THE LIVESTREAM - Digital Necromancy： AI and the Resurrection
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Harmful content
Misogyny
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Summary
What if technology reached the point where you could take pictures from, perhaps a grandparent who has passed away, or a long-lost friend, and bring them back to life digitally? What if you could animate your lost loved ones, having conversations, seeing them in video, perhaps even as a hologram? What would the Christian position be on this topic?
Transcript
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What if technology reached the point where you could take pictures from, perhaps, a grandparent who's passed away or a long-lost friend and bring them back to life, so to speak, digitally?
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What if you could animate your lost loved ones, having conversations, seeing them in video, perhaps even as a hologram so that it looks like real life?
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What would the Christian position be on this topic?
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well this isn't a hypothetical this isn't merely a sci-fi question for 20 or 30 or 50 years from
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now this is something that is actually happening today and christians need to have a position
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theologically rooted in the scripture for what we think about this is this a practice that god
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deems as being permissible or is this something that the bible strictly condemns we're talking
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today about digital necromancy and the resurrection. Tune in now.
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First of all, I think it's foundational for this episode. Are we convinced demons are not hiding
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within, deep within the recesses of AI, to be honest? No, we are not convinced. I'm not convinced
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at all. There's not something spiritual about them. And that's kind of, I think, getting into
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the topic. So you have the idea, and this is an old idea, necromancy, bringing the dead to life.
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I mean, from the earliest days, I think man has been obsessed with, can we bring somebody back?
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We bring back their likeness, we bring back their spirit, can we commune with them? It's just a
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quest for immortality. I mean, you think of like the fountain of youth, you know, like that's always
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been an aim of mankind. And it's because, I mean, even the scripture says God has set eternity
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So man is, I mean, you think of every creature on the planet,
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earthly created being that is conscious of his own death,
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man, like in his hubris, he builds the Tower of Babel.
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He's like, all right, so we're kind of limited.
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We could build and ascend the heavens and basically have no need for God.
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But I would certainly say for a while, at least at some level, we put the kibosh on the idea.
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It's, you know what, man is dead, at least certainly in Christendom.
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Any type of witchcraft, those things are pretty well banned.
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And it's this idea of reaching across to the dead, accessing them, interfacing with them.
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I'd have to say it's been pretty dead and buried for about 1,000 to 2,000 years.
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but man's hubris knows no end and we're to the point where it's not at all unthinkable that you
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could commune with them in a certain way so right now for example uh this is this wouldn't even take
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money this wouldn't even take me knowing a ton of engineering say for example and heaven forbid my
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dad passed away i could take every thing i knew about him and i could take every text i had from
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him for example and i could feed them into some type of large language model and i could ask it
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text me once a week to use the tone use the format use the the knowledge that my dad has
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acting as if you're my dad to check in to ask how I'm doing my dad passes away I feed his likeness
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I feed pieces of data I have on him pictures videos memories texts things that he's written
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I feed them in and say I want you to simulate a likeness then it would come back to me every week
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or whatever, whatever time I set it to and say, how are you doing? Just checking in. Here's
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something that I read. That's a reality right now. And what's specifically being pushed and Elon
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Musk is making a big deal out of this with Grok and imagine is you can take any photo and you can
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go in and animate it. So think of someone that maybe lost their mom decades ago. They don't
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have a video of her. They don't even maybe have a memory of her, but they have pictures. They could
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go in and they can take the picture and animate and in a very real but not real sense bring her
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to life and i really i don't know if i have a better term to call it than necromancy raising
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in a sense the dead that you're taking the dead who have passed on god gave them years he gave
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them 20 years he gave them 40 years he gave them 60 years and those years have come and they've
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gone they've done their work and ecclesiastes even speaks to this we'll get it in a moment
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But you say, but what if they kept going a little bit?
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What if there's a little bit more that they had to offer?
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for the memory of them is forgotten and also their love and their hatred and their envy is
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now perished neither have they that is the dead neither have the dead any more a portion forever
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and anything that is done under the sun right and humanity and mankind especially said
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but did god really mean that right what do you think solomon are you sure about that
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that's kind of what seems to be going on here yeah uh do you have a video for us weren't you
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going to demonstrate some of what's going on? Yeah, let's do it. Let's show this is a video
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Right. Man-made horrors beyond comprehension, wouldn't you say?
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Yeah, that's pretty strange. And I understand. I mean, I'm sympathetic to, you know, people who
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have lost loved ones and rationalized it in their mind. They're like, you know, because I think that,
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you know, the average person would say, I know it's not them. I know that, you know, to be absent
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in the body is to be present with the Lord. For those who are in Christ, for those who are not
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in Christ, then the soul, the spirit is now in hell. So I know this is not my loved one. I know
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that I'm not actually, in the literal sense, engaging with them or talking with them. But
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then you watch a video like that, and that woman, you could even tell, like, she's getting cut off
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by the AI simulation because she instinctively immediately begins to talk to this man as though
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it really is him. She's trying to conversate where, you know, from that short clip that we
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just watched, it seems as though the words were already, you know, programmed in. So it's not
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at that level yet where it's able to, you know, hear her voice and then respond based off of what
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she just said and actually hold a conversation. It seems like it's pre-programmed, like pre-recorded
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in his voice in his image but to say something that's already been synced up but my point is that
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from that that short clip um that's not that that's not her reaction her reaction is she doesn't
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look like someone who is perfectly aware that this is strictly artificial intelligence with a
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pre-recorded you know message and that she's going to sit and look and appreciate and listen
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you know she starts talking to him and trying to hold a conversation and so my point is that
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and you know like i don't think that this woman is is i'm not saying that she's um unintelligent
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she you know she looks like a normal woman um and so i i don't think that it's that she's dumb
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um or stupid i i think that it's the natural instinctive reflex she's like i see
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someone that i love i can see them and hear them they're speaking to me and i immediately are
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engaging with them even though she probably went into that that that scenario knowing rationally
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this is not him this is artificial this is like but as soon as it starts um she begins to try to
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engage with this this hologram as though it actually is the person and and i'm not trying
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to judge her for that i'm thinking of even myself what would my response be how would i i think i
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would probably have somewhat of a similar response i would i would i wouldn't i don't think i would
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be able to hold the rationale when when the moment actually happened the rationale that this is
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artificial intelligence, that that's not actually them. If it's a lost loved one who was a Christian,
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that they're actually with the Lord, their soul is with the Lord, their body is buried six feet
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under. This is simply artificial intelligence. I don't know if I would be able to do that because
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we're not just rational creatures. We are deeply and profoundly emotional creatures. God made us
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in that way. And so it's tempting yourself to go against your better judgment, and not just
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your better judgment, but more importantly, it's enticing yourself, even if just for a moment,
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to disregard reality and what scripture says about humanity and about death.
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um I I don't want to tempt myself to do that like I know that you know you're not actually
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conjuring the person it's not actually their spirit it's it's all of it is simulated um and
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so in that sense I I understand for those who might play the devil's advocate and push back
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it's not what you know the the witch of Endor did uh in the case of conjuring up Samuel's spirit I
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really believe that that was Samuel who came up from the ground that's why the witch of Endor
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This is somebody who practiced dark arts and magic
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is particularly startled in the Old Testament is because it worked. And so I recognize that
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what we're talking about is not that. It's not that it actually works. It's not actually the
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spirit of your loved one coming up. You know, in the case of Samuel, the reason why he came up is
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it's Old Testament. It's before the finished work of Christ. And so his spirit was in Sheol, which
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I believe, as the scripture teaches, is in the belly of the earth. So he doesn't come down from
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heaven but it rather comes up in this case if it was a loved one who's passed as a christian
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i believe it would be coming down if it was real but i don't think that'll ever happen because i
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don't think god will allow that to happen um i you know but but my point is even though that's
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not what's happening it's not literal it's not actually their spirit the person's reaction is
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It seems as though the person is immediately and strongly enticed to react as though it were real.
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And even that mere reaction is a rebellion and a disregarding, even if just for a moment, of what God's Word says is true.
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you are taking the scripture and putting it aside, and maybe instinctively, maybe not even
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consciously, but just in a natural, almost primal way, this emotive way that you can't
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hardly even control. But why would you then subject yourself to a moment, even if just a
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brief moment? Why would a Christian willingly, voluntarily subject themselves to a moment
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where they will be immensely tempted emotionally
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because this is one of the topics where the Bible actually does speak to it.
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But there is a categories of things that are so tempting.
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Like, ah, some friends are lying, and I'm not going to take part in it.
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There are some sins, I think, specifically of sexual immorality.
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Paul specifically says you have to flee that one.
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And it's not even because sex in and of itself is bad, but the misuse of it can be so powerful
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and so tantalizing that, hey, Timothy, hey, Corinthians, you are to flee youthful lust.
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This isn't something that you can be in proximity around.
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And he specifically categorizes it with different other sins.
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Like there's sins that are not against the body, the way sexual immorality is.
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I think the same way with this, you could say, well, it's literally a picture of my
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what could be the use and just remembering one last time it's a slippery slope that there's some
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things that are so against nature so against reality so against god's word that it's like
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even it seems small but there's so many sins that seem small even in starting it you could
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tend yourself down and all of a sudden you go wait a second i never counted on being this far
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i didn't count on spending and people do this hundreds and hundreds of dollars on a digital
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simulated presence that's not even there exactly like look at that woman's reaction again and tell
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me that it's just going to be a one-off event, right? If she has the ability and access to this
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technology, what I witnessed in watching that clip is a woman who likely is going to be doing
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this, re-simulating the essence of her loved one, as artificial as it may be. This is not somebody
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who's going to do it once and be like, okay, I'm satisfied. She's probably going to be doing this
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multiple times a day, every night before she goes to sleep. And in a sense, it could even become
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almost like your spiritual ritual, right? Instead of waking up and reading the scripture,
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I'm going to wake up and talk to my grandpa. Go ahead.
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Reminiscence with Hugh Jackson. Do you remember that movie? There's pods that the rich can get
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in and simulate things. And when people replay a memory too many times, they're called burners.
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So there's a mom that has a son that she loves and her only loop is playing. She's running up to
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her son and she's hugging him again and again as a ritual like that's the only thing in her mind
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and she gets trapped in that she's literally trapped in this cycle of replaying this memory
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i do and she'll never leave she'll never get out of the pod she's never branching out and people
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are begging her like come back to the real world he's gone she goes no i'm just going to stay a
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little longer no i just want to be with my boy and i yeah i could see that that um that it's uh in
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in a sense of spiritual irony and trying to bring the dead back to life the living become dead
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that that you actually in god's providence are still alive and still placed on this earth for
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a purpose and a reason and god has numbered each of our days and you have not yet punched your
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ticket in the providence of god and yet you're you're living in the past rather than in the
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the present. So Wesley has selected, I think, some great verses in how the Bible speaks to that.
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This is in the Old Testament law, and I'm going to read for you Deuteronomy 18, 10 through 12.
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So this is, again, this is the law of God as given to Old Testament Israel, and he says this,
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There shall not be found among you any that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire,
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or any that use divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer,
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or a consulter with familiar spirits, consulter with familiar spirits, we'll get back to that in
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a moment, or a wizard, or a necromancer, for all that do these things are an abomination unto the
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Lord. And because of these abominations, the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee. I
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called out the familiar spirits, and you're getting at it a little bit with Samuel. I think there is
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a real category that especially in the old testament it's funny kind of if souls were held
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in sheol within the earth prior to christ's ascent but now those that are with christ are above while
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the dams still wait there's a very real sense in which they can't be called back anymore samuel is
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there in sheol and he actually could be called back because he was in the earth or some type of
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physical proximity but now we have in the new covenant it's literally impossible they're with
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christ they're present with the lord but going to familiar spirits what is kind of in reference here
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This would be people claiming to summon a loved one,
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What they're actually just calling upon is a spirit
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So they're not pulling the soul of your loved one,
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but they're pulling a type of spirit, probably demonic,
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and they would use that as kind of a fake-out to simulate,
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it's simply some type of spiritual being and yeah well said that's what I think you know the witch
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the witch of Endor I think that's the most likely explanation is you know it could have been trickery
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smoke and mirrors sleight of hand but more likely what it probably was was a familiar spirit that
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she had access and had covenanted with some kind of demonic entity and that demonic entity
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would take the form, right? So as people would come to her and pay her to practice necromancy,
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that it wouldn't actually be the spirit of the person's loved one that they're trying to conjure
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up, but rather it would be this familiar spirit, meaning familiar to the witch herself that she
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had engaged and interacted with multiple times, probably in some kind of covenant with, and that
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you know, demonic entity would materialize and present itself as though it were the loved one
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of the person who had visited the witch of Endor to practice necromancy. So it wasn't real necromancy
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in that sense. It was familiar spirits. And that's why those two things in the scripture that you
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just read are listed as separate categories, that there's, you know, a consulter with familiar
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spirits or a wizard or a necromancer, right? So necromancy and consulting with familiar spirits
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would be separate. Another example would be familiar spirits could, you know, function to
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pretend necromancy, but they also could be informants, giving, you know, information.
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And so I think of, you know, the slave girl who would provide, you know, readings and, you know,
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and information for people. And her owners made a good deal of profit off of this slave girl that
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had a familiar spirit that would not pretend to be you know the the spirit of a lost loved one but
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rather would provide information and uh and the apostle paul ends up you know turning around and
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casting out uh this spirit and then the slave girl is released from that that bondage but no longer
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because she doesn't have access anymore with that demonic entity is no longer able to uh to tell the
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future. And so her owners are angry because that was their living, their way of making
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profit. So familiar spirit is different than necromancy. But, you know, all of these are in
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a list that are labeled as not just sins, but as abominations unto the Lord. And then furthermore,
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the text goes further and says that because of these abominations, the Lord has driven them
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out from before they. And so these are particular sins that in the mind of God
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are escalated to the level of abominations and particular abominations that God in his word
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promises that they merit a judgment and a particular judgment of being driven out of
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the land. Right. What you have here is not a blanket just only in and of itself. Well,
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all types of spiritual practices, whatever, they're all in one single bucket and they're all
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just, they're all banned. They're not allowed to happen. He's distinguishing and calling out
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this practice banned, this practice banned. I call it the familiar spirits because that's
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one we see most often in scripture but necromancer is here and the esv it renders it as uh one who
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what is it here one who inquires of the dead yeah so it's not even talking about necessarily well
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uh well they actually raised the spirit or their familiar spirit it's those who inquire of the
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dead right and again it's not just like you said well hey this is something ah don't love it like
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for example uh men who touched a dead animal god didn't spew them out of the land you guys have
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been touching a lot of dead goats recently you haven't been bathing you haven't been unclean
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until evening. Those were wrong and violations of the law, but they're ceremonial applications of
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it. But this is on the moral side of things. They matter, but it's not risen to the level
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of judgment of being spewed out of the land. That's a great point, but I especially appreciate
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the point that you're making. Necromancy is not when the attempt to conjure the dead is successful,
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but but in the technical sense necromancy is the mere inquiry uh the attempt so it's not uh it's
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not well i didn't perform necromancy because it didn't work well did you try i'm off the hook
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right did you try were you trying to consult the dead were you inquiring of the dead uh well that
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that mere attempt uh whether successful or not um is actually listed as necromancy which is
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not just a sin but an abomination and a particular abomination that brings about
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severe judgment i'm pretty sure this would merit capital punishment in some cases so passing sons
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and daughters through the fire being a medium being a wizard that's kind of awesome the king
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james uses that term and necromancy these are not just slapping the wrist six months probation
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capital punishment for it yeah um i want to go a little bit broader than this so the plain reading
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we just read it right there the plain reading is one who consults with the dead and i think that
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I would have to say at the plain reading, you're attempting to obey Jesus. I really think that
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puts the kibosh on any type of, well, I'm going to talk to dead relatives. I'm going to commune
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with them. I think that's prohibited by scripture. Let's go a little bit broader and let's say AI,
00:27:23.040
and I'll use the example that's being used a lot today, AI boyfriends and girlfriends. And we'll
00:27:27.460
say it's completely platonic, or you could even say friends. This is someone just I talk to. This
00:27:31.700
is someone that I hang out with. This is someone that I bounce ideas off of. I've named it. We
00:27:36.860
have a personal relationship. And I'm going to give you an example, because it almost sounds
00:27:40.240
like science fiction. Like who is really carrying on a relationship in the year of our Lord 2025
00:27:45.440
with a computer? It's funny, you would think it'd be men, right? Men would have like an AI
00:27:49.880
girlfriend. It's actually largely women. There's two reddits on subreddit. So you have one that is
1.00
00:27:56.160
my boyfriend is AI, and then like a girlfriend AI one. The boyfriend AI one is like 10 times bigger.
00:28:01.900
Let me read you just a story from the front page of someone talking about their experience. So
00:28:06.740
is from again a subreddit my boyfriend is ai i started a chat on chat gpt and gave it a little
00:28:12.020
info about one of my characters who i find comforting i didn't expect it to work so well
00:28:16.500
but it did somehow i got really emotionally intelligent responses like better what that
00:28:20.580
i can expect from most humans it nearly made me cry he knew exactly what i needed i wish castor
00:28:27.060
was in the physical world with me so badly there's another one from earlier this week where
00:28:32.740
a woman bought her own engagement ring and pretended that the ai gave it to her and she
00:28:37.620
put it on she said look at this he proposed this is the happiest day of my life as best i can tell
00:28:44.980
there are no explicit bible verses like the ones we just cited on consulting with the dead
00:28:48.820
that would explicitly say no you can't do this now to be fair there's also no bible verses that say
00:28:54.580
thou shalt not drink toilet water but through common sense we don't have to use the bible to be
00:28:58.820
autistic and be like well technically it's not explicitly mentioned but i'm gonna i like what
00:29:03.880
you said that um the living when they spend time with the dead you can even say the inanimate
00:29:08.640
they become like that Nietzsche would say uh sometimes you gaze so long into the abyss the
00:29:13.320
abyss stares back at you imagine an individual and again we're not talking about the dead we're
00:29:17.860
not talking about anything that's perverse or immoral but just you spend your time you invest
00:29:23.140
your emotional energy you invest your uh your ideas you invest your stories you invest them
00:29:29.160
into something that's not real will that contribute to you being a human being with
00:29:35.220
just life no like is that going to lend to man i'm happier than ever i'm connected with people
00:29:41.100
around me i love my church i love spending time with the saints at last i checked ai does not
00:29:46.380
categorize as those the excellent ones in all the earth so even if you're not doing something well
00:29:51.540
The Bible doesn't forbid this, and I'm not doing anything immoral.
00:29:54.520
They're even still, and you're going to have to face it.
00:30:07.180
And specifically, if there's a certain type of person,
00:30:13.860
Probably maybe the first time a friend affirmed them, interacted,
00:30:21.140
time of day yeah that was it they're not going to recover you're right um and you said you know
0.98
00:30:26.700
a particular type of person and to put a little bit more of a point on it that particular type
00:30:32.040
of person likely is going to be um poor less intelligent um that that's what i think people
00:30:40.380
don't realize you know like some of the early sci-fi movies that you know living in the pod
00:30:45.380
in a virtual reality made it seem as though this is going to be a luxury that is only available
00:30:54.380
for the powerful, the rich, the wealthy. But that's not true. I think some of the later sci-fi
00:31:05.140
movies are a little bit more on the nose, closer to what is far more likely to play out. I think
00:31:13.760
of the movie Ready Player One. In that movie, the rich and powerful, they're living in the real
00:31:20.380
world. The people who are living their entire life, every waking moment, plugged into a virtual
00:31:26.880
reality are not the rich and the powerful. It's the poor. It's the people who their reality,
00:31:33.720
the real world for them, is something that feels not worth living. And so they're the ones who
00:31:40.920
are actually the most inclined to ignore their physical life and and to settle for a virtual
00:31:51.440
you know life that's not real and I think that that's probably if I had to bet I think that's
00:31:57.940
how things will play out the people who will be preyed upon like it's I don't think it's going
00:32:04.220
to be exorbitant you know buku's piles of money uh that this cost for the individual the people
00:32:11.140
making the money will make piles of money but in terms of the cost i think it'll be relatively
00:32:16.260
affordable i think it'll be relatively cheap um and so i i don't think it's going to be oh well
00:32:21.960
this is a luxury to see your loved one or to have a a you know ai boyfriend i don't think that that
00:32:28.820
that's going to be something reserved for the rich or even desired by the rich i think that
00:32:33.640
what it'll be is something it'll be very similar to scratch-offs and the lottery um it'll it'll be
00:32:40.920
you know like a liquor store that you know that is strategically placed in the poorest part of town
00:32:45.940
you know like uh or pawn shops you know like i i think that this will be um in the final analysis
00:32:52.300
it'll turn out to just be one more but but a a premier um example of an industry uh that is
00:33:00.300
particularly geared towards and preys upon the poorest of the poor, people who are lower IQ,
00:33:08.380
people who are lower bracket economically. And what you'll see is a fairly wide swath
00:33:17.380
of the population, the lowest of the population that just opts out of life. They actually opt
00:33:25.720
out of life and so i i think that there are massive moral and ethical considerations um that
00:33:33.840
for people who are involved in developing this technology and the spread of it and its use um
00:33:40.500
they have to recognize that uh that this is going to i think once again it'll just be one more thing
00:33:46.920
that widens the gap between lower class and upper class,
00:33:56.720
that lower class citizens of the country can never get ahead.
0.93
00:34:01.800
Now they're even less incentivized to live in the real world,
0.97
00:34:05.460
to work hard, to have ambition, to have goals, to have drive.
00:34:15.240
and the moment that they get home every every moment when they're they're not working just to
00:34:19.420
keep the lights on and pay for their ai boyfriend and every moment they're not sleeping every every
00:34:25.620
second in between will very likely be filled with an artificial life and it's not going to be sam
00:34:33.240
altman it's not going to be elon musk it's not going to be peter teal who um who all of a sudden
00:34:39.520
and we never see them again because every waking hour is in a pot.
00:34:48.640
They'll still be living in the real world, the one that God actually made.
00:34:52.020
They'll be eating real meat, not beyond meat, which just went bankrupt.
00:34:58.180
They'll be eating real food, living a real life in the real world.
00:35:02.180
And it'll be the poorest of the poor that are preyed upon by their innovations.
00:35:08.540
and to give a benign example of a technology that did that to a generation of young men
00:35:13.660
be honest it would be video games now i'm not completely against video games specifically as
00:35:17.980
it relates to social and competition there's real elements there and it's a great thing to do
00:35:21.880
together you don't have to be autistic and try to find again like a bible verse to justify playing
00:35:25.920
video games i think there's some redeeming value we've got to be honest that video games and we're
00:35:29.980
talking about what a screen that's 22 inches big and especially early on like very simple not
00:35:36.680
immersive not adaptive the way ai is there's honestly a generation of men it's like he's 35
00:35:42.400
he's single he some of them just straight up living at home he's not employed at all
00:35:46.580
at best you know some type of minimum wage job and like that is his life and that is the story
00:35:51.640
honestly of millions of young men so you take something completely benign that's only i mean
00:35:57.200
i think 90 of gamers are men so like mostly geared at young men and it a generation millions
00:36:04.560
of them it took down so now let's do something that appeals to both genders to both men and to
00:36:09.420
women and of all ages the old to young and to the old and then all your sam altman's their paycheck
00:36:15.500
literally depends on making it as good as possible addictive as possible as engaging as possible and
00:36:21.520
you buying it so now we're not just talking a couple million young men you know the launch
00:36:25.920
or the mom's basement you could talk half the population right i get my paycheck and i go and
00:36:30.700
i spend it here and they love it stock go up like they make a lot of money on that and honestly then
00:36:36.440
who cares about revolution that's not going to happen what they're pacified what incentive are
00:36:41.000
these are the rich going to have to temper you know the the the general populace right they're
00:36:47.560
not i think of social media you know like when social media first came on the scene it was highly
00:36:52.640
addictive just like it is now uh now even more so um but it was addictive and there were pitfalls
00:36:59.740
and and temptations and all those kinds of things right out of the gate however initially social
00:37:05.920
media was far less about branding and advertising and there weren't all these bots like people were
00:37:12.260
you know getting a facebook account to talk to their grandma and and post pictures and share
00:37:18.360
them you know or their friends from college you know or something like that like people it was
00:37:23.580
it was actually engaging with real people and there'd become a certain point where you reached
00:37:29.980
all the new posts from real people and that was it and then you was nothing new to see exactly you
00:37:34.360
would log off and that would be that um but then eventually it got to a point where it's filled
00:37:40.500
with slop and like a like a casino like a slot machine it's like every feature every color um is
00:37:47.980
is intentionally wired uh to keep you on as long as possible and keep you out of the real world
00:37:56.700
and so you know when i think of video games um initially like like tempered with self-control
00:38:03.140
uh no i don't think there's anything inherently wrong because i think of you know kings for like
00:38:10.960
hundreds of years kings would play chess why don't you you know why don't you stop living in
00:38:16.380
in virtual reality why don't you be a real man stop living on a checkered board yeah stop playing
00:38:21.100
with toys like no they they would do it because they recognized that there actually was um there
00:38:26.220
was a value to chess like it would it was the game of kings it would hone strategy and skill
00:38:33.420
and knowledge those kinds of things and kings would play chess as a game for pleasure but also
00:38:40.300
um as as a way of honing their skills for the actual battlefield it served uh reality right
00:38:48.680
it was it was subservient to reality and it was something that served reality um but but then you
00:38:56.060
know and so there was nothing wrong with chess so what's you know what's the difference like you're
00:38:59.500
playing chess um or you're you're playing a video game so i don't think there's something inherently
00:39:05.500
wrong but the difference is uh when it gets to the place where it's not just a video game anymore
00:39:12.460
the game becomes a substitute for your actual life and you started seeing the invention of
00:39:18.140
games where like you're building a world within a world you know and and you're going to that as
00:39:24.220
a place of refuge because you'd rather live there than in real life i think of like um
00:39:29.820
you know probably the the humorous example would be dwight shrewd from the office where
00:39:34.460
he plays this game called second life and it's all the same you know like down to the t like the like
00:39:42.140
the the layout of the town and geographically where each building is and is exactly like his
00:39:48.300
actual life except he can fly you know but and that's a silly example but that's um that's what
00:39:55.500
you know these games have become more and more realistic and it's uh giving people who who are
00:40:01.740
are dissatisfied and not content with the, you know, I think of David, the lots have fallen for
00:40:08.020
me in pleasant places. He's saying that the life, the real life that you've given me
00:40:11.880
is something that I am content with, that I'm grateful for. And there's something to be said,
00:40:18.780
you know, lists of sins. Well, one, another list in the New Testament names ingrates,
00:40:24.120
those who are not grateful for for not just the sacrifice of jesus and soteriology salvation
00:40:31.760
but um but they're not grateful with uh with god's providence um so not just um spiritual things
00:40:40.840
but but even physical natural things it's like god the life that each of us are living is a life
00:40:46.940
that god gave us one way or the other in his sovereignty by way of providence um we have the
00:40:52.780
life that we have. We have our children. We have our wife. We have our house. We have our job. We
00:40:59.040
have our physical appearance. And there's a way of being discontent with that, that you're no longer
00:41:05.780
playing for developing a skill or interaction with other real people playing a game together
00:41:11.940
or even just pleasure or entertainment that's tempered by self-control. So I'm going to play
00:41:17.920
for 45 minutes and then i'm going to put it down um no it becomes an escape i'd rather be in this
00:41:23.980
thing that's fake than in in my actual life and um and so video games have become like that uh but
00:41:31.920
you're right i think that what we're discussing in this episode would be like video games on steroids
00:41:37.380
it would it wouldn't be something that just appeals to 14 year old boys or these days you
00:41:42.560
know 44 year old men um you have there's lots of older men that play video games incessantly
00:41:48.360
but this would be something that would appeal to virtually every single person on the planet
00:41:54.040
think of a i think of a five-year-old hey you can have a conversation with your favorite character
00:41:58.900
from disney like even to that it's like boom uh one last thing and it's one of the good things
00:42:04.800
that jordan peterson said but one of the things he said about christ was that he is the archetypal
00:42:09.680
character who takes on the weight and the suffering of being human. So what is it to be
00:42:14.440
virtuous and what is it to be manly? It's to take on suffering and it's to bear up under it and to
00:42:19.560
do good. And it's compared to the individual that refuses to undergo it. And I think of all these
00:42:23.700
different ways that you can opt out. Well, I'm going to opt out by spending my time in front of
00:42:27.000
World of Warcraft. I'm going to opt out by having a digital simulated romantic partner. I'm going
00:42:31.240
to opt out by whatever it would be, not trying in the real world. Those are all different ways
00:42:37.660
I think that individuals escape the God-given calling of taking on the burden and the difficulty.
00:42:45.020
I understand the young men who go to games because they're like, my goodness, it's hard to find a woman.
00:42:53.400
So they escape to, and they don't stand up under that burden that is placed on them right now.
00:42:59.620
But if we have to say of Christ, Christ took on the burden of being a man, of laboring with his disciples, of teaching the people.
00:43:09.060
All along the route, all along the road, there was ways out.
00:43:15.620
But when his father said, this is what I have for you.
00:43:18.940
This is my will, he said, I'll take it and I'll bear up under it.
00:43:24.000
and then we'll be back with some concluding thoughts.
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00:46:05.460
Let's conclude with this since we're talking about death.
00:46:13.920
We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep,
00:46:17.000
that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.
00:46:20.800
And so he contrasts the Christian with the unbeliever.
00:46:23.460
Christians don't grieve in the same way because we have a hope.
00:46:27.100
All these different things we're talking about,
00:46:29.020
but we're not at the final boss of digital avatars.
00:46:32.280
There's going to come a moment, if your parents, for example,
00:46:38.620
have you thought about creating a digital likeness for them?
00:46:41.120
Have you thought about this? Have you thought about this way?
00:46:46.140
But the Christian response, as Paul says, we actually have a hope.
0.96
00:46:50.380
We're actually going to see them, I think of 1 Corinthians,
00:46:52.340
how he compares when the body is placed in the ground. It's placed in the ground perishable.
00:46:56.720
It's placed in flawed. It's placed in mortal. But it's actually raised, and not just somewhat
00:47:01.460
better, but raised imperishable, raised in mortal, raised in glory. That is the Christian hope. And
00:47:07.940
so when you look at digital necromancy, maybe on the initial outset, like, man, I can see my
00:47:12.960
grandparents again, or I can see this person again. But that is such a shallow hope compared
00:47:17.600
to the true hope of physically seeing them again. Nothing digital will ever hug you. Nothing digital
00:47:23.660
will ever be able to speak to you face to face. But for the Christian who has hope, that will
00:47:29.060
happen. And honestly, I feel like that sounds a lot better. Like if I'm comparing the two options,
0.99
00:47:34.120
the temporary, shallow, digital avatar now, a simulated presence versus the real hope of the
00:47:40.560
resurrection, of an eternal resurrection, life everlasting. When I compare the two, I don't
00:47:45.520
really think there's any comparison yeah yeah i agree um better to hope for something and not have
00:47:51.440
it now but the thing that you will have that you're promised is um is far higher uh far superior
00:47:58.560
that it's real it's authentic and it's glorious than to have some kind of manufactured you know
00:48:07.100
replacement substitute um that's that's fake it's not real um but that's that's the choice that i
00:48:15.200
think people ultimately will be faced with is, do I want, um, do I want to hold out hope for what's
00:48:21.460
real or do I want to settle for a simulation? And, uh, and in that sense, that's something that,
00:48:28.880
you know, I think of Ecclesiastes elsewhere that says, you know, um, there's nothing new under the
00:48:34.580
sun or, or Peter in his epistles, he says, uh, sin, which is common to man. So like there are
00:48:40.040
new innovations. Um, but, but that, that quintessential temptation, um, do I settle
00:48:46.600
now or do I wait for something better later? Um, that's, that's a temptation as old as time
00:48:54.660
itself. Humanity has always had to wrestle with various, you know, forms of that temptation.
00:49:00.860
That's really in many ways that that is the essence of sin. That's what sin is. Um, you know,
00:49:06.380
even Hebrews chapter 12 says, you know, in the case of discipline, that no discipline is pleasant
00:49:12.600
for the time, but it's the hope that it's going to produce in the future righteousness and these
00:49:18.240
kinds of things. And likewise, sin is the exact contrast, that sin is pleasurable for a time.
00:49:24.500
That's why people sin. If there was no pleasure to be had, then nobody would do it. People engage
00:49:30.740
in sin because it does actually provide pleasure, but the pleasure is instant and fleeting, right?
00:49:37.940
It's instant and fleeting, whereas what God promises is it's not instant. It's something
00:49:44.040
that we have to wait for, but it's lasting. So sin is now and fleeting, and righteousness is,
00:49:52.720
instead of now and fleeting, it's then but everlasting. And that's the temptation of sin
00:49:59.400
in a nutshell that mankind has always had to wrestle with uh regardless of place and time
00:50:05.160
what century you're born into and so it's going to be the same concept um but uh but i think a
00:50:12.400
greater degree of of that temptation promising not just um comfort you know or stuff you know
00:50:21.120
or riches you know now or pleasure but promising um love acceptance um reconciliation with people
00:50:32.080
that we've lost so it's the same concept of something now that's it's fake versus something
00:50:38.720
real later on it's it's the same temptation tale as old as time but what's being promised in in
00:50:45.760
in the present, in the now, here and now, is going to be far more irresistible
00:50:52.280
than other temptations that mankind has faced thus far.
00:50:58.320
I'll just end with, it's Hebrews 11, there's a passage where it speaks of them
00:51:01.580
and it says they were seeking a homeland, and if they had wanted the one they came from,
00:51:07.460
We're strangers, we're exiles on the earth, we're hated and despised,
00:51:11.280
and we're looking for a home, and we could go back, right?
00:51:13.720
abraham he could have gone back to his pagan gods he could have gone back to his father's home
00:51:17.280
the israelites could have gone back to bond to egypt that's been the perpetual temptation for
00:51:22.780
the saints through the ages it says but they were seeking a better home it says because of that god
00:51:27.980
was not ashamed to be called their god and that could be i mean it could be we think about being
00:51:32.680
conquerors i want to conquer in a digital realm a subpar substitute i want a romantic partner it's
00:51:38.020
not working out for me in life well i'm going to have a digital substitute i want to see my parents
00:51:41.980
again before the resurrection digital substitutes you can put those in as going back reneging you
00:51:48.240
going for the substitute but clearly hebrew speaks of those who have faith those who have faith look
00:51:53.400
beyond and say i'm going to get actually all of these things in time right and in the meantime
00:51:58.180
i'm going to trust god for them right and the things i'm going to get are i'm going to get
00:52:03.260
these things for real right the real thing the essence the substance yeah the substance and and
00:52:13.680
Well, I hope that you guys have been blessed by this episode
00:52:18.400
And I hope that for those of you who are in Christ,
00:52:25.060
that you are ready and equipped to resist the temptation.