Science Fiction is No Longer Just Fiction

I will be quite honest, I am not one who has a strong passion for things of the science-fiction genre.  I have only seen one of the Star Wars films.  I hardly saw any of the episodes of Star Trek on television.  And the science-fiction trilogy by C.S. Lewis is my least favorite of his writings.  I usually find things of the science-fiction genre pretty bizarre. 

But I was intrigued when I read the following headline: "Humans could colonise space by sending DNA to distant planets and 'printing' a new civilization, experts claim."  The article was posted at www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2646257/Humans-colonise-space-sending-DNA.
"The 100-year starship project is a joint endeavor run by Darpa, Nasa, Incarus Interstellar and the Foundation for Enterprise Development.  Through the project Darpa has previously suggested that 'printing' humans on distant planets is a possibility for colonizing the Milky Way galaxy.  Announced in January 2012, the project has an overall goal of achieving manned interstellar travel by 2112.  To do so it is evaluating a number of different technologies, including 'warping' space time to travel great distances in short time frames at faster-than-light speeds."

The proposal, offered by Nasa Engineer Adam Seltzner, which is somewhat radical, is built on "work by other researchers, would see humans launched as bacteria to distant planets before being 'printed' by methods unknown, perhaps a machine. ... 'Our best bet for space exploration could be printing humans, organically, on another planet,' he said.  'Maybe we will colonize other worlds not with astronauts in space suits, but with bacteria.' Seltzner continued."

"The idea was first dreamed up by Harvard biologists Dr. Gary Ruvkun and Dr. George Church, as reported in a Harvard Medical School release.  They suggest that fractions of the human genome could be sent to distant worlds in bacteria.  Upon arrival, the various segments would then be reassembled into a human genome."

"Quite how these bacteria would grow into humans is up for debate.  They could simply be left to evolve, as life did on Earth, seeding another planet with our own organisms.  Alternatively, an autonomous machine capable of creating cellular life could be sent thousands of years in advance to a habitable exoplanet outside the solar system.  Upon arrival, information on how to genetically construct a human would be beamed to the machine.  Of course, these proposals are something that will only be possible for humans hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of years in the future.  But many scientists are of the belief that we will one day be able to create multicellular life - and it stands to reason this could include an organism as complex as a human."

What an article!  Friends, did you ever think you would live to see the realm of science-fiction become a reality?  There are a lot of questions concerning life that originated via a machine.  Would such a life have an eternal soul?  Would such a life have the ability to understand right from wrong?  Would such a life be able to reason through problems?  These are all things that humans are able to do now because every life is a creation of God, not of a machine.  The slippery slope is becoming more complex.  It is time that, as believers, we rediscover a Christian worldview, or, perhaps, make that discovery for the first time.  What does the Bible say about such matters?  We had better know.  And we had better let our children and grandchildren know as well.