When I was 8 or 9 years old, I acquired a split beaver magazine. You can imagine my disappointment when, upon examination of the photos with a microscope, I found that all I could see was dots.
The human soul is no more and no less than a suite of software running on wetware known colloquially as “brains”. Like I said, we’re made of meat.
Or lego. Or matter. Or spirit. You see, it doesn’t matter what we’re made of. Because what we are is not what we’re made of. What we are is what we’re made into.
They’re made out of meat.
Meat?
Meat. They’re made out of meat.
Meat?
There’s no doubt about it. We picked several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, probed them all the way through. They’re completely meat.
That’s impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars.
They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don’t come from them. The signals come from machines.
So who made the machines? That’s who we want to contact.
They made the machines. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Meat made the machines.
That’s ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You’re asking me to believe in sentient meat.
I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in the sector and they’re made out of meat.
Maybe they’re like the Orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage.
Nope. They’re born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn’t take too long. Do you have any idea the life span of meat?
Spare me. Okay, maybe they’re only part meat. You know, like the Weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside.
Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads like the Weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They’re meat all the way through.
No brain?
Oh, there is a brain all right. It’s just that the brain is made out of meat!
So… what does the thinking?
You’re not understanding, are you? The brain does the thinking. The meat.
Thinking meat! You’re asking me to believe in thinking meat!
Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you getting the picture?
Omigod. You’re serious then. They’re made out of meat.
Finally, Yes. They are indeed made out meat. And they’ve been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years.
So what does the meat have in mind?
First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the universe, contact other sentients, swap ideas and information. The usual.
We’re supposed to talk to meat?
That’s the idea. That’s the message they’re sending out by radio. ‘Hello. Anyone out there? Anyone home?’ That sort of thing.
They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?
Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat.
I thought you just told me they used radio.
They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat.
Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?
Officially or unofficially?
Both.
Officially, we are required to contact, welcome, and log in any and all sentient races or multi-beings in the quadrant, without prejudice, fear, or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing.
I was hoping you would say that.
It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?
I agree one hundred percent. What’s there to say?” `Hello, meat. How’s it going?’ But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?
Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can’t live on them. And being meat, they only travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact.
So we just pretend there’s no one home in the universe.
That’s it.
Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you have probed? You’re sure they won’t remember?
They’ll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into their heads and smoothed out their meat so that we’re just a dream to them.
A dream to meat! How strangely appropriate, that we should be meat’s dream.
And we can mark this sector unoccupied.
Good. Agreed, officially and unofficially. Case closed. Any others? Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy?
Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence in a class nine star in G445 zone. Was in contact two galactic rotations ago, wants to be friendly again.
They always come around.
And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the universe would be if one were all alone.
They’re Made Out Of Meat
by Terry Bisson
From “Bears Discover Fire and Other Stories,” Copyright © 1994, Tor Books
Used By Permission
What separates our Modern society from savagery and Barbarism? Not a Lot.
If we are to assume We enjoy a higher quality of life today because of Lessons hard learned from the mistakes of history, I regret to say we are fast forgetting them…and thus doomed to repeat the process.
I was stimulated to such contemplations today when confronted by blunt and self-righteous calls to not bother giving The Norwegian Mass murderer Brevick a trial… apparently He does not deserve one… but ought to be lynched or shot.
Silly me. Here was I criticizing the Norwegian justice system for not allowing Anders Behring Breivik to say what he wanted in his own defence (Apparently they feel that if they allow him to read his 8000 word ‘New Manifesto’ that he will somehow be ‘winning a personal victory’… or may inspire other psychos to join his cause). I was saying that The Trial needs to follow due process, not muzzle the defendant… yet I was met with howls of Hatred that said that no trial was necessary…
“You would not be ‘so easy’ on him if he had killed one of your kids.” Quoth He.
I tried to explain to my detractors that if they were to simply execute him that they would in fact be no better than him, as he thought he had the right to execute 77 people without trial too.
I said It is vitally important that He gets a proper defence and is not unduly restricted from voicing his reasons why he did what he did.
That this will involve enduring a hatful and deluded tirade, which he will no doubt take great pleasure in preaching to the Media of the world… is not a good enough reason to deny him due process.
“The Bastard does not deserve it”… !!!! ???
A Fair trial is not a reward, Its not a prize, It’s an essential process which attempts to assure an Impartial judgement so that innocent people are not wrongfully punished. This is part of the vital machinery which differentiates a Civil society from a barbaric one governed by UTU/ vengeance.
“The Court case will cost Millions of Dollars! Why waste the money on a scum bag like him!” Quoth He…
I replied that I much prefer my Taxes go towards having a good justice system, rather than Paying hundreds of millions of Dollars in ‘bail outs’ or to Bludgers to sit on the dole or DPB!
I said that having a well organised and funded Justice system is one of the Few Legitimate and necessary duties of Government.
Was this little smoko room chat an oddity or was it an indication of a common mindset?
It appears to me that here in NZ, as in Norway that people have indeed forgotten what justice and civilisation is all about. Today people are more concerned with vengeance, and are not prepared to endure what must be endured for the sake of Justice.
Yes It is scary to realise just how thin is the skin of our civilisation… how close to Barbarism we lurk, and how easily tyranny could take advantage of the prevailing darkness.
I hope the Norwegians give Brevick a fair and just trial.
That is the only way he can be convicted fairly and justly punished… And Norway can maintain their claim to be a civil society.
Tim Wikiriwhi.
Book Reveiw. http://undpress.nd.edu/book/P00167
“Focusing on the issues from the standpoint of philosophical theology, Walls explores the doctrine of hell in relation to both the divine nature and human nature. He argues that some traditional versions of the doctrine are compatible not only with God’s omnipotence and omniscience, but also with a strong account of His perfect goodness.”
Reviews
“This book is a gem, clearly written and accessible to philosophers and non-philosophers alike. Within a fairly brief scope it covers the central issues and arguments relevant to its topic . . . Further, the book makes a case that universalists will find very hard to answer.” —Religious Studies
“Walls . . . does not think that because a culture trivializes the concept of hell it does not exist, nor does he think that belief in the existence of hell compromises belief in a good and loving God.”—Christian Century
“Hell: The Logic of Damnation is a forcefully argued reopening of questions that most liberal theologians had long thought to be decisively closed. . . . Jerry Walls has provided a bracing antidote to the moral frivolity and evil of our time.”—First Things
Sorry about this next one Richard. Get well soon Robin!
This is the eleventh in a 13-part series wherein I give you Hell, a little booklet by the inimitable Dr. Jeff Obadiah Simmonds.
A very significant text is Matthew 25.41, 46:
“Then he will say to those on his left: ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels’…”
…Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”This is a key verse for those who believe in an eternal torment for the unrighteous.
Firstly, we read that hell is “an eternal fire”—we may admit that hell itself is eternal, but not necessarily that those thrown into it will be eternally tormented. Again, an “eternal punishment” is one which endures forever. Remember the message of Isaiah concerning the Edomites—this will be an “eternal punishment”: no survivors will remain. In this way “all evildoers… will be forever destroyed” (Ps 92.7).
The fate of the wicked is contrasted with that of the righteous—which is “eternal life” or immortality. If the righteous receive eternal life as a reward, the wicked do not receive eternal life, they receive eternal death—an eternal punishment not of torment but of extinction.
The word “punishment” here is derived from a Greek word meaning “to prune” trees. If one imagines humanity as a tree with good and bad branches, the judgement is one in which the bad branches will be pruned and cut off from the source of life, so that they die. Jesus said:
“I am the vine, you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in Me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.” (John 15.5-6)
Again, the image of fire is one of destruction. Having been removed from its life-source, the branch “withers” and becomes dead wood. In a similar way, God—the One who is immortal—is our source of life. Those who are removed from Him wither and perish. They are thrown into the fire, not as “immortal souls” in endless torment, but as dead wood which is consumed and is no more.
Again, we must ask what the point of the parable of the sheep and the goats is. Those who receive this “eternal punishment” are those who have not visited the sick and imprisoned, fed the hungry, given clothing to the naked and shown hospitality to the stranger. It would be incomprehensible if God were to punish those who have not alleviated suffering by causing infinitely more suffering Himself. God would be condemning flawed humans for doing something that He Himself does! Indeed, God’s actions would be worse than those He is condemning, since the damned are merely those who passively did not help those who suffered, whereas God would be actively causing endless suffering.
However, we should understand this judgement to be one in which they depart “into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Mt 25.41), a fire which consumes and destroys that which is thrown into it.
There are actually two words used in the Gospels which are translated as “hell.” The first, Hades, is the equivalent of the Hebrew word “Sheol.” This refers not to “hell” as such—to a place of eternal torment—but to the abode of the dead. Often, in the Old Testament, this is simply translated as “the grave.”
The other word is “Gehenna.” This was an actual place outside Jerusalem. Gehenna was the name of the city dump of Jerusalem. It was a ravine south of the city—rubbish, animal carcasses and the corpses of criminals were thrown into this refuse pit. This tip was constantly burning. Jesus used this image of Gehenna to refer to the fate of the unrepentant. However, a criminal thrown into Gehenna was already dead—he was not tormented by the fire which burned day and night. The image, therefore, is one of extinction and destruction, not of enduring torture. There are half a dozen references to this valley in the Gospel of Matthew.
Jesus says that a person who calls another person “fool” will be “in danger of the fire of Gehenna” (Mt 5.22). Is Jesus saying that those who call others “fools” will be eternally tortured in an after-life in the centre of the earth? Or is He using the metaphor, familiar to His audience, of destruction?
Jesus said that it is better to enter heaven with one eye than be thrown into “Gehenna” with two, where “the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9.48). This is also taken as evidence for an eternal torment. However, unquenchable fire and undying worms do not necessarily demand an eternal torment. Jesus is quoting Isaiah 66.24:
And they will go and look at the dead bodies of those who rebelled against Me; their worm will not die, nor will their fire be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind.
These “worms,” or maggots, feed on corpses—on dead bodies—not on the living. Those upon whom the maggots feed are not being tormented, but have ceased to be.
Are you lego or logos?
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Philosopher Nicholas F. Gier explains the Logos Christology of the Gospel of John.
The famous prologue begins: “In the beginning was the logos, and the logos was with God, and the logos was God.” The standard English translation of logos is Word, following the basic meaning of lego as to say or speak. In other words, God is the author of the logic of the world, and his son is the expression of this logic. Furthermore, in the Genesis account of creation God speaks, or as Leonard Bernstein has suggested, sings the structure of the world into being. In Christian theology Christ is the one who orders the world; he is the one who puts it together, gives it meaning, and then redeems it from its fallen state. As Paul states: “For in him all things were created . . . and in him all things hold together” (Col. 1:16-17).
The etymology of the logos, the Greek word behind “reason” and “logic,” shows that the idea of synthesis is at the origin of these words. The Greek logos is the verbal noun of lego, which, if we follow one root leg means “to gather,” “to collect,” “to pick up,” “to put together,” and later “to speak or say.” We already have the basic ideas of any rational endeavor. We begin by collecting individual facts and thoughts and put them together in an orderly way and usually say something about what we have created.
There are three Reasons that I prefer Andrew Sullivan’s translation (and mine) of λόγος.
In the beginning was Reason, and Reason was with God, and Reason was God.
[Proudly powered by LOGOS™.]
The Beautiful Ellie Goulding. “I’m a Believer!”
“For the invisible things of Him from the Creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so they are without excuse”
St Paul Romans 1vs20
How is it possible to think *all this* has no design, no meaning?
Tim Wikiriwhi
“Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.” (St Paul Colossians 2vs8)
The fool hath said in his heart “There is not God”.
Jesus said….”Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.”
