Robot Religion

LoAmmi said:

Bioware is having problems with endings recently. Inquisition was disappointing to me.

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I didn't mind inquisitions ending, but yet again maybe I was so happy it wasn't anything like mass effect 3's ending to really notice.

jacknife said:

I didn't mind inquisitions ending, but yet again maybe I was so happy it wasn't anything like mass effect 3's ending to really notice.

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Nothing you did really mattered in the end. That was my biggest problem. One of the best scenes I can think of in a modern RPG was Dragon Age: Origins where the army you shaped marches on the city and you see all the powers you gathered coming together. In Inquisition it didn't seem like whatever I did changed anything. It was all heading to the same place with the same cut scenes.

Ironhold said:

Here's a hypothetical for you.

Suppose that we have robots which are not just sentient but actually sapient. For all intents and purposes, they may as well be human beings.

1. Would they have souls?

2. How would they be handled by your faith tradition?

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I'm sorry, but I believe that even for Robots marriage is between one male and one female Robot.

My answer to the Original Poster's questions: The bible doesn't mention robots because obviously, the ability to create robots were impossible at the time. There was, however, a Jewish (but non-biblical) myth involving golems. According to the myth, Adam was first created as a golem before he becoming a man. Even so, the golems that appeared after Adam were technically soulless according to related myths.

Whether or not robots can go to heaven or not (even if we know that they can't have souls), God's the one that decides that, not us humans. After all, heaven is a paradise created to those who were faithful to God. It's for this exact reason why I'd never say to anyone that they'll go to hell even if they have differing beliefs to me simply because I don't know what God had planned for them.

Ironhold said:

Here's a hypothetical for you.

Suppose that we have robots which are not just sentient but actually sapient. For all intents and purposes, they may as well be human beings.

1. Would they have souls?

2. How would they be handled by your faith tradition?

Click to expand...

In the Baha'i Faith there is a principle that there should be harmony between science and religion..Since robots are a product of science there is no apprehension about them from the Baha'i standpoint...

"Religion and Science are inter-twined with each other and cannot be separated. These are the two wings with which humanity must fly. One wing is not enough. Every religion which does not concern itself with Science is mere tradition, and that is not the essential. Therefore science, education and civilization are most important necessities for the full religious life."

~ Abdu'l-Baha, Abdu'l-Baha in London, p. 28

Also the ideal would be that

"...for the first time religion will become harmonized with science and science will be the handmaid of religion -- both showering their spiritual gifts on all humanity. In this way the people will be lifted out of the quagmires of slothfulness and bigotry."

~ Abdu'l-Baha, Divine Philosophy, p. 13

We don't know at this time the extent to which "robots" will be assisting us.. but the beginnings of contributions of robotics are already apparent!.. Robotics so far are more along the line of "tools" and aids for humans. As for robots with souls as in the SF films we still have some time to go... It may be there will come a time when some further clarification will be needed in the use of robots in terms of some code of conduct. The soul for us Baha'is is a mystery:

"The soul is the treasury of My Mystery; do not surrender it to avarice."

(Provisional Translations, Lawh-i Manikji Sahib)

Ironhold said:

Here's a hypothetical for you.

Suppose that we have robots which are not just sentient but actually sapient. For all intents and purposes, they may as well be human beings.

1. Would they have souls?

2. How would they be handled by your faith tradition?

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1. Only being sentient and sapient, no. Having a soul requires the capacity to feel love, spiritual and human. Also, sapience (if you mean wisdom - why not just use the known word?) doesn't mean one doesn't have a soul. Retarded people, like Republicans, still have souls.

2. Having a soul and being intelligent, they would be open to accepting the Gospel. (I'm a liberal Christian, Methodist.)

ScottMcMasters said:

1. Only being sentient and sapient, no. Having a soul requires the capacity to feel love, spiritual and human. Also, sapience (if you mean wisdom - why not just use the known word?) doesn't mean one doesn't have a soul. Retarded people, like Republicans, still have souls.

2. Having a soul and being intelligent, they would be open to accepting the Gospel. (I'm a liberal Christian, Methodist.)

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I'd also like to add that maybe not even intelligence, as in human intelligence, is required. We know the Gospel through human words, but I would still say mammals have souls, as they demonstrate some intelligence and also demonstrate love.

Ironhold said:

Here's a hypothetical for you.

Suppose that we have robots which are not just sentient but actually sapient. For all intents and purposes, they may as well be human beings.

1. Would they have souls?

2. How would they be handled by your faith tradition?

Click to expand...

1. I have a vague concept of what a soul would be. If humans have it, such robots would too.

2. Atheist. Can't really comment on that.

I think the robots would need to change behavior in response to a non-deterministic input. Normally computers are meant to be deterministic, because that makes them more useful as slaves. This computer needs free will.

My theory is that there is a soul flowing through everything, and that soul "chooses" how probability waves collapse into events. The human brain is unstable enough that these non-deterministic inputs cause differing behaviors in response to what the universal soul "chooses". A computer could be designed to be unstable in the same way, and then it would be as "alive" as any human or animal - maybe even more alive if we designed it to be that way.

So humans don't have a soul, but they tap in to a universal soul because of their sensitivity to variations in quantum-level events. There is no reason a robot couldn't do the same thing IMO.