God’s News In The News

Week One Hundred Fifty-Five

Neuralink and The Great Delusion

If You Could Read My Mind

I’ve done lessons about Elon Musk’s venture called Neuralink and how it could add another layer to the end time tapestry, and according to a Tweet on 5/25 of this year, the chances he can start testing on humans is right around the corner:

We are excited to share that we have received the FDA’s approval to launch our first-in-human clinical study!

This is the result of incredible work by the Neuralink team in close collaboration with the FDA and represents an important first step that will one day allow our technology to help many people.

Recruitment is not yet open for our clinical trial. We’ll announce more information on this soon!

Up until now the testing phase has only been done with animals, chiefly chimpanzees, but now Musk has the green light to start using people.

A Brief Review

What is Neuralink you ask? Well, the working premise is to allow machines to interface with your brain by way of a computer chip placed inside you. Here is an overview from an article in republicworld.com from April 17th of 2021:

…Neuralink can be used to operate encephalopathy. It can also be used as a connection between the human brain and technology. This means that people with paralysis can easily operate their phones and computer directly with their brain. Its main purpose is to help people to communicate through text or voice messages. Of course, Neuralink is not limited to that, it can also be utilised to draw pictures, take photographs and do other activities.

Musk has stated that this link can allow paraplegics access to robotic limbs and can even cure overeating, relieve tinnitus among other things. But it is the computer/brain communication that should make one pause. Yes, if you can’t physically access technology, this chip would let you connect to the Internet, however it is the computer’s ability to communicate with your brain that is the issue.

There Are Protocols In Place

It’s not like this MKultraesque scenario hasn’t come up before and we have been assured that there are security features baked in from the start to keep hacking a person’s brain. Unfortunately, such assurances fall on deaf ears once you realize we’ve been sold that line over and over again only to see that bad actors can always figure out a way to use abuse good intentions with bad ones. It’s not quite as simple as the various Terminator movies showed us, but simplicity isn’t a way to dismiss or allay our hesitations. Here is how an article from cleantechnica.com explains it:

The 2010 film Inception explores many of the reasons one might want to hack another’s brain through a Neuralink interface. Government secrets, personal information for blackmail, trade secrets, and many other things could prove valuable for a hacker to get their hands on. Manipulating someone into doing something they wouldn’t otherwise do could also prove valuable. This could all potentially happen without the user’s knowledge, or by breaking encryption and monitoring the implant’s outputs from nearby.

The article goes on to note this:

We would be fools to think that even the freest governments wouldn’t find ways to abuse brain-computer interfaces when faced with dark times or when under the leadership of unscrupulous politicians. With an illegally-obtained warrant (or at the very least, a very immoral and unconstitutional use of warrants), through NSA hacking, forced installation, the PATRIOT Act, or through many other supposedly legal methods, the government could conceivably steal information from your mind, spy on your every move, or manipulate your behavior.

I’m not going to lie to you, this is not a flippant warning. And it’s one that Musk’s company hasn’t convince me will not be an issue.

Does The Bible Warn Us About This?

Therefore God sends upon them a misleading influence, a working of error and a strong delusion to make them believe what is false… (2 Thess 2:11, AMPC)

Actually, I can connect the dots and in the Tribulation the Apostle Paul tells the Thessalonians that a deluding of thinking will happen to those living in that terrible time of earth’s history. I’ve always wondered just what the phrase strong delusion meant. The word for delusion in the Greek is plane (plan'-ay) and means a wandering, deceit, delusion, error, sin; deviant behavior; a departure from what God says is true; an error (deception) which results in wandering (roaming into sin). It’s used here and also in Romans where it explains what happens when people are given over to a reprobate mind. In the above scenarios we talk about unwanted manipulation, however in these places it is not happening to people who are caught unawares, but by people who choose to want this delusion because of the intent of their hearts. They willingly desire to be deceived and God removes His grace to let Satan hoodwink them to follow and participate in his nefarious agenda.

Supernatural Power

The other key word in this delusion is the word “strong” which, for the most part is a good thing in the Bible when it is used. It refers to the superhuman energy God gives to His children to accomplish His plans for them (see Ephesians 3:7, Colossians 2:12, Colossians 1:29, Ephesians 4:16, Philippians 3:21). But as we noted previously, this is also an other-worldly power that the accuser of the brethren will use to enforce his malevolent schemes in the last days. We can see how using this technology could make people follow the plans he has for the world under his partners in crime, the False Prophet and the Antichrist. If you wondered how people would so easily be duped by the unholy trinity of deception foisted on the earth just before and during the Tribulation, now you can see what could be a part of that. Electronic manipulation by way of an implanted chip in the brain could form that perverse participation contract. I’m not suggesting that this is the mark of the beast, but part of how the deception works to actually take it in the first place.

Set Your Mind Now

All of this musing is only a way to see how this world is hurtling down the same path that those who built the Tower of Babel. In their hearts they had already decided to be like God if they could and the building was just the logical extension of that decision. But as I also mentioned, the power to deceive alluded to in Paul’s explanation of the last days crowd can also be seen in the strength and ability to serve God. Paul himself understood that he could only have become the apostle we know today because God’s supernatural power:

This is my life work: helping people understand and respond to this Message. It came as a sheer gift to me, a real surprise, God handling all the details. When it came to presenting the Message to people who had no background in God’s way, I was the least qualified of any of the available Christians. God saw to it that I was equipped, but you can be sure that it had nothing to do with my natural abilities. (Eph 3:7-8, TMG)

Partner with Him and let Him protect your mind, keep you in perfect peace and empower you to change your life and those around you. Like the great apostle, He can and will give you all you need to not only live the Christian life, but also to reach the world you live in. And it is a free partnership, not one of coercion or manipulation with technology or anything else. We are willingly sealed by Holy Spirit and that’s the kind of agreement we all should want.