Tag: modern idols

Classic Science Fiction: ‘The Thing’

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The Thing From Another World - The American Society of ...

Shouldn’t’ve thawed it out, boys!

Given really bad weather yesterday, we stayed in and watched a movie: classic science fiction, The Thing, vintage 1951.

A flying saucer crashes near the North Pole, and a scientific team makes a lot of not-so-wise decisions that result in a Thing From Another World (James Arness, pre-Gunsmoke) getting loose and killing people. It’s a monster vegetable, just about impossible to kill. Like, what do you get if you cross the Frankenstein monster with a turnip?

Directed by Howard Hawks, and based on a 1938 story by science fiction great John W. Campbell, The Thing crackles with suspense; but to me it’s more a great big air raid siren blasting out a warning: “Do not make an idol of Science!”

Still true today. Maybe even more so. Damn the consequences, jump right in–head-first. What could possibly go wrong?

‘Can Fools Create Wise Computers?’ (2014)

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I like to re-run this piece now and then, because so many people seem to think computers will lead them to the promised land or something.  They seem to forget that these are inanimate objects–things created by human hands.

Can Fools Create Wise Computers?

Does it stand to reason nincompoops and sinners can create perfection? Paradise? That we don’t need God… because we’ve got Neil DeGrasse Tyson?

Yeahbut, yeahbut! They’ve got chess computers that are way better than chess masters! *Sigh* It’s only a simulation, dude. The super chess computers “know” only what human chess experts have programmed them to know. But in terms of consciousness, they don’t knoiw anything at all.

‘Google Gizmo “Disables” Religious References’ (2018)

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Today’s idols, tomorrow’s junk

Actually, they only disabled references to Jesus. Only the true religion stumps Google.

Google Gizmo ‘Disables’ Religious References

Where do people think computers get their “smarts” from? Do you think a Google gizmo can “know” anything that some human programmer didn’t put in?

Sometimes we, as Christians, have to purchase goods and services from non-Christians, or even from bad people–because that’s the fallen world we live in. But God forbid we should ever turn to Google for any kind of guidance.

“Alexa, what must I do to be saved?” is a foolish question.