Dear Friends, This one is bit lengthy, but I'm sure, will help many those who are interested in dealing with current affairs and faith.
The Lust to Clone Surely, everyone remembers Dolly, the cloned sheep-which is no more, created by the Rosslyn Institute a few years ago. After the initial wave of excitement and spirited debate about the ethics of the procedure, people went back to business as usual. However, in the years since, aggressive and sometimes rancorous competition has characterized the work of genetics labs around the world. They are all running for the prize of having their cloning techniques patented first. Meanwhile, the procedure has proven risky; clones have frequently been born unviable. Others have seemed healthy, but soon died of unidentifiable causes. Several leaders in the genetic research movement have said that human life should never be risked in this way. Yet Clonaid, the laboratory sponsored by the Raelians, has for years, been on a vigorous campaign. Its motto: "Oui au Clonage Humain" ... "Yes To Human Cloning." It must not be forgotten that Claude Vorilhon claims to be the son of one of the Elohim, cloned by them and raised by a human mother. A private history tells us that his father was a Jewish refugee, and his mother was a French, Roman Catholic. Yet, his life is dedicated to the dissemination of a single idea. Namely, that astronauts from other planets created humanity. His Raelian religion claims to bring the secret of eternal life to humankind. Claude's Amazing Adventures Claude Vorilhon, the founder and leader of the Raelians, is a dashing figure with a history as a French racecar driver, sports writer and European playboy. His is the movie-star tale of a handsome young man who met an astronaut, and obtained secret information. The star-traveler told Claude that from that moment on, he would be commissioned to carry their torch. He must go forward with the key to eternal life through cloning! He first told his story in a 1975 book, entitled Space Aliens Took Me To Their Planet. Claude's experience happened on December 13, 1973, as he drove his sports car into the French volcanic mountains above Clermont-Ferrand. There, he encountered a bell-shaped UFO, which descended and hovered above the ground near the location where he had parked. A staircase descended from the bottom of the craft, and a tiny man with black hair and a beard walked out to meet Claude. The little man invited Claude to enter his machine. There, they sat down in two chairs and had a long discussion about why he had been chosen. Then, he ushered Claude outside and departed, promising to return the next day at the same time. The following day, Claude brought pen, paper and (as instructed) a Bible to the meeting place. The little man explained to him that, "In the beginning, Elohim created the heaven and the earth." The little man informed his protigi that he was one of the Elohim. Their name being plural, his was singular: Eloha. In rapid-fire fashion, he educated young Claude on the "truth" of the Bible, of which he said, it spoke of neither God, nor soul. So much for the "truth." The Elohim, he said, were simply scientists. The little man told Claude that the Elohim used satellites and huge explosions to shape the early Earth. Then they created animals and people. They operated in teams and were highly competitive. The humans they fashioned were cellular creations - nothing else. He said, "... the more skillful among us wanted to artificially create a man like ourselves. Each team went to work and soon, we were able to compare our creations. But the people on our planet were horrified to learn that we were producing 'test tube' babies, whom they were afraid might one day come to their own planet and cause a panic." Nevertheless, they went ahead with their work, creating Adam and Eve. The little man spoke of arguments between the creation teams about how to educate the new humans. The "serpent team" wanted to make them as knowledgeable as their creators. But the Elohim put these serpents in their place, nurturing the innocent couple and in the process, bringing condemnation to the serpent. The little man told Claude that the new humans were sent away from their plush garden and kept from returning by "... several soldiers carrying atomic disintegrating weapons." In this way, they were kept from gaining access to valuable scientific information. For humans, there was no immortality, unless the Elohim rekindled their cellular life. So the men before the Flood of Noah utilized every trick to gain the forbidden knowledge that would make them the immortal equals of their creators. To keep this from happening, the Elohim brought the Great Flood. For the same reason, they later confused the tongues of the people at Babel, and destroyed the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. They tested Abraham, gave Moses his knowledge and created the prophets. As the little man explained the Bible, in terms of creation by people from another planet, he told Claude that he was to be the emissary of a new religion. He said, "You, Claude Vorilhon, you will spread the truth under your present name which you will replace progressively with 'RAKL,' which means literally 'light of God' and if we translate more accurately, 'light of the Elohim' or 'Ambassador of the Elohim' because you will be our ambassador on Earth, and we will come officially only to your embassy. RAKL can simply be translated, 'messenger.'" Claude was given much instruction, including the incorporation of the sect's religious symbol. Amazingly, it is the ghastly combination of the Jewish Star of David, enclosing a Nazi-style swastika! On several occasions, we have shown that the ancient "hooked cross" is the ultimate satanic symbol. Down through the ages, this evil symbol has been used by pagan cultures, in both the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. In what can only be called a corrupt and fraudulent presentation, the little ufonaut informed Rakl that he was to become the world's hope for eternal life. In the little man's own words: "There is no God and no soul gently taking flight from the body after life! Man was created scientifically in a laboratory a very long time ago by other men from another planet: THE ELOHIM. "The beginning of the Bible, the Genesis, speaks of the work of the ELOHIM. The original Bible, in Hebrew, say furthermore: 'The first day Elohim did this, the second day Elohim did that, etc, and this term ELOHIM has been wrongly translated by 'God' whereas in Hebrew it means 'Those who came from the sky.' It is moreover, a plural." (This, by the way, is a total fabrication. It is not borne out, either in Hebrew grammar or tradition.) He continued, "Jesus was born from the union of one of these Elohim with a girl of the earth ... Moses, Buddha, Mohammed and all the great prophets were sent by these people from outer space: THE ELOHIM. "Since 1945, we have entered the age of the Apocalypse." (During this age, according to Claude's mentor, "... man would be equal to 'God,' creating synthetic human genes.") On this point, he seems to contradict himself, having already stated that "God" doesn't exist. However, this is characteristic of the entire movement. It is not based upon rational premises, but the confabulated teachings of the little man in his flying saucer. Chariots of the Gods? Others, in their own way, have helped spread the same untruth. Both at the popular science fiction level, and the academic level, this idea has taken on a life of its own. In 1968, writer Erich Von Ddniken caught the world's imagination when he published his first book, Chariots of the Gods? In it, he mused about the possibility that the mysteries of ancient mankind could be best understood if they were explained as interventions by beings from other planets. Looking at the contemporary activity of the UFOs in our skies, he incorrectly reasoned that if they are the "gods," spoken of in early manuscripts, then they must be the God of the Old Testament. As he looks at ancient texts, including the Bible, he arrives at the conclusion that man was created in some sort of intergalactic experiment. In light of what we know about Scripture, some of his statements are truly remarkable. They shed a great deal of light on the analytical excursions of the secular mind. Look at what he wrote about the Flood of Noah and the events that preceded it: "The astonishing thing about this family story is the information that Noah's parents were told about the coming Flood and that even Grandfather Methuselah was forewarned of the terrible event by the same Enoch who, soon afterward, according to tradition, disappeared forever in a fiery heavenly chariot." Von Ddniken doesn't mention the "tradition" which expounds upon Enoch's disappearance, but he does speculate about its meaning: "Does not this seriously pose the question whether the human race is not an act of deliberate 'breeding' by unknown beings from outer space? Otherwise what can be the sense of the constantly recurring fertilization of human beings by giants and sons of heaven. Seen in this light, the Flood becomes a preconceived project by unknown beings with the intention of exterminating the human race except for a few noble exceptions. But if the Flood, the course of which is historically proved, was deliberately planned and prepared - and that, several hundred years before Noah received orders to build the ark - then it can no longer be accepted as a divine judgment. "Today, the possibility of breeding an intelligent human race is no longer such an absurd theory. Just as the sagas of Tiahuanaco and the inscription on the pediment of the Gate of the Sun talk about a spaceship which landed the Great Mother on Earth so that she could bear children, the old religious scripts, too, never tire of saying that 'God' created man in His own image." The above quote came in a chapter entitled, "Was God an Astronaut?" The very nature of this question places the veracity of the Holy Scriptures in doubt. It also seriously impugns Von Ddniken's credibility as a theologian. But it also demonstrates the difference between the faithful, who accept God the Father as the self-existent Creator of all things, and unbelievers, who look for a more "human" explanation. Thus, to Von Ddniken, all humans are the direct progeny of what generations of ancients and pagans once called "gods." By extension, then, once having personally incorporated this idea, all humans can potentially see themselves as gods. Bible-believing Christians see the true God, not as an advanced humanoid, but the eternal Creator. In the New Testament, He is the "Word." That is, He is the Creator of all things, who has eternally existed ... before any created being. Men like Vorilhon and Von Ddniken are deceived by the self-serving proclamations of ufonauts who present themselves as our creators. At the same time, these pretenders to divinity say that they are eternal only in the sense that they can continually renew themselves in a series of ongoing genetic experiments. It is our position, of course, that these ufonauts are quite real, and well delineated in the Bible. They are, in fact, the forces mentioned by Paul in Ephesians 6:12: "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." Over the long, dark centuries of spiritual warfare, they have perfected the ability to appear in the guise that will deceive the current culture. To the ancients, they were the false gods and demigods; to the medieval and oriental mind, they were devils and jinns, fairies and elves, gnomes and trolls. Now, they appear in fitted "spacesuits" with breathing apparatus, and come as our astronaut-creators. In the 1960s and early 1970s, this idea found expression in many different ways. Science fiction writers, led by men like Arthur C. Clarke (a physicist who first developed the concept of the near-Earth space satellite), advanced the idea of a humanity molded by men from advanced civilizations. This was the core idea of his amazingly popular book and motion picture, 2001: A Space Odyssey. His narrative vision begins some four-million years ago, when ancient astronauts planted the first of a series of black monoliths on ancient Earth. The second was placed on the moon, and the third was placed on Jupiter's moon Europa. These dark, shining rectilinear artifacts were more than mere stone. They projected a wisdom - even a genetic manifestation - that elevated men along an evolutionary pathway from apehood to godhood. Although Clarke's speculations are presented as fiction, it is clear that his belief about man's creation and perfection is basically the same as that presented in his books. In Clarke's latest book, 3001: The Final Odyssey, astronaut Frank Poole, dead for a thousand years, is resurrected to new life. As an emissary for mankind, he completes the mission begun a millennium earlier. Under the new order envisioned in the story, man is enabled to rise to the status of a god. Many other science fiction writers followed this same path. They envisioned various kinds of intervention scenarios, in which superior beings come to Earth, their actions bringing man to new levels of consciousness and physical prowess. Erich von Ddniken published a second book. It came out shortly after the first one. In it, Von Ddniken continued to make his case, asking what would happen if astronauts crashed on the Earth among primitive men: "What would they teach the inhabitants? What remnants of their efforts to return to their own planet would they leave behind? How would the inhabitants remember them in myths and art?" This book, entitled Gods From Outer Space, was devoted to raising questions about human origins, based upon archaeological and textual scholarship. He cites Sumerian, Babylonian, Canaanite, Aztec and Incan histories, to show that in the ancient days, visitors from other planets came to give their knowledge to mankind. Not only that, Von Ddniken expands his general idea that they were our genetic progenitors, as well. As created beings, they somehow managed to perfect themselves, then came to Earth to manage human development. His general thought is that with their help, we will one day rise on the evolutionary curve to the point that we will follow them to the stars. Of course, his is a fanciful interpretation - a new way of looking at the old gods. Nevertheless, they were still the old gods. His concluding thoughts tell the whole story. He foresees the day when the whole world will become unified in the speaking of a single language: "But then our familiar and carefully preserved world picture will collapse and the younger generation of the space age will erase from its consciousness the last nationalistic feelings, which will have become meaningless. "For that reason alone, I think it is our duty to examine both apparently fantastic interpretations of traditional old texts and factual stone evidence with the greatest scientific care. Once we have absorbed all the messages left behind by the 'gods,' flesh and blood encounters with astronauts from distant stars will lose their terror because we shall know that these beings have something in common with us: They, too, experienced the day of their creation at some point in time." There it is, again. In spite of his fervent belief that we were created by ancient astronauts, he believes that they, too, are created beings. This begs the enormous question: Then who created them? The Intellectuals Follow Suit Both Claude Vorilhon and Erich von Ddniken are self-educated men. In no way, can they be considered "intellectuals." They are neither geneticists nor biochemists. Yet they have been convinced that the "gods" are exactly that ... genetic scientists. Over and over again, the ufonaut/astronauts are pictured as geneticists on a fantastically advanced scale. One might well argue that they are only sensationalists, popularizing an idea that only the illiterate and dull-witted could believe. It would be easy to say that they're only in it for the money. Why believe UFO nuts and sensationalists whose only idea is to promote their own cult followings or to sell more books? There is a quick and simple answer to this question. Mainstream scientists - the disciplined leaders of rigorous academics - are advocating the same idea. The plain truth is that today, intellectuals are promoting the very same "ancient astronaut" theory of creation. And they are doing this precisely because they have come to the end of all their arguments about the veracity of the evolutionary model. In other words, they can't support evolution. Quite simply, they have come to realize that cellular life is far too complex to have come into existence spontaneously. The ancient pond scum that is supposed to have spawned cellular life simply doesn't meet the theoretical requirements. With the discovery of DNA and genetic mapping, scientists have realized that all the time in the history of the universe isn't enough to have evolved a simple living cell. Since they don't believe in God, they have come up with a substitute: Our ancestors were brought here on a deliberate "scientific mission," by our proto-humanoid "creators." Either that, they say, or the seeds of man must have drifted here from elsewhere, blown by the fickle winds that stream between the stars. A Miracle, Indeed For millennia, the miraculous creation of man has been the central article of faith among followers of the Lord. Genesis 2:7 makes a direct and forthright statement. "And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." (Genesis 2:7). Then, in the days of Christ, the truth about Creation was given flesh-and-blood reality. To Paul, the Apostle, Creation was an ancient mystery, now revealed to the faithful: "And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ" (Ephesians 3:9). Paul pointed out that Jesus Christ was the incarnation of God - His visible image - who came to mankind in a supreme act of love and self-sacrifice ... even humility, to redeem a mankind guilty before God: "In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins: "Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: "For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: "And he is before all things, and by him all things consist" (Colossians 1:14-17). To the Apostles, the truth was made clear and plain. Creation, in all its aspects, is to be attributed to the "Word." It must be remembered that to ancient Israel, the Lord was the Word of Creation. To Christians, He is exactly that, and more: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. "The same was in the beginning with God. "All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth" (John 1:1-3; 14). On the subject of genetics, the Bible is quite clear. The Lord not only created Adam; He also created Eve. Together, they became His plan for reproduction. >From their first child onward, the Bible features a series of genealogies. Each of them is extremely important to the understanding of God's plan of redemption. The first genealogy is that of the ungodly line of Cain. The second genealogy is the godly line of Seth, which leads in an uninterrupted fashion, to Abraham, the father of the faithful. In Genesis 6, Satan and his fallen interlopers attempt to despoil the genetic line of the early human race. They nearly succeed, but the faithful Noah and his family bring the genetic line through the Great Flood to save humanity. More importantly, Noah preserved the lineage, out of which would come the promised Messiah. Genealogy is very important to God, and the destruction of that genealogy is very important to Satan. Down through the years, he has devoted much energy to destroying the real Christians. "True Religion" Now comes Rakl, spreading the extraterrestrial "gospel" of the so-called "Elohim." In Genesis 1:1, the word translated "God" is the Hebrew word elohim. He is the one whom Christians know as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He is certainly not a small, black-bearded ufonaut who promised the secret of eternal life to a French racecar driver named Claude Vorilhon. Neither is He one of the "ancient astronauts" who repeatedly visited the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Hindus, Incans or Aztecs. The demonic hordes who ply our atmosphere in search of gullible new prospects are quite able to take the form most acceptable to the present culture. Today, secular man has been robbed of a plausible explanation of Creation. Satan and the demons are more than happy to supply a satisfactory explanation. And though the "ancient astronauts" motif fails to answer the question of who really created human life, most are perfectly content to accept this fiction and go on happily living their empty lives. Rakl's "true religion" promises eternal life through cloning. The contributions of its members finance the laboratories of Clonaid. Together, they promise eternal life through cloning. He repeatedly preaches that humanity is living in the "age of the apocalypse," meaning that now, for the first time, it is possible for men to understand human origin ... and to duplicate it. In 1997 Clonaid was founded by Rakl, then handed over to Dr. Brigitte Boisselier. She has repeatedly stated that Clonaid is now routinely able to provide childless couples with cloned children. Several of their clients are homosexual couples. The Clonaid website features the following paragraph: "Almost six years ago, Rakl, the well-known spiritual leader of the Raelian Movement, the world's largest UFO-related organization numbering 55,000 members in 84 countries, founded Clonaid, the first company offering to clone human beings. [In another publication] he explains how today's technology is the first step in the quest for eternal life." Rakl, himself, writes, "Cloning will enable mankind to reach eternal life. The next step will be to directly clone an adult person without having to go through the growth process, and to transfer the memories and personality into this person just as the Elohim do, using their 25,000 years of advanced scientific knowledge. Then, we will wake up after death in a brand new body just like after a good night's sleep." The price charged by Clonaid for each procedure ranges up to $250,000. Clearly, only the elite will be able to afford this "eternal life." Christians not only understand who the real Creator is, they know a counterfeit when they see one. When Jesus came, His life spoke volumes about eternal life. He, Himself said, "... I am the way, the truth, and the life ..." (John 14:6). He spoke of eternal life many times, telling His followers that He is eternal life. Attempting to gain it through human effort is the highest folly. The Apostle John stated it beautifully, with a warning that seeking it by any other means is idolatry: "And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness. "And we know that the Son of God is come, and has given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life. "Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen" (1 John 5:19-21). Rejoice! Jesus offers eternal life! Courtesy : Gary Stearman Rgds/-GS-Muscat =============================================================================== This mail is generated from JOYnet, a Jesus Youth mailing list. For more info on the list visit http://www.jesusyouth.org/joynet To unsubscribe from the list send a mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe to the list visit http://www.jesusyouth.org/joynet/join In case of any issue related to the mailing list contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] ===============================================================================
