Cultural revolutions have been great and accelerating influences upon humanity especially in the last one hundred years. What is a cultural revolution? How does it sweep over a society, nationally and internationally? Unfolding the breadth of this term will help to understand its far-reaching magnitude upon global societies. A cultural revolution often embodies the desires and ambitions of what a man or group of men see for the future of humanity.
The Concept of Culture
Several cultural revolutions have occurred over the past millennia that have paved the way for a final End-time culture. To what degree we will witness their influences upon the future culture will depend upon what God permits man to achieve with his End-time city-concept of Babylon, or to what height God will permit man to build his final Babel tower up to heaven. The Christian must always remember that God is fully in control of every aspect of history, including to what degree man’s decisions will be manifested and fulfilled.
In his detailed description of the End-time apostasy (2 Timothy 3), the apostle Paul eventually speaks of the depth of man’s sin and darkness: “But they shall proceed no further: for their folly shall be manifest unto all men.” This perspective will also be true even in the depth of the workings of Antichrist when he makes his appearance in history. The prophet Daniel clearly reveals that only a certain amount of time will be given to this Man of Sin and his controlling power over the world, a mere three and one-half years. The need for this providential restraint by God is not that mankind will overthrow God; God knows that if mankind continues in his dark manifestation of depravity, he will destroy himself, all of humanity, and everything on the planet. We must remember that the end of sin is death, destruction, and ultimately suicide. Death resides at the very core of sin. Sin innately is self-destructive. Its very nature is suicidal. It destroys any form of life!
Just what is culture? Perhaps all of the potential of what man wants to accomplish, either for God or away from God, to honor God or to commit acts of hatred against God, falls under the term culture.
We must carefully note in this introduction the various contexts and social sciences of this word culture. Yet, what would happen if all of these contexts and social sciences converged into a singular, orchestrated, demonically-energized hope in defiance of God? Would all of this empowered culture enable man with powers and abilities to bring himself beyond what God intended for him to be?
Our tendency is to think of culture in the context of the “fineness of feelings, thoughts, tastes, and our manner of living.” Such culture is manifested in our dress, art, poetry, music, and architecture including the décor of our buildings. In the outworking of man’s feelings, thoughts, tastes, and manner of living, the inherent principle of sin tends to bring man to wretchedness. In contrast, the grace of God brings man’s natural living to dignity, respectability, and nobility.
Cultural Revolutions
We must candidly acknowledge cultural revolutions that ideologically have had a profound effect on the rising End-time civilization’s culture. One such global revolution came through the communist planners Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Vladimir Lenin. This revolution enabled communism to control over half the world at its height of influence. Apart from religious reformers throughout history (such as Martin Luther), Karl Marx (1818–1883) had one of the most influential impacts politically and socially on the doctrinal teaching of world culture. There is no parallel in the whole history of philosophy. His teachings directly affected the mind of the masses of working people in various nations, not only by appealing to their material interests but even more so by a confidence in the falsifying of truth in his statements, writings, and predictions. Friedrich Engels (1820–1895), an intimate friend, collaborator, and supporter of Marx, remained in the background but provided money, encouragement, and innumerable services to Marx and his communist endeavors. Lenin helped seize political power during the Bolshevik Revolution (1917).
Without Lenin, Marxist socialism in its rigid shape would not have been established and maintained as the exclusively ruling creed in Russia. He truly was the greatest thinker of the Russian revolution. But in general ideas, he depended upon Marx. According to Lenin, Marx had sufficiently explained the world and left to Lenin the task of changing this world. Yes, communism and socialism truly were cultural revolutions at the turn of the twentieth century. They affected every aspect of life, from economy, productivity, business, lifestyle, allegiance, collectivism, and an ideal for the perfect life without God.
There was also the revolution of Mao Zedong following the rise of communism in China. Mao believed the elitist in leadership were leaving the communist revolution that came to China in 1949. Therefore, he started the Cultural Revolution in 1966 to bring the country back to the revolution’s purpose. Over 30 million Chinese were put to death in this atheistic revolution.
The Culture Revolution Within Western Civilization
How has the culture of Western civilization changed over the past sixty to seventy years, especially on a global perspective? Although a number of national events have affected national cultures over the centuries, perhaps the rock-n-roll group called The Beatles will go down in history for bringing about a cultural revolution throughout an entire civilization. This will be especially noted in the subtle influence of one member of the group, John Lennon. This cultural revolution took place in the late 1960s, and in the ensuing years Western civilization began radically changing in its outward manifestation of living to a lower level of thinking, dressing, working, and the very living of life itself.
America has seen a number of cultural revolutions in the past fifty years that must be acknowledged; they have been silent cultural revolutions that have subtly and secretly swelled in massive takeovers in our nation and throughout Europe. This cultural revolution has included an abundance of all types of drugs upon humanity. The cultural revolution of sodomy in all of its multi-shades of strangeness has now legalized same-gender marriages. Just nine years ago only 39 percent of America tolerated sodomy; today, the Gallop poll estimates 60 percent tolerate sodomy. We have seen its progressive stages from toleration, to permissibility, and now to open promotion in all of the public arenas of human living. The bombardment of the media to educate America in this wicked, obsessive, strange sin has now convinced 51 percent of Americans to believe that such people are born genetically with this proclivity.
In 2002, 41 percent of Americans believed that to have a child out of wedlock was morally acceptable. Today it is 61 percent. If you are a baker in America, you can refuse to cater a sodomite wedding for any reason, such as “I am too busy,” or “I will be taking several days off at the time you need the cake,” etc.—for any reason, except using the words, “I don’t approve of such a marriage.” If you declare you are against this lifestyle, you will not only be vilified, but you will also be bankrupted through mounting court costs and fines of discrimination. America has come to believe we must not judge others for anything, even if what they are doing is destructive. This pervasive cultural revolution around the world is eclectically breaking down the distinctions of races, religions, nations, philosophies, and even realms of logic.
There are those who are pressing to mongrelize all of the nations in order to destroy patriotism and allegiance within any nationality or culture. The elite controlling philosophers of the world will even use allegiance to a culture or race in order to ultimately destroy all allegiances. They are methodically chiseling away against one race or one culture by the use of all the other cultures. This is done by turning one culture against another and then another until they are all destroyed. Cultural revolutions take place to destroy cultures and every facet or concept identified with them.
The Future of Man’s Culture
The philosophical leaders of the world and their billionaire cohorts have come to mutually believe (amidst all of the cultural revolutions that have taken place in the various arenas of science, technology, medicine, etc.) that there must be a final cultural revolution with the superlative intent of the final overthrow of God on this planet.
This postmodern global environment that has done away with all concepts of right and wrong and the questioning of ethics is now desiring to place man in a position where he is able to do anything without being questioned or judged morally. Their self-rationalization of the universe and the world around them has created a moral relativism. The global presupposition of man’s full autonomy has now opened a whole new world where man becomes his own God.
Science and technology are aggressively pressing themselves into every field of epistemology with the intent to mutually come to an hour when they can collaborate all of the human accomplishments into a final frontier that will declare them to be God—in their thinking. The global elite believe they are now ready to create the future of what man is to be.
The sins of mankind that pervade every aspect of humanity are now screaming for another cultural revolution of humanity itself to be brought forth “in the image and likeness of man.” This cultural revolution is to speed up the evolutionary process of man and bring him to a perfection never known before. This is to be a disease-free perfection of the body, of a non-demented mind, of a charismatic personality, of a gender-less or bi-gender entity, and a life that can never die. All of this is to be performed without God and without the redemption of God.
Such a humanistic, secularistic hope in more recent years has brought an escalating rise of many movements, including the 2045 Initiative, founded in 2011 by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov. This atheistic Russian multi-billionaire initially sought to bring together Russian specialists to create artificial organs and systems for the human body including the adaptation of “neural interfaces and robotics.” But this initiative has now become a global network of researchers in the field of what is being called life extension and Evolutionary Transhumanism.
The main goal of the 2045 Initiative is presented on their website:
To create technologies enabling the transfer of an individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
In his opening speech at the 2013 Global Future 2045 International Congress, Itskov stated the following:
We, the team of the 2045 Initiative, have a special name for this strategy: We call it Evolutionary Trans-humanism. In realizing this Evolutionary Transhumanism, we need to create and carry out two revolutions. Firstly, a spiritual revolution, we need this to make sure that people will benefit from the technologies, and that we raise the level of public consciousness, to be safe with the kind of technology that we hope to develop. The other revolution is techno-scientific, and the aim of it is to develop the means of transferring one’s personality/one’s consciousness to a non-protein, more capable body carrier.
People call me a dreamer, and even some colleagues of mine call me a dreamer, but this dream, this huge future that we are going to create, I think it is worth dreaming of, because in this future people will be young, beautiful, they will not suffer from illnesses and diseases. They will have multiple bodies, not just one. The biological body will be able to live on earth and the non-biological body will be able to travel the cosmos. In the hologram-like body, people can stay in places where you cannot stay in the physical body.
This kind of body will probably be radiant, as the Russian scientist Tsiolkovsky called it. He was known to probably have a similar dream, because he wanted humanity to be transformed to a kind of radiant humanity, which will not be even material, but a sort of energy.
Itskov continued:
In this world of the future there will be no diseases, no death, no hunger, no wars, no tensions between nations, and on the contrary, there will be abundance, freedom, creativity, and everyone will be concentrating on spiritual self-improvement, I believe. Scientists are very rational and they don’t actually like talking about dreams, they prefer to deliver, and not to overpromise from the very beginning. But what I want to emphasize is that this dream helps the speculation that we have in the project, and can actually drive the science. Throughout the whole history of humanity, curiosity and the thirst for new discoveries have actually driven science and encouraged science. So obviously, what we are going to develop through the realization of the Avatar project is not speculation at all. It is realistic and I hope the Congress will show that we have enough ground to claim that it is realistic.
The Avatar World: Man’s Hopeful Cultural Future
But how is this cybernetic immortality going to be the answer for evolutionary transhumanism? There is a great race in a number of countries to perfect the computerized world of avatars. The term avatar appeared early in Hindu religion designating the incarnation of a Hindu deity, or an incarnation in human form. Today it has become a term for an electronic image “that represents and is manipulated by a computer user in a virtual space (as in a computer game) and that interacts with other objects in the space.” (Merriam Webster)
On May 27, 2017, Walt Disney World Resort in Florida opened to the public “Pandora: The World of Avatar.” In seeking to create an entertainment park based on James Cameron’s film Avatar, Disney has pushed this concept into family acceptance. Avatar premiered in London on December 10, 2009, and was internationally released on December 16, and in the United States and Canada on December 18. During its theatrical run, the film broke several box office records and became the highest-grossing film of all time, as well as (in the United States and Canada) surpassing Titanic, which had held those records for twelve years (and was also directed by Cameron). It also became the first film to gross more than $2 billion and the best-selling film of 2010 in the United States.
In the 2045 Initiative the timeline goal for a true humanoid avatar controlled by a brain-computer interface was to be achieved between 2015 and 2020. Between 2020 to 2025 the goal is to “create” an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot; then between 2030 and 2035 there is the hope of creating a computer model of the brain and “human consciousness” with means to transfer it into what is called an artificial carrier. The final initiative goal is to create a new era for humanity with holographic bodies by 2045.
The story of Pandora is based upon the belief that by 2154, humans will have depleted earth’s natural resources, which will lead to a severe energy crisis. “The Resources Development Administration (RDA for short) mines for a valuable mineral—unobtanium—on Pandora, a densely forested habitable moon orbiting the gas giant Polyphemus in the Alpha Centauri star system. Pandora, whose atmosphere is poisonous to humans, is inhabited by the Na'vi, 10-foot tall, blue-skinned, sapient humanoids who live in harmony with nature and worship a mother goddess called Eywa”†—all of this in a universe existing without the concept of God, or man/woman taking the place of God. It is obvious that Disney is “magically” involved in such films to entice the children of the world to be prepared for a radical paradigm shift of human existence where the human and the artificial merge into one existence created by man.
The present goal is to create an artificial brain into which the “original individual consciousness may be transferred” (Itskov). It is estimated by the timeline designated by the global elite that by 2025 they will be able to “transplant” a human brain at the end of life into an avatar, with an autonomous system providing life support. It is believed that at such a time in history there will be no more need of fertilization and conception, no need to face even death itself, and man will declare what the “image” will be. Man’s hope is to bring the synthetic and the natural together, of man creating a man even greater than the creation by God.
Conclusion
Cultivation has always been a term designated in the hand and the power of man in whatever context it may be. But it is evident that man has gone beyond the moral and ethical framework of life and is aggressively pursuing those cultivations that only God should be involved in. Decisions will become more complicated in the future for the Christian concerning how far he submits himself to the system of the medical world. How far do we go with transplants, or an artificial organ or system of the body, or vaccines, or alterations of gender and genetic coding? We must never conclude that anything should be viewed as being “right” or “beneficial” because God permits man to do it. God permitted the city of Babylon to begin as man endeavored to make himself a name to take the place of the Name of the Lord. But there are these words:
There is a point somewhere out there in time that God will bring confusion and a scattering, but how far will He let mankind go? This does not mean since God is silent to this hour that He is in agreement with what man is doing. Man has gone into areas in his cultural revolutions that we never thought God would permit: that of mapping out the DNA, the cloning of animals, and even creating artificial wombs in which to place test-tube babies (without ever using the woman for anything). And now, we read of altering the sex of a person and changing the gender of an individual. But there will be a limitation in this realm of transhumanism.
How should we then live in days of the demise of honorable culture? The biblical worldview must still be maintained in the Christian’s mind and heart. We must not let the world and its various impressive technologies and accomplishments overthrow our faith in God’s Word. We must embrace biblical thinking, not world thinking. It is not that men do not have enough evidence about God to believe in His existence but that they suppress their knowledge of God; they do not like to retain God in their knowledge.
From the Christian perspective “In the beginning God” is the foundation for all meaning. Our worldview further proclaims that this powerful, intelligent God Who created all things in heaven and earth, is the same One Who took upon Himself human form in the person of Jesus Christ. Only the creationist perspective can account for the design in nature; even the robotic avatars have a designer. One of the unique principles that all of science and technology must have in order to work is a unanimity of the universe in intricate harmony of law, order, design, purpose, and beauty.
Dear Christian, the estate of human life and existence has been given over to those who hate God, those who will use the laws and the principles of His providence to destroy man, unless God intervenes to save man from the inevitable suicide of humanity.
Oh, dear reader, how should we then live in an age that we never thought would and could come upon us? We must be careful not to get involved and enticed in “science fiction” and all of its infatuations and speculative novelties. We must live in the light of belief in the personal, Eternal God. We must live in the reality that the first man disobeyed his Creator and thus plunged himself into sin, bringing the law of sin and death upon all of humanity. We must live in the light that our problems are not the imperfections of a Creator, but man has brought himself into his own corruption, his own depravity, and his own, ever-deepening destruction. In the living of life itself—in his marriages, in his social relationships, in wars, in terrorism, and in all that man touches—all turns to death because the wages of the sin principle governing the man is death. God Himself is our only hope for the radical change of our human culture and everything it stands for.
When Christ comes into the life, He not only brings a right relationship between man and his Creator, but also a right life to live, a changed life, a Christian perfection life, a recovered life that God intended for man at the time He created a perfect man on a perfect planet. Only God can bring to man eternal life, both in its quality and duration. It is not transhumanism that we need! We need a transformation and a transfiguration of life “in Christ,” and to become continually conformed to His image! This is the only hope for man! And it is only when the God-Man, Christ Jesus, comes to set up His Kingdom that it will be ruled universally in peace and knowledge and love. Outside of Him, there is no hope of recovery from man’s own fall into sin!
God created us in His image and likeness; He gave us a personality of intellect, emotions, will, and a self-entity. He wants to save both our soul and life, both to be poured out into Him, not into the world that has rejected Him and all that He is.
The psalmist declares in Psalm 95:7, 8:
And, we also read the following in Psalm 100:3:
How should we then live in the days of the demise of honorable culture? We live for Him, and in Him, and have our being and existence unto Him.
†IMDb.com. (n.d.). Avatar. IMDb. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499549/plotsummary/