As some of you may know, I
am working on a manuscript the working title of which is “The Coming of the
Quantum Christ: The Shroud of Turin and the future of Science and Humanity.” I
have just completed the draft of Chapter Seven (:Game Change”) which ends with
the Shroud of Turin Research Group (STURP) in 1978 flying from New York to
Turin to begin what is undoubtedly the most concentrated scientific study of
the Shroud in its arguably two millennia history. (Some of what follows may wind-up
in the “quantum” part of my manuscript., the Aquinas and Teilhard part.)
But in the past few days,
the news has been of renewed efforts of the right wing extremists elected in
the 2010 elections at the state level to gut Planned Parenthood again on the
mistaken claim that Planed Parenthood is dedicated to abortion and that it
spend most of its money providing abortions. That is simply not true. Ninety-Seven
per cent of Planned Parenthood activities are devoted to women’s health issues,
a part of the 97% does include contraception services, BUT, the number one way
to prevent abortions is contraception.
But was does this have to do
with Eva Cassidy and Nancy LaMott, two female vocalists. They have one thing in
common: they both died in the prime of their singing careers from cancers that
if discovered in time might have saved their lives.
First, a word about their
music. Eva was a relatively unknown quantity when she died of melanoma at age
33. It was three years after her death that she came to the attention of a
British disk jockey singing “Some Where Over the Rainbow. The rest is, as they
say, history. There is a You Tube of an ABC Nightline story on Eva at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXU219b3Zdw (It's 15 minutes long so you might want to finish this article before going to it.)
Eva first came to my
attention when I stumbled across arecording of her singing “At Last” on
Napster some years ago. You may recall that in the Inaugural Balls of 2008,
Michelle and Barak Obama danced to “At Last.” Beyonce was the singer but I recall
hearing the song many years before. Like a lot of songs some of it may seem
over done, but I have always cherished the last verse:
You
smile,
And
then the spell was cast.
And
here we are in heaven,
Because
you are mine at last.
I was had a moment like
that, New Year’s Eve, 1961.
Eva’s version is on You Tube
at:
I stumbled across Nancy
LaMott when I was once looking for tracks of “You’re Clear Out of This World.” I
thought it was a Kurt Weil song because it seemed to draw from “Speak Low” one
of Weil’s most beautiful songs. It wasn’t though. But Nancy LaMott did a set of
“You’re Clear Out of This World” and Cole Porter’s “So in Love” that was out of
this world. You find a recorded live performance:
The first time I heard Eva
Cassidy sing, I knew she had passed away. I remember hearing of Nancy LaMott on
NYC disk jockey Jonathan Schwartz’s Saturday morning jazz centered program. It
was not until I discovered her recording of “Clear Out of This world” that I discovered
that she too had died. Hers was uterine cancer. http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19960324&slug=2320684
The implication in Seattle Times story was that she was on the brink of stardom at
the time of her death
I will not claim that either
of these two precious women could have been saved by Planned Parenthood because
I am not familiar enough with their economic circumstances to know if they
either qualified for, or needed, Planned Parenthood services. But millions of
American women have qualified for these services and in many instances owe
their lives to Planned Parenthood. You can see some examples at:
Now the commercial: What has
any of this have to do with Thomas Aquinas and Teilhard?
The issue is the human soul
and when does that immortal soul come into existence. We now have claims that a
fertilized egg cell, even before implantation in the womb, is a human being
entitled to all the due process rights of a human being which would mean that
even “morning after” pills would be murder because they prevent implementation.
Thomas Aquinas would have disagreed.
He lived 800 years ago,
long before Darwin St. Augustine
Teilhard wrote in the “Phenomenon
of Man” that it was at the point in the evolution of a species of primates that
it developed the quality of reflection or self awareness, that the human
species was born. To credit the metaphor of Genesis, that would be the point
when humanity became the “image and likeness” of God.
As I have written in the Introduction
to my manuscript, science today has advanced to the point where it is grappling
with the issue of human consciousness. Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff have
written that the human mind and(and necessarily awareness) arise from trillions
of micro-tubules in the brain acting as a quantum computer with among other
attributes, the ability to participate in “quantum entanglements.” That is the
development among quantum phenomena to react identically and thus communicate instantaneously
across time and space beyond the normal constraints of time and space. Einstein
called the concept “spooky” but to paraphrase Cole Porter, it is strange, dear,
but true.
I discuss this on my blog at
Where does it leave us.
Ironically, it leaves us at the door step of Roe v. Wade which divided the pregnancy
into three stages of legal concern. The first stage would correspond to Aquinas
vegative state at the very least.
To the best of my knowledge,
the Catholic Church has not yet stated as a matter of faith and morals that God
has infused the soul in the ovum at the time of fertilization. Because science
is now grappling with the issues of self-awareness that so closely resemble the
Aquinas dichotomy, it would be best perhaps to avoid such speculation.
Galileo was nearly burned at
the stake for challenging the Ptolemaic view that the earth was the center of
the Universe. It might be best for everybody to take a deep breath before
demanding all of our laws bend to the fundamentalist view about soul creation.
And it would certainly be a
very good idea to those who are demanding the defunding of Planned Parent to
back-off a bit. Millions of women have depended on Planned Parenthood for life saving
services. As for me, I can not get the voices of Eva Cassidy and Nancy LaMott
to be still.
Okay STURP team, it’s time
to land.
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