 The increasingly technocratic, anti-Christian trajectory of the West and other parts of the world is making traditional family life difficult to begin and sustain. This includes things like the LGBT cult, but also newer evils that go beyond them. Here are a few recent examples to illustrate: Treating pregnancy as a diseaseThe Journal of Medical Ethics, like a demonic oracle, opines:
Of course, this sick reasoning rests upon the un-Christian theory of Darwinian evolution:
Creating synthetic human embryos and growing them in mechanical wombsResearchers have succeeded in creating synthetic embryos for the first time, without stopping to first answer the question of if they should be created at all. The embryos exist without the need for egg, sperm or sexual reproduction of any kind. They were engineered from stem cells and provide a window into the earliest days of human development.1 The scientists behind the synthetic embryos, including Magdalena Żernicka-Goetz, of the University of Cambridge and the California Institute of Technology, hope to study this so-called "black box" development period, as researchers are only legally allowed to grow human embryos up to 14 days.2 . . . While it’s currently against the law to attempt to implant a synthetic embryo into a human womb, the science is rapidly outpacing related regulations. "If the whole intention is that these models are very much like normal embryos, then in a way they should be treated the same," Lovell-Badge told The Guardian. "Currently in legislation they’re not. People are worried about this." In animal studies, synthetic embryos implanted into mice wombs did not survive. Similarly, when synthetic monkey embryos were implanted into monkey wombs, pregnancies were induced, although the embryos spontaneously stopped developing after a few days. However, if the synthetic embryos could one day grow into adults, we’d be entering into uncharted legal and ethical territory. Ethicist J. Benjamin Hurlbut of Arizona State University told Science that synthetic embryos represent "a matter of significant moral discussion and of significant moral concern." Scientists are already working on how to grow life outside of a human womb and, in 2021, Hanna and colleagues grew a mouse embryo in a mechanical womb for about half of a typical gestational term — a time period equal to a human embryo at 5 weeks. Growing mouse embryos "ex utero," the researchers said, is a valuable tool to investigate embryonic development in detail, but it comes with serious ethical questions, including might humans be next? The answer is yes, as Hanna told MIT Technology Review, "This sets the stage for other species. I hope that it will allow scientists to grow human embryos until week five." Are we headed for an "era of motherless births," in which babies are grown in laboratories via artificial wombs? It does seem to be where the research is rapidly headed. . . . According to the Genetic Literacy Project:
If anyone thinks this is just sci-fi fantasy, think again. A member of Sweden’s parliament proposed at the end of 2023 that research be done on artificial wombs so that women would be freed of the ‘burden’ of carrying their unborn babies. Women admit to preferring relationships with AI chatbots over those with actual flesh-and-blood men
All of the above are guaranteed to destroy strong, healthy families and high birthrates; they will not remain isolated cases either but will try to insinuate themselves into the everyday life of the united States (our beloved Southland not excepted). These are certainly evil days. The monks of Grigoriou Monastery on the Holy Mountain (Mt Athos) captured the essence of our times in their denunciation of the Greek parliament, which, under heavy pressure from the Biden administration, redefined marriage to include same-sex couples:
And yet they counsel us not to despair:
The Church must continue to speak out like this, boldly yet compassionately, like the prophets of old, as often as possible, to bring society back to sanity vis-à-vis the family. The Orthodox bishops of Greece published a letter on the Christian family that serves as an excellent example of what could be presented to our neighbors. The following is a central part of it:
Governments must do their part as well. The US federal government is currently too paralyzed and/or too Leftist to do much of anything good, but State and local governments can still act decisively. They can stop pushing the theory of evolution on school children, limit AI and social media use among minors, and outlaw synthetic human embryo research. The Alabama Supreme Court has taken a very positive step in this direction by ruling that all frozen embryos created for IVF purposes are human children subject to the protection of all laws. Southerners may rightfully take pride that this ruling came from one of their own States.
But governments need to go further. They need to codify via resolutions, laws, and amendments, the teachings of the Church outlined above regarding the family. The structure of the tax code and other laws and regulations must be rewritten to give preference to families, especially those with lots of kids, rather than to atomized individuals. Nullification of Obergefell v Hodges is also essential. The technocratic assault on the family must be faced manfully. Special sessions have been called in Texas, Louisiana, Tennessee, and other States to deal with issues like tax rates, redistricting, and crime. Those are worthwhile issues to discuss, but they pale in comparison to strengthening the family. Governors and legislatures ought to adjust their schedules accordingly.
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 For the 2024 Superbowl, Andra Day performed "Lift Every Voice and Sing," known as the Black national anthem, and Reba McEntire performed the traditional US National Anthem. It is not very often that we would say something good came of the Super Bowl, but this year is a little different thanks to the dustup over the response (or lack thereof) to the Black National Anthem: ‘White Tennessee Democrat Congressman Steve Cohen was incensed that Super Bowl fans did not stand in respect for what he called the “Negro National Anthem” during Sunday night’s big game.’ Those who disagree with Rep. Cohen have generally stuck to some form of the argument that because the United States is one nation, it should and does have only one national anthem. It is precisely here that a helpful opportunity presents itself, an opportunity to remind one and all that the United States are not one country, but many countries. This may be done via two ways. First, politically. Fifty States make up the federation called the United States. Each one is a sovereign, independent country. This truth has been expressed since the earliest days of their independence from the British Empire. One important example: The Treaty of Paris of 1783, which ended the war between Great Britain and the States, says explicitly that each State is a nation in her own right: ‘His Brittanic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz., New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be free sovereign and Independent States; that he treats with them as such . . . .’ It has generally been the authoritarian centralizers in the US who have tried to spin out a different version of reality – that the 50 States are one country – folks like Alexander Hamilton and Justice Joseph Story. Abraham Lincoln took their theory and put into practice by force of arms in an illegal, unjust war, but delusions will last only so long before falling apart. The Soviet Union affirms that: Fifteen very different countries forcefully united under the rule of Godless communists in Moscow broke apart in 1991. The European Union is constantly in danger of falling apart because it is similarly trying to amalgamate 27 independent countries into one giant supernation; Charlemagne’s earlier version of a European superstate fell apart for similar reasons. The United States are not immune from these political dynamics. Dissatisfaction with an all-powerful government in DC continues to manifest in the States. Texas’s de facto nullification of the Biden administration’s and the federal Supreme Court’s immigration directives is just the latest example. It appears that it will be only a matter of time before one or more States leave the present union. There is a second, and more fundamental, way that the United States are many countries rather than one: culturally. The easiest way to illustrate this is the Red State/Blue State dichotomy. In this regard, there are at least two countries existing within the current boundaries of the US – the conservative-leaning Red States and the liberal-leaning Blue States. But there is more to it than that. Because of the immigration patterns that have occurred in North America, there are several distinct cultural regions that have formed within the US. Speaking very generally about them, New England, because of her settlement by the people of southeast England, shares their penchant for cities and industry, and for egalitarianism and radicalism in politics and religion. Dixie, settled by folks from southwest England, is the opposite, favoring agricultural pursuits, rural lands, and hierarchy and tradition in politics and religion. On we could go: The Great Plains are more Scandinavian and German; the Rocky Mountain States are heavily Mormon; the Desert Southwest has a lot of Spanish influence; etc. All of this is well-attested to by authors such as David Fischer, Joel Garreau, and Colin Woodard. Religion, bloodlines/heredity, language, geography, and climate all combine to form unique cultures and countries that deserve as much autonomy as is possible within reasonable limits. Many in the US deny these very plain and simple truths, however, thinking that allegiance to a political creed is enough to empty people of their historical and cultural memories and roots and create new, blank-slate men and women who will inhabit a utopia called America. That didn’t work with the overly collectivist, individual-erasing communist ideology in the Soviet Union (the direction the EU seems to be going as well); it won’t work with the overly individualistic, community-erasing liberty ideology of the US either. Both are simply secular substitutes for the Christian Church – the only Body in the world capable of creating a new united race of men through the regeneration of the Holy Spirit. Because of this, we get second-rate ‘national’ rituals like the Super Bowl to help foster our unity rather than major feast days of the Church for the Lord Jesus Christ, His Most Pure Mother, other major saints, and so forth (to see what the South could be celebrating throughout the year, look here, here, and here). The healthier path for the States will be to recognize and nurture the various cultures amongst them, to allow them to coalesce into new confederations along rational regional/cultural lines, thereby putting to an end a lot of unnecessary clashes between States and cultures that hold opposing views on incendiary issues like abortion, drug legalization, transgenderism, immigration, marriage, guns, and the rest. |
