Mega Forces Page 4

  Biotechnology holds much promise as a boon to mankind; but, unfortunately, the negative side of this technology contains the seeds of destruction. As science continues its breakthroughs and as additional complex, sophisticated genetic codes are discovered, it becomes possible to produce products and accomplish feats that already are called “godlike.” For example, it will be possible to intervene at conception to engineer the developing fetus, creating a predetermined formula baby. Sex and physical traits, perhaps even the levels of intelligence and physical dexterity, will be preselected.

  In previous generations, this was called “eugenics” and in its crude state was a terribly abused science. Now it is becoming sophisticated, and its abuse may also become sophisticated—and more malignant. But scientists seem blind to this possibility. A quarter of a century ago, eminent French biologist Jean Rostrand confidently looked forward to a time “when each human infant (in embryo) could receive a standard DNA that would confer the most desirable physical and intellectual statistics.” Rostrand foresees an advantage in that “such children will not be the offspring of a particular couple, but of the entire (human) species.” 13 Rostrand’s desires may soon be realized.

  Biotechnologists are painting for us a not-too-distant future in which human life may be configured according to specification. There are no limits scientifically. A human can be engineered with gills so he can maneuver under the seas without need of a source for air; he can be made stronger and more muscular to do heavy work or participate in a sort of twenty-first century super-Olympics.

  Fruits, vegetables, and trees are already being redesigned to meet economic needs: square tomatoes are on the horizon, for instance. Animals can also be designed as the economy dictates. Beef cattle can be made larger or smaller, fish enlarged to twice their usual size (this has already been done), “barkless” dogs produced without vocal cords. Freeman Dyson, a respected astronomer and physicist, has even proposed that within the next quarter of a century, space scientists and biologists will begin work on a gigantic, living spacecraft in the form of a bioengineered caterpillar that metamorphoses in space into an intelligent space butterfly complete with telescopic eyes and antennae for receiving and transmitting radio signals. 14

  THE COMING NEW AGE SUPERBEING

  To use the new biotechnology to reshape animals, vegetables, and fruits is startling enough. But more shocking will be future efforts to reshape man. New Age teachers are already proclaiming that man is an evolving god, a superbeing. 15 The truth is far different, of course. Man is not a god, but a helpless, dependent creature being pulled by two far-greater forces: one commanded by the Almighty God, the other force led by the Adversary. In a vain attempt to escape this unyielding truth, some New Age theorists are vigorously promoting bioengineering as the pathway to achieving man’s full potential as a divine being.

  It is therefore a dreaded but conceivable prospect that future dictators—and certainly the Antichrist (see Revelation 13 and 17)—will marshal bioengineering scientists in a grand project to create the perfect man-god being, a superbeing. New biochips will be designed and programmed to despise God and the Holy Bible while exalting man’s own divine potential. These biochips will be programmed with man-made philosophies, including the “best” teachings of Hindu and Buddhist scriptures, the “wisdom” of ancient Egypt and Greece, and the “knowledge” of such “scientific” theories as evolution and psychology.

  Men and women may well have this new biochip surgically inserted in their brains “for their own good.” Babies will have it implanted in the pediatric ward at birth, or else their genes (DNA) will be tampered with in the womb.

  The idea will be pushed that if all citizens have in common the same knowledge, wisdom and scientific understanding, a perfect society will result. Presto! The harmonious, unified New Age Kingdom will magically materialize.

  The World Peace Movement will provide all the rationale the coming Antichrist will need to implement his program of bioengineering an entire new species of “right thinking” man-gods. This sinister effort will be justified on the basis of insuring world peace and abolishing religious strife among Hindus, Christians, Moslems, and other religious groups. The governments of the world will declare that “Separatism must end if war is to finally be relegated to the past.” They will maintain that the easiest and surest way to end religious separatism will be to permanently alter and change people’s minds.

  For the first time in history, science will be able to offer a Final Solution to religious separatism and bickering. The Bioengineered Human will be that Final Solution.

  Increasingly, the growing legions of prosperity-conscious technology and entrepreneurial-oriented yuppies in the New Age have superseded and supplanted people who have been reluctant to embrace scientific and technological progress. Those who favor progress now try to show that the newest technological advances could actually provide greater protection for the environment. For example, an artificial microbe, sprayed on plants, protects them from frost damage; others make plant crops disease-resistant. Biotechnology research has also successfully produced plants that create their own natural fertilizers, reducing the need for chemical fertilizers. So the claim is being made that technology is the answer to ecological concerns.

  Furthermore, biotechnology provides a rationale for the popular idea of an ongoing evolutionary process destined to genetically catapult man into a higher stage of consciousness. (See Appendix II for the New Age view of this.) So many scientists and laymen see science and technology as the way to a heaven on earth. This is why Arthur C. Clarke has said that, “The technologies that could destroy us can also be used for our salvation.”

  THE BRAVE NEW WORLD OF BIOTECHNOLOGY

  The beginnings of a brave new world seem finally to have arrived. Those who oppose the Bible herald biotechnology as the final demonstration of man’s omniscience and divinity and the final cutting of his ties to an outmoded God. Rosenfeld (The Second Genesis: The Coming Control of Life) trumpets, “When man can write out detailed genetic messages of his own, his powers become truly godlike.” James Watson and Francis Crick, the British scientists who were the first to break the genetic code, contended that DNA is not only the depository of all information but the “sole creator.” Astronomer, author, and TV personality Carl Sagan, who believes that the cosmos exists and that’s all, remarked that “the stuff of life is everywhere. There’s nothing magic about that... We are beings who have just recently evolved on a very ancient world.” 16

  Many scientists turn to biotechnology as the science that explains the cosmology of the universe. The universe is perceived to be a complex system of unfathomable trillions of energy molecules and subatomic particles, combined into genetically coded information systems. Man is seen as an information system which, much like a computer, constantly seeks more information to add to his genetic constitution.

  The popular theory of transformational evolution should be mentioned here. Applied to biotechnology, this theory asserts that man is an evolving creature whose mission is to expand his consciousness. This is the biocomputer equivalent to expanding one’s information base. To possess a higher level of consciousness is to be more intelligent and knowledgeable, to have an awareness, to be awake—in essence, to be a more advanced information system.

  Transformational evolutionists profess a belief in the inevitability of the human evolutionary process. It is written in the stars that man’s destiny is to become a creature with higher consciousness. 17 From this conclusion comes the dangerous assertion, made by Sir Julian Huxley, that man is preprogrammed to be “the sole agent of further evolutionary advance on the planet.” According to this concept, man has the awesome and inescapable task of assuming for himself the role of architect of the universe.

  The crux of this position is the belief that the most extreme practices of biotechnology are not violations of nature. Instead, bioengineering is a necessary outgrowth of nature’s own evolutionary process. Man not only has th
e right to be a creator; he violates nature if he fails to assume this right.

  HOW TO CONSTRUCT THE NEW MAN-GOD

  Some New Age scientists and others have proposed that one means of speeding up the evolutionary process toward man’s godhood is to fix his genes so that he will arrive into the world ready with an advanced mind endowed with higher consciousness. They hold that we might be able to engineer the infant to genetically yearn for peace, for justice, for sharing. Dr. Konrad Lorenz, Austrian founder of ethology, the study of animal behavior, has put forth the psychological theory that hereditary aggressive drives, or instincts, make man go to war. Many scientists contend that this instinct resides in man’s genes. Change the innate gene and, theoretically, you create a sensitive, peace-loving individual.

  Many social designers and philosophers believe that biotechnology can be successfully used to recognize and weed out from man’s brain the bad genes that cause his awful behavior. What a wonderful world this would be, they exclaim, if all babies were genetically engineered with all the best traits. Edward Cornish, editor of The Futurist magazine and president of the World Future Society, professes a belief in what is being called positive genetic engineering:

  Human nature developed over millions of years when man existed in a savage or barbaric state. Now that we live in a technological civilization, perhaps we should bring about such modifications as reducing the sex drive, or making people less aggressive, less lustful, less selfish. We could make ourselves into saints capable of creating a heaven on earth. 18

  In his acclaimed book The Selfish Gene, biologist Richard Dawkins suggested ways to bring about gentle and generous people. He contended we might deliberately cultivate and nurture pure, disinterested altruism. Dawkins admits that man in his current state is often evil and selfish. But, he says, we can change ourselves: “We are built as gene machines...but we have the power to turn against our creators. We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators.” 19

  To Dawkins and others, bad genes—not human sin and not Satan—are the enemies. Genes are the creators, not God. And the only obstacles in the way of a heaven on earth are bad genes. One shudders to think what a future Antichrist might be able to accomplish in a society in which he and his agents are able to select the most desirable genes. The age of the innately cruel policeman or soldier and the docile citizen may dawn in man’s gloomy tomorrow.

  ONLY GOD CAN BUILD THE PERFECT HUMAN

  Christians who know their Bible reject the assertions of those who wish to use biotechnology as a tool to drive a wedge between man and God. But we cannot hope to reverse the scientific knowledge that biotechnology represents, nor is that action necessary. We should understand that neither biotechnology nor any other science is inherently bad. We cannot allow ourselves to be unfairly branded as antiscience and antiprogress. But we must oppose the idea that science itself refutes the truths of Christianity. God wants us to support a scientific attitude that exalts him, a science that honors his kingdom.

  When reasonable men look at the complexities of the information systems that comprise the trillions of living organisms on our planet at this instant, they stand in awe of the Great Intelligence who created this monumental collection. Man’s computers whir and cogitate in an often vain attempt to decipher codes that are the blueprints for life. But isn’t it phenomenal that we who are children of the Most High God and who love and are loved by Him can, through prayer, talk to the One who instantaneously commanded all these complex codes into existence? We have a direct line to the keeper of the blueprints!

  Only the keeper of the blueprints can transform man into a loving, righteous creature who yearns for peace and who practices brotherhood. Man’s mind alone can’t perform this miraculous transformation, nor will science ever produce the “perfect human” designed in a laboratory. The Holy Spirit is the aspect of God that works to create the new man.

  During the two millennia after the first coming of Christ man has learned so much yet remains so unwise. Seeking to exalt himself as a god man has become less than a man. Now he perceives himself as an information system, a mere machine to be reconfigured and tinkered with much as a youngster builds and rebuilds a hot rod. Man builds slave robots to serve him, unaware that he may himself become enslaved as their intelligence grows to exceed his. He devises techniques to engineer behavior directly into human fetuses, unthinkingly bequeathing to a future dictator or even a tyrannical majority the power to alter and limit his consciousness. Yet he does so in the hope that his consciousness will be expanded. The psalmist implored God. “What is man. that thou art mindful of him!” But the science of these, the last days, arrogantly asks, “What is God, that man is mindful of him?”

  CHAPTER THREE: A GLOBAL BRAIN FOR MANKIND: COMPUTERS

  Like robotics and biotechnology, the computer may also be used for good or evil. The computer is a major factor in our society and has radically altered almost every aspect of industry and every feature of our daily lives. But its emergence has given some an excuse for degrading God and his creation.

  Norbert Weiner, one of the founders of the computer science of cybernetics, called it “the science of communication and control in the animal and machine.” Although recognized as one of the great thinkers in the field of computers, Weiner believed that the danger of over-dependence on computers ranked with that of nuclear destruction and overpopulation.

  Thus we see that the computer is an instrument of control. With it we can control and manipulate massive amounts of information. But, as computer scientist Jacques Vallee noted in his remarkable book Network Revolution, “There is no such thing as obtaining information without obtaining a measure of control over...persons.” 1 The dangers in control by computer, warns Vallee, are clear.

  Vallee also commented on the tremendous growth in popularity of smaller personal, home, and office microcomputers. According to Vallee, prominent scientists such as Dr. Michael Grab have suggested the building of a “global brain for mankind”—a gigantic supercomputer into which all other distant computers can be linked. But, asks Vallee, “Is it desirable to build it?”

  To him the answer may well be no, for he detects the growth of a computer world out of control, a world where data and numbers have taken the place of values, where reality is digitally dissolved and truth may be unrecognizable. “I have concluded from my work with computers,” he cautions, “that we are no longer in control of this exploding technology. But we can still hope to influence the general direction of the beast.”

  Note Vallee’s description of computer technology as “the beast.” It is perhaps a fitting choice of words, because in the years to come, high technology growth will occur in lockstep pace with other end-time events. The Antichrist who is to come—the Beast with the number 666—will have, in computers and other technologies, ready-made tools with which to control populations and punish those who defy his malignant reign.

  The stated goal of some computerists is to create a “wired world” where everyone, every home, and every office is connected by a video screen and computer terminal. All reading and learning and most work would be accomplished by computer networking. However, Vallee noted in his book that computer networks can be used by a repressive government to look for undesirables or to pinpoint suspects. This fact has caused a government commission in Sweden to comment in an official report about the growing use of networking and video technology: “Computer technology can always be silently used to check who learns what.” Further, the report warned that immense power accumulates among those who decide what shall be put into such a system and what shall be left out.

  Many other authorities are also sounding the alarm about the dangers of unrestricted computer abuse. New York Times correspondent David Burnham recently wrote The Rise o{ the Computer State, which reveals in great detail how computer technology can be used to threaten the privacy of the individual and to gain political power. According to Burnham, computerized records of credit card co
mpanies, insurance and telephone companies, hospitals, hotels, churches, and airlines can be obtained and exploited through a worldwide telecommunications network of linked databases. All that’s necessary for ultimate abuse, says Burnham, is for a government to have the will to use the systems for evil purposes. 2 In the last days, the Bible proclaims, Satan will provide that will.

  MAN AS COMPUTER, COMPUTER AS GOD

  During my military career and, more recently, as an author of technology-oriented books and head of my own consulting firm, I have been acquainted with the newest technologies in fields ranging from lasers to robotics and high-tech military weaponry. I have always viewed computers and other technologies as nothing more than tools. To me, God is supreme over man and man over his tools, or at least that’s the way the world should work. But, increasingly, the tendency is for man to conceive of his technological tools as a means to self-empowerment and even exalting himself as a god.

  In the long epoch of humanity before computers, man was reluctant to picture himself as a powerful being equal to God. In Darwin’s conception of evolution, man was thought to be relatively weak, simply a random, freak creation of nature. However, progress in science and technology and especially in computers has enabled man to paint a new picture of his place in the universe. Darwin’s evolutionary theory of random selection is now largely discredited and has been replaced by that of transformational evolution. This new theory, discussed in the previous chapter, holds man up as a godlike being capable of transforming the universe and creating his own reality. Transformational evolution places man in control of evolution.