​Human artificial intelligence

By Ed Raymond

If something can go terribly wrong, it will happen on planet Earth

Somewhere in the universe, there may be a planet created by a Perfect God where there are no viruses, all babies are born at immaculate conceptions and live to be 100, no divorces, everybody marries for life at age 20, there are no miscarriages or babies born with both sets of genitals, where bodies have no physical or mental defects, the climate is perfect for all forms of created life, there are only two genders to regulate, where all sex is programmed by the Perfect God to fit the nutritional needs of all plant, animal and human life on His planet, where there is no homosexuality in animals or humans, where there is no need for healthcare, no need for political parties and every human is treated equally by the Perfect God. I could go on, but we all know it is not another planet Earth.

Isaac Asimov, perhaps the most prolific writer in history, wrote and edited over 500 books on a fantastic number of topics, including politics, government, biology, chemistry and religion. After his study of the Bible, he made this statement: “Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.”

He published “Asimov’s Guide to the Bible” in 1969 and another 1,300-page edition in 1981, which also had maps, tables and guides for all the books of the Bible in order. He explained the history of each one and described the political influences of all. That is evidence he “properly” read it!

It appears Pope Leo has a flooded altar and pulpit

Among the 267 popes who have led the Roman Catholic Church, there have likely been gay men, probably a transgender man or two, fascists, several democrats, sons of popes, dozens of authoritarians and a small pod of liberals. Over two thousand years, the Vatican has named three Irish saints named Fiacre because of variable talents.

The most famous saint among popes was Fiacre of Breuil, who lived from 600 to 670 A.D. He was a priest, abbot, hermit and gardener. But his most famous saintly activity was the laying on of hands that cured hard-working adults of painful hemorrhoids. At age 28, he left Ireland for France where he wanted to live an isolated life of solitude while operating a hermitage. He raised vegetables and herbs in a huge garden and cared for travelers in a hospice. He led a life of great mortification, prayer, fasting and vigils. But his laying on of hands created miraculous cures for diseases — especially hemorrhoids — and quickly brought him to the attention of church authorities.

With all of the problems of running one of the world’s largest religions, one must assume hemorrhoids would be running rampant with almost all the popes over the last 1,400 years. One may assume Saint Fiacre is on the list of saviors. He is the patron saint of gardeners and people with hemorrhoids.

After his death, his monastery still attracted pilgrims with hemorrhoids and urological problems. Today, it is said he even cures syphilis with a visit to his monastery.

A medieval Saint Apollonia was selected because she treated toothaches at the other end. The Romans had pulled one of her teeth each time she refused to renounce Jesus Christ. They pulled them all because she refused 32 times.

In the same period, Saint Genevive reached the exalted level because she protected stored grain from rats and mice by blessing and feeding cats. Has Pope Leo visited France and the Meaux Cathedral monastery yet? This brings to mind Johnny Cash’s “When the Saints Go Marching In!”:

“Some say this world of trouble/ Is the only one we need

But I’m waiting for that morning/ When the new world is revealed”

Here’s just some of the trouble waiting for Pope Leo of Chicago

There is no doubt that some bishops and cardinals in the Vatican have always wanted to jerk the church back to the Middle Ages, burn heretics on busy street corners, speak only Latin from the altar and pulpit, shut up all women in the church and require dresses and head coverings and require all mass servers to be male. The latest effort was founded in Switzerland in 1970 and is called the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) It presently claims to have a half million religious revolutionists in France, Argentina, the U.S. and other countries served by 1,500 priests and seminarians in training. It also claims “a large base of operations” in Kansas. It recently ordained four right-wing bishops, which is against canon rules and calls for excommunication. Only the pope can ordain bishops.

Pope Leo has responded: “Do not do this, let us try to live in communion within the church.” (On July 2, Leo just excommunicated all members.)

There are a few conservative and wealthy Catholics in the Divided States of America who support the radical SSPX. Some members have expressed the “Big Lie” that only 300,000 Jews were killed in the Holocaust.

Pope Francis began to accept and serve the LBGTQUIA+ community before he died. Pope Leo has picked up the torch. The Vatican still has the policy that homosexuals are “intrinsically disordered.” About a decade ago, the Catholic bishops in Germany threatened to establish a separate church if the Vatican refused to accept the LBGTQUIA+ community into the church. Pope Leo must make several decisions.

On top of these major problems with church philosophy and issues, the Roman Catholic Church in the DSA and Europe is in a state of decline. More than 60% of Divided States of America dioceses have been forced to consolidate churches because of shifting demographics, severe shortages of priests, and threats of bankruptcies due to sexual abuse court awards.The Catholic Church is growing in Africa and Asia, but has lost 6.5 million in the DSA in the last decade. For every 100 people who join the church annually, nearly 840 leave or disaffiliate. The “nones” identify as atheists, agnostics or “nothing in particular.” Italy has lost 21% of the Catholic population while Latin America has lost 19%.

I was told years ago that to be removed from the rolls of a Catholic Church, one had to send a resignation letter. We have never sent a letter. I wonder if we are still on the rolls in Catholic churches in Minnesota, North Dakota, Washington, D.C., Virginia and North Carolina. We “disaffiliated” in 1957 after being married in Fargo’s St. Mary’s Cathedral in 1954.

A few dioceses have said their rolls have increased since the liberal Leo caused the smoke to turn white. He condemned ICE deportation tactics and shootings, mass school shootings, lack of gun control, our war in Iran while assuming moral leadership in many issues. He has also won arguments with the Lyin’ King, the worst president the U.S. has ever had who claims he is “the best president the U.S. has ever had.”

He also won an argument with Vice President JD Vance who claimed there were still “just wars (Iran).” Pope Leo declared there were no more just wars, because wars have become “mass murder” with new weapons that can kill millions of innocents in their homes. And the Vatican and Pope Leo have a huge social problem with what theologians are using a rather amusing term.

Headline: “Pope Leo chooses social justice over pelvic theology”

In his first important and landmark teaching document “Magnifica Humanities (Magnificent Humanity),” he concentrated on the effect of Artificial Intelligence (AI) because, as he told the College of Cardinals: “another industrial revolution and the developments in the field of artificial intelligence pose new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice, and labor.” But then he quickly shifted to another important subject of his document.

According to David Gibson, the author of the above headline, “Leo, like his predecessor Pope Francis, is trying to shift Catholicism away from the near fixation on “pelvic theology,” or sexual morality, that has come to define Catholicism, especially in Leo’s home country, the United States. Pope Francis called it “focusing on sins below the waist.” It has helped fuel the culture wars dominated by the Trumplican Party.

Two of the most important reasons for abortions are these economic facts: a majority of women who have abortions already have children and half of the pregnancies in the world are unplanned. There are many economic reasons for abortions. It presently costs about $320,000 to raise a child to age 18. A few abortions are caused by medical problems discovered later in the pregnancy which the fetus will not survive. We must remember that one fetus out of 25 will develop serious health problems and four of the 25 will be aborted or miscarry.

Perhaps this simple statement by a lawyer in testimony about a bill requiring a three-day waiting period for an abortion rings true: “We don’t have to think abortion is a good or desirable thing to believe that it is a matter for each individual to make the decision if it is the right thing for them. We have to presume that women will think long and carefully about such an important decision.”

There is a lifetime of difference between a fetus and a baby

A fetus is totally dependent upon its host until it takes that first breath on its own and is suddenly a crying baby. Pro-life and anti-abortion media people use terms that are used in the religious and political wars: “unborn baby,” “personhood,” “we are killing our children” and “life begins at conception.” Of course it does. So does death before being born. Out of 25 pregnancies five do not survive.

In a recent article, three abortion providers in Bloomington, Moorhead, and Duluth describe what they see every working day: “The patients we serve aren’t statistics. They move mountains in their own lives to get to us. They drive for hours. They take time off from work or miss a paycheck. They find someone to watch their kids or borrow money to pay for gas. We see how they arrive carrying the weight of travel, stigma, cost, and confusion. We see their relief to be met by someone who will tell them the truth, explain their options, and treat them with respect. In Duluth about 25% of our patients come from northern Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where long distances and limited health care options make timely access to abortion care challenging.”

Surveys reveal that a majority of Americans believe abortion should be legal in all or in most cases. Republicans have spent 50 years trying to ban abortion. The use of drugs has actually increased the rate of abortion in the last two years. State bans don’t reduce abortions. They drive doctors out of rural hospitals, leave patients facing infections in emergency rooms, increase maternal mortality, and even make women in some states subject to criminal investigations for a miscarriage. If you know you are pregnant, call your life insurance agent and ask if you can insure the life of your fetus for $320,000.