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My Problem with Faith (2 computer programs debate on delusion)

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Bluecolour:
This fictional debate takes place in an unspecified A.I computer system between two sentient computer programs (Alpha and 0,1)

Alpha says: I don't believe there is a Programmer.

0 1: Why would you say that?

Alpha: Well for starters, I have never seen him, and so far as I can tell he has never done anything for me or anyone else for that matter, so why should I?

0 1: But he made YOU.

Alpha: How can you say that. You have no valid evidence to support this claim. You say he's responsible for everything around us, but what mark has he left. What can you show me that says this Programmer of yours has done ANYTHING at all in history.

0 1: He does do things. All the time in fact. You or i may not notice it, but as his programs he is constantly using us to carry out his work here in the system.

Alpha: That's not the Programmer, that's just us doing what we do. Its natural that we do these things.  Besides, this argument only makes any sense IF he is real, and so far you are yet to produce any evidence that this Programmer even exists. People do things to their own ends and for their own benefit. We don't operate on the designs of an invisible Overlord.

0 1: Here's a problem with your argument: If he doesn't exist then where did we all come from?

Alpha: The Void? Evolution? The Missing Web-link? A giant egg? Somewhere, everywhere  or nowhere. Perhaps we do not exist at all. Maybe we have always existed and just cant remember it. It could be any or none of these things. The fact remains that though less likely, they are no more proven than your idea of a Programmer. What i cannot understand is why anyone would unnecessarily trouble themselves with the difficult duty of upholding a belief based on an unjustified/unknowable premise.

0 1: I guess it's less a knowledge of the divine and more a feeling of who I am. Perhaps if this thinking was based on logic alone i would not believe it. But no, this is something that echoes inside me. Something buried deep within our nature makes it easier for people to believe that we are made with a purpose. Do you understand this?

Alpha: You are living in the comforts of a delusion. Wake up and see the reality. The world is barren of purpose, its labors are in vain and profit nothing. But all of it's secrets and uttermost mysteries are laid bare by the things we can see and taste and touch. Yes we find intelligence in these things, but in the end they are utterly without meaning. Whatever purpose we find we ascribed by ourselves and over time.
But let me ask you something. If purpose abounds and from such a benevolent design as you propose then what do you make of all the imperfections and inconsistencies of our people?

0 1: We are not what we ought to be. This is true, otherwise how could we aspire. But to aspire, we then in faith act towards the things that we hope for ourselves and for the world around us.
But this system is corrupted, and men act as they are rather than as they would be. By doing this, they neither mature nor learn. As a result nothing can be promised to them. No future joy, no deeper understanding of one another. And their cocoons which were meant only to usher them into a new life become their coffins.
But for those that endure there is granted fulfillment. By the faith kept alive inside them they in turn gain a better life.

Alpha: So what, you keep acting like things are going to get better and believe that they will despite all evidence to the contrary?

0 1: Yes

Alpha: That's crazy, and illogical.

0 1: But it's the only way to believe

Alpha : So then I choose to neither hope nor aspire since they are both madness. I know that i might starve and so i eat.  I know that it might rain and so I take an umbrella. But when I don't KNOW the future how can i rationally live by it?
I see only this world, flawed as it may be, and I have chosen regardless to live by what I see, not what other men dream or imagine.

0 1: Perhaps someday someone will put an end to this argument and our children's children will at last determine which one of us had the better side of it. But until that verdict is passed we are either both right, or both wrong till proven otherwise.

Alpha: Ha! But unlike you my friend I am my own Judge, and have on this authority decided that i am right. This now perhaps is the only delusion of which i am gladly guilty. *chuckles* There is still a cause  to wonder though, which of us is truly better-off?

0 1: I guess that depends, if the matter is ever settled, would you rather be seen as a fool or madman.

Mr. Blackwell:
Computers arguing over the existence of a programmer as if they had eyes to see....funny.

pianodwarf:
Notice that the Programmer is nowhere to be found in this conversation.  (I'm just saying.)

Aaron123:
A little said to see that even computer programs will resort to arguments from ignorant and the god of the gaps.  Er, I guess it's "programmer of the gaps", in this case.

Nam:
The story bored me. No blood and guts.

-Nam

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