So, what is it just now about the MARVEL franchise anyhow? These guys appear unable to make a money losing movie. Everything the ex-comic book people do, keeps coming up roses earnings-wise the past few years, it seems to me. As a boy, I can recall reading the 60's version of MARVEL comics. Newsflash, this just in; they weren't that good. The old Spiderman comic books had all these side bar notes by Stan Lee. Very distracting to read, I always thought. I have no memory of any X-Men roaming around the comic book universe back when Richard Nixon was bombing Hanoi, but they may have been around. But supposing that they were, they never were at that time; a "hot" item for geeks like me. The movies about the X-ers the past few years have made several small mountains of money, and my guess is that there is a cultural nerve somewhere they have struck, which has captured the popular imagination.
So, if it's about imagination, the first thing to imagine, when watching these films is to "get" the big idea. First of all, nobody in the show prays. Not a church spire ever appears in the cityscape background, and it is very much as-if there never had been any sign or trace of the Almighty stepping into this world. This movie world is a "sanitized" of God (or any memory of Him) universe. And of course, the reason being is that such a scenario allows the hero (or anti-hero) the room to step up to fill the "vacancy". The mutants in these flicks become (for all practical purposes) gods themselves.
Stepping back from that scenario a bit, we find that not a shred of this makes any sense at all, unless we a priori, swallow the Darwinian model of "up-ness". The shift-up from ape to man, kinda begs the question of from man to what-next? Here, (and here alone!) change is always for the better, and "mutations" thereby are uniformly beneficial "survival-wise". Never mind that in the actual (and real) God-infested, church spire ridden world, the screaming majority of mutations, either weaken or kill. Do not notice that!
But do notice this; I've kinda been mulling over this basic idea for most of my life. The way the thing functions, is that if the basic idea remains as undeclared background (this inevitable up-ness I mean) then it is not normally questioned. When it shifts to the foreground however, it quickly becomes "crazy". Sometime when you are just fabulously bored, try Googling "Transhumanism Nanofibers". The speculation having to do with fibers dropped from airborne tankers which infect your brain, such that you are programmed, is kind of sad/amusing to read. It's like the homeless guy I met one day, who believed that the C.I.A. was listening into his brain. So, in this fashion then, the new-first item to imagine, when such movies are playing, is to picture Nietzsche. . . not going insane, like he did in the real world. His Darwinian man-to-over-man crud, leading directly to the Third Reich; for instance (in this scenario); just "didn't happen". So then, it's this type of "reality" forming the big picture we require, in order to make sense out of the X-ed out "flawed heros", which keep dragging in those big movie bucks. In this down-economy, we (apparently) require to hear something. And if that something is about men evolving "up" (under tremendous duress); facing nearly impossible odds, then it's trans-humanism made simple; and thereby is seriously loony.
Thinking some about all this, if the next step "up" on the evo-tree is a sort of meld, we are being presented a fearful future for mankind or what's left of it, after they get done "fixing" things. If, so to speak; we are "calling for" super-human capacity, then X-Men answer that call. And so, the way this is done is a type of fusion of magic and science, to yield highly improbable ability, or super-competence in individuals. A new thing in Earth, a cadre of "new-men" capable of handling the immense pressure the future presents; tends toward the forgetful, it seems to me. What is forgotten, is that all this has been repeatedly tried in the past, with disastrous results. All of this "novelty" is normally linked to the destruction of the (backward) past, so doing away with "dead tradition". Newness, or novelty itself, from this perspective is hailed as "creativity", and we are not supposed to ever ask whether the drink is poison. Never mind that it is deadly, this is the stuff that sells!
Not to get too awfully far off track here, but glance over at the huge market for "energy drinks". We old-fashioned humans are moving too slowly for the fast-new world! So, rather than slowing the pace of things, we try instead to hop-up our own metabolism! Meth, and coke and any other illegal "speed" all answer the very same problem of pace likewise. We not-quite-up humans are the ones who require the boost in this model. Whether it be strength, or knowledge, or some proposed super powered mutated morph of human-kind itself, this is the "project", at which the aim is always being taken. And as it always has, ever the siren call commands; "keep up!". Call it magic, call it science, call it evolution, or interfacing with computer AI, none of the particulars much matter. The "up-slope" is itself the imagined and is what is "set" here. Acceleration up; this is the "given". So, man-plus-something, as he "ascends" (on his own steam) is in our time, formatting (again) as the "other religion'. The god spot being unaccountably vacated, we note "man-up" (that soon to be god), proceeding to fill the gap.
The disturbing state of mind which we presume to be present in those believing this stuff, is at first scary! Like dealing that homeless guy who "knows" that the C.I.A. has tapped his brainwaves, we find the details difficult to pay attention to; until first we examine the "why-of" why he thinks so. The assumptions here are more important than the conclusions. The specifics of conclusions; depending upon just which nut is talking at the moment, never outweigh the common basic thrust of the transhumanist view, which is itself plainly nuts. For instance, contrary to the mutation X-Men scenario we are just now discussing, the main difference of the transhumanist theory here as "evolution", is that it is not so much "advanced" by mutation, as by augmentation. So, a kind of sloppy thinking prevails here, to the effect that digital processing, the internet, and super computing are supposedly, in that future to be (ideally?) linked or fused into the "meat machine" of the human brain. In some hideous future or another, the upshot of such a world would yield a type of "eternal life", insofar as one's persona could (supposedly) be "downloaded". So then, the horrendously bad track record of this same (uppity) "progress of man" material is always presented as-if we as a species, have never yet once attempted this? Never mind that this very thing, this arrogance, and "rising" theme is the salient feature of all events past. Apparently, we are to infer that ignorance of history is an "evolved" trait then?
And yet, to be blunt; this tendency of ours (we Christians I mean) to look down on this type of material, and thus to simply discount it as insane, I believe misses the point. The crazy details, the entire paranoid conspiracy angle in all of this type of thing, the "global elite, those rascally Tri-lateralist, international bankers" and such stuff we simply scoff at. We "know" that the real problem is delusion, not some conspiracy built by some committee of unidentifiable bad guys. We reject this transformation of human kind theory not so much in the details of the lunacy as rather in the basic premises and assumptions. We buy the truth of the Image in us, and in them. We buy that man is becoming something new, but that new thing would be His Image renewed in us, never our own version of uber-competence. We, those originally built in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, plus having dominion over the world system, we the wrecked, recognize in us the marred Image. Our goal is not to "get back to" Eden, but to shoot right past it!
Ever since Eden, it has been fallen mans' "project" to put something into ourselves, that would (supposedly) make us "go up", to become "greater, stronger, and smarter". What has been uniform, has never been the specifics of the scheme, and so; as such are not crucial to the discussion. It is the directional aspect, it seems to me; the uniformly "upward" trending which is to build an enfolded multi-man, or to design a magician capable, or find a way via downloading a life consciousness into a data bank, which coheres. All of these are attempted escape from our true nature (those soon to die) consistently proving to be the theme. The religion of man is, has been, and shall remain being all about transformation out of our actual (fallen) position, so to (on our own) transcend death. The religion of man proves mostly to be about power.
Essentially then, we believers disagree just here. Ultimately, life isn't about acquisition. The glory, light, life, and excellencies of Him calling, simply must be acknowledged, or sanity cannot prevail. The only working option to Him at center, is me at center, and we have tons of evidence just how well that fiasco has worked in the past! So the dispute is here, and is not really over transformative theory per se. Man is (in fact) being joined together into what the Apostle calls "the new creature". An entirely new type of "thing", this "wife and companion" for the Son, is being gathered from across the age, and around the world. An uncountable throng of individuals, who are nonetheless "one (new) man". The satanic deception all along has been that we could, and would of ourselves; "somehow" carry off the project! See, the transhumanist monstrosity, is but the latest installation of the same old thing. And from the very get-go, it was (and is) a hopelessly bad idea. There never was a chance of it getting off the ground.
This self elevation makes about as much sense, and is of the same kind as the enemy's original premise, that of a proposed "equality with God". There never was a whisper of hope that this ragingly insane premise ever (once) made even a little sense. And in the details of it, in the convoluted "explanation", by which the tale is told, just exactly "there" the many have historically been deceived. But the deceptive thing has never been that power (of itself) is either a good or bad thing. Rather, it is that capacity and ability is never a naked or abstract thing. It is always and ever joined to the Regal Majesty and to His stunning brilliance. In the prayer, we say "Thine the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory, ever-after!". If such talk were only all about power, then it would also be all about "legitimate" murder. Recall our human track record! Where we believers differ here is not that we deny a transformation, but that that He owns it! Transhumanism, on it's very best day, is nothing but a second rate, slap-dash attempt to mimic what He is (indeed!) building. We proclaim Him, and the Glory of Kingly-He, as All Powerful. He who defending and loving life, is the actual and sane topic. We and our future are secondary to The Majesty on high Himself, hobnobbing with; and drawing to Himself, the low upward. He, at center, and we drawn there, that's the reality here.
If "man-plus" be our theme, it remains man-plus-Messiah! It is man-plus forgiveness, man-plus an alien righteousness, freely given to cover our shameful failure(s). And it is man-plus victory, for one day, we the low (then raised) shall triumph over the enemy and all his slaves. We shall be raised above, with and in Him, joined to Messiah soon to be "supervisors" for angels! My guess is that our ancient foe once upon a time got a glimpse of this coming reality. I am guessing it was this which proved to be the final straw, the last "insult to his dignity" by which he lied to himself, and himself embraced the lie.
Before you lie to anyone else, you must first "justify" it inside. The details, the scary predictions, the convoluted reasonings of this inner collapse never matter as much as the base treason, and flight from the real which is necessarily involved in any such thing.
We, standing in the broad daylight of His Glory, we are the "scary ones" now!
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