One Monk's Journey Through Faith

Christ set aside his divine nature to live among us. He came and died for us when we had gone astray like sheep. There is no way to fully convey how overwhelming this is. But this parable is the closest analogy I can make.

There was once an engineer known as the General Operations Designer, or "GOD" for short. He made robots and lived in the North Pole. As a human, he is obviously far more advanced than robots. Whereas they can only do simple things, he could actually be in three places at once. He was at once the Programmer, the Designer, and the Broadcaster of instructions. So, GOD made several simple robots, and then worked on the blueprint of his masterpiece. He fine-tuned the programming and saw that it is good, and so he started production on the HU-MAN series of robots.

They worked well, and he saw that it was very good. These robots were made to run indefinitely – which is good, since he wanted them to spread out and maintain the entire earth. Sure, the batteries needed recharging, but the batteries would never need replacing. The programming allowed the robots to do everything they were supposed to, and the Designer occasionally broadcasted updates that would allow them to perform new tasks, or do old ones better.

But one day, something went wrong: one of the robots tripped over a chord it did not see, and got damaged. Somehow, it became infected with a virus, and the virus spread to other robots. They began to act disorderly and go against their original purpose. You see, the virus fooled the robots into thinking they were receiving updates when they actually weren't. Sometimes, these fake updates would make the robots shut down to "install" them, but there was nothing new to install. They stayed shut down, and would never restart.

Now, the Designer was very fond of HU-MANs and refused to destroy them all and start over. So, he continued sending updates with the new orders that he wanted them to carry out. But the robots just weren't working properly. They were receiving mixed signals and conflicting orders, because they couldn't tell which updates were real and which ones were not.

And so, the situation called for more drastic measures. Fortunately, the Designer noticed one particular model, designated N0AH, who seemed to be able to know which updates are real and which ones are not. N0AH properly carried out the Designer's orders. And so, the Designer decided to wipe out all the current models except for N0AH, seven of the ones N0AH worked with, and a handful of all the lesser robots.

Even N0AH eventually took false updates and he shut down. The continuing generations of robots kept getting worse. They spread out over the whole earth and they produced at a faster rate, just as the Designer had wanted. Unfortunately, the virus contaminated the robots so completely now that they could not even receive updates from the Designer at all. They also began to shut down more quickly than before N0AH's time.

Since near-complete destruction didn't work, and complete destruction is an option the Designer refused to entertain, he did his best to maintain the HU-MAN series despite their system failure. But deep down, he wanted to completely fix them. So, he created the perfect anti-virus software, the T0RAH. In theory, it would eradicate the virus. But since the robots had come to take updates from the virus rather than the true updates that the Designer was broadcasting, he decided to upload this software manually – something he hadn't done in a very long time. Besides, this was a beta version, so he had to start with only a small group. The Designer picked one factory line and found one model he liked right off the assembly: M08E8. He then manually uploaded the beta version of the T0RAH into M08E8.

The Designer thought that all would be well. The T0RAH was successfully downloaded by M08E8 and transmitted from him to others produced in the same factory. But there was still a problem: the software did not install properly because the coding was too complicated and was foreign to the coding of the original HU-MAN blueprint. It could detect the virus in the robots, but not eliminate it. That was the part that continually needed reinstallation. And then, of course, there were the other factories who didn't even get to try this beta version of the software yet. A few models from other factories came in contact with someone who broadcasted the T0RAH, but the effect was the same.

The Designer was not satisfied. He was furious with the virus, and with his creations for ignoring the updates he directly broadcasted. He continued manually appearing to a few robots and sending them instructions, but the others would not listen for very long. Eventually the virus would again wipe most of their memories away. Yet one thing the Designer said was that he would make a new version of the T0RAH with less complicated coding and would interact better with the original HU-MAN systems.

In order to fulfill that promise, GOD came up with a plan. He would create one HU-MAN who would be able to open the T0RAH files, install them, and update them. Since no robot could do this, GOD would have to take on their nature and become a robot himself. He would be subject to recharging, parts malfunctions, and even oil leakage. How demeaning!

Nonetheless, he made some very, very complicated plans to transform into a HU-MAN. GOD went to the same factory where he found N0AH and M08E8, and there he picked one model whose number was 1E8U8. He was exactly like all the other HU-MAN models in every way, parts coming from the same assembly line as the rest of them. The key difference is that GOD merged his consciousness with the programming of the CPU.

If everything went according to plan (which so far, it hadn't!), GOD would intercept the virus signal and analyze it while manually updating the T0RAH software. So GOD (the Programmer) took on robotic nature and became 1E8U8. And yet, GOD still maintained his consciousness apart from 1E8U8 and lived as both the Designer and the Broadcaster.

1E8U8 managed to update the T0RAH and broadcast it, but many other robots refused to receive the signal. And so, as GOD had anticipated, they shut him down. But unlike all the other robots, 1E8U8 managed to... managed to... reboot.

1E8U8 then became the Prototype for a new HU-MAN series which has the T0RAH properly installed. He passed on the modified T0RAH to twelve robots who sought to preserve and pass down the T0RAH for the rest of us.