Deus Est Machina

I am by no means a religious person, but I view myself as someone who can help others. Sure, I may be an atheist, but if everyone has faith in God, then who am I to turn down offering God’s advice?

It’s all thanks to AI and machines. Whenever someone comes up to me for advice, I plug it into the machine and come up to them all dressed in robes praising God and telling them exactly what He said.

Someone is sick or dead? Pray every night and give their favourite food to the homeless. Nervous about driving in harsh weather? At a hotel 30km away, they will let you stay for free.

Everything went smoothly. People paid me, asking me where I learned to communicate with God so easily and clearly. Sure, I gladly accepted the money, but I never told them my secrets.

But now I’m dead. They found out the truth. Not that God isn’t real, but that my idea of God’s word wasn’t real either. I got a question, and I plugged it into the machine, but nothing happened. The servers were dead. I couldn’t repair it. I didn’t know how to repair it, and there was no way in hell I could send it off to get repaired without the truth coming to light. So I grabbed a bible, and flipped to a random page, hoping that I’d land on a commandment or at least something that sounded like logical advice. It didn’t work. I just got some bullshit about one disciple having a pleasant conversation with another disciple as if they were just having brunch.

People realized it was a lie. They got mad. Word spread quickly about my scam. Some threatened to throw holy water at me, or to beat me up and shout bible verses at me because I’m nothing more than a demon. A poor soul who had fallen victim to Satan’s trap. My chances of profit are now dead over there, but I could always switch religions. Perhaps there’s a local Jewish community dumb and desperate enough to need some more “oracles.”

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