Case Title

Good (defined as the deliberate choice of love and forgiveness in the midst of tragedy) v. Evil (despair, hopelessness, and the absence of love)

This is not a criminal or civil trial. No verdict is sought.

This proceeding is a moral inquiry into whether love can still be deliberately chosen when tragedy arrives— and whether that choice meaningfully resists evil.

Jurisdiction & Scope

• The court examines human choice, not divine causation.
• Tragedy itself is never assigned meaning.
• Coincidences may be discussed only as corroborative, never causal.
• Symbolic language is interpretive, not predictive.
• No testimony is presented as supernatural proof.

Stipulations Entered into the Record

• Entire Bible chapters may be introduced to avoid proof-texting.
• Numbers function as attention markers, not mechanisms.
• Confirmation bias is explicitly acknowledged and addressed.
• No verdict will be rendered.

This project uses an AI-assisted, simulated trial format for literary, philosophical, and theological exploration. All witness testimony is derived solely from public record, historical scholarship, or clearly identified narrative reconstruction, and does not represent real statements, endorsements, or legal claims by any living or deceased individual.

Symbols, dates, numbers, and coincidences referenced in this proceeding are presented exclusively as attention markers, not as causes, predictions, mechanisms, or explanations of tragedy. No meaning is assigned to loss, and no claim of inevitability or divine causation is made.

In this proceeding, “Satan” is not presented as a caricature of evil or a proxy for skeptics, but as the classical biblical adversary: the voice that questions meaning, challenges hope, and insists the universe is indifferent.

This proceeding seeks no verdict. It is not a criminal or civil trial. It is a moral inquiry into whether love can still be deliberately chosen when tragedy or life challenges arrive—and whether that choice meaningfully resists despair.

Opening Statement — The A-Team (Prosecution)

Good is defined as the deliberate choice of love and forgiveness in the midst of tragedy.
Evil is defined as despair, hopelessness, and the absence of love.

The court will hear no claim that suffering is orchestrated, deserved, or justified. Tragedy remains a rupture—often senseless and devastating. What is on trial is what happens after tragedy or life challenges.

The prosecution will examine:

• human responses to fear, stress, and conflict;
• abuses of power that have led to tragic outcomes;
• moments where despair could have won—and did not.

Witnesses will include historians, theologians, artists, musicians, scientists, technologists, and individuals shaped by loss.

Dates and numbers will appear:

• not as codes or predictions;
• not as explanations of suffering;
• but as attention markers—ways humans notice and remember.

Coincidences are offered only as corroboration, never causation. Skepticism is welcomed. Reflection is invited. There will be no verdict.

The jury will be left with a single question: When despair feels justified and love feels impossible—what will you choose?

When more people choose love, the world becomes a better place. In this court’s estimation, that is how good wins.

Opening Statement — Satan (Defense)

The universe is indifferent. Tragedy is not meaningful. Humans impose stories after the fact to survive pain. Love may comfort, but it does not alter reality. Forgiveness may soothe, but it does not undo harm.

Human beings are pattern-seekers by nature. Symbols, coincidences, and numbers are easily over-interpreted. This is not prophecy—it is cognition.

Despair is not moral failure but a rational response to loss. Hope is fragile and frequently disappointed. For every story of redemption, countless others end unresolved.

History does not bend toward justice—people occasionally push it there, briefly. No verdict is possible where meaning is subjective and outcomes uncertain.

The defense asks the jury to resist mistaking comfort for truth.

The final question posed by the defense: If meaning must always be chosen rather than discovered—why assume the universe cares?

1. Foundational Testimony (Plaintiff)
2. Encounter with the Story of Jesus
3. Historical Jesus & Apocalyptic Expectation
4. Scripture, Symbol & Interpretation
5. Statistics, Coincidence & Non-Randomness
6. Power, Authority & Moral Choice
7. Catastrophe & Technology Idolatry
8. Redemption Out of War
9. Music as Redemptive Force
10. Sports as Communal Redemption
11. Closing Human Witness (Scarlett Lewis)

Detailed witness entries are in the Master Witness List.

Exhibit D — Aligned Numbers/Dates Exhibit: Dates and number alignments presented solely as attention markers.

• The A-Team: Invitation without coercion
• Satan: Despair framed as rational realism

No verdict. Only reflection.

The Plaintiff (Author)

Role

Plaintiff and narrating witness

Focus

Prophecy as attention; origin of the number framework; motive for bringing the case

Aligned Date Fact

9/8 — shared family birthday (David / Mary)
12/14 — first date
12/20 — second date (Titanic)
Numeric set 8–9–12–14–20 carried forward as attention markers

Mel Gibson

Role

Film director and producer

Focus

Art as encounter; The Passion of the Christ as lived experience

Aligned Date Fact

Film grounded in Passion chronology culminating in crucifixion narrative

Anne Catherine Emmerich

Role

Catholic mystic (historical record)

Focus

Visionary accounts of the Passion used as source material for Gibson’s film

Aligned Date Fact

Born September 8

Flavius Josephus

Role

First-century Jewish historian

Focus

Destruction of Jerusalem; historical grounding of Jesus’ apocalyptic warnings

Aligned Date Fact

Jerusalem fell September 8, 70 AD (as stated in the record)

Mother Ann Lee

Role

Founder of the Shakers

Focus

Radical embodiment of Christ-likeness; persecution and martyrdom

Aligned Date Fact

Died September 8

Michelangelo Buonarroti

Role

Renaissance sculptor and artist

Focus

King David as theological and cultural symbol

Aligned Date Fact

David unveiled September 8, 1504

E. P. Sanders

Role

Historian of early Judaism and Christianity

Focus

Jesus as a first-century Jewish apocalyptic prophet

Aligned Date Fact

Contextual (Temple-era apocalyptic expectation)

Bart D. Ehrman

Role

Textual critic and historian

Focus

Diversity and vagueness of Second Coming expectations

Aligned Date Fact

Contextual (varied eschatological timelines)

N. T. Wright

Role

New Testament scholar and theologian

Focus

Revelation symbolism; spiritual kingdom language; post-70 AD fulfillment patterns

Aligned Date Fact

Revelation 10–11 interlude (symbolic witness period)

John H. Walton

Role

Biblical scholar

Focus

Symbolic language; guardrails against superstition; cosmic-temple worldview

Aligned Date Fact

Interpretive (symbol over mechanism)

David Spiegelhalter

Role

Statistician and risk expert

Focus

Confirmation bias; coincidence; limits of statistical inference

Aligned Date Fact

Contextual (non-causal analysis)

Linda Colley

Role

Historian of British political identity

Focus

Monarchy, continuity, inherited power

Aligned Date Fact

British royal events clustering on 9/8 and 12/14

Ron Chernow

Role

Biographer and historian

Focus

George Washington; voluntary relinquishment of power

Aligned Date Fact

Washington died December 14, 1799

Shelby Foote

Role

Civil War historian

Focus

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain; mercy and reconciliation after war

Aligned Date Fact

Chamberlain born September 8

Doris Kearns Goodwin

Role

Presidential historian

Focus

Abraham Lincoln; moral leadership and reconciliation

Aligned Date Fact

Lincoln assassinated April 14; Civil War framed by numeric markers

Andrew Roberts

Role

Historian and biographer

Focus

Napoleon; hubris, overreach, collapse

Aligned Date Fact

Retreat from Russia — December 14, 1812

Ian Kershaw

Role

Historian of Nazi Germany

Focus

Mass despair; authoritarian rise

Aligned Date Fact

Nuremberg rally climax September 8
Siege of Leningrad began September 8

Richard Nixon

Role

U.S. president

Focus

Abuse of power; pardon; national healing

Aligned Date Fact

Pardoned September 8, 1974

Evel Knievel

Role

Cultural figure

Focus

Fame, spectacle, failure, redemption

Aligned Date Fact

Snake River Canyon jump September 8, 1974

Donald Trump

Role

Political figure

Focus

Modern power, polarization (behavior examined, not ideology)

Aligned Date Fact

December 14, 2020 — electoral certification & first COVID vaccination

Isaac Cline

Role

Meteorologist

Focus

Ignored warnings; certainty and catastrophe

Aligned Date Fact

Galveston hurricane — September 8, 1900

James Cameron

Role

Director and explorer

Focus

Titanic; technological hubris

Aligned Date Fact

Ship designed 1908
Sinking April 14 at 11:40 PM
Plaintiff second date December 20

John Henry Patterson

Role

Engineer and author

Focus

Lions of Tsavo; fear, leadership, survival

Aligned Date Fact

First lion killed December 9
Second lion killed 20 days later
First lion measured 9 ft 8 in; carried by 8 men

Ernest Hemingway

Role

Author

Focus

Symbolism of the lion; The Old Man and the Sea

Aligned Date Fact

Symbolic recurrence of endurance and confrontation

John F. Kennedy

Role

U.S. president

Focus

Cuban Missile Crisis restraint; moonshot vision

Aligned Date Fact

Soviet missiles delivered to Cuba September 8, 1962

Wernher von Braun

Role

Rocket engineer (contextual record)

Focus

V-2 weapons → Apollo exploration

Aligned Date Fact

First V-2 civilian strike September 8, 1944

Apollo Program (Collective Witness)

Role

Scientific and human achievement

Focus

Redirection of power toward exploration

Aligned Date Fact

Last crewed lunar mission departed Moon December 14, 1972

Ken Burns

Role

Documentary historian

Focus

Music as cultural memory and healing

Aligned Date Fact

Jimmy Rodgers & Patsy Cline born September 8

Peter Guralnick

Role

Music historian

Focus

Rock & roll; race, faith, redemption through music

Aligned Date Fact

Rock & roll emergence tied to 88 and 8/9 symbolism

John Lennon

Role

Songwriter and peace advocate

Focus

Imagination; nonviolent resistance

Aligned Date Fact

Obsession with number 9; born Oct 9; died Dec 8

Pink

Role

Contemporary pop-rock artist

Focus

Resilience, emotional honesty, refusal of despair in the face of pain and life challenges

Aligned Date Fact

September 8, 1979 — born

Purpose in Record

Demonstrates that modern popular music continues to function as a communal language for processing suffering without surrendering to despair; provides generational continuity with earlier musical witnesses.

Taylor Swift

Role

Songwriter and cultural storyteller

Focus

Narrative, memory, communal participation with the Eras Tour

Aligned Date Fact

Song “22”; Eras Tour; 2023–24 cultural alignment; promotes number symbolism because of her birthday on December 13, but her Grammy-winning album was called Midnights.

(Collective Cultural Record) AI Collective Memory (Sports History & Journalism Record)

Role

Synthetic historical witness aggregating widely documented sporting events, outcomes, and public response patterns across American sports culture.

Focus

Sport as a shared civic language through which pressure, failure, redemption, restraint, and collective identity are publicly rehearsed— often in moments of national or cultural tension.

Scarlett Lewis

Role

Founder, Choose Love Movement

Focus

Lived choice of love after tragedy

Aligned Date Fact

December 14, 2012 — Sandy Hook shooting

The official transcript will be entered into the record when the trial ends.

Proceedings began: December 20, 2025 (first iteration of the mock courtroom drama).