GMO apple won't bruise

Nature.com | Amy Maxmen | 10 November 2017

Golden delicious apple.jpg
by fir0002 | flagstaffotos.com.au Canon 20D
+ Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8
Own work, GFDL 1.2, Link
...The ‘Arctic apple’ is one of the first foods to be given a trait intended to please consumers rather than farmers, and it joins a small number of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) to be sold as a whole product, not an ingredient. Since Okanagan Specialty Fruits in Summer­land, Canada, planted its first test apples in 2003, the array of foods modified in labs has expanded to include meatless burgers, made with soya protein produced by recombinant yeast, fish fillets grown from seafood stem cells, and mushrooms whose genomes have been edited with CRISPR technology. Most of these items have not yet reached the market.

Now, many small biotechnology companies developing such foods are watching the Arctic apple’s launch, eager for clues to how consumers will perceive the fruits of their labour. 

“If the apple sells, it will pave the way for others,” says Yinong Yang, a plant pathologist at Pennsylvania State University in University Park, who used CRISPR to engineer a mushroom that resists browning. He hopes one day to license his mushroom to commercial growers.

Mary Maxon, who oversees biosciences programmes at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, agrees. “The apple is not the first GMO that people would eat, but it’s the first one that consumers may value,” she says... Read more...

The Righteous Mantle of Improving Humanity

Fifth in the PE Series, Reviewing Chapter Four

The Übermensch and the Antichrist by Douglas Woodward is the fourth essay in Pandemonium's Engine. I enjoyed reading Mr. Woodward's bio online. I believe you would too. If you visit the Faith-happens.com website that includes his bio, you will find a promotional video for his recently published book, The Revealing.

The German word Übermensch was coined by the German atheistic philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche who influenced Hitler's eugenics quest. "The German prefix Über can have connotation of superiority, transcendence, excessiveness, or intensity, depending on the words to which it is prepended. Mensch refers to a member of the human species, rather than to a man specifically." (p. 166)

Woodward discusses the spirit of the Antichrist (I John 4:1-3) in the work of many authors and political figures of the late 19th and the 20th centuries, quoting from Nietzsche and exposing the occult involvements of German and British figures including Winston Churchill.

It is likewise at work today, and Woodward includes some quotations to illustrate. Here is one:

And the other thing, because no one has the guts to say it, if we could make better human beings by knowing how to add genes why shouldn't we? What's wrong with it?… Evolution can be just …cruel, and to say that we've got a perfect genome and there's some sanctity to it? I'd just like to know where that idea comes from. It's utter silliness. - James Watson, Nobel Laureate (p. 169)

Woodward notes that as Christians we need to remember who is behind the push to alter the human genome:

[In Ephesians 6:11-12] Paul intimates that the forces are many, are not monolithic (they are diverse — there isn't just one devil); they are highly organized, and live in an unseen world surrounding us.

The Wizard of Oz said to Dorothy, "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain." Yet, the Bible counsels that the "man behind the curtain" is really the collective sinister force behind all the evil that we encounter in the empirical world. Forgetting who's behind the scenes weakens our ability to stand firm against this power. To arm ourselves properly, we must remember what we're up against. When we encounter push back, it's a good time to stop and recall that our struggle isn't against mere mortals and human institutions.

Woodward warns us that while the spirit of Antichrist has been in the world over all the ages, it is in our generation that this spirit manifests in a "distinctively different and much more understated style, albeit in the end more destructive." (p. 159) He notes, "It's interesting that John didn't use the term, Antichrist, in his Apocalypse (which we know today as the Book of Revelation), penned 10 years before his epistles. There his description of the Antichrist was, The Beast." (p. 158)

The final paragraph of Chapter Four warns us:

The Spirit of the Antichrist in the 21st century will wrap itself in the righteous mantle of "improving humanity." Bible-believing Jews and Christians will be challenged as the "evil doers" — primary obstacles to human progress — that insist on the purity of the human genome. Are we ready to defend the sanctity of God's greatest creation? Are we ready for the probable persecution that lies ahead?

These are good questions.

Angel fish
Public Domain, Link

...and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind ... the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind ...the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. -Genesis 1

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A SistersSite eBook

Flesh and Bone and The Protestant Conscience is an e-book on Amazon.com. It is 99¢ and in the Amazon lending library as well. It is also available here in PDF format. The book description follows.

Would you let your conscience be your guide?

Does God care if the skin and bone of the dead are passed along to the living for medical uses? Is organ donation OK with God? Should you sign a Living Will?

Did you know that dead organ donors are often anesthetized before their organs are removed? Do you know the current definition of death? The conscience cannot function without facts.

As we ponder the ethics of in vitro fertilization, stem cell research and man-made chimeras, our thoughts trail off. How then should we live? (Ez 33:10)

How should a Christian think about euthanasia by starvation when doctors and the state attorney general all agree it is time to withhold feeding from a brain injured patient? Some things are family matters, but someday it may be our family.

Here is a small book to help you think about whether you want to sign your driver's license, donate a kidney, cremate your loved one, and many other practical questions that may arise in the course of your healthcare decisions or watch over others.

It offers a special focus on the doctrine of the Resurrection that is related to such decisions. Sunday School classes and Bible Study groups could use this book to facilitate discussion about the issues covered.