Transhumanism: The Logical End Product of Evolution

In a recent article written by David Yonke published on toledoBlade.com, Presbyterian minister and seminary professor Rev. Mark Douglas is quoted as saying

…Transhumanism is "inevitable," as long as humanity continues to exist. In extrapolating natural evolution as described by Darwin, and given enough time, the human race will undergo significant genetic and biological changes….

Wait. What? Yes, you heard him correctly. As a natural outgrowth of evolution, we humans will change, and if we avoid extinction due to mutational meltdown or our own stupidity, we will eventually become a new species – we did, after all, manage to throw off our ape heritage, so who’s to argue that we won’t eventually manage something even better (or at least, different). This line of reasoning is called transhumanism, and ultimately, post-humanism.

The article goes on to say

Theologically, one can find support in the Bible for transhumanism, he said, citing Scriptures that describe a future change or transformation. For example, I John 3:2 states that we "will be like him, for we will see him as he is."

Now that’s a new “twist” on things. The full verse in the ESV reads “Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.” The verse clearly refers to the gloried bodies we will receive after we are resurrected by Christ at His return on Judgment Day, not an evolutionary path. Like Dr. Matthew Becker’s evolutionary tale for the existence of Adam and Eve, the “theological evidence” only works if you believe that the transformation John refers to is a gradual naturally occurring evolution over the millennia, an explanation for which there is no credible Biblical support.

The World Tranhumanist Association (which has been renamed Humanity+), has a twofold definition of transhumanism (the remaining quotations on transhumanism come from the Wikipedia transhumanism page):

1. The intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally improving the human condition through applied reason, especially by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities.
2. The study of the ramifications, promises, and potential dangers of technologies that will enable us to overcome fundamental human limitations, and the related study of the ethical matters involved in developing and using such technologies.

On the face of it, this definition seems rather bland. Yet the transhumanist agenda includes many ideas which are opposed to a world created and sustained by the Triune God. Some of these ideas include:

1. The underlying assumption that neo-Darwinian evolution is correct.
2. Man controls his own destiny: “Transhumanist philosophers argue that there not only exists a perfectionist ethical imperative for humans to strive for progress and improvement of the human condition but that it is possible and desirable for humanity to enter a transhuman phase of existence, in which humans are in control of their own evolution. In such a phase, natural evolution would be replaced with deliberate change.” From a Christian perspective, it is God who controls our lives, not us.
3. Placing people, animals, and sophisticated machines on the same moral plain, and therefore assigning them equal rights, the rejection of which is called speciesism. While ethical treatment of animals is important, assigning animals the same “moral status” as humans ignores our creation in the image of God, and God’s command for us to exercise dominion over all the earth. Assigning a sophisticated machine any moral status is laughable.
4. “Postgenderism, a social philosophy which seeks the voluntary elimination of gender in the human species through the application of advanced biotechnology and assisted reproductive technologies.” Obviously, this idea is problematic. The elimination of gender also eliminates God’s created order by destroying normal human sexuality, as well as eliminating the family. The normal vocations of father and mother are eliminated, without which, society is decimated.
5. The ultimate goal of immortality. Since death is the result of sin, and we are all sinners, this goal is impossible to achieve, and ignores our own sinful condition and need for a Savior.
6. Mind uploading, in which human consciousness is uploaded into a computer. “After this point, the human body could be treated as an optional accessory and the mind could be transferred to any sufficiently powerful computer.” Our bodies are not optional. As Christians, we recognize that our bodies are important. Though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh I will see God!

These are but a few of the problems which transhumanism preaches. Transhumanism encompasses all sorts of ideas, each of which should be evaluated on its own merit through the lens of a Christian perspective. I much prefer King David’s view of things:

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. Psalms 139:13-16 ESV

The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season. You open your hand; you satisfy the desire of every living thing. The LORD is righteous in all his ways and kind in all his works. The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. He fulfills the desire of those who fear him; he also hears their cry and saves them. The LORD preserves all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy. My mouth will speak the praise of the LORD, and let all flesh bless his holy name forever and ever. Psalms 145:15-21 ESV

Improving the “human condition” can be a worthy goal when understood within the framework of God’s good creation, but when left to our own devices, we become our own little creative gods, failing to trust in God’s providence. This behavior should come as no surprise when God's Word is twisted so that popularized scientific theory can rule our  hearts and minds.  We turn to an evolutionary and science fiction nightmare where we must manipulate nature to our own ends. Transhumanism is largely a philosophy which has fallen into this trap, and has forgotten Luther’s explanation to the First Article of the Apostle’s Creed. Hopefully, we will not do the same.

The First Article.

Of Creation.

I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.

What does this mean?--Answer.

I believe that God has made me and all creatures; that He has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my limbs, my reason, and all my senses, and still preserves them; in addition thereto, clothing and shoes, meat and drink, house and homestead, wife and children, fields, cattle, and all my goods; that He provides me richly and daily with all that I need to support this body and life, protects me from all danger, and guards me and preserves me from all evil; and all this out of pure, fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in me; for all which I owe it to Him to thank, praise, serve, and obey Him. This is most certainly true.

photo credits: Christina Aguilera’s album Bionic: RCA Records / h+ magazine Fall 2008 issue cover

Have a Bright and Cheery Weekend

...After this video, anything would be an improvement.

All Men Must Be Taken Captive

…Ask God that He keep us in His light and grace-filled Word, so that we do not fall back into such great or even greater darkness, as HE says in John 12 [:35-36]: “While you have the light, believe in the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you.” For if we are unthankful, as were our forefathers, surely God is able to punish us with a blindness just as great as that with which they were punished. Look at how the heathen, Jews, Turks, and pope are being punished with blindness. If God withdraws His hand in anger, then the prince of darkness immediately takes us to believe whatever he wants. Thus the Egyptians in former times believed that an ox, dog, fish, worm, or even onions and garlic were gods. When God’s omnipotence abandons us, then the devil is omnipotent in His place, for all men must be taken captive.

Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, American Edition, ed. Christopher Boyd Brown. vol. 60, Prefaces II, (Saint Louis: CPH, 2011) 278.

My Kid Is Going Off to College. How Do I Prepare?

There’s a lot of planning and preparation that goes into choosing a college for your kid to attend. And speaking from experience, there will never be more angst than when you say “goodbye” to your child that last time before you drive away. No matter how many phone calls you make, or purposely don’t make, in a sense, they’re on their own. How can you make the transition easier? Here’s the best advice I’ve heard, from Pastor Marcus Zill on his March 12 Issues, Etc. appearance:

I would encourage parents – take time, go to the place where your kid is gonna, your young person is gonna go to school. Go to church with them. Get them as familiar as you can with the church, the campus pastor if there’s not a campus pastor or a campus ministry run out of a church. We have many wonderful campus ministries that are run out of local congregations. But take them to church. Take them multiple times. And that first week of school, stick around for that Sunday and make sure you go with them. And then come back, you know, three, four weeks later if possible and go to church with them again. Most young people have grown up in the same church, seen the same people, having a pastor that they’re familiar with, and going with their parents. When they go off to school, don’t assume that they’re going to just get up on their own, walk down six flights of stairs or take the elevator and walk down to a local church, especially when they don’t know anybody and it’s a completely new experience. So anything that parents can do to get their son or daughter in touch with those that can care for them in this way is really crucial so that relationship can be established, even long before they show up on campus.

photo credit: jeremy.wilburn

The Four Stages of Church Growth Disease

Quoting Pastor Bryan Wolfmueller off the Table Talk Radio Facebook page.  I know some people who are in Stage 1 of this deadly disease.  You probably do too.  Research has now proven that the best way to treat this malady is by immediate removal from the contaminated zone, followed by a prescription of constant and lifelong exposure to Word and Sacrament. Here's the quote:

The Four Stages of Church Growth Disease:

Stage 1: I’m uncomfortable with all the changes happening around my church, but I guess it’s okay, after all, it’s for the ‘lost’ and the ‘youth’ and the ‘mission.’

Stage 2: I’m disappointed that I’m not being fed at my church, but I also feel guilty for this, after all, you go to church to serve, not to be served, right?

Stage 3: I’m looking for a more authentic community of Jesus-followers.

Stage 4: I’m an atheist.

You can also hear the four stages of Church Growth Disease discussed on Table Talk Radio episode number 195, an episode that's well worth listening to, especially if you're looking for a little theologic comic relief.

Avoiding Incurvatus In Se

I was listening to a well known non-Lutheran preacher speaking the other day. He was saying something about the life of the Church, and Christ's presence, and it sounded empty. Since large chunks of Christianity deny the physical presence of Christ in the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper, and they deny the power of Baptism and the means of grace, they're left with an empty shell. Claiming, at best, a spiritual presence of Christ is like saying He's not really here. Not really. You've got to go looking for him - climb a ladder to the right hand of God to actually see Him. And if He is not here, but He's just up there, His blessings aren't here either.  And if His blessings aren't here, something else will fill the void.  What fills the void?  Often it's sermons on moralism, your best life now, and purpose.  But Christ wants us to have an abundant life, which comes by living in His physical presence, right here and now, as he draws us to Him in the forgiveness of sins found in His Word and Sacraments. We daily celebrate the forgiveness won for us on the cross by remembering our Baptism and the promise it contains.  We celebrate as we hear Christ's words of absolution spoken by the pastor each Sunday, and as Christ comes to us bodily in Communion.  It is in this sacramental life that the fullness of Christ is found and lived out, in repentance and forgiveness.  This is the blessing that I wish people of other denominations would come to know.  Without it, the Christian life is empty and loses its vitality, curving inward on itself.

Last month Pastor Larry Peters, on his blog Pastoral Meanderings said much the same thing in his post titled "All theology is Christology and all heresy/error begins with Christology...".  His post is reprinted here in its entirety with permission.

To refine my title, someone once said to me that all heresy is rooted in a denial of the incarnation. While I fear exaggeration often precludes the very clarity it seeks to provide, this is one case in which the statement is truth. All heresy is rooted in a denial of the incarnation. So, on this Annunciation of Our Lord day, it is good to read reflect upon the full measure of our incarnational theology.

 I was reading in Bo Giertz the other day: (in the book Christ's Church) 

God is in our midst! Just as Jesus once entered the world as God's outstretched hand, as a visible revelation of God's invisible being, and as an audible message of that which no ear has heard, so God's hand is still stretched out at the baptismal font and the communion rails, and so the Word still sounds, not as a mechanical repetition of what the Master once said but as continually repeated message from the mouth of our Savior... It is the same way with the sacraments. They are not symbols and metaphors but Christ's way of to deal with us today, just as real and tangible as He once dealt with people on the fields of Galilee and the streets in Capernaum... 

The miracle that took place in the incarnation when the Word became flesh continues in the church and the sacraments. He who does not understand the incarnation will not understand the sacraments and he who does not understand the sacraments will not understand what Christ has done for us... Living and genuine Christianity is in its innermost essence faith in the incarnation and the atonement. It is in its innermost essence sacramental... 

Bo Giertz certainly has hit the nail on the head. Failure to acknowledge the incarnation is the seedbed to disavowing the sacramental presence of Christ in the means of grace. You cannot confess the incarnation and reject the Sacraments (means of grace). They go hand in hand. One cannot exist without the other and the other defines the first. It is meaningless to confess God's presence unless you can confess that presence HERE in baptismal water, in absolution's voice, in bread and wine. To put it as I often do when teaching parents, stop pointing to the sky when you teach your children where God is and point instead to the Word and Sacraments, for these are the places where God has attached Himself, made Himself present and available for us. We do not need a God out there. We need a located God -- in the incarnation and in the means of grace (sacraments). We are not imposing this upon God but He has bound Himself to these external forms out of love for us and to deliver to us the full measure of what Christ accomplished for us and our salvation.

This Is Marlboro Country

Note: As is often the case on Fridays, this post is a lighthearted, tongue-in-cheek comment.  It isn't intended to be a Law-oriented, YOU CANNOT SMOKE message.  It is within your Christian liberty to light up and take that seductive drag if you'd like, although as a health care professional, I took an oath which precludes me from giving you a big "thumbs up" for doing so.  There.  Now back to our post:

Even back when I was a kid, people had figured out that smoking wasn't such a great idea.  Somebody put up a big sign on the local cemetery fence that said "THIS IS MARLBORO COUNTRY."



And if the old U.S. label didn't get your attention, "Warning: The Surgeon General Has Determined that Cigarette Smoking is Dangerous to Your Health," maybe this one from Hong Kong will:

Enjoy the video - this is Marlboro country:



cemetery photo credit: Nathan Marciniak

The Refining Process

…We in our day must endure stiff-necked sectarians, who vex and trouble us, just as our predecessors were troubled by heretics in their day and the prophets were troubled by false prophets in their own day. For the world must be and wants to be deceived, and the elect must be tested, tried, and refined, all to the praise and honor of God in eternity. Amen.

Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, American Edition, ed. Christopher Boyd Brown. vol. 60, Prefaces II, (Saint Louis: CPH, 2011) 335.

Which One of These is Different?

Q: Which one of these graphics is different from the others?

A: None of them. They're all science fiction.

L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, was a prolific science fiction writer. He reportedly said at one point “Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wanted to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion.” Apparently he took his own advice.

By spending gobs of money (on Scientology courses), Scientologists progress toward their goal of becoming more and more aware of who they actually are - thetans. Advancing through the levels of Scientology supposedly releases one from the matter-energy-space-time universe (called MEST). Ultimately, one can control MEST through the power of the mind, and operate without a body.

In 2008 Wikileaks released a secret 612 page Scientology document which delineates the procedures required to progress through each of the eight levels required to become a fully functional thetan. In the third level, called OT3 (OT stands for Operating Thetan), the student is told the big secret that explains who they are and the universe around them. At this point the student will have spent in the vicinity of $161,000 (costs vary depending on individual experience). The Wikileaks document, which was written by L. Ron Hubbard, and frequently contains his own handwritten notes, reads like a Sci Fi plot. If I'd spent thousands of dollars to hear that I'd been frozen and shipped to earth by an evil dictator named Xenu, I'd be looking for my money back - something that's not going to happen. The following graphic from the document is the first page of L. Ron Hubbard's handwritten explanation for our genesis (found on page 236), followed by a typed out version of his entire explanation. Let the buyer beware.

The head of the Galactic Confederation (76 planets around larger stars visible from here) (founded 95,000,000 yrs ago, very space opera) solved overpopulation (250 billion or so per planet - 178 billion on average) by mass implanting. He caused people to be brought to Teegeeack (Earth) and put an H-bomb on the principal volcanoes (Incident 2) and then the Pacific area ones were taken in boxes to Hawaii and the Atlantic area ones to Las Palmas and there "packaged." His name was Xenu. He used renegades. Various misleading data by means of circuits etc. was placed in the implants. When through with his crime, Loyal Officers (to the people) captured him after six years of battle and put him in an electronic mountain trap where he still is. "They" are gone. The place (Confed.) has since been a desert.

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How Shall so Anomalous a Situation Be Brought to an End?

Quoting from J. Gresham Machen's book Christianity and Liberalism, p. 151:

But how shall so anomalous a situation be brought to an end? The best way would undoubtedly be the voluntary withdrawal of the liberal ministers from those confessional churches whose confessions they do not, in the plain historical sense, accept. And we have not altogether abandoned hope of such a solution. Our differences with the liberal party in the Church are indeed profound, but with regard to the obligation of simple honesty of speech, some agreement might surely be attained. Certainly the withdrawal of liberal ministers from the creedal churches would be enormously in the interests of harmony and co-operation. Nothing engenders strife so much as a forced unity, within the same organization, of those who disagree fundamentally in aim.

photo credit: J.Salmoral