Daily Archives: January 3, 2016

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Posted: January 3, 2016 at 11:41 am

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free speech fundamentalists – New Statesman

Posted: at 5:44 am

Dear liberal pundit,

You and I didnt like George W Bush. Remember his puerile declaration after 9/11 that either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists? Yet now, in the wake of another horrific terrorist attack, you appear to have updated Dubbyas slogan: either you are with free speech . . . or you are against it. Either vous tes Charlie Hebdo . . . or youre a freedom-hating fanatic.

Im writing to you to make a simple request: please stop. You think youre defying the terrorists when, in reality, youre playing into their bloodstained hands by dividing and demonising. Us and them. The enlightened and liberal west v the backward, barbaric Muslims. The massacre in Paris on 7 January was, you keep telling us, an attack on free speech. The conservative former French president Nicolas Sarkozy agrees, calling it a war declared on civilisation. So, too, does the liberal-left pin-up Jon Snow, who crassly tweeted about a clash of civilisations and referred to Europes belief in freedom of expression.

In the midst of all the post-Paris grief, hypocrisy and hyperbole abounds. Yes, the attack was an act of unquantifiable evil; an inexcusable and merciless murder of innocents. But was it really a bid to assassinate free speech (ITVs Mark Austin), to desecrate our ideas of free thought (Stephen Fry)? It was a crime not an act of war perpetrated by disaffected young men; radicalised not by drawings of the Prophet in Europe in 2006 or 2011, as it turns out, but by images of US torture in Iraq in 2004.

Please get a grip. None of us believes in an untrammelled right to free speech. We all agree there are always going to be lines that, for the purposes of law and order, cannot be crossed; or for the purposes of taste and decency, should not be crossed. We differ only on where those lines should be drawn.

Has your publication, for example, run cartoons mocking the Holocaust? No? How about caricatures of the 9/11 victims falling from the twin towers? I didnt think so (and I am glad it hasnt). Consider also the thought experiment offered by the Oxford philosopher Brian Klug. Imagine, he writes, if a man had joined the unity rally in Paris on 11 January wearing a badge that said Je suis Chrif the first name of one of the Charlie Hebdo gunmen. Suppose, Klug adds, he carried a placard with a cartoon mocking the murdered journalists. How would the crowd have reacted? . . . Would they have seen this lone individual as a hero, standing up for liberty and freedom of speech? Or would they have been profoundly offended? Do you disagree with Klugs conclusion that the man would have been lucky to get away with his life?

Lets be clear: I agree there is no justification whatsoever for gunning down journalists or cartoonists. I disagree with your seeming view that the right to offend comes with no corresponding responsibility; and I do not believe that a right to offend automatically translates into a duty to offend.

When you say Je suis Charlie, is that an endorsement of Charlie Hebdos depiction of the French justice minister, Christiane Taubira, who is black, drawn as a monkey? Of crude caricatures of bulbous-nosed Arabs that must make Edward Said turn in his grave?

Lampooning racism by reproducing brazenly racist imagery is a pretty dubious satirical tactic. Also, as the former Charlie Hebdo journalist Olivier Cyran argued in 2013, an Islamophobic neurosis gradually took over the magazine after 9/11, which then effectively endorsed attacks on "members of a minority religion with no influence in the corridors of power".

It's for these reasons that I can't "be", dont want to be", Charlie if anything, we should want to be Ahmed, the Muslim policeman who was killed while protecting the magazines right to exist. As the novelist Teju Cole has observed, It is possible to defend the right to obscene . . . speech without promoting or sponsoring the content of that speech.

And why have you been so silent on the glaring double standards? Did you not know that Charlie Hebdo sacked the veteran French cartoonist Maurice Sinet in 2008 for making an allegedly anti-Semitic remark? Were you not aware that Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that published caricatures of the Prophet in 2005, reportedly rejected cartoons mocking Christ because they would provoke an outcry and proudly declared it would in no circumstances . . . publish Holocaust cartoons?

Muslims, I guess, are expected to have thicker skins than their Christian and Jewish brethren. Context matters, too. You ask us to laugh at a cartoon of the Prophet while ignoring the vilification of Islam across the continent (have you visited Germany lately?) and the widespread discrimination against Muslims in education, employment and public life especially in France. You ask Muslims to denounce a handful of extremists as an existential threat to free speech while turning a blind eye to the much bigger threat to it posed by our elected leaders.

Does it not bother you to see Barack Obama who demanded that Yemen keep the anti-drone journalist Abdulelah Haider Shaye behind bars, after he was convicted on terrorism-related charges in a kangaroo court jump on the free speech ban wagon? Werent you sickened to see Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of a country that was responsible for the killing of seven journalists in Gaza in 2014, attend the unity rally in Paris? Bibi was joined by Angela Merkel, chancellor of a country where Holocaust denial is punishable by up to five years in prison, and David Cameron, who wants to ban non-violent extremists committed to the overthrow of democracy from appearing on television.

Then there are your readers. Will you have a word with them, please? According to a 2011 YouGov poll, 82 per cent of voters backed the prosecution of protesters who set fire to poppies.

Apparently, it isnt just Muslims who get offended.

Yours faithfully,

Mehdi.

Mehdi Hasan is a New Statesman contributing writer and the political director of the Huffington Post UK, where this column is crossposted

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Genetic Armageddon – John McTernan’s Insights

Posted: at 5:42 am

Genetic Armageddon

(Transhuman: As The Days of Noah Were)

Luke 17:26 And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. (27) They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.

(30) Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.

By John P. McTernan, Ph.D.

This is the fourth in my science series. See the others: Singularity and The Image of the Beast; Calling Fire From Heaven; and Prophecy and the Television.

http://www.defendproclaimthefaith.org

When the Lord Jesus was describing the end of days, the time just prior to His Second Coming, He drew a direct connection back to the days of Noah: the time just before the Great Flood. He mentioned that the people were involved with eating, drinking and marrying right up until the flood came. They were totally unaware of the coming judgment.

At first glance, there does not seem to be anything unusual about eating and drinking until all the Scriptures are studied about the time of Noah. The big picture shows this time period was full of violence and rebellion against God. It is also a time of intense sexual immorality as women were having sexual relations with spiritual beings identified as the sons of God.

This combination of violence and immorality grieved the heart of God. The wickedness of man filled the earth. Mans thoughts and imaginations were continually evil, and this triggered Gods judgment on mankind. Mankind was so corrupted that God deemed it necessary to destroy man and start over again with Noah and his family.

Genesis 6:5-7 And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth

The effect of mans sexual immorality was staggering since it altered the race. The offspring of this union between human females and the fallen angelic beings were physical giants. These children were not fully human. They grew enormous in stature with great intellects and were called men of renown.

This cohabitation between humans and the spiritual beings was not isolated to a few individuals but became widespread throughout the earth.

Genesis 6:1,2,4 And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

This cohabitation was part of the reason Gods heart was grieved with mankind and triggered the flood as judgment to wipe out this corrupted race of humans. In modern science, the biologists would identify what happened to mankind as altering the human DNA. The DNA of man was changed by this union and some men were no longer fully men. They were a hybrid.

The Bible describes Gods selection of Noah in order to preserve mankind. Noah qualified because he was perfect in his generation. This does not mean he was a morally perfect human, but that he was genetically perfect in his lineage. He had perfect human DNA and was not corrupted by the sons of God.

Genesis 6:9 These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.

In the 1970s when I first began to study Bible prophecy, I viewed As the days of Noah as a time of great violence and immorality. I never imagined that a time would come when mankinds DNA would once again be altered. The modern altering would not be done through sexual contact with the sons of God, but rather through mans knowledge of science and breaking the DNA code. We are now living in a time when mans DNA is being tampered with just as it was in Noahs day.

Mans increase in scientific knowledge reached a point that starting in 1990 a concerted effort was made to map the human genome. The United States led this project with assistance from other nations. This was an enormous task as the genome has 25,000 genes with 3.1 billion DNA pairs. The project was 99 percent finished in 2003.

Immediately while this mapping was taking place, the manipulation of the DNA began. This manipulation included splicing DNA together from two females to create a multiple parent egg, and splicing human DNA into other animals such as mice and pigs. Animals such as sheep were cloned, but to this day there is no known case of a human being cloned. Since 2003 there has been a tremendous acceleration in tampering with mans DNA. It seems that scientists are now on a regular basis making discoveries about DNA.

Never before in history did man have the knowledge to break the genetic code. Man now has such knowledge and is developing the technology to alter his DNA. This is once again setting the stage for corrupting the human race. We are now living in As the days of Noah were!

The scientists tamper with mans DNA under the guise of increasing health by identifying genetic diseases and imperfections. By using this argument, the scientists are virtually insulated from criticism and control. They have a free hand to tamper with the human DNA as long as it is tied to health. With this freedom, the geneticists will move to create babies free of any genetic flaw. By 2006, this is exactly what happened.

In 2006 Great Britain opened what is called Designer Baby Clinics. In these clinics, an eight day old embryo was examined for over 200 inherited diseases. A defective embryo was destroyed while the accepted one was used for invitro fertilization.

The following is a quote from an article about the use of two female monkey eggs to produce an offspring. With this type of argument it is impossible to stop the manipulation of mans DNA:

The prospect of a human baby with three biological parents has moved closer after scientists created monkeys using a technique that one day could stop children from inheriting severe genetic disease

It should allow scientists to replace faulty cellular batteries called mitochondria, which affect about 1 in 6,500 births. While most mitochondria defects have mild effects, some can trigger severe brain, heart, muscle and liver conditions, as well as cancer, diabetes, blindness and deafness.

In addition to a baby free from genetic flaws, parents now can create a child to order. It is possible to go shopping for the genetic type baby you want. For example, a child could be created from an egg and sperm of two Olympic athletes and placed in the womb of the future mother. The child would have DNA that was not related in any way to its birth parents. A female Olympians eggs cost around $30,000.

The natural progression is to enhance the human race by sharpening the senses. If the DNA is now understood and can be manipulated, why not increase the eyesight and hearing? With the addition of eagle DNA man could see like an eagle. By placing deer DNA, man could hear like a deer. The same enhancement could be accomplished for smell. For strength the introduction of gorilla DNA could give super strength, and for speed how about ostrich DNA!

The scientists have already placed human DNA in animals such as mice and pigs; however, there is no report of animal DNA yet being placed in humans. When the science of DNA tampering is perfected, there will be a cry to enhance humans with animal DNA.

Evolution also plays into the tampering of human DNA. The theory of evolution frees man from Genesis 1 which states that everything is to reproduce after its kind. Evolution also detaches man from his Creator and being created in Gods image and likeness. Man is now a free agent to tamper with his DNA under the guise of advancing evolution.

The evolutionists believe they are rapidly advancing evolution by manipulating the DNA. Many scientists believe they are enhancing evolution by improving man. Because, through evolution, man has no fear of God and thus no restraints on tampering with DNA, any attempts to stop this tampering will be met with cries from the scientists. Unless there is a general public outcry, this tampering will continue until mans DNA is altered and merged with animals. The following is a quote from an article We are becoming a new species, we are becoming Homo Evolutis which states:

humanity is on the verge of becoming a new and utterly unique species, which he dubs Homo Evolutis. What makes this species so unique is that it "takes direct and deliberate control over the evolution of the species." Calling it the "ultimate reboot," he points to the conflux of DNA manipulation and therapy, tissue generation, and robotics as making this great leap possible...

The day may come when we are able to take the best biology of the known animal kingdom and make it part of our own. This isn't just about being a bit stronger, or having perfect eyesight our whole lives. All of our organs and limbs have weaknesses that can be addressed, and there are also opportunities to go beyond basic fixes and perform more elaborate enhancements.

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/02/we-are-becoming-a-new-species-we-are-becoming-homo-evolutis.ars

The merging of human DNA with animals creates what is called a Chimera (k mir ). The word chimera comes from Greek mythology. This was a frightening looking beast that was made from the parts of several animals. It has a lions head, goat body, and dragons tail with other creatures mixed in. It was always viewed as a monster. Websters dictionary defines a chimera as the following:

3: an individual, organ, or part consisting of tissues of diverse genetic constitution occurring especially in plants and most frequently at a graft union, the tissues from both stock and cion retaining their distinctness in the chimera

Chimera

There was even a movie made about human chimeras. It was made in 1977 and called The Island of Dr. Morea starring Burt Lancaster. In the picture, Dr. Morea, a mad scientist, creates numerous chimeras and abuses them. Eventually, the chimeras revolt and kill him. This movie was made long before genetic manipulation was possible, yet the idea was there. In the near future, chimeras will be reality and not science fiction.

When reading Greek mythology, one did not give thought to the possibility that one day man could create a Centaur and Minotaur. These were creatures that were half human and half beast. The Centaur had the upper torso of a human and the body of a horse. The Minotaur had the head of a bull and the body of a human.

These beasts were always viewed as pure mythology, but what about today when it is becoming possible to create such beasts! What was viewed as ancient mythology, in the near future, could become reality or at least the possible ability to create such a beast!

The ancient Greeks believed in the Titans which were gods that ruled the earth. They were physical giants and produced offspring with human women. This is very similar to the biblical account found in Genesis 6. Perhaps the Greek myths had some kernel of truth that was twisted away from the Bible into what is now known as mythology.

It is my view, that once the human DNA is contaminated with animal DNA, this beast is no longer human and no longer created in Gods image. This is what happened in Noahs day, and God selected Noah because he was pure in his generations. He was fully human.

The creation of a chimera is in direct violation of the Bible. In Genesis, chapter one, the Bible states eight times that everything is to reproduce after its kind. This is a basic law of life that God instituted at the very beginning.

Genesis 1:24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

The mixing of DNA from two different species violates this law. When God created man, He stated that man was made in His image and likeness. The human DNA is what physically carries this image and likeness. The addition of animal DNA means that man is no longer in Gods image. It is extremely serious to tamper with the integrity of man as transmitted through his DNA. This is, in part, what triggered the flood in Noahs day. All of the hybrid humans were destroyed during the flood, and God then started over with Noah.

Genesis 1:26, 27 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

When God moved to redeem mankind through the Lord Jesus, the Bible specially states that He rejected the nature of the angels, but took on Him the seed of Abraham. The Greek word for seed is very interesting; it is sperma, which is the basis for the English word sperm. Sperm is what carries the male DNA.

The Lord Jesus had a human body which had pure DNA that could be traced back to Abraham, then to Noah and finally to Adam. His DNA was 100 percent human, and thus when He shed His blood on the cross for sin, He could redeem mankind!

Hebrews 2:14,16 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil ...

For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.

Mankind is racing towards altering his nature. Paralleling tampering with DNA is the merging of man with robotic technology. The merging of man with machines is called Singularity (See my article Singularity and The Image of the Beast). Both Singularity and DNA tampering are on the threshold of altering what it means to be human. This is coming so fast, yet so few outside of the scientific circles are aware of this.

God is fully aware of what is happening. He will only let the tampering with mans DNA go so far, and then He will step in to stop it. It is clear that modern man, led by the geneticists, is right at the very point when God will intervene to stop this madness.

2 Peter 2:5,9 And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished

Once again, tampering with mankinds DNA integrity is a very serious offense to God and will bring severe judgment. Man is once again in the same position as the Days of Noah. Through science, it is now possible to alter the nature of man. The judgment that happened in Noahs day is a warning of what is fast coming upon the earth. Science has taken mankind beyond the point of no return to a genetic Armageddon.

Because modern science is anchored in evolution, no amount of reasoning can stop this progression. The evolutionists have no respect for the Bible and absolutely no fear of God. The evolutionists mock at the concept that man is created in Gods image, and therefore have no compunction about altering the nature of man. Just as God stopped it in the days of Noah, so God is going to stop it in our day at the glorious Second Coming of the Lord Jesus. Make sure that in the days of Christs Second Coming, you are on Gods side.

Remember, this is coming to a head very, very fast.

Matthew 24:37,38 But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,

To keep on top of the latest information about genetic Armageddon, please see my blog: johnmcternan.name.

Articles For Reference

The following are quotes from a few related articles to show just how far the genetic manipulation has progressed toward mixing humans with animals and creating Chimeras.

The Technocracy and the Genetic Engineering of Humanity, 01/01/09, Black Listed News, http://www.blacklistednews.com/news-2820-0-7-7--.html

This is a great article showing the future of man with the coming Singularity and the alterations of mans DNA.

In 2007 evolutionary theorist Oliver Curry from the London School of Economics put forth the theory that, The human race will one day split into two separate species, an attractive, intelligent ruling elite and an underclass of dim-witted, ugly goblin-like creatures.

Pig Organs available to patient in ten years, 11/7/08, Times on Line http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article5102153.ece

They are attempting to breed pigs that have been genetically modified so that porcine organs are accepted by the human body instead of being immediately rejected. Human immune systems are quick to react to foreign bodies but the scientists are confident that they are close to modifying the genetic make-up of pigs to humanise their organs and make animal-to-human transplants possible.

Genetic mapping of babies by 2019 will transform preventive medicine 02/09/09, Times On Line, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article5689052.ece

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Transhumanist religion 2.0 | KurzweilAI

Posted: at 5:40 am

Cosmic infinity (credit: ESO/Wikimedia Commons)

Cosmism, an emerging religion 2.0 that is part of a radical futurist conception of the future development of humanity, can give us the positive optimism and strenuous mood to overcome our current problems and embark on our cosmic journey.

So say contemporary cosmists, who believe that the manifest destiny of our species is colonizing the universe and developing spacetime engineering and scientific future magic much beyond our current understanding and imagination.

These ideas were first developed in the late 19th century by Russian Cosmism, the scientific philosophy of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and Nikolai Fedorov, who considered science as a tool given to us by God to enable us to resurrect the dead and, as promised, enjoy immortal life.

Some cosmists including me expect that God-like beings will exist in the future, and they may be able to affect their past our present by means of spacetime engineering. Probably other civilizations out there have already attained God-like powers.

Its at least conceivable that remarkably advanced technology of the future may allow positive answers that our descendants will have the god-like ability to recreate us in the future, giving us an unexpected prospect for immortality, says David Wood inSuper-technology and a possible renaissance of religion.

Future magic will permit achieving, by scientific means, most of the promises of religions and many amazing things that no human religion ever dreamed of. Future God-like beings could resurrect the dead by copying them to the future. Perhaps we will be resurrected in virtual reality and perhaps we are already there.

I have written a lot about these convictions, without calling them beliefs. But, following William James, since I am persuaded that these convictions are scientifically plausible, and they give me happiness and drive, I choose to hold them as beliefs.

On Saturday, July 14, 2012, in London, Prisco will give a talk onTuring Church unlimited Transhumanist Religions 2.0, organized byDavid Woodand theLondon Futurists Meetupgroup. The talk is free to attend.You can sign up on the London Futurists Meetup website oron Facebook.

UPDATE 8/15/2012: Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon welcome Giulio Prisco to FastForward Radio to discuss the convergence of science, technology, religion, and spirituality.

Giulio Prisco is transhumanism editor for KurzweilAI. He is a science writer, technology expert, futurist, and transhumanist.

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