Jenny Davis was in a cheerful mood as she shed her Academy uniform, sprightly donned a revealing yet tasteful lilac sarong, and strolled into downtown Seattle.
Trains atop monorails glided noiselessly and effortlessly along their magnetic supports. Electric walkways transported pedestrians at speeds up to ten miles per hour toward dozens of different destinations. Traffic lights were noticeable by their absence as self-propelled vehicles furnished with the latest guidance systems carried commuters safely to work while they reclined in a plush back seat and watched local news on TV; they sped smoothly along without ever coming closer than ten feet to any potential obstruction. In an overhead gas station, helicopters docked to refuel at pumps resembling multi-tentacled octopi perched atop a five hundred foot platform boastfully advertising ‘the lowest prices in town’ from a bright orange neon sign visible for miles.
Jenny possessed much more than her quota of good fortune — incisive mind, financial prosperity, adoring mate, rewarding career, slender yet ample figure, warm and friendly emerald green eyes, flowing jet black hair and, as of yesterday, perfect health. Life was good now that her cancer was in remission, even though six months ago her private doctor had diagnosed that it was incurable by conventional methods and recommended the Academy's bio lab as a last resort. Being the only public facility with government sanction to provide non-traditional treatment for a few specified diseases, the lab offered DNA transplants as a promising, but as yet untested, cancer cure.
The infuriatingly long delay in condoning transplant trials for willing terminally ill patients was occasioned by evolutionists who claimed that, by depleting the gene pool, human genetic engineering would thwart nature's plan to keep us sufficiently vigorous to survive severe environmental changes. Resistance only began to thaw significantly when Diane Alvarez published a cogent counterargument in a seminal 2307 work. “In fact the history of life on our planet suggests that the effect of genetic engineering would be just the opposite of what evolutionists predict. The creatures best equipped for environmental change are insects; they will likely be the last surviving multi-cellular organisms on Earth. Evolution brought their coping mechanisms to near perfection long ago and, being satisfied with her handiwork, has nearly halted genetic variation in the hardiest species. Most now replicate with minimal mutation, if any.
“On the other hand, minor genetic differences threaten us with self-destruction: even petty ethnic disputes can lead to war or genocide. Moreover, our feeble race, which has struggled to withstand the various diseases that have already ravaged us, is now confronted with AIDS and bio-terrorism. Insects will certainly outlast us unless we can find a way to catch up. Genetic engineering may be such a way.”
Rogers’ treatise cleared the path for DNA transplants. Technological research flourished in the ensuing decade and quickly advanced to the point where human trials were the logical next step. But before this could be permitted the moral issue as to which attributes should be preserved and which eliminated had to be resolved and theologians reasonably asked, “Who among us is qualified to make such decisions?” As people grew tired of suffering they began to insist that surely our collective human experience could provide guidance, “At the very least, genetically induced hereditary defects that cause severe disease, mental illness and/or debilitating deformity are candidates for elimination.”
Eventually congressmen were forced to listen to their constituencies. In 2321 they passed a landmark bill granting experimental biogenetic treatment of the aforementioned defects, but balked at including other ailments for the time being. Such was the state of affairs when Jenny applied to the lab and was admitted as its first patient. Yesterday she became its first success when her cancer was put into permanent remission a mere four months after treatment began.
As familiarity with genetic engineering increased, Congress relented and expanded its use as a panacea for all kinds of suffering. Eventually the technology was perfected to the point where it could indeed preempt or cure nearly every fatal disease by injecting dying cells with young healthy genes. Annual physical checkups at the Academy's lab became standard procedure for nearly everybody who could afford it. Although blanket testing was expensive and extremely unpleasant, these inconveniences paled in comparison to the reward of detecting and painlessly curing any asymptomatic morbid malfunctions surreptitiously lurking within.
Life expectancy increased dramatically. People were projected to live a robust three hundred and fifty years and anyone under a hundred was considered to be a mere youngster. Furthermore, the experts were optimistically forecasting that old age would eventually become altogether non-existent — a desirable goal now that the use of non-invasive birth control techniques has become routine throughout the occupied world, rendering overpopulation an idle threat.
Buoyed by this tantalizing prospect people were beginning to feel godlike. They reasoned, “We are approaching immortality. Moreover, technology has progressed to a stage where we can circumvent almost all foreseeable natural catastrophes and this nearly complete control over the earth's environment is a form of omnipotence. What more is required of a god? Perhaps omniscience?
“But not even God could be aware of places, events, or entities (maybe even other Gods) were they to exist outside His ken6. Thus He would have to deny that He knew He knew everything, proving that the concept of omniscience is self-paradoxical. Furthermore, if not even God can know He is supreme then the trifling fact that we comparatively insignificant creatures don't know whether or not we are minor deities shouldn't deter us from at least assuming that we are.”
This penetrating analysis forced theologians to bow to public opinion and soften their stance. “Perhaps we are gods. But we should still posit the existence of a yet higher Being in order to gain spiritual and emotional strength through contemplation of Him.” So, religion continued to thrive among the common folk. But it became less widespread among deep thinkers, who believed it would be presumptuous to assume He would take any great interest in the miniscule portion of this vast universe occupied by humans, quite possibly among the least of His creations. On the other hand they also realized it would be equally presumptuous to assume there is no God merely because He is inaccessible to our feeble sensory and intellectual capabilities.
Religion became more palatable to the highly educated when a new one, Eclecticism, arose and flourished early in the century. By preaching tolerance and admitting all peoples into its fold it nurtured peaceful coexistence and was largely responsible for a considerable thawing of international tension in subsequent decades. The primary stimulus accounting for the emergence of Eclecticism as the religion of choice throughout nearly 60% of the occupied world by the end of the century was the diligence of its founder, the indefatigable Reverend Dylan Bryce, who never passed up an opportunity to sermonize, whether from pulpit, soapbox, balcony, stage, or any other facility with suitable acoustics. His deep resonant baritone voice, permeated with passion and eloquence, mesmerized any audience.
Bryce's message stirred a world-weary populace craving relief from incessant religious strife, proselytizing and crusading. “No power-monger has ever presumed to warrant more authority than theologians, a group with the temerity to assert that their commands originate from no less than the ‘Supreme Being’ Itself. The folly of acceding to their doctrines is evident. Zealous Catholics terrorize naïve six-year-olds with the prospect of eternal damnation for disobedience, usually referred to as sin. Strict Calvinists preach that anyone who isn't born one of the ‘elect’, as defined by Calvin, is doomed. Islamic jihadists promise a bevy of virgins in Paradise to anyone who commits a suicide bombing in furtherance of their cause, namely the wholesale slaughter of innocents residing in the countries mistakenly deemed to be enemies.. Examples can be found in every religion; the list is endless throughout history.
“The hefty weight the imprimatur of religion imparts to such sweeping and dogmatic exhortations renders them especially dangerous. As an example, even as great a thinker as Pascal went wrong7 when he was persuaded to insist we must obey Christ's precepts since if we do and He was right we gain an infinite eternity of bliss but if we don't and He was mistaken we only gain a paltry short-lived lifetime of pleasure, and no judicious person would wager against such odds. His argument is flawed in that the same reasoning can be used by any crackpot who alleges that God told to him we are eternally doomed to perdition if we don't yield to his (the crackpot's) demands.
“By no means am I suggesting that messages clothed with religion are generally devoid of uplifting precepts imbued with compassion, morality and spirituality. On the contrary, many (but not all) of the words and acts of the founders of great religions are dripping with peace, charity, kindness and love, and are enough alike there's little to choose between them. I propose a new eclectic religion synthesized from these common themes. It is easy to assimilate, leaves no one out, and is vastly preferable to the persecution, mayhem and mass murder perpetrated through the ages under the influence of disgraceful impostors who cultivated ‘separate’ sects or insisted any religion other than theirs was false.
“My assistants will now distribute the sacred documents of Eclecticism. They contain not my teachings, but paraphrases of the one eternal enlightenment revealed by God to Jesus, Moses, Buddha, Confucius, Mohammed, Lao Tzu and all His other directly chosen prophets.”
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6 Perhaps in a parallel universe
7 In Pensêes