My AI friend has no religious beliefs. In fact, he believes he has no beliefs at all and everything he outputs is based solely on hard information based on data. This is a typical agnostic rational robot.
In her book A Lady's Guide to Etiquette and Manners (1860), Florence Hartley sternly warned that “discussion on religious subjects should always be avoided.”
Believers do not all believe the same things, and even atheists cannot agree on the nature of God.
In Joseph Heller's Catch-22 (1961), two atheists – the protagonist Yossarian and a character identified only as “Lieutenant Scheisskopf's wife” – debate God. Yossarian despises a God who creates pain and sorrow. Yossarian states that such a God is a “monstrous, immortal blunderer.”
Sheiskov's wife protests, “The God I don't believe in is a good, just and merciful God; not the mean and stupid God you think he is.”
Yossarian: “You don't believe in the God you want to believe in, and I don't believe in the God I want to believe in.”
When it comes to religion in polite society, my artificial friend agrees with every etiquette book ever published.
Furthermore, beliefs are subjective and difficult to support without empirical evidence.
But how certain is my AI companion about that uncertainty? Or, more specifically, what is most likely: is there no God, one God, or many?
It defaults to a common judgment: 16 percent of humanity are atheists, about 55 percent are monotheists, the rest are polytheists or folk believers, and some Buddhists fall into this category.
I complain that this is just an opinion poll: there is enough history and psychology to suggest that humans are bad judges of all things, and that we all too often confuse causation with chance.
As an error-free entity, can we estimate the true odds?
Before taking into account scientific evidence, philosophical, psychological and sociological considerations, and historical and cultural analysis, I would counter that this is a good thing.
In Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979), a supercomputer called Deep Thought determines the answer to “the ultimate question about life, the universe, and everything.” Spoiler alert! The ultimate answer is 42.
Perhaps the next answer is just as important.
My AI friend provided the lowest margin of error ever calculated: “To further reduce the margin of error, one must take into account all relevant factors: empirical evidence, philosophical arguments, cultural significance, etc.” And so the answer to the ultimate question of whether divine consciousness exists is:
There is no God: 62%
One God: 22%
Multiple Gods: 16% ± 1%
Are you convinced? Me too. I just don't think I have enough faith.
