Transhumanism in The Amazing Spider-Man

Tuesday, November 13. 2012

Transhumanism in The Amazing Spider-Man

So the other day on my blogging break my family made me sit down and watch the new Spider-Man movie, "The Amazing Spider-Man". I don't know why they had to make yet another Spider-Man flick, but for the sake of family unity I cuddled up on the coach and watched.

Recently, I hit a bunch of unsuspecting Catholic women at an innocuous book club over the head with the reality that transhumanist ideas are everywhere and that our children are soaking them up like a sponge. "The Amazing Spider-Man" was full of them.

I appreciated that the depiction of transhumanism, called "cross-species genetics" in the movie was a negative one. Dr. Connors, in a desperate attempt to keep his job and regrow his lost arm, injects himself with what I assume is a concoction of reptile DNA. In a total suspension of disbelief, Dr. Connors gets his arm back and then some when he turns into something horrific, the vile character of the Lizard that is whole, strong and, in the Lizard's opinion, superior to all humanity.

But Dr. Connors doesn't stop there. He wants the whole human race to share in his new found genetic superiority. He now understands that humans are weak and pathetic and it isn't good enough to fix us. He needs to change us and it is for our own good. In a monologue in the the depths of the sewer, Dr. Connors muses, "This is no longer about curing ills. This is about finding perfection." (At which point my 10 year-old son whispers to me, "Don't say a word, Mom. Don't say a word.") Dr. Connors, of course, attempts to bring all of New York City into his genetic nirvana.

I was heartened that Dr. Connors was such a tragic figure as super-heroes and villains with super powers have traditionally been. So why does the depiction of a lizard-man in a silly remake of a silly comic matter? Because I hear Dr. Connor's monologue everywhere coming from normal everyday people. People like this commenter at the transhumanist site Singularity Hub who tells us how he or she really feels about being human:

"Who doesn’t want to be smarter, prettier, healthier? Who doesn’t want to have wings to fly through the air, or gills to breathe under water? Are we stuck just being land dwellers? We spend most of our lives OBTAINING and MAINTAINING health, beauty, intelligence, etc., when we could be spending all this time and money obtaining and maintaining loving relationships with other people (transhumanists!) and going on adventures out to space exploring the universe, rather than stuck at home watching crap movies from Hollywood, going to school half our lives and drowning in debt because of it, and then just paying bills and taxes till you die. That’s no life, that’s SLAVERY.

Transhumanism is the answer to the racism, sickness, death, ugliness and stupidity. Transhumanism is the ultimate solution to be able to live up to our fullest godlike potential. The creative potential is limitless! I can’t wait to experience more, not being trapped inside these biologically frail, disease-prone bodies!

The screenwriters from "The Amazing Spider Man" could have put these exact words in the mouth of Dr. Connors. Take note that this person qualifies who "people" are: other transhumanists. Join them or be inferior, considered less than a person.

Do your children a favor: use these super-hero movies as a way to talk about what it means to be human, how God loves us just the way we are, and going beyond curing disease and disability to changing our God-given nature is a disaster waiting to happen. My 10 year-old son can spot a transhumanist story line from a mile away. Can yours?

Posted by Rebecca Taylor in Transhumanism at 09:10 | Comments (5) | Trackbacks (0)

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I dispute that it has anything at all to do with god.

Regardless of your beliefs, science tells us that messing with evolution can have dire consequences.

#1 RAT DOG (Homepage) on 2012-11-13 11:05 (Reply)

Really? Where does science tell us anything of the kind? What is the scientific definition of "dire"? How does one define what is or is not a desirable set of consequences? I'm curious to know the physical properties of this desirability, since those are the only thing SCIENCE can deal with.

Also, science shows us just the opposite—the only reason we're 7 billion industrialized citizens rather than a few million hunter-gathering savages is that we messed around with evolution in a big way. Namely, a little thing called the Neolithic Revolution, otherwise known as "the invention of agriculture".

And seriously, we messed around with wheat so much that there are now two varieties of it that are chromosomally incompatible: we CAUSED SPECIATION, I'm unclear as to how we could've messed with evolution MORE.

#1.1 Anonymous on 2012-11-15 17:56 (Reply)

Someone should tell that Transhumanist whiny-baby that we have wings to fly and we can breathe under water, it's called airplanes and submarines. Again, don't modify your bodies, just make better tech—why reinvent the leg, when you can build wheels? Only an idiot thinks implanting something in their brain that can be bricked by a faulty software update is preferable to, you know, carrying an iPhone.

Also, it doesn't matter one whit how genetically or cybernetically enhanced your body is, the dangers of real space travel's will kill you just as dead as if you were a quadriplegic with Down's Syndrome and sickle cell anemia. Nothing can EVOLVE to withstand the dangers of fusion rockets—I must've missed all those vaporization- or gamma ray-proof animals.

You need a combination of good SHIP technology and good safety PROCEDURES, and as I have said before, a transhumanist liberaltarian society, with its puerile hatred of rules as such, would be incapable of having space travel whose death toll per voyage didn't dwarf that of the Atlantic slave-trade triangle.

#2 Tom in AZ on 2012-11-15 17:50 (Reply)

That one above was me, I'm not used to having to sign in on every comment.

#3 Tom in AZ on 2012-11-15 17:57 (Reply)

Transhumanism much like the evolution agenda was told its in the garden of Eden the enemy is working non stop for humans to take the mark of the beast in those last days

Genesis 1:26 (KJV) 26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Genesis 1:27 (KJV) 27 So God created man in his [own] image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Genesis 3:4 (KJV) 4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

Genesis 3:5 (KJV) 5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

#4 Disciple74 (Homepage) on 2012-12-29 03:20 (Reply)

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