18. Robo-Jesus

Several months passed. Ransom was very good at hiding how he felt. He still frequented the Superhuman League. Still talked to Jesse, but rarely more than a few minutes. The days became routine for the most part. Life passed by in a fog.

Tony had remained faithful to his word, and remained friends with Ransom, even though they wouldn't meet at church anymore.

One afternoon, they met for beers at The Fox and Hounds, an English-style pub in Baseball that's pretty nice despite the fact that it's kind of a tourist joint.
"Tony, I still think we should go to that wings place where the waitresses wear thongs and pasties."
"Quit trying to turn me to the dark side."
"Well, the way I figure it, I should lower my standards, stop this quixotic search for Miss Right, and just settle down with a nice exotic dancer."
"My wife was an exotic dancer. I mean, she wasn't when I met her. But she was at one time... Ransom, are we going to watch the game, or what?"
"I forgot my stereo goggles. And I don't like using loaner goggles. It takes too long to get them focused to my eyes just right."
"Okay, we'll just watch it in 2-D."
Tony touched the picture on the wall beside him. The dogs playing poker melted away into the din of a basketball game. The players all had pictures of bottles of chocolate milk on their uniforms. The announcer spoke, "Today's Orlando Magic Basketball is brought to you by Chocolate Dream, fine chocolate milk. Also by Fantasy World vacation resort, the world's premier family fun destination." The players uniforms suddenly changed into advertisements for the theme park.
"You ever miss working at the theme parks?" asked Tony.
"Of course. I never realized how fun that job was until I got this shitty new job. Damn. I don't even remember why I quit... Listen, I gotta leave right after this game is over. I agreed to pick up a shift tonight."
"Oh man! My wife is making lasagna tonight. When can you hang out again?"
"I dunno, Tony. Next tuesday?"
"I'm going to the old folks home."
"Tuesday night?"
"That's the only time I'll have to prepare my sermon."
"Okay, what about wednesday?"
"Wednesday I'm going to go talk with Jesus."
"Jesus... right.
Tony pulled a scroll pad out of his pocket, unrolled it, and handed it to Ransom to show him what he meant.
What would Jesus do?
Now you can ask him!
From the people who brought you Hippocrates, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, and Socrates. Designed with the help of over a hundred theologians from around the world. It's the new source for answers and advice to all of life's problems!
Coming October 2030
"I think it's pretty exciting. This isn't some low budget Artificial Intelligence that's really just a text search engine in fancy clothing. This thing was built by some of the world's best AI programmers."
"I dunno." said Ransom. "A Jesus-bot? Isn't that kind of, like, blasphemous?"
"Not necessarily. People have been spouting off their opinions on what they think Jesus said and meant for two thousand years now. They've just taken these opinions and uploaded them into an neural network."
"And you're going to seek audience with him?"
"It's part of the grand opening. They've invited clergy from all over the world to have special access to speak to Jesus before he goes public."
"Crazy." Ransom handed the scroll back to Tony and turned his attention to the game. But as he watched he couldn't stop thinking about Robo-Jesus. How stupid. How indulgent. You don't have to think for yourself. Just ask Jesus-bot to think for you. As technology gets smarter, America gets dumber. What a huge step backwards.
By the second half, Ransom was still thinking about it, at which point it had become irresistible. He had to see this thing for himself, if nothing, to laugh at how stupid it is. "Hey, Tony. Are you allowed to bring a guest with you to meet Jesus?"
"Maybe... why?"
"I wanna go, that's why. I wanna talk to the J-man."
"Ransom, I don't know."
"Come on, please. I'll wash your car. I'll do anything. Anything!"
"Anything?" asked Tony.
"I know what you're thinking. Yes, I will have hot gay sex with you."
"Uh... That's okay, Ransom. You can come if you promise to behave yourself."

Standing in the courtyard of the temple there in ancient Jerusalem, Ransom felt out of place with the clean-cut, conservative, evangelical crowd. These were the people he was raised around. Now they seem so foreign. And while he regarded this whole thing as kind of a joke, most of these people looked quite serious. He may really offend some people today.
Oh well.
A voice came from Heaven. "Good morning, clergy and guests from Baseball, Central Florida. You have been invited to be the first to engage in conversation with our exciting new simulated intelligence. The World Ecumenical Council, in cooperation with The Seventh Day Corporation presents, Jesus, your virtual spiritual advisor. Ladies and gentlemen, please be patient when asking Jesus a question. It may take a few seconds for him to answer due to heavy network traffic. And remember, the word of our virtual Jesus is not The Word of God, and is not meant to be a substitute for prayer and meditation."
A man wearing a smart business suit and sneakers on his feet walked out of the temple entrance to address the crowd. Ransom immediately recognized Melton Guest, world-famous, outspoken AI programmer who was the main architect of the Socrates AI. He smiled warmly and began his introduction. "A year ago, when I went to my financiers and told them that my next AI would be based on the teachings of Jesus, they laughed at me. Mainstream America is not going to support this. You're in this business to make money, not push your beliefs. You know, it's unfortunate that the our corporate leaders think that Christians are a minority of backwards, fundamentalist, anti-semitic yahoos. They said that this project would be unprofitable. But they are wrong!
"I was lucky to find the good people at The Seventh Day Corporation. They had the faith to believe in this project. And now it's finished. Now let's show the media elite just how wrong they are about Christians. Let's make Jesus the most popular AI on the Net."
Everybody cheered and applauded. And so did Ransom to keep up appearances.
Jesus walked out of the temple. Very realistic, thought Ransom. Dark Middle Eastern features. He had the beefy musculature of a carpenter who hung out with fishermen.
Ransom received a text message,
Pastor Tony Callahan and guest, Your numbers are 72 and 73. Please wait your turn before asking Jesus your questions.
Groan. This is gonna take a while. Ransom decided to wait patiently and resist the urge to wander elsewhere on the Net while the shell of his virtual self stayed in the forum.
The first question was scholarly enough. An older gentleman from a Methodist church asked, "Jesus, are you a Calvinist or an Arminian?"
Jesus-bot answered, "The question of free will and whether or not The Universe is deterministic cannot be fathomed within the current state of human knowledge. As it stands, there is no perceptible difference between a Calvinist Universe and an Arminian Universe. I would therefore urge you brothers not to be contentious over this question. Have faith that God is righteous. And avoid bothersome quarrels."
Ransom figured that this answer was as good as any other. But looking around at the Presbyterians around him, he noticed a couple of them were frowning or shaking their heads.
Many more questions were asked as Ransom patiently waited his turn. Jesus, which is the true Sabbath, Saturday or Sunday? Is it ethically okay to use stem cells harvested from aborted fetuses? What are your views on homosexuality? Can Satan perform miracles? Is it okay to use animal cellular transplants on humans? What about the death penalty? What kind of diet did you have? To what extent should parents be allowed to select the genotype of their children? Are you a conservative or a liberal?
It was sort of interesting to Ransom, to see how the robot worked. It appeared that most of the time, the robot didn't so much give definite answers to questions as it commented on the level of man's ignorance, and how we really know nothing.
Tony asked Jesus whether oral intercourse should be considered sex. That raised quite a few eyebrows. Tony turned and winked at Ransom. Ransom groaned. Jesus gave perhaps its most unequivocal answer of the day. "Yes."
Finally it was Ransom's turn.
"Hey, Jesus, um... please, give me one good reason why anyone should follow your outdated, exclusive, stupid-ass religion anymore?"
A collective cry of groans and grumbling arose from the crowd. He heard someone yell, "Sit down!" He looked at Tony, who just looked back at him and shook his head.
Ransom addressed the crowd. "We could take all these churches and tear them down to put up more hospitals, schools, domestic abuse shelters, and stuff like that. Just imagine how much better the world would be if we utilized the massive resources of the church for humanism."
Ransom swore he heard about a hundred people click the ignore button on their controllers at the exact same time. That same guy in the back kept yelling at him to sit down, which was dumb, because he was already sitting down, in realspace.
The Son of Man appeared unmoved, of course. "Let he who wishes to follow me, deny himself and take up his cross. Verily, I tell you the truth, the road of salvation is neither outdated, exclusive, nor stupid-assed. I am the way, the truth, and the light."
"How can you say you're not out dated? You died two thousand years ago, way before photography or video. How can we believe in this age of science?"
Jesus answered after about thirty full seconds of silence. "You must learn to have faith. When the great day of The Lord God Almighty comes, will you not be expected to answer to your brothers, even those who lived two thousand years ago? I have given you the gospel, expressed through the most accurate written histories of the ancient world. Place not your trust in video, which can be easily faked."
The Messiah had a point. Video is so easy to fake these days that it's not even allowed to be used as evidence in courtrooms anymore. It would be silly to ask for 3-D holographic evidence of Jesus. Ransom was impressed by the robot's intelligence. But he wasn't finished yet. "Well if you aren't outdated, you're certainly exclusive."
"I have come to bring salvation to all men, first the children of Isreal, and then the Gentiles. The Lord is no respecter of persons. There is no man or woman in the Kingdom of God. Only those who worship the Lord in spirit and truth."
"Christianity discriminates against the handicapped." said Ransom.
Jesus stood still for a full minute. "That which you do to the least of these, you do also to me. God requires that you care for all his sheep, especially the infirm."
"I didn't say infirm. I said handicapped. You know, crippled, the differently-abled? Tell me this, why is it you never see a preacher in a wheelchair?"
A man with a thick southern accent yelled, "God doesn't have to be politically-correct." Ransom resisted the urge to turn around and tell the moron to shut the Hell up.
Jesus wasn't answering, so Ransom continued to address it. "A holy man can be anything. He can be black, white, Chinese, Native American, Arabic, Jewish, male or female, gay or straight. Hell, he can even be an atheist. But the one prejudice Christians won't give up, the one illusion they won't relinquish, the one unforgivable sin is a preacher in a wheelchair."
This time, Jesus stood still for a minute and a half. During that time, an older man told Ransom, "Look son, maybe these questions are better suited for a human. You're causing the robot to freeze." Ransom replied that they had warned about delays due to high network traffic, so it wasn't his fault. He wasn't the only one asking Jesus questions. That guy in the back was still yelling at Ransom to sit down.
"You should not judge God by the actions of people." said Jesus. "The unfair discrimination you speak of is the product of mortal man, who is corruptible."
"Well I don't know if you've noticed this, but everybody in this forum is a mortal human, except you. So how do you expect us to act? I'm sure that it's all good for you when you see a cripple and feel bad for them. You simply use your magical powers and tell them to stand up. But we can't do that. So what are we supposed to do?"
A full two minutes later, Jesus said, "The Father calls you not to conform to this world, but be transformed by the power of his spirit and his word."
"Oh really? Well I must be missing something when I read the Bible. I mean, how many of the great biblical heroes were disable in some way or form? Um, Samson was blind, yeah, right before he killed himself."
"Some scholars have speculated that when the apostle Paul described the, thorn in his side, he may have been describing a disability, such as a lame leg."
"So now you're just going to speculate? Come on, Jesus. You're going to have to do better than that. the only cripple in the Bible are the ones who are healed in the very next verse. So with all the healings and miracles, what else am I supposed to get from the Bible but an implied hatred of the lame, blind, deaf, or anyone who isn't perfect?"
Three minutes. "The Word of God does not endorse hatred of anyone. And it is not to be used to make anyone feel excluded."
"How can you say that? How do you know how anyone feels? You're just a fucking robot!"
the Jesus-bot froze for one minute. He looked as if he were about to speak, but instead he just smiled. His face took a look of joy that bordered on beatific. Then something happened that Ransom had never seen before. The digital avatar of Jesus began to distort and pixellate. He changed all different colors. And then he disappeared.
"What happened?" asked Ransom.
The old man who spoke to Ransom before knew. "System crash."
"Crash?"
"Don't worry son. It used to happen all the time, back in the day."
The voice from heaven, "Ladies and gentlemen, we are unable to support the simulated intelligence due to an unknown error. We at The World Ecumenical Council and The Seventh Day Corporation apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for using Virtual Jesus."
"I don't understand. Why can't we just access it through a different router or something?" asked Ransom
"You don't understand." said Tony. "It wasn't just our connection that went down. The whole network crashed. Robo-Jesus is kaput. Man, the executives at Seventh Day are prolly pitching a fit right about now."
"Jesus is gone?" said Ransom. "Damn, and I was just starting to have fun."

Later that evening, Ransom amused himself by reading his hate mail.He had received about a dozen e-mails from pastors who wanted to counsel him or simply rebuke him. Some of the people sounded real sincere. A couple people just messaged him to say, hi, if you don't repent your rebellious disobedient ways, you'll burn in Hell for all eternity, have a nice day.
The feminine voice of Ransom's server spoke, "Ransom, I have detected an unusual amount of upload activity.
"Show me the upload log." A white window appeared suspended in mid air in front of Ransom's face. He was shocked. Someone was pulling loads of data off his computer. He didn't think that he had so much interesting stuff on his server's storage. "Server, is all of this information from my public storage space?"
"No, some of the information is labeled, personal, or, private."
"What? Stop the upload!"
"Ransom, I am attempting to stop upload activity. Attempt has failed." Ransom opened his transmission meter. The upload meter was solid, all the way in the red. Data was flying out of Ransom's server as fast as possible through all modes of transmission, cable and wireless. After a few minutes, the upload meter dipped back down into the green, and the upload levels were at the normal rate.
"Server, show me a summary report of the upload."
Ransom wanted to see what all this mystery hacker took from his server. But when he saw the size of the upload listed at the top of the summary, 4.7 petabytes, he knew he didn't have to look at the rest of the report. Some unknown source had hacked into his server and read every single bit.