The Soul of Trans‐Humanism

Abstract: This article tackles the question: how should Christian theologians think about the human soul in light of the challenges posed by the new emphasis in brain‐mind identity in neuroscience and trasn‐humanism? Ways of improving human nature through medical therapy, genetic enhancement, and trans‐human cybernetic immortality are explored; and their assumptions are correlated with a spectrum of Christian theories of the soul such as substance dualism, emergent dualism, nonreductive physicalism, and materialism. Finally, the article concludes that the human person should be thought of relationally, and the dimension that is decisive for resurrection is the relation of the soul to God.     

Immigration Opposition Among U.S. Whites: General Ethnocentrism or Media Priming of Attitudes About Latinos?

General ethnocentrism seems to be a powerful antecedent of immigration opinion, typically displaying larger effects than economic concerns. News about immigration, however, may focus attention on a particular group in a given historical moment. We predict group‐specific affect, not general ethnocentrism, should most powerfully shape immigration policy opinion in the contemporary United States. We test this expectation with content analyses of news coverage, survey data from 1992 to 2008, a survey experiment, and official statistics. First, we find that mentions of Latinos in news coverage of immigration outpace mentions of other groups beginning in 1994, the year when Proposition 187, a proposal in California to end most social welfare and educational assistance to illegal immigrants, garnered significant national attention. Second, while ethnocentrism dominates economic concerns in explanations of Whites' immigration policy opinions, attitudes toward Latinos in particular account for nearly all of the impact of ethnocentrism since 1994. Finally, journalistic attention to Latino immigration roughly parallels actual rates of immigration from Latin America, suggesting the media shaping of policy opinion around this group may be driven by real‐world demographic patterns.     

The Spirituality of Justification

The doctrine of justification‐by‐faith has gathered enough dust on its shelf in the museum of antiquated doctrines. When we draw justification‐by‐faith out where we can take a good look at it, it glistens like a mirror. It reflects back to us human beings who we are. We are self‐justifiers. In the name of justice, we perpetrate violence. The pursuit of justice does as much damage as the pursuit of injustice, unfortunately. Like a mirror, justification‐by‐faith reveals who we are and announces that God justifies us by grace. This means we do not have to self‐justify. Liberated from self‐justification, the Christian is free to love for the sake of the beloved.     

Direct phenomenal beliefs,cognitive significance,and the specious present

Chalmers (The character of consciousness, 2010) argues for an acquaintance theory of the justification of direct phenomenal beliefs. A central part of this defense is the claim that direct phenomenal beliefs are cognitively significant. I argue against this. Direct phenomenal beliefs are justified within the specious present, and yet the resources available with the present ‘now’ are so impoverished that it barely constrains the content of a direct phenomenal belief. I argue that Chalmers’s account does not have the resources for explaining how direct phenomenal beliefs support the inference from ‘this _E is R’ to ‘that was R.’     

Environmental toxicants and developmental disabilities: a challenge for psychologists

Developmental, learning, and behavioral disabilities are a significant public health problem. Environmental chemicals can interfere with brain development during critical periods, thereby impacting sensory, motor, and cognitive function. Because regulation in the United States is based on limited testing protocols and essentially requires proof of harm rather than proof of lack of harm, some undefined fraction of these disabilities may reflect adverse impacts of this "vast toxicological experiment" (H. L. Needleman, as quoted in B. Weiss & P. J. Landrigan, 2000, p. 373). Yet the hazards of environmental pollutants are inherently preventable. Psychologists can help prevent developmental disabilities by mobilizing and affecting public policy, educating and informing consumers, contributing to interdisciplinary research efforts, and taking action within their own homes and communities to reduce the toxic threat to children.     

EXTINCTION,NATURAL EVIL,AND THE COSMIC CROSS

Did the God of the Bible create a Darwinian world in which violence and suffering (disvalue) are the means by which the good (value) is realized? This is Christopher Southgate's insightful and dramatic formulation of the theodicy problem. In addressing this problem, the Exeter theologian rightly invokes the Theology of the Cross in its second manifestation, that is, we learn from the cross of Jesus Christ that God is present to nonhuman as well as human victims of predation and extinction. God co‐suffers with creatures in their despair, abandonment, physical suffering, and death. What I will add with more force than Southgate is this: the Easter resurrection is a prolepsis of the eschatological new creation, and it is God's new creation which retroactively determines past creation. Although this does not eliminate the theodicy question, it lessens its moral sting.