AI Is A Gateway To The Welfare State
October 6, 2026 |
Keith Giles
The Winter Solstice will happen on Sunday, December 21, 2025, at 10:03 a.m. EST. This marks the shortest day and longest night as the Northern Hemisphere tilts furthest from the Sun, beginning astronomical winter. People celebrate with events, and skywatchers can look for Jupiter, Orion, and the Ursid meteor shower.
The days are shorter, and nights become darker and deeper.
In this dark night of our soul as a nation, it is hard to find hope and light when all around us we see only the darkness of one man’s lack of humanity. The days seem short indeed.
Our leader shows no compassion for those who have died in recent mass shootings, but is only worried about his poll ratings. He shows no empathy.
He hides his own misdeeds and those of other wealthy billionaires behind false arguments to keep the Epstein files from being released into the light of scrutiny. He has no sense of remorse or guilt.
He wantonly orders the killing of people, human beings, in small boats, defenseless. He refuses accountability for war crimes or murder. He shows no compassion or basic human decency.
This President has ordered the infliction of masked, heartless, and cruel agents to attack and arrest, without due process, immigrants, refugees, and any who happens to be in the way. They put them in inhumane detention centers, better known as concentration camps. It is the most stark example of soulless people running a nation.
The nights are indeed longer.
With all the Christian nationalists surrounding this President, you would think there would be voices of caution, voices to encourage acts of kindness and restraint, voices that raise the value of love and empathy, voices representing forgiveness toward percieved enemies, and voices who would at least give him pause for reflection before acting…but they are of no help and only encourage the same disconnectedness they have within themselves.
They have no humanity and no light of truth. Religion for them is a cloak to cover their true motivation…power.
And therein lay the problem. The dark days we are living in are not because of a lack of religious influence, but a lack of human connection. This administration is full of human beings who are so totally disconnected from their own humanity that they can justify any lawless and inhumane action.
And the days have become dark. We all feel the darkness around us closing in and moving us toward despair. The anxiety and fear that so many now feel stems from those in power who are corrupted by that power and divorce themselves from any human feeling or connection.
However, the Winter Solstice gives us a sliver of hope because we know the days will soon begin to grow longer, and the warmth will return. That light will bring us….redemption. The Winter Solstice gives us that promise as the darkest days turn into more and more sunlight.
This redemption, moreover, is not a religious idea or a supernatural event. It is a natural process that happens as sure as the sun will rise on December 22. Moving from darkness to light is not about being “born again” but about reconnecting with ourselves and thus with humanity.
Each year, I have published a reflection on Charles Dickens’ classic, A Christmas Carol. I watched it as a kid, and even as an adult, it still holds meaning and inspiration because of the hope it offers humanity. However, a few years ago, I happened to watch a new version of this tale, which shook me to the core.
This was not your feel-good version where Scrooge seeks redemption, and everyone is happy at the end, far from it. This version is dark throughout…reflecting perhaps the darkest days of winter.
This version is a 2019 British television dark fantasy drama. It was originally a three-part series written by Steven Knight, with Tom Hardy and Ridley Scott among the executive producers. It began airing on BBC One in the UK on 22 December 2019 and concluded two days later on 24 December 2019. Now it is a full-length film that runs over 2 hours. You can watch it here….I highly recommend it. (Warning: Not for children)
This retelling of the story affected me so much that I included a chapter in my new upcoming book (2026) called Reflections of a Recovered Evangelical: Love Plus Nothing Else. I want to give you a portion of that chapter not only as a shameless plug for my new book, but more importantly, as a reflection on the human condition and the dark days we are living in.
The point is that no matter how dark the days are, and how inhumane leaders can be, there is hope. Hope is born from the light of truth that resides in each human being, and the hope that every human can connect to that inner light. Reconnecting to that inner light is redemption, but its object is not a single individual…redemption connects to all of humanity.
Here is the segment that I think you will find relevant to our day:
From: Reflections of a Recovered Evangelical: Love Plus Nothing Else (Chapter 5)
This brings me back to A Christmas Carol and Scrooge—the dark, disturbed one I mentioned earlier, so unlike the familiar, traditional story in which three ghosts confront Scrooge and reveal his selfishness and his separation from humanity. He experiences a conversion at the end, accepts redemption, and his whole personality changes. He proves this change by living a generous and selfless life. This happy ending encourages us to join Tiny Tim in saying, “God bless us, everyone.” It is the ultimate morality tale, and in it, Scrooge comes to realize that he needs redemption.
But wait. What if his redemption isn’t the point of the story? Why has Scrooge changed? Why does he accept deliverance? Does Scrooge only change because his fate has scared him into it? Is his newfound generosity genuine or a stratagem to save his own hide? Perhaps Scrooge is more worried about himself and his ultimate destination than he is about Tiny Tim’s health and well-being. Does he become a good guy because it benefits him? That motivation would be consistent with the type of man he has been his whole life.
In the BBC rendering of the story, this ending is challenged in a way I had never seen before. Without going into too much detail to expose everything, there is one scene toward the end in the graveyard where Scrooge sits next to his gravestone after being visited by the Ghost of Christmas Future. He now knows his miserable fate and speaks to his deceased friend, Marley. (Marley appears many times in this version). Here is a description of how the conversation goes…note the challenge to traditional redemption.
After the visitation from the ghosts of Christmas, Scrooge finds himself sitting in the graveyard next to his tombstone. His friend Marley appears to him, and they discuss why all the ghosts have appeared. In this rendition, Marley’s fate is tied to Scrooge’s repentance. He needs Scrooge to accept redemption so that he can rest in peace. So, he presses Scrooge to come to forgiveness and redemption. Marley encourages Scrooge to admit his wrongdoing in their business practices, which exploited hundreds of poor workers and resulted in the deaths of many.
At this point, Scrooge refused redemption. Yes, he told Marley that his revealed fate is what he deserves, and that it is no longer a concern to him what happens to his soul. Scrooge admits that accepting redemption would be motivated by the same self-interest that had driven and motivated him all his life. Redemption for him would be the ultimate act of self-preservation and selfishness. What would be the point? Nothing in the outcome would change if he accepted redemption. Tiny Tim would still die.
As Scrooge and Marley are talking, they observe the Cratchit family across the way, mourning at Tiny Tim’s grave, who had succumbed to his illness. Scrooge, now looking at the Cratchit family mourning over Tim’s grave, says, “The only thing, the only thing I want the spirits to do, the only change I want them to make…is to find a way to let Tim live.” That’s it, there is proper redemption!
At this point in the story, the three spirits all disappear. So does Marley, who now finds rest in his own grave. The turning point wasn’t Scrooge’s reclamation or redemption. It was his acknowledgment of Tiny Tim’s human condition and his desire to see it change that made the difference. Redemption was about Tim, not Scrooge.
This scene hit me like a thunderbolt the first time I saw it. Scrooge refuses personal redemption and forgiveness because he knows he doesn’t deserve it. He recognizes the story isn’t about him or his redemption; it is about Tiny Tim’s life. For the first time in his life, he wishes for the well-being of someone else over his own, Tiny Tim Cratchit. Scrooge stands up. His headstone disappears, and so does Tim’s. More happens…much more, but I’ll leave the rest of the movie for you to view.
Redemption isn’t about me or you, or Scrooge or anyone. Redemption only has meaning and purpose when the well-being of others becomes more important than your own. In other words, we develop enough empathy and compassion for others that we gradually shift to the less narcissistic side of the spectrum.
Here is another way to put this: salvation or redemption isn’t about individuals; it is about the community, the whole, all of us. Redemption doesn’t happen when I wallow in my own misery or self-absorption because of my sinful wickedness. Redemption comes when I learn to put the “other” ahead of my needs and wants.
In this adaptation of A Christmas Carol, Scrooge turns the whole notion of redemption upside down. He refuses to accept it because doing so would make him no less selfish than he had been his entire life. Redemption wouldn’t redeem him or change him…he would still be the selfish miser that he is. But he found it within his heart and soul to have compassion for Tim, and that feeling led him to act, to change the outcome for Tim. The action changed the outcome, not the redemption.
Suddenly, I realized that for forty years, I had gotten the idea of redemption wrong. It isn’t about me. Christ’s sacrifice, if you believe it is real or has meaning, only has meaning in the context of working for and wanting the well-being of someone else or the community, not for me. All the pious work you do to try to change yourself and deny your humanity, both the good and the bad, has nothing to do with your redemption. All it does is reinforce your narcissism.
If Christmas means anything, I don’t believe it has anything to do with your salvation or redemption. But it does have everything to do with the acts of kindness and compassion that you and I perform for the betterment of others, and not because those acts benefit you or me in any way. That is the hard part… separate your personal redemption from the acts of compassion you show others. Just be compassionate…for no reason other than the betterment of someone else. It is love, plus…nothing else.
That is the best definition of a human being I can ever imagine.“God bless us, everyone.”
As we enter this season of the Winter Solstice and, for some, Christmas, my wish is for all of us to connect with the light of truth within us and find our redemption not for ourselves but in the actions we take to better the human community and the planet. Redemption isn’t about me…it is about us.
