II.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uitu5Hz0Joo
I believe I mentioned this before, but it bears repeating in this blog: We are in The Two Towers. We don't know exactly what went before but we have an echo called Satan, an echo of a war against God that didn't go well for the anti faction. We don't know exactly what happens when we finally join God. We know we will spend eternity worshiping Him, but how will that worship be defined? With song or labor or both? It seems to be both from Revelation readings. We know there will be a new Earth and a new Heaven. We don't have the final definition. I hope I don't have to sing unless I have perfect vocal cords and perfect pitch, but then we make this assumption that our perfection will be as His perfection which means we will be a able to move between Heaven and Earth as easily as walking from one room to the next. We will have with only the limits God gives us.
My discussion here has limits. It has guesses. I don't want to add to Scripture, but for the sake of this discussion, I will hypothesize. I also want to whet your appetite for the Final Flesh section.
So let's hypothesize about that First Flesh.
I suggest it had perfect DNA. The movie "Allegiant" presents its heroine as having perfect DNA after years of experimentation. Now, I will admit I don't know what "perfect" DNA is and I doubt anyone does. I suspect a human definition of perfection would fall far short of God's definition. But there is an interesting argument going on:
One reporter recalls meeting James Watson who along with Francis Crick "discovered" the helix form of DNA (Years after SF writer Theodore Sturgeon postulated it in one of his novellas.):
Although Watson did not end up attending the meeting, my high expectations were met when he did decide to drop in on dinner one evening at Robertson house. Without warning he seated himself at my table. I was in awe. The table was round with seating for six, and Honest Jim sat down right across from me. He spoke incessantly throughout dinner and we listened. Sadly though, most of the time he was spewing racist and misogynistic hate. I remember him asking rhetorically “who would want to adopt an Irish kid?” (followed by a tirade against the Irish that I later saw repeated in the news) and he made a point to disparage Rosalind Franklin referring to her derogatorily as “that woman”. No one at the table (myself included) said a word. I deeply regret that.
Ge 3:16 To the woman he said, Great will be your pain in childbirth; in sorrow will your children come to birth; still your desire will be for your husband, but he will be your master.
17 And to Adam he said, Because you gave ear to the voice of your wife and took of the fruit of the tree which I said you were not to take, the earth is cursed on your account; in pain you will get your food from it all your life.
III. Observe here how mercy is mixed with wrath in this sentence. The woman shall have sorrow, but it shall be in bringing forth children, and the sorrow shall be forgotten for joy that a child is born, Joh 16:21. She shall be subject, but it shall be to her own husband that loves her, not to a stranger, or an enemy: the sentence was not a curse, to bring her to ruin, but a chastisement, to bring her to repentance. It was well that enmity was not put between the man and the woman, as there was between the serpent and the woman.
Our First Flesh had never tasted death. They walked in perfection, were perfection, meant to last apparently in immortality. Meant to walk that way forever or for as long as Gd ordained. The universe was meant to go on forever, or as long as God ordained. Perfection was meant to remain perfection. Was designed to remain perfection. Modern medical doctors still haven't figured out why we don't live until 200.
Our DNA broke then. Became the imperfect smattering that makes us all. The Death gene was introduced. All that research above is not only humanity trying to end disease and make a better life. Ultimately we are striving to find that one gene to cut that will get us what we desire: a life without death. To splice a life gene into a death space.
In our final sections on First Flesh, we'll pursue the analysis of the curse further. but, for now, consider the meaning of that curse, of what we did, of what any two of us, man and woman, would likely have done back then in the innocence of our First Flesh.
Consider also that there was one other result of that curse I haven't touched on yet, that our genetic structure also testifies to. A concern of our next blog.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbWP_Zp7z3E
http://christianpersecutionindia.blogspot.com/2016/06/rising-persecution-in-punjab-india.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uitu5Hz0Joo
I believe I mentioned this before, but it bears repeating in this blog: We are in The Two Towers. We don't know exactly what went before but we have an echo called Satan, an echo of a war against God that didn't go well for the anti faction. We don't know exactly what happens when we finally join God. We know we will spend eternity worshiping Him, but how will that worship be defined? With song or labor or both? It seems to be both from Revelation readings. We know there will be a new Earth and a new Heaven. We don't have the final definition. I hope I don't have to sing unless I have perfect vocal cords and perfect pitch, but then we make this assumption that our perfection will be as His perfection which means we will be a able to move between Heaven and Earth as easily as walking from one room to the next. We will have with only the limits God gives us.
My discussion here has limits. It has guesses. I don't want to add to Scripture, but for the sake of this discussion, I will hypothesize. I also want to whet your appetite for the Final Flesh section.
So let's hypothesize about that First Flesh.
I suggest it had perfect DNA. The movie "Allegiant" presents its heroine as having perfect DNA after years of experimentation. Now, I will admit I don't know what "perfect" DNA is and I doubt anyone does. I suspect a human definition of perfection would fall far short of God's definition. But there is an interesting argument going on:
One reporter recalls meeting James Watson who along with Francis Crick "discovered" the helix form of DNA (Years after SF writer Theodore Sturgeon postulated it in one of his novellas.):
Although Watson did not end up attending the meeting, my high expectations were met when he did decide to drop in on dinner one evening at Robertson house. Without warning he seated himself at my table. I was in awe. The table was round with seating for six, and Honest Jim sat down right across from me. He spoke incessantly throughout dinner and we listened. Sadly though, most of the time he was spewing racist and misogynistic hate. I remember him asking rhetorically “who would want to adopt an Irish kid?” (followed by a tirade against the Irish that I later saw repeated in the news) and he made a point to disparage Rosalind Franklin referring to her derogatorily as “that woman”. No one at the table (myself included) said a word. I deeply regret that.
One of Watson’s obsessions has been to “improve” the “imperfect human” via human germline engineering. This is disturbing on many many levels. First, there is the fact that for years Watson presided over Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory which actually has a history as a center for eugenics. Then there are the numerous disparaging remarks by Watson about everyone who is not exactly like him, leaving little doubt about who he imagines the “perfect human” to be. But leaving aside creepy feelings… could he be right? Is the “perfect human” an American from Chicago of mixed Scottish/Irish ancestry? Should we look forward to a world filled with Watsons? I have recently undertaken a thought experiment along these lines that I describe below. The result of the experiment is dedicated to James Watson on the occasion of his unbirthday today.
If you want to read the scientific bits about alleles and such: https://liorpachter.wordpress.com/2014/12/02/the-perfect-human-is-puerto-rican/
The results of the study were that a Puerto Rican woman would be the "perfect" person:
The nearest neighbor to the “perfect human” is HG00737, a female who is…Puerto Rican. One might imagine that such a person already existed, maybe Yuiza, the only female Taino Cacique (chief) in Puerto Rico’s history.
The fact that the “perfect human” is Puerto Rican makes a lot of sense. Since many disease SNPs are population specific, it makes sense that an individual homozygous for all “good” alleles should be admixed. And that is exactly what Puerto Ricans are. In a “women in the diaspora” study, Puerto Rican women born on the island but living in the United States were shown to be 53.3±2.8% European, 29.1±2.3% West African, and 17.6±2.4% Native American. In other words, to collect all the “good” alleles it is necessary to be admixed, but admixture itself is not sufficient for perfection.
The fact that the “perfect human” is Puerto Rican makes a lot of sense. Since many disease SNPs are population specific, it makes sense that an individual homozygous for all “good” alleles should be admixed. And that is exactly what Puerto Ricans are. In a “women in the diaspora” study, Puerto Rican women born on the island but living in the United States were shown to be 53.3±2.8% European, 29.1±2.3% West African, and 17.6±2.4% Native American. In other words, to collect all the “good” alleles it is necessary to be admixed, but admixture itself is not sufficient for perfection.
While this study took as "perfect" a person with perfect alleles that reflected a cross section of humanity, it also arrived at another interesting conclusion:
Here the “perfect human” is revealed to be decidedly non-human. This is not surprising, and it reflects the fact that the alleles of the “perfect human” place it as significant outlier to the human population. In fact, this is even more evident in the case of the “worst human”, namely the individual that has the “bad” alleles at every SNPs. A projection of that individual onto any combination of principal components shows them to be far removed from any actual human.
What this means is that Adam and Eve would have been vastly different from us while looking like us. They had the genes for hair color-blond through brunette through "ginger". They had the eye color, skin color, gender, all fit in their packages of DNA. Everything you or I are was packaged into their strands with all the simple and complex variations.
This is important for Biblical believers. for years, science kept saying two people could not have founded all the variations of humanity. Black and white and Native American and Orient and Eskimo and blue eyes and brown eyes and...You get the drift. Therefore the Bible was wrong. But every time the science advances, every time humanity gets more actual knowledge of the way things work and moves beyond limiting God to human limitations, the Bible gets a little more correct, in our eyes.
This is important for Biblical believers. for years, science kept saying two people could not have founded all the variations of humanity. Black and white and Native American and Orient and Eskimo and blue eyes and brown eyes and...You get the drift. Therefore the Bible was wrong. But every time the science advances, every time humanity gets more actual knowledge of the way things work and moves beyond limiting God to human limitations, the Bible gets a little more correct, in our eyes.
For instance, I earlier stated that the evolutionary studies suggested the first man and woman existed thousands of years apart. I suggested that contradicted common sense biology. The two had to exist at the same time simply to "fix" any change that happened to make humans out of something else. for that "evolutionary evidence" to hold, simple biology had to be right. Now I discover this:
Almost every man alive can trace his origins to one man who lived about 135,000 years ago, new research suggests. And that ancient man likely shared the planet with the mother of all women.
The findings, detailed today (Aug. 1) in the journal Science, come from the most complete analysis of the male sex chromosome, or the Y chromosome, to date. The results overturn earlier research, which suggested that men's most recent common ancestor lived just 50,000 to 60,000 years ago.
It s so interesting when the Bible suddenly becomes news. I would guess enough simple folks who know enough about simple biology, a science founded on the research of a Christian monk:
"Gregor Mendel was an Austrian monk who discovered the basic principles of heredity through experiments in his garden. Mendel's observations became the foundation of modern genetics and the study of heredity, and he is widely considered a pioneer in the field of genetics."
I would guess us simple folk knew enough to have enough of us question the logic of the separate timelines for the parents of our race that the PhD's decided they better look at the research again. Or juggle it again.
It's not like we don't KNOW they were perfect and together in our unconscious or subconscious or racial memory. Probably locked somewhere in our genes. Scientists are working now to make humanity like them, to perfect us. Well. the work is being done largely under the auspices of dealing with disease, based on the knowledge scientists have discovered on how to "edit" DNA with the CRISPR-Cas9 technology which involves the groundbreaking use of enzymes that can alter the makeup of an embryo or a tumor or pretty much any organic material. This tech exists because of yogurt. I'm not kidding. We'll get there.
Once the human genome was mapped, finished sometime between 2001 and 2003, science had the master plan to study for the clues to the function of all our genes. (Plus you can now get some history website to do your DNA test for a fee and have it likely end up in a database somewhere while someone searching for a cure to some fatal disease will look at it for their research even as you learn you are 1/32 Sioux and 5/8 Lower Serbian and whatever's left English) There have been enzymes that can splice aberrant DNA in existence since the 1970's but they were unpredictable and using them was a bit like handling nitro and waiting for something to go wrong when you blinked.
"It turns out that the master key for unlocking DNA editing was waiting to be discovered in a cup of yogurt. in 2007, a group of dairy scientists were trying to understand why a variety of bacteria that gives yogurt its tang was constantly getting infected by virus that altered the taste of the product. When they sequenced the genome of the Streptococcus thermophilus bacteria, they kept hitting odd repeated fragments of DNA, 'We thought they were annoying, ' says Rodolphe Barrangou, one of the researchers, who is now an associate professor of food science at North Caroline State university.
"Eventually (they) realized that the repeated fragments weren't random or something to be ignored; they were the bacteria's way of keeping a genetic record of viruses that had infected them-a crude but very effective immune system. Inbetween the repeated sections of DNA were snippets of the virus' genes; when the same virus attempted to reinfect the bacteria, it would gravitate toward its matching section on the bacterial genome and bind to it. That summoned powerful enzymes that effectively snipped the virus out, leaving the bacteria free from infection."
This was the critical insight. Scientists had previously named the repeated segments "clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats"-CRISPR, but the real breakthrough was figuring out how to put CRISPR to use..."
Two teams working in 2012 determines that an enzyme in the cells Cas9 could "function as a powerful pair of scissors."
"CRISPR could be programmed to target a specific section of DNA by loading it with its matching RNA sequenced. Once paired, the Cas9 enzyme would cut out the matched section."
"CRISPR could be programmed to target a specific section of DNA by loading it with its matching RNA sequenced. Once paired, the Cas9 enzyme would cut out the matched section."
Essentially, a scientist armed with this tech can enter an embryo, cut out the segment that leads to a disease, such as the one identified for breast cancer and spare a child ever worrying about that infection. Or stop MS before birth. Or create Superman,
"Today you (meaning anyone like you or me or ISIS. W.) can go online to any number of biological supply companies and order your own CRISPR kit for as little as $130. The technique is being used in hundreds of labs across the U.S. and around the globe." They are doing studies on cancer and they can now accomplish in one afternoon the removal of a gene and seeing how it effects a tumor.
(All the quoted info appeared in Time Magazine July 4, 2015. "Life, The Remix" by April Park. All the information around was me paraphrasing much of what she wrote.)
Scientists are in moral dilemmas across the globe. Use it to cure disease, yes. To make larger muscles, more brains, tougher skin, more stamina? Is the Captain America Project a half-step from fruition? Has it already begun?
Worse, did someone actually succeed with those unpredictable experiments in the 1970's and do we have a superhuman of some sort lurking out there, gaining power and rising in the background? Like an Antichrist? Or will this tech be credited for saving the Beast's life when he receives his head wound?
All that is for a other day. For this one, we are seeking after our ancestors, to go back to that genetic perfection. To fight disease. To fight Death itself. Our urge to be like God growing with every new tech, every new tool, every new weapon. Even as we see ourselves as advancing by technology.
We mentioned last time that Adam and Eve arrived into a universe perfect for them. One designed for them. One either designed that way when they got there or designed to have developed that way when they got there. (Evidence exists for creation any way you look at the age of the universe. Any way you look at the "days" of creation. Creation science spends an inordinate amount of time defending a young universe though the argument for Creation can be made despite age. I guess it can be debated but why waste the time if you win either way? I would guess the argument for age used by evolution believers seems to demand that. Nice to know some of us do have arguments for that as well even if I don't see the need.)
So our perfect ancestors existed in a perfect world. But there are other things mentioned in Scripture that add clues to our First Flesh. Specifically the so-called "curse".
17 And to Adam he said, Because you gave ear to the voice of your wife and took of the fruit of the tree which I said you were not to take, the earth is cursed on your account; in pain you will get your food from it all your life.
18 Thorns and waste plants will come up, and the plants of the field will be your food;
19 With the hard work of your hands you will get your bread till you go back to the earth from which you were taken: for dust you are and to the dust you will go back.
20 And the man gave his wife the name of Eve because she was the mother of all who have life.
(BBE)
Woman has pain in childbirth now. I've had my hand about wrenched off my wrist holding my wife;s had during labor so I am empathetic and mildly familiar with it. We could draw an implication that she had not had pain or not had great pain in childbirth before which would go a certain way toward explaining some of the later things in the Bible, but for now, we will merely note that childbirth was meant to be a great deal easier and less painful, perhaps pain free depending on the translation you read. Our First Flesh apparently felt little or no pain of childbirth,
Sin brought sorrow, Apparently our First Flesh was filled with Joy. Maybe The Joy of the Lord we feel by the indwelling and empowering of the Holy Spirit. The joy of little pain and no sorrow. The joy of walking ith Him in the cool f the evening. (By the way, who were they walking with then? Consider it for our next entry.)
And human relationships, that perfect twinning of Adam and Eve from the same flesh, broke. Meaning they were in tune before the sin, Synced as none of us have been. Our First Flesh was unified.
Matthew Henry notes something else about the woman's curse:
The man's curse also bears the pain of laboring for food which he apparently didn't have to do. He would feel the agony of breaking earth, sewing seed, milking cows, of hunting prey, of fishing. (Okay, I know there are folks who love both those last agonies,but try doing them win sharpened stick and lions pursuing you when your in you forties and up and you might admire our ingenuity at evading that pain.) Eventually in standing on concrete for hours at a time, of digging coal or welding metal in 90 degree weather. Or sitting in a cubicle.
But both man and woman now faced sorrow for a new reason.
till you go back to the earth from which you were taken: for dust you are and to the dust you will go back.
Our DNA broke then. Became the imperfect smattering that makes us all. The Death gene was introduced. All that research above is not only humanity trying to end disease and make a better life. Ultimately we are striving to find that one gene to cut that will get us what we desire: a life without death. To splice a life gene into a death space.
In our final sections on First Flesh, we'll pursue the analysis of the curse further. but, for now, consider the meaning of that curse, of what we did, of what any two of us, man and woman, would likely have done back then in the innocence of our First Flesh.
Consider also that there was one other result of that curse I haven't touched on yet, that our genetic structure also testifies to. A concern of our next blog.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbWP_Zp7z3E
http://christianpersecutionindia.blogspot.com/2016/06/rising-persecution-in-punjab-india.html
On Wednesday 25 May, in the city of Jalandhar in India’s Punjab state, a Christian was severely beaten by eight Hindu extremists after he protested against Hindu desecration of a Christian graveyard. Even though a complaint was registered with the police on the day of incident, a First Information Report (FIR) was not registered until Monday 13 June.
Anoop Masih cannot afford the surgery and is fearful of malpractice because of the influence of local Hindu extremists over doctors in the area
Masih continues, “They hit me all over my body with many blows using their fists and legs, and then started to hit me in my private parts. One of them was wearing boots and his boot repeatedly hit one of my testicles so hard that I collapsed with the intensity of pain and I almost thought I’ll soon be dead.”Arif Chouhan (centre) said, ““In my 16 years of ministry as a Christian leader, I have not faced such opposition before”
Masih continues, “They hit me all over my body with many blows using their fists and legs, and then started to hit me in my private parts. One of them was wearing boots and his boot repeatedly hit one of my testicles so hard that I collapsed with the intensity of pain and I almost thought I’ll soon be dead.”Arif Chouhan (centre) said, ““In my 16 years of ministry as a Christian leader, I have not faced such opposition before”
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