Natural Selection

St Mary Magdalene d' Pazzi.  Friday, 29th May, 2020

" At the dawn of the twenty first century Home Sapiens began to break the laws of Natural Selection, replacing them with the laws of Intelligent Design." The development of this could happen in any of three ways: ' through biological engineering, cyborg engineering ( cyborgs are beings that combine organic with non organic parts) and the engineering of in-organic life", so wrote Yuval Harari in his book 'Sapiens'. 

Something deep inside me is disturbed by this. Yet I know that many are excited and galvanised by it seeing knowledge as the vehicle of life.

It seems almost petty to be concerned with other matters, possibly more immediate and mundane. ST Mary Magdalene believed in the Christian God. She believed in the Soul. She believed that a man who walked the earth 2,000 years ago was the Son of God. She trusted Him and His Father, God. It was a complicated theology and the spirituality and lifestyle which flowed from it were expressed in a myriad of ways. She wrote: " Trials are nothing but the forge that purifies the soul of its imperfections". 

I do not believe that faith in the Christian God and faith in Intelligent Design are necessarily contradictory or inimicable. To many the Christian God is not loving and merciful and they site suffering, the human conditions and other such as their justification. Yet to many the Intelligent Designer, whether a human or itself a designed intelligence, is not loving and merciful either. They site curtailing of freedoms, wars, atomic and biological weapons as examples of potential suffering.

At present I am out of my intellectual and emotional depth with both scenarios. I am unable to understand or even prove my faith in either the Christian God or in the human being. So how will I live, by what principles and morals and creed? I will try to live by my faith in God and Man with the creed developed from that particular man born in Bethlehem and crucified on Calvary. 

My doubts and uncertainties will be with me always. I will continue to lament suffering whatever it's source. I will try to be a person of integrity and love. 

In a passage this morning I read :' ...we recognise the false face we've grown used to, the daily lies we tell, the thoughts and deception that crowd our minds...the lovelessness of our lives parading as shallow compassion, our collusion with conformity, our fear of beauty and big dreams'. 

So now I ask forgiveness of both God and man for my failures. 

I hope....