Scripture tells us about a sophisticated culture that decided to show off its accomplishments by building a tower to reach the heavens. God humbled them by tearing down the tower and complicating their efforts to communicate.
I keep wondering when a God-sized dose of humility is going to crash down on our current culture. We are so skilled, so accomplished, so confident in our abilities that we believe we can do anything.
We’re so confident, in fact, that we no longer need to build a tower to God—we’ve considered the divine, and determined that it must be us.
The problem with replacing God with ourselves is, the minute we begin to think we can do anything, it is a short jump to thinking we should—even must—push the envelope of the human experience. We owe it to ourselves, owe it to the human race, to explore every discipline and indulgence, whether they ennoble or debase us.
You can see this in the debate over experimentation with embryonic stem cells. We must allow this scientific inquiry because we can, and it will surely lead to longer and better lives for some of us. This is, we believe, the elevation and advancement of the human race.
At the same time we say we will draw the line at human cloning, genetic engineering, designer children and growing life simply for the harvesting of fresh organs. We say we will stop short of these fantastic, horrendous ideas—and President Obama gave this assurance--but we will not. Eventually, if God does not intervene to stop it, humans will do all these things. Why? Because we can, so we should--in fact we must.
We see this human escalator theory in play all over the place, although there are applications where the moving staircase is undeniably travelling down.
We build more effective, destructive weapons of war, precisely targeted to kill selected humans, so other humans are free to keep on moving onward and upward. We can, so we should . . . we must!
Of course, those being targeted develop their own weapons and targeting strategies. They can, they should, they must.
We see it in our culture’s orgiastic preoccupation with sex. Sex is human, therefore it is god-like. If it is god-like, it can do anything it wants. Any time, Anywhere. With anyone. With anything. There are no limits to the human sexual experience. It’s all good.
Since we think we look at god in the mirror every day, there’s no need to build towers to reach him. There is really no need to build anything at all. We just need to explore. Explore what? Explore ourselves.
We don’t erect towers to explore ourselves--we dig tunnels instead. We need only dig deeper inward. Within--that is where reality, truth, the way, must ultimately be found.
Probably the greatest evidence that we are not really gods is that when we look in the mirror, we are often bored or disappointed with what we see. Eventually we come to the knowledge that no matter how wonderful we were, no matter how creative, how powerful, how happy, how fulfilled, how in control we once believed ourselves to be, we are really falling apart and are powerless to do anything about it.
That’s when the urge comes to dig more tunnels, and dig them deeper. If knowledge once made us feel god-like, then its time to buy some more self-help books. If youth made us feel invincible, then it is time to visit the cosmetic surgeon. If sex made us feel divine, then we need to pursue new sex, new experiences, new partners. If we drew our strength once from money and possessions, then we just need more.
These are tunnels that leave our souls increasingly weaker and emptier, and ultimately they bring us down. We dig deeper and deeper into the darkness, and further and further from the light of real truth and the life.
I’ve been wondering when and how God might humble us. It occurs to us He is doing it now, our own desperate shovels the tools of our destruction.
I keep wondering when a God-sized dose of humility is going to crash down on our current culture. We are so skilled, so accomplished, so confident in our abilities that we believe we can do anything.
We’re so confident, in fact, that we no longer need to build a tower to God—we’ve considered the divine, and determined that it must be us.
The problem with replacing God with ourselves is, the minute we begin to think we can do anything, it is a short jump to thinking we should—even must—push the envelope of the human experience. We owe it to ourselves, owe it to the human race, to explore every discipline and indulgence, whether they ennoble or debase us.
You can see this in the debate over experimentation with embryonic stem cells. We must allow this scientific inquiry because we can, and it will surely lead to longer and better lives for some of us. This is, we believe, the elevation and advancement of the human race.
At the same time we say we will draw the line at human cloning, genetic engineering, designer children and growing life simply for the harvesting of fresh organs. We say we will stop short of these fantastic, horrendous ideas—and President Obama gave this assurance--but we will not. Eventually, if God does not intervene to stop it, humans will do all these things. Why? Because we can, so we should--in fact we must.
We see this human escalator theory in play all over the place, although there are applications where the moving staircase is undeniably travelling down.
We build more effective, destructive weapons of war, precisely targeted to kill selected humans, so other humans are free to keep on moving onward and upward. We can, so we should . . . we must!
Of course, those being targeted develop their own weapons and targeting strategies. They can, they should, they must.
We see it in our culture’s orgiastic preoccupation with sex. Sex is human, therefore it is god-like. If it is god-like, it can do anything it wants. Any time, Anywhere. With anyone. With anything. There are no limits to the human sexual experience. It’s all good.
Since we think we look at god in the mirror every day, there’s no need to build towers to reach him. There is really no need to build anything at all. We just need to explore. Explore what? Explore ourselves.
We don’t erect towers to explore ourselves--we dig tunnels instead. We need only dig deeper inward. Within--that is where reality, truth, the way, must ultimately be found.
Probably the greatest evidence that we are not really gods is that when we look in the mirror, we are often bored or disappointed with what we see. Eventually we come to the knowledge that no matter how wonderful we were, no matter how creative, how powerful, how happy, how fulfilled, how in control we once believed ourselves to be, we are really falling apart and are powerless to do anything about it.
That’s when the urge comes to dig more tunnels, and dig them deeper. If knowledge once made us feel god-like, then its time to buy some more self-help books. If youth made us feel invincible, then it is time to visit the cosmetic surgeon. If sex made us feel divine, then we need to pursue new sex, new experiences, new partners. If we drew our strength once from money and possessions, then we just need more.
These are tunnels that leave our souls increasingly weaker and emptier, and ultimately they bring us down. We dig deeper and deeper into the darkness, and further and further from the light of real truth and the life.
I’ve been wondering when and how God might humble us. It occurs to us He is doing it now, our own desperate shovels the tools of our destruction.
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