Category Archives: Elitism

Getting Mind Trapped by the Unachievable

17 Sunday Sep 2023

Posted by in Apologetics, Christ and Culture, Comparative Religion, despotism, Elitism, Libertarianism, limitations

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In a recent conversation with my wife, we were rattling off numerous ways that our minds become trapped. What happens is that someone lays out that his or her position as the neutral position, and all other positions, which fall outside this one, are therefore wrong.

I have elsewhere addressed whether saying that “God is biased” is accurate or not, but to set up how this discussion pertains to God, we should briefly address how humans learn. It is impossible to remove what philosophers call “features of situatedness.” After all, I was born somewhere, and I cannot be born nowhere. That is a feature of my birth history (my situatedness). I will speak a certain language, and those words that get used in that language will have certain meanings. Furthermore, some of those words will have loaded connotations not strictly assigned to that word’s denotation. Within the way these words get used, there will be cultural trends, like tattoos becoming mainline in the 80s and 90s. Tattoos, at one time, were associated with ungodliness or at least a certain moral irresponsibility. Today, in the 2020s, within a relatively conservative church in Florida, I’d venture to say that you will see as many tattoos as you do people who do not have them. Within your neighborhood in which you grew up, there was an attitude about tattoos, and that attitude was very different from a similar neighborhood located elsewhere, with families of different economic means, and with communities of various secular or religious perspectives. This is the cultural milieu that silently “taught” us; these features influenced us based on our unique situation. Humans, therefore, learn only in a bias laden situation. To say a human could learn in a non-biased situation would be to claim that somehow “I could be born nowhere.” Bias is the learning environment. The question we must ask is what biases are good and which are evil.

It is not ‘biased people vs. non-biased people.” This is a dichotomy that is indubitably a trap. There are many who believe that they are those who are unbiased. This is self-deception, malice, or the result of culture programming them to have this belief. The real battle is ‘good-biased people vs. evil-biased people.’ However, if this is the real battle, then it inexorably brings the debate to the matter of comparing values-sets or questing for the “best morality.” To frame this discussion as ‘biased vs. non-biased people’ is a trap.

Why is it a trap? It takes solid and sizable mental effort to get out, first off. This trap sets up something impossible to achieve.  Why so? It creates a category that cannot exist. Let’s lay out an example of this using “bias” since I have touched on this already. Humans see the world from a certain perspective; saying the same thing differently, all human perceiving of the world is seen through a lens called bias. There is no human who sees the world with access to all knowledge, which is what it would take to potentially see the world without bias. If we listen to news, media, radio, what have you, we will find over and over again accusations that “someone is biased” or proclamations that a source is unbiased, fair, accurate. What is unachievable is the removal of bias, but such proclamations and accusations silently presume such non-bias is possible. Why is it a trap? If we listen to such voices, we find ourselves striving to do the undoable, or, worse, we seek the approval of those who insidiously suggest their perspective is the “unbiased one.”  The trap itself is nothing more than building a cage without an exit, so that those enclosed in this trap spend all their time trying to find the exit when they could be devising ways to break out of the trap.

Let’s boil this down: no one has an unbiased position, therefore do not waste time listening to those who claim such. How we determine whether a bias is good or evil is by filtering it through a set of values. We should spend our time figuring out what set of values supports a bias rather than spend time and effort trying to be unbiased—which is unachievable. I think we can visually present this idea.

Imagine two great armies ready to meet the next day on the field of battle. They come to parley the day before on so-called neutral ground. What isn’t said is that this neutral ground has the sun at one army’s back and in the other’s eyes, that there is a slight downward slope helping a would-be charge of one army, and that the neutral ground has been thoroughly scoped out by both armies scouts. The two armies represent two competing and opposed biases. The neutral ground is the so-called “unbiased” position. What we find, however, is that the neutral ground is not really neutral, but it favors one army or the other more or less. Therefore, you find ourselves dining in one army camp or the other even if we had meant to be neutral.

In whose camp will we serve? We need not reinvent the wheel; we need only devote time to social institutions that promote traditional Judeao-Christian values. Many presume these values without knowing it already. The media and other informational sources who present themselves as the net neutral position, these are to be rejected out of hand. There is no need for long debates. The world, this secular spectacle we face every day, has not changed over the millennia. The game is the same. On one hand, tyranny accosts our senses and drives us mad: we find freedom in our obedience to goodness, to a transcendent moral norm (God) that power hungry tyrants cannot impact, control, or change.  On the other hand, a society engorged on freedom unhinged from objective moral norms inevitability will be rotted out and destroyed from its acceptance of all lifestyles. Those societies, as God would say, “Let them become a byword.”

Dr. Scalise

World Economic Forum’s Transhumanism, Near Death Documented Consciousness, and the Afterlife (part 6)

20 Monday Jun 2022

Posted by in afterlife, apotheosis, artificial intelligence, Elitism, soul, Transhumanism, WEF

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WEF Claims that Humans don’t have Souls; They are just Hackable Animals

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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

Transhumanism, Near Death Documented Consciousness, and the Afterlife (Part 2)

03 Friday Jun 2022

Posted by in Apologetics, Comparative Religion, Elitism, Fear, God, Government, Hebrews, Human Experience and Theology, Incarnation, Jesus, Transhumanism

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The World Economic Forum’s Eugenics and Ramifications

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The WEF’s infatuation with transhumanism partly lies in its deep eugenicist ideological matrix. They recently claimed that their elitist group will be the ones intelligently designing humanity, advancing humanity’s evolution. They go so far as to directly dismiss the Divine as the Intelligent Designer, naming themselves as sovereigns in His place. Yuval Harari, much the prophet for the World Economic Forum, clearly articulated this in his January 25th, 2018, presentation at the WEF annual meeting, in a speech called “Will the Future be Human.” Perhaps one of the challenges of discussing this prophet’s narrative (Harari is a bit infamous for a work he put out called New Religions of the 21st Century) is the vast domains of knowledge needed to interact with this thought. These domains include eugenics, A.I., transhumanism, evolution, naturalism, Darwinism, economics, resource management, the nature of life (or better, bio-ontology), nature of humanity, metaphysics, God-world relationship, and, in some respect, cosmology. We cannot discuss everything here, but we can go through them one at a time. Eugenics typically involves a racial focus, a desire to “purify” the human species of undesirable traits. The World Economic Forum evidently thinks that humanity itself is problematic, of whatever race or sort. This is novel eugenics, one that we should call anti-life eugenics: for my DC comics fan, this is a kind of anti-life equation (Darkseid is obsessed with eliminating freewill, which in that DC universe equates to being “anti-life.”). There is a certain cynicism that may think, “well humanity will kill itself anyway, the WEF is just advancing that eventuality,” especially in light of the wars, genocides, and weapons of mass destruction the 20th century produced.  This thought provides no illumination of the good humanity does and is capable of, and such a thought would belong to a person who would be among the ranks of the WEF’s eugenicist ideology. There is an opaque connection here with nihilism, which is the subtle, indirect, direct, or tendency towards destruction or facilitating it.

Thus, clarifying, the WEF’s transhumanism is recreative, at least I believe they would see it that way; it is a eugenicist cleansing to bring forth, as Harari puts it, “non-biological life.” Cast down human life; raise up cyborg or A.I. life from the ashes.

Nevertheless, this sort of eugenics is also genocidal, even if the WEF and its advocates opine that what they want is to move humanity into its next evolutionary step, akin to how Neanderthals were eliminated so that more advanced forms of Homo Sapiens could thrive.

We have now branched neatly into the domain of ethics or morality, and we will discuss that in the future. Big questions about God, humanity, humanity’s role in the cosmos, what it means to be human, the morality of eugenicide even if done with the best of intentions, and how this vision of the future contrasts with God’s metanarrative for humanity. A few closing points that will extend and summarize what I have discussed herein.

  • WEF transhumanism takes, extends, but modifies the Darwinian principle of natural selection, which is itself a kind of “naturally embedded eugenics.” The WEF believes in the notion of survival of the fittest, but they want to take the reigns from nature in order to make themselves the architects of eugenicized humanity, of digitalized or cyborged Sapiens.
  • WEF transhumanism believes in a modified “Intelligent Design,” which typically means that God designed humanity and the world in remarkably precise ways to fit, operate, and create a plentitude of unities among diversities. The WEF modified form means that “enlightened humans,” those sufficiently illuminated, will be the futurist intelligent designers of this renewed humanity, of cyborgian/digitalized humanity. Who are these humans? The cohort that is the World Economic Forum’s true believers; they will be the little “g” gods who will play the role of intelligent designers, crafting a digitalized, futurist destiny for humanity.
  • This anti-life eugenics entails destruction of old humanity, of that normal biological sort that claims it is made in the Imago Deī (Image of God). I should be more careful here: it is unclear if the WEF wants all humanity’s biological restrictions removed. It might be better to call their futurist vision for humanity “anti-standard-humanity.”

The WEF has a eugenicide agenda, but it entails the destruction of old humanity to bring on this new futurist humanity. This genocide is more likely of the omissive kind; either adapt with humanity’s futurist, non-biological destiny or be excluded from all means of livelihood. Genocides are often thought of as brutal campaigns of death and slaughter for the unworthy, for the unbeliever, blood spilling everywhere. What we have learned since the Great Bioweapon Undertaking of 2020 (the Covid-19 pandemic) is that the globalist elites desire to structure disasters, then be the ones who offer the solutions, so that humanity will willingly accept their guidance. With sufficient fear, many humans will give up everything for security. Of course, you might think, “I would not,” and that is well and good, but the trouble is that these “crafters of disaster” only need a majority to advance their agenda. Once the majority agrees to ever greater degrees of surveillance and compliance, the globalists only need to bind that compliance/surveillance to someone’s ability to buy or sell. Once this is done, it will be ever more difficult to survive without submission to that system. Ergo, those who will not comply will be marginalized, and they will have to decide (and convince their loved ones) whether to accept the WEF’s futurist cyborgian destiny for themselves and their family or to descend into obscurity in some apocalyptic, likely pre-industrial, very discomfortable, living situation.

The other big “God” questions have to do with the divinization, at least in their own minds, of the WEF cohort, albeit in the little “g” gods sense. Is the removal of “the biological (body)” from humans a discontinuing of the human species? If so, and I will speak from my orthodox Christian position here, would the sacrifice of Jesus the Christ “count” for “non-biological” humans, if we can even still call them humans? The Book of Hebrews offers this:

“Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death. For it is clear that he did not come to help angels, but the descendants of Abraham. Therefore, he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people. Because He Himself was tested by what he suffered, He is able to help those who are being tested.”

Hebrews Chapter 2

Specifically, the WEF wants to remove the “flesh and blood” of humanity, either more or less, although we should lean to the “more” side since “uploading” is part of their emphasis (= fully digitized human consciousness). The consequence of Jesus’ appropriation of “flesh and blood,” the purpose for which He did it, was the freeing of humans from death and the devil. Jesus “had to become like” humanity “in every respect.” The biological composition of humanity is integral to its essence (or ontology); would disembodied digital “ex-humans’” consciousnesses still be salvageable by Jesus, the Christ? This text is famous in Church History, the Church Fathers creating this maxim from it:

that which is not assumed is not saved”

St. Gregory Nazianzen’s Letter to Cledonius

What does this mean? That the sacrifice of the Christ only applies to the form of humanity that He took up through the incarnation: which is, normal, biological humanity. It might escape out notice, it nearly did mine, but it is not unimportant that the “removal of life” historically means the onsetting of death, life-less-ness. The Hebrews text above notes the mission of this Christ was to remove the power of death. Is the digitalization, the removal of “biology,” of “life,” from humanity the codification of a near immortal reigning of death? Is Harari’s phrase, “non-biological life,” a euphemism for “life-less” or “death-ful.” If this too sloppily put? Certainly, prolonging consciousness would entail a major, or even dominate, feature of what it means to be alive. Has anyone seen the Matrix? Has anyone been in the Warhammer 40k lore? In almost all cases where the “machinification” of humanity is imagined, it is centered on images that are instinctually repugnant to our aesthetic faculty (P.s., I have an objective, historical, view of beauty, where it is not in the “eye of the beholder”). Why should this be the case? These questions set the stage for our next article. I have much to consider as I hope you do as well.

Prime Theologian

Infallibility of Scripture: Enlightenment and Elitism

07 Sunday Dec 2014

Posted by in Elitism, Enlightenment, Gospels, Infallibility

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I’ve often wondered if the position of inerrancy and/or infallibility is more the child of the Enlightenment’s scientific accuracy rather than that of Scripture itself. For instance, doesn’t the fact that there are four Gospels that differ in some ways in the way they tell the same event an affirmation of the need for variation in our theory of inspiration? Shouldn’t infallibility be configured to the Gospels’ form rather than making the Gospels fit Enlightenment scientific accuracy? For instance, there is a number of ways to convey the same idea in differ styles: in prose, a poem, in song, in hymns, and so forth. This is a principle I call “referential identity.” What is referred to is the same although how it is referred to differs. For instance, the Gospel of Matthew brings out Jesus’ divinity by focusing on Jesus’ davidic kingship while the Gospel of Luke brings out Jesus’ divinity by focusing on Jesus’ servant status as conveyed in the Servant Songs in Isaiah. In both Matthew and Luke, they are appealing to OT texts that suggest or teach the divinity of the “everlasting king” or the inconceivable praise and honor given to the “Servant” in the latter books of Isaiah. Both Matthew and Luke refer their readers to the fact that Jesus is divine but they get there in different ways: referential identity but differing in style.

There are a number of additions to the biblical text that my questioner asked about that led to these posts: she notes the addition of the adulterous woman in John. Although I intend to concede that this is an addition, the textual traditions that have come down to us (Byzantine, Western, Alexandrian) can be argued to show the potential inclusion of the adulterous woman story as proper and original to John. Textual criticism is the science of getting at the original texts of the NT, if possible: textual criticism is immensely complex, so we should hold our findings from it as preliminary, that is, we should always be ready to revise those findings in light of new evidence. I think the reason for overlooking and failing to discuss so-called inclusions (like the adulterous woman narrative) is the result of elitism and, in some sense, potential ignorance. Pastors, who are largely responsible for educating church people, never want to cause their sheep to stumble by raising doubt about the biblical text although they know about it. For instance, I oversee a house church, but I never intend to mislead them on these matters; I hope that we can discuss those issues as candidly as I am here. Google and Bing have made it impossible, as a church leader in any measure, to champion belief statements that any parishioner can check for its truth or falsity by typing just a few words on their smart phone during the teaching. No doubt, we sound “sooo faithful” when we make these statements from the pulpit (or elsewhere) despite evidence to the contrary, but we make ourselves the enemy of truth in the process. Faith statements of this sort cost us our integrity and, consequently, credibility with those who care about truth; you know its bad when the world can accurately claim the church to be “blind to the truth.” For those teachers and preachers who willingly and intentionally withhold the truth of textual difficulties in the Scripture for the good of their sheep, they can be called elites. Elitism is the sickness of supposing that the truth that you know cannot be handled by others of similar stature — e.g., children are not of similar stature with their parents so it might be valid to withhold certain things from them. An elite will think something like this, “They won’t be able to handle it,” implying that the elitist can. Such elitism is often justified based on looking out for the sheep, which is utilitarian ethics — the ends justify the means. In this case, an elitist pastor withholds truth (the means) to achieve the ongoing belief of the sheep (the end). What is strange is that the Spirit is the Leader of the Church and Christ is the Pastor while all other pretenders to such titles are really just sheep as well: there is only one Teacher, the Christ. The Spirit is called the Spirit of Truth, so should we dismiss the way Scripture has come down to us by misrepresenting how the Spirit presumably brought it down through history? Do we know better than the Spirit of God? Do we distrust Him? Can we mislead the people of God about variation in Scriptural manuscripts and still claim that we are of God? Shouldn’t the world condemn such deception by church leaders, even if done with the best intentions — good intentions have often led to many horrors in world history. It is never enough to have good intentions when the actions that issue forth from such intentions are evil or cause evil. To want the faithful to continue in their faith by lying about the content of Scriptural transmission seems patently atrocious, a ruse even rogues would be proud of.

Dr. Scalise