|
 "We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount.... The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants." - General Omar Bradley
INTR0DUCTION
The last hundred years have seen an explosion in technology. We have gone from the first flight with the Wright Brothers in 1903 to walking on the moon in 1969. Jet flight and the Nuclear Age gave way to the Space Age, which gave birth to the Information Age, which has exploded since then. Is there any limit to our technological expertise? Should there be any moral 'brake' to slow us down from what could be a technological calamity as a result of unrestrained development? Just because we can do it, should we do it?
AT WHAT COST?
Stem cell research is but one area where there is an unclear line between the positive motive of improving quality of life for those who have suffered a disability, and taking one life to preserve another. If a benefit is gained at the expense of embryonic life, then this is where technology and ethics collide! The question is, if adult and umbilical cord stem cells are available, why is there a persistence for the use of embryonic stem cells? The answer to this is that ethics and morality have not kept pace with the unfettered growth of technology.
Culture of Narcissism
Ethics must have as its ultimate aim the preservation, extension and multiplication of life, not from a uni-generational perspective, as our egocentric generation tends to think, but with a multi-generational viewpoint. Mark Steyn hits it right on the head, "Essentially modern post-Christian Europe, and Canada, and large parts of the United States... have replaced the traditional impulses of civilization, which is to breed, prosper, to expand and survive, with a culture of narcissism. I'd like to have... meaningless, promiscuous sex, and just think about myself all day long, and all week long, and all year long. But in the end, when you prioritize that, you actually destroy the culture that enables it. It's a completely absurd culture and brazen. And that's what we've done.... Most societies have built into their DNA the need to survive, the need to prosper, and the need to reproduce. And we have managed to lose that in an extraordinarily short period of time."
DO THE MATH!
Any culture that allows the multiplication rate to slip into the negative is a culture that values death more than life. That is what has happened in Europe, and it is getting that way here in the United States. The key word in all the foundational covenants that God made with Adam, Noah and Abraham was 'multiply!' Will we use our technology to pander to our selfish needs or will we see from God's perspective? He works multi-generationally and so should we.
The church was at one time, a strong arbiter in these issues, but has long since accepted its relegation by society to the ideological backwaters of our culture. I believe those days are coming to an end! Lord, let the church rise up and take back its rightful position of promoting life, liberty and morality.
|
