Building the Antichrist
Giving life to the image
The current campaign towards a spectrum of genders and sexual desires is but the tip of the iceberg. We’re also being programmed to want godhood—just like Raymond Kurzweil.
The pantheon of gods and demigods in Marvel and DC films is but one example. Juvenile fiction is another. The Disney-Hyperion series of books under the “Rick Riordan Presents” banner go way beyond Percy Jackson and his Olympian buddies. Tales of Norse, Hindu, Chinese, and Native American mythologies will hit the market soon, along with teacher’s guides. Children already live in a constantly augmented and connected world, much of it virtual. Now, they can imagine themselves descended from ancient gods—in fact, they’re encouraged to do so in the teacher’s guides helpfully supplied by the publisher. But even a child knows it’s fiction, right? What if that child is told in 2030 that it’s a reality? All he or she need do is accept a molecular machine nanobot to achieve the divine upgrade.
Game over.
Replicating the dead may become the ultimate zombie apocalypse. Since death entered the world, mankind has dreamt of resurrection. The religious motif of the dying and rising god permeates all cultures—a cheap imitation of the only true rising God, Jesus Christ. Pagans speak of Mithras, Melqart, Dionysus, Osiris, Tammuz, Adonis, and Herne the Hunter, who all embody the idea of life beyond death. These gods live part of the year in the netherworld, rising in the spring and “dying” in the fall. Hindus believe in reincarnation, a form of resurrection, where a soul cycles through age after age in search of perfection.
The Egyptian goddess Isis, the first resurrectionist magician, fashioned a phallus for her dead, dismembered and reassembled husband Osiris, as the original was eaten by a fish. She then descended upon this artificial phallus in the form of a kite, a type of bird, creating Horus, who is a hybrid of living and dead tissue. Some legends say Horus decapitated Isis, and she then resurrected herself in a new form, possessing the head of a cow as a replacement. Others say that Isis gave birth to Apis, by Osiris-Apis, which makes her the mother of the bull-god.
Bulls and horns bring us back to Kronos, the god whose very name may refer to the idea of horns. As an aside here, did you know that CERN, home of the Large Hadron Collider, is a shortened form of the name Cernunnos, the origin of England’s Herne the Hunter, sometimes called the Green Man, who is nothing more than a rebranded version of Kronos in convenient dying and rising god form?
This is an excerpt from our 2024 book The Gates of Hell. If you want to own a copy, it’s available in paperback, as a Kindle e-book, and as an audiobook at Amazon and Audible.
Mary Shelley’s early nineteenth century novel Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus is the model for our modern concept of resurrection. Shelley grew up amongst men like Erasmus Darwin, a founding member of the Midlands Enlightenment and grandfather to both Charles Darwin and Sir Francis Galton, who founded the eugenics movement. Mary Shelley’s fictional character, Dr. Victor Frankenstein, uses the emerging sciences to breathe life into a lifeless form. He cobbles together a new Adam, and discovers his new creation is stronger, smarter, and almost indestructible. Shelley’s prose horrified her tender readers. Here are two opposing quotes from the book. First, the scientist reveals his hubris:
“One man’s life or death were but a small price to pay for the acquirement of the knowledge which I sought, for the dominion I should acquire and transmit over the elemental foes of our race.”[1]
The other, the creature’s true nature beneath a veneer of civility:
“When I run over the frightful catalogue of my sins, I cannot believe that I am the same creature whose thoughts were once filled with sublime and transcendent visions of the beauty and the majesty of goodness. But it is even so; the fallen angel becomes a malignant devil.”[2]
In the introduction to this fascinating study in humanity’s dark designs, Shelley reveals a basic truth about resurrection:
Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of a void, but out of chaos.[3]
Order out of chaos: Ordo ab chao. The ouroboros eating its tail, forever consuming itself in an act of rebellious, endless self-recreation.
It takes three things to bring about resurrection: 1) A substrate for the new life to enter and inhabit; 2) a willing magician to enact the rite; and 3) Something to power the spiritual machinery. Revelation chapter 13, verse 1 is placed by some at the end of chapter 12. Here’s how it looks in the King James Version:
And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.
The English Standard Version says this, placing the verse as 12:17.
Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. And he stood on the sand of the sea.
The ESV translates the original language as “he stood,” not “I stood.” Therefore, it’s the dragon, Satan, who is standing on the sand of the sea, performing this action. What action? Chapter 13, verse 1 of the ESV tells us:
And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads.
The Dragon is summoning up his comrade. This beast is the Antichrist, who receives the Dragon’s power:
And they worshiped the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast, and they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?” (Revelation 13:4)
Then, in verse 11, we see this:
Then I saw another beast rising out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon. It exercises all the authority of the first beast in its presence, and makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose mortal wound was healed.
Again, the first beast is the Antichrist.
It performs great signs, even making fire come down from heaven to earth in front of people, and by the signs that it is allowed to work in the presence of the Beast it deceives those who dwell on earth, telling them to make an image for the beast that was wounded by the sword and yet lived. And it was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast might even speak and might cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be slain. (Revelation 13:13–15)
Note here, that it is the image that has the power to slay people.
Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. (Revelation 13:16–17)
Note that the False Prophet is given permission or power to give life to the image of the Beast. The word is didomi, which implies the granting of a right. He had power to do it. The False Prophet performs a magical working and thus brings to life a lifeless machine or image. It is this image which controls mankind, forcing all to enter its matrix or else die.
Transhumanists want this power. They want to build an image of man with superhuman qualities and capabilities, but they naively believe it is an image that can be controlled. And they believe it will be beautiful, egalitarian, and benevolent.
In truth, it will not see us any differently than we see animals in the wild—tolerable, as long as they’re obedient, useful, or amusing.
[1] Mary Shelley, Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus (Prologue: Letter 4). https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/frankenstein/full-text/letter-4/, retrieved 4/22/24.
[2] Ibid., chapter 24. https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/frankenstein/full-text/chapter-24/, retrieved 4/22/24.
[3] Ibid., Introduction. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page%3AFrankenstein%2C_or_the_Modern_Prometheus_(Revised_Edition%2C_1831).djvu/15, retrieved 4/22/24.