– The Image of the Beast

The basic problem with Kurzweil’s thesis in his book The Singularity is Near regarding the inevitability of the merger of man with machine is that he believes it would actually be a good thing for men to attempt to make themselves “better” by deliberately changing the substance, the material, of their being. In one sense his vision for man is no worse than today’s genetic manipulator who tries to build a “better” corn, soy bean, or replacement organ for man. Kurzweil however, wants to do more than just manipulate genes; he wants to mix genes with nanobots and microcomputers in order to literally create a new species of being.

Both types of scientist violate God’s fundamental law of creation which states that every living plant and animal should reproduce after its own kind. This is the most basic of all God’s laws and it is the one law attacked so vociferously at this time in history. Kurzweil and all others like him deny and contradict God by their actions. Morality in any real, concrete sense cannot exist for these men, although they like to claim otherwise. Unrestrained by morality or God’s Law, they find themselves free to create anything “better” in their opinion than God did in the beginning. (Of course, they generally don’t believe in creation, but in the “big bang” theory of evolution).

These current scientific achievements parallel events occurring at the time of the two most catastrophic events in mankind’s history, Noah’s flood and the destruction of the Tower of Babel. Concerning God’s judgment at the time of Noah the ancient Book of Jasher states, “and the sons of men in those days took from the cattle of the earth, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and taught the mixture of animals of one species with the other, in order therewith to provoke the Lord; and God saw the whole earth and it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted its ways upon earth, all men and all animals. And the Lord said, I will blot out man that I created from the face of the earth, yea from man to the birds of the air, together with cattle and beasts that are in the field for I repent that I made them.” (Book of Jasher 4:18-19, referred to in Joshua and II Samuel, translated into English from the Hebrew in the year 1840, published by Artisan Publishers, 1988)

It is not that the desire to create itself is wrong; it is the desire to create something in one’s own image, apart from and contrary to the image of God that is wrong. The highest creative act in the universe is that God is making man into His image. Now, in time, he asks us to cooperate with him in this creation, not fight against him as Kurzweil and others like him do.

Man’s image apart from God becomes the Dragon’s image, the image of the beast. Certainly it is not by coincidence that one of Kurzweil’s greatest inventions is a speech recognition program called “Dragon Naturally.” Now, here in his own writings, we see the Dragon’s plan for the construction of the image of the beast. Many of us thought the beast would be seen 10 years ago, or last year, or this year. Now we see a darker, even more sinister beast upon the horizon, a beast wherein man melds with machine and real merges with virtual reality. Here lurks mankind’s greatest nightmare where tiny machines mingle with man’s blood, rendering him unable to die and keeping him in a perpetual state of evil with no chance of escape. “Resistance is futile.”

Oh man, how have you come to this wicked place?!

Continue to I and My Machine are One!

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