Today’s new article is adpated from a lecture given by @jstump in October in Holland, MI. If you didn’t get an opportunity to be there, this is a great way to experience the content!
Jim addresses the transhumanism movement and what it could mean for us as Christians in how we think about our lifespans here on earth.
What sticks out to you as imperative to this discussion?
What sticks out to me is why we bother with this utter fantasy in the face of our imminent extinction.
It is on the brink of extinction that species evolve most. “But it’s only on the brink that people find the will to change. Only at the precipice do we evolve.” (The Day the Earth stood still).
Evolution is done with us. We’re a cul-de-sac, a dead end. We’ll be gone in 300 years. Earth abides.
As an atheist, I have had many conversations with Christians on the topic of Dualism, the idea that the mind and body are two independent entities that interact with one another. By extension, it is thought that the soul and body are independent of one another. How do these concepts fit into the lecture?
Human will just go from a genus to a family xd. Jk
On the contrary we are evolving faster than ever before. The driving force of evolution is not natural selection but variation. The protection of the community thus becomes a strong stimulus for evolution. But it is a switch from evolution of the individual (producing a bunch of Daniel Boones) to the evolution of community with people in specialized roles. Our adaptation to the communal environment and such specialized roles has only just begun.
We are at a critical point – either we adapt or civilization dies, that much is true. The doomsaying of both religion and liberal pessimism can become a self-fulfilling prophesy. This is why subjective participation is such an important part of living. We will certainly have no future if we do not believe in a future.
Probably not. Civilization is in jeopardy but the species is far more resilient.
3.5 degrees Mitchell.
I have not read the article all the way though yet. Been fairly busy.
But going on the assumption that just like we evolved from primitive animals we potentially will be a species , especially if we master space travel and living on other planets, that won’t die out. Instead as time goes we may keep evolving and evolving until we are no longer human as we know it.
Which is where my hike came in that Homo will go from a genus to a family. I think it’s a really cool concept. I don’t know if it will ever happen or exactly how various concepts of the white throne judgment plays out and so on. But let’s just say it all plays out in a way where we continually evolve.
Short of God creating more apostles in the world with the power of the Holy Spirit and they narrate a new story for a new people, I imagine that in a million years from now we will be just as accountable to the gospel as we are now.
Space travel cannot be mastered.
Why do you believe it cannot?
No one has.
Well that’s true about everything before it attempted. Then as more and more attempts are made, and better and better technology is made, things that use to be failed attempts becomes mastered by a few and eventually the typical for the majority.
No it isn’t. Nobody in this universe - therefore in any other - has mastered space travel. Or harnessed nuclear fusion.
You’re last statement is illogical to anything I said.
“I can state flatly that heavier than air flying machines are impossible.”–Lord Kelvin, 1895
And the categories are what?
Incorrect. Obviously. Space travel isn’t the problem. Though it is heavily dependent on the infrastructure of a working civilization currently. But I think that is something which shows signs of changing also.
It is star travel which hasn’t been worked out. And to be sure star empires are pure fantasy. If we do manage to travel to other stars it will effectively be a one way affair.
Incorrect. Star travel is utterly impossible, it can’t be ‘worked out’. The technology doesn’t and never will exist. Anywhere. Ever. As it never has.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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