The Awesome God Project™®©

The word salvation is very charged—representing a concept that has been at the center of many church schisms, and I’m not just talking Martin Luther’s fit.  I’m talking about the hundred of small church schisms across the country.  My church has been through 3 or 4 schisms in its existence, and at some point the concept of salvation played a role in all of them.  Should we prepare our congregation for the ongoing and epic spiritual war?  If we don’t use it, do we lose it?  Or, is salvation a one-night stand that turns into an ongoing relationship?  Christians grapple with these questions daily—or whenever someone decides to throw a fit about it.  No matter what interpretation Christians pull out of the Bible, salvation is important.  Without salvation we have no way to Christ, which means no access to Heaven, and no wonderful chat with St. Peter when he’s checking the list at the Gate (“Do you guys have hockey?” “Yeah, and a pretty decent football team, but we need Joe Montana to die so we can get a decent QB.” “What about Jonny U?” “I never was a fan.”).  I tell you this, kind reader, not to teach you about Christianity or God, but because it has nothing to do with Terminator Salvation.  If you evoke salvation in your title, one expects that something happens to lead humanity to safety.  Humanity is saved.  We enter the Promised Land—a land free of killer robots, both terminators and cylons—and go on to build a better life.  If you promise salvation, you better deliver on it, and not leave us at the end trying to convolute a reason for the title.

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This post is gonna be a lot easier if you, kind reader (yes, you, the one person who visits the blog) help me out with a few things.  The cool thing about this internet deal is the supposed interactive nature of the content.  It’s no longer static, but requires a commitment from you, kind reader, for the experience to reach its full potential.  In that spirit, this is what you need to do to enjoy this post (if you don’t, you just won’t get it):

1. Pretend the intro was catchy, a nice thesis of what it to come: AI and robots.
2. Understand the current state of technology, and how science fiction draws on it to give us warnings (Battlestar Galactica), or promises of a great future (Star Trek).
3. Pretend you want to see Terminator Salvation (and I know, this is asking a lot).
4. If you’re reading this thanks to Facebook’s blog import feature, you may have to pretend there are embedded videos.  I’m unsure of how it will turn out after the import.

If you can do these, you will probably enjoy this post.  The end-user experience will become more fulfilling, as you grow more invested in the final product.  You transcend a mere reader, or even user, and become one of the creators.  Your interaction molds the direction of the content and influences how others will see it.  No, seriously.  It’s the same principle as calling food service workers “team members” (or “partners”), or supervisors “shift managers.”  They’ll do more work for free — like you’re gonna do.  If you can’t do these things, you won’t enjoy this post.  Sorry, there is just no way around it.  You can’t keep sucking off the other folks hard work and enjoyment vicariously — if you don’t do the dirty work you’ll have to go somewhere else.

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