These days, I write whenever I want to – or when I’m not busy exploring the world with my wife or kids or grandkids. I write, read constantly. Then I discovered that I was writing longer and longer pieces. My new focus is to write shorter; and to write HUMOR. On purpose. Maybe I can still irritate people while being funny. We’ll see what happens.
“Roddenberry’s Star Trek gave us the United Federation of Planets, a meta-government that spanned human space. He envisioned humanity as ultimately perfectible. While perfection remained out of reach, the notion that it was even achievable seems, perhaps, hopelessly naïve and idealistic.” (http://sci-fi.lovetoknow.com/wiki/Star_Trek_-_Gene_Roddenberry)
Naïve it may be, but even today, the Second Gospel of Science Fiction is predicated on the firm belief that Humanity will be able to create a general society that is peaceful, poverty-free and refuses to embrace divisive religion. This Gospel wants nothing to do with God. It assumes that Humanity’s baser instincts are essentially tamable and that with basic research, technological development, philosophy, sociology and psychology as our tools, we will be able to create ourselves as a “new humanity”.
The Humanist Manifesto has been around for decades, and is a series of documents signed by tens of thousands of people who have set out to do just this. (http://www.americanhumanist.org/3/HumandItsAspirations.htm). Isaac Asimov was a signatory of the Manifesto II and his works clearly proclaim the idea that we can perfect ourselves and need no outside help – especially supernatural outside help. Others who have the same beliefs use their fiction (first and foremost) to entertain, but certainly somewhere down the list of “why did I write this story?” they harbor a desire to promote their belief in the ultimate perfectibility of Humanity. Of writers, John Steinbeck said, during his Nobel Prize ceremony, "I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man, has no dedication nor any membership in literature."
My contention is that Humanity is NOT perfectible. The Bible notes this – some of the observations are made by verifiable historical figures whose wisdom has been passed down through the ages: “…the hearts of the sons of men are full of evil, and insanity is in their hearts throughout their lives.” (Ecclesiastes 9:3) and “They are corrupt and have committed abominable injustice. There is no one who does good…every one of them has turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.” (Psalm 52: 1-3) are both examples of simple observation.
Some might contend that Humanity is no longer the same organism David observed 4000 years ago. A quick scan of BBC.com; a talk with a retired person or an inner city classroom teacher or an organic dairy farmer in rural Wisconsin will present anecdotal evidence that “things haven’t gotten better since (FILL IN THE BLANK WITH A YEAR), they’ve gotten worse!”
They aren’t going to get any better as long as we leave ourselves in charge of the renovation. We cannot manifest our way out of a technologically more advanced slide into deeper and deeper sin. Satan will continue to take marvelous inventions and through his Human agents, pervert them to something ugly. Any Democrat will be happy to relate to you the horrors of the war in Iraq; any Republican will be happy to relate to you the horrors of Vietnam. Some atheists might point out that 9,000,000 Muslims and Jews were slaughtered during the Crusades and 300,000 during the Spanish Inquisition in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth; some Christians might point out the supposed 61,911,000 in the old Soviet Union or the alleged 35,236,000 in China who were murdered in the name of communism by atheist regimes.
The manifesting has not gone well thus far.
We ain’t getting’ better, folks. Putting Yeshua (or a Perfected Human) on the bridge of the Enterprise won’t solve our problems either. We simply can’t “get better”. We aren’t “ultimately perfectible” – not on our own or through gengineering. Only when we surrender our broken spirits to Jesus – not the Christ of the Crusaders or the Republicans – but to the Messiah of this world can we become perfect IN Him.
I’m reasonably sure that this post will irritate some of you…but this all the room I have today…
(First posted on December 25, 2007, updated 10/21/23)
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