Unquestionble Reframing of the Unrighteous with AI?

Clarifying UnChristian, UnJewish and UnIslamic from a cybernetic perspective with AI assistance

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Introduction

There is currently much authoritative assertion of "evil" by leaders and commentators, whether it be those of the USA and Israel with respect to Iran (and possibly Muslims more generally), or with respect to the USA and Israel in their "unprovoked" attack on Iran -- it long having claimed that they were "Satanic" (Framing by others of claimants of evil as evil, 2016). Such manifestations of "evil" are now reinforced by successive releases of the Epstein files, held to demonstrate the fundamentally evil nature of a secretive cabal of primarily Western elites in their organized abuse of the underaged.

Curiously those making such claims, whether Christian, Jewish or Muslim, appear to deem themselves to be necessarily and unquestionably "righteous" -- and are widely supported in this belief by their peers. There is seemingly little exploration of the experiential meaning of being "right" and its embodiment -- in contrast to that of the "negative capability" of those who may be framed as "wrong" through problematic appreciation of their "humility" as misguided.

One response of the righteous has taken legislative form through severe constraints on "hate-speech" -- an exercise in virtue signalling, but ironically with little effort to identify and promote appropriate forms of "love-speech", implicitly deemed desirable. In the absence of any authoritative program on the nature of "evil", even more curious is the ease of translation of perceptions of "evil" into military action -- then held to require no justification.

Whilst readily dismissed as misuse of the media in the cultivation of enthralling narratives, the pattern is being brought to a focus by the framing of the Judeo-Christian engagement with Muslim Iran as a "holy war", and even the final battle between good and evil -- featured prophetically in the Book of Revelations as Armageddon -- a framing explicitly promoted by Christian Zionists (Charlotte Dubenskij, Is the Iran war the Biblical end times? RT, 11 March 2026; Why is the conflict with Iran being framed as a ‘holy war’? Al Jazeera, 8 March 2026; Sara Braun, US troops were told war on Iran was ‘all part of God’s divine plan’, watchdog alleges, The Guardian, 4 March 2026; Henry Giroux, Trump’s Crusade: Christian Nationalism and the Making of a Holy War, CounterPunch, 20 March 2026; Brian Kaylor, At Pentagon Worship Service, Hegseth Casts Iran Conflict as Violent Holy War Against God’s Enemies, Word and Way, 25 March 2026; Greg Jaffe, Hegseth Invokes Divine Purpose to Justify Military Might, The New York Times, 20 March 2026; Amr Abbas, Pete Hegseth and the Decline of Righteousness, Calice Magazine, 23 March 2026; Sa ra Gabler, Christian Nationalists in US Government Push Attacks on Iran as Holy War, Truthout, 2 April 2026).

Reference is widely made to the "need for enemies" by the USA in order to reinforce its identity and ensure its coherence -- exemplified by the fact that it has been at war with others for 229 out of 246 years since 1776 -- or 93% of its existence. It could even be asked whether the global focus on the "problems" with which society is confronted calls for "evil" to be appreciated as vital to the sustainability of civilization (Ensuring Dynamics of Sustainability by Appreciative Recognition of Evil, 2022). For a civilization faced with polycrisis, the "end-times" meme can be understood otherwise in terms of the focus on "singularity" of which Jerusalem has itself become a symbol (Emerging Memetic Singularity in the Global Knowledge Society, 2009; Jerusalem as a Symbolic Singularity, 2017). Such factors call for new thinking, however speculative, on how to engage in any battle between good and evil  (Evil Rules: Guidelines for Engaging in Armageddon Now, 2015).

If the evil are necessarily to be recognized as "unrighteous", this calls for careful exploration of the meaning of "UnChristian", "UnJewish" and "UnMuslim" -- in contrast to the righteousness vigorously claimed by the adherents of each religion. A major difficulty in any such undertaking is the characteristic absence of doubt by the faithful in each case -- despite injunctions to a necessary degree of humility in fundamental frameworks such as the Beatitudes of Christianity, used as the indicative framework in the following (in contrast with the Noble Eightfold Path of Buddhism).

Whilst primarily a feature of moral and ethical discourse, the sense of righteousness and humility imply cognitive characteristics (defined otherwise) vital to the viability of any form of human organization -- as understood by the viable system theory of cybernetics. This suggests a need for further clarification -- potentially facilitated by the artificial intelligence whose "righteousness" and "humility" are themselves a new challenge in the light of the threat that AI is deemed to constitute for the future of humanity. For some AI is even the embodiment of evil (Why Is AI Bad? Artificial Intelligence's Dark Side Explained, National Academy of Professional Studies, 11 October 2023; Darren Orf, AI Learned to Be Evil Without Anyone Telling It To, Popular Mechanics, 11 August 2025).

The following exploration makes extensive use of AI in the form of Claude-4.6 and ChatGPT-5.2 (and Perplexity to a lesser extent). There is a considerable degree of irony to deriving insights via such resources in that the use of those AIs in the military engagement with Iran has been explicitly challenged. This is despite controversial engagement between the respective corporations and the Pentagon to ensure unrestricted collaboration -- despite the ethical reservations advanced. Ironically a wider concern is how the use of AI might be appropriately constrained -- as can be explored in the light of that envisaged for warfare itself (Just War Theory as an inspiration for Just AI Theory? 2023).

As part of continuing experiment in the use of AI, reproducing the responses to the same question by three AIs in what follows can be readily understood as excessive -- especially to the extent that there is any duplication. Of interest however, aside from the biases revealed by their distinctive training, is the commonality of which such triangulation is indicative. As a feature of a continuing experiment, also of interest is the manner in which AI responses may reference earlier exchanges. This exchange follows from MAGA End-times from a Psychoanalytic Perspective (2025).

Particular emphasis is given in the following argument to the comparability of fundamental 8-fold patterns of "guidance" or "injunctions" variously offered by quite different religions -- and their potential relation to the systemic perspective offered by the viable system theory of cybernetics. The challenge of bridging their disparate nature is an exemplification of that of The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution (1959) of C. P. Snow, otherwise addressed by conferences of The Bridges Organization.

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