22AR27-35

( - previous issue - / - next issue - )

pdf = www.bit.ly/3rOkj6L

chimp = www.bit.ly/3Vtfcqk

AR 27:35 - Human gene editing uncertainty growing critical

In this issue:

GENETICS - the push to move ahead experimentally vs. proceeding with caution

NEOPAGANISM - have Christian groups stepped up "harassment of pagan festivals?"

+ news of a UK "essentialist/anti-new-age faction"

Apologia Report 27:35 (1,588)

October 12, 2022

GENETICS

"CRISPR: 'Her Discovery Changed the World. How Does She Think We Should Use It?'" by David Marchese -- an interview with Jennifer Doudna, "who along with Emmanuelle Charpentier won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020 for their research on CRISPR gene-editing technology."

Marchese offers the briefest overview: "... just in the last few decades human beings have figured out 'What is the genetic material? What does it look like? How is it replicated?' and then, increasingly, 'How do we synthesize it, change it and, now, how do we edit it?'"

Doudna <www.bit.ly/3NQc036> notes that "There are F.D.A./E.U.A.-approved diagnostics for Covid-19, for example, that are based on CRISPR."

Marchese asks: "What is the green light we'd be waiting for that would make us say, 'This form of gene editing was not OK yesterday, but it is OK today?' Maybe let's start with, 'Where are the ethical boundaries right now for CRISPR technology?'"

Doudna: "Two come to mind. One is using CRISPR in an agricultural setting where the CRISPR molecules could be spread through a population." In this case, Doudna gives the example of controlling populations of insects. "That's one aspect. The other is using CRISPR in the human germ line. Meaning making changes in embryos that, if implanted to create a pregnancy, then would create human beings who have edits to their DNA that are not just affecting them but can also be passed on to future generations. Those are two distinct applications, but it's fairly clear why both of those could have profound impacts that could be dangerous.

"In other words, even before we ask, 'Should we do this?' we have to ask, 'Can it be done accurately and safely in a way that creates a change that is desired by the scientist who's doing the work?' Right now that's still not true in human embryos, I would say."

Marchese: "But it will be. The science will get there. So what questions do we need to be asking? That's where that second bucket comes into play: If we can do it, should we be doing it?"

Included in Doudna's response: "If you were going to actually do this in some clinical study, how do you even set up something like that, for a thing this profound? If you asked 10 different people those questions, you'd probably get 10 different answers." New York Times Magazine, Aug 12 '22, <www.nyti.ms/3LWTBCp> (registration required)

---

NEOPAGANISM

"Christian groups step up harassment of pagan festivals" by Heather Greene (RNS, Aug 22 '22) -- "Street preachers and Christian protesters have long been a fixture of earth-based religions' gatherings....

"'There were about 30 (evangelists) this year' said Starr RavenHawk, an elder and priestess of the New York City Wiccan Family Temple and organizer of WitchsFest USA, a street fair held in the city's West Village in mid-July.

"Over the past seven years, barely half a dozen of these disruptors would show up, RavenHawk said. But the groups who have appeared this year 'aren't just protesting,' she added. 'They are collectively at war with us. They made that clear.'

"RavenHawk said the evangelists and street preachers walked through WitchsFest, holding up signs and preaching through amplifiers. By the day's end, their presence had caused class cancellations and vendor closings."

Some related pagan history is reviewed with responses from the neopagan community. None of the Christian sources named is engaged for comment.

However, "After her security team asked the preachers to leave, RavenHawk called the police as she has done in past years. But, for the first time, the cops did nothing, she said." Somehow this seems similar to the experience some Christian activists have had after asking the law enforcement for protection from Antifa types. <www.bit.ly/3C1MKmC>

"Pagan Futures" by Brendan Heard (Aureus Press, Jun 25 '22) -- this single-evening event took place in London on the date above and "was the first of its kind. As well as a momentous first for many in attendance (some who travelled from America and Australia to be there) it was the first formal international meet-up of what we might call the 'essentialist' or 'anti-new-age' faction of modern paganism. What the organisers like to call 'theologically informed polytheists.'"

Heard describes the gathering as "the first ex officia sanctioned religious response to the increasing social pressures posed by the globalist pet project of 'transhumanism'. As [Rowsell] said to me after his speech: 'this is not exclusively a pagan concern, but as a pagan it is my duty to address this question within the context of pagan theology.' ...

"While [Rowsell] focused on the present and near future of paganism and globalist schemes, [Dr. Borja] Vilallonga's speech focused on the historical roots of transhumanism, which he traced back to the early Christian concept of salvation." Vilallonga "outlined how modernity is intrinsically linked to materialism....

"In this older concept the physicality of the natural world was included in transcendence (the higher spiritual realities beyond the natural world) [that Italian philosopher] Julius Evola called the world of tradition.

Salvation, says Vilallonga, "was the introduced concept (the forerunner to transhumanism) that created this anxiety about the Sensible World, with the suggestion that it is evil and a thing to be overcome. This belief found its most ardent expression in Gnosticism, and finally its viral social conquest in the form of Christianity."

Rowsell began by "citing how he has witnessed a rise in pagan practice in the UK over the last 10 years, particularly Norse paganism. He made remarks delineating this new popular paganism from the previous new-age or neo-pagan (referring to his branch as theologically-inspired) noting the primary difference being that not only do pagans of his ilk absolutely care about theology, but they cannot be represented as operating without religious authority or hierarchy."

Surprisingly, Rowsell throws out the central pagan creed in the bargain: "Do what thou wilt shall NOT be the whole of the law, not even part of it as far as we're concerned."

Rowsell "believes this rise in popular paganism is due to the decline of the sacred in the Western mind resulting in the gradual decline of the church and the de-sacralisation of the world itself. Various forms of paganism are among the religions and ideologies that are filling the vacuum created by the death of Christianity. He believes the doctrine of materialism which killed the church has now BECOME the church, with transcendence now being expressed through the technocratic, utopian ideologies of the singularity, or post-human transhumanism.

"In his speech [Rowsell] defined a transhumanist as anyone who has uncritically assimilated themselves to serving the objectives of an undifferentiated global humanity, united in the goal of reducing physical suffering and pain through development of novel technologies.

"This is the dominant religion of the West at this time."

Rowsell "mentioned more than once 'the philosopher of the UN' Robert Mueller, quoting him as saying: 'Today, our objectives and methods must be to see the religions globalise themselves into a global spiritual renaissance in order to give us a universal cosmic meaning of life on Earth and give birth to the first global, cosmic universal civilization.' ...

"Transhumanists seek the homogenization of the world's religions in compliance with the hegemony of an atheistic scientism. ...

Rowsell also pointed out that "while Transhumanism has recently been promoted by the UN-affiliated World Economic Forum (who envision the blurring of distinction between digital and biological identities) and by the UN-promotive author Yuval Noah Harari (whose work has been praised by Bill Gates and Barack Obama), transhumanism has been connected to the UN since the very beginning. ... Transhumanism is also connected to but distinct from a sort of messianic belief in an alleged next stage of human evolution known as the 'posthuman' - involving the 'singularity' or the moment the exponential advancement of an artificial intelligence surpasses human intelligence."

Rowsell "labels this thinking 'Neo-Gnostic materialism' - as like Gnostics they have a problem with the world of nature, or matter. It is also an inherently 'left-wing attitude' as leftist thought is ultimately about rebelling....

"'Robert Mueller's dream of a global religion is now being openly pursued by the technologically run transnational organisations, NGOs, and corporations, in collaboration with the political leaders of most Western nations. The great reset has been a shrewd power-play, advancing the interests of the priest of this new religion, who promote a world in which we are told we shall own nothing and be happy.'"

Rowsell asserts that "atheistic liberalism is now shifting to an in illiberal, deterministic philosophy with no measure of right and wrong other than pain and pleasure. The reality is that such people will tolerate religions only as far as they can be integrated into their own ideology, thus we should be dubious when they say they believe in the right of freedom of religion.

"The theologically inspired pagan view is almost the complete opposite of the Neo-Gnostic. [Rowsell] believes that pagans must stand up and claim that matter (nature) is not the source of evil, but a route to the Divine, and indeed, is contained within the divine. ...

"As pagans I say, before I say again, we do not reflexively reject technological innovation, far from it, but when we consider myths.... [T]here is a clear moral lesson concerning technology and hubris." <www.bit.ly/3rnVApX>

( - previous issue - / - next issue - )