[Fuusmchat] A Unitarian Sermon generated by ChatGPT

[Ted Goertzel]

A member of the Quaker Meeting that meets at FUUSM, Phil Washburn, shared a
concern about the meaning of life.  As an experiment, I decided to ask
ChatGPT, a generative large language artificial intelligence program to
write an answer in the form of a Unitarian Sermon.  Here is the question
that Phil posed, based on his life's spiritual journey:

Nearly 70 years ago, sometime in my latency, death had ambushed me one fine
Sunday night as I was  laying in bed pouring over futures I might have,
feeling very excited. Then, I couldn't help becoming aware that they all
ended badly, all the same. I remember that feeling very clearly - that
there had to be something I was not figuring. So, I reviewed what I knew of
death - your heart stops, you black out, you are unconscious for ever - or
nobody knows for sure although some say they do. And I freaked! Called my
parents to come up and I guess they talked me down.

But there was a part of me that was awakened, that continued to ask that
question. Really two questions. First there was the meaningless question;
if we are all just a bunch of people walking off the edge of the earth, as
inconsequential as grass - what's the point ? What the difference, take
what you can get, go for pleasure if you kill someone they would have died
soon enough anyway, all going into the big sleep. Profligate culture is
often blamed on nihilistic thinkers.

How would you respond if you had to preach a sermon in response? Not an
easy task even if you had a few hours to do it. ChatGPT answered in a few
seconds. For ChatGPT's answer click on Embracing Life's Meaning: A
Unitarian Sermon.
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NrvxhdKCvnlBaFmq-w0xkAGbeU6wxIJqHVRd6iSyDFQ/edit?usp=sharing>
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