The following is a very interesting -- and eye-opening -- article about Ray
Kurzweil and other techno-utopians, such as Bill Gates, Sergey Brin and
Larry Page -- the founders of Google -- and other very rich technocrats who
believe that the day is coming when man will eventually become one with his
machines. These are all very bright people -- geniuses in fact -- who are
greatly respected by people in high places. While some people may believe
that what they have to say sounds absolutely crazy, Kurzweil and his fellow
techno-utopians are absolutely convinced that these things will begin to
come to pass in about another twenty years.

Before you read the following article, allow me to share a few verses with
you:

"And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles
which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that
dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had
the wound by a sword, and did live. And he had power to give life unto the
image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause
that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed."
Revelation 13:14-15, KJV

"This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish."
James 3:15, KJV

Believe it or not, but even now, we the public are slowly being prepped to
accept these things. For example, look at TV series like Battlestar
Galactica with its human-looking Cylons, and its spin-off series "Caprica",
which details how the first Cylons were created. While we are told that
shows like these are just science fiction, this is exactly the kind of
future that these techno-utopians envision for us; that is, humans melding
with machines, and they are very serious about it.

And what will happen to those people who resist accepting all of the coming
new technology? Well, consider this chilling paragraph taken from the
following article. He is specifically targeting Christians who accept the
Genesis account of Creation:

----- Begin Quote ----

"There are enormous social and political issues that will arise,"
Mr. Clarke
says. "There are vast groups of people in society who believe the earth is
5,000 years old. If they want to slow down progress and prevent the world
from changing around them and they engaged in political action or violence,
then there will have to be some sort of decision point."

----- End Quote -----

Of course, as I have pointed out before, as a result of his pride, man just
loves to boast about his accomplishments, or what he hopes to accomplish in
the future. That is what secular humanism is all about. Science has promised
us great things for many decades, a lot of which have never come to pass.
The question is: What about the things that are described in the following
article? Is it just wishful thinking, or will God allow man to advance this
far? Time will certainly tell.


Merely Human? That's So Yesterday

By ASHLEE VANCE - NYT

June 11, 2010


ON a Tuesday evening this spring, Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google,
became part man and part machine. About 40 people, all gathered here at a
NASA campus for a nine-day, $15,000 course at Singularity University, saw it
happen.

While the flesh-and-blood version of Mr. Brin sat miles away at a computer
capable of remotely steering a robot, the gizmo rolling around here
consisted of a printer-size base with wheels attached to a boxy, head-height
screen glowing with an image of Mr. Brin's face. The BrinBot obeyed its
human commander and sputtered around from group to group, talking to
attendees about Google and other topics via a videoconferencing system.

The BrinBot was hardly something out of "Star Trek." It had a rudimentary,
no-frills design and was a hodgepodge of loosely integrated technologies.
Yet it also smacked of a future that the Singularity University founders
hold dear and often discuss with a techno-utopian bravado: the arrival of
the Singularity -- a time, possibly just a couple decades from now, when a
superior intelligence will dominate and life will take on an altered form
that we can't predict or comprehend in our current, limited state.

At that point, the Singularity holds, human beings and machines will so
effortlessly and elegantly merge that poor health, the ravages of old age
and even death itself will all be things of the past.

Some of Silicon Valley's smartest and wealthiest people have embraced the
Singularity. They believe that technology may be the only way to solve the
world's ills, while also allowing people to seize control of the
evolutionary process. For those who haven't noticed, the Valley's
most-celebrated company -- Google -- works daily on building a giant brain
that harnesses the thinking power of humans in order to surpass the thinking
power of humans.

Larry Page, Google's other co-founder, helped set up Singularity University
in 2008, and the company has supported it with more than $250,000 in
donations. Some of Google's earliest employees are, thanks to personal
donations of $100,000 each, among the university's "founding circle." (Mr.
Page did not respond to interview requests.)

The university represents the more concrete side of the Singularity, and
focuses on introducing entrepreneurs to promising technologies. Hundreds of
students worldwide apply to snare one of 80 available spots in a separate
10-week "graduate" course that costs $25,000. Chief executives, inventors,
doctors and investors jockey for admission to the more intimate, nine-day
courses called executive programs.

Both courses include face time with leading thinkers in the areas of
nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, energy, biotech, robotics and
computing.

On a more millennialist and provocative note, the Singularity also offers a
modern-day, quasi-religious answer to the Fountain of Youth by affirming the
notion that, yes indeed, humans -- or at least something derived from them
-- can have it all.

"We will transcend all of the limitations of our biology," says Raymond
Kurzweil, the inventor and businessman who is the Singularity's most
ubiquitous spokesman and boasts that he intends to live for hundreds of
years and resurrect the dead, including his own father. "That is what it
means to be human -- to extend who we are."

But, of course, one person's utopia is another person's dystopia.

In the years since the Unabomber, Theodore J. Kaczynski, violently inveighed
against the predations of technology, plenty of other more sober and
sophisticated warnings have arrived. There are camps of environmentalists
who decry efforts to manipulate nature, challenges from religious groups
that see the Singularity as a version of "Frankenstein" in which
people play
at being gods, and technologists who fear a runaway artificial intelligence
that subjugates humans.

A popular network television show, "Fringe," playfully explores some of
these concerns by featuring a mad scientist and a team of federal agents
investigating crimes related to the Pattern -- an influx of threatening
events caused by out-of-control technology like computer programs that melt
brains and genetically engineered chimeras that go on killing sprees.

Some of the Singularity's adherents portray a future where humans break off
into two species: the Haves, who have superior intelligence and can live for
hundreds of years, and the Have-Nots, who are hampered by their antiquated,
corporeal forms and beliefs.

Of course, some people will opt for inadequacy, while others will have
inadequacy thrust upon them. Critics find such scenarios unnerving because
the keys to the next phase of evolution may be beyond the grasp of most
people.

"The Singularity is not the great vision for society that Lenin had or
Milton Friedman might have," says Andrew Orlowski, a British journalist who
has written extensively on techno-utopianism. "It is rich people building a
lifeboat and getting off the ship."

Peter A. Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal and a major investor in Facebook, is
a Singularity devotee who offers a "Singularity or bust" scenario.

"It may not happen, but there are a lot of technologies that need to be
developed for a whole series of problems to be solved," he says. "I think
there is no good future in which it doesn't happen."

'Transcendent Man'

In late August, Mr. Kurzweil will begin a cross-country multimedia road show
to promote "Transcendent Man," a documentary about his life and beliefs.
Another of his projects, "The Singularity Is Near: A True Story About the
Future," has also started to make its way around the film festival circuit.

Throughout "Transcendent Man," Mr. Kurzweil is presented almost
as a mystic,
sitting in a chair with a shimmering, circular light floating around his
head as he explains his philosophy's basic tenets. During one scene at a
beach, he is asked what he's thinking as he stares out at a beautiful sunset
with waves rolling in and wind tussling his hair.

"Well, I was thinking about how much computation is represented by the
ocean," he replies. "I mean, it's all these water molecules
interacting with
each other. That's computation."

Mr. Kurzweil is the writer, producer and co-director of "The Singularity Is
Near," the tale of Ramona, a virtual being he builds that gradually becomes
more human, battles hordes of microscopic robots and taps the lawyer Alan M.
Dershowitz for legal advice and the motivational guru Tony Robbins for
guidance on personal interactions.

With his glasses, receding hairline and lecturer's ease, Mr. Kurzweil, 62,
seems more professor than thespian. His films are just another facet of the
Kurzweil franchise, which includes best-selling books, lucrative speaking
engagements, blockbuster inventions and a line of health supplements called
Ray & Terry's (developed with the physician Terry Grossman).


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