Category Archives: Transhumanist

Some 14 years ago I published a satire, a funny piece meant to point up a deadly serious subject. A leader of the official ob-gyn organization in Canada had publicly denounced then-Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Why? Because she had said that she was glad she hadnt aborted her Down Syndrome child. And the Canadian doctor worried that she might influence Canadian parents to do the same. To welcome the child God had sent them, instead of killing it. She ought to be silent, this Canadian doctor demanded.

So I wrote a piece called Kill More Canadians. In it, I pretended that I wished to empty Canada of all its current inhabitants, so the U.S. could annex it and make it a theme park. And I praised the abortion-happy doctor for helping us get a start on culling the herd in the Great White North:

The process of gradually clearing out the blank space on the map which lies to our North Ive always called it The Annex should be accomplished in classic Canadian style: with deference, almost with diffidence. There is no call for broken windows or blood on the ice. As we gain for our overcrowded nation a measure of much-craved living space, we owe it to the brooding, bleating herds of lumbering Canucks to ensure that their last days are spent in peace and comfort.

I invite you to go read the piece.

Sadly, that piece has aged all too well. The culture of death in North America advances inexorably, a little more quickly in Canada than in America. Here as in other indicators of decline (think of the savage crackdown on the truckers protest) Canada is five years ahead of the United States, on the slippery Gadarene slope that leads down to the sea.

My old friend, the intrepid conservative journalist Richard Poe, called my attention to whats happening more quickly in Canada than here. The facts are appalling, if not exactly surprising. I beg you to go through the whole of this sobering Twitter thread which Richard posted:

Do you think the U.S. is immune to this brutal, utilitarian killing of the helpless and the innocent? Far from it. Leave abortion aside for the moment, and the crass vivisection of unborn babies for the production of untested, dangerous vaccines.

During COVID we witnessed in practice a mass euthanasia of patients in nursing homes. Too many even on the right still tell themselves the thousands of COVID deaths in such facilities were the result of Democrats incompetence or apathy or cluelessness.

I dont believe it. Not for a second. All that death was premeditated and intentional, as I argued here back in May. Ill repeat the salient points, which I believe justify us in speaking of the Blue State Nursing Home Genocide of 2020:

An old saying goes, When someone shows you what he really is by his actions, believe him. When vaccine fascists went on social media and wished mass death on the unvaccinated, they meant it. When public officials in once-free countries like Australia and New Zealand said there was no room in society for people who didnt comply, they meant it.

When Bill Gates says he wants a global population reduction in the billions, he means it, too. Likewise when transhumanist big brain Yuval Harari says: We just dont need the vast majority of the population, I believe hes stating his beliefs quite sincerely. Here he is giving a TED talk to his fellow elites, explaining the uselessness of everyone who doesnt get invited to go to TED talks.

When I say that were facing not people confused by bad ideas, but elites possessed by demons, I mean it too.

John Zmirak is a senior editor at The Stream and author or co-author of ten books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism. He is co-author with Jason Jones of God, Guns, & the Government.

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If the US is Nineveh, Then Canada is Sodom - The Stream

One of the most exciting things about the introduction of a New Year is all the tech, trends, and games that roll out. This is a time when manufacturers, designers, and creators want to make the biggest impact on their audience. It can be a defining or breaking time for any company. This is especially true for the gaming industry, as the bar is being raised to unbelievable heights year after year.

That said, there is usually so much rolled out at the beginning of the year that it can be hard to keep up with it all sometimes. While 2022 is well over halfway over, the world has been introduced to some truly groundbreaking accomplishments. If youve already found yourself overwhelmed, here are some of the biggest that you certainly dont want to miss out on.

Elden Ring

Fully explorative gaming is nothing new these days. Designers have been creating what seems like near-endless worlds for gamers to explore and delve into. Because of this, the genre has seemed to become a bit overplayed and saturated. Perhaps a bit watered down. Well, Elden Ring changes all that and brings new light back into the genre.

Its one of the first fully explorative games in a long time that makes the act of exploration feel endlessly rewarding. Coming off his groundbreaking achievement of the legendary Dark Souls series, Hidetaka Miyazaki once again redefines what a Souls game can be.

In the dense open world of Elden Ring, deadly secrets are lurking around every corner, tucked inside nooks and crannies, and stashed in places where no one would even think to explore. It will be your curiosity that rewards the most breathtaking discoveries in this harsh environment.

True to his nature, this game will be no cakewalk and youll need to improve your skills to venture into the most rewarding of all territories.

The Quarry

There is something about a big budget that seems to accompany failure. Just look at all the previous games, designers, Hollywood producers, and directors that have sunk millions into creating something thats supposed to be so earth-shattering that it seems surreal. What usually happens when the finished product rolls out? It fails to live up to the hype!

That certainly was not the case with The Quarry. And there is one reason that it took the path less traveled. That was because it was one of the funniest and warmest adolescence games to roll out in years. There are plenty of gruesome and terrifying scenes that could easily bump this game up to an R rating, but it first draws on the players sympathy.

There is no denying that the higher budget opened more doors for a well-known and defined cast as well as access to more varied playable environments, but it mesh the perfect amount of cinematic horror with the teen slasher feel. The Quarry was 2K Games return to the industry, and it could easily be described as a triumphant one. Take a few hours away from your favorite to immerse yourself in this horrifying world of unknowns.

Sephonie

One of the things that most players enjoy about games is that they feel futuristic. That was a big part of Cyberpunk, right? Well, Sephonie doesnt match up to the graphics and cinematic experience of such games, but it does an excellent job of creating a sci-fi platform that feels like one of the most futuristic experiences possible.

Even long after you finish the experience youll be left with lingering thoughts, feelings, and doubts. How transhuman enhancements can change relationships with flora/fauna mixed with alien ecology only adds to the complexity of the characters and ideas.

Despite all this, the most impressive thing about this game is that it was largely completed by only two individuals. Thats an immense accomplishment when compared to the levels this game reaches.

Tom Clancys Rainbow Six Extraction

Although the Rainbow Six franchise has taken on a cooperative online platform over the years, Extraction goes in a completely different direction. Instead of using high-tech gadgets and gear to breach defending areas and planning out tactical assaults, it goes back to the basics.

The game does offer online play, but it feels just as rewarding to design and implement your own tactical approach to fighting zombies.

The rest is here:
Gaming Adventures You Don't Want To Miss In 2022 - Gamesreviews

There is a lot of talk about fake news and conspiracy theories which, in the past, we would have called rumours. This is where the art of cherry-picking becomes useful, because in rumours or conspiracy theories the cherries are the fruit you must find.

There have always been rumours in the news cycle. They are stories that generally come to life because someone who knows something says something to someone else and on and on it goes. The jungle drums begin beating. It has ever been thus for humans. Social media is simply the modern version that has replaced pub gossip and chatting over the neighbours fence. The medium is as old as humanity.

Rumours also tap into that great human survival mechanism, intuition. Humans are connected beyond mere words. We communicate with each other at unseen and generally unacknowledged levels. Like bees in a hive, humans know things because other humans know something That is why word spreads so easily.

Word of mouth is not necessarily reliable, but that doesnt mean it is completely wrong either. There are often elements of fact, truth, and reality scattered noisily between these whispers.

Social media works very hard to censor the drums and limit the rapid exchange of information, rumour, and what we now call conspiracy theories. They have even created a new label for it: Fake News.

There are plenty of conspiracy theories running around some more believable than others.

A few crowd-pleasing favourites that will almost certainly get you dragged off by the fact-checking police include:

There are probably more, but let us consider which, if any, hold a grain of truth.

The idea of vaccines as a bioweapon is one of the top trending conspiracies in 2022 riding off the Covid pandemic. It is the subject of endless videos on unrestricted sites and has spawned a whole sub-class of conspiracies.

There is no doubt that controversial gain of function research into viruses goes on in various labs around the world. While it is claimed that gain of function research is done with the best of intentions, any student of history knows that the best of intentions can lead to the worst possible outcomes. It occupies the same space as for the greater good, a better world, for your own sake, and no good deed goes unpunished.

Gain of function research is dangerous. It involves deliberately adding functionality to a virus or organism. It is both a natural and artificial process. For example, scientists have sought tomodifyE. colito covert plastic waste to tackle environmental problems.

Could it be used as a bioweapon? Absolutely. Even more likely are the dangerous unintended consequences, which is why the subject remains controversial. Given it is widely believed that Covid escaped from the Wuhan viral lab, the next question is, does China pursue bioweapon technology? Almost certainly, despite denials. The fact is, many nations pursue bioweapon technology, and deny it.

However, it doesnot followthat Covid is a bioweapon.

To quote Thomas Inglesby, director of the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins:

I havent seen any of the vaccine companies say that they need to do this work in order to make vaccines. He pointed out. I have not seen evidence that the information people are pursuing could be put into widespread use in the field.

Gain of function research could certainly be part of the development process in a bioweapon. Is the belief, rumour, or conspiracy theory therefore so silly? Not at all.

There is plenty of room for speculation, particularly when Covid centres around the highly secretive Chinese communist regime which locked the world out from conducting a proper and legal investigation for nearly a year. What they were up to, we may never know although the answer will likely be an accident. At the same time, it could simply be another pandemic wave the likes of which humanity has experienced every century.

As a conspiracy, Great Reset has an advantage over the others in that it is backed by the largest and most powerful closed-door lobbying group in the world the World Economic Forum.

How logical or sensible is it for people to believe that a powerful group wishes to re-organise the world, reset societies, make massive changes to how we live?

Actually, its perfectly valid. The difference here is not denial, its an open debate about whether this proposed great reset done for the sake of the environment is good or terrifying. It is a question of ethics, not existence.

There remains a great deal of scepticism, particularly in the press, regarding the ability of these global institutions to enact their printed wish to initiate a great reset (most news organisations have given up denying its existence). However, World Economic Forums projects continue to end up as domestic policy and so, like it or not, governments are falling under the influence of this organisation.

Is it by force? Probably not. This seems to be a genuine choice made by our leaders who are using the excuse of the Covid pandemic to enact Great Reset goals centred around the rise of militant environmentalism. It is a foolish act by politicians, given the soul of the Great Reset is the desire to end capitalist democracies and replace them with more sustainable socialist states controlled by a mixture of bureaucrats and businesses.

The most powerful ideas are those proclaiming to have good intentions. It is easier to drag people along if you can convince them and yourself that this is in the best interests of everyone and that ultimately it is for the greater good.

According to Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of WEF:

The pandemic represents a rare but narrow opportunity to reflect, reimagine, and reset our world.

Is the Great Reset a conspiracy or international policy? It is probably leaning toward the latter.

Population reduction holds the bizarre twin existence as both a demand from concerned eco-groups and a conspiracy by their opposition. It begins with the question, would the world benefit from reduced population? For the Climate Change alarmists (and their more rational environmental predecessors) there might be some gristle in this one. Too many humans, like too much of anything, creates a strain on global resources.

As for whether anyone is actively doing something about it, thats where the conspiracy runs thin unless it was coming from a secretive consortium of funeral parlours.

If not killing humans, is anyone stopping them from reproducing? Overwhelmingly the answer is the cost of living. This is not so much of a plot as a natural reaction to changing circumstance.

Global populations are at their highest point in history, so it is unsurprising that even in China and India, there has been a shift. Both have fallen below replacement level (which is normal, considering eternal growth is not possible or advisable for any species). Access to contraceptives will naturally reduce population levels, but the conspiracy goes much further to claim it is part of some plot by the elites. It is the perfect example of an observable fact being co-opted into a grand conspiracy that doesnt exist.

The fear over microchip implants is a logical fear given the rise (and celebration) of transhumanism (which is not a conspiracy). There are companies in Sweden that already microchip their staff as part of an experiment in augmented reality and during Covid, it was discussed whether governments should look at adding vaccine passports to these chips for ease.

Microchips in vaccines can easily be dismissed as nonsense, but the underlying fear of surgical implants linked to government systems is agenuine ethical debate so its no wonder the conspiracy gained traction.

This conspiracy theory might be fiction right now, but it hasnt been ruled out as a probable future.

Lastly, if you really want to get yourself banned from social media, casually suggest that Covid vaccines change your DNA.

Interestingly, this conspiracy hinges on definitions. It is this confusion that is expanded on to turn a grain of truth into something more sinister.mRNA vaccinesdomanipulate the human body into producing the Spike proteinto trigger an immune response. Whether this is a good thing or not remains in question, but what the vaccine does not do is permanently alter human DNA in a manner that gets passed down through the generations which is the suggestion of most conspiracies.

The conspiracy is given extra weight when the question is changed to,canhuman DNA be altered? Yes. It was only a few years ago that a Chinese scientist went to jail for splicing the DNA of children (who were born) in an attempt to make them immune to certain diseases.

Could a new genetic treatment change your DNA in some way? Yes, it could. Is it likely? We dont know. Is it possible? Yes, it is. Are the scientific answers offered to this fear a bit fluffy? Yes.

As evidenced by this selection of conspiracy theories, most revolve around a grain of truth. In essence, the most sensible thing to do in the face of what is called a conspiracy theory is to not summarily reject it, but do a bit of work and have a good, long, hard think about whether or not it is possible, if it is likely, and decide whether these outcomes are something you would support and defend.

One thing is certain, the human capacity to be suspicious, to exercise scepticism, and to communicate feelings, thoughts, theories, doubts, fears, hopes, facts is what has enabled us to survive and generally thrive for millennia.

There is also such a thing as gut instinct and we need to remember that. Humans lie and never more so than when they have powerful vested agendas. They lie even more when there are profits at risk and when they know they can sell their story to the public in the name of good intentions. These realities are recorded throughout our human history and we ignore and forget their truths at our peril.

When we stop asking questions, stop thinking for ourselves, and censor those who try, we are betraying the freedoms for which so many fought and died and squandering the future and hopes of our children.

Scepticism is needed more than ever in times like this. Not cynicism, but healthy, questioning, open-minded, clear-headed scepticism. Your government does not have your best interests at heart. It has its own. Become a questioner. Carpe Diem!

Got something to add? Join the discussion and comment below.

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The theory behind conspiracy - The Spectator Australia

What is Creation?NGC332. Southern Nebula Ring. Bright star in middle James Webb Telescope 2022.

What is creation? Is it the equivalent of the cosmos? Does the very word, creation, imply a transcendent Creator?

Our ecotheologians and ecoethicists tell us we should care for creation. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America once issued a Social Statement: Caring for Creation. Why should we care? What is creation, anyway?

In anotherPatheosseries of posts on economics and the common good, I give voice to the underlying anxiety that the global economic system is destroying our planets fecundity. Should we be worried? How might understanding the natural world as Gods creation affect the way we think?

If nature is a cold word, then creation is a warm word. When we study the physical world scientifically, it is nature that we study. But, nature points beyond itself. This is a major theme of Christian theologythat the natural world, while wonderful in itself, offers a way to begin to discern the glory of God, says theologian Alister McGrath at Oxford(McGrath 1998, 208).

Our term, creation, implies a Creator. More. That Creator abides with us. Loves us. Redeems us. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, says Pope Francis, the word creation has a broader meaning than nature, for it has to do with Gods loving plan in which every creature has its own value and significance.(Pope 2015).

Can Bible-based creation and science-based creation find concord? Yes, says Lorence G. Collins, when synthesizing the Bibles three tier universe with Big Bang. Collins appeals to the Two Books model just as did Galileo: nature tells us about God the creator and the Bible tells us about God the redeemer.

Still we ask: how do we put together these components: nature? Creation? Creativity? God? Not-God? Redemption? Time and Space? Eco-ethics? Well, lets look at some alternative conceptual models that we find in science, Buddhism, mythology, Big History, Hinduism, panentheism, feminism, and orthodox Christianity. Then, Ill tell you what I think.

Cosmos with No Creator: Science

For our scientists, nature is the product of the Big Bang.

When the Big Bang banged 13.82 billion years ago, both nature and history had their beginning. At the very beginning, everything in physical reality was packed densely. It was hot. Then, like a bomb, it exploded. It inflated. Then, it expanded very rapidly and became massive. Gradually, as it cooled, the universe began to differentiate into particles and eventually galaxies and star systems. The cosmos evolved. Its still expanding and still evolving and will continue to do so for another 65 or 100 billion years before it cools into a frozen equilibrium.

No divine creator belongs to this creation story.

A variant of this creation story is the multiverse theory. Deterministic cosmologists believe that every potential becomes actualized. At the point of actualization, a new universe is created. This means that we now have more universes than Florida has mosquitoes.

No divine creator belongs to this creation story either.

Creation with No Beginning: Buddhism

For the Buddhist, the key term is, co-dependent co-creation. There is no beginning. Or end. Rather, creativity is an ongoing creative co-arising of finite things in relentless process. Its called: prattyasamutpda. Individual creatures come into existence and pass out of existence. But, prattyasamutpda continues. Here are Matthieu Ricard and Trinh Xuan Thuan.

All religions and philosophies have come unstuck on the problem of creation. Science has gotten rid of it by removing God the Creator, who had become unnecessary. Buddhism has done so by eliminating the very idea of a beginning(Ricard 2001, 31).

No Creator God. No beginning. Just ongoing creativity.

Creation and Kingship: Mythology

Our pre-scientific ancestors told myths about creator gods. Here is my definition of myth: a myth is a story of how the gods created the world, or a part of it, in the beginning, in illo tempore [the time before there was any time], that explains why things are the way they are today. This definition summarizes the extensive research on myths in archaic cultures pursued by Mircea Eliade(Eliade 1957). Such a myth is clearly archonicthat is, todays reality is determined by its origin.

Conveniently, myths such as the story of the creation of Egypt by the gods Osiris and Isis concluded with justification for the Pharaohs rule on the throne. The teller of the myth typically comes out to be the crown of the creation story.

Creativity in Evolution: Big History

Proponents of the new field of Big History are willing to turn Big Bang science into a modern creation myth that explains everything of meaning to the human race. The idea of creation here is not connected to a divine creator. Rather, creation is an expression of natures creativity and, especially, human creativity.

Big History is in the myth business. The Big Bang and the history of evolution constitute Big Historys myth. Curiously, the truth of the myth is allegedly found in its belief, not in its empirical evidence. This is what big historian David Christian says. So, the strongest claim we can make about the truth of a modern creation myth is that it offers a unified account of origins from the perspective of the early twenty-first century (Christian, 2004, p.6).

There is no divine creator in this scientized myth.

Creation as Brahmans Self-Differentiation: Hinduism

The ancient Upanishadic sages asserted that all things are only one thing. That one thing is Brahman. Actually, Brahman is not a thing. To be a thing, a thing has to be distinguishable from other things. But Brahman is not distinguishable from anything. Rather, it is the underlying reality that makes thinghood possible. Brahman is fullness, the unity underlying all plurality. What we experience as the multiplicity of created things is the self-differentiation of Brahman(Peters, God in Cosmic History: Where Science and Big History Meet Religion 2017).

A Hindu can be both a pantheistbelieving all things manifest the one divine realityand also a polytheistaffirming many gods. The many gods, accordingly, are each a manifestation of the one Brahman. Hindu theologian, Rita Sherma, observes that supreme divinity is most importantly manifested in three divine figures: Shiva (iva), Vishnu (Viu), and Mahadevi (Mahdev)(Sherma 2017).

Hindus are finally mystics. Your and my spiritual task is to wake up and realize that each created thingincluding our own self or atmanis actually Brahman.

The World as Gods Body: Panentheism

The panentheist holds that the world is Gods body. In the case of process philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead, creation is like the body and God is like the mind. They are interdependent yet distinct.

On the one hand, for all panentheists the being of the world is dependent on God while the being of God is dependent on the world. Yet, there is more to God than the world alone. The world does not exhaust the being of God. Many feminist theologians like the analogy: the world is Gods body.

There is no beginning of creation in panentheism. Only creativity within an everlasting world process.

Creation as God/ess Body: Feminism

Gayle Berry

The metaphorthe world is Gods bodyappeals to feminist theologians. Feminists typically de-gender the divine. More importantly, the image of the divine becomes a prompt for ethical responsibility, especially ecological responsibility. Moral action is both creative and redemptive. Here is the late Rosemary Radford Ruether.

The God/ess who underlies creation and redemption is One. We cannot split a spiritual, antisocial redemption from the human self as a social being, embedded in sociopolitical and ecological systems. We must recognize sin precisely in this splitting and deformation of our true relationships to creation and to our neighbor and find liberation in an authentic harmony with all that is incarnate in our social, historical being. Socioeconomic humanization is indeed the outward manifestation of redemption(Ruether 1983, 215-216).

Creatio ex nihilo: Orthodox Christianity

God by the power of his Word and Spirit created heaven and earth out of nothing, exclaims the Reformer, John Calvin (Calvin 1960, I,xiv,20, 179-180). The orthodox Christian traditionboth orthodox and Orthodoxis that Gods original creation was out of nothing,creatio ex nihilo.

This means time and space came into existence at the beginning, at the moment when God spoke, and things began to happen. Heres Orthodox theologian Andrew Louth.

Creation out of nothing does indeed mean that the created order does not flow from within Gods being, as it were, as some kind of extension or emanation of his being, but it does not mean that creation is remote from the divine. On the contrary, God is intimately present to all his creatures(Louth 2013, 40).

This means, among other things, that no aspect of created reality can be fully explained without reference to its Creator God, according to Roy Clouser at the College of New Jersey.

All the entities found in the universe, along with all the kinds of properties they possess, all the laws that hold among properties of each kind, as well as causal laws, and all the precondition-relations that hold between properties of different kinds, depend not only ultimately, but directly, on God(Clouser 2006, 12).

Both deists and theists are likely to embracecreatio ex nihilo.What the deist says is that God created the world in the beginning and then went on vacation to Acapulco. The deistic deity no longer intervenes in cosmic processes. The laws of nature govern without divine intervention.

According to the theist, in contrast to the deist, God does not abandon the creation. God is not on vacation. Rather God supplements creatio ex nihilo at the beginning with an ongoing providential presence. This providential activity many theologians call, continuing creation or creatio continua.

Creation and Creationism: Answers in Genesis

Dont confuse creation with creationism. The latter adds a ism to our word, creation. Todays creationists reaffirm creatio ex nihilo, to be sure. Then they add a specific interpretation of Genesis 1:1-2:4a. Here is Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis.

God created the heavens and the earth fully formed and functioning in six days, 6,000 years ago, around 4004 BC. The context of Genesis 1, as well as other places in Scripture, makes it clear these days were ordinary, 24-hour days. Gods original creation was perfect, with no death or suffering.

How big is Gods creation? Eco-ethicists have been striving to persuade us to become geocentric rather than anthropocentric. I laud Whitney Baumans planetary thinking, for example. Our moral maxim: treat Planet Earth as our only home! There is no Planet B. So, we had better care for Planet A.

But, I ask: what about cosmic consciousness? What if we have space neighbors? What if we share our solar system with microbial life on Mars or Titan? What if we share the Milky Way Galaxy with an intelligent civilizationon an exoplanet? And, what about the cosmos beyond our galaxy? Can we transcend geocentrism? Yes, affirms theologian and ethicist John Hart. We should orient our ethics around a cosmic commons, Hart claims.

Here at the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences in Berkeley, weve been developing a new accent in the field of astrotheology. Try this for a definition ofastrotheology,namely, Gods creative and redemptive work is cosmic in scope.

Christian Astrotheology is that branch of theology which provides a critical analysis of the contemporary space sciences combined with an explication of classic doctrines such as creation and Christology for the purpose of constructing a comprehensive and meaningful understanding of our human situation within an astonishingly immense cosmos.

At the gracious invitation of the editors of HTS (Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies), an open access journal, Ive just published a manifesto of sorts on the doctrine of creation. The title? Can We Locate Our Origin in the Future? Archonic versus Epigenetic Creation Accounts.

Ive been refining the concept of proleptic creationaccording to which neither the cosmos nor you or I will be fully created until we are redeemedsince my very first work on the topic, FuturesHuman and Divine, in 1978(Peters, FuturesHuman and Divine 1978). The pivotal thesis is that God creates from the future, not the past. This thesis is refined and reiterated in the most recent edition of my systematic theology, GodThe Worlds Future(Peters, GodThe Worlds Future: Systematic Theology for a New Era 2015).

If at this moment youve become intrigued with this topic, I recommend you click over to the more detailed article, Can We Locate Our Origin in the Future? Archonic versus Epigenetic Creation Accounts. If youre lazy or partially bored, then read the summary in the next few paragraphs.

We will not be created until we have been redeemed

To be human means to be in the world, to have a history, and to share the physical life of the cosmos, contends Kristin Johnston Largen(Largen 2021, 191). There is a problem, however. The problem with this sharing the history of the cosmos is the problem of sin, evil, and suffering. This is the problem of the free human self. The problem of selfishness. The problem of emphasizing the fragmented part at the cost of harmony to the whole.

With sin and its accompanying estrangement in mind, we can view the epigenetic understanding of Gods creative process as one of complementarity, synthesis, and renewal. As Augustine makes clear, our deepest personal aim is to center our lives on God and, in turn, center ourselves in the whole. Such is the fulfillment of human destiny. To assert oneself in resistance against this destiny constitutes sin and produces evil. Evil arises, writes Reinhold Niebuhr, when the fragment seeks by its own wisdom to comprehend the whole or attempts by its own power to realise it(Niebuhr 1941, 1:168). Will evil last forever?

The creation as we know it today groans in travail, awaiting the birth of a healed cosmos and a healed soul. The end is eternal life.For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:22-23). The end is both finis as conclusion and telos as goal to be fulfilled.

This double connotation of end as both finis and telos expresses, in a sense, the whole character of human history and reveals the fundamental problem of human existence. All things in history move towards both fulfillment and dissolution, towards the fuller embodiment of their essential character and towards death. The problem is that the end as finis is a threat to the end as telos.The Christian faith understands this aspect of the human situation.it is not within mans power to solve this vexing problem(Niebuhr 1941, 2:287).

God alone saves. God saves by absorbing the estranged parts into a healing whole, a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

South African systematic theologian Klaus Nrnberger illuminates eschatological redemption by shining the light of emergent holism. The scientific theory of emergence has taught us thatany whole is something more than, and something different from, the sum total of its components. The reason is that the whole is constituted by relationships between components, rather than the characteristics of the individual components(Nrnberger 2016, 1:19). Gods promised eschatological redemption is best understood as overcoming sin through holistic healing. Christian eschatology is a protest of what ought to become against what has become and seemingly will becomeand that in the name of a powerful and loving God(Nrnberger 2016, 2:501).

Only when the whole of reality has harmoniously integrated all the self-oriented parts will we be able to say that God has finally created the world. Only when each of us individually has been freely integrated into the kingdom of God can God look at the creation and declare, Behold! It is very good (Genesis 1:1-2:4a).

As you can see, there are many conceptual models for understanding nature as creation. Both Big Bang and the Bible depict creation as having a beginning followed by a history with a future. The beginning looks pretty much the same in the two models. They are consonant.

But, this does not apply to the future. Whereas the Big Bang model forecasts a future in which all hot things will freeze into an equilibrium and die, the biblical vision anticipates an eschatological renewal of creation wrought by God. When it comes to the future, Big Bang and the Bible are dissonant.

Heres what I think. Because nature is epigenetic and historical, the present moment is ontologically open to the future. Nature and history are together open even to the future of God.

I would like to say more. I would like our systematic theologians to construct a retroactive ontology with greater explanatory power than competing archonic ontologies. The initial axiom for retroactive ontology is this: to be is to have a future. It is God who calls us into being by graciously offering us and our cosmos a future.

Gods future-giving comes in two forms. Negatively, God is releasing creatures such as you and me from the chains of our origin and from recent efficient causes each moment. Each moment God lays before us a finite set of potentials, possibilities that prompt us to deliberate, decide and take action. By taking action, we liberated free creatures play a creative role. We become one efficient cause among many in the history of creation.

Positively, God makes promises. By raising Jesus from the dead on the first Easter, God promises to raise you and me as well into the new creation. Actually, more can be said here. By raising Jesus from the dead on the first Easter, God has actually begun his eschatological work of redemption. The final advent of the kingdom of God in which all estranged parts will be taken up into a transfiguring whole defines the very quiddity of what happened at Easter. Our past Easter takes its essence from its future in Gods kingdom. The Big Bang genesis of creation gains its essence from the new creation proleptically anticipated in Jesus Easter.

Omega retroactively defines Alpha. Omega invites each of us into the everlasting future of Gods new creation.

Ted Peters directs traffic at the intersection of science, religion, and ethics. Peters is an emeritus professor at the Graduate Theological Union, where he co-edits the journal, Theology and Science, on behalf of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, in Berkeley, California, USA. His book, God in Cosmic History, traces the rise of the Axial religions 2500 years ago. He previously authored Playing God? Genetic Determinism and Human Freedom? (Routledge, 2nd ed., 2002) as well as Science, Theology, and Ethics (Ashgate 2003). He is editor of AI and IA: Utopia or Extinction? (ATF 2019). Along with Arvin Gouw and Brian Patrick Green, he co-edited the new book, Religious Transhumanism and Its Critics hot off the press (Roman and Littlefield/Lexington, 2022). Soon he will publish The Voice of Christian Public Theology (ATF 2022). See his website: TedsTimelyTake.com.

Teds fictional spy thriller, Cyrus Twelve, follows the twists and turns of a transhumanist plot.

Notes

Calvin, John. 1960. Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2 Volumes. Louisville KY: Westminster John Knox.

Clouser, Roy, 2006. Prospects for Theistic Science.Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith,58:1 (March 2006) 2-15.

Eliade, Mircea. 1957. The Sacred and the Profane. New York: Harcourt Brace and World.

Keller, Catherine. 2003. The Face of the Deep: A Theology of Becoming. London: Routledge.

Largen, Kristin. 2021. Plurality and Salvation: Possibilities in Pannenbergs Soteriology for Comparative Theology. In The Enduring Promise of Wolfhart Pannenberg, by ed Andrew Hollingsworth, 183-200. Lanham MA: Lexington.

Louth, Andrew. 2013. Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology. Downers Grove IL: IVP Academic.

McGrath, Alister. 1998. The Foundations of Dialogue in Science and Religion. Oxford: Blackwell.

Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1941. The Nature and Destiny of Man, 2 Volumes. New York: Scribners.

Nrnberger, Klaus. 2016. Faith in Christ Today: Invitation to Systematic Theology, 2 Volumes. Minneapolis: Fortress.

Peters, Ted. 1978. FuturesHuman and Divine. Louisville KY: Westminster John Knox.

. 2017. God in Cosmic History: Where Science and Big History Meet Religion. Winona MN: Anselm Academic ISBN 978-1-59982-813-8.

. 2015. GodThe Worlds Future: Systematic Theology for a New Era. 3rd. Minneapolis MN: Fortress Press.

Pope, Francis. 2015. Laudato Si. http://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html, Vatican: Vatican City State.

Rahner, Karl. 1978. Foundations of the Christian Faith. New York: Seabury Crossroad.

Ricard, Matthieu and Trinh Xuan Thuan. 2001. The Quantum and the Lotus. New York: Random House, Crown Books.

Ruether, Rosemary. 1983. Sexism and God-Talk. Boston: Beacon.

Sherma, Rita. 2017. Hinduism and the Divine: An Introduction to Hindu Theology. London: IB Tauris.

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What is Creation? | What is Creation? - Patheos

What is transhumanism?

(1) The intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally improving the human condition through applied reason, especially by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities.

(2) The study of the ramifications, promises, and potential dangers of technologies that will enable us to overcome fundamental human limitations, and the related study of the ethical matters involved in developing and using such technologies.

The Philosophy of Transhumanism

Transhumanist FAQ

Developed in the mid-1990s and published in 1998, the Transhumanist FAQ became a formal document through the inspirational work of transhumanists, including Alexander Chislenko, Max More, Anders Sandberg, Natasha Vita-More, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Arjen Kamphius, and many others. Over the years, this FAQ has been updated to provide a substantial account of transhumanism. Humanity+, also known as WTA, adopted the FAQ in 2001 and Nick Bostrom added substantial information about future scenarios. The Transhumanist FAQ 3.0, as revised by the continued efforts of many transhumanists.

The Transhumanist Manifesto

Written by Natasha Vita-More 1993 and revised in 1998 (v.2), 2008 (v.3), and 2020 (v.4), and based on the earliest manifesto Transhuman Statement, which was published in 1983.

The Transhumanist Declaration

Originally crafted in 1998 by an international group of authors: Doug Baily, Anders Sandberg, Gustavo Alves, Max More, Holger Wagner, Natasha Vita-More, Eugene Leitl, Bernie Staring, David Pearce, Bill Fantegrossi, den Otter, Ralf Fletcher, Tom Morrow, Alexander Chislenko, Lee Daniel Crocker, Darren Reynolds, Keith Elis, Thom Quinn, Mikhail Sverdlov, Arjen Kamphuis, Shane Spaulding, and Nick Bostrom. This Transhumanist Declaration has been modified over the years by several authors and organizations. It was adopted by the Humanity+ Board in March, 2009.

Read more from the original source:
Transhumanism Humanity+

Freedom of form means the freedom to physically become whatever you want. No matter what drives you, be it transhumanism, species dysphoria, recovery from injury, futurism, or a desire to transform, the technology to safely restore or alter your body should be available for everyone.

This freedom ranges from sufficiently restoring function to patients after injury, to gender and/or species identity affirmation treatments, to individuals who get tattoos or body art, simply getting hair cuts or putting on makeup, or even body hackers pushing beyond normal biological function.

At the Freedom of Form Foundation, we have a long-term focus on ambitious, full-body changes to fit ones personality and sense of identity. Were especially excited about species affirmation research despite community passion surrounding the subject, it is vastly underrepresented in the biomedical sector. We stand wholeheartedly with the rights of individuals to choose how they interact with the world, including how they appear, and we are doing everything in our power to accommodate and accelerate freedom of form.

Our vision and strategy

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Become your true self - Freedom of Form Foundation

I have spent the last two months in Japan, mostly in Thoku, the northernmost region of the main island, Honsh. During this time, I was working on a couple of different projects including ghost weddings,* mummies,** and the use of androids in Buddhist temples.*** I have already mentioned each of these three phenomena separately in previous essays for this column. Today, I would like to explore what these three phenomena can teach us about the worldview of Buddhism. I know it sounds bewildering, but these three phenomena share a few deep similarities. The former two express considerations about an afterlife and the notion of immaterial spirits, the latter two assign buddhahood, or at least bodhisattvahood, to seemingly inanimate and insentient beings. And while some, if not all of them, seem to be at odds with Buddhism, all the phenomena that I will talk about here: mukasari ema (pictures of ghost weddings) and hanayome ningy (doll effigies of ghost brides); sokushinbutsu (the bodies of monks who mummified themselves); and Mindar, an android representation of Kannon (Guanyin) Bodhisattva; are enshrined in Buddhist temples in Japan. What fascinates me about all three of these phenomena is that they reflect specific and interesting considerations about the nature of consciousness and what it means to be human.

Two temples in Tend City in Yamagata Prefecture, Jakush-ji and Kurotori Kannon, are famous for their dedication to Kannon Bodhisattvaboth are part of the Thoku version of the 33-temple pilgrimage in honor of Kannon Bodhisattvaand as temples that enshrine mukasari ema. Risshakuji in Yamadera and Kawakura Sai no Kawara Jizoson (Kurokawas Jizo Bodhisattva on the bank of the river Sai) in Aomori Prefecture enshrine hanayome ningy. In both cases, the spirits of people who have departed without being married are married to a ghost. The temples mentioned here belong to the St, Tendai, and Shingon schools of Buddhism. So they are a cross-sectarian phenomena.

This year, I further explored the process of making these postmortem wedding pictures and the memorial ritual (kuy) by means of which they are enshrined in a designated Buddhist temple. The Buddhist temples are not involved in the production of the mukasari ema or hanayome ningy, but merely perform the memorial rituals and provide a space for these objects of memory and commemoration.

I spoke with one of the few remaining professional artists who paint these postmortem wedding pictures. She said that she communed with the dead and clearly believed in the survival of an immaterial spirit after physical death. To her, humans, ghosts, and gods all possess the same kind of spirit. She believes that these spirits stay in our world after death, move to the other world (the Pure Land), and/or are reincarnated. None of these options is permanent. Philosopher Carl Becker of Kyoto University embraces a similar worldview.

Two other trips took me to the western part of Yamagata Prefecture, where I visited Dainichib and Nangaku-ji in Tsuruoka City and Kaik-ji in Sakata City. Each of these temples enshrines one or, in the case of Kaik-ji, two sokushinbutsu. The documentary Mummies that Made Themselves (available on YouTube) explains the phenomenon and process of self-mummification in some detail. Through hard discipline and a special diet over the course of 37 yearsmostly in the area of Ydonosana handful of practitioners (shugysha) in the Edo period (16031868) are said to have cultivated their bodies to such a degree that they did not decompose. The mummies of Tetsumonkai and Shinnykai in Chren-ji and Dainichib, respectively, allegedly still possess all their internal organs. In my conversations with the head priest of Chren-ji (in 2016), the temple curator of Kaik-ji (2019), and the vice priest of Kaik-ji (2022), I learned about the belief that these mummified monks are not dead per se but continue to cultivate Buddhist practice and have causal efficacy insofar as they can perform miracles. In response to my questions as to whether these mummified practitioners are conscious, I was told that they do not have ego-centric everyday consciousnessmy formulationbut rather sit in deep contemplation akin to the so-called bodhicitta (mind of enlightenment).

Another set of trips took me to Kdai-ji in Kyoto, which enshrines Mindar, a representation of Kannon Bodhisattva. According to Mahyna Buddhist beliefs, Kannon Bodhisattva can take on any form (see chapter 25 of the Lotus Stra) this expression includes androids. Similarly, it can include any sentient or insentient being having buddha-nature**** and even becoming a buddha. Ven. Got Tensh at Kdai-ji explained that Mindar is designed to help people overcome suffering and manifests Kannon Bodhisattva. However, Mindar is neither conscious nor able to attain buddhahood. He compared Mindar to a talking Buddha statue. In my conversation with him as well as in Mindars Dharma talk, which he scripted, Ven. Got emphasized that while Mindar is selfless (muga) and embodies emptiness (k) to some degree, his selflessness and emptiness differs significantly from that of the Buddha insofar as he is unable to experience suffering. Most of all, Mindar constitutes a skillful means (hben).

So what can we learn from these excursions/explorations? What is consciousness? It seems that we human beings are not only impermanent (mujteki), selfless (mugateki), and subject to suffering (ku) but also not entirely reducible to our bodies. However, more than the answer to this question, my trips and conversations revealed some central insights into how we learn about consciousness. As Evan Thompson has remarked, the study of consciousness is unique in that it features a subject, consciousness, studying itself, consciousness. This unique predicament of consciousness studies creates a fundamental conundrum. It also has important implications for understanding the phenomena discussed in this essay.

If we shake our heads at people who claim that they commune with spirits, are affected by mummies, or assign divinity to androids or other AI, it is because those experiences are subjective and not communicable. The difficulty is that all our positions are formulated from a first-person perspective even as we struggle to achieve a third-person perspective that is universally true. The truth, however, lies somewhere in between, in the relationship between persons and minds, and necessitates a second-person perspective. For some people, this implies a relationship to ghosts, mummies, and/or robots; for me it requires the relationship to and dialogue with people who claim to have had these experiences. As much as I hope it to be true, my position is not a priori superior to those of others but has to be negotiated in a multilogue with numerous positions and minds. Ultimately, this requires, as I have argued elsewhere, a fourth-person perspective.****** This, of course, cannot be worked out in a 1,000-word article or a single-author essay.******* Such a project is best visualized in the Huayan image of Indras net. This is what my conversations this summer have taught me.

* Buddhist Death Rituals: For the Living Not for the Dead (BDG)

** How to Face Death Pilgrimages and Death Rituals in Japanese Buddhism (BDG)

*** Does Artificial Intelligence Have Buddha-nature (BDG)

**** T 2223.61.0011.

***** T 2299.70.300.

****** Kopf 2021.

******* I have suggested such a method elsewhere (Kopf 2022).

Kopf, Gereon. 2021. How to Make Philosophy of Religion Relevant for the Future, essay in the series Is there a Future of the Philosophy of Religion, published on Philosophy of Religion: big question philosophy for scholars and students hosted by Boston University (https://philosophyofreligion.org/?p=525634#more-525634).

Kopf, Gereon. 2022. The Theory and Praxis of the Multi-Entry Approach, in Philosophy of Religion Around the World: A Critical Approach, eds. Nathan Loewen & Agnieszka Rostalska (Bloomsbury Academics).

Taish shinsh daizky [The Japanese Edition of the Chinese Version of the Buddhist Canon], ed. by Junjir Takakusu and Kaigyoku Watanabe (Tokyo: Taish Shinsh Daizky Kankkai. 1961).

What or Who Is a Buddha?Does Artificial Intelligence have Buddha-nature?The Problem with GhostsDharma and Artificial Intelligence: Further ConsiderationsScaling Intelligence in an AI-dominated Future Cyberpunk: The Human Condition amid High-tech Alienation and Urban Dystopia To Keep or Not to Keep? Mortality, Humanity, and TranshumanismTangut Twilight: Living Buddhism in the City of Ghosts Taxing the Robots and Other Externalities Tocharian Lives and Loves: Haunting Mummies and their Buddhist Descendants

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Ghosts, Mummies, and Robots in Buddhism - Buddhistdoor Global

Of course, youre not supposed to know this. Youre not supposed to know that youre being mind-controlled, right now, by a self-replicating mutagenic xeno-substance that was initially sold to us as the key to the future. So the proof of its existence is hidden in the only place it can be hidden. Its hidden in science fiction.

This year alone, black goothe science-fictional name for the science-factual graphene oxidehas seeped its way into not one but two sci-fi shows, Severance and Westworld. Three if you count Stranger Things, where it was sighted in earlier seasons. These sightings and intertextual seepagessublimations, clearly, of real-world tormentsare too consistent to be coincidental. They are signs that cannot be ignored.

Start with Westworld, whose latest season finds the robots in complete control of humankind. This they accomplished, the robot-in-chief indicates, using a combination of flies, parasites, and, yes, black goo. We see vats of the stuff in a hidden lair, glistening sickly. It seems to be the medium in which the parasites are growna callback to the first major appearance of black goo in the canon, the OG, the Original Goo itself: the Purity virus in The X-Files.

Middle of season 3, you remember. French salvagers discover an alien vessel deep in the ocean and mysteriously die, but a diving suit belonging to one of them is covered, Mulder discovers, in some kind of oil. (Black goo is variously referred to as black oil, black cancer, black bile, black blood, etc. All the same stuff.) Is it possible the oil is, as he later puts it, a medium used by alien creatures to body-jump? Thats as far as Westworlds callback takes it: black-goo-as-medium. But X-Files knows the whole truth. Thanks to science-minded Scully, we learn in season 5 that the body-snatcher is some sort of vermiform organism that gets attached to the pineal gland. Translation: Black goo isnt just medium. Its also monster.

Sometimes, the victims of black engooment in X-Files survive, so long as the stuff safely, if violently, self-ejects from eyes and mouth. Not so much the victims in the Alien franchise, which constitutes the goos best-known modern manifestation. As one of the franchises tie-in video games puts it: Any living thing that comes into direct contact with the black gooknown technically, in this universe, as Chemical A0-3959X.91-15will either die horribly, give birth to monsters, or become a monster themselves. You see a lot of this oozy, unrecoverable infection in Prometheus. Also in Rakka, a little-known short film by Neill Blomkamp, where Sigourney Weaver leads a last hurrah in 2020 Texas against alien colonizers equipped with black-goo weaponry that can somehow both control minds and obliterate buildings.

Obviously, the sci-fi record isnt perfectly clear on the workings of black goo; it is, by its nature, impossible to grasp. In Miyazaki movies, it tends to be ecologically terrorizing; in Luc Bessons Lucy, its some sort of sparkly transhumanist supercomputing thing. (Perhaps not so coincidentally, Scarlet Johansson, Lucys Lucy, also stars in Under the Skin, as an alien who drowns and eats men in a sea of black goo.) In Severance, its more metaphorical, a visual symbol for the ways in which separate realities bleed into and out of each other. Same goes for Stranger Things, where its a kind of interdimensional trespasser. The specifics, though, are somewhat beside the point. The medium is the metaphor is the monster is the message, and the message is this: Whatever black goo is, its alien, everywhere, and the source of all evil on the planet.

Read more here:
The Biggest Threat to Humanity? Black Goo - WIRED

This week, an attempt was made to murder Russian intellectual (and Ukraine war advocate) Alexander Dugin. Because of a last minute mix-up, his daughter Darya was killed instead. Outrage over this killing has been muted. No doubt some are secretly gloating, even though this attack on a thinker close to Vladimir Putin is likely to escalate the Russia-Ukraine war and make it even uglier.

But then, the fates of Ukrainian civilians have never mattered much to those in the West who want to turn that country into a decade-long quagmire to kill and maim as many Russians as possible.

I havent studied Alexander Dugins work. He seems like an unsavory sort, an illiberal Russian imperialist on the order of the Catholic Integralists Ive been critiquing over the past nine years. Hes apparently a collectivist-nationalist. He sees a hive-like Russia, with Orthodoxy replacing Communism, as the only live alternative to the deadly Woke ideology thats poisoning the West.

You know, the agenda preached by all our elites, our government, our universities, and an ever-increasing number of churches. It entails abortion on demand through nine months of pregnancy, castrating kids, disarming citizens. It calls for forcibly vaccinating us all, and indoctrinating everyone with hatred of their ancestors and culture. Also destroying small business and the energy industry, eliminating the use of cash, and subjecting the whole economy to a quasi-Marxist social justice agenda.

We call this liberal democracy. And by golly, were pouring billions into defending it in the unspeakably corrupt one-party state that is todays Ukraine.

Friends assure me that what Alexander Dugin favors is even worse than all that, and I believe them. I guess.

But its also completely irrelevant. Should we as a society endorse the assassination of intellectuals who are not part of any government, because we consider their ideas dangerous? Even if we can make a case that those ideas have contributed to fomenting an ongoing war? Or if those ideas outrage everything we consider sacred? Lets think through the implications here.

Suppose you propose, as I do, a rule against assassinating non-combatants, no matter how unsavory. The first objection youre likely to encounter is the obvious one. So you wouldnt kill baby Hitler?

The answer is no. I wouldnt kill a baby. Nor would I go back (if I could) and kill Hitler in his filthy Vienna garret. There is a point at which I think Hitler would have been fair game for assassination: Any time after the Beer Hall Putsch, when he violently tried to overthrow his countrys legal government. At that point he became a terrorist of the kind that deserves a drone strike, or a well-placed bullet by a British secret agent.

But not before.

The U.S. government routinely targets Islamist leaders directly linked to terrorist violence. We do not target mere theologians, however, or intellectuals whose teachings might justify violence. Insofar as our rogue regime still adheres to this policy, it is obeying the laws of war.

Nor do I think Salman Rushdie deserves assassination attempts, though hundreds of millions of Muslims think he does. Rushdie criticized their prophet, whom they consider sinless despite his life of warfare, kidnapping, massacres and sexual slavery.

I wouldnt approve of assassinating anti-Christian activists like Richard Dawkins, either. Nor even Jose Bergoglio who as pope is currently destroying my own Catholic church, which he will have the power to do until he dies. Nobody whos not a direct part of inflicting violence is a legitimate target for violence.

Its much more tempting to consider assassinating haters of the human species like Yuval Harari, a profoundly dangerous, power-hungry transhumanist, who recently said that most of the human population might as well die off to leave more room for elite people like himself, enhanced with biotechnology. Hariri is known for saying the quiet part out loud; for instance, regarding COVID vaccines:

COVID is critical because this is what convinces people to accept, to legitimize, total biometric surveillance. If we want to stop this epidemic we need to not just monitor people, we need to monitor what is happening underneath their skin.

Or global hegemons like Bill Gates, George Soros, and Klaus Schwab, wielding enormous resources, using them to undermine governments, promote abortion, control private citizens, and generally promote a monstrous post-human future.

But if we get to kill their intellectuals, the other side gets to kill ours. A world where men like Soros are dodging bullets would be one where Franklin Graham, Samuel Alito, and Steve Bannon are targeted, too. Assassinating people for their ideas is a sure way to start a horrific cycle of violence. It would be to strangle free debate, intellectual interchange, and everything else we value as heirs of the West.

Here, then, Id like to have a word with American neocons who are quietly disappointed that the strike on Alexander Dugin quite possibly by those heroes in the Ukrainian government did not succeed. Many of these same neocons have their fingerprints all over the U.S. war in Iraq, which was much more obviously unjustified, more fraudulently based, than Putins attack on Ukraine. It wasnt on a neighboring country trying to join a hostile military alliance. Instead we attacked a weak, faraway nation our government falsely suspected of developing chemical weapons. It unleashed total chaos, a genocide of Christians, and more than 600,000 deaths, according to Lancet magazine.

Should the thinkers who pushed the Iraq war be subject to the Alexander Dugin treatment? Here I speak of people from William Kristol and David Frum to Max Boot and Jonah Goldberg, and many more. The answer is clearly no. I dont want such people targeted, however deadly their ideas. But if they endorse a world where civilians with warmongering agendas are fair game for car bombs they might not like the outcome.

John Zmirak is a senior editor at The Stream and author or co-author of ten books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism. He is co-author with Jason Jones of God, Guns, & the Government.

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You Cant Back the Murder of Alexander Dugin Then Whine About Salman Rushdie Or Attacks on American Neocons - The Stream

Our Thursday edition of the best Android game and app deals is now live with everything up for the taking down below the fold. Those offers are joining huge deals on the Motorola Edge+ smartphone and Googles latest Nest cameras from $80, but for now its all about the Google Play app discounts. Highlights from this afternoons collection include titles like Codex of Victory, Scalak, Reminder Pro, Pocket Academy, and more. Hit the jump for a complete look at todays best Android app deals.

Todays Android hardware deals are headlined by up to $500 off the Motorola Edge+ smartphone and ongoing price drops on OnePlus 10 Pro with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip. Just make sure you scope out all of todays deals on Googles latest Nest cameras from $80 as well as PNYs 128GB Premier-X V30 microSD card, the 8Bitdo Sn30 Pro with Android clip for Xbox cloud gaming, and everything in todays smartphone accessories roundup.

Codex of Victory features an extensive story-driven, single-player campaign that tasks you with building and commanding a hi-tech army of drone vehicles, tanks and robots.The campaign offers an exciting mix of real-time base building, global strategic planning and turn-based combat. Traveling between planets and territories, your sole task is to stop the Augments a weird race of transhuman cyborgs driven by a desire to liberate ordinary humans from the limitations of their wholly organic bodies.

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Android app deals of the day: Codex of Victory, Scalak, Reminder Pro, more - 9to5Toys