By Jason Charles on 1/16/2019 (5 years 340 days ago) Science & Technology
Recently, a Christian organization called the Christian Transhumanist Association held a transhumanist conference where they asked if it was okay to indulge some of the medical life-extension technologies in an effort to do God’s work longer.
“Locke…, though, wasn’t delivering a sermon.
The Texas pastor was moderating a panel at the first-ever Christian Transhumanist Conference, hosted last month by the Christian Transhumanist Association at Lipscomb University, a Church of Christ-affiliated school in Nashville.
Transhumanism is the idea humans can transcend their current physical and mental limitations using science and technology. To Christian transhumanists, transhumanism means working with God to accomplish God’s work in the world through the ethical use of that science and technology.
“It’s a conversation that calls us, that challenges us to develop a deeper theology of technology,” said Micah Redding, director of the four-year-old Christian Transhumanist Association.
“That then allows us to enter into these conversations about where technology is going, what it means to advocate for positive, relational values for our human future.”
The church’s interest in transhumanism is growing, according to Redding, who pointed to recent conferences on related topics in London and Vatican City. In turn, secular transhumanists have developed an interest in religion, including creating a religion of artificial intelligence.(Religion News)
The problem with this thinking is, God put definite boundaries on the human life. The greater question is at what point does taking procedures as a means to extend our life become a sin and abomination to God? In fact, most, if not all of these technologies are inherently dark by their very nature.
The Future is a Freak Show
Christian’s have long been told by so-called prophecy experts that the Apostle John’s Book of Revelation is to be understood figuratively. That the many beasts referenced therein are just representative of systems and governments in future times. But what if the monstrous beasts depicted in Revelation are already walking the earth in plain sight right now?
Current headlines are dominated by men unsuccessfully trying to pass as a “ma’am,” people who become plastic Ken and Barbie dolls, genderless aliens, and even transgender, trans-species dragons named Tiamat as Romanticized below by a transgender author on the liberal website Vice.
“It was easy to think that Tiamat was merely a body modification extremist. It was also naïve. Maybe it should seem obvious, but I was taken aback by the significance inherent to every procedure she has ever undergone. Her scales—the tattoos that cover her face and body—are modeled after the western diamondback rattlesnake. Tiamat was abandoned in the desert when she was a child; western diamondback rattlesnakes, shifting in the sands around her, became symbolic parental figures to her. Tiamat has endured discrimination, abuse, and sexual violence—a lifetime of injustice committed against her at the hands of men. So, over time, she stopped identifying with our species. As she opened up to me about her rape, and her later diagnosis of HIV, I understood: Why would Tiamat want to be human, when this is what humans have done?” (Vice.com)
Taking into account that radical transgenderism is now daily trending news, means we need to reread Revelation with a literalist mindset. Soon, a Dragon/man with 10 horn’s and animal appendages could literally be the CEO of Google, especially considering the technologists they hire are unabashedly transhumanists. Radical body modification will go from novelty to complete normalization throughout society in just a couple of decades due to popular acceptance.
Beasts or Biohackers?
Body modification is almost implied in Revelations 13 throughout the text, the famous verse about the Mark of the Beast especially so considering those who take the mark later are cursed and break out in pussing sores.
"And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image."
Revelation 16:2
Are these sores at the site of brainchip implantation, or appendages, is it the failings of genetic manipulation, or even A.I. with biological organs? What was once incredible when reading Revelation is now literally possible given today's technological marvels. But one thing is for sure these are physical people being discused here. Though the interpetation offered by an angel to John in later verses do apply these representations to world systems in power, there is also the element of physical personages as well throughout the text. CEO's, politicians, and your average Joe could be so radically altered as to be unreconizable by our current standards.
For example in Revelations 13:1 there is a singular beast, with a physical body, with 7 physical heads, one of which receives an actual wound, not a metaphorical one.
“And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.
…
And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.” Revelations 13:1,3
Heck, scientists are attempting head transplants on different bodies as we speak. Why not add 6 more heads, and some transdermal horn implants while you’re under the knife as well right? Look at what this Chinese scientist said about head transplants being a solution to all disease.
“Dr Ren Xiaoping from Harbin Medical University told China National Radio on Saturday that many now routine operations were described as unethical when they were first performed.
“Our society is an open one and our job is to solve scientific and technological problems in our professional field,” Ren said.
“The head transplant is a solution for all clinically incurable diseases.” (S. China Morning Post)
The reality is in the next 100 years, if Jesus has not come back to earth, this next generation of young children will grow up in a world-order populated by the literal beasts depicted in the Apostle John’s Revelation.
This statement is not hyperbole; a pop-culture fueled rush towards transhumanism is happening right now. Soon, altering your physical appearance will be as normal as altering your character’s appearance on your video game avatar. Our kids are being taught by people who not only embrace transhumanism, they themselves are engaged in its implimentation. They teach this as inevitable in schools,
“Professor Warwick has been experimenting on himself since 1998, dedicating his own body (and risking his life) in order to push the limits of technology and human potential. His work has evolved from the implantation of microchips within his body, a practice that’s becoming increasingly used much like a contactless card, allowing people to access buildings or pay for their lunch with just the touch of a hand, to work focusing on integrating the brain with technology. His BrainGate implant allowed him to control a robotic hand on the other side of the Atlantic, and feel it too. “Someone who has had their hand or leg amputated, could have an artificial limb which they then control as if it’s part of their body, and they wouldn’t notice any difference as far as the brain is concerned,” he says. “But the key thing is, it doesn’t have to be a leg or an arm, it could be a building, it could be a car – your body doesn’t need to have legs and arms like it does now. As soon as you have the interface between your nervous system and wires, any technology can be your body, and it can be wherever you want it to be.” (Dazed Digital)
Think about it, literal, genetic and technological abominations will populate this earth in great numbers in the very near future.
Conclusion
Christians like those attending the transhumanist conference I referenced in the beginning of this article need to begin addressing these issues today in a proper Biblical manner. They are without a doubt on the wrong side of the transhumanism debate. The excuse of extending one’s life as a means to continue God’s work falls on its face when we consider all the Apostles were allowed by God to be put to death as martyrs. Almost all, with the exception of the Apostle John had their lives taken from them early for their ministering, not extended. If you are teaching the truth of God, the culture of transhumanism will hate you, not embrace you.
We have to first realize that God made us biological beings with an expiration date. Yet life extending technologies and procedures are being given to Christians routinely today in hospitals across the world. Where is the line? These are questions pastors need to be asking relative to the Christian faith, lest we become abomination to God ourselves. Instead they are to busy penning fluffy sermons, and installing smoke machines on their worship stages.
Our children need our guidance and even example considering these life-extending technologies will be offered to us first, and then in a more extreme form by the time they grow into adults themselves. The temptation to take the benefits will be ours first, then theirs. They will be watching our example, and listening to our Biblical arguments. What we teach our children about transhumanists in pop-culture must comport to what the Bible says about these concepts.
The Bible say's that sin has brought the curse of death upon us all, and if that is how God created it, we would be mindful of that fact first before we work towards thwarting a punishment he himself worked into the very fabric of all existence on earth.
"Consider the work of God: for who can make that straight, which he hath made crooked? " Ecclesiastes 7:13
Isn't transhumanism an attempt to make straight what God Himself has made crooked?
It is a fact that people who become increasing interested in these technologies become susceptible to demonization. It is apart of transhumanism, body modification, gene-editing, cyborg like amplifications, and even A.I. culture. There is a very dark beastly nature associated with these technologies.
Maybe this is why it is called the Mark of the Beast, those who take the Mark may actually look like beasts themselves as they begin enslaving themselves to technology. Satan the mastermind behind it all, is always pushing us deeper and deeper towards the place of the beast because when we embrace our beastly nature we easily forget the divinity and Godly image we are supposed to represent as humans.
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