bulletin spring2015 · 2015-07-23 · 5" " when!shades!of!grey!become!blackand!white!...
TRANSCRIPT
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BULLETIN
Spring 2015
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LIST OF OFFICERS Visitor Convenors of Chapters The Rt Revd David Walker East Anglia Bishopscourt, Bury New Road, Salford To be appointed Manchester, M7 4LE [email protected] Midlands The Revd Canon Howard Bateson Adelphi, 48e Alford Road Warden West Bridgeford The Revd Dr Keith Suckling Nottingham NG2 6HP 291 Knightsfield, Welwyn Garden City, 0115 923 1820 Herts., AL8 7NH 01707 330022 North [email protected] The Revd Phillip Edwards St Stephen’s Vicarage Radcliffe Road Bolton Treasurer BL2 1NZ The Revd Dr R W Brian Ardill 01204 527004 8 Hanover Gardens Cullompton Devon EX15 1XA South 01884 798386 The Revd Dr Michael J Pragnell [email protected] 2 Lister’s Court Ilminster , Somerset TA19 0DP 01460 54212 Secretary The Revd Colin G F Brockie Scotland 36 Braehead Court, Kilmarnock The Revd Ursula Shone Ayrshire KA3 7AB 5 Abbotsford Court Kelso 01563 559960 TD5 7SQ [email protected] 01573 224210 Gathering Secretary Warden of North American Province The Revd Dr Jennifer Zarek The Revd Dr Lucas Mix Horsedale House, Silver Street 105 Oxford Street -‐1RF Huggate, York YO42 1YB Cambridge, MA 02138, USA 01377 288525 520-‐878-‐8774 (M) [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]
Provincial Treasurer Secretary for Associates The Revd Gail Bucher The Revd Robert Nelson 14 South Meadow Ridge 978-‐369-‐3164 5 Sedbergh Road Concord, MA 01742,USA Wallasey Wirral CH44 2BR [email protected] 0151 630 2830 [email protected] Editor The Revd Canon Dr Maureen Palmer 28A Green Street, Hereford HR1 2QG 01432 353771 [email protected]
Web Site Moderator The Revd Dr Lucas Mix
www.ordained scientists.wordpress.com
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INDEX 2. List of Officers 3. Index 3. From the Editor 4. Notes from the Warden 5. When shades of grey become black and white +Lee Rayfield 6. A Non-‐Supernatural God who loves us? David Ashford 19. Ethel Raine – The untold story of a woman who spied for Britain during the Great War Robert Fiske [David Gosling] 20. Part of a Meditation for Earth Hour Maureen Palmer From The Editor I am so pleased to be able to distribute a Bulletin for Spring 2015. When I took over the role of Editor I optimistically hoped that I might be able to issue the Bulletin three times a year but realistically I think I should try for two issues per annum: one in September and one in March/April. Some of us have been battling with the Church of England’s views on ‘three parent’ embryos and +Lee has allowed us to publish an article which appeared in the Western Daily News entitled ‘When Shades of Grey become Black and White’ Our major article in this issue is a paper from David Ashford entitled ‘A Non-‐Supernatural God who loves us?’ We move away from science to think about the events of 1914-‐18 and 1938-‐45: those terrible events and loss of life during the Great World Wars and one of our own members, David Gosling, provides the story of a very brave lady who spied for Britain during the Great War. In the lovely countryside of Hereford we are surrounded by beauty and in the Cathedral there are four small stained-‐glass windows dedicated to the memory of the seventeenth century poet and mystic Thomas Traherne. In March WWF invited us to observe Earth Hour, an hour when all electric lights and appliances were switched off. The Cathedral Chapter here agreed that all flood-‐lighting should be switched off for that period and a prayer vigil be held in the Cathedral. I offer one section of the Meditation for your prayer. The Bulletin is your publication so please keep the material coming: articles, book reviews, poems and prayers – all are acceptable!
Maureen Palmer
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Warden’s Notes. May 2015
Once again it is time to look forward to Scargill and to our annual Gathering. Our members bring a very wide range of experience to our meetings and we enjoy learning from each other and being together. This will be particularly apparent at Scargill at the end of June when the speaker will be our own David Gosling. David will share his thoughts with us following his experience over several years recently in Pakistan where Christianity and Islam look each other in the face. It’s a topic of global significance with many complex variables.
I’ve recently completed plans for speakers for the 2016 Gathering. It’s turned out to be a team from Durham. David Wilkinson, who is an Associate Member, will speak on the Wednesday evening, and the meditations will be led by Revd Canon Rosalind Brown, who is Canon Librarian at Durham Cathedral. Maureen Palmer was impressed with what she had to offer a number of years ago. And thanks as always to Maureen for putting this issue together!
Two topics come up regularly at Annual General Meetings at the Gathering. One is the location for the Gathering. Jennifer Zarek has done a detailed review of the possibilities in the UK and these were discussed at the Committee meeting in February. I plan to use some of the time on the Wednesday evening at Scargill to discuss this. At the same time I think it would be good to review together once more where we stand as a dispersed community and how things might move forward in the future.
Over recent years we have wondered about how to make the Society better known, both for attracting new members and for being able to play our role in the wider church. It is pleasing to note that a number of contacts have recently been made by prospective new members and by others who want to know about the society and these have been in response to posters and to word of mouth recommendation. The updated website has also helped.
I’ve made a major move in the last six months, travelling 500 miles north to the north-‐east corner of Aberdeenshire to St Peter’s in Fraserburgh. Right now I’m gauging the interest in science and religion here. What is clear is that this topic has hardly been considered at all. That’s not quite the case not so far away in the catchment area of the main city of the region, Aberdeen, but my sense is that the situation is at best patchy everywhere. The importance of major projects such as David Wilkinson’s 'Equipping Christian Leadership in an Age of Science' and ‘Scientists in Congregations’ here in Scotland (both Templeton supported) cannot be underestimated. Initiatives such as these deserve our regular prayers (on the 31st of the month in the prayer diary) as well as our direct support when the opportunity presents itself.
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When shades of grey become black and white
Last autumn I contributed a chapter to an international scientific volume entitled ‘Transferring the single Euploid embryo’. My guess is this title won’t set many pulses racing but as it concerned advances in assisted reproduction it probably should.
With my background in science and bioethics, I was asked to write the chapter on what has been frequently but unhelpfully described as ‘three-‐parent embryos’.
Most readers will be aware that the legislation to permit mitochondrial replacement or donation went before Parliament last month. It was passed by significant majorities in both the House of Commons and the Lords.
I had been a member of the Oversight Group appointed by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) to consult with the public and make recommendations to the Secretaries of State for Health and for Business, Innovation & Skills as to whether two proposed techniques for mitochondrial replacement should be made legal.
A conversation with fellow cyclists at a pub social revealed just how ‘far out’ the science and ethics of this topic has been to most people. When I described what was involved someone exclaimed, ”It sounds like something out of Frankenstein!” Literary types might observe it is closer to Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World but that is splitting hairs; the point is it feels like science is taking us into dangerous territory.
This was well understood by the Oversight Group for the public consultation and so a great deal of time and care was spent on helping people get past this reaction and better appreciate the scientific and ethical complexities.
One element of the consultation involved working with a range of people in three different cities. Over two separate days these groups were firstly helped to understand the science and the diseases that mitochondrial replacement was aimed at treating, before considering the ethical and regulatory issues the techniques might raise.
It was evident that when people were given opportunity to explore the issue, some of their anxieties and suspicions were eased. Not everyone approved but there was a clear move towards greater acceptance of the validity of the approach and recognition that it was flawed to describe the techniques as creating ‘designer babies’ or three-‐parent embryos.
The Oversight Group also invited responses from individuals and organisations.
While individual members of the Church of England might have a range of responses, in matters which go out for public consultation, including ethical issues relating to science and medicine, there is a body which endeavours to represent us collectively. This body is the Council for Mission & Public Affairs (MPA for short) and, before submitting its responses, MPA consults widely with a range of experts and with different constituencies.
Such was the case with mitochondrial replacement and MPA’s overall response to the public consultation was described to me as ‘positive but cautious’.
Although there were some issues about the ethical benefits of one of the proposed techniques over the other, the main caution related to safety and potential unknown effects that genes in donated
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mitochondria might have on the expression of other genes. The HFEA were very aware of this and had established an Expert Group to ensure the new techniques could not be used in treatment until the Expert Group were satisfied. However, MPA took the view that Parliament should not change the law until then; to do so would not be responsible.
On the page these words seem reasonable enough and carefully judged, yet in a quote to a newspaper they assumed a different life.
Soon headlines were declaring that the Church of England was against mitochondrial replacement and that changing the law would be ‘irresponsible’. It is interesting to note how a small change in phrasing can have such impact. From this point on, the die was cast. There was no room for nuance or being cautiously positive – the C of E was anti!
A colleague, who like me had been closely involved in the HFEA’s consultation, observed that when it gets down to a vote there is no grey. You are either for or against, and that is how it became. My attempt to correct misunderstandings on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme came over as pretty lame, not least because I had expected a discussion rather than a hustings! That was my naiveté and misjudgement.
At least the way the Church of England was presented as against ‘three-‐parent embryos’ prompted more reflection on the issues in the media. However, it reinforced the perception that Christians are anti-‐science and overall it felt like an opportunity missed. Caution eclipsed hope.
I finished my Today interview saying, “If the safeguards are in place, the Church of England will be behind this” and it was some comfort that the BBC used this line in their bulletins. That, in fact, was and is our core position.
It would be great if that message were the one which is remembered.
The Rt Revd Dr Lee Rayfield Bishop of Swindon
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A Non-‐Supernatural God Who Loves Us?
Some time in the future, the history of this cycle of this universe will be written. This will happen sometime after we have helped to turn the Cosmos into the next God and sometime before the last days leading up to the next big bang. Jesus will then stand supreme as the Son of God—the God who survived the previous big bang as the Holy Ghost.
Introduction Like many others now and in the past, I have struggled to reconcile the teaching of the Christian Church with that of scientists. This led to several years of atheism, which I now regret. My major difficulty is with the supernatural elements of traditional Christian teaching, especially the idea of an omnipotent God. Omnipotence seems to be incompatible with everyday observation and scientific teaching. Moreover, like many scientists, engineers, and atheists, I find it difficult to argue with the theory of Materialism, which holds that nothing that exists except for matter or energy following natural laws. This seems to rule out omnipotence or any other supernatural being or event.
More recently, I have begun to stumble on the glimmerings of a synthesis, informed by scientific and engineering developments over the past few years, that may reconcile the faith-‐based and scientific approaches to the truth. This synthesis shows that it is quite credible to propose a God who loves us and Jesus as our saviour without recourse to anything supernatural or incompatible with science. I would like to share this proposal in the hope that it may be helpful to others struggling with the same issue.
This essay is based on the working assumption that Materialism is correct. We then explore how far we can go towards a God who loves us and Jesus as saviour. Any resulting God is then by definition natural rather than supernatural, and scientists cannot deny Her on the grounds that She appears to be incompatible with the laws of nature. (I should emphasise that I am not stating here that Materialism actually is correct—this essay explores how far we can go towards traditional Christian thinking if we assume that it is.)
The analysis that follows extrapolates present trends in science and engineering, and uses simple commonsense logic. We start by summarising what we know about what happened between the big bang and now. We then consider our short-‐term future, in order to see how likely it is that we have a long-‐term one, and the related question of where the aliens are and what is original sin. We then address the three basic questions of how the human brain works, what our long-‐term future is likely to be, and what was there before the big bang. We then look for God in a synergy between the three answers.
The main conclusion is that we can find a God who created us (or who at least played a major part in our creation) and with whom we can and should have a strong emotional relationship. This conclusion depends on an act of faith that appears at a certain point in the argument. Compared with most other religious acts of faith, this one has the great advantage that it can be put to an empirical test. We may well be able to do this quite soon.
The God that we find is significantly different from the traditional Christian One but the similarities are far more important. If we strip away the supernatural, the resulting God turns out to be perhaps even more awesome than the traditional One. It may be a case of the natural truth being stranger, and tougher, than the supernatural.
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Before proceeding further, I should point out that the following is written from a Christian point of view. I would be delighted if members of other faiths would review this analysis from their own perspectives.
From the Big Bang to Now Theories of cosmology, earth science, and evolution combine to give a plausible explanation of how the human race came to be, as shown very crudely in Fig. 1.
Figure 1. From Big Bang to Now The big bang is the oldest event that scientists have evidence for. This was followed by the formation of galaxies, stars, and planets, following natural laws. On this planet at least, different types of complex molecules were formed by random processes and some survived. This process of random mutation and survival of the fittest led to more complex building blocks, then to simple life, then to more advanced life, and so on up a hierarchy of complexity until we reach human beings. The human brain is the most complex single item that scientists have evidence for.
There are still many gaps in our knowledge about this process but, if our starting assumption (that the Materialist philosophy is correct) is valid, it seems likely that eventually these gaps will be largely filled without recourse to supernatural explanation.
Before proceeding further, we will consider the short-term future of the human race in order to see how likely it is that we have a long-term one.
Our Short-Term Future—Doomsday? This is a good time to be a purveyor of doom and gloom. Horror stories of global warming, terrorism, GM crops, superbugs, the Big Brother state, the Decline of Moral Standards, financial meltdown, overpopulation, resource wars, and nanotechnology are eagerly scooped up by media ever more desperate for sensation. However, you do not have to be an avid student of the Old Testament to know that Doom has always been just around the corner and that only the threats
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have changed. Prophets were forever warning, “Woe be unto us—unless we return to the Way of the Lord”. People, being human, usually started to listen only after the Woe had begun. So, what would a modern Prophet say, and will there be time this time around to avert the dreaded consequences of the latest threats?
A very readable account of the main threats facing mankind is given in Our Final Century—Will the Human Race Survive the Twenty-‐First Century? (William Heinemann, 2003) by the then Astronomer Royal (now President of the Royal Society), Sir Martin Rees.
Rees covers the usual suspects—nuclear war, terrorism, superbugs (man-‐made and natural), environmental disaster, asteroid impact, and nanotechnology; and some less well-‐known ones such as the risk of high-‐energy science experiments triggering cosmic change.
He concludes thus:
“It may not be absurd hyperbole—indeed, it may not even be an overstatement—to assert that the most crucial location in space and time (apart from the big bang itself) could be here and now. I think the odds are no better than fifty-‐fifty that our present civilisation on Earth will survive to the end of the present century. Our choices and actions could ensure the perpetual future of life (not just on Earth, but perhaps far beyond it, too). Or, in contrast, through malign intent, or through misadventure, twenty-‐first century technology could jeopardise life’s potential, foreclosing its human and post-‐human future. What happens here on Earth, in this century, could conceivably make the difference between a near eternity filled with yet more complex and subtle forms of life and one filled with nothing but base matter.”
Where are the Aliens? Rees also considers the closely related question, “Where are the Aliens?” Scientists can estimate the approximate number of galaxies in the known universe, the average number of stars per galaxy, the percentage of stars that are likely to have planets, and the percentage of planets that are likely to have conditions suitable for life to evolve. Some of these estimates (especially the last) are not yet much better than informed guesses but, even with seemingly conservative assumptions, multiplying these values results in a vast number of probable life systems elsewhere in the universe.
Given that we are very close (by cosmological timescales) to being able to send messages across our own galaxy and possibly others, we might expect comparable life systems elsewhere to have contacted us. So, why haven’t they? Volumes have been written on this mystery, and Rees gives a good summary. Of the many possible explanations that have been postulated, the six than seem to me intuitively the most probable are:
• The Earth is more special in some way (yet to be discovered) than we realise,
• The evolution of advanced life involves a string of coincidences (yet to be discovered) that are more improbable than we realise,
• Evolution on most planets ‘gets stuck’ when some simple plant or animal becomes so dominant that it can survive indefinitely without challenge. (I am no gardener, but have often wondered why the whole planet is not covered with bindweed!)
• Aliens are in fact trying to get in touch, but using technology that we have not yet mastered (such as gravity waves?).
• The universe is a more dangerous place than we realize. It could be that the mean time between total extinction events on planets throughout the universe is small compared with the mean time for advanced life to develop, so that most evolutions get wiped out before
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they reach an advanced stage, and that we have just been lucky so far to have experienced just a few mass extinction events.
• Most life systems evolving on other planets throughout the universe misuse technology and self-‐destruct when they reach a certain stage of advancement, before they can communicate effectively with the rest of us good folk.
Of these explanations, the last is the one to worry about because it could happen to us, as Rees suggests. If any of the other five explanations are true, we should find out eventually by visiting other planets, with great benefit to our understanding of our place in the scheme of things.
Original Sin? Why, then, should life systems on other planets self-‐destruct? If they have evolved anything like we have, natural selection must be the prime mechanism for advancement. Survival of the fittest. I’m all right, Jack. Eat or be eaten. Kill or be killed. Nature red in tooth and claw. Fascism. Racism.
You are the Fat Cat
Smiling smugly
Atop the food chain
(With apologies to Roger McGough)
I am not suggesting that the most advanced species on other planets will be humanoid. But I am suggesting that, to have reached the top of their evolutionary greasy pole, they will have had to share some of our characteristics such as curiosity, interest in technology, and aggressiveness. Perhaps this built-‐in aggression and selfishness arising from natural selection can be thought of as original sin.
This attitude threatens the survival of evolving life on a planet when the most developed species becomes sufficiently advanced to invent weapons of mass destruction. Unless some kind of enlightenment is gained, members of the species in question will most likely end up killing each other off, taking the less technically advanced species with them. In the case of our own planet, Hitler for example would probably have blown up the world rather than accept defeat if he had possessed the means to do so. And it may turn out that most advanced alien species have gone down the fascist route and self-‐destructed because they did not receive (or listen to) the required enlightenment.
On the other hand, given enlightenment, the species in question should be able to overcome this original sin. On planet Earth, the teaching and example of Jesus Christ provide the required enlightenment. If we act on the principles that he taught us, especially that God is Love, we can tackle the various threats that face us in a positive manner with a fair chance of success.
Prayer and Christian fellowship are probably the most effective ways of overcoming the aggressive instincts left over from natural selection and of putting the good of the human race before our own selfish short-‐term demands. Thus, Christ’s teaching and example are more vital than ever to help us to face threats that were unimaginable in his day. His name endureth for ever.
To sum up this section: the human race is approaching perhaps its most serious crisis to date. If we are not careful, we will use increasingly advanced knowledge to destroy ourselves. In this crisis, every Christian act, no matter how small, helps: every un-‐Christian one hinders.
Woe be unto us—unless we return to the Way of the Lord!
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The Three Big Questions Even if we come to understand better what happened between the big bang and now, and if we survive the immediate crisis, three major questions will remain, as summarised in Fig. 2:
• How does the human brain work?
• What is the long-‐term future of the human race?
• What was there before the big bang?
Figure 2. The Three Big Questions
Considering each question in turn:
How Does the Human Brain Work? We started with the basic working assumption that everything that exists is made up of matter and energy that follow natural laws. It follows from this assumption that the human body, mind, and soul can in principle be explained in scientific and engineering terms. Even our most powerful emotions must correspond to a particular pattern of cell activity in our brains. We ‘just’ have to find out what pattern of material building blocks results in human beings.
Put another way, finding out how we work is a question of reverse engineering. When an engineer wants to create a new product, he/she starts with an idea or a requirement. This is worked up into drawings and specifications, the design is analysed, and prototypes are built and tested until the device is ready for production. With reverse engineering, the engineer is presented with the finished product and then works back to drawings and specifications. If required, the device can then be put into production. Reverse engineering is used by industrial spies trying to find out how a superior rival product works, and in wartime to catch up with an enemy weapon that is better than one’s own.
We have come a long way towards reverse engineering the human body. At a very superficial level, there are mechanical, chemical, or electronic analogies to help to explain most of our parts. The heart, for example, is like a hydraulic pump; muscles are like electrochemical servos; the eye is like a
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video camera; the organs are like miniature chemical factories; the sub-‐conscious part of the brain is like a computer; and so on.
However, even in these grossly oversimplified terms, there is still one major conceptual mystery left—the nature of consciousness. If our basic assumption—that the total reality is made up of matter and energy—is correct, there must be a pattern of brain cells that enables us to actually ‘feel’ alive—to sense the outside world, to feel emotions, to fall in love, to appreciate music, and so on. At present, we simply do not know what this pattern is. There is no simple analogy yet available to us.
There is probably a conceptual breakthrough awaiting some great researcher that in hindsight will seem simple and obvious, analogous perhaps to the discovery of the double-‐helix structure of DNA.
When is this eureka moment going to happen? If we extrapolate present growth trends then, by the late 2020s, the tool kit we use in artificial intelligence will include all the processes involved in human intelligence. (See, for example, Ray Kurzweil predicts the future, New Scientist, 21 November 2006). Kurzweil coined the term 'The Singularity' to refer to what happens when computers surpass human brainpower in all important respects, and this term is gaining ground.
So, there appears to be a credible prospect of this fundamental breakthrough happening within a few decades. The nature of consciousness is certainly the subject of intensive research and progress is rapid. If and when this breakthrough happens, we will have a complete understanding of how the human body, mind, and soul work, at least at a conceptual level.
This idea of humans being explainable in engineering terms will no doubt seem revolting to many. In a similar way, Darwin’s claim that humans were no more than superior monkeys revolted many Victorians and led to a major crisis in church teaching. We got round this by a change in perspective. We came to regard monkeys as inferior humans. Likewise, we may come to appreciate that, if humans can be thought of as machines, machines can have human characteristics, even the ability to love. With this new perspective, the real miracle will be seen as the fact that a collection of matter and energy, assembled in a particular way, can feel alive and search for God.
Our Long-Term Future If and when we discover the blueprint of how humans are made up, we can start to experiment with our bodies, minds, and souls; and can start to explore the limitations of life using the materials available to us. We will find out what pattern of brain cell activity corresponds to what emotion. We will be able to experiment with new emotions.
This may be difficult to imagine but that does not mean that it is not going to happen. A good general rule in the history of engineering is that if something can be done and there is a reason for doing it, it eventually will be. Moreover, many ‘unimaginable’ developments have already happened. It you went back in a time machine and tried to explain modern technology to Julius Caesar, for example, you might be able to give him some idea of how our mechanical devices worked; you might even begin to explain electrical gadgets; but there is no way you could even begin to explain the internet or gene therapy. As Arthur C Clarke said in his 1973 revision of Profiles of the Future, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"!
At this stage in the proceedings, when we have our own destiny firmly in our hands, two outcomes are possible. The first is that we find that, by having analysed precisely how we work, we will have destroyed our very humanity. We will have discovered that we are no more than computerised robots evolved in a universe that does not care whether we survive as a species or not. Our most
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sacred feelings were evolved merely to help us survive, and can be reduced to a (very large) table of numbers corresponding to brain activity. What happens next may not then seem to matter much. We may well blow ourselves up in a final orgy of self-‐indulgence.
The other outcome is that we find that we can re-‐engineer ourselves into a new life form, capable of even stronger love and spirituality, and feeling an even more powerful sense of one-‐ness with the universe. Freed from the limitations imposed on us by evolution, we will be able to probe the fundamental capabilities of intelligent life.
Just as worms cannot imagine the emotions that monkeys can feel, and just as monkeys cannot imagine many human emotions, we cannot imagine what emotions and spirituality the ‘post-‐humans’ that we replace ourselves with will be capable of.
Post-Humans We can just about imagine a possible next step towards turning ourselves into post-‐humans. Computer chips, made of biological material, will be implanted in our brains. There will be direct computer to brain interaction, avoiding the need for screens and keyboards. As we learn more about how consciousness works, we will simulate it in the lab. Then we will be able to enhance our own consciousness, and communicate directly with others through an enhanced sort of ‘telepathic internet’. We will be able to download our minds and souls into this internet. Then the Internet itself will become genuinely alive as a sort of prototype post-‐human, with all who want to becoming a part of it. The whole will be greater than the sum of the parts, and this first post-‐human will develop qualities and capabilities that we cannot yet imagine.
However, there is one important quality of this first post-‐human that can be predicted reliably—immortality. It need have no ageing or death genes and so can endure indefinitely. As hardware elements wear out, they can be replaced. The essential part of post-‐humans will be their memory, knowledge, emotions, and behaviour patterns, i.e., their software. This can be backed up and restored when necessary. Individuals who choose to join can have their own memory, knowledge, emotions, and behaviour patterns preserved indefinitely, which can be free to interact with the ‘core’ software as desired. In this way, these individuals will attain their own immortality, albeit as small cogs in a big machine. From now on, I will use the word ‘we’ to refer to those of us fortunate enough to become part of this first post-‐human. ‘We’ will be able to witness what happens to this post-‐human, which, as discussed next, may be able live to the effective end of time.
Predictions about what happens after the first post-‐human become progressively more speculative. Perhaps the next step will be to take over the nearby planets and stars, converting them into the beginnings of an advanced Cosmic Internet. Post-‐humans could then go on to impose themselves on the universe until the natural limits of such imposition are reached. Perhaps the fundamental cosmic limitations will turn out to be due to the speed of light, the second law of thermodynamics, and gravity. And there may be others, yet to be discovered.
As far as I know, science has not yet reached the stage of being able to carry out meaningful analysis of the limitations of what intelligent life can do to a universe. However, we can at least speculate on various possibilities. One such is that we may find that we have left things a bit late and that gravity and thermodynamics are going to force us to melt down back into a hot blob, which will explode again as the next big bang. In this way, we could be wiped out, or largely so.
However, we may be able to influence what happens after the next big bang. As a possible example, let us consider the values of some fundamental physical constants. We know the values of many of these constants but have no idea as to why their particular values are what they are. The
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charge of an electron, the speed of light, and the universal gravitational constant are three such. Apparently, if any of these numbers were different by even a small amount, we could not have evolved. The chances of all these numbers being just so are apparently so small that there appear to be just three possibilities. The first is that there is, or has been, a very large number of universes and we just happen to be in the one that suits us. The second is some kind of natural selection among universes, tending towards conditions that favour intelligent life. The third is some kind of intelligent design.
It is just conceivable that we may be able to indulge in some intelligent design ourselves. We may be able to fix these fundamental numbers so that, after the next big bang, evolution will happen faster so that life reaches an even more advanced form before gravity etc once again take over—possibly advanced enough to break through into a higher cycle. As far as I can tell from listening to cosmologists, a future on these lines is entirely possible. And of course we may be able to do far more for the next cycle of the universe than just fix some physical constants.
A lot of this is little more than pure speculation. But it is an outcome compatible with the laws of science as we understand them and one that can be postulated by extrapolating present trends. And, as mentioned earlier, just because we find it difficult to imagine something does not mean that it will not happen.
What Was There Before the Big Bang? If we define God as a life form far more capable than we humans and who played a large part in the creation of our universe, and if the above speculation turns out to be even vaguely on the right lines, then we will have turned ourselves into just such a God. We will play a major role in creating the next cycle of the universe, although we may well be largely destroyed before we can see it happen. We will have deified the cosmos.
If the God that we thus become can so influence the next cycle of the universe, it seems probable that the cycle that we are now part of was at least partly created by an earlier God, who was the apotheosis of the previous cycle. So, the answer to the question of what was there before the big bang could be—the previous God.
Holy Ghost At this stage, we can have very little idea of what is left of the previous God—it may be no more than a pattern that survived the big bang or it may be a lot more than that—but whatever is left is can perhaps be thought of as a sort of ghost—literally, a Holy Ghost.
God Is Love In this way and without recourse to anything supernatural, we can postulate a God that played a pivotal role in our creation. She was like a woman who knew that she had to die in childbirth, and we are like the resulting baby. She may even have sacrificed herself to give us a better chance. She will have wished us well with far more powerful love than we can imagine. She loved the baby that She would never see. We can and should have a strong emotional relationship with our Mother God, just as a normal person would with his/her dead mother that he/she had never met. When we approach the limit of the present cycle of our universe, we may have a better idea of what our Mother God was like and how and why She died. As St Paul wrote, “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we shall see face to face” (1 Corinthians 13:12).
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Act of Faith So, finding out how we work will be a pivotal event in human history. Having done this, we will probably either sort of give up or go on to better things. It is difficult to imagine a middle path. Either way, it will be the end of the human race as we know it.
Which of these outcomes will happen is probably not yet predictable. But I feel in my innermost self that the second outcome will triumph. I ‘know’ that it will happen; in the same way that a believer ‘knows’ that there is a God. This is the act of faith mentioned earlier. The only evidence that I can put forward is that it seems unlikely that, in the whole of space and time, ‘our’ big bang is the only one and that human emotional and spiritual capabilities cannot be bettered.
As also mentioned earlier, we may find out soon enough whether this act of faith is justified or not. The pivotal event will be the discovery of the nature of consciousness, and this may be but a few decades away. I cannot prove that the optimistic way ahead will happen and am certainly not asking anyone to take this belief on trust. I will be happy if this essay persuades a few non-‐believers to question their disbelief.
Christianity Where does all this leave traditional Christian teaching? How will the Church react when the first person credibly claims immortality, albeit with his mind and soul emulated into the biological computer at the heart of a post-‐human? My provisional answer is that the Church will be able to cope very well. However, this is clearly a vast subject, so what follows is no more than a few speculative thoughts on how Christianity can be reconciled with a non-‐supernatural God who may now exist just as the Holy Ghost.
With this proposed perspective, the history of human spirituality can be thought of as the struggle to find our Mother God. As our knowledge of the natural world has improved, religious stories that were once thought to be literally true have been re-‐evaluated as myths. It has also come to be recognised that there is often as much significant truth in the myth as in the scientific theory that displaced it. And, presumably, we can expect this process to continue.
In this history of progress towards finding Mother God, the Israelites stand out. In particular, their prophets were exceptional in their insight about the progress of the human race towards a more just and peaceful future in partnership with God. Jesus took this tradition to its limit. By his loving sacrifice, he made his unique insights and responses to the Holy Ghost accessible to later generations. His assertion that God is love will stand as a beacon of inspiration until the end of time.
St Paul may have been referring to this revelation by Jesus when he wrote, But we [Christians] speak of God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory (1 Corinthians, 2:6). He could not have known about the big bang when he used the expression “before the ages”, but is a remarkably apposite comment!
Again, St Paul says, For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God, and, We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pain until now, (Romans 8: 19 and 22).
Re-‐interpreting the bible in the light of an entirely natural God is clearly a major project, and one which I am well unqualified to do. So, at this stage, I will comment on just two aspects—moral codes and sin.
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Kingdom of God If the above speculations are on the right lines, then the human race is engaged on a project of cosmic importance to turn itself into the next God or, in other words, to deify the cosmos and bring about the Kingdom of God. Keith Ward, Professor of Divinity, Gresham College, London, writes about the deification of the cosmos in Re-‐Thinking Christianity (Oneworld, 2007). This book is in effect a history of key events in Christian thinking. However, it does consider the future and on page 50 for example he says that “…through us the whole cosmos can ultimately be united to the divine.”
The sooner we get on with it, the more likely we are to succeed. Time may not be on our side. The second law of thermodynamics may be creeping up on us. Any act that contributes to this project is good; any that detracts from it is bad. These good acts are precisely the same as called for by the Christian moral code. We should love our Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and with all our strength; and our neighbours as ourselves.
In this way, we have a defence of absolute moral values against moral relativism that is based on nothing supernatural at all.
Sin Another fascinating question is that of what will happen to sin. Will sin turn out to be no more than our selfish and aggressive instincts left over from natural selection? In which case, it should be easy enough to ‘programme sin out’ of post-‐humans. Or, will sin turn out to be far more entrenched and subtle and likely to exist until the final victory of good at the end of time, just as hacking, viruses, and spam seem to survive the best efforts of computer programmers? Will we have to overcome sin before we can attain immortality? Could this be why, following the Fall of Man, God placed at the east of the Garden of Eden Cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life (Genesis 3:24)?
Conclusions We started with the working assumption that Materialists (and many atheists) are correct to the extent that nothing exists beyond matter and energy. It follows from this that we humans are made up of inanimate objects arranged in a particular pattern. In turn, it follows that we may be able to find out precisely what this pattern is (reverse engineering) and then go on to improve it (re-‐engineering). Two outcomes are then possible. First, that by analysing precisely how our most sacred emotions work, we will destroy our very humanity. Second, that we can develop even higher emotions and stronger love and spirituality. In the latter case, a possible extension of our re-‐engineering is to go on to turn the universe into an even higher life form, capable of ultimate love, until fundamental limitations like gravity, the second law of thermodynamics, and the speed of light take over, followed perhaps by the next big bang.
This leads to the idea of a cyclical universe with the following sequence: big bang, fundamental particles, atoms, molecules, complex molecules, primitive life, advanced life, humans (or equivalent on other planets), reverse engineering, re-‐engineering, post-‐humans, post-‐post humans, God, meltdown, big bang, Holy Ghost, and so on, as summarised in Fig. 3.
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Figure 3. A Cyclical Universe? The significance of homo sapiens may turn out to be that it is the first species in this cycle of this universe capable of searching for God and then of reverse engineering and re-‐engineering itself. It may be the first species to work out that it might not be the end-‐point of evolution. As quoted earlier, Rees says, ...the most crucial location in space and time (apart from the big bang itself) could be here and now.
The God near the end of the previous cycle probably played a large part in our creation and left us the Holy Ghost, which should provide the enlightenment we need to establish the next Kingdom of God. This idea keeps alive the link between morals and cosmology so beloved by ancient seers. It also keeps alive the idea of a link between our future and how well we follow our moral code, also beloved by ancient seers.
This previous God probably loved us far more that we can imagine, which keeps alive the idea of a strong emotional relationship between God and us. Jesus’ life and teaching is miraculously compatible with this natural God, and his teaching will stand true until the end of time. When we reach the limit of our present cycle of the universe, we should have a much better idea of the nature of our God and how and why She died.
Belief in this natural God is possibly even tougher than believing in the traditional supernatural One. Under a natural God, the future is in our own hands, guided by Jesus and the Holy Ghost, rather than under the control of an omnipotent supernatural being. We cannot then cop out of our individual responsibility to play our full part.
Whether we believe in a natural or a supernatural God probably makes little or no practical difference to how we should lead our lives. What matters is the quality of our relationships and how well we follow Jesus’ teaching, rather than how up to date is our theology. The real miracle is that we are here and able to make a difference. Whether you explain this by a miraculous God or by miraculous properties of matter is perhaps not all that important for living a fulfilled life.
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Some of us alive today might live to the end of time, albeit as small cogs in a big machine, if we manage to complete the reverse engineering of ourselves within the next few decades.
We should find out soon enough whether this approach to finding the nature of God is on the right lines. Either we will be able to discover how consciousness works or we will not. If we do, either we will find that we can re-‐engineer ourselves into a more advanced form of life with enhanced spirituality and motivation for living or we will not.
The one thing that I am sure about is that emerging insights will call for major revisions to the above analysis! However, the basic idea should still hold, i.e., that the human race should be able to develop itself into post-‐humans that can impose themselves on the universe until the natural limits of such imposition are reached. The end-‐point could be remarkably close to the traditional Christian God.
For the time being, this analysis offers a conceptual framework for evaluating developments in science and engineering in the context of the search for God. The proposed synthesis offers perhaps the least unlikely explanation of how and why we came to be. It also offers the prospect of reconciliation between the teaching of the Christian Church and modern science. If Christians can accept the idea that God is mega-‐potent rather than omni-‐potent, and scientists that a life form far more advanced than ourselves probably helped to create us, then there is no cause for fundamental disagreement. Perhaps faith and science will ultimately be reconciled when, with the guidance of Jesus and the Holy Ghost, we finally deify the cosmos.
In summary, perhaps the best argument for the existence of a God who helped to create us is that we seem to have the capability of developing ourselves in the next God, who will go on to create the next cycle of life.
Let us finish with a well-‐known joke (?). Once upon a time, there was a major research project aimed at finding the meaning of life. All the big computers were linked together and asked if God existed. After a pause, during which the computers trembled a little, the answer came back, “He does now!”
[All Biblical quotations are from the NRSV]
David Ashford
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Ethel Raine: The untold story of a woman who spied for Britain during the Great War
MI5 confirmed to Raine's grandson of his grandmother's incredible occupation, and he began investigating... David Gosling was for four years principal of Edwardes College in Peshawar, trying to keep the Taliban from his academy in the old British North-‐West Frontier Province of what is now Pakistan. But he could scarcely imagine receiving a letter from MI5 confirming that his own grandmother, Ethel Raine, had served the British empire in its heyday as “a member of the Security Service between 1915 and 1920”. But then came the rebuff: “Unfortunately we are unable to provide any further details of her work as records were destroyed many years ago. I am sorry if this is disappointing news…” But like the academic he is, Mr Gosling has found out a lot about his grandmother – and duly passed it on to me: fake names, spies’ identities, even telephone numbers. Known to her future family as “Aunt Betty”, the daughter of Sir Walter Raine, post-‐Great War MP for Sunderland, was working in Belgium when the Germans invaded in 1914 but made her way safely back to England. A century ago, in 1915, the 27-‐year-‐old joined British counter-‐intelligence – then called MO5 – under Sir Vernon Kell, a half-‐Polish veteran of the Boxer Rebellion, one of whose tasks was to spy on Indian nationalist groups in Europe, especially those which might be helping Germany. Ethel Raine was privately educated – she spoke fluent French – and found herself working alongside not only Kell but also Frank Hall, the former Northern Irish UVF officer who ran guns into what is now Northern Ireland before the First World War. He later participated in the interrogation of another Irish gun-‐runner, Roger Casement, who was hanged for high treason in 1916, the year after Ethel Raine joined MI5. “All Aunt Betty ever said about her wartime experiences,” Mr Gosling tells me, “was that she worked for the War Office and that her section included the nephew of the former Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli – which suggests that some of the people around her were of upper-‐class origin.” Ethel was probably appointed to work in one of Sir Vernon’s three departments: espionage, co-‐ordination of aliens and records. MI5 had 27,000 subject files by 1917, some of them involving the so-‐called “Hindu-‐German conspiracy” which threatened the British empire’s stability in the subcontinent, flourishing in several then-‐Indian cities, including – ironically enough, since it was David Gosling’s old Pakistani stomping ground in the late-‐1990s – Peshawar on the North-‐West Frontier. In her old age, Ethel never mentioned the seductive German spy Mata Hari, a Dutch
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national who was suspected of treachery by MI5 and later executed by the French in October 1917. But she may have known about her.
This article by Robert Fisk appeared in The Independent in February 2015
A Meditation used in part of Earth Hour in Hereford Cathedral in March 2015
The WORLD is unknown till the Value and Glory of it is seen, till the Beauty and Serviceableness of all its parts is considered. When you enter into it, it is an Unlimited field of Variety and Beauty where you may lose yourself in the multitude of wonder and delights. But it is a happy loss to lose oneself in admiration at one’s own Felicity: and to find God in exchange for oneself. Which we then do when we see Him in his Gifts and adore his Glory.
Your enjoyment of the World is never right till every morning you awake in Heaven, see yourself in your Father’s palace; and look upon the skies, the earth and the air as Celestial Joys; having such a reverent esteem of all as if you were among the Angels …
Thomas Traherne ‘Centuries’ 1670
O thou who through the light of nature hast aroused in us a longing for the light of grace, so that we may be raised in the light of thy majesty, I give thanks, Creator and Lord, that thou allowest me to rejoice in thy works. Praise the Lord ye heavenly harmonies. For from him, through him and in him, all is, which is perceptible as well as spiritual; that which we know and that which we do not know, for there is still much to learn. Amen.
Johannes Kepler 1571 -‐ 1630
Contributed by Maureen Palmer