I have found no correlation between the two. Not sure why people assume someone who doesn’t go to church has no moral compass, or vice versa. But now we have this:
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/09/millions-turn-to-ai-chatbots-for-spiritual-guidance-and-confession/ "They're generally affirming. They are generally 'yes men,'" Ryan Beck, chief technology officer at Pray.com, told the Times. While this tendency, called "sycophancy" in the AI industry, has led to life-threatening problems with some users, Beck sees affirmation as beneficial. "Who doesn't need a little affirmation in their life?" This validation tendency creates theological complications. Traditional faith practices often involve challenging believers to confront uncomfortable truths, but chatbots avoid this spiritual friction. Heidi Campbell, a Texas A&M professor who studies technology and religion, told The Times that chatbots "tell us what we want to hear," and "it's not using spiritual discernment, it is using data and patterns." From: AF <[email protected]> On Behalf Of [email protected] Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2025 1:52 PM To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] OT Politics (slow day, need my trolling fix, dopamine you know) I use un-churched a bit liberally, more of a euphemism of someone that is free of moral bounds. From: AF <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > On Behalf Of Bill Prince Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2025 12:07 PM To: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] OT Politics (slow day, need my trolling fix, dopamine you know) I don't know about you, but a lot, possibly a majority of the people I went to college with smoked pot (not me, of course), so equating pot-smoking and uneducated as the same kind of people sounds like an oxymoron to me. Further, both my SO and my families were permanently scarred by "organized religion", so being "un-churched" sounds like a positive attribute. I somewhat consider organized religion a type of fascism. Maybe Utah really is an alternate universe? bp <part15sbs{at}gmail{dot}com> On 9/18/2025 10:36 AM, [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> wrote: If you are a slave of the welfare state, you are certainly to fall into the "uneducated, pot smoking, un churched, [...] and poor as dirt" category. Democrats know what they are doing… From: AF <mailto:[email protected]> <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Adam Moffett Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2025 11:29 AM To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' <mailto:[email protected]> <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] OT Politics (slow day, need my trolling fix, dopamine you know) I sometimes wonder if they're just doing things to get people talking about something besides Epstein. If so, it's working. I live in the den of evil over here in NY, and I too have never encountered anyone who called themselves "Antifa". In contrast to Chuck's statement, "uneducated, pot smoking, un churched, [...] and poor as dirt" sounds like at least half of our MAGA people. I wonder: NY's electoral votes haven't gone to a Republican since 1984. Utah's haven't gone to a Democrat since 1964. Maybe the poor and disaffected are drawn to the opposition party in whatever state they're in. I'll look up statistics later tonight.... if I remember to. If that's not true then maybe Chuck and I are each putting our personal bias on display. _____ From: AF <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > on behalf of Ken Hohhof <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2025 1:09 PM To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [AFMUG] OT Politics (slow day, need my trolling fix, dopamine you know) Maybe they are saying this in an ironic or humorous way. Like if grumpy old people are terrorists, I must be a terrorist. Since antifa (upper or lower case a?) is a leaderless and decentralized movement, not sure it could be declared an organization, terrorist or otherwise. Kind of like idiots or assholes or for that matter good samaritans, they exist, but are they organized? Can you raid their clubhouse and imprison their leaders? Seems we are trying to categorize people who disagree with us as an organization, no doubt funded by George Soros (but not Elon Musk or Peter Thiel). From: AF <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > On Behalf Of [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2025 11:53 AM To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [AFMUG] OT Politics (slow day, need my trolling fix, dopamine you know) Real life people, relatives, former employees etc. It is coming up due to Trumps trying to declar antifa to be a terrorist organization. Some of these people are saying they must be terrorists now. From: AF < <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]> On Behalf Of Ken Hohhof Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2025 10:46 AM To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' < <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] OT Politics (slow day, need my trolling fix, dopamine you know) Is your sphere of influence real life people you know, or online stuff? I honestly have never had a single person IRL mention Antifa, much less belong to such an organization. And Utah seems an unlikely place to have Antifa cells. But Howard from Big Bang Theory reminds us you don’t need to experience something to know you want it: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXXcqDHEC0o> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXXcqDHEC0o Maybe you mean nihilism and not literally Antifa. There seems to be a bumper crop of disaffected nihilists these days. Not sure that fits neatly into a left/right political narrative. More like there will always be people who think the world has screwed them over and want to burn the whole thing down. From: AF < <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]> On Behalf Of <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected] Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2025 11:16 AM To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' < <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]> Subject: [AFMUG] OT Politics (slow day, need my trolling fix, dopamine you know) Odd that the majority of the people in my sphere of influence that are espousing the goodness of antifa are all uniformly: uneducated, pot smoking, un churched, and in many cases with minor criminal records, but all of them are as poor as dirt it seems. Poverty is what drove the Russian revolution. Perhaps that is the driver here. I just cannot get behind the ideology. This is what Wikipedia says: I <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_ideologies> deology <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-fascism> Anti-fascism <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-authoritarianism> Anti-authoritarianism <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-capitalism> Anti-capitalism <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-statism> Anti-statism <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_Donald_Trump> Anti-Trumpism <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism> Anarchism <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism> Socialism <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism> Communism <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_spectrum> Political position <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-wing_politics> Left-wing Major actions <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_action> Direct action <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_organizing> Community organizing <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_aid> Mutual aid <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harassment> Harassment <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_activism> Digital activism <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doxing> Doxing <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picketing> Picketing <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_violence> Political violence <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protest_march> Protest marching Status Active
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