LSA

Exactly as ordered. Good job, private.

Yeah, I know. But “what does greek mythology say about using windows” would have been less funny.

If by that you mean connected my computer account to a Microsoft account, nope, I did no such thing.

That’s weird. I don’t get the prompt at all, but I do have a button in the lower left corner that says “Sign In.” Maybe it’s because I’m on Windows 11?

If they can downscale enough, they should be able to pass this test.

Two wars can exist simultaneously.

Do they do that? I’ve had my laptop for a while, and it’s never happened to me.

Windows updates aren’t disruptive if you actually update now and then. It’s not even that often.

You’re not using a command line web browser? I wouldn’t either.

I know it’s dead. I still have it, and it still does all I want from an IDE.

Well, LLMs are, at least. But also, autocomplete is already AI, so really LLMs are just glorified AI. And that checks out, they are the ones that get all the glory*. Everything else is just spooky algorithms.

*Except for walking robots and stuff like that.

I was surprised when I made attackPower and it suggested defensePower next. It was then that it sunk in that the autocomplete was AI.

Same here, but Atom. Maybe I should start using Atom again.

I googled it, there is an option to sync it to your Microsoft account, but I can’t say whether that’s on by default when you turn on clipboard history because I skipped adding a Microsoft account. But if it is, you can turn it off in Settings -> System -> Clipboard.

Makes sense. I guess I’m not so much demonstrating that the resurrection is true as that, if it’s not true, the accounts surrounding it are still very extraordinary and probably worth looking into.

StackOverflow will discourage you when you’re right. ChatGPT will encourage you when you’re wrong.

Yeah, I understand where you’re coming from, which is why I’m citing historical analysis of the Bible. Most scholars don’t think King Arthur was real, and if he was, the stories weren’t written when he was alive, so you can’t put any stock in the story because no witnesses were around to verify nor dispute it. On the other hand, even if you believe the Bible is a book of myths, there are still historical facts that have been independently verified, like:

• There was a guy named Jesus who got crucified^[1]
• The disciples were real people^[2]
• Paul’s letters (or at least most of them) were written by Paul while he and at least some of the disciples were still around^[3]
• The early church was significant and persecuted^[4]

Because the early church was significant and the disciples were real people, I conclude that they were famous.
Because they were famous, I conclude that if they said anything surprising, word would have gotten around.
Because Paul’s letters were written while the disciples were around, and the disciples were famous, I conclude that if he said anything surprising about the disciples, they would have heard about it.
If the disciples heard a story about them that never happened, they would have confirmed it, denied it, or evaded the question.
If they confirmed a story, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true, but it does mean they wanted people to believe it’s true.
If they denied a story, that would have been surprising, and word would have gotten around, so there would have been some mention somewhere.
If they evaded commenting on a story, that means they wanted people to believe it’s true (and hints that it was untrue, but that part doesn’t really matter for my purposes here.)
Thus, if Paul wrote something about the disciples while they were around, and there’s no mention anywhere of them denying it, that indicates that the disciples wanted people to believe it’s true.

Paul wrote about Jesus appearing to the disciples after resurrection, and there’s no mention of them denying it. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the resurrection was true, but it does mean that the disciples were at least complicit and refused to deny it even in the face of persecution. As for conclusions from there, see my earlier comment.

Is that line of thinking solid enough, depending on historically verified facts instead of taking the Bible as an accurate account at face value?

Also, something that bugged me about your earlier comment: You say you make no claim as to whether a god exists, you just aren’t convinced. And you say there’s no proof for a lack of a god. Yet you also said that you think aliens causing the resurrection (or appearance thereof) is more plausible than a god existing.

Aliens having the technology, knowledge, and motivation to cosplay as God is already highly unlikely, whether in a world with a real god or not. Jesus being the real deal is fairly likely if in a world with God, but impossible if in a world with no god.

So if you’re telling me that Jesus being the real deal is less likely than aliens cosplaying God, that tells me you think there being no god is significantly more likely than God existing. In the absence of evidence in either direction, they should be treated as equally plausible (though not equally valid, as burden of proof is still a thing.) The fact that you don’t tells me you actually do lean towards the lack of a god.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I’m definitely biased towards God existing. I’d just like you to introspect and examine your bias so you’re aware of it. Though I’d also appreciate it if you adjusted your parameters and leaned a little more this way ; )

Yeah, I agree Pascal’s wager isn’t a good way to frame your life. I was just using it as a counterpoint to your explanation on why the standards for proof are so high. If it is because you’re trying to avoid the risks of a bad afterlife, you’re already doing Pascal’s wager, just with the wrong approach. The only way I can see that being the best approach is if you’re actively evaluating all the known religions to weigh the odds of each against how bad their hells are. But then there also better be reason to suspect that the ideal religion might gatekeep you for having once been part of a different religion, yet not gatekeep you for having been an atheist or for going in with the motivation of Pascal’s wager. Otherwise you might as well sign up with the best you know of right now and keep looking. But don’t do that because the wager is not a good : )

When I mentioned life on Earth, I was referring to having high standards because it’s going to affect your mortal life, rather than because of the risks of a bad afterlife. I think that’s a more sensible approach because it doesn’t require you to start from the assumption that an afterlife is possible, and the costs can be empirically measured instead of going off whatever the holy texts claim (outside of miracles, of course.) If the cost is 10% of your money and a day a week, then yeah, you probably want to be pretty sure before you commit, but if there are clear benefits, it might be worth it even without a rock-solid proof of a deity. Does that make sense?

Yes, I see what you mean about using the Bible to prove itself. I hadn’t noticed that the earliest manuscripts of Mark’s gospel didn’t have the account of Jesus appearing to the disciples, so that raises the possibility that when Mark (or whomever wrote that) was collecting notes of the stories around Jesus to spin a narrative, he decided to fabricate the idea of Christ appearing to all 11 at once in order to make it seem more credible.

The gospel of Mark is believed by scholars to have been written around 65-73 AD^[1], predating the other gospels, but it’s not the first book of the New Testament to have been written. 1 Corinthians, which scholars are sure was written by Paul, is believed to have been written around 53-57 AD, and it explicitly says that Christ appeared to the twelve disciples^[2].

Now it’s not exactly clear how many of the disciples were still alive by then, and at least one of them had died, but there were still some of them around. Seeing as they were still kicking, it wouldn’t make sense for Paul to make up an eyewitness testimony on their behalf, and if he did, they would have heard about it. His letters weren’t exactly kept secret. So even though we don’t have a direct claim from the (probably illiterate) disciples that they saw Jesus resurrected, it’s safe to conclude that they did make that claim.

EDIT: Though I suppose this brings up a fourth possibility (or fifth if you count aliens) that Paul was a chessmaster who made up the appearance to the twelve, and arranged to have any disciples who disagreed with his plan executed before he wrote about it… I think that’s pretty far-fetched.