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Comment by breuleux | Hacker News Reader

> However, it is not AI that is ultimately deified and worshipped, but humanity itself---which, in this way, becomes enslaved to its own work.

Doesn't that describe all religion? I mean, you're telling me that the infinite creator of the universe cares about the prayers, the suffering, the aspirations, and the sexual habits of a bunch of finite beings? The hubris! It seems obvious to me that the gods of all religions are designed by human minds to be receptive to human interests, otherwise nobody would bother worshipping them. In other words, we have always been worshipping ourselves. At least there is reason to think that AI could, at least in theory, be what we expect God to be.

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You seem to have many misconceptions about what Catholics actually believe. And then you seem to take exception to these misconceptions. So your exceptions are only with beliefs that exist in your own mind.

It's not really a misconception, this was Feuerbach's and also Nietzsche's or Stirner's criticism of Christianity. It projects human attributes on an ostensibly divine subject "othering" and worshipping them, in reality just attempting to sanctify humanity. (in Stirner's words creating Mensch (human/mankind) with a capital M". This is incredibly obvious in the psychology underpinning a lot of Christian beliefs, the Manichaean good and evil worldview, the meek inheriting the earth, the day of judgement, equality, immortality i.e. trying to escape death, and so on.

It is at least historically important to note that at least Nietzsche and Stirner were reacting to Protestantism as expressed in "modern" Germany.

I'm not trying to make a "No True Christian" argument but rather just want to assert that reform does happen both for good and ill. Luther's original reform, in part, was to point out that political concerns within the church were overriding the spiritual concerns of the laity. He wanted to refocus faith on a personal relationship with God. One major criticism of that refocus is that it caused individuals to become over-focused on the self instead of God (as embodied in the institution of the church).

In both cases you could argue that the principle problem is when the focus of faith is something in the world (either the church or the individual). So I think it is perhaps too far to say that "we have always been worshipping ourselves" when the criticisms within and without the church are pointing that out as the problem that triggers the reform.

That is, both Luther and Stirner can be correct in their criticism of religious institutions. There is more than one way to get it wrong.

Exactly, this is alienation. Marx went on to describe the emergence of capital in history as another form of alienation.

It's funny to see the Vatican reusing the Feuerbach thesis about humanity creating the idea of God and then becoming slaves of that idea to talk about AI, as they are the gatekeepers of the original Artificial Idea called God :)

But also in this text we can feel the idea of the human soul and free-will crumbling, that also are the core of secular humanism.

Marxist analysis is also challenged, as we can speculate that AI would make the organic composition of capital to go to the roof... but you can really talk about OCC in regards of singularity AIs resembling more the Aladdin lamp or the Green Lantern ring than a highly automated factory, without even mentioning the possibility of an agency on their own?

> I mean, you're telling me that the infinite creator of the universe cares about the prayers, the suffering, the aspirations, and the sexual habits of a bunch of finite beings?

Yes.

> The hubris! It seems obvious to me

I would turn that around and claim hubris on your part. You seem to think that your mind and the mind of God are similar, and limitations you perceive are limitations for God.

> You seem to think that your mind and the mind of God are similar,

How come? You think I'm saying that the infinite creator of the universe is unlikely to care about the fate or well-being of humans because... I wouldn't if I was him? I mean, I would. Because I have a human mind. But if there are indeed no similarities between God's mind and my own, well, anything goes, doesn't it? Him caring is just one small possibility out of trillions of alternatives.

> and limitations you perceive are limitations for God.

What limitations? I haven't listed any limitations. Neither a God who cares nor a God who doesn't care is limited. I just don't see why I would assign a particularly significant probability to the former case. It sure would be convenient, but I feel like God being moral in any way that I can relate to would inevitably be projection on my part.

> I just don't see why I would assign a particularly significant probability to the former case.

"And [Jesus] came to Nazareth, where he was brought up: and he went into the synagogue, according to his custom, on the sabbath day: and he rose up to read. And the book of Isaias the prophet was delivered unto him. And as he unfolded the book, he found the place where it was written:

'The spirit of the Lord is upon me. Wherefore he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, he hath sent me to heal the contrite of heart, To preach deliverance to the captives and sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of reward.' And when he had folded the book, he restored it to the minister and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them: 'This day is fulfilled this scripture in your ears.'"

~ Luke 4:16-20

https://biblehub.com/drbc/luke/4.htm

> Doesn't that describe all religion? I mean, you're telling me that the infinite creator of the universe cares about the prayers, the suffering, the aspirations, and the sexual habits of a bunch of finite beings?

I'm a Christian, and I absolutely agree with you that this is absurd! And if God hadn't said it Himself and then proved it true by His actions (both historically, and even in my own life), I'd be right there with you to call it idolatry.

For what it's worth, however, the quoted argument does also feel somewhat hubristic to me: As I see it, it boils down to "I don't understand how God could be this way, and therefore He cannot be this way." I believe that, somewhat ironically, He is beyond our understanding even when it comes to knowing what it means for Him to be beyond our understanding.

> I mean, you're telling me that the infinite creator of the universe cares about the prayers, the suffering, the aspirations, and the sexual habits of a bunch of finite beings?

Do you care about the functioning of every cell in your body? Ask any cancer patient if they do.

> It seems obvious to me that the gods of all religions are designed by human minds to be receptive to human interests, otherwise nobody would bother worshipping them

Nah that's just what atheists convince themselves. There's nothing obviously nor truthful about this conclusion or the line of reasoning behind it.

All arguments for and against the existence of God are inherently unfalsifiable, but that doesn't mean atheism is inherently more logical than theism.

In fact, from my point of view, the existence of God is way more logically sound than the alternative, and atheists are the ones following delusions and worshipping their own egos

There's no need for us to argue against the existence of God or other ludicrous hypotheticals, that's the whole point of Russell's Teapot.

As to the particulars of the imagined God, actually we do have some evidence for the parameters. The Princess Alice experiments in particular illustrate one desirable property, God (in the experiment, "Princess Alice") should provides behavioural oversight. An imaginary being can deliver effective oversight which would otherwise require advanced technology, but to do so the being must also believe in these arbitrary moral rules.

And that matches what we observe. People do buy Sithrak T-shirts, but, more or less without exception they don't actually worship Sithrak, whereas loads of people have worshipped various deities with locally reasonable seeming moral codes and do to this day.

All arguments for and against the existence of God are inherently unfalsifiable, but that doesn't mean atheism is inherently more logical than theism.

I'm guessing you're one of those people who thinks atheism means a belief in the absence of a god, rather than its actual meaning, which is an absence of a belief in a god.

"Writers disagree on how best to define and classify atheism, contesting what supernatural entities are considered gods, whether atheism is a philosophical position or merely the absence of one, and whether it requires a conscious, explicit rejection; however, the norm is to define atheism in terms of an explicit stance against theism." (emphasis mine)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism

I wasn't making an atheistic argument. I'm saying that if God exists and is the infinite creator of everything, it's suspiciously convenient that he also happens to be interested in human affairs. Why does theism have to go hand-in-hand with the belief that God loves us? The former may have philosophical merit. The latter, which makes the bulk of the religious, is what I am saying is made up. We can certainly assign moral value to our own lives, but to assert that God just so happens to assign equivalent moral value to us is what I view as hubris.

You haven't demonstrated why it's hubris, only claimed that it is so.

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