God's AI Quotes

“If one believes their own prophet’s supernatural claims without evidence, on what basis does one doubt the others?”
― Scott Burdick, God's AI: God's Dark Algorithm

“When a new item of technology is introduced as an option that an individual can accept or not as he chooses, it does not necessarily remain optional. In many cases the new technology changes society in such a way that people eventually find themselves forced to use it.”
― Scott Burdick, God's AI: God's Dark Algorithm

“Absolute morality is an illusion and is reflected in the ever-changing morality of the religions we create. Sometimes religions even serve to subvert our instinctual empathy and guilt by telling us that something clearly immoral is the will of God.”
― Scott Burdick, God's AI: God's Dark Algorithm

“When reality becomes too painful, truth is willingly sacrificed to blissful ignorance.”
― Scott Burdick, God's AI: God's Dark Algorithm

“A demon nearly as powerful as God tricked Eve. But Adam was fooled by an ordinary girl—so who’s the real dummy?”
― Scott Burdick, God's AI: God's Dark Algorithm

“out:“I know not with what weapons World War Three will be fought, but World War Four will be fought with sticks and stones.”
― Scott Burdick, God's AI: God's Dark Algorithm

“But the real murderer was not a person, but a misplaced faith that God would protect his father while preaching peace and love in a world ruled by force. I”
― Scott Burdick, God's AI: God's Dark Algorithm

“The word Tao means ‘The Way’ and can be thought of as the path toward virtue and divine power. We call this the ‘Tao Te Ching.’ It is the source and force of the universe. The synthesis of nature, spirit, and consciousness. It is being and non-being. The Tao harmonizes nature, humanity, and the divine into the yin and yang of opposites working together.” “Your creator was no god,” Ohg said, “but a corporation who genetically engineered you after some of their designer pesticides eradicated natural bees.” “The Tao works through all things, even the science of man.”
― Scott Burdick, God's AI: God's Dark Algorithm

“Empathy and moral instincts became hardwired into primate genes and brains by living in societies that necessitated cooperation for protection.” Ohg handed her the flower. “If I pick the parasites from your hair and you don’t reciprocate in kind, you will find yourself shunned and your uncooperative genes removed from the population. If we evolved in an environment that favored non-cooperation, we’d have the opposite moral instincts than we do now.” “That’s hard to imagine,” Kayla said. “When a male lion defeats an older male and assumes Pride leadership, he kills all the cubs so his time and resources are spent raising only babies that contain his genes.” “That’s horrible!” “Says your primate brain. The lion isn’t conscious of why he does this, but is acting as his environment has programmed him to. Any lion with a genetic mutation for avoiding infanticide would pass on fewer genes than other lions with what we’d consider immoral genes. Soon, they would vanish from the gene pool altogether.” “But the numbers”
― Scott Burdick, God's AI: God's Dark Algorithm

“What had the Founder said at the treaty signing? The price of immortality and total safety will be complete control by society. Freedom is too great a threat to be tolerated in such a future.”
― Scott Burdick, God's AI: God's Dark Algorithm

“Rejection of truth is nothing new. Gods, miracles, sorcery, and divine justice are forms of alternate reality in the real world, and V-Dreams are simply a more convincing version. The one universal quality most people add to their virtual worlds is the supernatural. It’s as if the human mind is disappointed with reality. For me, the real world is far more wondrous than any made-up god or miracle, but I am in a very small minority.” Do I fear a reality without God?”
― Scott Burdick, God's AI: God's Dark Algorithm

“After seeing your memories,” Ohg said with the excitement of a bug collector who’s found a never-before-described beetle, “it’s clear the nanobots respond to your thoughts. They redesigned your eye with multiple lenses atop the pyramid. All in response to your desire to better see the speck of rising dust in the distance. In a very real sense, they led you here.” “Then it wasn’t God after all.” “The wonders of reality are every bit as miraculous as the supernatural.”
― Scott Burdick, God's AI: God's Dark Algorithm

“Was it the voice of the Almighty, or her own subconscious protecting its sanity? Kayla’s shoulders slumped, and her chin drooped to her chest. History contained no proof. The choice was firmly one of faith alone.”
― Scott Burdick, God's AI: God's Dark Algorithm

“After all, Socrates never wrote a single word, so we only know of his ideas through the words written after his death by his student, Plato.”
― Scott Burdick, God's AI: God's Dark Algorithm

“Tem projected the same calm as ever. “Government intelligence agencies created psycomps to analyze massive amounts of data and search for hidden patterns. They hoped that by combining the analogue creativity of the human brain with the massive digital data of computer circuitry, something more powerful than even an AI could be created.” Tem shook his head. “But the results proved … disappointing.”
― Scott Burdick, God's AI: God's Dark Algorithm

“A supernatural fear drove the heat from Kayla’s muscles, and she shivered. “But I mean you no harm.” The little girl shook her head. “The river knows not that it is rushing under the bridge, but thinks it is the bridge that moves above. All of reality is an illusion, conceived within the Void of Mind based on the false perceptions of our senses. To look inside is to see Truth.”
― Scott Burdick, God's AI: God's Dark Algorithm

“Science self-corrects based on experiment and new facts, while religion self-perpetuates based on superstition, wishful thinking, and fear.”
― Scott Burdick, God's AI: God's Dark Algorithm

“When one controls nothing in their own life, any opportunity to strike out grants them a moment of illusory power.”
― Scott Burdick, God's AI: God's Dark Algorithm

“The gray-haired woman extended a hand as if in supplication. “Don’t you see that the collapse of civilization is inevitable if technology continues destroying nature? Act now, before it’s too late.” “You would return us to the slavery of nature,” shouted a young man wearing a form-fitting outfit that displayed every muscle of his athletic physique.”
― Scott Burdick, God's AI: God's Dark Algorithm

“Some of the ancient books claimed there was no reward or punishment after death. In one book that had disintegrated to ruins, she rescued these few words: Is man merely a mistake of God’s? Or God merely a mistake of man?”
― Scott Burdick, God's AI: God's Dark Algorithm

“Then the words attributed to the Greek philosopher, Epicurus, forced their way into her mind. “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence come evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
― Scott Burdick, God's AI: God's Dark Algorithm

“How do you know it’s a wasteland if no one has come through the Wall in five hundred years?” “The Founder himself predicted it.” “Maybe the Founder was wrong,” she said. “You know the Founder can’t be wrong!” “Nothing is more firmly believed as that which is least known,” she said.”
― Scott Burdick, God's AI: God's Dark Algorithm

“Laughing at her bulging eyes, he handed her a second candle. “Beware, lest the flame of your desire consumes that which you seek to illuminate.”
― Scott Burdick, God's AI: God's Dark Algorithm