The book of Genesis tells the story of a giant tower mankind once built because, in his vanity, he thought he could equal God. The Tower of Babel ended in miserable failure but humans, indomitable not just in will but also in their arrogance and folly, continue to believe they can build ‘structures’ to rival or even surpass the one who created the universe itself.
Of course, building isn’t always evil. God gave man the intellect, the desire, and the ability to build magnificent things. Line upon line, precept upon precept, humankind has built upon generations upon generations of knowledge, making life better for everyone in so many ways. We build spaceships, airplanes, cities to rival anything our ancestors could have possibly imagined. From sanitation and running water to cars, computers and air conditioning, we live in what is certainly the most exciting time in human history, full of so many possibilities, for better AND for worse.
There’s a dark side to all this ‘progress.’ The human spirit, that Manifest Destiny that led Americans to conquer and build a nation from one end of a continent to the other, to send a man to the moon, satellites that fly to planets far off in our galaxy and transmit information back to us, that normally admirable idea that anything is possible, that whatever is possible could and indeed should be done, could end up ending life as we know it on the planet God gave us to steward.
For the first time in history, we live in a time when one of the most important questions of our age can and indeed should be asked of our would-be lords and masters, those who wield power ancient despotic kings would envy.
Just because it CAN be done, SHOULD it be done?
Should we manipulate the genetic code of the very crops we eat to make them immune to herbicides like RoundUp? Should we put pesticides IN the food we eat? Should we put animal DNA into plants? Should we put animal or plant DNA into humans? Should we clone animals? How about humans? How about humans WITH animals? Do we truly know enough about the universe to understand, anticipate, and deal with the consequences of mixing around the building blocks that God created and called ‘good?’ Have we, in our humanist arrogance, finally reached the point of omniscience?
The folks at Monsanto seem to think so.
The short-term consequences to genetic engineering are well known and well documented, the suicides, crop-failures, super-weeds, super-insects, species-annihilation, human and animal health issues, and more. A recent study in France documents the grotesque tumors in rats exposed to just 4 months of genetically-modified corn. The long-term consequences can only be worse, but since we are only in the first stages of this grand experiment, they are as yet unknown. God created the earth and He called it good. He created the plants and the animals and he gave mankind dominion over them. Does this dominion include manipulating God’s blueprint, the very building blocks of life? It doesn’t take a theologian to recognize this as sheer unadulterated madness.
For with great knowledge comes great expectations, with great power comes great responsibility. God has given humans the knowledge and the power to harness the earth for His purposes, and we have done amazing, admirable things. But, man, ever wanting more, has seized the power and claimed the right to manipulate the genetic code itself. Who are we to alter the blueprints, the very fingerprints of God?
What has man done with this power he has violently taken? Tragically, like the builders of Babel, those who seized it are just arrogant enough to believe they are equal, even greater, than the God who made them. On their own, they will never end this madness. Right now, it’s simply too profitable for them. For their folly, unless they are stopped, we will all suffer.
The world could end tomorrow with Christ’s return, or it could end 2,000 years from now, but today it is the responsibility and indeed the duty of free humanity to resist genetic manipulation with every ounce of strength we can muster. If you haven’t already, educate yourself on this issue. Find out why this could be one of the most important issues of our lifetime. Then, educate others, as many as you can.
Then Resist. Resist in every way possible. Resist like the world as you know it depends on it, because it very well may.
“And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.” Genesis 1:12
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