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Human beings were created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26, 27). We were created with the ability to think, reason, and act. And while liberty, the freedom to think and choose, is essential to being sentient, to being an image-bearer of our Creator, these abilities are not the most important elements of God’s image that we were created to possess. After all, Satan can think, reason, and act, yet he no longer reveals the image of God.
No, the most important attribute that reveals God’s image is love! We were created in love to love, to be living vessels built as the repositories of God’s law of love.
The law of love is a living law. Love can operate only in living beings; it doesn’t function in stone. Adam and Eve were created as two separate individualities, each from the same original source, to be united as one in love. Eve was taken from the substance of Adam, yet she had her own mind, her own identity, and her own capacities to think and choose that were separate from Adam’s. To form the image of God required that these two individuals unite together in love—only then were they complete, only then was God’s design fulfilled. Adam alone was incomplete; Eve alone was incomplete. Only together, united in perfect love, was the image of God fully realized in them, for God is love and love requires another individual to give to, to share with, to unite with.
Sin is the breaking (transgression) of God’s design law of love. Sin is selfishness. It results in separation, disconnection, injury, pain, suffering—and ultimately death. As soon as Adam and Eve sinned, they ran from God; Adam then blamed Eve. Their relationships of love and trust were fractured.
When Adam and Eve sinned, they changed themselves. They were no longer sinless, holy beings operating upon perfect, godly love; instead, they were now fear-ridden, selfish beings driven to survive. God created them with the ability to procreate beings in their image. Once they corrupted themselves with selfishness, the only offspring they could produce were born with their same sin-sick condition. Their descendants were born in selfishness, filled with fear and controlled by their survival drives. Thus, the Bible teaches that we are born in sin and conceived in iniquity (Psalm 51:5). We are born terminal, filled with fear and selfishness.
Understand this clearly: God’s design is love. Sin is antagonistic to love. It is selfishness, driven by fear, which is manifested in the world today by the survival-of-the-fittest drives to protect self—to kill or be killed.
The plan of salvation is the plan of healing, of removing fear and selfishness from the hearts of people and the writing of God’s law of love upon our hearts and minds (Hebrews 8:10). It is the restoration of godliness within us, of dying to self and arising to a new life in which we love God and others more than self.
Satan’s Endgame
Satan’s goals are to destroy the image of God in human beings and to put his image where God’s should be. He wants to cut our connection with God, to destroy the faculties within us that are capable of responding to the Spirit of God—the Spirit of love and truth. In other words, he wants to solidify fear and selfishness into human beings and eliminate godly, self-sacrificial love. He wants to harden hearts and disconnect us from God’s healing presence.
God’s healing of hearts and minds cannot be achieved by the application of external force, by threat or the infliction of punishment. It requires the truth to be embraced, for trust to be established, for love to be experienced, and for the individual to choose to surrender self, to open the heart, to trust (have faith in) God. This is the work of the Spirit, who is the Spirit of truth and love. The Spirit of God interfaces with us through our hearts and minds, which is our unique emotional attachments, longings, loves, values, connections, and affections (hearts)—and our beliefs, thoughts, and worldviews (minds). And our hearts and minds operate on the platform of our brains.
As we think, reason, and choose our beliefs—choose our values, choose where to place our trust, who to love, and what to hate (it is righteous to hate sin)—our brains change. Not only do our choices spur the creation of different neural pathways, they also alter the subcellular molecules that make up the billions of neurons, with their quadrillions of dendrite interconnections, in our brains. It is within these molecules that quantum processes happen, that God works upon the individual with His Spirit to woo, convict, draw, and inspire. As we choose to focus upon the godly, the noble, the pure, and choose, in loving trust of God, to apply His methods to our lives, our brains are rewired, our quantum matrix comes into closer tune with God, and we become more sensitive to the movements of His Spirit.
But as we choose to fill our minds with the vulgar, the violent, the perverted, the selfish, the debased and worldly (basically anything the media presents), we change our brains in negative ways, taking ourselves out of harmony with the Spirit of God. Our quantum matrix becomes less sensitive to truth and love.
Satan’s goal is to disconnect humans from our Creator God, to make us incapable of responding to Him, to destroy the faculties within us that are sensitive to God’s presence. He has multiple lines of assault to achieve this goal.
Historically, Satan has worked to disconnect us from God through false worship, idolatry, atheism, and lies about God that cause people to hate and distrust Him and, thus, close their hearts to Him.
Our enemy has also worked through our sinful living—which, as the Bible says, sears the conscience and hardens the heart—to destroy our ability to connect with God. This means that over time, we become less capable of hearing the still small voice of God. The conviction of the Holy Spirit becomes deadened to us and, if we persist in rebellion against God’s designs for life, we will eventually completely destroy the faculties within us that respond to truth and love.
Today, however, Satan has a new, modern tactic designed to harden hearts, corrupt character, solidify selfishness, and destroy our ability to hear the voice of God—thereby solidifying us in sin and selfishness. It is the modern-day version of the Tower of Babel. The motive for those ancient humans in building the tower was to save themselves, to elevate themselves, to build their own way to heaven—separate and apart from God.
Advancing Self Through Technology
Today, humanity’s modern-day version of the Tower of Babel, and its same godless save-self/advance-self motivation, is being called Human 2.0: the use of technology to advance humans to a new transhuman state. It is the vision of the godless, of those who believe we evolved from lower life forms, to use technology to artificially advance human beings.
It isn’t surprising to discover that information and computing powerhouse Google is part of the global elites bent on the forced evolution of humanity to something no longer fully human:
In 2011, Steven Levy made this bold statement about the company in the book, In the Plex: “From the very start, its founders saw Google as a vehicle to realize the dream of artificial intelligence in augmenting humanity.” Naturally, it makes sense Google would bring on Kurzweil to be its Director of Engineering in 2012. For years, Kurzweil has been pushing the cultural conversation toward the idea of human transcendence with thought-provoking books: The Age of Spiritual Machines and The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. [1]
Moreover, Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX, has invested millions in Neuralink, a company dedicated to creating and advancing cybernetics—that is, implanting computer chips into human brains with the goal of enhancing human abilities. Their website states: “Neuralink is a team of exceptionally talented people. We are creating the future of brain interfaces: building devices now that will help people with paralysis and inventing new technologies that will expand our abilities, our community, and our world.”
But Musk and Google are not alone. Other companies are working to “upgrade” humanity. Stanford University Media reports on a talk by Amy Kruse, the chief scientific officer of Platypus Institute:
Platypus Institute [is] an applied neuroscience research organization that translates cutting-edge neuroscience discoveries into practical tools and programs which enhance the human experience. Dr. Kruse’s primary focus at the Platypus Institute is a project entitled “Human 2.0” – a multi-faceted initiative that helps selected individuals and teams leverage neurotechnology to generate meaningful competitive advantages. Her ultimate goal with the Human 2.0 project is to create a vibrant, widespread neurotechnology industry that allows humanity to upgrade the human brain and, thereby, the human condition. In this talk, Amy discusses these points …
- The Centaur vision blends the analytical powers of the human brain with those of a computer to create a novel, super-powered system.
- The most exciting uses of artificial intelligence technology will not be performing “black box” analytics, but rather bringing to life J.C.R. Licklider’s dream of “Human Computer Symbiosis.” [2]
What will happen in human brains when cybernetics are implanted? My grave concern is that our quantum connection with God will be cut, our ability to hear the still small voice will be severed, and our sensitivity to the convictions of the Holy Spirit will be obstructed. I see no future in which cybernetic brain implants reproduce Christlikeness within humans. Human nature cannot fix itself. Human beings cannot create computers that love, and technological enhancement of human abilities will only enhance selfishness. If such goals are realized and we produce a population of humans with enhanced abilities, it is inevitable that those so-called “2.0 Humans” will see “non-advanced” regular humans in the same way that we see Neanderthals—that is, primitive, unworthy of love, and less-evolved people holding back advancement. And such “evolved” humans will inevitably act to advance themselves at the expense of the more primitive, unevolved rest of us.
Another concern I have is whether such implants could be used to “program” a person, to influence them consciously or unconsciously, to alter memories, change their personality, incite them to violence, or in any other way limit their freewill. It is my belief that all of this and more is likely. God did not create computers to be programmed, but sentient beings to live freely in love.
Satan, the prince of this world, doesn’t want free beings. He doesn’t want love; he wants slaves. What better way to enslave us than to tempt us with the fruit of greater knowledge, greater ability, greater self-advancement, and get us to place devices in our brains that make us more susceptible to worldly forces and cut us off from God and His indwelling Spirit?
At this time in human history, it is more vital than ever that we keep our minds focused on Christ, that we unplug from the world’s values, that we reject the godless philosophies, and that we daily surrender our hearts and minds to Jesus.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/cognitiveworld/2018/10/01/human-2-0-is-coming-faster-than-you-think-will-you-evolve-with-the-times/?sh=3461f0644284
[2] https://mediax.stanford.edu/featured-events/amy-kruse-human-ai/
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