Technology and the Evil Heart

A bipedal humanoid robot“For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.” (Mark 7:21-23; KJV)

In a Christianity Today article a decade ago (The Techno Sapiens Are Coming by C. Christopher Hook; January 2004) the talk was about the possibility of altering human beings through nano and cyborg technologies – literally improving on God’s design! (Genesis 2:7)

(If you ever watched Star Trek: the Next Generation, you’ll remember the “Borg” – creatures who were a cross between human and machine. It’s a crude example of what we just might get with this new science!)

Proponents suggested that cures for things like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, blindness, etc., were just beyond the horizon.

It was even believed that some day a kind of eternal life might be achieved via the uploading of one’s personality into a computer.

The problem raised, however, was the same with any “technology” that can benefit the human race. Whatever can be used for great good can many times also be used for great evil.

Thus was (is) the dilemma with nano and cyborg technologies.

Altering human beings?

Who’s to say that a beast won’t be unleashed as well? (Revelation 13:1)

And I couldn’t help but think as much as we work on correcting our outward human condition, the part of us that’s really in need of help is our inward human condition (see verse above).

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like I’m against bringing about cures for things like cancer (my mom died from it) and AIDS, etc.

But what I am saying is what men and women really need is a change of heart.

There’s not a nano or cyborg technology available that can achieve that.

Only the blood of Jesus can.

The faster people realize and appropriate it, the better off on the inside (and outside!) they will be.

(A bipedal humanoid robot picture file above is under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license: click here. CC BY-SA 3.0)

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About Pastor Mike

Pastor Mike is making the most of web technologies to encourage disciples. A self-proclaimed “twitterholic,” one twitter follower describes him as the “jogging, blogging, tweeting Pastor.” Visits to Pastor Mike’s blog (A Heart For God) number in the hundreds of thousands. His video blogs have been viewed over a half a million times.