Thursday, October 29, 2015

Cloning the Original


“Multiplicity,” with Michael Keaton, is among the funniest movies ever made.

The plot of the film involves a construction manager who is overworked and underpaid, and who happens to come into contact with a scientist who is in the business of cloning human beings.

Of course, the movie character jumps at the opportunity to reduce his work load, and increase his leisure time.

Unfortunately, the entire thing goes awry.

For no sooner had he cloned himself, than the clone clones himself! And then the second clone clones himself!

And much like re-copying copies of copies on a Xerox machine, the results just “ain’t” good.

Clone #1 ends up “running with the ball” and imposing his own dictatorial way of doing things on his fellow workers; (not to mention sleeping with his original’s wife; a prohibition of which he was well aware).

Clone #2 proves to be the artistic type, and manages to confuse “Thelma” with his apparently newfound interest in recipes, and somewhat feminine mannerisms.

Clone #3 is just plain retarded, manages to get Keaton fired from his job; (and also sleeps with his wife)!

Speaking of making copies, we just bought one of those portable scanning devices. As amateur genealogists, my wife and I plan to use it in our travels; as we have been prone to visit family research libraries across the southeast. There are three settings on the scan wand: Fine, Good and Average; or words to that effect. (And of course, each time the setting is lowered a notch, the results are compromised).

In Paul the Apostle’s Book of Philippians, the third chapter, there is a two word phrase which alludes to the topic of this blog.

… “Copy Me.”

Now, it’s rather rhetorical, but he wasn’t suggesting we build a cloning machine in order to mass produce copies of Paul.  

But rather, the apostle was all about encouraging his readers of that day, (as well as our own) to emulate his love for, commitment to, and impact on behalf of the Jesus whom he served.

A couple of decades ago I read what purported to be a non-fiction volume titled, “In His Image.” I say “purported” since the thesis of the book was the implication that an unnamed scientist had already cloned a human being. Well now, I don’t know about you, but I am very skeptical that the volume was anything but a work of fiction; and whether the technology ever becomes available is, of course, open to conjecture.

However, those who embrace Christ as Savior possess the inherent ability to, as Jesus admonished us, pick up His cross and follow Him. The Lord advised that the servant is not above his Master, and encouraged us to emulate His thoughts and actions; to literally take on, as scripture puts it, “the mind of Christ.”

In the account of Genesis it is revealed that mankind was made in the image of God. Sadly, as the result of the sin of our first parents, and the ongoing bent of mankind to choose the baser options, that image, (not unlike the movie to which I alluded) has become badly flawed.


Our Lord is the original to which we, as poor copies, must continually aspire.
 
By William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from "(Mc)Donald's Daily Diary" Vol. 13

**I ask that if you copy and paste my blogs, share or download them to your hard drive that you include my name and source line which I always include at the bottom of each blog  

 

 

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