ERA OF CHIMERAS & LONGEVITY
Recent stem cell experiments have led to genetic mixing of species. On a farm in Nevada, US, there have been a flock of sheep raised, many of which possess partially human livers, hearts, brains and other organs. Human cells were first injected into bacteria, then mice and sheep and now…
The biological divisions between species were initially not breached but today, the boundary is going to push further into larger animals. It is said to be already around a decade since a patent for a hypothetical creation called a “HUMANZEE” was applied, although it was in the end declined at that time.
But mark this: there will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God – having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people……
In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evildoers and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
2TIMOTHY 3:1-17.
In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage – with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather round them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.
2TIMOTHY 4:1-5.
We are without doubt living in the midst of godlessness of the last days, when biblical worldview has long been rejected in human history. For example, recently unisex ideas have been thrust into society, with the use of gender-specific terms such as “he” and “she”, or “husband” and “wife” being replaced by plural terms such as “they”, thereby marring God’s distinctive creation of male and female. Apostle Paul, fully aware of his impending death during his second arrest in a Roman dungeon, sent his last letter to his spiritual son, Timothy and warned him about the apostasy of the church, as quoted above. Contrary to the popular teaching of the Prosperity Gospel and the Word of Faith Movement, the Scripture does not teach either that the Church is to convert the world, or, that she is to bring in the messianic kingdom on earth. As Paul illustrated in the passages, things will get far worse towards the end because hearts of people will be demonically affected even within the church. The word Paul used for ‘terrible times’ in verse 1 is the same word used to describe the violent ‘demon-possessed men’ in the region of the Gadarenes in Mt.8:28, which suggests that in the last days demonic activities would be increasingly powerful. It will also cause many to abandon the Lord’s teachings:
‘The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron’ (1Ti.4:1-2).
Paul enumerated nineteen indicators of how church-goers will turn out to be:
‘lovers of themselves, lovers of money……lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God – having a form of godliness but denying its power’
and concluded with an order: ‘Have nothing to do with such people’. In this way, Paul bluntly and clearly teaches the righteous to avoid any contact with such people characterised above who operate under the guise of religion as a pious Christian.
In the following passages from verse 6 onwards, Paul describes how people will be deceived by false teachers:
‘They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires……but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth……so also these teachers oppose the truth. They are men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected’.
This, unfortunately is the reality of our era when such deceivers have crept in through the internet, You-tube and the media, and satanic manipulative signs and wonders in the name of Christian ministries have fascinated many who have become blind to God’s Word. While to remain faithful to His Word has been getting harder for Christ’s true followers in this world today, it might soon become dangerous according to Christ’s teaching. However, the Word of God alone is the antidote against global apostasy. It is why Paul emphatically urged Timothy to remain in what he learnt from infancy;
‘the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you (him) wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus’
and to endeavour to preach it because
‘all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work’.
Paul’s last message is worth keeping in mind today, when apostasy has already widely crept into churches.
When we ignore God’s Word and go away from His creation order, by putting our interest first, what will be the consequence? Recent unstoppable acceleration of transhumanism oriented scientific research towards life extension technologies in this world is dreadful, which would necessarily lead us into God’s judgment but never “utopia” as transhumanists envision. They have been so far successful in appealing to public opinion with alluring bright perspectives for the future: the concept of achieving immortality. The following article: ‘Superhuman Powers And Life Extension Technologies Will Allow Us To Become Like God’ by Michael Snyder on 13th May ’14 conveys to us of the total godlessness of our society.
If you could merge your current mind and body with technology that would give you superhuman powers and would allow you to live forever, would you do it? This is essentially what the transhumanism movement is seeking to accomplish. Transhumanists envision a day when technology will allow humanity to become so advanced that sickness, disease, poverty and war will essentially be eradicated. They believe that merging with machines will permit us to become trillions of times more intelligent than we are today, and they also believe that radical life extension technologies will make it possible for humanity to actually achieve immortality. Many transhumanists are convinced that such a world can be achieved within their lifetimes….. the idea of achieving immortality in our decaying physical bodies would sound absolutely ridiculous. But transhumanists are very serious about this. One way they are seeking to accomplish this is by searching for a method that will enable them to store the human mind on a computer. If your entire consciousness could be “uploaded” into a computer, it could conceivably later be downloaded into a futuristic avatar of some sort once that technology has been developed……’Other futurists and transhumanists are working toward improving longevity through more biological means, such as growing new organs from stems cells, replacing worn out parts of the body with high-tech updated models, and curing diseases through genetic reprogramming. A third method of achieving a transhuman state of being may come through merging the biological and non biological in equal measure, such as embedding nano robots into the bloodstream and brain; and replacing atoms with nano computers to solve the degeneration that comes with aging’. According to transhumanists, not only will we be able to live much longer, but our quality of life will also be so much better in the future……They believe that we can use science and technology to guide the evolution of society and that this will create a far better world than we have today……‘Transhumanism is a thrust toward transcendence. It is not classical mysticism but seeks a temporal transcendence. The driving force behind this is evolution……We should thus have a will to evolve. We have a moral responsibility to increase evolution and do so by continually striving to expand our abilities throughout life by acting in harmony with the evolutionary process… Science and technology move us toward Utopia. One of the most exciting things about transhumanism is that all will be fixed’ (http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/transhumanists-superhuman-powers-and-life-extension-technologies-will-allow-us-to-become-like-god).
While transhumanists declare their validity of pursuing longevity by utilizing all possible manipulative methods from genetic reprogramming to robotic technology in terms of curing diseases and human life extension, the Scripture contradicts it. Since sin entered man, man was sentenced to die under God’s mercy, which means that unless man physically dies once, he/she will never be raised into a resurrection life and live eternally with God in His utopian eternal kingdom. God’s creation order declares:
‘people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment’ (He.9:27).
In 2Kings Chapter 20, there is an intriguing account of King Hezekiah’s miraculous healing from terminal illness and fifteen year extension of his life as a result of his earnest pleading to the Lord. This account is exciting and gives hopeful anticipation for healing, yet it casts a question of the meaning of extended life. When he was given his sentence of impending death by the Prophet Isaiah, Hezekiah wholeheartedly poured out his heart to the Lord in petition; how faithful he was to Him, how much he devoted himself to Him, how well he behaved as king, God’s vice-regent throughout his life and so on. Hezekiah’s prayer and his tears moved the Lord to heal him, and He also promised him a deliverance of Jerusalem from Assyrian king Sennacherib’s siege for his and King David’s sake. However, pointing at three facts which took place during his extended life spans beyond God’s appointed time would naturally lead us to rethink of the propriety of extended life：1. His careless openness towards Babylonian visitors led to their future invasion of Jerusalem, 2. His son Manasseh grew to be the worst king in the line of Judah, 3. In his later days Hezekiah’s heart was filled with pride and arrogance. Recent trend of pursuing longevity would remind us of God’s Word:
‘There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death’ (Pr.16:25).
The following is also an article by Michael Snyder: ‘The Era Of Chimeras: Scientists Fearlessly Create Bizarre Human/Animal Hybrids’ on 19th May, ’14, which informs us how hard it will be for scientists to resist the temptation of the hybridisation between human and animal DNAs.
Did you know that scientists are creating cow/human hybrids, pig/human hybrids and even mouse/human hybrids? This is happening every single day in labs all over the western world, but most people have never even heard about it. So would you drink milk from a cow/human hybrid that produces milk that is almost identical to human breast milk? ……These are the kinds of questions that we will have to start to address as a society as scientists create increasingly bizarre human/animal hybrids. Thanks to dramatic advances in genetic technology, we have gotten to the point where it is literally possible for college students to create new hybrid lifeforms in their basements. Of course our laws have not kept pace with these advances, and now that Pandora’s Box has been opened, it is going to be nearly impossible to shut it. Scientists try to justify the creation of human/animal hybrids by telling us that it will help “cure disease” and help “end world hunger”, but what if scientists discover that combining human DNA with animal DNA can give us incredible new abilities or greatly extended lifespans? Will humanity really have the restraint to keep from going down that road?......
For example, just check out the following excerpt from an NBC News article about what is going on in Nevada… ‘On a farm about six miles outside this gambling town, Jason Chamberlain looks over a flock of about 50 smelly sheep, many of them possessing partially human livers, hearts, brains and other organs. The University of Nevada-Reno researcher talks matter-of-factly about his plans to euthanize one of the pregnant sheep in a nearby lab. He can’t wait to examine the effects of the human cells he had injected into the fetus’ brain about two months ago.’ … ‘Scientists have created genetically-engineered mice with artificial human chromosomes in every cell of their bodies, as part of a series of studies showing that it may be possible to treat genetic diseases with a radically new form of gene therapy. In one of the unpublished studies, researchers made a human artificial chromosome in the laboratory from chemical building blocks rather than chipping away at an existing human chromosome, indicating the increasingly powerful technology behind the new field of synthetic biology.’ And researchers at the University of Wisconsin figured out a way to transfer cells from human embryos into the brains of mice. When those cells from the human embryos began to grow and develop, they actually made the mice substantially smarter…
‘……For the Rochester study, researchers implanted newborn mice with nascent human glial cells, which help support and nourish neurons in the brain. Six months later, the human parts had elbowed out the mouse equivalents, and the animals had enhanced ability to solve a simple maze and learn conditioned cues. These protocols might run afoul of the anti-hybrid laws, and perhaps they should arouse some questions. These chimeric mice may not be human, or even really human, but they’re certainly one step further down the path to Algernon. It may not be so long before we’re faced with some hairy bioethics: What rights should we assign to mice with human brains?’ So what should we call mice that have brains that are mostly human? And at what point would our relationship with such creatures fundamentally change? When they learn to talk? Scientists all over the planet are recklessly creating these chimeras without really thinking through the implications. In China, scientists have actually inserted human genes into the DNA of dairy cow embryos. Now there are hundreds of human/cow hybrids that produce milk that is virtually identical to human breast milk. Would you buy such milk if it showed up in your supermarket? The scientists that “designed” these cows say that is the goal. But of course this is just the tip of the iceberg……
As technology continues to advance, the possibilities are going to be endless……‘Professor George Church of Harvard Medical School believes he can reconstruct Neanderthal DNA and resurrect the species which became extinct 33,000 years ago……His scheme is reminiscent of Jurassic Park but, while in the film dinosaurs were created in a laboratory, Professor Church’s ambitious plan requires a human volunteer……’And right now, the U.S. federal government is actually considering a plan which would allow scientists to create babies that come from genetic material drawn from three parents… ‘A new technology aimed at eliminating genetic disease in newborns would combine the DNA of three people, instead of just two, to create a child, potentially redrawing ethical lines for designer babies……Because the process would change only a small, specific part of genetic code, scientists say a baby would largely retain the physical characteristics of the parents. Still, DNA from all three — mother, father and donor — would remain with the child throughout a lifetime, opening questions about long-term effects for this generation, and potentially the next. Ethicists worry that allowing pre-birth gene manipulation may one day lead to build-to-order designer babies……’ Many scientists believe that these kinds of technologies will “change the world”……When we start monkeying with human DNA, we could be opening up doorways that we never even knew existed. If we do not learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it.
(http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/the-era-of-chimeras-scientists-fearlessly-create-bizarre-humananimal-hybrids)
