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Against All Odds

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Against All Odds

Category Archives: Hebrews

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

03 Friday Jun 2022

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

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Eugenicide, Eugenics, transhumanism, World Economic Forum

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

Hebrews 6:4

05 Tuesday Nov 2013

Posted by Prime Theologian in Difficult Texts, Exegesis and Interpretation, Hebrews

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Exegesis and Interpretation, Hebrews 6:4

Regarding Hebrews 6:4 – 6 Here are some textual points with interpretive inlays.  My translation below is from the Greek and clarifies, in English, the relationship of the verbs (participles) in this long sentence.
1) those participating in the life of God (v.4 – 5) can fall away
2) whatever “restore them again to repentance” means–personally I like the points about jewish culture and the temple practices, specifically returning to blood sacrifices rather than trusting Jesus’ blood sacrifice of Himself, at the time as the historical cultural backdrop here because the book is written to Jews likely in Jerusalem–once a full fledged rejection of the life of repentance based on the crucifixion occurs, there is no way to return to God because this was the only way to get to Him in the first place.  Sure, if we are Jews living in Jerusalem at 65 A.D. then our attempt to  be “restored to repentance” might be the action of bringing a blood sacrifice to the temple. But if we are secular Americans today, our rejection of the faith might look like a return to the party life, perhaps thinking this is the way to “make the most of life.”
3) Additionally on this last point, the question remains whether the person cannot ever return once they fall away; a quick reading of the text might suggest this; however, I think the text is more fully pointing to that while in this “falling away status” they cannot return to repentance.  Take this translation for this point, paying attention especially to the tenses (time) I have in parenthesis next to each bolded verb below:
“For to restore (literally, “to be restoring”: present) to repentance again—those who, to their own eyes, are crucifying (present) again the Son of God and disgracing Him (present)—is impossible in regard to those who once were enlightened (past) and tasted (past) the gifts of the heavenly realm and became (past) sharers of the Holy Spirit and tasted (past) the good word of God and the powers of the age to come.”  
I hope it is clairvoyant that the crucifying and disgracing is happening presently and at the same time as the impossibility of the restoring. So when presently crucifying again and disgracing Jesus they cannot be restored.  There is a time line here; this person is someone who had tasted and was enlightened but presently is disgracing Jesus and so it is impossible for him/her to repent.
“to restore to repentance again”: I would point out here that it does not say “to restore to repentance ever again”
“who once were enlightened”: the word “once” here could equally mean “at one time” or “once for all.”  Either way, there would not have to be a “new enlightenment” for a fallen believer to take up and accept and trust the knowledge formerly imparted by the Holy Spirit.
“to their own eyes”: This shows us that those who abandon the faith after first accepting it are saying that Jesus got what He deserved.  It is not that somehow Jesus is out there (metaphysically) getting re-crucified every time someone loses his or her faith.  The “to their own eyes” means in their attitude or according to their understanding.  This person would have believed in Jesus at some point and learned of Jesus’ unjust crucifixion at the hands of those who did not believe in Jesus and these thought He deserved to die. Think of this person standing with John and Jesus’ mother during the crucifixion, watching in sorrow. But when this person falls away he or she joins the side of the crucifiers, saying effectively, “I once was with those sorry about Jesus’ death but now I do not believe in Him and so, hand me the spear and give me the nails, I’ll pound them in
 and stab Him because He is only getting what he deserves.”
4) Some people use their theology to decide what this passage should say; I am trying to avoid that.  For instance, I generally believe in eternal security (that you cannot lose your salvation) but I am not so arrogant as to silence this text by making it fit my theology.  The word “fall away” literally means “apotasize” or “to commit apostasy” and so, unless we want the author of hebrews describing something that could never happen, but making it seem like it could, we should accept its possibility, even if it does not fit with the rest of our theology.
I would point out that, in day to day interactions, we might readily feel deceived or misled if someone we trust presented something to us as though it were a real possibility when it was not. Imagine this: “If you speed and get caught, you are going to jail.”  Then imagine the anxiety you would have once pulled over only to find out that your “trusted friend” was just making up a worse case scenario to get your attention.  We might credit this “trusted friend” with true care but the trustworthiness of that friend will be in question if their trustworthiness is not already downgraded from this one situation.  Simply, the use of hyperbole will not wholly satisfy the notion that our “trusted friend’s” tactic was on the level.  But, then again, who ever said God was safe or “on the level?”
5) This is one of the most difficult passages in the Bible to interpret so we should not feel too much pressure to have to agree with anyone but, rather, measure and think through the reasons for ourselves.  But do not just pick whatever version you might like best (this is basically to play god with God’s word: dangerous) but weigh the interpretations according to their convincing reasons and arguments.
6) lastly, the book of Hebrews is packed with threats about the possibility of losing one’s salvation (e.g., Heb. 10, 4, etc.) and so the real possibility of it occurring and being described in Heb. 6 would fit the broader context well. I do not find categorizing the whole Book of Hebrews as “sermonic” or “homiletical” as solving the problems these threats pose.  This categorization is designed to explain why all of the threats are just “hypothetical” and so cannot happen.  This is not convincing to me because of the terrible seriousness the threats impose.  And let’s forget the human author of Hebrews for the moment.  So God the Spirit says, “As I swore in my wrath, they [the disobedient] shall not enter my rest” (Hb. 4:3) . . . Let us therefore strive to enter that rest so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience (4:11).”  But really, following the “hypothetical threat logic” above I find unconvincing, the Spirit is saying by way of this, “I am only saying this to make sure you make it and do not fall by the way side even though I swore an oath not to let the disobedient enter it.”  So now God can swear and oath and not mean it; this is more trouble them its worth to affirm eternal security because if I have to pick which one is more central to God’s character and is more consistent with the Scriptures, I am going with God’s goodness (and inability to deceive or do evil) over eternal security ever time.  There would be no such possibility for eternal security, after all, if God were not good in the first place.
And for those who might find my citation of Hebrews. 4:3 objectionable because you might think that that text only applies to those from the book of Numbers (14, 20), I would point out that the author of Hebrews is citing that passage in Numbers in the first, then citing Ps 95 (which is citing Num) which holds out the fact that people can still not enter God’s rest due to disobedience, and then the author of Hebrews, frighteningly, applies those OT texts to the church.
B. T. Scalise
Technical Greek stuff here (so ignore it if its a bore!):
1) And for those Greek scholars out there, the difference in the aspect (following aspect theory) between the present and the aorist tense would still indicate a similar conclusion.  The emphasis of the present tense following aspect theory would be on its continuous, and so current, nature: “For to be restoring (continuous/imperfective aspect) to repentance again—those who, to their own eyes, are crucifying again the Son of God and disgracing Him (both continuous/imperfective aspect) . . . .” Even if the objection is raised that the aorist tense itself is only indicating aoristic aspect (or undefined) the author of Hebrews begins his list of verbal ideas describing this person (enlightened, tasted, became, tasted) with hapax which establishes some former time (hapax = at one time, once, once and for all) via this adverb rather than the verbs (ptcs) at all.
2) And for those who might be suspicious of my translation which differs at the beginning from almost all other translations, my transition resists displacing the true referent (subject: anakainizein, to restore) with the ambiguous “it”: “it is impossible . . .” is the typical way 6:4 is rendered but the “it is” is implied.  I, of course, do not disagree that “it is” is a completely legitimate translation.  Implying only the “is” after bringing the infinitive up next to the adjective “impossible” as in my translation (For to restore again to repentance is impossible) follows typical predicate adjective construction.  The Greek, moving the infinitive up would look like this: ανακαινιζειν γαρ παλιν αδυνατον . . . .” By doing this, the nominative element (in this case, anakainizein) is brought to the front and, following my proposed translation above, all of the accusative elements are grouped together

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