Basically, it discusses how all thing natural are not safe, and how we have made cultural distinctions about natural products that are artificial. So that is a bit ironic, isnāt it?
Anyway, are we as Christians more susceptible to natural labeling due to the Genesis statement made by God that āIt was good?ā
Are we not an agent of God in creation in how we domesticate plants and animals, make GMO plants to better feed the hungry, and use CRISPR in the treatment of disease, as well as produce vaccines and antibiotics? Where do we draw the line, if there is a line that we should not cross?
What criteria do you use in deciding whether to pay attention to a ānaturalā label?
I personally only use natural when it comes to ecology and not to technology at all. I think we should have people who specialize on maintaining heirlooms, those who focus on breeding to develop new cultivars, those who focuses solely on native variations found in the wild and those who work hard to scientifically create plants that can be a super force in the time of a disaster and to help aid in things like world hunger. Each of these has pros and cons so they all need to be at war with one another to keep it more equal.
After all it may be beneficial to destroy a few thousand acres of land to create a GMO monocultured crop of a nonnative plant to feed thousands and its equally important for a few thousands of acres to be protected so that others can focus on foraging for native edibles.
Also, GMOs occur naturally. Thatās how we got ferns after all. A natural GMO created by some sort of borer insect.
Look at lawn care. A natural toxic herbicide can be just as damaging as a synthetic one.
For technology I support pushing the limits. I believe that trans humanism will eventually be integrated with technology. Maybe not full cyborg, but I believe nonetheless in millions of years once we begin to master space travel and ectā¦ and find ways to make other planets habitable, or find habitable planets, and learn how to live out of space buildings and push nano technology and so on we will begin to really diverge.
Also itās true God said creation was good. He said Eden was good. Yet he still wanted men to intervene with nature and maintain and protect the garden. We are still doing those things today and in many ways. Not all though. But itās scripturally sound for us to intervene with nature and improve upon it.
Yeah ānaturalā is a wriggly fish in many ways. As you say there are lots of nature that can put a hurt on us. But even the ānaturalā in the sense of not man made is a bit odd. Are we not part of nature? Then again weāre pretty different than most organisms in significant ways and the volume of things we manufacture makes it a good bet that whatever you cast your eyes on in an urban setting probably reflects the hand of man. So, from our point of view at least, natural vs what has been shaped by us is a useful distinction.
But natural isnāt always safe and isnāt always better for us. But undisturbed nature is often better for the biome as a whole of which we are one constituent.
The criteria I use is how much experience we have had with something. We know that certain plants are safe because we have hundreds of years of data demonstrating that they are safe. We donāt have enough experience with new products to fully understand the risks they pose, so they can be more dangerous. This is as true of a new drug as it is a new mushroom we find on the forest floor.
