News "as significant as the splitting of the atom"...

Dear Friends,

A very quick email today but with a massive question that follows on from the questions I raised yesterday about how the Church — no that's wrong, who gives a stuff about the institution these days, those who lead it don't seem to give a stuff about us — how do "we" (ordinary pew- or ex-pewsitters and people who still believe the spiritual dimension is important) respond to the huge ethical issues raised today by new technologies. The proverbial ink wasn't yet dry on the questions I had raised yesterday and the news media around the world was announcing a technological breakthrough that has been likened to the "the splitting of the atom". For the first time in all of history, humankind has created "synthetic life".

Click on the image to see the ABC report on this huge technological breakthrough with enormous ethical questions attached to it.

It is a scientific and social development that has massive implications — both exciting and potentially dreadful. The moral and ethical implications of this are possibly even of greater magnitude than the dilemmas raised originally by the splitting of the atom and the development of the nuclear technologies that flowed from that.

IThe tragedy, as I was suggesting in the commentary yesterday is that institutionally Catholicism has increasingly marginalised itself from acting as a "moderating influence" in the great discussions that need to go on in human society as these new technologies take us into uncharted waters. There are limits that we (collective humanity) have to place on ourselves so that we harness the good that is in these technological and social developments but we also remain aware that it is a characteristic of human nature that some will endeavour to exploit new technologies for ends that are ultimately harmful to collective humankind. Who are the arbiters of these "ultimate moral and ethical questions"?

The questions I raised in the lead commentary yesterday have not yet led to significant discussion on Catholica. To those questions I would add in this new question of how ought we respond to this significant scientific breakthrough announced in the news yesterday? If we had our time over again I am sure there are many in society today who would like to put the "splitting of the atom" back in the laboratory. There will be some in the insecure sectors of society who will want to ban "synthetic life" — and you can bet your second last dollar some Catholics will be the most vocal about this. You can bet your last dollar that their protests will not stop the development of synthetic life. This scientific breakthrough is something human society is going to have to learn to live with. The question we (society-at-large) have to deal with is: how do we manage this new technology in a morally responsible way? Over to you for input in response to the questions I raised yesterday and the new ones that flow out of this significant piece of breaking new today...

Meanwhile, I'm close to a big breakthrough myself. Hopefully by this time tomorrow I'll be finished the re-coding of the new home page for the Catholica Spiritual Marketplace. It will be much easier for me to update daily, it will give you, and other readers of Catholica, faster access to literally millions of products on the websites of four of the most respected publishers and distributors. It will provide cheap postage rates wherever you are located in the world for the shipping of products. In its own small way this is as significant as the creation of "synthetic life" — welcome to the cyber shopping world of the future. Meanwhile I can feel another long day-going-into-night of coding for me to complete it all.

<Yesterday's commentary and questions...>
www.catholica.com.au/gc0/bc2/069_bc_210510.php

<ABC New story on the development of Synthetic Life...>
www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/05/21/2905396.htm