Transcript for 8/21/24: RISEN W/ PASTOR PAUL BEGLEY

I woke up today looking over news items and there staring me in the face was Jesus Christ. No, I wasn't having a vision, a near death experience, or a moment where the toast bore a resemblance to him. This looked like an actual picture of Jesus, or at least how the artists have depicted him over the years but it wasn't a painting -- it was like a photograph and that is what got my attention.

How could this be? As I took a sip of coffee, my brain kicked in and I knew that what I was seeing was a photo of Christ created by Artificial Intelligence.

We have discussed the idea of A.I. Jesus before and many times people that created them did so in a sacrilegious manner, such as Shrimp Jesus amongst other irreverent offerings.

But this was different for me because I realized that something that looked so real could be perfected and improved upon to create a counterfeit savior that would appear to be real to the unknowing eye.

I thought of the 2nd Commandment that we should never render a graven image but this commandment has been broken many times by the Catholic church, as stamps of saints the blessed virgin and Jesus himself are found amongst the candles bearing the sacred heart.

So the story about the picture of Christ is an interesting one.

Artificial Intelligence has recreated the "Face of Jesus Christ" from the Shroud of Turin. This has happened before with 3D imaging but no one was trying to make it look this lifelike.

The Shroud of Turin has divided opinion for centuries, with some claiming an outline of Christ's face can even be seen in the material. Others routinely dismiss it as a forgery but new technology used by Italian scientists suggests that the 14ft linen sheet may indeed date back to the time of Christ.

And now, AI has been used to reinterpret the enigmatic relic to reveal the “true face of Jesus”

The images appear to show Christ with long flowing hair and a beard – much like many classical depictions of him. There appears to be cuts and grazes around his face and body, pointing to the fact he had just been killed.

While sceptics believe an unknown 14th-Century artist faked the “shroud of the Messiah” using powdered paint on either a sculpture or the body of a model, many Catholics are convinced that the bolt of cloth was somehow imprinted with Christ’s image at the moment of resurrection.

In the 1980s, radiocarbon analysis determined that the cloth used to create the shroud dated from the mid-1300s, shortly before its documented history began.

But Dr. Liberato de Caro from Italy’s Institute of Crystallography, using a new method known as Wide-Angle X-ray Scattering, has sensationally claimed that the fabric is a good match for a similar sample that is confirmed to have come from the siege of Masada, Israel, in 55-74 AD.

Dr de Caro has cast doubt on the accuracy of carbon dating. He wrote: “Molds and bacteria, colonizing textile fibers, and dirt or carbon-containing minerals, such as limestone, adhering to them in the empty spaces between the fibers that at a microscopic level represent about 50% of the volume, can be so difficult to completely eliminate in the sample cleaning phase, which can distort the dating.”

He added that, because the X-ray scattering technique is non-destructive, the same sample could be tested by labs around the world, helping to confirm his findings.

In additional support for his claims, Dr de Caro pointed out that tiny particles of pollen from the Middle East had been lodged between the fibers of the linen, ruling out the common belief that the shroud is a European forgery.

While there is no hard evidence of the Shroud existing before the mid-1300s, a similar relic – which supporters believe was the same object – was reportedly stolen from a church in Constantinople a century before.

It bears the ghostly image of a man around six feet in height who bears wounds consistent with whipping and crucifixion. With the invention of photography at the end of the 19th Century, the shroud was photographed – revealing that the negative image was much more vivid than the faded “scorch mark” visible to the naked eye.

Over the years, a number of sceptics have attempted to recreate the centuries-old image, with mixed results. While the balance of probabilities lies with the object having been produced by an unidentified faker in the mid-1300s, whoever created it would have had remarkable, almost supernatural skill.

Various popes have endorsed the Turin Shroud as a miraculous relic, including Pope John Paul II and Pope Francis in 2013, but the Catholic Church as a whole has no official position on its authenticity.

Now keep in mind that the way AI works is to take all internet based sources of Jesus image into account along all internet data relating to the shroud itself.

It is a composite --and again creates a very life like or simulated image of what we have become used to as Jesus himself.

This to me comes very close to violating the false god commandment - or the graven image violation as society finds itself unsatisfied with religion as it becomes more of a dream than a lifestyle.

The only way to give religion its spark is to bring about the eschaton -and with right technology -- the second coming can be simulated --and the world order could commence.

Only the technocrats would render the image of the beast or the counterfeit Christ and use it as a tool for divine rite.

Many people cite Project Blue Beam as a real time extension of this theory -- but it has now been limited to a great deception where the elite can project an alien invasion into the sky to united the world for a New Order.

But many people are not aware that the author of the "Blue beam” Theory Serge Monast was convinced that the technology available would be able to fake the second coming of Jesus.

The theory as I remember was an allege plot to facilitate a totalitarian world government by destroying traditional religions and replacing them with a new-age belief system using NASA technology.

In 1994, he published Project Blue Beam (NASA), in which he detailed his claim that NASA, with the help of the United Nations, was attempting to implement a New Age religion with the Antichrist at its head and start a New World Order, via a technologically simulated Second Coming of Christ-- not an alien invasion.

Step One requires the breakdown of all archaeological knowledge. This will apparently be accomplished by faking earthquakes at precise locations around the planet. Fake "new discoveries" at these locations "will finally explain to all people the error of all fundamental religious doctrines", specifically Christian and Muslim doctrines.

This makes some degree of sense; if you want to thoroughly usurp a current way of thinking, you need to completely discredit and destroy it before putting forward your own. 

The Shroud of Turin is an example that is still believed by many to be a genuine shroud of Jesus as opposed to a medieval forgery and of course that plays a role in archeological finds that has turned into a cult unto itself.

Making an AI version of the shroud and creating a life like Jesus is a big step in creating a grand delusion.

But the AI Jesus is not enough --at least not yet. There needs to be a surge in those who defend as a representation of a God and gives it sacred properties.

many theologians avoid making falsifiable claims or place belief somewhere specifically beyond observation to aid this. So what finds could possibly fundamentally destroy both Christianity and Islam, almost overnight, and universally all over the globe? 

This is the biggest question-- so the belief goes that there has to be a grand simulation.

Step two of Blue beam is the creation of an apparition of a Messianic figure who calls himself Abel and is actually a human-made deity ("protodeus"). He appears in gigantic "space show" wherein three-dimensional holographic laser projections will be beamed all over the planet — and this is where Blue Beam really takes off. 

The projections will take the shape of whatever deity is most predominant, and will speak in all languages. At the end of this light show, the gods will all merge into one god, in which Monast calls the Antichrist.

This is a rather difficult plan, as it seems to assume that people will think this is actually their god.

It has to be convincing otherwise it would be as breathtaking as a Goodyear Blimp advertisement.

Step Three – it happens when the holograms result in the dissolution of social and religious order, "setting loose millions of programmed religious fanatics through demonic possession on a scale never witnessed before". The United Nations plans to use Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" as the anthem for the introduction of the New Age one world religion.

Yes, Strength through joy is not lost on people who are following along.

This is theory of Project Blue Beam -- not a fake alien deception -- but an apostacy with a graven image of Christ where those who control the Messiah controls the world.

It worked for the Romans -- now can it work for evil groups like the World Economic Forum, the UN, and NATO?

I don't necessarily believe in the alien version of Blue Beam but faking the second coming in a mass simulation would be the most dangerous and cynical things mankind would do.

It was post-modernist Jean Baudrillard who stated that as hyperreality continues to convince people of its validity there will be a time when mankind could actually simulate God.

In Baudrillard’s book-“Simulacra and Simulations” he states:

But what if God himself can be simulated, that is to say, reduced to the signs which attest his existence? Then the whole system becomes weightless; it is no longer anything but a gigantic simulacrum: not unreal, but a simulacrum, never again exchanging for what is real, but exchanging in itself, in an uninterrupted circuit without reference or circumference.

Yes, that is a big what if. If you are going to be throwing around an Idea of a great deception you had better make up your mind as to what would be more effective- faking an extraterrestrial invasion or faking or simulating an all-loving, all-knowing God that creates an image that is selected and is to the liking of the Beast system.

I would say the latter would be a lot easier to fake than an alien invasion.

Aliens are cartoons compared to a God that is powered by an AI that can use the internet of things to answer questions about the universe, enforce laws, and march people towards a technocratic Theocracy.

Modern society has been unsuccessful in scaling new religions beyond the cults of personality or the niches of Scientology. But as the digital and virtual worlds evolve, this is set to change. The 21st century is setting the stage for a new type of widespread faith: technology-based religions.

Technology today is pervasive and granulated. It encompasses our worldview, and people are translating it into their spiritual views. 

The internet acts as an accelerant on these forces, enabling cross-pollination and mutation at rapid rates. This slippery-slope of transmutation provides new guardrails for how technology itself can become a new cult or religion, or at least a component of them.

Techno-oriented religious movements represent a big departure from the strategies of 20th-century-style cults, which could make them even more dangerous. The foundations for this growth are governed by three factors: the internet, which allows for rapid scale; quantified-self technologies, which promise self-betterment; and new surveillance methods, which ensure a whole new type of peer-pressured submission.

If only enough computing power is thrown at the equation, the thinking goes; we would ultimately connect the dots and perhaps know the secrets of the Virtual counterfeit Jesus or even create him and have him appear as some sort of hard to debunk hologram.

In the Psalms we have been warned about the counterintuitive side of idolatry with the scripture that states that we should not worship that which have mouths, but cannot speak; eyes, but cannot see; ears, but cannot hear; and noses, that cannot smell- while the scripture mentions Gods of Silver and Gold can we also include technological avatars as well?

Ezekiel warned the people about idolatry and he also had a UFO experience -- go figure -- god moves in mysterious ways.

Saul of Tarsus saw a UFO that blinded him --he changed his name to Paul and created the Roman religion that still endured to this day.

Joseph Smith claims he had a vision of angels, God the Father and Jesus Christ -- but were they visions of light or were they Celestial beings with an agenda -- he saw the UFOS and started a religion.

Think of the resilience of Scientology --another alien based religion -- the power of celestial apparitions and aliens or Gods are very powerful claim.

Imagine the possibilities when the simulation of Christ happens?

Can this also be what the book of Revelation calls The image of the beast where technology gives the power to the simulacrum of God and in the process, we reject the true God?

Is this the advent of technological blasphemy?

The apocalypse being carried out in virtual reality had me thinking about the possibilities of staging an apocalypse on a grander scale using the technology we have to somehow convince people through synthetic telepathy that perhaps the end has arrived and the staging of the return of the messiah could be a remote possibility.

In the Book of Mathew, it says that there shall arise false Christs and false prophets and shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.

To quote Baudrillard again he says:

“The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth–it is the truth which conceals that there is none. The simulacrum is true.”

If the mind is convinced that the simulation is real it is no longer a simulation to the subconscious -- it will be registered and logged involuntarily.

Baudrillard’s key ideas include two that are often used in discussing postmodernism in the arts: “simulation” and “the hyperreal.” The hyperreal is “more real than real”: something fake and artificial comes to be more definitive of the real than reality itself. Examples include high fashion which is simulated to be more beautiful than genuine beauty, the mainstream media where “sound bites” determine outcomes of political contests and set agendas for what the media wants you to believe, and Disneyland a theme park that uses illusion to simulate anything from Lincoln speaking to you and holographic dragons appearing out of motes surrounding a simulated castle.

It all looks real to the mind because the simulation is so perfect that the brain cannot differentiate the fake from the real thing – this is hyperreality.

With technology able to generate hyperreality it is not at all crazy to think that mankind is fully capable of faking his own messianic second coming to fit the needs of what he has imagined it to be.

A God made in man's image, an inverse of the word. The God of the New Age.