I’ve been around a while on this planet; I was born in the early 1940s and I’ve seen a lot of changes since then. In childhood, I remember phones that had no dial and we told the operator what number we wanted to call. We had no refrigerator, but only an ‘icebox’ for which we received regular deliveries of ice. Most families had a radio (very large, at the time), but television was an expensive newfangled thing with a tiny screen that hadn’t yet been fully perfected, nor widely accepted. And cash was king, checks not so much, and credit cards were rather rare.
During that time, scientific research and engineering computation were accomplished either by hand or using analog technology, (e.g., the slide rule). Digital data was only experimental or discussed in math classes. “What is the difference between analog and digital technology?” some may ask. Well, it sort of has to do with how we get our information. For instance, think of a clock.
“On the analog clock, the time is represented by hands that spin around a dial and point to a location on the dial that represents the approximate time. On a digital clock, a [computerized] numeric display indicates the exact time.”1 There is a difference between storage methods, too. For instance, a device for the analog data storage of music is a phonograph record, whereas the same music stored in a digital format would be on a compact disk (CD). For the user, digital devices are more precise, faster, and compact than those that use analog methods.
There was much advancement in the standard of our life brought about by research using analog technology: home appliances, airplanes, atomic energy, etc. But, as our knowledge of digital technology advanced, new discoveries began arriving at an increasing rate and a faster pace. This is the world we now live in. Our children and grandchildren carry computers (a cell or mobile phone) and have no idea that the computing power in their pocket is more than that used to put a man on the moon in the 1960s.
As a child I went to the local library and thumbed through their physical ‘card catalog’ to find books on subjects what I wanted to learn. Today, I go into my office and can instantly search most of the libraries in the world and print out the information I need in just a matter of minutes. But, did you know, there is a clue in the Bible about this age in which we now live?
The Book of Daniel has several stories with useful life lessons,2 but it also contains prophetic visions about the end times, when a new Godly reign will be established and there will be a resurrection of the faithful. As is typical of apocalyptic literature, the book containing Daniel’s visions is ordered by God to be sealed until a time pertinent to the situation.3
“But you, Daniel, keep this prophecy a secret; seal up the book until the time of the end, when many will rush here and there, and knowledge will increase” (Daniel 12:4, NLT). Being kept ‘secret’ only means its message is obscure until the future time, when it will then be understood. This verse is commonly taken to mean advances in scientific knowledge and modern transportation.4 If all that is so, it is spot-on for describing our modern world.
End Times
A couple of years ago, I wrote an article titled “Mind Reading & Retrieving Memories After Death: What Do You Think?” In that report, I mentioned a strange new technology that seemed like it was right out of a science fiction movie. It concerned the discovery that good and bad memories are stored differently and each encoded memory has a unique input in the brain in terms of the genes switched on to encode it.5
The Daily Mail in the United Kingdom mentioned that this “technology opens the door to strange scenarios, similar to those portrayed in the [Netflix] series ‘Black Mirror’, where investigators can record and playback the memories of suspected criminals. It could even lead to a future in which police are able to read and replay memories of murder victims to help them piece together the events leading up to their death.”6
Now, just two years later, comes new information that advances this technique of playing God. A paper published, in the journal Nature, describes research on freshly slaughtered pigs. Scientists at Yale University in the United States established a technique that restored some crucial functions to maintain the brains’ internal structures. They actually revived the disembodied brains of pigs four hours after the animals were slaughtered. Needless to say, this type of experimentation blurs the fundamental nature of death itself and questions the current legal and medical definitions for death protocols.7
Some people believe this type of research will lead to downloading and possibly storing memories, which could eventually be transferred to another person, or artificially intelligent computer. Or even more bizarre, transferred into a completely new life form. Well, combine these thoughts with other pieces of research and you can see where this fast increase in knowledge is headed.
It gets even better — or worse — or weird!
Neuroscientists have also grown mini brains that produce human-like brain waves, ones that look similar to those seen in premature babies. These lab-grown brains were confirmed to express “the same collection of genes seen in typical developing human brains.”8
I mentioned all this research to lead up to a brand-new study, which could have a fantastic (good or bad) effect on human life; the first ever created living and programmable organisms. Scientists have now produced the world’s first new life form, a living robot. These prototypes are very small, but you can expect this research to continue and grow.
A team of scientists and roboticists recently published a paper9 about this new life form they call ‘xenobots’. The term ‘xeno’ comes from the frog (Xenopus laevis) stem cells used to make them. The researchers described their creation as neither a traditional robot, nor any known species of animal. It is, in fact, a new class of living and programmable organisms.10
“Xenobots are less than 1 mm long and made of 500-1000 living cells. They have various simple shapes, including some with squat ‘legs’. They can propel themselves in linear or circular directions, join together to act collectively, and move small objects. Using their own cellular energy, they can live up to 10 days.”11
To make xenobots, the research team (consisting of scientists from the University of Vermont and Tufts University12), used a supercomputer to test thousands of random designs of simple living things that could perform certain tasks. After the selection of the most promising designs, the scientists replicated the virtual models with frog skin or heart cells, which were manually joined using microsurgery tools. The heart cells in these assemblies tell when to contract and relax, giving the organisms motion. These reconfigurable bio-machines represent an entirely new form of organism, which raises even more legal and ethical concerns.13
Will we transform and live forever and be like God?
Will humankind use this new knowledge to transform our species into some other living creature? Will we merge with machines or maybe be regrown as a bio-machine and have our memories downloaded into a new creature? With this latest research, can we imagine becoming a shape-shifting life form? Is this how the resurrection will take place? Will we finally learn so much as to have an opportunity to live forever? Do we then become like God?
Isn’t that similar to the proposition offered to Eve in the Garden of Eden? “But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil’,” (Genesis 3:4-5, NRSV).
Well, I don’t think transforming ourselves into another kind of being is what God has in mind, although there are many others that believe that is exactly what will happen. And at this present rate of increasing knowledge, it may be in the near future. Here we are, six thousand years away from the Garden of Eden debacle, and many are still believing Satan and his lies. We should keep in mind the statement made by our Lord, Jesus, when he spoke about those who didn’t really understand or believe in him.
“Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot accept my word. You are from your father the devil, and you choose to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies,” (John 8:43-44, NRSV).
There is a movement afoot to establish a new religious perspective. Instead of God being the rightful higher power we believe in, it would be a new combination of artificial intelligence (A.I.) and programable biology. Downloading the information from our brains, before or shortly after death, will give us immortal life. Those weird science fiction ideas are on the verge of becoming reality. This is all part of the trans-human frontier.
This transhumanism “is a philosophical movement that urges the transformation of the human being, by developing and using technologies to greatly enhance human intellect and physiology. This enhanced human would eventually become a new posthuman creation.”14
“Augmenting the brain with A.I., as well as uploading the brain to a computer [or downloading from a computer], are pretty near a science fact rather than science fiction. So hold on to your hat, because there are futurists currently planing for this new society of super humans. Their ideas would seem to give answers to eliminating all sorts of human grief and sorrows: eliminating wars, pollution, hunger, disease, and even death; the very same promises given to humankind by God.”15 “He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever” (Revelation 21:4, NLT).
This movement is international in scope, according to an article in the Washington Times. “Followers of Christ, with growing frequency — with alarming frequency, perhaps — are jumping aboard an artificial intelligence bandwagon and trying to merge today’s technology with yesterday’s godly creations and in the end, come up with a race of people who are, in the words of the Christian Transhumanist Association, ‘more human’.”16
The author of the article continued, “It’s one thing to be both Christian and scientist, and to make technological gains that better all humanity. It’s another thing entirely to elevate science to such a level as to supercede and supplant biblical teachings and godly guidance — to such a point that the Bible becomes a secondary tool or worse, a subordinate consideration to the minds and musings of man.”17
For those people who are allied with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, they can join the Mormon Transhumanist Association, which quotes Latter-day Saints founder Joseph Smith with “God . . . was once as we are now . . . You have got to learn how to be gods yourselves.” They believe that scientific knowledge and technological power “are among the means ordained of God to enable . . . transfiguration, immortality, resurrection, renewal of this world, and the discovery and creation of worlds without end.”18
Well, I believe I’ll keep my trust in the God I learned about in the Holy Bible; his whole book concerns his ‘end plan’. God’s word does suggest increases in going “to and fro” (by transportation as well as visiting around the world electronically) and of more “knowledge” (research as well as instantly obtaining other learning through computers), but I don’t think God meant for us to abandon him.
Besides, there is one very important thing that these new age worshipers of technology don’t account for: it is God’s spirit. They believe these all-in-one new units of pseudo-humanity are going to be Godly, but without the real God, they will be falling short of what makes us human — the shared spirit of God given to us by our heavenly father. These human-created life forms will become animated creatures or demons of Satan, not children of God.
Demons are real and are the departed spirits of the Nephilim killed during the flood of Noah’s time, but they still live today. Although they desire bodies, they cannot materialize them. “Demons seek to possess bodies and seem rather uncomfortable being outside of them.”19 So, is this Satan’s plan to provide bodies in which demons can function? For a deeper study, see the article “Ephesians 6:12: Satan, Fallen Angels, & Demons — the Real Enemies of Our Faith” listed in References & Notes.20
Conclusion
We all want to go to heaven and have an everlasting life, whether you believe it will be in another realm or in a paradise here on earth, but to get there will be by following the teaching of Jesus Christ, not some imperfect scientists experimenting in a laboratory somewhere. I will admit to my belief that all this new knowledge learned will be useful in the coming new world, but not in the way non-Christians and neo-evolutionists are presenting it. Humans have a proven track record of putting good science to evil use.
Concerning this desire to get to heaven, isn’t it strange that no matter how much someone wants to get there, they don’t want to die to take the trip. It is this humorous thought that made me select the song ‘Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven’ [but Nobody Wants to Die], performed by Mark Lowry with The Martins. “The song is about a man detailing his life to a preacher who has told him to forgo a lifestyle of drinking alcohol and pursuing sexual desires, in favor of a more religious-oriented style.”21 Selected lyrics are below and the music video (with closed captions) is listed in References & Notes.22
Lord I wanna go to heaven, but I don’t wanna die
Well, I long for the day when I’ll have new birth
but I love the livin’ here on earth
Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die
When Jesus lived here on this earth, He knew his Father’s plan
He knew that He must give his life to save the soul of man
When Judas had betrayed Him, His father heard him cry
He was brave until His death, but He didn’t wanna die
Copyright © 2021, Dr. Ray Hermann
OutlawBibleStudent.org
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References & Notes
- Lowe, Doug, “The Difference between Analog and Digital Electronics”, (Dummies, retrieved 2 February 2021), https://www.dummies.com/programming/electronics/the-difference-between-analog-and-digital-electronics/
- For other articles about Daniel, also see:
(A) “Daniel’s Friends were Thrown into the Fire”, https://outlawbiblestudent.org/daniels-friends-were-thrown-into-the-fire/
(B) “Additions to the Book of Daniel from the Apocrypha”, https://outlawbiblestudent.org/additions-to-the-book-of-daniel-from-the-apocrypha/ - Barry, John D., et al., Faithlife Study Bible, (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012, 2016), Daniel 12:4.
- MacDonald, William, Believer’s Bible Commentary: Old and New Testaments, (Ed.) Arthur Farstad, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1995), p. 1091.
- Pinkstone, Joe, “Could the police replay murder victims’ memories after they die?” (Daily Mail, 11 April 2018), https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5603921/Your-memories-read-replayed-DIE.html
- Ibid.
- Reardon, Sara, “Pig brains kept alive outside body for hours after death”, (Nature, 17 April 2019), https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01216-4
- Reardon, Sara, “Lab-grown ‘mini brains’ produce electrical patterns that resemble those of premature babies”, (Nature, 15 November 2018), https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07402-0
- Sriegman, Sam, et al., “A scalable pipeline for designing reconfigurable organisms”, (PNAS, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 28 January 2020), https://www.pnas.org/content/117/4/1853
- Coghlan, Simon; Leins, Kobi, “Not bot, not beast: Scientists create first ever living, programmable organism”, (Phys.org, Science X Network, 20 January 2020), https://phys.org/news/2020-01-bot-beast-scientists-programmable.html
- Ibid.
- Chandler, Simon, “World’s First ‘Living Robot’ Invites New Opportunities And Risks”, (Forbes, 14 January 2020), https://www.forbes.com/sites/simonchandler/2020/01/14/worlds-first-living-robot-invites-new-opportunities-and-risks/?sh=47b8e3dd3caf
- Coghlan, Simon; Leins, Kobi, “Not bot, not beast: Scientists create first ever living, programmable organism”, (see above).
- “Transhumanism,” (Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 12 September 2018), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism
- Hermann, Ray, “Will A.I. & Transhumanism Replace God”, (The Outlaw Bible Student, OBS, 20 September 2018), https://outlawbiblestudent.org/will-a-i-transhumanism-replace-god-what-is-your-opinion/
- Chumley, Cheryl K., “Christians, beware the cult of transhumanism,” (The Washington Times, 7 September 2018). https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/sep/7/christians-beware-cult-transhumanism/
- Ibid.
- “Mormon Transhumanism”, (Mormon Transhumanist Association, retrieved 17 September 2018), https://transfigurism.org/
Also on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/transfigurism/ - Hernandez, David Diga, “3 Subtle Distinctions Between Demons and Fallen Angels,” (Charisma News, 30 July 2016), https://www.charismanews.com/opinion/58898-3-subtle-distinctions-between-demons-and-fallen-angels
- Hermann, Ray, “Ephesians 6:12: Satan, Fallen Angels, & Demons — the Real Enemies of Our Faith”, (The Outlaw Bible Student, OBS, 22 September 2020), https://outlawbiblestudent.org/ephesians-612-satan-fallen-angels-demons-the-real-enemies-of-our-faith/
- “Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven”, (Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 22 January 2021), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everybody_Wants_to_Go_to_Heaven
- “Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven” (recorded Live), Artists: Mark Lowry with The Martins; Album (CD/DVD): Mark Lowry: Dogs Go to Heaven; Licensed: UMG, BMI, (on behalf of Gaither Music Group; Sony ATV Publishing); uploaded 20 May 2016 – MUSIC VIDEO: https://youtu.be/9hEMixKmcA8
