2 Timothy 3:1-5
C.S. Lewis “THE ABOLITION OF MAN” 1944
“Human nature will be the last part of Nature to surrender to Man. The battle will then be won. We shall…….be henceforth free to make our species whatever we wish it to be. The battle will indeed be won. But who, precisely, will have won it? For the power of Man to make himself what he pleases means, as we have seen, the power of some men to make other men what they please.”
Book Review:
“In a 1943 essay entitled “The Poison of Subjectivism,” Lewis argued that the notion that people can create their own values presents a serious problem for humanity. He noted that some contemporary politicians found it acceptable to condition society through eugenics, psychological manipulation, state education, and mass propaganda, justified by their self-made values. His solution to this problem would be an objective standard of good by which men’s actions could be measured reliably.
By that time (1943), Ethical Subjectivism had begun to make inroads into education. Spearheading this movement was a textbook called The Control of Language: A Critical Approach to Reading and Writing, by Alec King and Martin Ketley (1939). In response to its proposed use in the state schools, Lewis expanded “The Poison of Subjectivism” into a series of three lectures, published as The Abolition of Man (1944). This little book contains not only a biting critique of The Control of Language, but also a condemnation of the larger issues that affected the scientific and philosophical establishment of his time.
Lewis claims that King and Ketley attempt to subvert students’ attitudes by teaching that all statements of value, such as calling a waterfall “sublime”, are merely statements about the speaker’s feelings, an example of Logical Positivism at work. Lewis notes that this is a philosophical position rather than a grammatical one, however, it contradicts the traditional philosophy of education.
Ancient philosophers, including Plato, Aristotle and Augustine, believed that the purpose of education was to train children in “ordinate affections.” Lewis claims that the attempt to “debunk” all sentiments is like trying to “amputate the heart.” Such amputation produces “men without chests.” As suggested in “The Poison of Subjectivism,” Lewis believes that all cultures have a common objective set of values. He calls these the Tao. He asserts that modern attempts to do away with traditional morality always proceed by arbitrarily discrediting one part of the Tao and using it as grounds to “debunk” the others. He finds this attitude unacceptable. “The human mind has no more power of inventing a new value than of imagining a new primary color,” he writes, “or, indeed, of creating a new sun and a new sky for it to move in” (The Abolition of Man, 44). According to Lewis, “debunking” statements of value will ultimately result in the majority being controlled by a small group who rule by a “perfect” understanding of psychology, and who in turn are ruled only by their own whims. The controllers will no longer be recognized as human, their patients will be robot-like servants, and the abolition of Man will have been completed.
How can a small group of “controllers” bring about the abolition of Man? Lewis suggests two possible ways: science and magic. Both science and magic represent attempts to subdue nature to man’s will. Whereas science has succeeded, magic has failed. Yet both magic and science differ from earlier wisdom: “For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men; the solution is a technique…” (The Abolition of Man, 77). Typical of his ongoing commentary on “post-modern” attitudes, Lewis uses his philosophical argument to comment on the spreading eugenics movement of his day.” Book Review
Albert Einstein, letter to a friend, 1917 “Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.”
Genesis 2:15-17
Genesis 3:1-5
Carl Teichrib “Game of Gods”
Today, we find ourselves steeped in the post-modern environment, even as Modernity remains entrenched in scientific philosophy and is actively promoted via the New Atheists.
Postmodernism is a mindset and cultural mold that can be difficult to describe. Debate swirls over what it is, how it manifests, and where it could be going.
A variety of thought exists behind the label. Defining Postmodernism has been likened to “nailing jelly to a wall”.
Fundamentally, Postmodernism was and is a REACTION TO and REJECTION OF foundational truth claims and the narratives supporting them – first in terms of Modernity, but also the assertions of Christian revelation. Biblical doctrine had been overshadowed by materialist dogma, but now both were being pushed aside. How truth was measured and considered by other generations no longer applied. Past approaches were and are viewed as too narrow and associated with OPPRESSION. Linking KNOWLEDGE WITH POWER and the placing of gatekeepers to bar the way for others. Therefore, historical truth claims remain as claim only and are treated with suspicion, Grand narratives and their related worldviews are no longer relevant to the post-modern mind. We are left with questions but no defining answers, and no tangible framework to develop a coherent worldview.
The slope immediately becomes slippery. Judgments resting on previously held truth claims melt away. History fades into oblivion. The meaning of language bends. Tolerance WITHOUT DEFINITION becomes the new norm. Inclusion and broad interpretations represent the progressive path, and personal transformation means conforming to ever changing cultural cues. Traditional standards are diluted as society attempts to scrub out reminders of “privileged” exclusivity. What was once virtuous is vilified, and what was morally shameful is celebrated. Truth and falsehood are no longer discernible, and what is known to be factual becomes blurred and distorted – including BIOLOGY, IDENTITY, and SEXUALITY. Higher values are lost in the fuzzy daze of a wandering culture. Does this sound like today?
Now, as Teichrib rightly said, “truth and falsehood are no longer discernible, and what is known to be factual becomes blurred and distorted – including BIOLOGY, IDENTITY, AND SEXUALITY.”
Joe Doran in ‘TRENDS JOURNAL’ wrote an article in the January 18th, 2022 issue under the subtitle ‘GENETIC MODIFICATIONS BEING PREPPED TO “SOLVE” EVERYTHING.’
“The rate at which scientists are gaining the ability to map and manipulate the human genome, as well as the genome of virtually every living thing, is accelerating. And there is virtually no doubt that as technocrats gain the power to alter life, they will come up with dire imperatives as to why genomic changes must be made. It will be for the good of humanity, the good of the environment, to improve “equity,” reduce “racism,” counter “extremist predispositions,” combat “selfishness,” and practically anything else where scientists can connect a genomic factor to a trait that is seen as undesirable. The temptation to legislate human beings from the inside – where laws written in genomic code cannot be broken, and must be obeyed as part of a technocrat directed “evolving” human nature – will be too great to resist. The only question is whether people now confronting the issue of COVID vaccines and mandates WILL UNDERSTAND THE WIDER IMPLICATIONS of where things are headed, and oppose the radical dangers and loss of INDIVIDUAL NATURAL AUTONOMY AND HUMANNESS, before it’s too late.
In the sphere of bio-pharma, left to the devices and imaginations of scientists unbounded by virtually any limits to how they may experiment and advocate for invasions and changes to the human genome, and the genetics of virtually any life form on earth, the “possibilities” may seem limitless.
But they are in fact quite limited by age-old propensities of humans. “Limitless power” is definitely not a good thing, from the prospective of anyone why believes that no one should be the power to alter natural genetics, let alone dictate alterations within a “genetic legislation” legal framework. Mandated COVID gene therapies have set the state. The coming genetic battles will be much more widespread and potentially transformative not only to societies, but to human nature and the natural world itself.”
J.R.R Tolkien brilliantly encapsulated the idea in the movie “The Lord of the Rings; The Followship of the Ring, the wizard Gandalf says of trying to wield it to do good:
“Don’t tempt me Frodo. Understand that I would use this Ring from a desire to do good. But through me it would wield a power too great and terrible to imagine.”
DARPA = Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
Joel Garreau “Radical Evolution”
“DARPA has a track record. Not only did it pioneer the Internet and e-mail, but DARPA helped fund the computer mouse, the computer graphics industry, very-large-scale, integrated circuits, computers that recognize human speech and translate languages, the computer workstation, reduced-instruction-set computing, the Berkeley Unix operating system, massively parallel processing and head-mounted displays. It was a key player in the global positioning system, the cell phone, “own-the-night” night vision sensors, weather satellites, spy satellites and the Saturn V rocket. It also helped to create super-capacitators, advanced fuel cells leading to the next generation of cars and telesurgery. All of the military’s airplanes, missiles, ships and vehicles, including the materials and processes and armor that went into them, and especially everything with the word STEALTH as part of its name, has DARPA inside. Various ray guns, including laser, particle beam and electromagnetic-pulse weapons, started with DARPA. So did the M 16 rifle. Then there are the legions of air, land a sea robots, including the Predator, which, when it successfully fired a Hellfire missile at an al-Queda leader’s SUV in Yemen in 2002, had the distinction of becoming arguably the first robot known to incinerate a human being. Particularly significant, DARPA creates institutions to support the future it desires. DARPA invests 90 percent of its budget outside the federal government, mainly in universities and industry. Academic centers at MIT, Stanford and Carnegie Mellon that made fundamental contributions to information technology. If it feels companies need to exist, DARPA helps foster those, including Sun Microsystem, Silicon Graphics and Cisco Systems. If standards need to exist, DARPA sometimes steps in, too, promoting, for example, Unix, and the TCP/IP protocol that is the foundation of the Internet.
Michael Goldblatt is running the Defense Sciences Office of the United State’s DARPA. This agency is one of the world’s foremost drivers of human enhancement. Goldblatt proclaims: “We do not fear the unknown, and we relish exploring the unknowable.” And who knows, history may not view his comparison as preposterous. For his program managers have been handed the keys to all creation and asked if they would like to take it out for a spin.
I think Carl Teichrib is right on target when he titled his book Game of Gods – The temple of man in the age of re-enchantment.
2 Thessalonians 2:1-4
Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God proclaiming himself to be God.