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2 worldviews that affect burgeoning anti-aging movement

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WND 

One’s worldview impacts every daily issue, with the aging process being no exception.

Although the process of aging would seem to be a common-sense issue, as billions have gone before us with no exceptions, the billions spent each year by consumers trying to prevent it, and the researchers believing they can “cure” it, indicate otherwise. Simply owning a mirror and giving it a passing gaze occasionally, or trying to sprint, should reconcile the issue.

Consider the following examples of those misguided by the wrong worldview:

  1. “Tech millionaire who spends $2 million a year to live forever says he packs ‘every calorie’ while traveling abroad – including India for a week.”
  2. “Billionaires are betting on anti-aging research, but can aging really be cured?”
  3. In September 2023, Gstaad, Switzerland, hosted the Longevity Investors Conference, where “more than 30 of the most prominent experts in the field of longevity and rejuvenation will gather together.” Their goal, “is to bring together investors and give them the latest information in the field, so together we can make a difference.”
  4. “Curing aging should be a moral imperative for all humanity.” “Curing aging is the most ethical thing we can do, the most noble cause that we can work on.”
  5. “Humans are on track to achieve immortality in 7 years, Futurist says.”
  6. “Anti-aging trends sweeping the country.”
  7. “Inside the U.S. facility where 199 ‘legally dead’ humans and almost 100 pets await being revived,” preserved in liquid nitrogen and later to be thawed.

Having spent 37 years in the medical/physical rehabilitation field, I am well aware of the toll aging takes on the human body and the large percentage of older adults essentially scoffing at the phrase “the golden years,” due to their frustrations with the numerous accumulated physical ailments and limitations as they enter into it. One patient, due to her multitude of physical ailments, always referred to her aging process as “the decomposing years.” Another much older patient commented, “If I knew I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself.” So, it is understandable why so many consumers respond to the anti-aging hype, because no one embraces the physical aspects of the aging process with pleasure. It can be loaded with physical ailments, significant changes in physical appearance and the never-ending list of things one can no longer do, or even see. However, one’s worldview plays a dominate roll in navigating, accepting and managing the aging process successfully.

The evolutionary worldview says you are here by chance, with no real purpose other than to exist as long as you can in the best physical condition you can obtain, then retain, with no future hope – so invest as much time, effort and finances as you can afford to extend your life as long as possible.

The biblical worldview says I am not here by chance, but by design; there is a specific purpose for my life, although it will be relatively short-lived; there is an eternal future to look forward to regardless of my physical body’s shortcomings; and I have the responsibility to manage myself in such a way as to maintain myself physically in order to serve and be as physically productive as possible – always keeping in mind that God is sovereign over all things.

Clearly, the contrasting views are significantly different as to how one approaches aging. A comment attributed to John Quincy Adams reflects the Christian perspective, writing in the third person:

“John Quincy Adams is well, sir, very well. The house in which he has been living is dilapidated and old, and he has received word from its maker that he must vacate soon. But John Quincy Adams is well, sir, very well.”

Mature Christians, except those wrapped up in the false health and wealth gospel movement, understand that Christianity is “not about the here and now, it’s about eternity, and not necessarily to change your current circumstances. Focus on the fact that everyone is immortal and your attention should be off this world and onto the next.” (Pastor John MacArthur)

Dr. John Sanford, a geneticist from Cornell University, points out that aging is largely dictated by the continuous accumulation of mutations in our genes, 100 to 300 per generation, all of which increases the body’s vulnerability to a wide variety of diseases and disorders, and eventually death, as dictated in Genesis 3.

Writes Sanford: “Genetic entropy is most easily understood on a personal level. In our bodies there are roughly three new mutations (word-processing errors), every cell division. Our cells become more mutant, and more divergent from each other every day. By the time we are old, each of our cells has accumulated tens of thousands of mutations. Mutation accumulation is the primary reason we grow old and die.” [my emphasis.]

Genetic entropy, or meltdown, clearly illustrates that aging is not an evolutionary “switch” that can be discovered and thrown to halt or reverse the process. Genetic entropy clearly indicates that at the current rate of negative mutations per generation, we are de-evolving, not evolving, and that if we had actually evolved from some primate hominid millions of years ago, our species would have become extinct long ago due directly to the mutational rate. With each generation there is a loss, or corruption of cellular information, illustrating the impossibility of evolution, which requires extensive gains in cellular information content, not a loss, which is what is observed (observational science).

The futility of spending billions on anti-aging is just one example of those in desperate need of the Gospel, and how lost and misdirected people can become when they embrace evolution.