[Gatac]

- Without starting a big religious debate, I find felionoid aliens with over-c drive tech and some sort of horribly powerful weaponry in our orbit a lesser probability abberation than an omnipotent being...

- That's not my point. Yes, knowing the historical background, several things are easier to interpret in the bible. However: a) that doesn't mean it is actually being interpreted correctly *now*, b) it still doesn't say anything we could reasonably interpret to concern AI, c) the opinions of the people you mention are not derived from the bible, hence it is irrelevant. It doesn't matter if you believe in the bible or not when you're against AI, because AI hatred is not a tenet of your religion.

- Heretic! It's clearly being pulled by a winged horse!

- Aside from being a nice strawman (Technology can be used for evil? The horror!), I'd actually argue that autoloaders are part of a positive overall trend in military manners toward smarter, fewer, more trained soldiers. Obviously, war is still hell, but atleast they're not rounding up the farmers for a crusade where half will die marching on their way, not to mention being probably killed in actual combat for lack of training and equipment. I hate war as much as the next guy, but when it is fought, we should use the best weapons we have so it is over quickly and decided with the least loss of life. I'm not usually one to argue "The good of the many outweighs the good of the few", but take the use of nuclear weapons over Hiroshima and Nagasaki; it sucked, it sucked hard, and it was a horrible thing to do - but it doesn't remotely compare to the horror that would have been a conventional invasion of Japan.

- Ah, sorry. Misunderstood you. Is it ethically and morally right? I don't know, we're discussing that now, aren't we? You're sounding like it's a foregone conclusion of wrongness on the ethical/moral scale and just pursued for the potential scientific/economic perks. I'd disagree with that.

- Does being the product of an omnipotent creator (should we believe in Him) mean that, being less than omnipotent, we can't create life? That doesn't logically follow. Even statistically speaking, we don't have enough sample cases to say it's probably so. (Unless you're going for hardcore creationism, where God made every species individually.) It's a statement about as logically rigid as arguing that being able to create new life would make us omnipotent.

Gatac