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4th industrial revolution, animals, evolution, gods, soul, Spirit, transhumanism, WEF
WEF Claims that Humans don’t have Souls; They are just Hackable Animals
The WEF has not made many definitive statements about the soul and the spirit. Their thoughts on this matter are implicit mostly, but Yuval Harari does announce that humans . . .
“should get used to the idea that we are no longer mysterious souls — we are now hackable animals.”
Yuval Harari, Jan. 24th, 2020 WEF Annual Meeting
Speaking from his bias, we see the WEF are metaphysical naturalists: a worldview that assumes only the natural world exists — there is nothing outside of it or beyond the cosmos. Traditionally, such a worldview is at odds with and opposed to theism, any theism. We have seen already that the WEF is set on something far darker than mere metaphysical naturalism. They offer a new brand of religion, a 21st century kind, where the elites, those who control the biotech and programming data, will become the gods who edit genes, design humanity, remove biological living humans, and establish an absolute biotechnocratic tyranny. The U.S. Declaration of Independence warned about agendi that pursue “invariably . . . a design to reduce them under absolute despotism” and said that humanity has not only the right but the duty to throw off such government — and in this case I might advise that such a government should be utterly undone. I cannot think of a better contrast than setting the WEF’s vision for future humanity next to these statement from the U.S. Declaration of Independence. The WEF wants utter surveillance and degrading of human status to nothing more than hackable animals; the U.S. Declaration of Independence states humanity has inherent value and should have autonomy, or independence.
The way the WEF uses “soul” reflects a platonic or neo-platonic view on it. The soul in that system of thought is the immateriality of humans that survives the death of the body. The WEF combines the notion that human consciousness can be digitally uploaded while holding to metaphysical naturalism. This combination should not be conceivable since it suggests that after death consciousness (or disembodied) can be while holding to metaphysical naturalism that denies after death consciousness can be. This is why the WEF is a technocratic cult more than a shear advancement in reckless science. ‘Soul’ is part and parcel to Western thought; Platonism belongs to that line of thinking; however, the Scriptural notion of ‘soul’ is quite different from Platonism. ‘Nefesh,’ from the Old Testament Hebrew, is sometimes translated as ‘soul’ but it has the meaning of ‘person,’ ‘individual,’ or ‘vitality.’ Scripture does not have a term for ‘person’ or ‘individual’ so ‘soul’ functions to serve that purpose. More than anything, ‘soul’ reflects the living quality of someone or something based on its breathing and it denotes “individuation” or a measure of autonomy. There is a close connection between ‘nefesh’ and the Hebrew ‘nishmat,’ which means ‘breath,’ ‘spirit,’ or ‘wind.’ Nishmat can sometimes be used interchangeably with Ruach, which is the word commonly used for “Spirit” in the phrase “Spirit of God.” When we get into the Greek of the Old Testament (the Septuagint, or LXX) and New Testament , we find psyche is used for soul, but it has nearly the same meaning as the Hebrew counterpart, ‘person,’ or ‘animating vitality.’ The NT uses pneuma for ‘spirit,’ ‘wind,’ ‘breath.’
All this to say that Yuval’s naturalism leaves him with a view of humanity deprived of much of its uniqueness. He says that humans are no longer mysterious souls but hackable animals. There is question begging that Yuval himself seems to transgress since (1) digitally uploading human consciousness is desirable (to the WEF) and (2) because whatever the excellence in computing power and data storage ability that computers or future A.I. have over humans, all this is built from the blueprint of humanity. What makes uploading human consciousness desirable and thus better than uploading the mind of a dolphin, an ape, or a turtle? Where does the logic for computers, for algorithms, comes from? Is it not the human mind? Yuval’s applause for biotech, computer tech, and human innovation leading to the possibility of any of this points to the potency, uniqueness, and the superiority of humanity over other animals. In a naturalist world, a metaphysical naturalist world, isn’t the radical ability over other species quite mysterious? I mean Yuval is comfortable to announce that futurist ‘ex-biological’ human consciousness or A.I. will be the intelligent designers of life’s (or artificial life) future, implying little ‘g’ gods’ abilities akin to being able to create — a category reserved for God and God alone. Psalm 82:6 literally says that humans are called ‘gods’ and Jesus’ quotes this in John 10:34 as a kind of defense against the allegation that Jesus “declares” himself God. That humans would gain such abilities to control the world around them is not at all mysterious in the Psalm 82 world, a world with God who created these incredible images of Himself called humans. It is precisely humanity’s uniqueness in this respect that advances all these marvels! The soul, then, for Yuval is something unimportant all the while seemingly imperative for every advancement he himself champions!
In Judeo-Christian thought, the soul is a summary word for a living, somewhat autonomous, person. It is the spirit of a human that acts as the trans-dimensional bridge between this world and other dimensions. The Spirit of God, the Spirit, crossed the incredible divide between Creator and creation to create what was not. Radical words, aren’t they? “What . . . was . . . not.” Thus, the Spirit crossed that divide; it is the little ‘s’ spirits in humans that have the same capacity to cross from this creatural side to unite with the Creator’s side. The soul, then, is a kind of demarcater of “this life from that life” while it is the spirit in a human that enables transcendence, imagination, self-ascension, to think beyond the bounds, and to commune with the Spirit from whom all spirits came. I’ll need to do another segment on these matters.
Primus Theologoumenus
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