This is great! Both intelligence and creativity as concepts are devalued by current discussions about AI.
Which is weird because AI itself is devalued simultaneously in it's impact.
I find myself wanting to defer to "creativity" of the type attributed to divine creators: manifesting from nothing, purely by naming it.
And further, to "intelligence" of the intuitive kind, that sends you a signal what should and shouldn't exist in the world, and gifts you the resourcefulness, insight, and determination to make it happen.
I grew up a Christian, became an agnostic, but remain an optimist about humans and our special purpose. In that sense, I am a Christofuturist convert.
There is only one future I want to live in, the one where people love and create, amen brother!
Thanks so much for this piece Gary! I’m a big fan of your work from DreamDAO to Edge City as well as your outspoken faith in a technology space that often reviles and criticizes belief.
I grew up in an evangelical Christian household, have memorized lots of scripture and have had deep personal encounters with the spirit of Christ.
Now I'm living in a Muslim country (Tunisia) and have had a lot of eye opening experiences that have really shifted my perspective about the Christian faith and it's role in many of the world's ongoing atrocities—from climate change to the genocide in Gaza.
I would be curious to hear your thoughts on the current rise of right-wing 'Christian' nationalism that is in full favor of continued fossil fuel expansion in the US, the removal of indigenous communities from sacred lands and the ongoing starvation and annihilation of the Palestinian people?
How would a 'Christofuturist' movement not get entangled in this toxic mess of what most 'Christians' seem to support politically in the US today?
I stopped calling myself a Christian in my early twenties (despite a deep belief in a loving God and the incarnation of Christ) as I simply did not identify with the way 'Christians' behaved and what they believed.
I believe Jesus would have been hanging out with refugees, immigrants, and the LGBTQ crowd, not the religious, political or capitalist elite. I think scriptures are pretty clear that Jesus stood fervently for the lost and the broken, the outcast and the persecuted and became enraged in the light of the abuse of power in the name of religion.
How do you think a movement can overcome the idolatry that seems rampant across the Christian church?
It reminds me of the righteous indignation that John Pavlovitz shared in his post today just a few hours ago:
What I will say for now is everyone should be the Christian or Christ follower or human being they would want to have looked up to when they were a kid.
Different people will have different "divine doubles" - archetypes they are trying to live up to - and I think that's beautiful.
Love it! Thanks Gary. Let's using the amazing power of these new technologies to create free essentials like housing, food, and healthcare for everyone. What better way to herald in a new era of love and abundance. As recommended in Matthew 19:21, The Sheep and the Goats, and other parables.
What if AI, through its capacity to analyze vast religious texts, traditions, and commentaries, identifies patterns or proposes interpretations that no human theologian ever articulated?
Man is great only through God; this is the motto of theanthropic culture. Without God, man is just twelve stone of bloody clay. What are men without God, if not one grave set next to the other? European man has condemned both God and the soul to death. Has he not, in doing this, condemned himself to a death from which there is no resur-rection? Take honest and impartial stock of European philosophy, sci-ence, politics, culture and civilization, and you will see that they have killed God and the immortality of the soul in European man. But, if you take a serious look at the tragedy of human history, you will be forced to realize that deicide ends in suicide. Remember Judas. He first killed God and then destroyed himself. This is the implacable law that rules the history of this planet.
The prophetic Dostoevsky and the melancholic Gogol predicted more than a century ago that the edifice of European culture, which had been built without Christ, was bound to fall down. And the prophecies of these Slav prophets are unfolding before our eyes. The building of the European Tower of Babel took ten centuries, and it is our destiny to behold the tragic vision: lo, they have built an enormous zero! Great chaos reigns: one man does not understand another, one soul, one nation does not understand another. One man has risen over another, one empire over anothet, one nation over another, even one continent over another.
European man has come to experience a fateful vertigo. He took the superman to the top of his Tower of Babel, to be the crown of his edifice, but the superman went mad just below the top and plunged down from the tower. It fell with him, shattered by wars and revolution. Homo europaeicus has inevitably had to go mad at the end of his culture: deicide has had to become suicide.”
This is great! Both intelligence and creativity as concepts are devalued by current discussions about AI.
Which is weird because AI itself is devalued simultaneously in it's impact.
I find myself wanting to defer to "creativity" of the type attributed to divine creators: manifesting from nothing, purely by naming it.
And further, to "intelligence" of the intuitive kind, that sends you a signal what should and shouldn't exist in the world, and gifts you the resourcefulness, insight, and determination to make it happen.
I grew up a Christian, became an agnostic, but remain an optimist about humans and our special purpose. In that sense, I am a Christofuturist convert.
There is only one future I want to live in, the one where people love and create, amen brother!
Thanks so much for this piece Gary! I’m a big fan of your work from DreamDAO to Edge City as well as your outspoken faith in a technology space that often reviles and criticizes belief.
I grew up in an evangelical Christian household, have memorized lots of scripture and have had deep personal encounters with the spirit of Christ.
Now I'm living in a Muslim country (Tunisia) and have had a lot of eye opening experiences that have really shifted my perspective about the Christian faith and it's role in many of the world's ongoing atrocities—from climate change to the genocide in Gaza.
I would be curious to hear your thoughts on the current rise of right-wing 'Christian' nationalism that is in full favor of continued fossil fuel expansion in the US, the removal of indigenous communities from sacred lands and the ongoing starvation and annihilation of the Palestinian people?
How would a 'Christofuturist' movement not get entangled in this toxic mess of what most 'Christians' seem to support politically in the US today?
I stopped calling myself a Christian in my early twenties (despite a deep belief in a loving God and the incarnation of Christ) as I simply did not identify with the way 'Christians' behaved and what they believed.
I believe Jesus would have been hanging out with refugees, immigrants, and the LGBTQ crowd, not the religious, political or capitalist elite. I think scriptures are pretty clear that Jesus stood fervently for the lost and the broken, the outcast and the persecuted and became enraged in the light of the abuse of power in the name of religion.
How do you think a movement can overcome the idolatry that seems rampant across the Christian church?
It reminds me of the righteous indignation that John Pavlovitz shared in his post today just a few hours ago:
https://johnpavlovitz.substack.com/p/republican-christians-make-me-hope
Curious to get your thoughts brother and as always, much respect...
Resonate with these questions!
What I will say for now is everyone should be the Christian or Christ follower or human being they would want to have looked up to when they were a kid.
Different people will have different "divine doubles" - archetypes they are trying to live up to - and I think that's beautiful.
I went down a rabbit hole on water and consciousness while studying the work of Japanese scientist, Masaru Emoto last night.
I was reminded of a conversation with my youngest -
'Dad, water remembers.'
'What do you mean sweetie?'
'Water falls from the sky and flows across mountains and streams to return to its source where it begins the journey all over again. Water remembers.'
May we all remember to come back to source, to our God and creator.
Thank you for this great reminder of the natural order of things.
🫂
Love it! Thanks Gary. Let's using the amazing power of these new technologies to create free essentials like housing, food, and healthcare for everyone. What better way to herald in a new era of love and abundance. As recommended in Matthew 19:21, The Sheep and the Goats, and other parables.
The future belongs to those who build with God, not those who build to become Him.
“Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain.” — Psalm 127:1
Perfectly put great read and reminder to visualize Christofuturism
What if AI, through its capacity to analyze vast religious texts, traditions, and commentaries, identifies patterns or proposes interpretations that no human theologian ever articulated?
Excellent piece Gary! 👏🏿
“Idolatry ruins.
AI is just the latest idol jammed into the God-shaped hole in our hearts.” - sooo true!
Here I just have read today extremely related to the theme you’re highlighting. 🙏 I cant recommend enough that book
“Man and The God-Man” by Archimandrite Justin Popovich; https://a.co/d/5KI4SCq
“
Man is great only through God; this is the motto of theanthropic culture. Without God, man is just twelve stone of bloody clay. What are men without God, if not one grave set next to the other? European man has condemned both God and the soul to death. Has he not, in doing this, condemned himself to a death from which there is no resur-rection? Take honest and impartial stock of European philosophy, sci-ence, politics, culture and civilization, and you will see that they have killed God and the immortality of the soul in European man. But, if you take a serious look at the tragedy of human history, you will be forced to realize that deicide ends in suicide. Remember Judas. He first killed God and then destroyed himself. This is the implacable law that rules the history of this planet.
The prophetic Dostoevsky and the melancholic Gogol predicted more than a century ago that the edifice of European culture, which had been built without Christ, was bound to fall down. And the prophecies of these Slav prophets are unfolding before our eyes. The building of the European Tower of Babel took ten centuries, and it is our destiny to behold the tragic vision: lo, they have built an enormous zero! Great chaos reigns: one man does not understand another, one soul, one nation does not understand another. One man has risen over another, one empire over anothet, one nation over another, even one continent over another.
European man has come to experience a fateful vertigo. He took the superman to the top of his Tower of Babel, to be the crown of his edifice, but the superman went mad just below the top and plunged down from the tower. It fell with him, shattered by wars and revolution. Homo europaeicus has inevitably had to go mad at the end of his culture: deicide has had to become suicide.”