Work has begun on a controversial project to create the building blocks of human life—DNA molecules—from scratch, in what is believed to be a world first.
The research has been taboo until now because of concerns it could lead to designer babies or unforeseen changes for future generations.
But now the world’s largest medical charity, the Wellcome Trust, has given an initial £10m to start the project and says it has the potential to do more good than harm by accelerating treatments for many incurable diseases.
Dr. Julian Sale, of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK, who is part of the project, said that the research was the next giant leap in biology.
“The sky is the limit. We are looking at therapies that will improve people’s lives as they age, that will lead to healthier aging with less disease as they get older.
“We are looking to use this approach to generate disease-resistant cells we can use to repopulate damaged organs, for example in the liver and the heart, even the immune system,” he said.
But critics fear the research opens the way for unscrupulous researchers seeking to create enhanced or modified humans.
Perhaps this will turn out like human efforts to generate life in a lab. Or perhaps it’s a step too far in human pride. Either way, we may still be listening to the serpent saying, “Ye shall be as gods.”
“Work begins to create artificial human DNA from scratch,” BBC.com, June 26, 2025
In 2019–2020, the National Survey of Religious Leaders (NSRL) asked 1,600 clergy from across the religious spectrum about their belief in foundational Christian doctrines and found the following alarming statistics.
Were Adam and Eve real? Only 25% of Catholic priests and mainline Protestant pastors said they “definitely believe” they were. In comparison, 80% of Evangelical pastors and 89% of Black Protestant clergy answered affirmatively. But if Adam and Eve were not real, then what do we do with the Fall and our need for redemption?
Does God exist? 98% of Evangelical pastors and 89% of Black Protestant leaders said they were completely certain. Catholic clergy clocked in at 85%, but mainline Protestants? Just 70% expressed full confidence, and 26% openly admitted to doubts about God’s existence!
Is the Bible inspired? Nowhere was the erosion of truth more evident than in what pastors believed about the Bible itself. Across Christian clergy, there were two dominant views: either the Bible is inspired and without error, though some parts are symbolic, or the Bible is inspired, but contains historical and cultural errors that don’t apply today.
Among Evangelical and Black Protestant pastors, the majority—70% and 67% respectively—affirmed that the Bible is inspired and free of error, though some parts are symbolic. But among Catholic priests, only half affirmed the inerrant Word of God. The other half believed the Bible contains culturally outdated or inaccurate material. Among mainline Protestant clergy, a surprising 70% believe that Scripture is inspired but historically flawed.
What does your preacher believe?
“Survey reveals mainline pastors are less likely to hold historic Christian doctrine,” Christianindex.org, July 22, 2025.
Every day, hungry people arrive at an unusual cafe in Ambikapur, a city in central India, in the hope of getting a hot meal. But they don’t pay for their food with money—instead, they hand over bundles of plastic such as old carrier bags, food wrappers, and water bottles.
People can trade a kilogram (2.2 lb) of plastic waste for a full meal that includes rice, two vegetable curries, dal, roti, salad, and pickles, says Vinod Kumar Patel, who runs the cafe on behalf of the Ambikapur Municipal Corporation (AMC), the public body which manages the city’s infrastructure and services. “For half a kilogram of plastic, they get breakfast like samosas or vada pav [potato burger].”
Ambikapur has tried to use the scourge of plastic pollution to address hunger. It launched the Garbage Cafe in 2019, using the slogan “More the waste, better the taste.” Funded through AMC’s sanitation budget, it was set up near the city’s main bus stand.
“The idea was to tackle two existing problems in Ambikapur: plastic waste and hunger,” Patel says. The idea was simple: to encourage low-income people, especially the homeless and ragpickers (those who collect rags and waste for a living), to collect plastic waste from streets and landfills, and give them hot meals in return.
Previously, Rashmi Mondal sold the plastic she collected to local scrap dealers for just 10 Indian rupees (12 cents) per kilogram—barely enough to survive on. “But now, I can get food for my family in exchange for the plastic I collect. It makes all the difference in our lives,” she says.
Collected plastic gets recycled to make granules which are used for road construction or sold to recyclers, generating an income for the local government.
Garbage cafes are spreading across India now. What a creative way to feed the hungry!
“Rice, two curries and dal: The Indian cafes where you can pay in rubbish,” BBC.com, Aug. 19, 2025.
AI is increasingly present in modern warfare as well as modern society. Autonomous weapon systems, dubbed “killer robots,” choose a target and fire on it based on sensor inputs rather than human inputs. So far, it’s claimed, only semiautonomous systems are in use. These are weapons whose operation is at least initiated by humans, but the potential is there for leaving human input out altogether.
While there are frequent calls for regulation and bans on such weapons, very little has been achieved in the international community to date. Meanwhile, a Center for Strategic and International Studies report warns, “The escalating weaponization of AI parallels the nuclear arms race of the Cold War, with nuclear weapons being replaced with automated weapons systems.”
A senior researcher in the Arms Division of Human Rights Watch expressed some ethical concerns that arise: “Delegating life-and-death decisions to machines crosses a red line for many people. It would dehumanize violence and boil down humans to numerical values.
“There’s also a serious risk of algorithmic bias, where discriminating against people based on race, gender, and so forth is possible because machines may be intentionally programmed to look for certain criteria or may unintentionally become biased.”
Artificial intelligence has not proved itself error-free so far, either, so it’s more than worrying that it’s being used in fields where human life is at stake, such as medicine and warfare. A frenzy of economic and technological competition between companies and nations seems to be winning over reason and caution on many fronts.
The Bible predicts that in the last days perilous times will come. 2 Tim. 3:1. No question, those times are here.
“Artificial Intelligence and War,” Center for Strategic and International Studies report, June 26, 2025.
“‘Killer robots’ are coming, and U.N. is worried,” The Harvard Gazette, Jan. 12, 2024.
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