Could transhumanism threaten our existence?

In the near future, artificial intelligence could do the thinking, and a robotic combination of human and machine do the lifting. But it’s a potentially dystopic scenario – the poor, the weak, and those who simply believe in humanity as nature intended could be abandoned. These are just some of major ethical challenges posed by so-called transhumanism. Professor JASON EBERL is a bioethicist at St Louis University in Missouri. On the 8th of April, he’ll deliver the annual lecture to the Plunkett Centre for Ethics in Sydney.  Each Easter, we bring you stories from places where war and other disasters can try people’s faith but where, despite great despair, their religious beliefs survive. ASUNTHA CHARLES has worked with the faith-based aid organisation World Vision in Afghanistan under the Taliban and Cox’s Bazaar in Bangladesh, where 1.1 million Rohingya Muslims fled the military regime in Myanmar/Burma. She was in Australia recently with the Micah Women’s Network. Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has backed down after the Vatican and the governments of France, Italy and even the United States protested a decision to block the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pizzaballa, from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. After Israel’s president Isaac Herzog intervened, Netanyahu said the cardinal would have access to all holy sites this Easter. A Sydney bishop is set to take up a top Vatican job. Pope Leo has announced Bishop Anthony Randazzo will become the new Prefect of the Dicastery for Legislative Texts, meaning he’ll be responsible for interpreting and applying church law throughout the Catholic world. He’ll become the most senior Australian cleric in the Vatican since the late George Pell, who held was Prefect for the economy. And finally, the pope had some pointed words for the residents of the world’s wealthiest state. In a day-long visit to Monaco, where one in three people are millionaires, Leo condemned the “idolatry of power and money” and reminded them Jesus was “an advocate” for the poor and outcast.