LIE: I can become a god, part 2

Lie:      I can become a god.

Truth: I can become a king under God.

The ability to tinker with our genes offers the astounding promise – and peril – of immortality, which mythically has been the defining difference between gods and mortals. It also offers the possibility of an even greater variety of breeds of humans than there is of dogs. — Joel Garreau, Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies – and What It Means to Be Human

In part 1 we learned that this is the oldest lie in the Book, literally. In part 2, we’ll see what this lie means in the world today.

The problem begins when we start believing and following the logic of three aspects of this central lie. I’ll list all three sub-lies here and then discuss each one in turn.

We will believe the lie – ‘I can become a god’ – when we accept the following:

1  Science and technology has and is elevating man beyond his human abilities, both jointly and individually.

2  I can participate freely and become part of this new upgraded and improved humanity.

3  There is no downside to this transhumanity or my part in it, or if a downside exists, it is trivial.

Let’s take each lie and break them down.

1  SUB-LIE: Science and technology has and is elevating man beyond his human abilities, both jointly and individually.

The technological revolution, in all its dimensions – media, transportation, agriculture, communications, finance, health, you name it – has transformed our landscape and extended man’s reach and power beyond anything that could have been conceived. Our combined humanity and the different kinds of groups of humanity – nations, corporations, military branches, federal and state agencies, universities and schools – can now exert power and control over practically all forms of human activity, be it weather, food production, healthcare or communications. Man has created systems of control, systems of systems, that are unprecedented in history. We can now routinely:

• see global events: weather systems, ‘news,’ etc.
• experience real-time communications with full audio and video.
• sustain travel speeds of 20 to 30 times our natural pace.
• access practically any knowledge – historical, technical, practical, medical, and more.
• access practically any form of entertainment on TV, Internet, games, gambling, music.
• access custom-made and ready-made virtual communities through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN, Instagram, etc.
• enhance our bodies through plastic surgery, Botox and even genetic modifications.
• achieve financial security, enabling a retirement to a life of ease and pleasure.

We know this, but so what?

The problem is that humans claim this as an advancement, the elevation of what it means to be natively human (that’s the point – no other kind of human exists). We have become greater, more powerful, more capable. This is now who we are. Man has made man greater, without God.

2  SUB-LIE: I can participate freely and become part of this new upgraded and improved humanity.

My children grew up with the Internet; my grandchildren will grow up with the smart phone and could not imagine life without it; their children will likely be tempted to grow up thinking that augmented and virtual reality is real. Each successive generation shifts and becomes more embedded in virtual worlds, and as a result, we trust our natural senses less and less while at the same time, rely more and more on our augmented and extended selves. The danger is that, in the end, we will not be able to distinguish the real from the fake at all. This is a big problem. If we cannot see this trend and somehow stop it, somewhere along the way we will have believed this lie: ‘I can (effectively) become a god,’ or ‘I have become a god.’

Attitude is all important here. Your attitude toward the latest or developing technology reveals your hope and ultimately your salvation. Do you stand in line, cult-like, for hours (or even camp out) for the next iPhone; do you religiously read PC World or Wired magazine? Can’t miss Gizmodo’s Life Hacker; do you measure your personal phone usage in hours, not minutes?. In a word, do you relish or even delight in tech, though not for any particular or practical benefit, but simply because it’s ‘cool?’ Then I would say you’re in  trouble and need a wake-up call. Read on to number three. . .

3  SUB-LIE: There is no downside to this transhumanity or my part in it, or if a downside exists, it is trivial.

Every technological benefit comes with a price. With every technology we accept a double-edged sword. So for example, cars and super-mobility and phones must be ‘paid’ with loss of community; banking and easy credit must be ‘paid’ with exponentially increasing debt; television is paid with (among other things) a loss of attention span and a difficulty in thinking linearly or logically. There is always a cost.

We must look at both sides of this: what we gain and what we lose. On the surface, it appears we gain a lot – transhumans apparently can do so much more. But what is it really doing to us, that is, to the real us? What are the real costs to such a transformation? The answer comes from Genesis. In a word, it is the very words that God warned Adam and Eve – ‘you will surely die,’ first spiritually, then physically.

For Adam and Eve, their death was a slow but sure one. And so we too are slowly being pulled apart by our ‘extensions’ and our ‘augmentations.’ In the process of our apparent growth and development as human beings, our minds are being fragmented, confused, distracted, and finally hollowed and de-structed. This is really one process – while we’re being artificially extended, our minds are being fragmented. It’s two sides of the same coin. It’s the devil’s grand bait and switch, and sadly, many will never see it coming.

Becoming less human is a form of spiritual and mental crippling, a serious impairment of our natural and spiritual faculties – our vision, hearing, speech, thinking, feeling, moving and relating. (Though a natural handicap does not make someone less human.)

We must see that the promise of transhumanism, in all its forms, is the fundamental lie, the lie that contains a thousand lies. We do not become more human, we become, cumulatively, less human with each successive generation of technological adoption. This is the ultimate price we pay: we lose our humanity, and consequently we die.

What then shall we do?

What is the remedy for what appears to be an inexorable death spiral? Unless we learn to focus our efforts on the culture of life, we become passive targets for the culture of death. So to fight this spirit of death, we must create and foster a spirit of life. And we do that by relishing and cultivating the common and good things that promote and encourage true living:

• good conversation
• preparing and eating a good meal together
• walking, playing
• gardening and landscaping
• caring for animals
• helping and serving the old and the young
• building and constructing
• mentoring and discipling
• visiting others
• creating music and art, both visual and literary
• singing and playing music
• all forms of prayer
• and many more

Initiating and participating in these and other human-scaled activities crowd out the transhuman and foster our walk with God.

In the introduction to this category, Lies attacking our self-understanding, I’ve already quoted C S Lewis, but he’s worth quoting again. He wrote the following in 1943, 74 years ago. Even then he envisioned the nightmare of transhumanism in That Hideous Strength, the analog to The Abolition of Man. His words ring more true now than ever.

I am only making clear what man’s conquest of Nature really means and especially that final stage in the conquest, which, perhaps, is not far off. The final stage is come when Man by eugenics, by pre-natal conditioning, and by an education and propaganda based on a perfectly applied psychology, has obtained full control over himself. Human nature will be the last part of Nature to surrender to Man. The battle will indeed be won. We shall have ‘taken the thread of life out of the hand of Clotho’ and 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? — C S Lewis, The Abolition of Man