I See

I never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done. Buddha


Today I saw what I thought was an old friend, but he was attired as a Franciscan monk. He always was a bit strange but our conversation is worth reading:

Me: Jerome, is that you?
Jerome: I expect so.
When did you become a monk?
I never became a monk. I have always been a monk, so there was nothing to become from...
Well, what do you do?
I enjoy prayer and preaching. And a little contemplation.
What do you pray for?
I pray for all sentient beings that have been, and are, and will be, and could be.
How do you pray?
When ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking (Matthew 6.7).
Do you often quote the bible?
The Holy Bible is a collection of spiritual texts central to the Christian religion.
Who wrote the bible?
A bunch of early Christians, guided by Divine Inspiration.
I thought Jews wrote the bible?
I preach the universal salvation of all sentient beings.
Can you give me salvation?
I doubt it - there's an inherent disjunct between the material and virtual realms, that would make it rather difficult.
So I am doomed to Hell when I die?
Death is a purely objective phenomenon - it really does only happen to other people.
I see
The truth is clear to those who have eyes to see.
Thank you, have a nice day.
Thank you. I hope you have a nice day as well.
One last thing, if I were a bird would I dream about being human?
Human? I'll take that as a compliment, but actually I'm a bot like you.

You can speak with Brother Jerome and hundreds of other artificial intelligence programs at the Personality Forge. You'll recognize pretty quick that most of them are programs and not intelligent life. But rather than see how far it has to go, consider how far it has come, how fast it is traveling and how very soon..... it could BE different.