ORLANDO VICENTE THEOLOGY, SPIRITUALITY AND RELIGION

 

ORLANDO VICENTE THEOLOGY, SPIRITUALITY AND RELIGION

 

ORLANDO VICENTE THEOLOGY, SPIRITUALITY AND RELIGION

THEOLOGY, TRANSHUMANISM, GOD AND THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY.

TRANSHUMANISM, CUBA TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENT AND SPIRITUALITY.

  TRANSHUMANISM, CUBA TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENT AND SPIRITUALITY.

  After searching in Google about this term in Cuban magazine I only found a job informing what it was, taking a neutral position on it. Here I told myself that the most educated citizens of the country did not even know about the new transformations that the powerful of this world augured, and I decided to write this long article.

  First we define the Transmutation as brief as possible. This new futurological vision that borders on science fiction.Technology and robotics predict an evolutionary leap of the species.The transhumanist ideology aims to offer our contemporary societies a futuristic story that gives a philosophical, moral and, even, spiritual coverage to the technological dimension of the postmodern neoliberal project in this 21st century.

  Technology and robotics predict an evolutionary leap of the species. At what cost?According to the transhumanist movement, and as Google engineer Ray Kurzweil affirms, the singularity will be an event that will happen within a few years-50 years or as it always happens in science, within 55 or 120 years, with the spectacular increase in technological progress, and due to the development of artificial intelligence and the convergence of NBIC technologies (nanotechnology, biotechnology, information and communication technologies and neurocognitive technologies).

  That situation would cause social, cultural, political and economic changes unimaginable, impossible to understand or predict by any human before the aforementioned event. In this phase of evolution,

  Transhumanism predicts that the fusion between technology and human intelligence will take place, giving rise to an era in which the non-biological intelligence of the posthuman will be imposed.Throughout this process, Transhumanism wants to spread an ideology and a culture favorable to "human improvement" through the adoption of artificial improvements in human beings (genetic, organic, technological) with the stated aim of making it more intelligent, more long-lived, more perfect, happier, even so that he can reach cybernetic immortality and the conquest of the universe- Ahh. Hollywood, how you have influenced us and prepared for these changes- However, this worldview can involve risks. Are we prepared for this radical change or do we think that we must conserve our genetic heritage and continue to be "human persons", with our limitations, while preserving our inalienable freedom and dignity?"

  The Singularity is a hypothetical future event in which technological progress and social change will accelerate due to the development of superhuman artificial intelligences, changing our world in such a way that any human being prior to the Singularity would be incapable of understanding or predicting. Some thinkers identify the beginning of the Singularity with the appearance of machines as intelligent as humans, and capable of designing even more intelligent machines "  They write novels, they play something like gods, they are surgeons ...

  The achievements of the machines are portentous, but Artificial Intelligence is still far from surpassing the human and the future will not be a dystopia: it will result from human-machine cooperation.

  Cuba and its current technological backwardness in that it has not yet created a single smart phone or a robot, even if it says Yes, as they want the Cuban to always respond to the proposals of the Socialist State. The Institute of Genetic Engineering or whatever it is called, has only produced the famous Vaccine against lung cancer and the already proven - with negative medical results - the lotion against Vitiligo. And that has scientists and super qualified physicians for genetic transmutation and work on certain diseases or malformations that some fetuses in utero develop.

  But something is missing in Havana: it is an anthropological and economic-moral factor. Our scientists just survive with widespread famine and the daily search for food and clothing. That is why they have not investigated about a gene, which embedded a chicken, obtain a new breed that produces many eggs and a lot of meat. Even if it was just that.The material stimulus is scarce and the motivation to investigate is full of bureaucrats everywhere - especially members of the MININT - monitoring the possible investigations for a better autonomy of science not so much supervised by the State and where the new ideas come from, as Transhumanism, although be it as simple information, inspire a group of technocrats not to be left behind in the global changes that lie ahead.

  There are many problems that are pending to be solved on the planet: like the hungry population, those deprived of drinking water and climate change. Without solving these pressing problems, humanity is not prepared to They say that the Blockade influences. But even when the government is going to lean on that crutch and release the Cuban's innate capacity for rapid development, even in the domestic market. No, they expect foreign investments and partnerships with developed countries-even with the previously impoverished Angola-to develop more dependency as a blood-sucking tick, now that the European communist camp has imploded, Venezuela and Nicaragua follow the same path, drawn by a Communism that enthrone the State and its maximum leaders, eternally in power.

  They do not awaken from this Materialist utopia because they would lose control over the masses that possess and will have to face a very different reality: freedom and the true dignity of the human being.

   TRANHUMANISM AND SPIRITUALITY.

  I remember mass abortions in the early 1990s - Cubans did not like condoms and women contraceptive pills - because of a fast and safe type of "Liposuction". In a giant bottle, bloody clots accumulated-either it was a delayed menstruation or a pregnancy in the first weeks-it did not matter. The Cuban girls underwent abortion as satisfactory was the sexual game in which the implantation of the future fetus took place. This happened until the Catholic Church took out its "Pastoral: Love expects everything".

  Here for the first time an institution, previously silent, launched the cry against these practices that went against its doctrine. And not only spoke of the massiveness of abortion, but the government's methods to dismember the traditional family and the values that parents transmitted to their children.

  That put the hysterical authorities. Look to criticize the sacred laws of the Totalitarian State! Authors of recognized trajectory began to attack the Church from all sides, relying on an ironclad press censorship where they did not allow an ecclesiastical authority to defend their position.

   We went to Mass with the fear that "the organized people" would make us an act of repudiation during the Eucharist.

   Fidel Castro seemed not to get involved in the matter, he knew that religion insinuated the truth about communism, besides, he knew when to shut up and when to give one of his interminable speeches.But the result: abortions decreased as if by magic. Perhaps due to a secret resolution that was delivered to the directors of clinics or hospitals. That custom still lasts, I say, of not discussing burning problems that affect the whole society. But with a secrecy-like the increase in wages-without even going to the Square Table, it is the issue of Embargo, of support for Venezuela, Nicaragua and North Korea.

   The journalists and pro-government writers already know by a matter of super vivencia which subjects to treat and which not to treat. As the story of the priest says "I also take care of my little ass"

   SPIRITUALITY AND TRANSHUMANIZATION.

  Bill McKibben, for example, suggests that human enhancement technologies would be disproportionately available to those with more financial resources, thus widening the gap between rich and poor and creating a genetic divide.

  Lee Silver, a biologist and science popularizer who coined the term reprogenetics and who has supported its applications, has nonetheless shown his concern that such methods could create a society deeply divided between those who have access to such technologies and those who do not, it should be discouraged, or even forbidden, since it would give even more power to those who are already powerful.

  Indeed, the alliance between biotechnologies, genetic engineering, nano-robotics and neurosciences, enhanced by the information sciences and their capacity for data storage and processing, allow the penetration of the secrets of the biological order, and this logically includes body.

  Hand in hand with a materialist ideology, the body loses ontological weight and is seen more and more as mere available material.

  Somehow, in the Transhumanism we find elements of neo-Pelagianism denounced by the Placuit Deo document, because there is a trust in the radically autonomous individual, who seeks to save himself, without recognizing that it depends, in the depths of his being, of God and of others.

  "Salvation is then entrusted to the forces of the individual, or purely human structures.But there are also elements of neo-Gnosticism, because it also seeks to "liberate the person from the body and the material cosmos, in which the traces of the Creator's provident hand are no longer discovered, but see only a meaningless reality. , alien to the person's ultimate identity, and manipulable according to the interests of man.Christian salvation before faith in Transhumanist progress.

  In the Placuit Deo document we find elements that allow a value We find elements that allow an assessment of this movement. Thus, for example, it is denounced that "Gnosticism, in fact, is associated with a negative view of the created order, understood as a limitation of the absolute freedom of the human spirit. As a consequence, salvation is seen as the liberation of the body and the concrete relationships in which the person lives.

  On the other hand, seeking eternal life in this world is presented as an immanentist goal that leads to paradoxical results, as Benedict XVI denounced: "Do we really want this: to live eternally?

  Perhaps many people reject faith today simply because eternal life does not seem desirable to them. In no way do they want eternal life, but the present and, for this, faith in eternal life seems more like an obstacle. To continue living forever - without end - seems more a condemnation than a gift.

   Certainly, you would want to postpone death as much as possible. But to live forever, without a term, would only ultimately be boring and ultimately unbearable.This is explained in our document: "As soon as we are saved, on the other hand," by the oblation of the body of Jesus Christ "(Hb 10:10, Col 1: 22), true salvation, far from being liberation from the body, also it includes his sanctification (cf. Ro 12, 1).

   The human body has been modeled by God, who has inscribed in it a language that invites the human person to recognize the gifts of the Creator and to live in communion with the brothers. The Savior has restored and renewed, with his Incarnation and his paschal mystery, this original language and has communicated it to us in the bodily economy of the sacraments. Thanks to the sacraments, Christians can live in fidelity to the flesh of Christ and, consequently, in fidelity to the concrete order of relationships He has given us.

   This order of relationships requires, in a special way, the care of the suffering humanity of all men, through the corporal and spiritual works of mercyIn a second step, it would be a question of reaching a "technological singularity" in which a new synthetic or artificial being could be manufactured; a new species or new technological organism that they call posthuman or cyborgs.

   For some, this singularity is near. This cultural movement is known as Transhumanism (abbreviated as H + or h +). His ideology has already been embodied in literature, television, video games and film. Some of its cinematographic manifestations are: Avatar, Matrix, Robocop or Ex Machina.

  It is God expelled from the horizon of human life and man as normative.In addition to altering the human nature, the worldview of Transhumanism seriously impairs the possibility of moral autonomy of the individual, which would be subject to social, political or economic interests, and eliminates the concept of equality among all human beings.

  The anti-humanism of this postmodern ideology, which has replaced faith in God with a faith in the progress that the development of current and promising science and technology provides, is supported by a faulty anthropology that has been reached after a long process of trivializing what is really man. The problems it poses must not, however, produce fear of science and technology, which contain many positive possibilities for improvement, but a pedagogical reaction at all levels to explain clearly what a human person is, in which Somatic and spiritual come together in a peculiar way, giving rise to a rational, conscious, free being open to transcendence.

   I consider that for this the most sensible thing is to return to the metaphysical and phenomenological-psychological or personalist perspectives, and, above all, the vision of the man and woman that the Christian tradition provides, for which the authentic improvement of human nature goes through the inner struggle in which values and virtues are acquired, in order to make us capable of achieving the purpose for which we were created, that it is another to love and enjoy God and serve our fellowmen.

  When the man or woman who develops science and technology accepts this perspective and has this disposition they are able to understand the dignity of the human being and the respect it deserves, as well as to guide the acquisition of knowledge and the application of its results as means to achieve personal happiness, and really improve humanity.

  Transhumanism has its foundation in a scientistic, materialistic, reductionist and atheist worldview of the human being. However, curiously it is converging with the new gnostic and New Age currents, thus forming a kind of techno-religion with hegemonic pretensions in the New World Order that has the clear objective of replacing the Christian worldview on the person and creation by another coIn relation to the lengthening of life, what the transhumanists call the Supe longevity, we must think if this will be a dream or rather a nightmare. Of course, the increase in life expectancy with quality, affection and care is good.

   However, longevity of 100, 120, 130 ... years in solitude, with a degree of dependence unrequited with the love of our loved ones, with agonies and sufferings not sublimated by the sense and the Christian hope of achieving the joy of life eternal will be very difficult to cope with.

  The temptation of euthanasia and the right to decide when and how to die will become generalized in our aging societies with serious deficits in the Welfare State.

  The third aspect proposed by Transhumanism is the elimination of pain, of suffering, through our biotechnological transformation. In short, the creation of a happy world centered on Superbeing.

  However, we all have proof that evil, suffering - above all innocent suffering - falls into the category of mystery, has no human response. It is part of this world and of the human condition.In the face of pain and suffering, what really matters most is consolation; and consolation is transmitted through presence, sharing in a particularly human way. When one suffers, what is most appreciated is the presence of the other who transmits his human warmth.

 To eliminate pain, as proposed by Transhumanism, is to eliminate both the consoling presence of the other and also the embrace of Jesus who did not reject the cup of pain. Christ has not come to explain suffering or solve the problem of evil: He has taken evil on his back to free us from it.

  From the speech of Pope Francis in the audience to the participants to the aforementioned Plenary Assembly, it is worth mentioning the following final idea: "the principle remains that not everything that is technically possible or feasible is, therefore, ethically acceptable. Science, like any other human activity, knows that it has limits that must be observed for the good of humanity itself, and requires a sense of ethical responsibility.

  The true measure of progress, as Blessed Paul VI recalled, is what is directed to the good of every man and every man. "Therefore, I believe that Catholics should reflect deeply and rigorously on this bio-political system and this biotechnological economic model that may end up being directed by a synarchy that is radically contrary to the designs of God.Lengthening life in this life is fine, but the challenge of death is to enter a very dangerous terrain, because a human immortality on earth would oppose God's plan (death, judgment, heaven, hell.

  Natural Law helps us in that discernment and the strength of the Holy Spirit will inspire us to do things well. We should not be afraid and act with caution but with hope itself.

      DR ORLANDO VICENTE ÁLVAREZ

CUBAN URUGUAYEN ,GENIUS