Second in a Series, Reviewing Chapter One of Pandemonium’s Engine

As mentioned in the previous post, I am re-adding this series to the new version of SistersSite. The book and its warnings are as relevant now as they were six years ago, maybe more so.

Pandemonium’s Engine (PE) comprises 12 articles. The first and longest at about 70 pages is by Thomas Horn, D.D., the book’s coordinator. It is titled Pandemonium and “HER” Children.

Have you heard of the JASONs? Learn more here. They advise the US government on scientific and technology issues. In 2010 they emphasized the need to place high priority on enhanced-human research. That is one example of groups and institutions with a high profile that are encouraging the leap to genetic reengineering and its resultant sidelines.

Aware of these developments, Dr. Horn decided to answer the 2011 American Academy of Religion Call for Papers on aspects of Transhumanism and Religion. His paper, titled “Transhumanism and Conservative Eschatology,” presents “the technologies imagined by transhumanists… followed by critical, ethical and eschatological concerns held by conservative Christian scholars.” (p 4)

Many today believe that mankind is at the precipice of the next step in human evolution, never mind that evolution is only a religion, not a science. That is why studies on the Ethics of Human Enhancement have been undertaken. You can download the report here.

Here are some of the questions raised in that study. See if you can answer them.

• What is human enhancement?
• Does human enhancement raise issues of fairness, access, and equity?
• What kind of societal disruptions might arise from human enhancement?
• If individuals are enhanced differently, will communication be more difficult or impossible?
• Will we need to rethink the notion of a “good life”?
• Should children be enhanced?
• What are the policy implications of human enhancement?

Here is a paragraph from the Report that helps to explain what Human Enhancement is:

As examples of emerging technologies in the last year or so, a couple imaginative inventions in particular, among many, are closing the gap even more between science fiction and the real world. Scientists have conceptualized an electronic-packed contact lens that may provide the wearer with telescopic and night vision or act as an omnipresent digital monitor to receive and relay information (Parviz, et al., 2008). Another innovation is a touch display designed to be implanted just under the skin that would activate special tattoo ink on one’s arm to form images, such as telephone-number keys to punch or even a video to watch (Mielke, 2008). Together with ever-shrinking computing devices, we appear to be moving closer to cybernetic organisms (or “cyborgs”), that is, where machines are integrated with our bodies or at least with our clothing in the nearer-term. Forget about Pocket PCs, mobile phones, GPS devices, and other portable gadgets; we might soon be able to communicate and access those capabilities without having to carry any external device, thus raising our productivity, efficiency, response time, and other desirable measures—in short, enabling us to even better survive our world.

Perhaps most people would not find that type of embedded technology a problem. However, what about the invention of genetically modified plants that cause second generation seeds to be sterile? That requires genetic reengineering. And what about applying such techniques to humans?

Thomas Horn reports (p. 55) that technology exists today that can reengineer a human being to no longer be purely human. If DNA is introduced by vectors that provide the means of transport and integration for gene alteration,

a human can have hybridized skin cells that glow in the dark, or perhaps form scales rather than hair, claws rather than fingernails…Muscle cells may grow larger and more efficient at using low levels of calcium and oxygen… hybrid ears may now sense a wider range of sounds.
…If so many scientists (funded by government entities) believe in the “promise” of genetic alteration and transgenic “enhancement,” how then can humanity remain human? We cannot. We will not. Perhaps, some have not."

If you believe man was created as a special kind, in the image of God, then Dr. Horn's insight will jar you.

Would you accept a vaccination, let's say, during a pandemic, if it introduced an animal-human strain that would rewrite your DNA so that you would no longer be entirely human, but part beast?