Can something written/edited by AI be considered the inspired word of a God ?

[RedTagAlan]

I am atheist, ex-born again Christian, and in a recent thread there appears to have been a fair bit of AI "tidying up" going on with a Christians posts.

I am making no accusations of course, nor commenting on the rights and wrongs, but it sure got me thinking about theists using AI for religious matters.

If a Vicar/Minister/Priest/Iman/ Theist etc uses AI, and considers that AI output to possibly be "inspired by God", and if AI can fake it, then, then do Theists believe their God can influence AI ?

It's a rather big can of worms when one thinks about it.

Yes, I can see it's really useful

But I do think it's often different for a minister using AI compared to other people.

For them, with God added into the mix, they need (ideally, I'm sure doesn't always happen!) to use discernment in order to encourage communion and relationship among their listeners.
Generally, this is a subtly different purpose from people using it in business who are more likely using parameters of perhaps more academic or common sense intelligence regarding AI compared to a sort of relationship of souls that Involving God might draw into the mix.

And of course a layperson also can discern guidance for relating to a customer in a spiritually considerate way if they want to.

Sorry @Parker231 I meant the above to be a response to you.

I think most responsible ministers who preach can discern what to do if they was to read AI when writing their sermons. With inspired writing you get a headline at times, but have to fill in the gaps with knowledge and research. Like social media there is good and bad that can come out of it. It depends as an adult at times how you use it. I don't preach, I do write though and I know how inspired can be.

I will write that I am surprised that this more topical topic with sermons hasn’t come up. A little while ago Youtube was littered with fake sermons using AI by l what looked to the person like a pope but it wasn’t their words. They would put slogans on it that they would never say and it didn’t look right for them. I saw one about witchcraft which I never watched by the Pope and then saw one by Mary Angelou who has gone to rest with the same slogan and knew something was wrong. My family member watched one and then started going about salts is good in the home for some people and then I did research and found it on there. I looked on the video and it said AI generated. The news was getting bizarre that didn’t seem right like 5 prayers would work and 4 is not good enough on there.

I went back to what one they said was the Pope and it was banned and I couldn’t make it the rest on there was from the Pope or done before he became Pope.
https://catholicconnect.in/news/fake-videos-in-the-name-of-pope-leo-xiv-youtube-bans-channel

Ministers at our church use AI to write sermons. It’s obvious as soon as they start to speak because the language, phraseology and ideas expressed are nothing like their usual style.

I imagine most do but some will be better than others at making it look like their own work.

Well considering the Bible has been edited and re-edited and re-interprereted and mis interpreted and argued about over time why would AI really make a difference or be regarded as wrong? AI just regurgitates everything it draws from the internet, so not right or wrong.

For a conscientious minister the difference would be that they would see iterations of the bible as inspired by God, but they could not think that of AI.

You would think that a minister, hopefully called by God, would see their source material differently from many other people.

What do you think of that, as a Churchgoer ?

If AI is regurgitating, then I don't see how it can be considered inspired.

Would it not be like passing off a CNC cut and drilled Ikea sideboard as the work of a time served cabinet maker ?

Well, this is it, it would be passing off as you said but that's always been the case with the Bible. It gets passed off, regurgitated and re invented according to who believes at the time so nothing new really. Same old.

The AI itself is not inspired, but a minister could possibly feel that God has shown them how to use it in an inspired way.

A minister of integrity, of course.

AI writes much more interesting sermons with far less emphasis on hell and damnation and with correct grammar.

Our denomination sends out weekly resources to their ministers to ‘assist’ with planning services. These are AI and are often used by our ministers in entirety with little attempt to tailor them to the congregation.

Anything which stops anyone preaching about hell and damnation is a good thing. Such talk should be banned. Religion, common sense and not being ridiculous unfortunately don’t appear in the same sentence!

I like many of former archbishop Rowan Williams' ideas, and his views on hell and damnation are no exception.

I just googled this and feel very aligned with the AI result on his thoughts.

He basically sees hell as 'Stuck with myself forever.'

The use of AI is growing on me.
I'm not a minister writing a sermon though.

Hell and damnation are just concepts to try and force people to behave a certain way. A control mechanism. Why don’t people just think and apply common sense.

Yes, but I suppose it's true, for me anyway, that if I had to live with myself forever it wouldn't be great.
I think it makes more sense than fire and brimstone.

I realise, though, I was quite close to going off the subject in my last post and kind of twisted it round to try not to.

Not sure I’m reading your response correctly but you’re ok with the control concept of having to behave or hell and damnation will be your punishment?

You can decide what you want to believe but why are you so vocal if others choose to believe in something different. Somebody could turn around and say it is you that needs to do what you suggested if you think all what you see in this world is the limit of it.. I think it is best if people agree to disagree in peace and live your life.

Moving on-
A lot of Church's are aware of this subject if you google it on Google. The Church of England does webnairs for this topic AI and the church.

I’ll always be vocal when I see misinformation whether that be religion, racism, politics, sexism etc

Your may consider some of this religion to be misinformation-but you yourself do not know that for sure that it is. You do not know if hell does not exist. I think some scientists do not rule out the possibility of this existing. What you think is not facts here, it is your opinion and that does not make it misinformation.

No!
This is another reason why Rowan Williams is my favourite theologian.

I've just used AI to remind myself of his thoughts on this, so googled 'Does Rowan Williams believe only Christians go to heaven?'

He doesn't, and that search gives brief reasons why.

There are Christians who believe this and can explain it without being heretic.

From an evangelical point of view see Rob Bell 'Love Wins.'

Again, I googled 'Does Rob Bell believe everyone goes to heaven?'

You can believe AI when it finds examples of prominent Christian people who don't believe in God's infliction of eternal agony on non believers.

An interesting viewpoint. Not one as an atheist that I agree with as I don’t believe heaven exists anymore than hell. Both horrible concepts to put in front of people. I’m not looking for a religious person to judge my performance - it’s not an end of term report. If your behaviour is good enough you go to heaven, if not it’s hell for you.

The second half of your paragraph does apply to some Christians' beliefs, but as I say, I don't subscribe to that. In fact I agree with you.

I'd like to qualify that a bit though, as I don't believe everyone can run around with impunity behaving as they wish with no consequences, so I do believe in justice where the discipline for wrong doing is proportionate to the misdeed. This will NOT (in my view) ever be eternal damnation.

On two points I don't agree with you:

I do believe in heaven, and I don't believe it's horrible.

It really depends on what someone might feel that heaven is. Theoretically speaking for some people of course.

I think it's love and love never dies, but everything else does.

The only thing I don't like about saying that, is that it sounds trite due to the overuse of the word and phrase, but I can't think of better language to express it.

Totally agree with the behaviour point - this is why we have a legal system. If I break a law, the legal system will hand out the relevant punishment - nothing to do with any religion.
When I die my DH and DC’s will know my love for them will never end because I tell them every day I love them. It’s nothing to do with a heaven.

I think we do actually have common ground in the nature of love; it does live on, and for me anyway, I don't think it matters exactly how we think it lives on.

Apart from that, of course love defies exact parameters and definitions, and I think it's very interesting to get other people's ideas which can reinforce, modify or, (more usually), add to my own.

Talking about modifying views, I have to say that I feel more positive about AI generated help than when I first contributed to this thread.

I've used it to quickly look up and verify aspects of beliefs of Williams and Bell which would have taken me ages trawling through books.