranging conversation with Ramsey in the “Faith vs. Culture” episode above.
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