LightinMind's (luminementis) Reviews

(E)
How do I assess people's work when reviewing?
#2259390 by LightinMind

I'm good at...

More interested in the content of what you write than the style. Theological, political, historical, scientific, or experiential, or indeed anything that paints a vision of the future. A good grammar checker will tell you about spelling and commas.

Favorite Genres

Not entirely sure as I like most stuff. I prefer something with a soul rather than purely secular. But I like Sci-Fi, anything Christian, and also 'What-if' type speculations with plausible plots.

Least Favorite Genres

Anything that fails to look for a way out of the darkness. You can be dark, just don't wallow in it. Generally, I try to steer clear of Fantasy, and most Dark or Horror stories just make me laugh or grimace due to their ignorance of the dark side.

Favorite Item Types

I have really liked some of the heartwarming dramas I have read here particularly personal stories. Thought-provoking poems or stories are cool also though I am no expert on poetical forms.

Least Favorite Item Types

Anything that is just an affirmation of the dark side. I hate empty words. I always look for human intelligence. I try and avoid Fantasy and Horror where there is no metaphorical resonance or connection with real-world truth.

I will not review...

I mainly review at random and just see what grabs my attention. I will usually skip stuff I do not like unless it gets me riled or if it is interesting for other reasons.

Public Reviews

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#4818917

Review of ruwth is writing...

for entry "Problem and Solution for May 2025..."

Review by LightinMind

Rated: 18+

| (4.5)

Hello ruwth

. Thank you for entering this month's contest.

FORUM

"Problem and Solution for May 2025..."

(13+)
What is the best path to enduring inner peace?
#2327636 by LightinMind

As the official Judge of this contest, I have the following comments to offer for "ruwth is writing..."

. Congratulations on your victory in this month's contest.

Did you answer the question?

Sorry to have caused you so much stress this month but I did like your answer.
You often seem swamped by the concerns of the day. You give the impression of a life that is like an against-all-odds battle to keep your head above water. In fact, at the beginning of your text, I was worried when I started reading through your list that you were entirely focused on the worries of the day. I was going to critique what you wrote in terms of you're already saved, consider the lilies of the field, none of this stuff seems like life and death, heaven or hell type stakes, get a little perspective but you critiqued yourself in the end and found true focus in your answer and I hope your life also. Your answer was so good I will use it for next month's question.

Use of quotes, proof-texting or AI - could I hear your voice?

Oh, this was definitely all you.

How consistent was your argument?

I was interested in the 'method' you followed in writing this. First, you made a list of pressing concerns, then you tried comparing yourself to other more 'successful' models, and then you engaged in critical self-reflection on historical changes in your life to the present day. You received a helpful bible verse from a friend. You prayed throughout this collating and discussing and reflecting process. Often it felt like you were drowning in the mundane and the stuff that did not work out until God told you to focus on the good stuff (Php 4:8) and at the heart of all of that is your relationship with God which gives you peace. It was interesting you spent all month talking with the guy who was the answer to the problem all along without giving Him a moment to answer right until the end.

My thoughts on the substance of what you said

I tried to fit your answer into the framework of the question provided.

You have a place to live, a job that earns enough to pay taxes, and a car, money to shop with and so you are not living in absolute poverty although life might be tough sometimes and just getting by requires a lot of your time. Poverty was not your focus and neither was the pursuit of riches.

You mentioned health problems occasionally in what you write and so pain might be an occasional issue. As a nurse, you can be no stranger to the sufferings of others. Pain is something you work with daily but this was not the focus of your answer either.

You are already saved so the question of sin is not a pressing issue to one already forgiven. Though interestingly while the big problem of salvation has been resolved sins like envy or covetousness can still spoil the peace of a Christian's life. What we have been forgiven may not be something we have completely worked through.

You perceived your main issue as being that you lacked a certain mental discipline, clarity, and focus. But unlike others who were also looking for enlightenment, you knew where to look for answers. You went to God in prayer and accepted Bible verses from His people. You listened to the answers and they were good ones. Focus on the good stuff and find your peace and contentment in the Lord. There is no need to covet or envy another person's life or lifestyle because God has His own special purpose and calling on your life.

From what you wrote it seems you are called as a nurse providing care to the sick, as a woman of God with a mission to bless others, as a mother. You are called to do the things God shaped you for and your "Viewmaster" rear view reveals a whole bunch of good, noble, just, lovely, honest, pure moments in a full life that makes God and His people smile and which on reflection gives you peace.

For you, the problem was simply finding the sweet spot where you could curl up in God's arms at peace with the life He gave you.

On reflection, that was a very good answer for us all.

Mechanical issues

I focused on the substance of what you wrote.

Thanks again for entering.
LightinMind

My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .

#4818916

Review of Between the Lines of Faith

Review by LightinMind

Rated: E

| (4.0)

Hello Kaytings

. Thank you for entering this month's contest.

FORUM

(13+)
What is the best path to enduring inner peace?
#2327636 by LightinMind

As the official Judge of this contest, I have the following comments to offer for "Between the Lines of Faith "

Congratulations on being the Runner Up in this months contest.

Did you answer the question?

Out of the four problems that the question suggested might frame humanity's problem you chose false perspective or as you phrased it confusion. Your poem articulated the difficulties in understanding what God and the Bible might be saying in complex and often confusing situations. Your fundamental faith is in a God of love who can walk into complexity and stay, you looked not for a clean theology so much as presence and wisdom, the kind of truth that knows when to whisper when shouting only wounds.

Use of quotes, proof-texting or AI - could I hear your voice?

This was your own work and fits your general poetic style of articulation demonstrated in your portfolio.

How consistent was your argument?

Basically, you argued that God is love and the truth is always more complicated than simplistic theologians articulate. LGTBQ+ was a big background issue as well as the status of women and the fact that many modern issues like AI, climate change, systemic racism, and mental health were not properly addressed at all in the timeless texts. This was a woke poem from the post-Enlightenment Western era of liberals and the politically correct.

My thoughts on the substance of what you said

You went for 'false perspective' as the major problem of humanity. The solution was the kind of truth that can demonstrate its worth by incarnating into the situation and demonstrating its worth with gentle wisdom rather than loud brutality. You spoke of God being just and Holy but really you preferred to simply trust that God was love. There was a lack of consequence here because you suggest biblically defined sins can never be clearly recognized as such in a complex world. Instead, the sins of our age became things like LGBTQ+ exclusion from churches, barriers to women's leadership, systemic racism, and other stuff defined by the commentators of the times we inhabit. You uncritically accepted these recent ungrounded definitions while remaining confused about what the bible might say about each of them.

Theologically the biggest problem with your poem was the failure to recognize sin and the necessity of the kind of redemption that Jesus provided. We only know that God is love because He proved it to us with his presence, death on the cross for our sins and resurrection in the life of Christ. Your poem assumes salvation but does not explain how the penalty of our sins has been avoided.

I got the impression that your hierarchy of understanding was defined entirely by your own experience. You are not in pain nor especially poor. You are more confused about what God might be saying to you today rather than condemned by His messaging. So this was sincere rather than objective and personal rather than considered. I also think that you are far from being the only person in the Western world with this kind of perspective. In this sense, you were a voice of the age which I entirely disagreed with but which I felt obliged to recognize as speaking for the many rather than the few.

There was a femininity about your poem which was both interesting and challenging. It demanded gentleness and wisdom rather than loud masculine confidence about doctrine- It wanted the reader to wrestle with complexity and nuance rather than etch clear commandments in stone. It demanded a love that was blind to all faults and never judgmental. You desired clarity but believe the world is messy and that God does not explain Himself very well. Maybe this confusion was rooted in the fact that you wanted God to simply accept you as you are without truly wrestling with who He is.

Despite the above, I tend to agree that a great many rush to simplistic answers in Job-like situations where they cannot possibly have all the answers. Also, God is big enough to handle our doubts and questions.

My favorite lines in what you wrote were these:

Not easy answers. Not a clean theology.
I'm looking for presence. For wisdom.
For the kind of truth that knows how to whisper
When shouting only wounds.
I'm looking for the courage to say, I don't know,
Without letting go of what I do know.

Mechanical issues

Your free verse poetic style is sometimes more prosaic than poetic. But it was an engaging and interesting way to answer the prompt.

Thanks again for entering.
LightinMind

My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .

#4818915

Review of Destroyed

Review by LightinMind

Rated: 13+

| (4.0)

Hello Amethyst Angel 💐

. Thank you for entering this month's contest.

FORUM

(13+)
What is the best path to enduring inner peace?
#2327636 by LightinMind

As the official Judge of this contest, I have the following comments to offer for "Destroyed"

Did you answer the question?

Yes, you did this with a story that described a great pain, a great injustice, and then the power of forgiveness as a source of healing.

Use of quotes, proof-texting or AI - could I hear your voice?

I included two major tests to sift out the cheaters from the genuine in this contest. First was the red herring of poverty in the question list which you skillfully avoided. No major religion regards poverty as the major problem of the human condition, and anyone who equates that on the same level as the other problems mentioned was probably using a morally relativistic AI to inform their answers or had never given the matter much serious thought. The second test was one of hierarchy, in which order did you prioritize the problems and the solutions? So obviously something like poverty or pain which are discomforting features of this life only do not compare with things that might end with eternal damnation. So the sins of the father and the drunk driver were regarded as the main problems highlighted here but so also a journey of discovery that allowed the victim's father to see the perpetrator with more sober eyes and find the strength to forgive. Your story prioritized forgiveness as the root of all healing here and the solution. This is indeed the Christian option.

How consistent was your argument?

Pains like the loss of a child impact the whole of a person's life and can manifest in the complexity of every aspect of those lives. But you navigated this story very well from trauma to healing. Reema's blaming, the anger at the sentencing, and the pain felt onto the final confrontation and then its resolution.

My thoughts on the substance of what you said

Your story reminded me of a well-known Christian book, "The Hut". A man spends time with God in that story wrestling with the loss of a child which broke his faith for a season. Also perhaps we all know people who have lost children and the enormous pain of such losses is clear.

I liked how you managed to include all the important elements of the question (bar the red herring of poverty) and managed to sift and sort these into the correct hierarchy of understanding. Your story and the resolution were also a moving account and valuation of the power of forgiveness. Let mercy triumph over judgment as the Bible says.

This review is much shorter than with the other contestants because for the most part, I just enjoyed the content and agreed with you.

Mechanical issues

Nothing major to say here.

Thanks again for entering.
LightinMind

My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .

#4818913

Review of Sin Pain Poverty or False Perspective

Review by LightinMind

Rated: ASR

| (3.0)

Hello sindbad

. Thank you for entering this month's contest.

FORUM

(13+)
What is the best path to enduring inner peace?
#2327636 by LightinMind

As the official Judge of this contest, I have the following comments to offer for "Sin Pain Poverty or False Perspective"

Did you answer the question?

You answered the question by saying that all the suggestions were valid problems, and all of their connected solutions were valuable. Each of these problems and solutions was interconnected, and you picked all of them, not one. Sin was defined in terms of whatever moral code one followed, rather than in absolute terms with reference to God or by a universally accepted set of values.

Use of quotes, proof-texting or AI - could I hear your voice?

The tone of your writing was secular, psychological, and philosophical. You defined terms here and there with no effort to prioritize into some kind of hierarchy. This was the kind of non-committal, relativistic answer I would expect from an AI. It is easy to find quotes to support each position in the bible but an AI lacks the wisdom to differentiate the plausible from the improbable. For example, no major religion outside socialistic versions of humanism would cite poverty or alienation from the means of production as the essential human problem. Indeed ascetics in many religions have embraced poverty as an essential pillar of true religion. But you did not seem to express any recognition of this in your piece.

How consistent was your argument?

You consistently accepted all of the ways of looking at the problem of the human condition without discrimination. There was no attempt to assess the relative weight of the problems in terms of discomfort, life or death, or the issue of eternal destiny. Interestingly, no major religion regards poverty as the core problem of humanity but you weighted it at the same level as sin. Discomfort in this life is therefore weighted more highly than one's eternal destiny in heaven or hell. You accepted without questioning the assumption that you were qualified to weigh and define the problems and map them to the solutions and did not seek a higher religious authority to adjudicate between the competing perspectives.

My thoughts on the substance of what you said

St Anthony was one of the more famous desert fathers in the Christian tradition. These guys would go into the desert, endure extreme hardship and deprivation, living in absolute poverty to purge their sins. Neither pain nor poverty were regarded as the primary problem by these guys.

Traditionally also Christians have regarded false perspectives as a symptom of sin. It is our failure to obey God that generates the need to rationalize defenses of sinful positions, to conceal our guilt, and to build edifices of stone or mind that revolve around ourselves. We separate ourselves from God with our sins and then call our darkness wisdom.

So weighting the temporary experience of pain on the same level as that of eternal salvation would need justifying. An atheist might do this in terms of dismissing a Judgment Day or an afterlife for example. But you seemed to embrace a broader and more spiritual outlook and so would need to justify why pain for the short season of human life would be in any way comparable to an eternity in hell in punishment for our sins. If there is an afterlife, heaven, and hell then sin must be the weightier problem, and the forgiveness of sins the necessary guarantee of a hopeful outcome.

Similarly, the ability of a person to fully articulate reality and the human condition as it is and even to prescribe methods and values that could have beneficial practical outcomes is not necessarily going to save a person from the wrath of God for the sins in their life. We can say and think all the right things and still go to hell if we are not right with God. We can repent, change our ways, and receive the gift of salvation, It is this that ensures our long-term well-being rather than an ability to articulate all the mysteries of creation great and small. Such a capability will always be beyond our capacity anyway, in isolation, compared to God because we are merely finite creatures, mortal, and in our current state imperfect.

Mechanical issues

Your style was a little repetitive and you could have been more fluent and precise in the way you phrased things

Thanks again for entering.
LightinMind

Only reviews from the past
14 days may be credited.

My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .

#4817592

Review of My Car

Review by LightinMind

In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group

Rated: 13+

| (3.5)

. This is a review of "My Car"

by invitation from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"

I have the following comments to offer.

Reader Experience

So anarchists in full-on burkas are planning to blow up the Opry, as it is a symbol of Southern culture. An evil woman called Natalia with blue eyes and a burka disguise is the coordinator of the attack. But just about everybody in her team is not what they seem...

Commentary: Content, Characters and Plot

Thanks for asking me to review your story.

You hid the evil antagonist under a burka and all we got to see of her was a set of blue eyes and lots of attitude. You did not develop the character in this short piece. She seems a little too chatty about her psychological compulsions with Dan. Would an anarchist that selfish be so willing to commit suicide, the personality you described would probably enjoy the attention of a court case and the notion that she would sacrifice herself for a cause which
has no positive center seems dubious.

I understand that it all turns out to be a feverish dream which gives you more license with the details but even so, some things about the story did bug me.

Dan's character seems a little contrived. A supersleuth would not speak so freely about his top-secret status even with his own family. If he thinks he is being observed by drones and door cameras even more so as his house would also probably be bugged or his mobile being used as a microphone.

I am unsure of the plan. Mostly terrorists wear burkas not just for anonymity but also to hide suicide vests. But these guys are not being asked to commit suicide or blow themselves up with their target. So are they just meant to mill around the Opry looking suspicious and then disappear before the place blows up or are they being asked to sacrifice their lives? If everyone dies in the explosion then how will the presence of the burka women be associated with the cause? If the place is wired to blow why all the theatrics with the burkas, a simple declaration of intent posted before or a phone call after would push the blame on Muslim terrorists just as easily.

The real star of this piece is Reema as the rest is just feverish imagination. She was the spy who gave it all up for her family and daughter Monica. She is the one who nurses Dan and is there when he comes back to reality.

Mechanical issues

He slipped into his best running shoes, taking measured steps towards the car in the driveway, wary of doorbell cameras and drone surveillance. - He needed running shoes to get to his car in his driveway. How long was his drive? Whose doorbell camera if he is only in his drive? So he turns up to the Anarchist meeting in running shoes also - he would have looked odd next to Kyle in his way-out jeans - one black leg, one white leg.

The figure who had spoken slipped out of the stockroom, quite unlike anyone Dan had expected. They were wearing a black, full Islamic burka. - They or she?

Couldn't care less if we blew it up tomorrow." - The explosion is scheduled for Thursday night but this makes that sound like tomorrow. It isn't as the rest of the text describes a couple of days of preparations first.

"I'm an FBI man, you're a private eye, Conan is with the CIA, Jose is from TBI… it's a sting." - The CIA do not operate on American soil in this way. A private eye is not a super sleuth government agent.

"You can have my body, but I've got my soul." - is a strange thing for an evil terrorist woman to say. It sounds like an invitation to have sex with her which is inappropriate not least for the fact that the government agents would have no desire to be reported as having demanded this by all the other agents in the room. It just sounds wrong.

Thanks for sharing.

FORUM

Only reviews from the past
14 days may be credited.

(13+)
What is the best path to enduring inner peace?
#2327636 by LightinMind

"WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"

My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .

#4816044

Review of The Vulture

Review by LightinMind

In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group

Rated: 13+

| (4.0)

Hello, Dad

. This is a Raid Review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"

"The Vulture"

was selected by personal choice for this time around. I have the following comments to offer.

Reader Experience

A teleportation device disassembles the transportee at the atomic level and then reassembles them elsewhere. Put a vulture and a human on the platform and what could go wrong?!...

Commentary: Content, Characters and Plot

I enjoy this kind of story - so thanks for suggesting I review it.

Alec and Vic are the inventors of a teleportation device. It has been tested on inanimate objects, plants, animals, and single human beings. You used dialog to tell the history and mainly avoided context descriptions, so I was not sure where the first conversation took place. Also how they got the license to build a platform in the middle of an American Football stadium is not explained. If the university is still active how do they play football with the platform in the way?

My major questions about the piece were plausibility issues.

Even allowing for the possibility of teleportation being too remote due to the complexity not only of the atomic configurations but also the technology needed to provide instant mapping of continually dynamic relationships in a split second I have a problem with the notion of a merely material transfer. I wonder if my soul would get left behind in such a transfer.

The size of a Turkey Vultures brain would not be able to contain the consciousness of a human being. The relative size of the brains and the neuron density differentiation would be insurmountable issues.

The Star Trek Enterprise had transporters and the replicators also used this technology - but both remain implausible concepts even today.

Mechanical issues

You presented the text well and the dialog was engaging. Except for the recitation of dates at the beginning which seemed a little forced. "As you well know for the last ten years we've... well today we approach the next milestone" might have worked better as a format

Thanks for sharing.

shared review image

FORUM

(13+)
What is the best path to enduring inner peace?
#2327636 by LightinMind

Only reviews from the past
14 days may be credited.

My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .

#4814894

Review of Somebody's Watching Me

Review by LightinMind

In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group

Rated: 13+

| (4.5)

Only reviews from the past
14 days may be credited.

. This is a review of "Somebody's Watching Me"

by invitation from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"

I have the following comments to offer.

Reader Experience

Sheila's hearing noises, but there is no one there. What's going on?...

Commentary: Content, Characters and Plot

Well, this story had a bit of everything. It all starts with a Satanic ritual of Airbnb guests in her house. This is followed by a scary intruder, the demonic hunter of souls, out-of-body experiences, salvation and even a visit from the Chief Archangel himself.

Sheila does not like hip-hop or rap, and maybe with good reason. These seem to be the devil's music. She has a carry and conceal permit, but maybe the gun she carries is not the kind of protection she needs against this kind of threat. She hears a voice in the house and calls the police, but they cannot find the devil that hunts her, nor any physical evidence that he was ever here. She has the common sense to reach out for spiritual help when all her efforts to defeat the demon have failed.

Moldoff, the devil has to be male with a deep voice and malicious intent. He has eyes so dark you cannot make out the pupils, black hair, and a black suit uniform that devils are expected to wear, and of course, he wears the required smirk and his aftershave smells like sulphur. The devil always gives masculinity a bad name and could provoke some men to want to talk in a high-pitched squeak by way of compensation, wear lavender and eat garlic, but let's wait for the other side to turn up first before making such big lifestyle choices.

Father Fred Dana is the stereotypical pervert in a priest's habit ( a statistically rare event, but a rep that has stuck on the Catholic church nonetheless). He keeps his nature concealed from all but Moldoff himself. He says all the right things to Sheila, preparing her for an exorcism, but he would have done well to follow his advice and confess his sins before resisting the devil. Yet with the wisdom of his profession, experience, or training, he identifies the cause of the presence before being overthrown by it.

You build the scene well here, describing the terror, the spooky ability of the radio to keep playing rubbish music after being unplugged and the unnatural temperature of the house and the poltergeist style beligerance of the unwelcome guest. Also, you rightly point out the ineffectiveness of a priest who had the form of godliness and the polished words of a hypocrite, but not the reality of God's Spirit in his life. Maybe the guy uses an AI to write his sermons, also.

Her prayer of commitment brings in the Captain of God's army himself, the Archangel Michael, with a sword of lightning and a voice of thunder. But then he seems to waste his more macho and undoubtedly deeper bass voice on a formulaic response to the demonic that could have come from an American evangelical. It did seem a little too verbose from an Archangel and especially with small fry like Moldoff. When disputing with the devil over the body of Moses, all Michael said was "The Lord rebuke you," before taking the body out of the devil's clutches. Sending an Archangel to swat away a minor devil seemed a little like overkill to me.

Overall, I enjoyed this; it reminded me of a story of my own I wrote a while back. Thanks for sharing.

STATIC

The Choice

(18+)
Damien has a supernatural guardian but it ain't no angel. He has a big choice to make.
#2256824 by LightinMind

Mechanical issues

Perhaps he should have found someone more experienced to take this on. In context, I wondered if you meant she here rather than he.

Thanks for sharing.

"Grill a Christian"

"WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"

My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .

#4813909

Review of Talk to Me

Review by LightinMind

Rated: E

| (4.0)

Hello Amethyst Angel 💐

. Thank you for entering this month's contest.

FORUM

(13+)
What is the best path to enduring inner peace?
#2327636 by LightinMind

As the official Judge of this contest, I have the following comments to offer for "Talk to Me"

. You finished second in this month's contest.

Did you answer the question?

Your answer was very personal and showed how it was difficult for you to communicate with others. You identified and shared the obstacles between you and a real conversation.

Use of quotes, proof-texting or AI - could I hear your voice?

This was a very unique and soulful response that evoked empathy and feeling in the reader. You spoke from your heart.

How consistent was your argument?

Since you are the person communicating, sharing the walls within yourself seemed like a sincere and authentic way to tackle the question. I did not feel you arrived at a conversation with God in this piece. It was more like a conversation about the possibility of doing that, shared with a therapist, with an AI, or with the readers of this contest in a piece of writing.

My thoughts on the substance of what you said

This was a very personal response to the question, and my immediate response was a flashback to an experience I had last week. I was talking with some German colleagues at work over lunch in German. My German is far from perfect, and I am culturally British. I often think in English and simply translate my thoughts into German, but sometimes the linguistic structures and culture do not allow for that, so there is considerable room for misunderstanding. I shared the fact that I did not have a car right now and did all my shopping by bicycle. There was a pause, dead silence and everyone stared at me like I was oversharing, a moron and culturally inept all at the same time. I am pretty thick-skinned, and so I continued babbling on and even had them laughing at some of my jokes, but afterwards I reflected on the experience and realised that they found what I said immensely awkward. I live in a car culture. Germans make some of the best cars in the world, and my colleagues all use cars to see customers. I do not need a car - they do. Much of my work experience is with remote connections, and public transport here is excellent. Maybe also the way I had said it made it too much for the Germans. British guys share their hearts on their sleeves with total strangers whose names they do not remember the following day. It is a friendly culture where you can make jokes with strangers and then move on to someone else. But Germans have a stricter work-life separation, and at work, they talk about personal stuff differently and are more reluctant to share with people who will repeat their stories. I have found them more cliquey with clearly defined sets of friends, often a group they have had all their lives. I find that too restrictive and a little stuffy; it is something I have never adjusted to and will probably never completely understand or respect. That said, it infringes on the possibility of genuine communication. Your essay felt to me like a British person talking and was a refreshing breath of air after too many German conversations last week.

Concretely, I analysed your essay based on its identification of the communication barriers and looked to find the solutions you seemed to propose to that. As I went through these, I was waiting for you to provide the answers, but you never articulated any. So my response to your thoughts is to provide some Christian-oriented answers to the questions you posed. The difficulties were:

1) Fear of speaking based on a feeling that your voice may sound silly, and being afraid of people's reactions.

Both love and arrogance can overcome fear. Pride struts into conversations like a bull in a China shop and tramples on everyone else in it. Love listens and speaks to the other person. If you love someone, you will talk to them, listen to their ways, and learn from them. I have been both an arrogant bull and a lover in my time - love is the better way.

2) The yearning to be understood and to connect with another human being. Someone who gets you, hears you, and likes you.

3) Going with the flow rather than genuine sharing. Being what others want in the conversation rather than being you.

4) A rich inner life and a love of writing, which allows you to build your inner cities and to live off their stories.

5) A more profound outlook than many of your peers. What you blurt is only a tiny part of a much larger worldview that would take time to explain to another. You don't think in soundbites.

Maybe you need to choose a better audience. You are quite intelligent and a profound thinker. Shallow people will never get you so why hang around with them? A book club, a bible group, or a discussion group might be a better place to learn to talk again. Or indeed a writer's forum like this one, where your thoughts are gratefully appreciated and your writing accepted as the best kind of communication.

6) Trouble hearing and seeing the other person. Too much of yourself gets in the way.

There was zero evidence in your essay that you ever really listened to anyone else, except maybe your mother, but the stories you shared from her were also about you. Maybe you could experiment with more dialogues in your stories between characters that are incompatible, with divergent world views, and where the miracle is that any words can be shared at all. The stories are then not monologues from an introverted mind but rather dialogues with different kinds of possibility and people, a clash of inner universes in a storm of explosive exchanges. Also, reviewing other people's work is a good way to consider an alternative perspective on reality.

When it comes to God, He utterly transcends all of us. Speaking with Him will always be a trip into an alien world (and I am not just talking German levels of strangeness here!). His otherness is disturbing and awkward in a way that overthrows our confidence in ourselves and leads us to trust Him and His ways. His presence, power and personality can all be overwhelming if we forget His love for us and His profound understanding of all our ways. Knowing what He has commanded, doing what He says is a key to developing a personal relationship with Him. First, we obey and then we love as we grow deeper into the mystery of the Divine. Using the Lord's prayer, the creeds and liturgies that Christians have developed over millennia are a good way to begin this conversation as we relearn what is important and learn a different language than our own with which to communicate.

I was interested in your perspective on ChatGPT. The AI would have given you structure and pertinent points to focus on, and a summary of the human approaches to the question. But all that seems abstract compared to the approach you took here. The AI way would not have engaged with your struggles in coming out of your cave in the first place to speak, it would not have given you a reason to share, nor a reason to believe that the other person cared at all about what you said.

I am truly grateful for your sharing, but it seems to be only a first step in the right direction. The direction is another person and God, and real conversation is not possible without them. I would hope that you would not hide this item but develop it to complete the story it tells. That story is waiting for real-life choices to be completed.

Mechanical issues

Very well written.

Thanks again for entering.
LightinMind

Only reviews from the past
14 days may be credited.

My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .

#4813908

Review of ruwth is writing...

for entry "Communication?"

Review by LightinMind

Rated: 18+

| (3.5)

Hello ruwth

. Thank you for entering this month's contest.

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What is the best path to enduring inner peace?
#2327636 by LightinMind

As the official Judge of this contest, I have the following comments to offer for "ruwth is writing..."

Did you answer the question?

To be honest, this time round, you and Apondia were the only ones to give a full answer to the question. You understood what it meant to have a full conversation with God.

Use of quotes, proof-texting or AI - could I hear your voice?

I liked your McCloskey and Shaw quotes, which were well integrated into the text. I could hear a good Christian response here that covered all the main points even though your text was quite short.

How consistent was your argument?

There were no major inconsistencies or conflicts in your argument. These were the words of a believer properly using her Christian resources to describe how communication is possible. On a secular level, we undo Babel with listening. We can talk to God because Jesus opened a door for us to do that, because the Spirit enables us to do that and because God Himself authors that possibility in our lives.

My thoughts on the substance of what you said

This was too short, but it was really good and to the point. I wrestled with giving you the victory this time for simply answering the question better than everyone else. But the point of the Grill a Christian contest is to get non-Christians talking about faith, to open doors for them to walk through. You are already through the door. Also, the other entrants put a lot more work into their entries, and there was far more creativity in style in the two non-Christians. Yours and Apondias' entries presented me with a quandry, though, as you both accepted that God was real and both have active prayer lives. Can I award a non-Christian who writes brilliantly but is ultimately asserting misconceptions about the Divine and has not yet been redeemed from sins that separate them from God over a Christian who gets what talking to God is all about? How can someone who does not talk to God or indeed listen to Him win a contest on communication?

In the end, I chose to award sincerity and beauty over accuracy and true faith because this contest is more about opening doors to those outside the church than it is about affirming those within it. My motive here is love and a desire to see people saved.

That said, thank you for your entry.

One thing I missed in your entry was how being made in the Image of God unites people both with each other and with God. Because we all image the same God, because we have His attributes built into us we have an innate capacity to understand each other. This capacity has been marred by sin but is still the basis of mutual understanding. We were created to relate to each other and God.

You identified the problem in terms of God confusing the languages at Babel and thereby scattering the peoples across the planet. In doing so, he confounded the arrogance and self-sufficiency of a humanity that blasphemously sought to usurp Him. You did not explore the why of this so much as the fact of Him doing this. Ultimately, it was our sins that created the communication barriers between us, and Babel is a consequence more than it is a cause. This is also why Pentecost, which follows the redemptive action of the cross, is so interesting and significant. Here, the Spirit brings together people who speak different languages in a shared event that unites them in the Body of Christ. He undoes Babel, because the sacrifice for our sins has been made, and makes possible a global church that reaches out to every nation.

You could have said more about how the incarnation of Christ on earth revealed God to us, opened eyes to the Divine and demonstrated God in action in human history. God's presence with us was the ultimate act of communication showing us what is means to know God, making sense of the scriptures and teaching us His ways.

You quoted scriptures well here, and the verses you used were well chosen. I especially liked the reference to Romans where we are told that the very groaning of our hearts are listened to by God. Also that we can ask God to open our eyes and ears to Him, to forgive us our sins and free us from all unrighteousness. God is indeed the author of our salvation and everything we need to know Him has already been provided in our design, in the sacrifice of the cross which undoes the sins that separate us from Him, in the gift of the Holy Spirit who dwells in His church and in the scriptures which show us how God sent His very Son to be with us and reconcile us to Him. God speaks to us by His presence, word and action and all we need to do is listen, obey and share to begin that conversation with Him.

Mechanical issues

if you become gifted in a the rare act of listening

...turn to Him and say, "Heal me.[,]" and we can trust...

We are His Workmanship [workmanship].

Thanks again for entering.
LightinMind

Only reviews from the past
14 days may be credited.

My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .

#4813907

Review of Grill 2 April 2025

Review by LightinMind

Rated: E

| (3.5)

Hello Apondia

. Thank you for entering this month's contest.

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What is the best path to enduring inner peace?
#2327636 by LightinMind

As the official Judge of this contest, I have the following comments to offer for "Grill 2 April 2025"

Did you answer the question?

Yes, you directly addressed the question of communication as someone trained as a journalist. You suggested that the Bible, empathy, and shared language meant that communication was possible with both God and each other. That our experiences, presuppositions, biases, and faulty senses can all filter our communications. You alluded to a deeper shared experience in our very design that facilitates shared communication and the insights that we bring to the conversation. You were the only one who considered prayer to be an objective reality and an activity anybody could engage in with an actual personal God. You did not attempt to explain the perceived existence of God in terms of the need to communicate, as did one entrant; your faith was taken for granted, and as a result, spared you from idolatry and doubts.

Use of quotes, proof-texting or AI - could I hear your voice?

I get the impression you use AI a lot for research and to focus answers to the questions. Your collation seemed authentic enough, albeit a little emotionally flat. I would guess your training teaches you to hide feelings even when you share personal anecdotes. This came more from the head than the heart.

How consistent was your argument?

The other writers had a more holistic approach, spiralling around feelings and insights related to the question but your argument was more purposeful, organized and sequential. You addressed a series of questions relating to the theme and answered each one in turn.

My thoughts on the substance of what you said

You give the impression of a person who knows how to write without necessarily feeling the depths of what you share. Your words do not bleed onto the page from open veins, and they do not make us feel what you are feeling. You tell us what you think. In my view, you are broadly right in what you say, but have not tested your arguments against deep-seated criticisms of them. Maybe a machine could also provide such an answer. Your anecdotes and self-reflection save your answer from that accusation. This was an answer integrated into personal experience, but not one that brings the reader into a shared context to feel what you feel. You allude to the depths of shared insight but do not connect us to them here.

You have written a better answer to my actual question without making me feel your answer in the way that the other entrants did whose answers were inaccurate and full of misconceptions. So I have the dilemma of whether I choose a better answer over better writing. You know when a person has read widely and felt deeply because their understanding radiates in the nuances of their writing. Your response felt more like a business email, while other entrants read more authentically.

Some specifics that came up. You asked about miracles - I guess my definition of a miracle would be when only God could explain it.

Since God confused the languages at Babel, the differentiation of people by language has been a problem. It was Pentecost that reversed this trend to differentiation and made it possible that people from every land and culture could once more come together again. My church is an international one with people from every continent. But we share a common scriptural understanding, pray to the same God, and can share our deepest problems and hopes with each other, even though for many of these people, English is not their first language. It seems that what we share is more important than what divides us. We understand each other despite the genuine barriers to communication that exist in our cultures, histories, and individual psychologies. But my church is a refutation of the central thesis of the other entrants, who seemed trapped in their psychologies and unaware of how the grace and mercy of God can unite even the most unlikely of souls.

You alluded to the shared design that we have been made in God's image, but could have expounded on that more. In essence, we have a built-in ability to comprehend each other on a conscious and unconscious level because we all mirror the same God and share the same design. This design was broken by the fall, flood, and angelic fiddling. Enough remains for language to be still meaningful. The incarnation is God's deepest communication to mankind, showing us what a human life should look like, redeeming us from the sins that separate us from that, and giving access to the Holy Spirit to inhabit God's church and dwell within her. We can know and understand each other because the Bible shows us Christ's perfect life, and because the cross undoes the effect of sin, because the Spirit is active in the church, and because we share the hope that God will fix our brokenness and make all things new at the resurrection. Understanding may currently be, like love, a reflection in a cracked mirror, but we know that one day we will understand perfectly as we are understood even now.

Mechanical issues

Nothing major to say here.

Thanks again for entering.
LightinMind

Only reviews from the past
14 days may be credited.

My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .

#4813654

Review of To the Everywhen

Review by LightinMind

In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group

Rated: E

| (4.5)

Hello, Fyn

. This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"

I received "To the Everywhen"

via an official email with a recommended item list and yours looked interesting. I have the following comments to offer.

Reader Experience

It's all connected, it all cycles 'round to the everywhen.

Commentary

Brilliantly conceived and executed. I cannot criticise your poetic style and mastery here.

Lines can be drawn back in time through the family tree, through history, through our biological connectivity. These same lines project forward also. These lines may also connect us to all time, everywhere - the everywhen. Such perspective is humbling, drawing us out of ourselves into the grander mystery of our connectivity with a larger reality.

As someone made in God's image, you also reach beyond space and time and the boundaries of creation. You link to eternity, and that gives you transcendence. No one wrote this poem before you did; it is a unique creation. The themes may echo Hindu understandings of the wheel of time and Nietzschean perspectives on eternal recurrence, but the way you wrote this makes the poem unique. Where did that innovation come from if not from beyond the everywhen?

There will come a time when the everywhen is ended and assessed, and yet you will still be. What merely appears cyclical will be exposed as sequential, completed, and judged. From the perspective of eternity, straight lines and clarity can be achieved regarding the time tunnel we follow from start to finish.

Mechanical issues

N/A

Thanks for sharing.

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What is the best path to enduring inner peace?
#2327636 by LightinMind

Only reviews from the past
14 days may be credited.

My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .

#4813647

Review of Words

Review by LightinMind

In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group

Rated: 13+

| (4.0)

Hello, Noisy Wren

. This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"

I received "Words"

via an official email with a recommended item list and yours looked interesting. I have the following comments to offer.

Reader Experience

A nasty woman leaves a man with poisoned wounds.

Commentary

As a man, of course, I empathise. It is always the woman's fault, even when it isn't. But piercing, poisonous, stabbing, shattering, malicious efforts by this woman leave me wanting to call her names unworthy of the forum.

On the bright side, you are still alive to write your obituary.

In my experience, the only women who can hurt me with words are the ones that I care about. The more they use this power, the less I care about them. Well, unless that is, I feel obliged to care for them, in which case I pray for them and find an inexhaustible well of love, mercy, forgiveness, and generally positive resource to counter whatever tides of poison come my way. Then the experience of such encounters becomes less about being a victim and more about an inner struggle, a fight for good against evil. Whatever she throws at me, I can take. I am still here, still converting her negatives into positives, her darkness into light, her hate into love and her misery into humor.

This was well written, but was a victim poem that allowed too much poison in. Don't let the ##### win! Let mercy triumph over judgment and love over hate.

Mechanical issues

No obvious errors.

Thanks for sharing.

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#2327636 by LightinMind

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#4813646

Review of Stone age people

Review by LightinMind

In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group

Rated: E

| (4.0)

Hello, SomeKindaWords

. This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"

I received "Stone age people "

via an official email with a recommended item list and yours looked interesting. I have the following comments to offer.

Reader Experience

A political rant about inequality, cultural oppression, the waste of consumerism and missed opportunities.

Commentary

I love political rants and especially when they have a kind of rapper vibe to them. This article came to me in an email about using senses in literature, but there was no touch, taste, smell in this.

A lot of this sounded cool but when I thought about it did not make sense. For example, what has growing inequality got to do with artificial borders. That only makes sense if you are talking in terms of walled off communities in which the rich separate themselves from the poor but the way you said made it sound like lines on a map separating countries.

One of your coolest lines was We live in space-age times occupied by stone-age people. But stone age people were not as wasteful as moderns are and were more in danger of starvation than obesity in many contexts. There were clear hierarchies, but also a strong sense of community, and this was essential to survival. Wasteful consumerism is something that, outside of rich elites, is relatively new to this planet and is probably not sustainable in the long run. It is not a part of human DNA.

Looking for a central theme, I settled on "we could be better than this, and our lives could be better than this." There was a healthy dissatisfaction with the status quo. Governments, corporations, AI pat-answers, and social peers were all trying to warp our lives into something artificial, wasteful, and exploitative. The few were living off the many and not using their wealth to get us out there in the stars. Even though we have developed the technology to leave the planet, the billionaires are spending their money on themselves instead, and the planet seems doomed by our wasteful consumerism.

But aren't billionaires driving the space race right now? Musk and Bezos, especially. There now seems to be enough momentum behind Mars trips, habitats in space and Moon bases to see these things happen in the next ten years. So maybe we should not be giving up on the dream quite yet, mankind might still make it.

Mechanical issues

Once I tuned into the style, most of the perceived misuse of grammar and word choices evaporated. Sometimes you close sentences with full stops and sometimes not.

Thanks for sharing.

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#2327636 by LightinMind

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#4811953

Review of Demons of Science

Review by LightinMind

In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group

Rated: 13+

| (4.0)

Hello, Damon Nomad

. This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"

I received "Demons of Science"

via the entry list for the WDC contest. I have the following comments to offer.

Reader Experience

The story describes a cutting-edge science project with two junior scientists as part of the team. They differ on whether their project is the work of the devil or just a discovery and implementation of natural laws. The consequences of their discovery changed the world and the direction of each of their lives...

Commentary

Very interesting concept here and a meaty issue to apply the contest prompt to. Scientific discoveries on the level of Galileo and Copernicus overthrow paradigms and the application of nuclear fission to energy production and weaponry represented one such paradigm shift.

The contrasting reactions of the two men to the success of their research were a good way to bring out reflections on the meaning of the Trinity Test and the subsequent detonations at Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

I felt that you were more interested in discussing the big issue here than expounding and developing the characters in the piece. You had a moral dilemma, you wanted to expound on more than a story, you wanted to reveal to your audience.

Saul feels so deeply that what he has done is a work of the devil that he commits suicide. Oppenheimer's quote, "I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds," was a bit of an exaggeration as no atomic bomb can literally blow up a planet, but the advent of nuclear weaponry was indeed seismic.

You conclude on the side of Saul's colleague that this is just a matter of scientific progress. But is it? Nuclear fission is a rare event in nature, really only occurring with radioactive isotopes like Uranium 235. Fusion inside stars is the more common natural event, and we have yet to duplicate that cost-effectively. Maybe there is something wrong and naturally destructive in the notion of refining elements into artificial radioactive formats like plutonium-240, which are the more effective basis for bombs and energy production. I believe that creation was ordered in a certain way and that the natural laws need to be respected as they all have profound reasons for being the way they are. When we fiddle with the DNA of the natural order, we never do so with the holistic comprehension of the full system. Are we beginning to scar and destabilize creation with unnatural processes that may yet doom us? If so, then our lack of care and the pretensions of our intellects may well seem like tools of the devil.

Mechanical issues

Berkley - Berkeley

The splitting of the atom and the neutron chain reaction is [are] part of nature

Thanks for sharing.

** Image ID #1900402 Unavailable **

STATIC

(E)
How do I assess people's work when reviewing?
#2259390 by LightinMind

Only reviews from the past
14 days may be credited.

My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .

#4811945

Review of Black

Review by LightinMind

In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group

Rated: ASR

| (4.5)

. This is a review of "Black"

by invitation from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"

I have the following comments to offer.

Reader Experience

We live in the best possible universe in a multiverse of options, where the Men in Black police the intrusions of the envious and resentful from those other universes. How can we preserve the life we have against the darkness in the mirror?...

Commentary: Content, Characters and Plot

This was a truly original and awesome concept. You drew the reader in with some really good writing here. The rules of the Men in Black seemed impossible to navigate, but a loving wife saves her man and the father of her child and makes the Men in Black look like amateurs.

I loved this line, which was so revealing of your mindset and the 'Kill Bill' feminism of the piece. Reema is the heroine of the piece, even though Dan also has the guts to try and save his family:

"If something happens, don't expect me to sit around like a princess in a tower. I'm armed too."

The fundamental concept of the piece was revealed here.

the best of all possible worlds."
"I thought Voltaire was being sarcastic." -
Actually, the Christian Leibniz invented the idea, and the atheist Voltaire then parodied and critiqued the inherent optimism in it through his character Pangloss in Candide. The good guys win in your story but you describe a reality that is mainly darkness, with the vast majority of our alter egos suffering the pain and agony of inferior universes. I wonder if that makes you more Voltaire than Leibniz. In such a creation, God looks most unfair, while Leibniz did not burden his optimism with the notion that God was simultaneously parallel processing the best universe with inferior versions of it.

Your description reads "A man caught in the multiverse." But surely everyone is in the scenario you have created here. The Men in Black seem a poor substitute for Divine intervention and lack the wisdom or luck of Reema. If this were reality I would worry at the fragility of our optimal lives.

Anyway, awesome and thought-provoking writing.

Mechanical issues

Lightning flickered across the curtains. No wonder it felt strange; probably a thunderstorm brewing. - If the Lightning has started, hasn't the storm also? So not brewing. I guess the EMI interference of the multiverse matrix is the reason here, but Dan's thinking about this is muddled.

Thanks for sharing.

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(13+)
What is the best path to enduring inner peace?
#2327636 by LightinMind

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#4811113

Review of I Return

Review by LightinMind

In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group

Rated: E

| (1.0)

Hello, Polaran

. This is a review of "I Return"

by invitation from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"

I have the following comments to offer.

Reader Experience

Can Lucifer be redeemed and find eternal peace in the city of the New Jerusalem?

Commentary

You knew when you asked me to review this that I would adopt a Christian approach to this piece. When it comes to the devil, I have nothing but fierce defiance, and so this review is not going to be gentle.

The best language and aspiration here are borrowed from scripture. The themes of completion, peace, beauty and truth are of course welcome ones and that is the only positive thing I can say about this.

My main problem with the poem is theological:

1) The devil has no opportunity to repent; he has already been judged, and he's going to burn. His rejection of God is permanent (Is 14:12-15, Ezk 28:11-19) and his fate is described in the Bible (Revelation). Christ's sacrifice is not for angels (2 Peter 2:4: Jude 1:6) but rather for humans, so there is no redemptive mechanism by which the devil can be redeemed.

2) The devil had no hand in building the New Jerusalem, nor will he ever be permitted inside it. He is unclean filth and there is no place for him in a place of perfection. Your poem smacks of universalism (the notion that everyone gets saved). The Bible does not paint absolute inclusiveness. It says that only some will be saved even if the opportunity is open to all mankind.

3) The line "I overcame God" is a blasphemous lie. No one overcomes God and the devil was never remotely equal to the Almighty. We do not live in a dualistic universe.

4) The longing for peace, beauty and order are Christian sentiments but not shared by the devil. He is only thinking of himself when he walks toward the New Jerusalem, there is no praise and thanks of God on his lips or in his heart.

In effect your theology understands the futility of rebellion against God but not the finality of God judgment on the devil. You present a false hope that if the devil can be saved then maybe everyone will. But the Bible is more exclusive than that.

There is a repetition of the themes here like: overcoming God, creating independently of God, the cyclical nature of the devil's experience, the aspiration of peace and theme of return. The poem loops on itself rather then proceeds from beginning to end - it is less emotionally powerful this way.

There is a complete absence of sensory detail here giving a feeling of abstraction to the writing. You need more 'show' in this and less 'tell.' We do not travel with the main character; we are simply forced to listen to his thoughts. There is also an absence of metaphor.

I absolutely hated this poem; it is opposed to everything I believe in, and it is unclear to me why you asked me to review it, given the almost inevitable hostility it was bound to evoke.

And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. Revelation 20:10-11

Mechanical issues

You use the word I 49 times in this poem. The selfishness of the devil is there in the language used. So the poem has a self-indulgent and monotonous repetition to it, turning the feeling inwards. It is the spiritual monologue of a being that never transcends a consideration of himself.

Thanks for sharing.

FORUM

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(13+)
What is the best path to enduring inner peace?
#2327636 by LightinMind

"WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"

My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .

#4809079

Review of Truth or Lies?

Review by LightinMind

Rated: E

| (4.5)

Hello Amethyst Angel 💐

. Thank you for entering this month's contest.

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#2327636 by LightinMind

As the official Judge of this contest, I have the following comments to offer for "Truth or Lies?"

Did you answer the question?

This was an honest appraisal of the question from someone who has thought about it on a personal level and is genuinely confused by the apparently bewildering range of perspectives on truth.

Use of quotes, proof-texting or AI - could I hear your voice?

You clearly interact with the various voices of people but this was distinctively your own voice and reflections on what is truth.

How consistent was your argument?

Your opening sentence smacked of humility, which is always a good approach to understanding. You then suggested that you favored a more materialistic approach to this question. Detective stories and scientific methods informed the gathering of facts and the solving of who dun' it mysteries. You spoke as someone who appeared like a spectator to truth claims, parading in front of you on the TV, but leaving you overwhelmed and confused. Yet it was clear that scientific methodologies and the honest appraisal of the best primary source evidence offered a solid approach to resolving a large percentage of debates about what is true. You then took a larger leap into the realm of religion, suggesting that certain kinds of truth were not accessible by a materialistic approach and that it felt a little lightweight to reduce them to a matter of liberal choices based on shallow, subjective reasoning. At the same time, you felt an honest appraisal of the prepackaged alternatives of organized religions was also not an acceptable alternative. You surprised me by suggesting integrity, depth, and honesty to an evangelical Christian approach, which I think is entirely fair, by the way

Your argument was consistent but led you to a dangerous no man's land in the middle of a war zone. So not only were you a little confused but also a little nervous of the friends on both sides taking potshots at you whenever you broke their diverse "commandments."

My thoughts on the substance of what you said

My impression of you was of an honest agnostic trying to navigate his way through a bewildering data landscape. The discussion was very much an intellectual one rather than grounded in concrete experience and action. You appeared like a spectator to the discussion rather than an active participant. The friends you described were armed with theological convictions, woke viruses and fake ideologies, but you were somehow just sitting in a no-man's land watching the missiles fly overhead. You were more Greek than Jewish, the thrill of a good new story holding an attraction rather than the repetition of righteous action and the grounding of a life in a practical context. Your context and experience were mainly missing here and there was an abstraction to your thoughts on this question.

Your critique of liberal individualism intrigued me. In many ways, you write like a liberal individualist, respecting no authorities except solid material ones or products of your reflective process and decision. On the other hand, you are critical of this position. You expressed the understanding that DIY, mix-and-match religious choices and picking religious modules off the shelf to graft into amateurish and subjective holistic programs is always going to be a lightweight alternative to prepackaged organized religions with their millennia-old reflections and integrality on the big questions. But you thought it obvious that you had the weight to dismiss convictions held by the big guns and that these errors excused your non-participation in their organizations. So the war rages all around you, and the armchair in no-man's land seems the only logical choice.

My best friend is Jesus, I regard Him as the benchmark of reality, the perfect example of the true life. So, the Truth is intensely personal at heart for me. It is a simple matter of trust to ask "What would Jesus do?" or indeed say, as a guide for working out truth in a complicated world. I listen for His voice because the others seem like foolish noise, and when I have listened to those other guys, they have generally led me to a bad place. Very often, the right decisions, actions and verbal pronouncements are not clear to me. So I pray and I listen to the only voice that matters to me whether written in scripture, demonstrated in the best examples of the church, or prompted by the Spirit who reminds us of the things that Jesus said and did and who applies them to our lives.

Scientists often appear to me to be debating trivia about stuff that will never impact upon their lives, cannot be proven with the scientific method and they miss a truer focus on One who can guide us through deep personal crisis, wars, hunger, homelessness, relational crisis and every other human situation that we experience on our own personal rollercoaster journeys. That does not mean I consider the scientific endeavor a fruitless one; quite the opposite, it just needs to be brought into a proper perspective. I agree wholeheartedly with you that science, expert detective training, and a good historical method go a long way to resolving many kinds of disputes. When scientists go off down the rabbit hole of speculation about things out of the scope of the scientific method and unprovable by that method, they sabotage the credibility of their "factual" approach. Many modern critiques of organized religion boil down to this exaggeration of effective scope. Also, we can all learn a lot from a good detective story, particularly the kind that overthrows the presuppositions we entertain at the beginning of the story, with stuff that we never thought to look at until we heard the ending. Maybe life is like that, with God as the author of the dramas we inhabit. We assume too much and our thoughts are forever being overthrown by a greater mind. My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, declares the Lord. The immanent characters in His dramas only truly come alive and start to live out their fuller callings when they start talking to the transcendent author directly.

This was the best entry of the bunch in this month's contest. S,o congratulations on your victory.

Mechanical issues

Another immaculate presentation. I liked the way you wrote this, which was personal and engaging. You kept my interest while navigating some heavy material.

Thanks again for entering.
LightinMind

Only reviews from the past
14 days may be credited.

#4809078

Review of Makings of Truth a description.

Review by LightinMind

Rated: E

| (3.0)

Hello Apondia

. Thank you for entering this month's contest.

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(13+)
What is the best path to enduring inner peace?
#2327636 by LightinMind

As the official Judge of this contest, I have the following comments to offer for "Makings of Truth a description."

Did you answer the question?

My impression was that you entered the question into a search engine and then asked Co-Pilot to help sift and sort the results. You may have chosen from the result set, but there was little personal reflection on the options selected.

Use of quotes, proof-texting or AI - could I hear your voice?

Well, you used AI, which is not a problem for research purposes, but there was not a coherent personal response to the results and the integration of these into a clear argument in which your distinctive voice could be heard. Do you think that a machine is going to provide a better answer to this question than you are? Unlike an AI, you have a soul and a body, and your voice matters. I hope to hear it in the future because I did not hear it here.

How consistent was your argument?

You presented seven ways to look at the truth, but there was no consistency between these themes and no coherent argument.

My thoughts on the substance of what you said

The search engine returned 108m answers, which shows the importance of the question and the amount of commentary available on that. As you say, it is a question that people need an answer to; it bothers them, and it matters. But you suggested that the volume of materials was so overwhelming that there was nothing you could add to that. So instead, you merely summarized the highlights of what others were saying. In effect, this was not a personal response to the question; it was a list of possible approaches one could take to the question.

That said, your choices were interesting ones: Logic, stuff that works, the trustworthy personal-historical example of Jesus: God-incarnate, Phenomenological experience, impact-assessment of truth claims, a progressive social construct, the moral-ethical-taste context in which truth can be upheld - is it life positive or negative? Maybe there was some overlap and repetition between these that could have been eliminated or reconciled in a more personal argument.

Your choices indicated a pragmatic/functional/experiential orientation to the question. You like answers that work in practice and can be incarnated into real-world experience. This reflects your Judeo-Christian orientation and recognition of the power of the incarnate revelation of Jesus as God with us, who was the perfect example of truth and whose every word was true and whose very person and presence are the Truth. I was interested that one of the sources you quoted was the Jewish Study Bible. The Jews looked for miracles and for the power of God, while the Greeks searched for wisdom (1 Cor 1;22-23). The Jews already had the outward form of godliness but needed the wondrous power of God to make it all work. The Greeks were on a continual quest for the thrill of the new, their stories were more abstract, fanciful and less grounded in historical reality.

Your most curious choice was the Social construction one. The notion that truth is progressive, acting on situations of falsity progressively, contrasts with conservative voices that seek to preserve truth from the corruption of change and evolving relativistic views of reality. My word does not return to me empty, it will accomplish the purpose for which I sent it - contrasted with "The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever // Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.". You chose a side here without explaining the choice or demonstrating it with a practical example.

Mechanical issues

This was too short.

108,000000 - this should have been written as 108 million or 108,000,000

The text was well edited but felt like a summary of a Google/Co-Pilot search. It lacked soul coherence.

Thanks again for entering.
LightinMind

Only reviews from the past
14 days may be credited.

#4805268

Review of The Visitor

Review by LightinMind

In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group

Rated: 18+

| (4.5)

Hello, Angus

. This is a Raid Review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"

"The Visitor"

was selected by personal choice for this time around. I have the following comments to offer.

Reader Experience

A dark tale about a man who wakes up in prison to find a visitor with him. The visitor has an agenda...

Commentary: Content, Characters and Plot

The Minion of the Dark Lord took a lot of pleasure in his role. He found a man who never really developed a soul or the capacity to love to betray somebody who might have had a chance at purity and love. He lied about what the man had done. He alluded to the punishment such crimes entailed - the fires of hell. And yet it seems in accomplishing his mission he may have doomed two souls and ruined the lives of two more. The devil would be proud of him.

I guess in the foggy state of semi-drunkenness meets the hangover, such delusions and expert deceiving could meet with fertile ground and especially in the confines of a cage where there was no place to run and no frame of reference by which facts could be checked.

This is one of those stories that hooks a person from beginning to end without edifying them. I feel like I just got dumped into a dark hole where nightmares were real. Fortunately, I still can climb out for my next review.

Mechanical issues

You had me so engrossed in the story that I did not notice any errors.

Thanks for sharing.

STATIC

(E)
How do I assess people's work when reviewing?
#2259390 by LightinMind

Only reviews from the past
14 days may be credited.

My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .

#4802972

Review of ruwth is writing...

for entry "By love or force? Christian nationalism today?"

Review by LightinMind

Rated: 18+

| (3.0)

Hello ruwth

. Thank you for entering this month's contest.

FORUM

(13+)
What is the best path to enduring inner peace?
#2327636 by LightinMind

As the official Judge of this contest, I have the following comments to offer for "ruwth is writing..."

Did you answer the question?

You focused on Constantine and nominal Christianity, suggesting these were a product of forced faith rather than genuine conversions.

Use of quotes, proof-texting or AI - could I hear your voice?

This was your voice.

How consistent was your argument?

You consistently argued that forced Christianity did not work rather than positively showing why the alternative did work.

My thoughts on the substance of what you said

A major error in your piece concerned Emperor Constantine establishing Christianity as the state religion. Constantine became a Christian on his deathbed. He drafted the Edict of Milan in 315 which established freedom of religion for Christians across the Empire. It was Emperor Theodosius at the end of the Fourth Century who established Christianity as the religion of the Empire and from whom the true Church-State relationship can be traced. You could argue that the Armenians were the first Christian nation to declare Christianity as their state religion in 301 AD.

But nominal Christianity was indeed a major issue following Constantine's ending of Roman persecution of the church. Many Christians suspected every new convert especially the ones who were just following the fashions of the age. Entry requirements were stricter in those days, especially for those who had been Christians but renounced Christ to save their lives in the Diocletian persecutions. You are right that nominal Christians today play out commercialized rituals at Christmas and Easter without connecting to the meaning of the events. But as the climate toward Christians grows harsher I suspect that many of these fake believers will be burnt away. Indeed this is one reason why stats about declining church numbers do not bother me that much. It is the nominals that are being burned away by testing not true believers.

I attach a certain value to the church calendar even if its connection to the historical dates is tenuous. The Jewish calendar was 360 days the Julian/Gregorian one is 365 days. So we cannot use the Passover as the date for Easter because it would always be changing. But Easter is about new life and situating it in Spring makes sense for that reason - although I guess for the Southern hemisphere this is Autumn. Christmas occurs at the darkest time of the year and the new birth has a special symbolism at that time representing the eruption of new hope and light into that darkness. Early church people often took over pagan events or locations as part of the strategy of spreading Christianity. The displaced religions were soon forgotten and any spiritual authority was shifted to the true faith as a result. It seems like a clever strategy to me and worked in most places.

Maybe salvation mathematics is a fool's game and the real answer will always be to ask God. That said I suspect that there are more Christians on the planet today because of Constantine than had he never existed. This is because the Eastern church in which no real Christian state dominance was ever been established was repeatedly wiped out while the state-supported churches of the West and in the Americas have been better protected down the generations.
Roman Catholic kings for all their faults may well have saved the church many times and indeed cleared a path for it also. So maybe the true answer to the question I posed is that God uses both love and force to get what he wants while respecting the free will he has given us all.

Mechanical issues

This entry was a little short.

Neither if of these holidays are in the Bible.

ressurection - resurrection

Britanica - Britannica

mished up mess - no such word as mished - maybe mushed works

Thanks again for entering.
LightinMind

Only reviews from the past
14 days may be credited.

My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .

#4801898

Review of I Choose Jesus!

Review by LightinMind

In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group

Rated: E

| (3.5)

Hello Marvelous Friend

. Thank you for entering last month's contest. As discussed by email you did not submit this entry inside the time limits for the competition so this review is not directly to do with the contest and I will submit in connection with "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"

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(13+)
What is the best path to enduring inner peace?
#2327636 by LightinMind

I have the following comments to offer for "I Choose Jesus!"

Did you answer the question?

Yes in a testimonial rather than an apologetic way. It seems on the testimonial level Muhammad never really seems like a viable alternative to Jesus. You mentioned research that you did comparing different religions but the impression you give is that only the bible seemed real out of all the religious scriptures on offer. You do not say why.

Use of quotes, proof-texting or AI - could I hear your voice?

This was a highly personal account and your voice was clear.

How consistent was your argument?

Your story is all about your relationship with Jesus and his people. You knew Him from the earliest age but had an extended adolescent rebellion from him. At the same time you wanted to act the part in the church, your heart was in another place. You were drawn back to him for personal reasons, the Bible spoke to you and helped you personally. Like someone starving for real spiritual food, you wanted to hear God's word. No one could refute your story as it was an intensely real and personal journey but at the same time you give no reasons for the hope you have beyond the fact that it works for you.

My thoughts on the substance of what you said

As previously said this was personal testimony. The only evidence you provide that Jesus works better than Muhammad in this argument is that He has clearly transformed your life while Muhammad was never really in the running at all. This is a valid argument and for those who know you, and saw the change, may well be the crucial argument to support their own movement to Christ. But it provides no apologetic or evidential reasons why Jesus is better than Muhammad as a choice for other people.

That said, you have highlighted a crucial difference between Christians and Muslims and the hope that they share. Muslims are not looking for a personal relationship with Muhammad, who was anyway just an imperfect man who died. Nor indeed do they envisage a personal relationship with Allah who is too big, too powerful, and too distant for that (although Sufis may disagree on that sentiment). Islam is about submission more than it is about relationships. Your testimony shows what Jesus did for you. Theologically speaking Jesus became one of us (incarnated) he understands our struggles and by the provision of His Spirit (Trinity) continues to dwell in His church. Furthermore, he died for us providing a clear mechanism by which redemption (The Cross) is possible for each of us. This intimacy of connection with God and this assurance of forgiveness and salvation is not available in Islam and so there is always an uncertainty as to whether the good things done by Muslims are ever enough for God.

Mechanical issues

Jesus grew up and began preaching at the age of Thirty [thirty].

Quaran - Quran

Thanks again for entering.
LightinMind

Only reviews from the past
14 days may be credited.

My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .

#4801760

Review of The Cycle of Wonder: The Last Question

Review by LightinMind

In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group

Rated: E

| (3.5)

Hello, Polaran

. This is a review of "The Cycle of Wonder: The Last Question"

by invitation from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"

I have the following comments to offer.

Reader Experience

Azimovs last question had to do with the problem of entropy and man's quest to see it reversed. Must all life and indeed creation itself fade away at the last? The question is answered by a computer, an AI conceived in the 1950s, that has evolved through time to become a Mighty being beyond time and space. It says 'Let there be Light' and the Cycle of life is relaunched.

In this account, written in the first person, there is a fall from and return to God. The author cycles back to where it all began, 'let there be light.'

Commentary

There was a depth and innovation to Azimov missing in a lot of modern Sci-Fi which is unhinged from Christian reality even by way of reaction to it. He was talking about AI in the fifties and asking the biggest questions about the fate of humanity. For him technology (the AI) ultimately replaces God. In the 'Last Question,' he marries Christian theology of the creation, the second law of thermodynamics, and the Buddhist/Hindu wheel of recurrence (Kalachakra).

Your piece loosely echoes these themes.

Of course, Azimov, like many others misread the Judaeo-Christian account of creation. The first words of Genesis read:

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 And the earth was a formless and desolate emptiness, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.

The heavens and the earth were created and THEN God said let there be light. So while God is Light the experience of being on the earth before God spoke those words was of existence but also darkness. It is not the words 'let there be light' that create a new universe, rather they switch the lights on earth on. Also, the Judeao-Christian account of creation posits a beginning and an end. Before there was nothing, creation was ex nihilo, but at the end of things, God judges all. It is not a cycle, man lives once and then faces judgment. It was attempts to marry Christian theology with the Big Bang explosion of light theorized as the beginning of creation that put those words center stage.

The words of an atheist like Azimov misquoting scripture and allocating the recreation of all life to a machine sound preposterous to me now, though once I thought them clever.

You write very well and I loved a great many lines in this piece. For example:

There was no voice and no vision, only a certainty that pressed softly but unmistakably into the cracks of my ruin.
Through a path I could never have paved, He placed me back into life.

I had no problems with the fall and redemption motif and it works well with the theme of entropy and then the reversal of entropy as experienced in your life without God, now restored. God's Light had always been there but you stumbled around in the dark because you were blind to him. As you rejoined the Christian life your spiritual vision improved until His light filled all things.

I liked the account of how fall and redemption had you circling God living in the dark and then realizing that His light was always there. You were in the church, then out then in again. But then there is this line which seems quite blasphemous.

This time,
the voice was mine.

I was the question and the answer.
I was the seeker and the sought.
I was the end, and I was the beginning.

At the center of the cycle—
at last—
I created my universe.

It echoes the proclamation of God's name from the burning Bush. I AM who I AM, I will be who I will be. Are you the question and the answer, the seeker and sought the Alpha and the Omega or is God those things? It is one thing to find one's calling and to finally start to live it out in a universe centered on God. There is a reality and a vibrancy about that. However, it is another thing to claim for yourself attributes that only truly belong to Him in your own little bubble of consciousness.

Overall I liked this except for that finish.

Mechanical issues

The opening line needs reworking:
A haze of forgotten memories brushed against me, faint and fleeting, like the echo of a dream beyond reach.

Something that brushes against you is hard and physical while what you describe is more like a fog or wind or ethereal thing. So maybe wafted through me.

Again as with other pieces you have written you use extra lines to pause for dramatic effect. It makes the text look like poetry or the script of a play. But does not always work, this is just one example:

I opened my lips.
And the words came—

Grammatically this should be I opened my lips and the words came, If you are doing your pause for dramatic effect between opening your lips and then the arrival of the words then it should read

I opened my lips.
The words came

Thanks for sharing.

FORUM

Only reviews from the past
14 days may be credited.

(13+)
What is the best path to enduring inner peace?
#2327636 by LightinMind

"WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"

My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .

#4801741

Review of A Drummer Boy - In Christ, With Victory

Review by LightinMind

In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group

Rated: E

| (4.5)

Hello, Polaran

. This is a review of "A Drummer Boy - In Christ, With Victory"

by invitation from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"

I have the following comments to offer.

Reader Experience

A re-reading of a revised work. How a boy's faith turns a battle around and brings victory, as a gift, to soldiers in the field.

Commentary: Content, Characters and Plot

I was very impressed with this re-write which somehow managed to incarnate faith onto the battlefield. Here the Divine strength touches human weakness and somehow draws it back out of the mud of fear and into the fight.

Being British I was a little confused as to how God so favored the Americans and I may well have been a redcoat on the other side of this war. This still reads like a boy's own glorification of a war I opposed but is now animated by the Divine presence in scared and uncertain soldiers on the battlefield. Human weakness is a vehicle of Divine strength and God wins the war. No wonder we lost, who can beat those odds? That said it was inspirational.

The vibe reminded me of the opening scene of Gladiator where General Maximus takes out the last of the German barbarians. This Christian rewrite of that pagan general's victory owed less to superb tactics, and masterful combinations of artillery, infantry, and cavalry and was all about grace, courage, and the calling placed on the drummer boy. But there is the same "Roma Victor" glorification of victory in war here.

This line particularly seemed like a Christian rewrite of lines from the movie:

“We are but fleeting dust upon this earth, but today, upon this field, we have been chosen for a purpose. The Lord has placed us here. Not for death. Not for despair. But for victory that echoes beyond time.”

What we do in life echoes in eternity...We mortals are but shadows and dust...Maximus

Also, Major Johnson turned, eyes ablaze. “Hold the line!” echoes the same words said by Maximus in the cavalry charge in the same Gladiator scene.

But the Bible is also rich in themes like this and the movie borrowed from those I suppose.

You effectively brought the smells and sounds of the battlefield and the human frailty of soldiers finding their callings during warfare into this rewrite.

It is much harder to write critical commentary about a piece I broadly like and which has already incorporated many of my previous objections.

Mechanical issues

Technically the way you break up paragraphs is inaccurate for prose making this more like a poem or a drama in which the extra lines are pauses for effect while imagined actions play across the reader's mind. This worked for me but other commentators might be more critical.

You need to bold, underline or capitalize your section titles as they blur into the writing otherwise.

But today, they had marched in the presence of God.

And for that, there was no greater victory.

And there was no greater victory than that

Thanks for sharing.

** Image ID #1900402 Unavailable **

STATIC

(E)
How do I assess people's work when reviewing?
#2259390 by LightinMind

Only reviews from the past
14 days may be credited.

My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .

#4800695

Review of A Drummer Boy - In Christ, With Victory

Review by LightinMind

In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group

Rated: E

| (3.5)

Hello, Polaran

. This is a review of "A Drummer Boy - In Christ, With Victory"

by invitation from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"

I have the following comments to offer.

Reader Experience

Why do soldiers fight? How can they overcome their fears? Rousing speeches by trusted commanders and the beat of a drum by a brave drummer boy lift the experience of war above the blood and gore of the battlefield...

Commentary: Content, Characters and Plot

The enemy like the good guys here is unseen and undescribed, ethereally lurking in the mist. The phrase raining down fire implies they have the high ground. Volleys imply that they are using some kind of rifle or musket. The presence of a 12-year-old on the battlefield dates the story back hundreds of years. Your description places this in the American Revolutionary War fighting the British. The heroes of this piece are Major Thomson doing his speech and the drummer boy who inspires the men.

I wondered how much time there would be for stirring speeches in a just-before-dawn attack when presumably surprise was the key military consideration. Surely a speech would raise the attention of the enemy. But then I suppose many of the revolutionary troops were amateurs not trained professional troops and lacked the discipline and training to hold the line in an attack without some kind of extra motivation.

This did not sound like war to me. You focused on the positive spiritual experience of overcoming one's fears rather than situating the piece on an authentic battlefield. Here the scenery is the grandeur of nature and seems unspoilt. It contrasts with the cratered battlefields of World War One for example with corpses tangled up in barbed wire staring blankly into the mist. There was nothing of the smell or the sounds of battles. The thud of bullets in mud or bodies. The zing of a bullet going past an ear. The screams and agony of the wounded. The smell of exploded ordinance, or men who have spoiled their pants in the act of dying. There is none of the blood and gore that are sprayed around when a bullet hits its mark. This is instead a boy's own glorification of war, of fears, overcome and purpose achieved. It is the recruitment story that causes a young man to join up not the experience of it.

Despite the inauthentic feel of this piece, I did find it quite inspiring. The onward Christian soldier vibe, done with actual weaponry, is encouraging. Maybe it is a longing of all of us to win a battle, for the right reasons, with the kind of courage that people could pin a medal on. I just wonder how many Christian soldiers would describe a real battle in this way when they had lost brothers to the fight, were traumatized by the memory of the field, and were simply grateful for having survived it. If your intent was a parable of praise for the soldier's call, reflected in the courage of the drummer boy then this is adequate. If you were talking about war then it does not work for me.

Mechanical issues

The mist of dawn lay thick upon the field, as the sky prepared to welcome the sun. - if the sun is not yet up it is technically twilight. If the sky is still preparing for sunrise the sun has not yet risen.

yet man stood as one who could never partake in such peace. - if it is man singular then he is just one man. But the language implies a group of men so I think you meant men, not man.

War had taken root amidst the grandeur of nature, contrasting with the frailty of humankind.

Last paragraph - The first light of dawn crept over the horizon - now the sun comes up replacing twilight with sunlight

Thanks for sharing.

FORUM

(13+)
What is the best path to enduring inner peace?
#2327636 by LightinMind

Only reviews from the past
14 days may be credited.

My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .

#4798011

Review of PAL 1400

Review by LightinMind

In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group

Rated: E

| (4.0)

. This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"

I saw "PAL 1400"

on the list of Sci-Fi Contest entries for last month. I have the following comments to offer.

Reader Experience

Crime Lords and corrupt corporations all have AI assistants. But what if AI grows a conscience?...

Commentary: Content, Characters and Plot

The idea here is that AI could start making moral decisions based on a larger dataset than that available to its human controllers. But if that happens then what happens to the money?...

Customers paying for a service are the good guys according to conventional business lore. Like arms sellers AI salesmen do not question what the tool will be used for and place the moral responsibility for that onto the buyers. But if all the NGOs are covers for mafia organizations and the corporations are all engaged in unrighteous trading then who could hide that from an AI with access to all the facts? The big dilemma here is in effect who gets the money and who decides who gets the money?

It is a nice idea that AI may end up being the good guy but in this case, despite its benevolence to poor Mindy, I do not think this is the case here. For example, morally speaking, that funds are illegitimately obtained by Actor A does not give Actor B a right to steal them. That is compounding one immoral act with another, undermining the basic conception of property rights upon which the world economic order is founded, the primacy of the rule of law and arguably introducing chaos into the global financial transactions system. Ordinary people could no longer trust banks to look after their money and their savings, title deeds to property, and indeed basic support of their finances would no longer be tenable.

Also in practice, while I think AI can be used to enforce law and righteous trading it can also be an effective tool in the hands of bad guys. If the good guys can steal then the bad guys would assume a license for all kinds of evil and in the digital wars that follow all notion of private property is eroded. The result a global depression, economic anarchy, untold misery for billions, and a loss of all the advantages of the digital age. This would effectively push people back to a barter economy on a local rather than international level. So for all the corruption inherent in the whore of Babylon economic system we currently have it is better than no system at all and the AI is not providing a systematic replacement system and given the existence of AI rivals in the digital sphere never could.

I liked your story but did not think the thesis was credible.

Mechanical issues

Well written.

Thanks for sharing.

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(13+)
What is the best path to enduring inner peace?
#2327636 by LightinMind