The brains of hundreds of pigs reportedly survived for up to 36 hours after they were decapitated
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Once the pigs had been decapitated, their brains were resuscitated and attached to the “BrainEX” closed-loop system that provided them with artificially oxygenated blood.
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The team found that billions of cells in the 100-200 pig brains tested were not only surviving but healthy and functional. Sestan called the result “unexpected,” even “mind-boggling.” He also claimed that not only could the brains be kept alive indefinitely with this method...

Why do you think it is a problem?
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I wonder where did you get an idea that we are so special that we should not go extinct?  

Personally, I think water/carbon life forms are inefficient and eventually will have to be replaced.
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It seems to me you have some Luddite tendencies.

Science will march forward, regardless of what religious folks and their Gods think or do.

Again with this shit? You and the guy who wrote the article are using the incompleteness theorem wrong. I already discussed this with you...

Science works, your metaphysical bullshit pseudo science doesn't. Science keeps bringing results meanwhile religion does nothing. Ok, sometimes they try to disrupt science like with stem cells.

Science works, your metaphysical bullshit pseudo science doesn't. Science keeps bringing results meanwhile religion does nothing. Ok, sometimes they try to disrupt science like with stem cells.

Gene drives force an artificially engineered trait to spread through the natural population until it becomes ubiquitous or crashes that population. The first working gene drives were demonstrated at the end of 2014 using a new gene-editing technique known as CRISPR-CAS9. They work by setting up a genetic enforcement mechanism which copies itself from parent to child, cascading from one generation to the next by sexual reproduction.

Gene drives can entirely re-engineer ecosystems, create fast spreading extinctions, and intervene in living systems at a scale far beyond anything ever imagined. When gene drives are engineered into a fast-reproducing species they could alter their populations within short timeframes, from months to a few years, and rapidly cause extinction. This radical new technology, also called a “mutagenic chain reaction,” [1] is unlike anything seen before. It combines the extreme genetic engineering of synthetic biology and new gene editing techniques with the idea that humans can and should use such powerful unlimited tools to control nature. Gene drives will change the fundamental relationship between humanity and the natural world forever.

The implications for the environment, food security, peace, and even social stability are significant. Dealing with this run-away technology is already being compared to the challenge of governing nuclear power. [2]

...The ethical, cultural and societal implications of gene drives are as enormous as the ecological consequences. Civil society groups (and even some gene drive researchers) are alarmed by this newfound ability to reshape the natural world. However, such an omnipotent power to control nature is immensely tempting to those who may not be constrained by either common decency or common sense. Gene drive technology is commanding the attention of the world’s most powerful military, agribusiness, and social change organizations. Gene drive technology also appears to be relatively simple and cheap, so it could easily fall into the hands of those, including governments, who might use it as a weapon.

Contributing to one of the most controversial topics to date, a panel of science experts in the U.S. just examined and gave their support for germline editing. This means that in the future, parents will likely be able to tamper with the genetics of their children pre-birth.
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The panels were made up of experts from two of the most prestigious scientific institutions in the U.S., both of which recommended that germline editing be viewed as a serious option in the future and not be prohibited.

“[W]e’re going to be creating a world in which the already privileged and affluent can use these high-tech procedures to make children [with] biological advantages,” - Marcy Darnovsky from the Center for Genetics and Society

“Previously, it was easy for people to say, ‘This isn’t possible, so we don’t have to think about it much now we can see a path whereby we might be able to do it..." - Richard Hynes MIT researcher , who helped lead the committee

You are right.  I do not share the same "metaphysical, assumed truths" you listed above.

A : a viewpoint that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded and that existence is senseless and useless

B : a doctrine that denies any objective ground of truth and especially of moral truths

We already have a scientific method that allows us to discover objective truths.

Metaphysical Foundation of Science:
 
✧ The external world is real and knowable.
✧ Nature itself is not divine. It is an object worthy of study, not worship.
✧ The universe is orderly. There is uniformity in nature that allows us to observe past phenomena and to understand and predict future occurrences.
✧ Our minds and senses are capable of accurately observing and understanding the world.

These assumed truths are so deeply ingrained in us now we have difficulty even recognizing them as assumptions but they are necessary for science to exist.

If you don't believe the assumptions science becomes impossible for you. The progress and maintenance of scientific achievement requires that these assumptions be accepted and propagated at least by an educated elite.

The same situation applies to the apriori Truth of God which rests at the foundation of western culture. Undermine the assumption and the whole society starts to wobble.

This is what Nietzsche foresaw when he announced "God is dead" in 1882. Nietzsche predicted drastic consequences as a result. He predicted millions would die in the 20th century in wars of extremist ideologies. Peterson describes these ideologies as parasites that act on a damaged religious substructure.

Nietzsche also predicted that it would not be until the 21st century that we would be forced to acknowledge the crisis of nihilism. These predictions given in 1882 are an intellectual tour de force.

Believing blindly without contemplation still works for some but that blanket of protection is gradually being pulled away. Going forward it will increasingly be necessary to fully define oneself down to your core metaphysical truths. Unless you can look into the abyss of nihilism and reject it with certainty the abyss will sooner or later pull you in.

Just because our universe is incomplete (not all truths can be proven mathematically)... is not a proof of God.  I think people jump the gun on the incompleteness theorem.

Same argument as because the universe was created, and we don't know how and why it was created, there must be something out there that created it.

You are projecting your desires (of filling in the gaps in knowledge) on the outcome of your deduction.  Don't feel bad, Newton did it, and many other smart people after him.  Still the reasoning is wrong, regardless of who proclaims it.

I agree with you on the fundamentalism.  You don't need religion for that.
 

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You have been indoctrinated into believing that if you don't believe into some God you are automatically destined to be an immoral person.  I don't know where you got your idea.  Church?

People are inherently good or bad, regardless of their religion or irreligion.

I am telling you the Bronze Age morals and world view is not the way to go forward.  If it was not for the secular movement, Christians would be burning scientists, gays and atheists at the stake.

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This ideology is evil at its core.

Secular, democratic system is the best system for preventing dictatorships and slaughter of the opposition.

Today, just like in the past, any state where religion runs the show leads to genocide of minorities, and non-religious citizenry.

"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." - Benjamin Franklin

“Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks, no form of government, can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea. If there be sufficient virtue and intelligence in the community, it will be exercised in the selection of these men; so that we do not depend upon their virtue, or put confidence in our rulers, but in the people who are to choose them.” - James Madison

“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.” - George Washington

In Amish communities, women/girls are work slaves, have to be quiet and obey men.  I bet you the verses I listed are recited during Sunday's mass to keep them in line.

Any ideology where you cannot question the core tenets leads to tyranny.

The British government’s decision to allow two critically ill babies to die in two years is a natural reflection of the culture of death and the steady increase in totalitarian tendencies among Western governments

Last year, the British government ordered life support removed from Charlie Gard, ending his life when he was just 11 months old. Now, Alfie Evans – just 23 months old – has received what amounts to the same death sentence. On Monday, he was removed from life support by court order – against the wishes of his parents.

Then something remarkable happened. The child confounded his doctors and refused to die.

As of the time I am writing this, Alfie Evans is still alive and is breathing unaided. This is despite the claim made by a medical professional during a court hearing that Alfie would die quickly – possibly in “minutes” – if taken off life support.

At least twice in two years we have seen a supposedly free country’s court system impose what amounts to a death sentence on its most innocent citizens.

But even this display of the power of the human spirit to defy the expectations of the supposedly rational and objective state did nothing to sway the minds of the British courts and state-run medical apparatus.

On Wednesday, another legal appeal by Alfie’s parents to be allowed to try and save their son’s life was denied.

The secular system has asserted its right to define what lives are worth living and is determined to prevent its authority from being questioned. Alfie Evans’ life – like Charlie Gard’s before him – has been determined to be limited by the standards of the secular state, and therefore without value.

These tragic government-imposed death sentences for innocent infants should frighten all of us about increasing secularism in society and the steady shift towards a totalitarian willingness to control our lives – down to and including ending them – on the government’s terms.

This is a direct assault on the core premise of the Declaration of Independence. We Americans asserted that we “are endowed by (our) Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” In the American Revolution, in our fight against the British crown, we asserted that rights come from God – not from government.

However, our secular, liberal culture increasingly dismisses the concept of God and asserts that our rights come from a rational contract enforced by government.

In the original American model, we asserted our God-given rights against the power of a potentially tyrannical government. In the emerging left-wing secular order, since there is no God our rights depend on a secular state controlling itself.

Britain is giving us a vivid, tragic sense of how dangerous and heartless government tyranny can be once God is rejected and there is nothing between us and the government.

Ironically, this latest decision was made the same year Stephen Hawking died – 55 years after he was diagnosed with ALS (commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease) and told he had only two years to live.

Apparently, the British government learned no lessons from Hawking’s remarkable lifetime of work and achievement, which he pursued despite having to battle an extraordinarily challenging illness.

In fact, in 1985 Hawking contracted pneumonia while he was writing “A Brief History of Time,” and his wife was asked if his life should be terminated. She refused, and Hawking went on to live another 33 years and publish one of the most acclaimed books of the 20th century, which has since sold more than 10 million copies worldwide. This was all after it was suggested he be taken off life support.

Hawking should be a permanent reminder that the human spirit is more important than the human body, and that the will to live and achieve should not be destroyed by the state.

Yet in the very country that produced and nurtured Hawking, the government still ordered the removal of life support from two babies. In both cases there has been an organized alternative to government-imposed death.

Charlie Gard’s condition was potentially treatable by an experimental process in the United States. An American hospital and other organizations were willing to treat him. Supporters gave more than 1.3 million pounds (about $1.8 million) to pay for the travel and treatment.

Charlie’s parents wanted him to have the chance to live. However, the British bureaucracy took time to consider if he could go to the U.S. for treatment. During that bureaucratic process, his condition worsened. Then it was too late.

While the bureaucratic deliberation continued, Charlie’s parents and those who wanted to try to save him were told they had no right to help their own child. The child belonged to the government, and the government would decide whether he had the right to live.

This year, Alfie Evans had international support for an opportunity to live. The “pope’s hospital” – Bambino Gesù Pediatric Hospital in Rome – has offered to treat Alfie (as it did with Charlie). Pope Francis has publicly appealed to the British government to allow the young boy to be taken to Rome.

An air ambulance was sent to Alfie’s hospital earlier this week to bring him to the doctors who wanted to try for a miraculous cure.

What better place is there to hope for a miracle than in the pope’s pediatric hospital, which has helped many children with rare diseases?

This appeal for hope fell on the deaf ears of the state, which refused to allow Alfie’s parents to transfer their child to Rome. In fact, The Telegraph reported that despite a judge ruling that Alfie’s parents could “explore” taking the child home, doctors treating the child have been against this because they fear that “in the ‘worst case’ they would try to take the boy abroad."

In other words, the “worst case” scenario would be for Alfie’s parents to seek medical help to save their child.

This is monstrous. It is difficult to understand the arrogance and coldness of British judges who prefer to order death rather than allow parents to fight for the lives of their children. Yet at least twice in two years we have seen a supposedly free country’s court system impose what amounts to a death sentence on its most innocent citizens.

Some of this cruelty and inhumanity is a function of the growing culture of death and the expanding sense that secular values must drive religious values out of public life.

Some of it comes from Britain’s National Health Service, which must bureaucratically define what is worth investing in and what is not. In a world of limited medical resources, little babies with rare conditions become expendable “for the greater good.” The fact that we are all diminished makes no difference to the atheist bureaucratic left.

Those who say they favor socialism must be made to confront this inhumanity, which is an integral part of socialist implementation. When the government controls everything, the government defines everything, and humanity is crushed beneath petty rules and petty rulers.

In America, we are watching the steady growth of intolerance and the totalitarian impulse. Look at the campuses that now seek to control speech. Look at the polls that show young people are being educated into support for censorship.

Look at the California Legislature, which is considering legislation that – taken to its logical conclusion – will outlaw the sale and distribution of the Bible and the Koran (the secular society sees both as intolerant, dangerous documents).

When you read about these two babies being denied life support by a supposedly free government, remember what John Donne warned when he wrote “any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

In these two years, we have seen two babies effectively sentenced to death by a government we would once have considered humane. What will the next horror be?

It is a slippery slope to fundamentalism.

Traditional social structures?  Do you agree with

Corinthians 14:34
Timothy 2:12
Colossians 3:18
Ephesians 5:22-33
Corinthians 11:3

Simple yes or no, please.
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Do you hear yourself?  You sound like an Islamist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8b3vhTO248

I think religion has one (original) use case: "To control how people think and behave".

But in today's Internet Age, religions have too much competition from political, all the *-isms, and anti-* movements.

The benefits of religious brainwashing (law abiding citizens) are overshadowed by all the negatives (regressive moral values,
outdated social structures and rejection of the scientific method as an efficient way to learn how the world works).

It is not that atheists do not like religion, it is that atheists do not like it when the religious tell them how to live their lives, or when theists imply that they are better people because of their beliefs: the idea, for example, that faith is a virtue of itself.

Nowadays, in the West, the theists who do these things are a minority - but still quite numerous. The argument about gay marriage, for example: theists saying that other people could not marry because of the theists rules. Wanting theologically inspired mottoes on civil institutions such as courts and money. Appealing to God in public ceremonies.

I think that 'God concept' operates on the principle of "if you build it, they will come", so you have to believe first then God will reveal himself to you.
 
That is why people say: ..."God helps those who help themselves".
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Yes, I know, it is retarded
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Yes, it could happen here.
How? How does a nation reach a point where it will essentially kidnap a child from a loving, functioning family, yank that same child off life support, deny him care as he unexpectedly fights to stay alive, and then block attempts by a foreign government to rescue him and provide him top-notch care free of charge? How does a great civilization sink to such barbarism and tyranny?

There are two stories one could tell — one about policy, the other about philosophy. The policy story traces events like the nationalization of health care, the evolution of family law, and changing doctrines of individual liberty. It is far less important. Policy flows from philosophy, and the philosophy of government is the central reason for the monstrous injustice in Great Britain.

The scary thing is that the same philosophy could well bring the same injustice to the United States.

Let’s back up a bit — all the way to July 1776. That’s the month when the members of the second Continental Congress signed a Declaration stating the fundamental founding principle of a new republic: that “all men are created equal” and “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,” including “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Critically, the Declaration of Independence also stressed that governments are instituted “to secure these rights.” [Emphasis added.]

You’ll notice two things right away. First, there is a fundamentally religious element to America’s founding. The primacy of the “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” is clear and explicit. Second, the state is thus inherently and inescapably subordinate to these laws, existing mainly to protect the rights God grants.

Applying the philosophy of the founding to a case like Alfie Evans’s yields a clear result. The state exists to protect the life and liberty of its citizens. Both are in play here: Alfie’s life and the liberty of his parents to in good faith and with due consideration make health-care decisions on behalf of their sick child. Raised against the backdrop of American liberty, there are millions of Americans who understand this reality almost instinctively, without knowing an ounce of constitutional law. Their very spirit rebels against Great Britain’s actions.

But there are now millions of secularized Americans who have a quite different worldview, as well. The religious element of the founding rings false and hollow to them. They find that the very concept of the “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” should be subordinate to human-defined morality, which — when stripped of its theistic elements — places even the right to life up for debate. While there are many secularists who revere life and treasure the founding values, there is nothing inherent in secularism itself that protects individual liberty.

With no God over the state, the state then becomes not the defender of liberty but the definer of liberty. You have no freedoms except those bestowed by the state, and those freedoms are defined entirely by the various branches of government. There is no inherent parental authority. There is no inherent right to life. There is only the justice the state gives according to the standards the state dictates.

Marry statism to utopianism, and you create an alluring vision that empowers a host of self-righteous evils, centralization and authoritarianism chief among them. If government defines the good, then where is the room for dissent? Does it not merely impede and complicate the administration of social justice?

Consider what’s happened in Britain. Rather than defending a right to life, the state has decided to define which lives are worth living. Rather than protecting the rights of the child only when the parents have manifestly failed, the state has decided that it is the greater, better parent.

The long-term threat to the American experiment isn’t found in any given policy, but rather in a lost philosophy. Americans are shedding a belief in God at an alarming rate. In elite circles, fundamental liberties like free speech and due process are scorned and mocked as tools of white supremacy or oppressive patriarchies. Federalism has been reduced to a tactic of political opposition, not a bipartisan principle of self-governance.

If you don’t want America to become Britain — if you don’t want to wake up one morning to find the American state defying loving and prudent parents to declare that death is in a child’s “best interests” — I would suggest that you not wait until America is secularized, centralized, and authoritarian. I’d suggest that you not wait until the moment when the state has seized the power to act like Britain, and you’re reduced to arguing, “I know the government can do this, but it shouldn’t.”

Because if you wait until then, you’ve already lost.

Across Twitter, I’ve seen conservatives talk about Alfie’s case and discuss “Second Amendment remedies.” Something about that case has unlocked the revolutionary spirit in some American hearts. And rightfully so. Because if our nation reaches the point where it treats children and families the way Britain has treated Alfie and his parents, then the promise of American liberty will be broken. Is Britain’s present a preview of America’s future? It should grieve us greatly to know that the answer to that question is in serious doubt.

Look, you don't have to take it personally, not you or badecker but the fact is that the smarter and more knowledgeable you are the less likely you are to believe in a god.

Edit:  I read the chart like this.  As you go from dull to average (70-100) or in other words everyone below average intelligence you are more likely to be theistic.  As you go from average to genius (100-130)  or in other words above average intelligence tend to be less theistic.

''The uneducated people listen to Bible readings, or read the bible if they have a little education'' and believe it without any proof because they are not smart enough. That's why people with higher IQ tend to believe less in gods. It's what it is badecker, the more stupid you are the more likely you are to believe in god. Don't be mad.

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The governments are just puppets they are nothing, same as presidents or kings, . The people sitting behind them are the big problem.
 

I've also been getting increasingly worried about that possibility. What worries me most is a 1984-style scenario where the game is constructed such that even the people "in charge" can't escape. If someone is in charge, then there's some hope, since I think that almost everyone is at least a little decent, and even most tyrants would not want to completely crush all freedom and virtue. But with technology, I could see humanity trapping itself utterly in some perpetual machine with no freedom or progress of any kind.

I would like to as well. I enjoyed the Agentofcoin read the first time I saw it thanks for the refresher. I plan to spend a few nights reading through your SIG.