From Idolatry to Depravity

by Lisa Coleman

In April of 1966, Time magazine published a cover story asking the question: “Is God Dead?” Currently, in 2021, belief in God has diminished considerably since that long-ago question. Modern people have, nevertheless, found themselves an ‘Oz’ of sorts to guide them through life’s questions. Google, Alexa, and Siri have taken center stage for answers. Who needs God when we have Google? Or so goes the faulty thinking.

Artificial intelligence saturates our everyday lives so insidiously. It influences a plethora of choices from clothing, books, entertainment, choosing friends or mates, travel, education, and work. It is invoked all too often as an otherworldly, almost godlike invention. One tech worker said, “At the end of the day, artificial intelligence is just a lot of math. It’s just a lot, a lot of math. It is intelligence by brute force, and yet it is spoken of as if it were semidivine.”

There is a story told about a group of scientists that create an artificial intelligence system and ask it, “Is there a god?” The A.I. spits out an answer: “Insufficient computing power to determine an answer.” Then they redouble their efforts and spend years improving the A.I.’s capacity. Then they ask again, “Is there a god?” The A.I. responds, “There is now.”

It reminds us of the shocking reveal (for a kid) of the little man behind the curtain in “The Wizard of Oz”. We were warned of this long ago it would seem.

Ultimately in seeking answers for A.I. we need to realize that there is no super-intelligent machine crafting the answers to our deepest questions. Instead, the main thing to learn from the New York Times Story is that people write the scripts for what Google and Amazon’s Alexa and other devices will answer when asked these questions. The algorithm just prioritizes the answers that come up. This is NOT truly artificial intelligence. It is still human programming.

After declaring that God is dead, people turned to the created gods of technology for the answers and the meaning to life that their hungry souls demand. But no satisfaction can be found in the echo chamber of man’s wisdom–“They became futile in their thinking and darkened in their foolish hearts. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools…” (Roman 1:21-22). (Adapted from Glynn Wilson, “Hey Google, Amazon, Facebook: Is There a God?” New American Journal (7-18-21); Linda Kinstler, “Can Silicon Valley Find God?” The New York Times (7/16/21)

Please join us this week for our study of Romans 1:18-32: Without Excuse!

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You can download the Bible study materials for this session for your personal use and watch the Zoom video of the in-class session by following the links below:

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Follow this link to find other studies in this series: TRANSFORMED: Knowing & Doing God’s Will.