< Back James Bratt Contributor James Bratt is professor of history emeritus at Calvin College, specializing in American religious history and especially the connections between religion and politics. Starting in Fall 2016 he took a break from blogging on The Twelve to teach in China and on the Semester at Sea, which venues afforded him some welcome distance from the USA’s descent into its current mortal illness. But now he’s back in the States, looking for hope. His most recent book (which he edited and completed for the late John Woolverton) is “A Christian and a Democrat”: Religion in the Life and Leadership of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Growing Into Pentecost

< Back The Trajectory of AI: Balancing Promise and Caution Magesh "Placing faith in AI to originate creations like art and music may lead to disillusionment. Ultimately, the true creator is a higher force." In recent times, the media has been awash with discussions about the potential impact of AI. The looming questions surround its effects on us, its potential to replace us in the workforce, and even the idea that it might become akin to a new faith. While I am undoubtedly enthusiastic about technology, particularly when it enhances our daily lives, I believe it's crucial to delve into the challenges that arise when we invest our trust in something as enigmatic as AI. With a successful musical career spanning decades, I've witnessed firsthand how technology has upended the music industry on multiple fronts. One early instance that impacted me personally was the advent of the drum machine. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, drummers enjoyed abundant session work. However, the emergence of technology that claimed to replace drummers on records and CDs triggered panic among my fellow musicians. They feared this innovation would render us obsolete. In response, I reminded them that while drum machines could replicate our sounds, they lacked the soul that defined us. Some argued that these machines were "perfect," but I countered that only the divine could claim such perfection. This experience underscores the notion that although technology can simplify tasks, it doesn't necessarily equate to improvement – a pattern I anticipate repeating with AI. A recent media uproar ensued when a prominent website declared its intention to replace human writers with AI-generated content. The site churned out machine-created articles, initially basking in newfound cost savings. However, issues arose when the AI struggled to distinguish fact from fiction on certain topics. The website's blind faith in the machine's capabilities came crashing down as it became clear that AI, despite its veneer of knowledge, was not infallible. This situation brought to mind Romans 11:33: "Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God." It serves as a reminder to be cautious about placing unwavering trust in unproven technologies, especially those without a track record of consistently producing miraculous outcomes. As someone who embraces technology, I've experienced how my musical career benefited from advancements such as receiving music via MP3. This convenience accelerated my learning process. In contrast, the laborious process of recording on tape and sending it via mail was immensely time-consuming. These instances showcase technology acting as an assistant. However, there's a distinction between that and the push to make AI the master. Placing faith in AI to originate creations like art and music may lead to disillusionment. Ultimately, the true creator is a higher force. Ephesians 3:8-11 eloquently captures this sentiment: "To make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things." Our belief in our intrinsic abilities should hold greater value than any computer program. A recollection from years ago underscores this point. I was asked to record drums for a reality show star with limited vocal experience but abundant charisma. Despite their appealing image, the singer's vocal talent fell short. Frustration mounted as the producer witnessed flat notes and off-key performances. The singer was scheduled to re-record the next day. During the studio downtime, a young engineer introduced us to a computer program called Pro Tools, capable of correcting vocal imperfections with ease. Witnessing this tool's transformational abilities left me astounded. However, I couldn't help but wonder if these technological interventions were masking the need for genuine practice. This tool proliferated throughout the music industry, converting mediocre performances into polished gems with the click of a mouse. Yet, the question remains: At what cost? If artists had faith in their inherent abilities, they wouldn't need to rely on a computer program. I believe a similar trend is unfolding with AI on a larger scale. It is vital to remember where to place our faith and how to use technology as a means of support rather than allowing it to dominate. In conclusion, while the promise of AI is undeniable, it's essential to approach it with a balanced perspective. Just as the introduction of the drum machine disrupted the music industry, AI is poised to reshape various sectors. However, we must remain cautious about overestimating its capabilities and remember that our trust should ultimately reside in our own potential, guided by a deeper source of wisdom and creativity. Magesh has written for “Lessonface,” “Aeyons,” “The Modern Rogue,” “Euronews,” “The Roland corporation,” “Penlight,” and “Elite Music.” He writes several monthly publications on music education. In the past, Magesh has written for parenting, humor, mental health, and travel websites as well. Return to our AI Issue Table of Contents Previous Next

< Back Being and Becoming David Cowles Aug 11, 2021 In the context of a conversation about Being and Becoming, a friend of mine asked, “Is eternal becoming possible?” My first reaction was that the concept of becoming was inherently dependent on time and that time is the antithesis of eternity. But then I got to thinking… In the context of a conversation about Being and Becoming, a friend of mine asked, “Is eternal becoming possible?” My first reaction was that the concept of becoming was inherently dependent on time and that time is the antithesis of eternity. But then I got to thinking… 20th century British philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, generally regarded as the founder of ‘Process Philosophy’ (although many of his ideas show up in the works of Nicholas of Cusa 500 years earlier), believed that the world consists of atomic acts of becoming (he calls them “actual entities”) and that time is suspended during each such atomic act. For Whitehead, time is characteristic of the relationship among actual entities but absent from the process of ‘concrescence’ that takes place within each actual entity. So, according to Whitehead, eternal becoming is not only possible, it is the way the world works. So, I was wrong and my friend was right; thank you, John! Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back Consciousness and/or Free Will David Cowles Jul 16, 2026 “Consciousness is an artifact, not a catalyst... but that doesn’t make Caesar any less…responsible for the atrocities he committed in Gaul.” 1400 words, 6 minute read It all seems pretty simple. My cue ball strikes the 8 ball at a particular angle, imparting a particular momentum and a particular spin et voila , the 8 ball drops into the corner pocket. Ignoring pesky details like the origin of the game of pool, the construction of this particular table, and the source of my cue ball’s momentum, this scenario does not require consciousness…or free will. How is it then that we place so much emphasis on aspects of experience that seem to be superfluous? *** Various surveys have identified more than 100 different models of consciousness, each of which must account for the experience of volition (value + agency) and the experience of constraint (facticity, causality, or compulsion). To date none of the proposed models has proven persuasive. But it turns out that almost all of them share structural elements that might explain why no one theory has been able to distinguish itself from the pack. According to prevailing wisdom, consciousness (C) experiences the universe (U), evaluates it (V), wills a change (W), and acts to effect that change (A). We imagine a process diagrammed like this: C ↗ ↘ U U’ …where Consciousness is the product of Valuation (V), Will (W), and Agency (A): (V → W → A) = C But what if that’s wrong? (The model confuses Will with Consciousness.) What if the process is actually more like this: C ↗ ↖ U U’ ↘ ↗ X …where X is Will (W) and Agency (A) projecting Values (V) into U’ : X = ( W → A → V) What if the conscious faculty (C) has an ‘observe only’ license? What if it lacks agentic power (A)? Without the active participation of consciousness (C), how is there any room for free will (W)? To answer this we need to define more clearly what we mean when we say an action is a function of will. I propose that two and only two criteria must be met: (1) the act cannot be predicted from a previous state with an acceptable level of reliability or accuracy and (2) the action amplifies selected values and projects those values back into the universe. Note that there is no requirement here that the organism be conscious of selecting a particular set of values or devising a particular series of actions. We imagine that choosing requires consciousness. In fact, each of us makes choices every day without awareness. We’re just ‘stayin alive’ and that doesn’t normally require consciousness. Actions require motives and motives disclose values. What we call personality, character, habit and instinct is in fact the set of universal values, weighted by us to function as a lure to action, i.e. as a goal. These values drive our actions even though we may not be conscious of them. How can unconscious values drive action? Well, have you ever read a novel (or watched a movie)? Characters are regularly motivated by values of which they are dimly aware…at best. Decoding a character’s unconscious motives is a reader’s guilty pleasure. *** Consciousness – David Chalmers’ hard problem ! What is it anyway? IMO, Consciousness is the phenomenal manifestation of noumenal recursion; English please: “I am an object of my own actions, what goes around comes around, karma is a female dog.” I am aware of X, and potentially I am aware of being aware of X (X’), and I may be even aware of being aware of being aware (X’’)… ad infinitum , as if I lived in a Hall of Mirrors . Such ‘second order’ self-awareness (X’’) is an often reported consequence of mediation (or prayer), psychedelic drug use (e.g. LSD, psylocibin), and space travel (zero gravity). Like the princess and her pea, the infinitesimal differance (Derrida) between the primary experience and its derivative (or the sum of its derivatives) creates a quantum of discomfort. One is reminded of Proust balancing on uneven floor tiles. Consciousness fills the infinitesimal gap between primary experience and its echoes: “The music is not in the notes, it’s in the silence between the notes.” (Mozart et al.) Every alternative model turns out to be either a reductive monism or a solipsistic dualism. The challenge is to account for an exchange of information ( aka communication) within a single, uniform medium (monism) or between two disjoint media (dualism). Our model addresses this challenge by separating consciousness from agency. The organism gathers sensations and transforms them into perceptions. The Will reacts to such input by applying a curated set of Values and then projecting that value weighted input back into the organism and through the organism (Agency) back into the Universe. I am aware that I am doing these things but in no sense am I making a conscious decision to do them. I am observing the free but unconscious decision that I as organism have already made. This is consistent with recent studies showing that the brain makes decisions before the mind registers them. I have decided on French vanilla even as I scan today’s list of 31 flavors. *** As I take my first sip of this morning’s Bloody Mary, I make a face, take my lips off the straw, and reach for my water glass, all in one highly choreographed and well-practiced gesture. In the shadow between straw and tongue, Value (pain avoidance) converts perception (spicy), via volition (Will), into evasive and remedial action (Agency). None of this requires or benefits from consciousness. Independently however, I am acutely aware (consciousness) that this particular Bloody Mary is too spicy for my taste, and I am dimly aware of the steps I’m taking to remedy the situation. My perception of my drink’s spice level and my ‘decision’ to remove my lips from the straw occur before I am conscious of my discomfort or of my evasive maneuvers. According to this model, consciousness is an artifact, not a catalyst. But after the fact, my conscious experience becomes part of the Universe (U’) going forward and therefore serves as a data point for future unconscious decisions. My legacy is three pronged: that I chose (W) vanilla, that I ate (A) vanilla, and that I am conscious (C) of having chosen vanilla. *** This new model, should you choose to accept it, introduces new uncertainty re the nature of personal responsibility. To wit, are we responsible for our actions even though we are only conscious of them after the fact ? In my view, the answer is yes. We freely choose the values we wish to project into the world and we freely design the actions we undertake to do so. We ourselves make those determinations, not God, not Fate, not Causality (Determinism); the Devil didn’t make me do it! Then if not us, who or what is responsible for our acts? The only alternative is to construe all behavior as random and that does not seem compatible with actual experience. We are each one of Pavlov’s dogs. We choose an action, albeit unconsciously, and we are rewarded, or punished, accordingly. But as any parent knows, rewards and punishments do not determine behavior; at best they condition it. The element of free choice can never be entirely eliminated. By definition, any ‘decision’ must be free, even if it is unconscious. Otherwise it would not be a decision . We make that decision, we formulate an action, we will it, and we execute it, all unconsciously. When that action and its immediate consequences become conscious, our underlying values are reinforced, positively or negatively. *** Among other (more important) things, this new model will require us to rewrite every secondary school Latin textbook. Apparently, Julius Caesar was misquoted. Instead of “Veni, Vidi, Vici”, he must have said “Veni, Vici, Vidi” but that doesn’t make Caesar any less worthy of the honors bestowed upon him nor any less responsible for the atrocities he committed in Gaul. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

“Both Johns looked out their respective windows and saw their worlds on fire. Both Johns situated their profound and ultimately hopeful message in that apocalyptic context.” < Back The Beatles and John David Cowles Jun 1, 2024 “Both Johns looked out their respective windows and saw their worlds on fire. Both Johns situated their profound and ultimately hopeful message in that apocalyptic context.” When listing the 20th century’s leading theologians, John, Paul, George, and Ringo usually don’t make the cut. Quelle domage! Among other things, they produced a commentary on the Gospel of John that is well worth our attention. You know it by its title: I am the Walrus . When the Beatles have something to say, they don’t mess about; in this case, they get to the heart of the matter in the song’s very first verse: I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together. The Fab Four are summarizing the core teaching of what’s known as Jesus’ Farewell Discourse to his apostles on the eve of his crucifixion - as it is recorded in the Gospel of John (John 13 – 17). We are not islands in the stream. There is a sense in which all of us are connected, a sense in which we share a common being . Jesus delivers that message several times during the discourse: “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father…I am in the Father and the Father is in me?” (14: 10) “I am in my Father and you in me and I in you.” (14: 20) “May they all be one: as you, Father, are in me and I in you, so also may they be in us…that they may be one as we are one, I in them and you in me that they may be perfectly one.” (17: 21 – 23) …And earlier in the Gospel as well: “I and the Father are one…The Father is in me and I in the Father” (10: 30, 38) So let’s map this out. We are concerned with the Father (F), the Son (S), and the Apostles individually (A) and the Apostles collectively {A}: S є F, F є S, A є S, S є A, A є {A}, {A} є S, {A} є F. The Son is in the Father, and the Father is in the Son; each apostle is in the Son and the Son is in each apostle. The apostles collectively (the church?) are in both the Son and the Father. This is the same non-traditional model of reality that the Beatles offer in the opening verse of Walrus : “I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together .” Let’s map that: I = H, Y = H, Y = I; I, H, Y є {I H Y} This same fundamental insight is expressed several times in the song’s chorus: I am the eggman.They are the eggmen.I am the walrus. The Eggman is Christ – the resurrected one, the logos , the mustard seed, the one from whom the universe was born (John 1: 1 – 5). The Apostles are Christ’s Eggmen ; the Walrus, of course, is God, the Father, YHWH. The rest of Walrus , like much of John’s Gospel, is a meditation on the sorry state of ‘secular society’, i.e., culture without Christ; let’s listen in: See how they run like pigs from a gun; see how they fly; I'm crying. Sitting on a cornflake,waiting for the van to come, corporation T-shirt, stupid bloody Tuesday, man you've been a naughty boy, you let your face grow long. Mister city p'liceman sitting pretty, little p'licemen in a row. See how they fly, like Lucy in the sky, see how they run. I'm crying. Yellow matter custard, dripping from a dead dog's eye. Crabalocker fishwife pornographic priestess, boy you been a naughty girl, you let your knickers down. Sitting in an English Garden waiting for the sun. If the sun don't come, you get a tan from standing in the English rain. Expert texpert choking smokers, don't you think the joker laughs at you? See how they smile, like pigs in a sty, see how they snied. I'm crying. Semolina pilchards climbing up the Eiffel Tower. Element'ry penguin singing Hare Krishna,Man, you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allan Poe. How can we connect this 20th century apocalyptic imagery with John’s 1st century narrative? I mean, the things John didn’t know! Edgar Allan Poe and cornflakes to name just two. Both Johns looked out their respective windows and saw their worlds on fire. Both Johns situated their profound and ultimately hopeful message in that apocalyptic context. Just as every fire ultimately reduces its fuel, whatever it may be, to a common flame, so every universe ends the same way: apocalyptically (e.g. Heat Death). There is only one apocalypse; everyone’s apocalypse is the same, but every culture, every age has its own apocalyptic imagery. It could be no other way. Apocalypse by definition negates what is. Therefore, symbols of that apocalypse must reflect what is, in other words they must be culturally specific. But no matter how apparently different they may be, the various images all refer to one common reality: Apocalypse Now! Although their writing is apocalyptic, both John and the Beatles were heralding the beginning of a new age. John the Evangelist celebrated the coming of the Age of Pisces (Christ); John the Beatle looked forward, a bit prematurely as it turns out, to ‘the dawning of the Age of Aquarius’ (Spirit). Let’s hear John E’s commentary on the state of contemporary culture, 1st century style: “He was in the world, and though the world owed its being to him, it did not recognize him.” (1: 10) Absurd alienation is the coin of the realm without God. “He found in the temple dealers in cattle, sheep, and pigeons, and money changers seated at their tables.” (2: 14) The sacred has been profaned. “Is this not the man they want to put to death? And yet here he is, speaking openly, and they have not a word to say to him. Can it be that our rulers have actually decided that this is the Messiah?” (7: 26) Evil compounded by conspiracy. A plot to kill the Savior of the World (“through whom all things were made” – John 1: 2) is the ultimate expression of the Grandfather Paradox! What could be more absurd than a world that chooses to annihilate itself, retroactively, rather than accept the glorious truth? It’s really the paradigm of absurdity . (Camus, eat your heart out!) It is the triumph of pride over reason. It is one thing to deny that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God. It is something altogether different to believe these things to be true …and then to kill him anyway. I am the Walrus is not Guernica. It is a rather lighthearted take on The Absurd – more Ionesco than Kafka. As a result, it is even more convincing. We don’t all have the opportunity to put the Savior of the World to death (at least not knowingly). We do all have opportunities to run like pigs, sit on cornflakes (if we want to), and kick dead poets. Postscript : Do I believe that the Beatles had it in mind to write a commentary on John? I do not, nor do I care. The intention of the artist is irrelevant. Everything is in the text and the text ‘cries Johnnie’. David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Return to Summer 2024 Share Previous Next Click here. Do you like what you just read? Subscribe today and receive sneak previews of Aletheia Today Magazine articles before they're published. Plus, you'll receive our quick-read, biweekly blog, Thoughts While Shaving. Subscribe Thanks for subscribing! 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< Back Satan, Mary, and ‘Da Judge’ “Satan glorified political power for its own sake. He defended the socio-economic status quo…Jesus’ mother proclaimed a political and economic revolution...” David Cowles There’s nothing like a good old-fashioned barroom – you know…that place ‘where everybody knows your name’. Sadly, this Anglo-American institution is in decline on both sides of the Atlantic. We love to complain about socio-economic inequality and yet we are quietly witnessing the demise of a great leveler. The bar is where landlords and tenants, shop owners and wage earners, lawyers and tradesmen, bankers and borrowers have traditionally sat side by side, enjoying ‘a pint of the best’, and sharing their perspectives on the sorry state of the world. I love a good bar; you never know who you’ll meet and, if you shut up for a second, you can eavesdrop on the most interesting conversations. In my younger days, I frequented a bar where the ‘regulars’ included the owner of a rival bar, a pre-school teacher (and Stalin scholar), a florist, a contractor, a biology professor, a municipal employee, and an attorney. My best story, however, concerns a lazy summer afternoon with me sitting alone on my usual perch in my then favorite watering hole. Unexpectedly, two men and one woman walked in, already deeply engaged in animated conversation; they sat down right next to me. I had been going to this same bar for years, and as far as I know, none of the three had ever been there before. But of course, I recognized them immediately! Have you even been in a public space when suddenly and unexpectedly you encounter somebody famous? How do you react? Do you tell them how much you appreciate their ‘work’? Do you ask for their autograph? Or do you totally ignore them? I have adopted an intermediate strategy. I nod knowingly in their direction (sometimes they nod back) and I leave it at that. But not this time! On this occasion, I sat frozen on my stool, eyes forward, watching my bar mates only out of the corner of one eye and then only as reflected in the huge mirror that hung over the bar’s display of bottled spirits. And speaking of spirits, my drinking companions that day were none other than Mary, the virgin Mother of God, Lucifer (aka Satan), and ‘Judge Gudy’ (Gideon). In my experience, the only subjects worth talking about in a bar are religion and politics and this afternoon’s guests had apparently settled on politics as their topic du jour . Satan boasted proudly of his accomplishments in the field of politics. He reminded Mary that he had offered her son, Jesus, “all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence.” (Matthew 4: 8 - 9) Of course, Mary reminded Satan that Jesus had turned him down flat, but she did not challenge his boastful claim that he could in fact deliver ‘all the kingdoms of the world’. Clearly, this is political power way beyond anything Boss Tweed or Mayor Daley could have imagined. Then Mary lectured Satan on the terms of God’s own political praxis: “He has thrown down rulers from their thrones but lifted-up the lowly. The hungry he has filled with good things; the rich he has sent away empty.“ (Luke 1: 52 – 53) Clearly, we were in for a good old-fashioned 19 th century donnybrook. Satan glorified political power for its own sake. He defended the socio-economic status quo. His platform did not include even a single mention of ‘justice’; but he confidently asserted the corrupt malleability of ‘all the kingdoms’ (not some, not most… all ). Nor did Jesus contest Satan’s ability to deliver absolute political power. It was taken for granted. On the other hand, Jesus’ mother proclaimed a political and economic revolution the scope of which would have made Marx and Lenin cringe. The argument might have gone well into the evening, “Who’s driving?” I thought, had ‘Judge Gudy’ not intervened, “May I tell my story?” “3 millennia ago, give or take, I was threshing wheat in a winepress to hide the grain from the Midianites who were occupying our land. Suddenly, almost as if I’d been confronted by an angel, I thought, ‘You’re a brave man, and the Lord is with you’. I thought, If not me, who? If not now, when? If it’s going to be it’s up to me! “But of course, bravado gave way to skepticism and caution. “If the Lord is really with us, why has all this happened to us? Did I really receive a message from God or was I just daydreaming…again?” I prayed, “Give me a sign!” And I got one. “So that night, I engaged in my first act of revolutionary violence. I overturned the altar of Baal, tore down its ridiculous ‘pole’... a symbol of status quo and social hierarchy. Instead, I built on that same site an altar dedicated to YHWH and, using the wood from the pole, I sacrificed a whole bull. I even gave the altar a name, ‘Jehovah Shalom’, which means, ‘God is wholeness’. “Of course, I got caught, but I was the beneficiary of a ‘woke’ wave of ‘selective prosecutions’ and let go. I realize now that the destruction of Baal was just an initiation ritual; God was testing me to see if I was ready for bigger things. For better or worse, I passed the test. “Great for God, not so great for me! The cops (and my dad) had put the fear of Baal in me; I didn’t relish another bout with the law. But also, I didn’t want to turn down God, so I asked for another sign. And then another. No way out now! “So, I raised an army of 32,000 to take on 135,000 occupying soldiers. Farmers and craftsmen against Midian’s professional military. God or not, I couldn’t face the prospect of inflicting such carnage on my own people. So I decided to send 31,700 soldiers back home to their families. I would fight Midian…but with just 300 of my best . “I blush when people call me ‘the Father of Guerilla Warfare’. I was no military genius; I was just scared. I was willing to serve God, even if it meant martyrdom, but I was unwilling to sacrifice any more lives than absolutely necessary in the process. Besides, what was I going to do with 30,000 untrained soldiers? Better to rely on my best and brightest . And so, ya da, ya da, ya da … we won. With the help of God, and a lot of good luck, we drove Midian across the Jordan and out of Israel. "My only thought then was to get home to my father and my pastoral life. Surely my dad will let me drink wine now that I’ve defeated Midian in battle, or maybe not! Anyway, no more fighting for me. But my neighbors had other ideas. They insisted on making me King. "No way! As the leader of a victorious army, I was in a position to lay down the law… and this time I didn’t need to wait for a sign: 'I will not rule over you nor shall my son; the Lord will rule over you.” And so it was that “for 40 years the land was at peace...'” Silence followed. Slowly, Mary and Satan paid their tabs and Mary picked up the bill for Gideon. Satan left quietly followed a few minutes later by Mary. It seemed as though Gideon might hang out a while but, tab paid, he too left the bar. At that moment it occurred to me that the intellectual history of the 19 th and 20 th centuries had just played out in front of me. Satan advocated for secular pragmatism, democratic capitalism, the new world order. Mary argued for the overthrow of the existing socio-economic order to be replaced by a benign version of Marx’s Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Gideon argued for nothing. He lived his ideology, a fine blend of devotion to God, compassion for his fellows, and dedication to purpose. He had no desire for political power; he was content to let God rule Israel directly, without interference from permanent political institutions. He demonstrated the spirit of what today we call Anarchism . David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Return to our Harvest Issue 2023 Previous Next

< Back That Time You Weren't Exceptionally Divine Annie D. Stutley They say that a watched pot never boils. That’s a lie. It does boil, but do you know what doesn’t? A Tale of Three Christmases and Unexceptional Personal Limits.... I have two settings for Christmas. The first begins in November when I think of every holiday task I will complete early so the season is stress-free. The second is in the third week of December when I realize that I haven’t accomplished anything I planned. And nowhere is my holiday frenzy more frantic than on the eve of my children’s last day of school before winter break when I realize that I have procrastinated buying their teachers’ gifts. Of course it begins innocently enough. It always does. Years ago, when my kids were little, teacher gifts were something I could put off. They each had one teacher. I could run to the nearest gift store and buy three exceptional baskets of goodies. But now my kids are older with a whopping 20 teachers, coaches, and instructors. Sometime around Thanksgiving I remind myself to plan ahead for affordable yet heartwarming care packages that properly say, “Thank you for fostering my kid, who I know is sometimes a complete jackass.” Yet, I end up doing what I’ve done for years now. I make a mad dash to the grocery store the day before and determine that the best way to compensate for my ineptitude is to overcompensate. Thus, I choose a most complicated dessert that will wow my neglected teachers. And I will, of course , prepare it all myself. It sounds completely logical in the moment. One year, though, I actually conceded that one cannot make a dozen yule logs in one night. That year, my kids had only 12 teachers combined. So, I bought a case of wine and funny labels like “It’s 3:30 somewhere” and placed each clever label over the vineyard’s label. Simple! Except that you can’t drop your kid off at school with a backpack full of wine—not even in New Orleans. So, guess who unloaded a case of wine at the elementary school? This gal. Only our school doesn’t have a parking lot. Our school is in a highly trafficked neighborhood where there is rarely off-street parking. I found a spot three blocks away, only to get as far as two steps when I realized my scrawny arms cannot carry a case of wine down three blocks, through a security gate, and up a set of stairs. So I retreated. I took two thirds of the wine out of the box and carried four bottles at a time, deciding on three trips—one for each kid's teachers. To date, I don’t know why I thought it wise to bring the wine directly to the teachers and why I didn’t just leave them in the office. And I wish I had because guess whose Mom busted into fifth grade math class with wine? Yep, you guessed it. By the time I was on my third trip, I was sweating and my middle child (Middle Man) completely ignored me when I tiptoed in the dark into his reading classroom where they were watching Charlotte’s Web. As I sheepishly handed his teacher a heartfelt bottle of booze, a droplet of my sweat splattered and smudged the clever label. As God was my witness, I swore I’d never do the wine thing again. So, what did I do the next year? Homemade marshmallows. Lord to Heaven! That was a Christmas catastrophe. Marshmallows have five ingredients, and the biggest time consumption is waiting for them to set—two factors that led me to think my choice wise. However, waiting to begin at 8 o’clock at night to make marshmallows for 15 teachers means you’ll be staring at trays, waiting for them to set, well past midnight. It was close to one in the morning when I finally sliced the last pan of marshmallows and laid them in green tissue paper in red Chinese cartons. I was exhausted, maybe a little buzzed from the rosé I chugged that last hour but satisfied with my superpowers. Seriously, which other kid was gonna stroll into homeroom with homemade marshmallows? Not even Sheryl's kids. (See "That Time You Ousted Sheryl" for clarification.) But the following morning I realized just how not-Sheryl I am. Taking a final look at my supreme exceptionality, I peeked inside one of the cartons and resting contentedly were my perfectly, poufy marshmallows. But perfectly green ! In my complete Annie-ness, I didn’t remember that I live in New Orleans where our humidity is a legitimate reason to avoid moisturizer altogether and also where one should never put a food item made entirely of sugar onto anything soluble, namely green tissue paper. Frantically, I pulled all the marshmallows out—all 90 of them—for inspection. Most of the green was on the edges. For a split second, I considered leaving them alone. Maybe it would look intentional. Only it didn’t because the green bled down like green veins, and also, knowing my luck, some teacher had a freak dye allergy. I simply can’t be the parent to poison the science teacher. So I trimmed them. “It’ll appear intentional,” I said, as Middle Man looked despondently into the now heap of white powdered globs. “Sure. We’ll go with that,” he said dryly. That was the year my kids took irregular polygon-shaped marshmallows to school for their teachers’ holiday gifts and the year that, as God was my witness, I swore to never make marshmallows again. So, 2019 was to be my comeback. No sweaty wine. Nothing poisonous. That was the plan until I hadn’t bought a single ingredient for making gifts and was exhausted from a week of nursing Middle Man’s flu. I stumbled into the supermarket in the same yoga pants I’d worn for three days and spotted a display of packaged divinity. Right then is precisely when I should have realized the limitations put on me that week. It is also precisely why I’m pretty sure I don’t have a conscience at all because when I studied the mushy rounds of confection I said, “I can make that. Easy!” Silly Annie. Divinity is for grown-ups. Like marshmallow, divinity only has five ingredients, but with a nougat consistency. Divinity is also as far from a divine experience to make as the devil is from divinity. In fact, divinity is the devil. Here’s why: It was while I was laying out the ingredients when Mama trotted over to the kitchen to see what I was doing. Mama lives with us now, and there are moments when it is very convenient to have someone wise in your presence. That is, if you are the type of person to listen to wisdom. “You know, divinity is really finicky about humidity,” she said as I looked over the recipe. I ignored her. I lit a fire and poured the sugar, water, salt, and Karo syrup into the saucepan and waited. And waited. And continued to wait as the sugar liquid took half of my lifetime to reach 260 degrees. When it finally did, I slowly poured it into the mixing bowl of stiff egg whites and again waited and waited and waited for what seemed the remainder of my life for the magic to happen. But it did—to Mama’s and my complete astonishment. “Haha!” I proudly chuckled as I spooned poufy clumps of winter white onto a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet. “Humidity be damned!” They held their shape. It was on to batch two of four. It was during batch two that I realized I forgot to put my kids to bed. It was also during batch two that the dog made a river of pee in the dining room. And it was in the middle of batch two that as I stared at bubbling sugar determined to never hit 260 degrees that I called off the fourth batch. Middle Man was too sick for school. His presents could wait. But again, the divinity kept its shape. “I am so good at this!” I said to no one in particular, a tiny prideful note sent out into a world determined on making me feel inept. By the time I started batch three, Middle Man was in a Tamiflu and broth coma on the couch and the other two kids were asleep upstairs. The river of pee had been cleaned. I even remembered to move the damn Elf on the Shelf. It was 10:30. Again, I prepared the sugar to boil. And in the quiet of my holiday home, I stared at the pot. They say that a watched pot never boils. That’s a lie. It does boil, but do you know what doesn’t happen? A sugar boil doesn’t hit 260 degrees without taking a piece of your soul with it. Studying that damn pot, feeling time and my alertness fade away, I contemplated all the choices that led me to making divinity at 11 p.m. on a Wednesday. Why must I push myself to rally behind some ideal that I should be exceptional? Who cares? I could have bought the divinity. I could have made boxed brownies. I could have filled tins with the teachers’ favorite store-bought candies and be in bed right now. Instead, as the sugar boil defied me, I questioned my very existence. Why do I even bother trying for any life exceptional? No one really cares if I do or don’t do anything well. Boiled sugar not reaching 260 degrees makes a person think such damaging thoughts, especially when they are tired and a little buzzed from chugging rosé the last hour. So, too, will a divinity mixture that still hasn’t formed into the right consistency after seven minutes of mixing on high speed! The grinding motor of the mixer shook me from my self-loathing. Why wasn’t this batch doing what the others did? I stopped the machine and tested a clump. It fell back on itself. “Crap!” I yelled at no one in particular. Again I mixed and mixed until it looked right and then spooned it out, only to see each clump puddle after just seconds. I could have made a fourth batch. I could have muscled up and finished strong. But I didn’t. And you know why? Because New Orleans is insanely humid, and I should have listened to my mother. But mostly because though I may strive to be exceptional, there is nothing exceptional about my limits. It was time I learned that. I was short by five teachers. Two didn’t need a present before the next afternoon. Another we’d see again before Christmas. So, I scanned the house for replacements and found twelve of two dozen gourmet cookies that had been delivered the day before. They were worth giving away for the sake of my sanity. I filled the remaining tins with the re-gifted cookies, planned to buy the other gifts in the morning, and as God was my witness, swore to never make divinity again. I know enough to know that I can’t pull off procrastination without mishap. I can’t pull off a lot of things without a little drama. But I’m so much more than my ineptitude. I’m kind. I’m a good listener. I’m relatable. I’m a doting mother, a great wife, sister, daughter, and friend. Screw divinity. I’m badass without it. I shut the lights off downstairs at midnight—an hour earlier than the marshmallow affair of 2018. But as I was cleaning up beforehand, I stuck the puddled divinity from batch three in a hot oven. Maybe I could make divinity cookies a thing? After the last bowl was clean and the good divinity packed, I shut off the oven, left the door ajar, and went to bed. Yet, I forgot about those “cookies” in my oven until the following night when I preheated the oven to 450 degrees to cook a roast. I was seasoning said roast, grateful that divinity and a need to be exceptional was a thing of the past, when from his couch confinement, Middle Man said, “What’s that smell?” I sniffed the air. It smelled like burnt sugar. That’s odd, I thought. Then I remembered my experiment. I threw open the oven and went temporarily blind as billowing smoke rushed into my kitchen and overwhelmed my first floor. Alarms went off, dogs barked, and my flu child gagged. Divinity struck again! Those damn leftover globs melted straight through my silicone cookie sheet onto the oven floor. Some of us aren’t meant to meddle with the Divine. Starting with me. 2020 Update: Today was the last day of in-person school for Middle Man. He went with four pre-packaged coffee cakes to give to his four teachers. The cakes were baked in a kitchen far away from mine and by the hands of a professional. Last night I watched a cheesy Hallmark Christmas movie and sipped rose', all without turning on my mixer once. Annie D. Stutley lives and writes in New Orleans, La. She edits several small publications and contributes to various print and online magazines. Her blog, " That Time You, " was ranked in the Top 100 Blogs by FeedSpot. To read more of her work, go to her website , or follow her at @anniedstutley or Annie D. Stutley-writer on Facebook. Previous Next

< Back A Bird Teaches Humans a Lesson of Compassion, Bravery, and Love Keith Brailsford "This black-crowned bird truly taught me three lessons today – compassion, bravery, and love. It’s a lesson I will cherish in my daily life." I had just arrived back home from a mid-day break, taking an exercise class at our local fitness center. As I pulled into our driveway, I quickly turned off the car as I wanted to run inside the house to get our dog, Tory, for his early afternoon walk. As I opened the car door, I froze. There before me, five feet away on the edge of the driveway, there was something moving. I quickly recognized that it was a young fledgling who was laying on its side, not moving. Next to this beautiful bird, blue in color, with grayish blue wings, was another bird standing over his friend or mate. This other bird had a black crowned head, and his color was gray and black. What came next was heartbreaking. The black crowned bird had his head bowed over the blueish bird. He seemed to be devastated at what happened to his friend or mate. Still, with his head bowed, he tried to help his friend, trying to move the other bird, seeming to believe that if he could bring the bird back up from lying lifeless on one side, he might be able to help the bird fly again. I felt like the lifeless bird may have passed and that his friend was trying to do the impossible, to bring him back to life. I was so sad at that moment, wondering what if anything I, as a meager human, could do at this moment. I knew that if I got a shovel and tried to lift the blue colored bird and ease it onto the lawn to see if it moved or not, the black crowned mate or friend may have attacked me and for good reason. This was his friend and/or soulmate. The black crowned bird was devastated to see his friend lying lifeless on the paved driveway. No one was going to be allowed to interfere with their deep and special bond. I realized that. I decided to go into the house, get my dog Tory ready for his walk and come back out to see what, if anything, I could do to help. Ten minutes later, I walked Tory to the car. He jumped in the passenger seat. I quickly noticed that two young crows were nearby. One crow was on the front lawn and the other crow was barely three or four feet from his prey, the young lifeless, blue colored bird. His friend or mate was pulling at his leg or body, I couldn’t fully tell. When the young crow saw me, he quickly flew off in the distance, still close enough to descend upon the other birds when I had left. And then something miraculous happened. I looked back at the black crowned bird and at the blue colored bird and they both had disappeared. All I could think of was that the black crowned bird must have gotten some form of super strength, to lift his friend onto his back and take him to a safe place to recover. I was struck by the black crowned birds’ act of compassion, staying by his friend’s side with his head bowed, not knowing if his friend was alive or not. I was equally humbled by the bravery the black crowned bird showed in the face of imminent danger from the crow who was lurking nearby. And finally, the super bird strength that the black crowned bird showed to his blue colored friend or mate, to miraculously take another bird of equal weight, and to fly him off to safety, was the greatest show of love and devotion one could ever imagine. This black crowned bird truly taught me three lessons today – compassion, bravery, and love. It’s a lesson I will cherish in my daily life as I interact with other human beings, be they friends, fellow citizens, or family. Keith has worked in telecommunications for several years, providing local and long distance telecommunications products and services to hotels and bed & breakfast inns throughout the Northeastern, United States. He then went on to design and market corporate healthcare and benefit solutions for Benemax, Inc. the nations oldest consumer driven healthcare brokerage, based in Massachusetts. Keith has also served as an HR Manager for an IT company and in 2023, transitioned to academia, where he is pursuing his second masters degree, in Clinical Mental Health. Keith has traveled extensively with his wife Priscilla Dass-Brailsford, to over 38 countries and 44 states and in 2023, was a gold medal winner in the national yoga championships. Keith was a former military photo-journalist and loves to write short stories. Return to Summer 2024 Previous Next

< Back Ephesians 2:10 David Cowles “In this one verse…St. Paul proposes a radically new model of what it means to be a human being.” (Paul’s enigmatic verse opens a window onto a whole new cosmology, suddenly made surprisingly relevant by the last 100 years of physics: Many worlds, Block universe, Quantum entanglement, etc.) “For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus, for the good works that God has prepared in advance that we should live in them.” (Eph. 2: 10) Who needs Freud, Jung, or Adler when we have Paul? In this one verse (above), albeit dense and enigmatic, St. Paul proposes a radically new model of what it means to be a human being. Of course, Paul’s verse could be interpreted as merely another expression of some sort of divine determinism, but that would directly contradict the overall Biblical consensus that we are ‘intentional creatures’, endowed with ‘free will’ and ‘responsible for our actions’. Opposing determinism, divine or otherwise, is the view that we create our own lives out of whole cloth. We are blank slates with freedom to make decisions and with responsibility for the outcome of those decisions. Meet Jean-Paul Sartre! Beats determinism but it’s still not the whole story. Sorry JP! Either way, our interaction with the world takes the form of a unidirectional vector. Determinism points that vector toward us; freedom points that same vector toward the world. According to this later model, everything begins with me and radiates outward. The world is my canvass, and I am surrounded by brushes and tubes of color; so start painting! Now I just have to wait for inspiration. St. Paul affirms that we are free agents, responsible for our own choices. But he also suggests that we are not the sole authors of our destinies. There’s something more going on in Paul’s cosmology! The essence of God is the Good, and in our world, we experience the Good as Beauty, Truth, and Justice. I call these the divine values , and God is all about divine values! So Being presents us with a paradox. The world (us) is radically free to do as it will, while God is hyper-focused on bringing that world in line with his values and merging it with him in the Kingdom of Heaven . The history of religion is the record of our attempts, tortured at best, to resolve this conflict. What if Paul gave us a solution two millennia ago, even if we have not recognized it? A precocious 12 year old wants to go to Harvard. There are many ways she can make that happen. She can become the valedictorian of her high school class; or she can grow into a sought after athlete; or she can write a play, prove a theorem, found a company, start a charity, etc. Of course, nothing is in stone. She could do any, or all, of these things and still not get in to the college of her choice. Conversely, she could do none of them and rely on a killer interview, essay, or test score. Bottom line: she can do as she pleases and let whatever happens happen. Society, however, has provided our 12 year old with a number of semi-guaranteed pathways to success, should she choose to follow one of them. According to Paul, this is how the whole world works! It’s 8AM and you and I have only the vaguest notion of how things will be at 4PM. Not so God! God sees the world (us) as it is now, and God knows the world as it will be at the end of time ( eschaton ); in fact, God is the eschaton ! The terrain between now and eschaton is our domain but, as history has amply demonstrated, human beings are sub-cretinous. So, what’s a good God to do? It is not in God’s nature to direct the course of events in our world. Such intervention would violate his Covenant with us, and it would vitiate the radical independence of the world he created. Is there a way around this impasse? I am tempted to credit Paul with the ‘discovery’ of a solution, but that solution was already present embryonically in the opening verses of Genesis . Paul just recognized it…and brought it forward. Consider the role of God in the creation story: God sees the world as it is: “without form or shape, with darkness over the abyss and a mighty wind sweeping over the waters…” God says, “Let there be…” and “there was…” “God saw that it was Good…” (divine values) “Then God separated…” “God…rested…” Hardly an active voice, indicative mood description! This is not Deus Magus ! God is not some want-to-be ‘Merlin’, pointing a wand and creating a frog. God is AAA; he provides us with a map that offers multiple routes to a single destination, pocked with landmarks, signage, and ‘helpful hints’. And still we get lost! I am in New York, and I need to be in LA. There are innumerable routes and modes of transportation available to me, some fast, some scenic, some frantic, some relaxed, some costly, some budget friendly, etc. Of course, not all roads from New York lead to LA; in fact, most don’t. More than once, I’ve found myself on a train out of Penn Station…headed to Boston! (Perhaps I was ‘over served’.) God’s ways are not our ways. We rigidly distinguish the map from the territory. Not God! God’s map is the territory. But God’s task is a lot easier than I’ve made it sound. All good works lead to God. Assessing the gap between where the world is and where it must get to, God prepares a catalog of good works for me to choose from. When I was accepted into college (tuition was $2,000/year), the first thing I received was a catalogue of courses…hundreds of courses. I don’t doubt that every single one of those courses was educational; but I was only required/allowed to pick four. I didn’t need to take every course my college offered. Likewise, I don’t need to perform all the good works that God has prepared for me. Just one! Doesn’t matter which one. I can try to do more than one but to do that I would have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time and experience tells me that’s not likely to happen. Single task complete, God now prepares a new catalog of good works for me to evaluate. God’s world is an interactive novel; everything I do is a choice and every choice I make triggers an avalanche of new options. Divine Intelligence (DI) is the precursor of Artificial Intelligence (AI); God is the ultimate LLM. GPS-like, God is forever re-calculating my optimal route(s). I am the frog (above) and my world is a network of disconnected lily pads (being) floating on the surface of a pond (the abyss). My mission, should I choose to accept it, is to hop my way from pad to pad until I reach the opposite shore. Of course, I may not accept my mission. I may think I know better than God: “Who needs all these pads? I’ll just swim across the pond on my own.” So I’ve made my decision. I’ve decided to ignore all the options God has placed before me. I’m choosing a different path instead – something I am perfectly free to do, BTW. Am I damned? Don’t be daft! I’ve just moved to Philadelphia, that’s all, and, gossip notwithstanding, God lives in Philly too! After I visit the Liberty Bell and frequent the bars and restaurants around Rittenhouse Square, God will present me with a new map with new good works for me to choose from. All I have to do is step into one of these works and I am back on track, my Philly detour forgotten. I can always jump onto the nearest available lily pad and make things right with God. On the other hand, I could choose to board a train for DC. Rinse and repeat! Life is long and anywhere along the way I can choose to step into a good work that God has prepared for me to live in…or I can decide I know better and fend for myself. Whenever I am on a pad, I’m on track, and my past indiscretions are forgotten. Water washes away all vestiges of the route taken. God has no reason to harbor a grudge. God is concerned with one thing only: the divine values and, what amounts to the same thing, the redemption of the world. So, the road to Heaven is not nearly as narrow as we’ve been led to believe. God is not a tough negotiator. He’s prepared at any time to accept anyone and everyone onto his team. All I need do is look around, find a good work that God has prepared for me that I should live in it…and then ‘just do it!’ David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Return to Groundhog Issue 2025 Previous Next

“This is the first time I’ve seen AI presented with all the trappings of a new Aquarian theology.” < Back Is Techno-Optimism a New Religion? David Cowles Mar 1, 2024 “This is the first time I’ve seen AI presented with all the trappings of a new Aquarian theology.” I consider myself, on the whole, a techno-optimist. Of course I have concerns, but they are not the concerns of a techno-pessimist…or a techno-nihilist. Recently, however, I came across an intriguing but disturbing document from a16z (Marc Andreessen). The Techno-Optimist Manifesto reads for all the world like the foundational document for a new religion. Think Torah , the Gospel of Mark , the Book of Mormon … or even the Communist Manifesto ! Much has been written about AI, pro and con, some of it right here on Aletheia Today , but this is the first time I’ve seen AI presented with all the trappings of a new Aquarian theology. The human proclivity to idolize, fetishize, and demonize is seemingly boundless. Let’s help ourselves to a few ‘free samples’ from this ideological banquet: “We are being lied to. We are told that technology takes our jobs, reduces our wages, increases inequality, threatens our health, ruins the environment, degrades our society, corrupts our children, impairs our humanity, threatens our future, and is ever on the verge of ruining everything. We are told to be angry, bitter, and resentful about technology. We are told to be pessimistic…We are told to be miserable about the future.” This is a stinging, and for the most part accurate, indictment of contemporary techno-nihilism, wrapped as it often is in the language of humanism and social justice. But then begins the New Catechism : “ We believe everything good is downstream of growth. And so the only perpetual source of growth is technology…We believe technology is a lever on the world – the way to make more with less…We believe free markets are the most effective way to organize a technological economy. “We believe the market economy is a discovery machine, a form of intelligence – an exploratory, evolutionary, adaptive system.” So, the economy is a biological organism. It evolves, it adapts to its environment, and it adapts its environment to itself. It functions intelligently; it’s mind, it’s a kind of brain. “We believe markets, to quote Nicholas Stern, are how we take care of people we don’t know…” Is this Techno-Optimism’s answer to the Great Commandment and the Parable of the Good Samaritan? “We believe Artificial Intelligence is our alchemy, our Philosopher’s Stone – we are literally making sand (silicon) think.” Are we? Did someone make ‘ash (carbon) think’? Neural networks think. Perhaps even individual cells within those networks. (BTW, if silicon is AI’s carbon correlate, what is the AI correlate of the biological cell?) But the individual C or Si atoms by themselves? That’s more of a stretch. “We believe technology is the solution to environmental degradation and crisis. A technologically advanced society improves the natural environment, a technologically stagnant society ruins it. If you want to see environmental devastation, visit a former Communist country. “We believe that technology ultimately drives…what Buckminster Fuller called ephemeralization : ‘Technology lets you do more and more with less and less until eventually you can do everything with nothing’.” Hmm, maybe that’s how God made the Universe! Something from nothing . Anyhow, this new religion is sounding better, isn’t it? “We believe the measure of abundance is falling prices. Every time a price falls, the universe of people who buy it, get a raise in buying power, which is the same as a raise in income…We believe we should push to drop prices across the economy through the application of technology until as many prices are effectively zero as possible, driving income levels and quality of life into the stratosphere.” I’m naïve, and proud of it, but even I can’t swallow this . Unfortunately, our ability to manufacture new ‘must-haves’ and to restrict the flow of capital and goods to preserve social hierarchy is boundless. I don’t care what I have as long as I have more than the Joneses. I must have someone to look down my nose at or what’s living for? (Ok, maybe we do need a new religion after all!) “We believe that advancing technology is one of the most virtuous things that we can do…We believe in deliberately and systematically transforming ourselves into the kind of people who can advance technology. We believe in adventure . Undertaking the Hero’s Journey, rebelling against the status quo, mapping uncharted territory, conquering dragons, and bringing home the spoils for our community…” What good is any new creed without ethics? The Manifesto goes on to provide a litany of moral qualities that the new faith extols. It reads like something out of Nietzsche. For brevity’s sake, I’ll just list them in the order in which they appear: ambition, aggression, persistence, relentlessness, strength; merit and achievement, bravery, courage, pride, confidence, earned self-respect. The Manifesto goes on to extol certain values: local knowledge, information, variance, interestingness, risk-taking, individualism, radical competence, competition, evolution, life, truth. This new religion is not shy; it is not afraid to take on the big issue: The Meaning of Life . But for my money, here it comes up short: “Material abundance from markets and technology opens the space for religion, for politics, and for choices of how to live, socially and individually. We believe technology is liberatory. Liberatory of human potential. Liberatory of the human soul, the human spirit. Expanding what it can mean to be free, to be fulfilled, to be alive. We believe technology opens the space of what it can mean to be human.” There’s nothing wrong with this vision per se , but is it alone ‘the meaning of life’? I don’t think so. Maybe we need to keep our traditional religions around a while longer after all. As in Torah , no list of blessings is complete until it has been paired with a like list of curses: “We have enemies…Our enemies are not bad people – but rather bad ideas. Our present society has been subjected to a mass demoralization campaign for six decades…under varying names like ‘existential risk, sustainability... (and) social responsibility’. This demoralization campaign is based on bad ideas of the past – zombie ideas…that have refused to die.” To name just a few of those ‘bad ideas’: stagnation, authoritarianism, socialism, bureaucracy, corruption, monopolies, the ivory tower. The Manifesto closes, fittingly, with Friedrich Nietzsche’s ‘Last Man’: “ I tell you: one must still have chaos in oneself to give birth to a dancing star. I tell you: you have still chaos in yourselves. Alas! There comes the time when man will no longer give birth to any star. Alas! There comes the time of the most despicable man, who can no longer despise himself…’What is love? What is creation? What is longing? What is a star?’ — so asks the Last Man, and blinks…’We have discovered happiness’, — say the Last Men, and they blink... “Our enemy is… that.” AI raises many important questions – but neither demonization nor beatification offer constructive answers. Still, the Manifesto, minus its theological pretensions, offers a powerful argument for AI Optimism . The new tech will undoubtedly generate gobs of new wealth, and, by itself, that’s a good thing. Any critique of AI that does not immediately acknowledge the enormous potential for good created by this new wealth is off to a very bad start. Job One is to ‘stand back, get out of the way, let it happen’. Job Two is much more challenging. It concerns the distribution of this new wealth. Should we allow this wealth to flow and accumulate as it will, or should we regulate its distribution (the process and/or the end result) in some way? If so, how and to what extent? How should we balance the social value of a more democratic distribution scheme against the dampening effect such a scheme might have on overall production? Ok, thanks for stopping by, see ya soon…oh, wait, were you expecting us to answer these questions? Sorry about that! David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Click the image to return to Spring 2024. Previous Next Share Do you like what you just read? Subscribe today and receive sneak previews of Aletheia Today Magazine articles before they're published. Plus, you'll receive our quick-read, biweekly blog, Thoughts While Shaving. Subscribe Thanks for subscribing! Click here. Return to Table of Contents, Winter 2023 Issue Return to Table of Contents, Holiday Issue Return to Table of Contents, Halloween Issue Return to Table of Contents, September Issue Return to Table of Contents, Beach Issue Return to the Table of Contents, June Issue

< Back God Calling! David Cowles Jul 12, 2022 “I wrote the answers to life’s riddles on the cuffs of your shirts, and I encouraged you to cheat. And still…” God has something he’d like to get off his chest…and you’re not going to like it. Suffice to say, he’s not a happy camper! And who can blame him? What a mess! But that’s another subject for another day. We’ve got more than enough on our plates right now…and heeeeeere’s God: “I created heaven-and-earth (cosmos) and I endowed it (endowed you, homo sapiens ) with freedom, reason, and conscience. In your early days, I walked with you and gave you counsel. Later, when you had fallen under Pharoah’s yoke, I freed you from the bonds of slavery and husbanded you from Egypt to Canaan, the Promised Land. “I gave you 611 statutes designed to give you strength, health, long life, fertility, and prosperity and I guar….an….teed the results! 611 statutes. Wait, did I say 611? I’m sorry, I misspoke, hope I didn’t give you a heart attack; I meant to say two. To make things easier for you, I took the 611 statutes and added two more; but these two summarize the other 611. (Torah: 611 + 2 = 613) “I made a covenant with you (‘I will be your God and you will be my people’, Gen. 17: 7) and I reiterated that commitment on a number of occasions, all documented in scripture. “I might have expected that this would have been enough for you, but I know how weak free beings can be. I had a bad experience once before. Remember Lucifer, the ‘Light Bearer,’ my greatest creation, before you. Look at him now! Or don’t. At last report, he was hanging upside down, encased in a block of ice, at the nadir of Hell (check with Dante, Inferno ). I was determined that that would not happen to you! “So, I left study aids for you that even you could not ignore…and I don’t mean Cliffs Notes . I wanted to be sure that I would be in your face 24/7/365. Don’t worry; it’s for your own good. You’ll thank me later. “I wrote my will across the sky (cosmos), and I made sure that every entity within the cosmos reflected that cosmos (check with Leibniz, Monadology ). I encoded my will in the ‘signatures of all things I am (you are) here to read’ (check with Joyce, Ulysses ). And I embedded a copy of my will deep within your hearts (check with David, Psalms ). “So, who needs Cliffs Notes? I wrote the answers to life’s riddles on the cuffs of your shirts, and I encouraged you to cheat… “And yet…” Thoughts While Shaving is the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine ( ATM) . To never miss another Thought, choose the subscribe option below. Also, follow us on any one of our social media channels for the latest news from ATM. Thanks for reading! Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back Navigating Ethics David Cowles Oct 29, 2025 “Are there Values…that apply to everyone, everywhere, in every circumstance and in every possible universe?” Ethics is the science of ‘doing good’. Speaking both developmentally and anthropologically, our earliest encounter with the concept is rules based: The 613 mitzvoth of Torah The Code of Hammurabi English Common Law The rules Dad just posted on the fridge Our earliest concept of ‘doing good’ consists of nothing more, or less, than obeying orders, following rules: “The law of the Lord is his joy.” (Psalm 1: 1 - 3) Against this background various reform movements (in families and in society) have attempted to shift the moral emphasis from action to intention: “I didn’t mean to do it, it was an accident,” or “I was speeding but only because my wife was in labor.” An effort was made to find a simpler set of moral principles at the foundation of our ethical intuition. In that spirit, the Decalogue (10 Commandments) came to be regarded as a Cliff’s Notes version of the Torah. Later, the so-called Great Commandment designated two of the 613 mitzvoth of Torah as a summary of the other 611: Love God and love your neighbor! The Cliff’s Notes version of Cliff’s Notes. Then Jesus of Nazareth entered the fray: “I give you a new commandment: love one another.” (John 13: 34) Several modern humanists have proposed Be Kind as a universal statement of the ethical intuition. John-Paul Sartre , with some support from Pope Leo XIII, suggested Freedom as the ultimate value. But at the beginning of the 16 th century, Machiavelli stood Western Ethics on its head. (There’s a lot of head-standing in the Intellectual History of the West, e.g. Mark & Hegel.) He suggested that the Good lies not in conformity, nor in intentionality, but in consequences: ends justify means! The term ‘Machiavellian’ retains a slightly pejorative connotation even today, but the concept has long since been rehabilitated under the different-seeming guises of Utilitarianism (Bentham, Mill), Liberalism (Adam Smith) and Pragmatism (William James). If we adopt Gregory Bateson’s meme ( a difference that makes a difference ) as our ontological standard, ‘good’ behavior is whatever produces, or is likely to produce, ‘good’ results: e.g. ‘greatest good for the greatest number’ (Mill), ‘the wealth of nations’ (Smith) or ‘redistribution of the means of production’ (Marx). Of course, this Enlightened sense of ethics assumes that we are able to distinguish ‘favorable’ outcomes from ‘unfavorable’ alternatives. By what measure? On what scale? Over what span? From whose perspective? ( Hint : We can’t!) It also assumes a certain causal, i.e. predictable, link between events: A leads to B or at least A makes B substantially more likely. Either way, the ethical content of an event now lies in its actual (or projected) consequences. Ethical systems based either on rules (Moses) or on results (Machiavelli) appear to constitute a spectrum ranging from Absolute Despotism to Eternal Utopia. As we now know all too well, the invisible hand of Adam Smith is no less heavy than the iron fist of Pharaoh. Consequences are commands viewed backwards. Wage slavery is just plain slavery, minus Spartacus. La Technique (Jacques Ellul) replaces Written Torah (613 mitzvot) and Oral Torah (Natural Law) with Mechanical Torah (now AI). This leaves us with just two alternatives: (1) an ethics that is focused solely on actions themselves (virtue is its own reward) or (2) an ethics grounded entirely in the subjective experience of others (or another ). Ethical systems broadly compatible with Triple-M (Moses, Machievelli, Marx) focus on the proximate : obey a command, weigh a consequence. Conversely, our alternative systems focus either on the hyper-immanent or on the totally transcendent . But first, are there Values, manifestations of the Good, that apply to everyone, everywhere, in every circumstance and in every possible universe? Elsewhere on this site , we have proposed Beauty, Truth, and Justice as Values that satisfy these conditions. I have even called them the Divine Values ; they are the essence of the Ineffable (God). Of course, no two people agree on what is beautiful, true or just: no matter! Everyone agrees, theoretically or not, that these are the values that characterize the Good, aka God . Everything any actor does is ultimately motivated by one of these Super Values, however distorted it may have become in the mind of its executor. This ethical system holds that any act is ‘good’ precisely to the extent that it creates, discovers, disseminates, or restores Beauty, Truth, and/or Justice, not as a remote consequence of the act (which are always alienated from the act itself), but as the act itself. For example, the actions of the Good Samaritan are just in themselves; in fact, they are Justice per se ( mishpat , understood as a verb: “Do Justice!”) Ironically, the alternative post-Machiavellian ethic also finds a home in this Parable . According to this interpretation, whatever we do to relieve the suffering of others is good . This concept of the ‘ethical’ links us with Mother Theresa and through her to the Buddha himself. In one parable we see both sides of the post-Machiavellian coin. Either Value is immanent in the act itself, regardless of its intent or consequence, or Value transcends both the act and the actor and rests entirely on the experience of the Other , the indirect object of the act. The ethical universe of the 3M’s is flat. Rules → Intentions → Actions → Consequences. The Good Samaritan flips the script. Now we look beneath the plane ↓ to focus on the acts themselves or beyond the plane ↑ to focus on those acts as they appear in the experience of others. Riddle : If a ‘good’ act is performed in the absence of an ‘other’, is it still a ‘good act’? Maybe, maybe not: If I spend three years studying for a PhD in psychology so I can better help my future patients? Then yes! If I write articles for a local newspaper in the hope that they will amuse, entertain, enlighten or console someone other than myself? Also yes! If I admit the existence of a ‘collective other’ (God, Gaia, or Geist), then yes again. But otherwise, no! So we have found that ethical systems tend to congregate around 4 cardinal points, the nodes of a diamond, and along two perpendicular axes: T ↑ R ↔ E ↓ I The horizontal axis is a continuum spanning Rules and Ends. Cause and Effect live here! The vertical axis, on the other hand, is perpendicular to the plane of ‘daily commerce’. It allows us to focus ‘off plane’ on acts themselves ( Immanent ) or on others’ experience ( Transcendent ) of those acts. From the perspective of Immanence acts are stochastic, airlocked, islands in the stream, knots in the thread of fate each act has its own independent moral value. On the other hand, from the perspective of Transcendence the moral value of acts lies ‘off grid’ in the experience of others . Remarkably, these radically different perspectives intersect, as witnessed in the concrete behavior of the Good Samaritan. When we foster Beauty (peace, harmony) we ‘lighten the load’ of the other. Likewise, when we discover Truth and correct falsehood (gnosis); and most dramatically of course, when we practice Justice (including charity, community, and mercy). We are striving to graduate from the ‘nursery notion’ of rules and results. Happily, we have found a new ethical home in the content of our actions per se and in others’ experience of those actions. *** Norman Rockwell’s The Golden Rule (1961) unites people of many races, faiths, and ages beneath the words “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Painted in luminous, realistic detail, it transforms a moral principle into a shared human moment of empathy and equality. By portraying kindness and respect as universal, Rockwell turns a private rule of ethics into a public vision of global goodwill. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.