Modernism

A new survey reveals that more Americans are trusting social media and health-related websites for medical advice over an actual healthcare professional. The poll of 2,000 adults finds many will turn to the web for “accurate” information regarding their health before asking their physician. In fact, significantly more people consult healthcare websites (53%) and social media (46%) than a real-life doctor (44%). 73% believe they have a better understanding of their health than their own doctor does.

Further showcasing their point, two in three Americans say they’ve looked up their symptoms on an internet search engine like Google or a website like WebMD. Respondents say they would rather consult the internet or ChatGPT instead of their doctor because they’re embarrassed by what they’re experiencing (51%) or because they want a second opinion (45%).

Of course, much of the trust people have for technology doesn’t stop with AI. Many would also trust major tech companies with their personal health data, including Google, Apple, Fitbit, and Amazon. Overall, 78% state they’re “confident” that AI and tech companies would protect their health information.

Researcher Lija Hogan said, “This means that we have to figure out the right guardrails to ensure people are getting high-quality advice in the right contexts and how to connect patients to providers.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

In a similar way, many congregants are fact checking their pastor during the sermon and may put trust in strangers on social media and the internet over their pastor’s teaching, relying on dubious information or incorrect theology.

On the final episode of the podcast Dolly Parton’s America, Dolly offered various responses to the question: “What is the theology of Dolly Parton?”

After stating that she was “spiritual not religious,” Parton said, “The Bible says let every man seek out his own salvation, and that means to save himself. Whatever it takes to save you, and if you can get to that place and find your own peace then you can do good for other people if you are at peace with yourself.”

When asked about the afterlife, Parton responded, “You don’t really know, you just hope, and you have faith. That’s what faith is. I think it’s not the end of me. I don’t think it’s the end of any of us. I think we’re recycled and if nothing else we just go back into that great flow of divine energy and hopefully we spread ourselves around in other wonderful ways.”

Os Guinness traces our contemporary idea of human freedom that "began in the Renaissance … blossomed in the Enlightenment and rose to its climax in the 1960s." The classic statement of the Renaissance view is that of Pico della Mirandola, as he imagines God addressing Adam: "You, who are confined by no limits, shall determine for yourself your own nature …. You shall fashion yourself in whatever form you prefer."

Throughout the centuries this same view of human freedom—limitless potential apart from God—has been expressed by other key thinkers.

• Leon Batista Alberti: "A man can do all things if he will." (15th century, Italy)
• Karl Marx: "Man is free only if he owes his existence to himself." (19th century, Germany)
• Friedrich Nietzsche: "If there were gods, who could bear not to be gods? Therefore there are no gods." (19th century, Germany)
• Herbert Spencer: "Progress is not an accident, but a necessity. Surely must evil and immorality disappear; surely must men become perfect." (19th century, England)
• Walt Whitman: "One's-self I sing, a simple separate person." (19th century, America)
• John F. Kennedy: "Man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings." (20th century, America)
• Ayn Rand: "Man's destiny is to be a self-made soul." (20th century, Russian-American)
• E.O. Wilson: "Humanity will be positioned godlike to take control of its own ultimate fate." (21st century, America)

A new movement has emerged from California's Silicon Valley. It's a combination of philosophy, faith, and science known as transhumanism. An article in The Futurist magazine describes transhumanism as "radical life extension and life expansion." Those devoted to the movement "perceive the human body as a work in progress." They believe that "evolution took humanity this far…and only technology will take [humanity] further." As for sickness, aging, and death? Adherents call all three "unnecessary hindrances that we have the right and the responsibility to overcome. … Our bodies, frail and unpredictable, are just another problem…to solve."

The goal of the World Transhumanist Association is to transcend all human limitations. They believe the body is a machine; the brain, a computer. With quickly advancing technology, then, man can be "upgraded." Transhumanists are convinced that one day artificial limbs will be more efficient than real limbs. Our brains will be vastly superior, too. Researchers have theorized that Einstein's brain had no gap between the frontal lobes. Transhumanists hope to use technology in such a way that his "advantage" can be engineered for everyone.

It probably isn't surprising to learn that transhumanists are also staunch supporters of cryonics. Ralph Merkle, a board member of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation, says, "People think cryonics is freezing the dead. That's incorrect. We're freezing the terminally ill. We want a second opinion from a future doctor." In the future they hope to unleash the power of nanotechnology to repair failed organs and dying cells. They are convinced that these billionth-of-a-meter robots will be able to "go into a deceased body, repair the dead cells, and reboot the brain." Merkle insists that "once we get the technology in place, dying goes away. It just doesn't happen."

Inventor Ray Kurzwell forecasts that right around the year 2030, cybernetic implants will greatly augment human intelligence, and all of the world's common diseases will have been cured. By 2040, we will see the rise of an artificial intelligence that is thousands of times smarter than all of humanity combined.

The overwhelming majority of transhumanists are atheists. Still, Tyler Emerson, a leader in the transhumanist movement, says, "For those of us who don't believe in God, this is a sort of religion." Another leader, Peter Thiel, adds, "Every myth on this planet tells people that the purpose of life is death. It rationalizes death. It helps them deal with it. Every temple is a tomb and every tomb a temple. If you have a set of technologies that radically changes the meaning of death, then that has repercussions for religion. These questions touch on our very humanity."

Advances in technology have allowed scientists to come closer than ever to the physical origins of life. But they are as far away as ever from defining life.

Several research teams around the world are trying to create life out of chemicals, and they estimate they will have success in three to ten years. "We're all sort of thinking that the next origin of life will be in somebody's lab," say Dr. David Deamer. But the biochemistry professor from the University of California at Santa Cruz also says it is better to describe life, not define it.

One Christian scientist says it's going to be impossible to define life apart from God. Francis Collins, the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, says, "It's an important but ultimately frustrating question if one expects to come up with a nice clean shiny answer; it ain't going to happen." Collins believes that those who "play God" in the laboratory usually don't believe in God.

But Mark Bedau, a professor with his feet in both disciplines, disagrees. Bedau is a philosophy professor and also works at a synthetic biology firm. His team is trying to make single-cell organisms from chemical components. "We are doing things which were thought to be the province, in some quarters, of God," said Bedau, "[things] like making new forms of life." Bedau is optimistic about future possibilities. "Life is very powerful," he explains, "and if we can get it to do what we want…there are all kinds of good things that can be done. Playing God is a good thing to do as long as you're doing it responsibly."

Author and law professor Stephen Carter writes:

My date book contains cartoons first published in The New Yorker. One shows a young boy in front of his class, doing arithmetic at the blackboard. He has just written "7 x 5 = 75" and says to his astonished teacher, "It may be wrong, but it's how I feel."

There, in a nutshell, is the problem with the post-secular university. Faith is dead, reason is dying, but "how I feel" is going strong.

"The most extraordinary thing about the 20th century was the failure of God to die. The collapse of mass religious belief, especially among the educated and prosperous, had been widely and confidently predicted. It did not take place. Somehow, God survived, flourished even."

Religion, as a mere sentiment, is to me a dream and a mockery. As well can there be filial love without the fact of a father, as devotion without the fact of a Supreme Being.

The modern view seems much nicer to talk about than sin. Sin is so depressing. It makes people feel bad about themselves--or so psychologists tell us.

A baby is God's opinion that life should go on. A book that does nothing to you is dead. A baby, whether it does anything to you, represents life. If a bad fire should break out in this house and I had my choice of saving the library or the babies, I would save what is alive. Never will a time come when the most marvelous recent invention is as marvelous as a newborn baby. The finest of our precision watches, the most supercolossal of our supercargo planes, don't compare with a newborn baby in the number and ingenuity of coils and springs, in the flow and change of chemical solutions, in timing devices and interrelated parts that are irreplaceable. The baby here is very modern. Strictly. Yet it is also the oldest of the ancients.

He who begins by loving Christianity better than truth will proceed by loving his own sect or church better than Christianity, and end in loving himself better than all.