Do all you Star-Trek fans recall the episodes where the on-ship replicators could make anything from food to hardware needed to repair the starships Enterprise or the Voyageur? It seemed like the wildest of science fiction ideas at the time those episodes were made. However, we are now getting close to the science fiction of those episodes becoming science fact.
3-D printers are now already being used to produce all kinds of items (see the last link for a consumer comparison of models already available for buyers to obtain). Surprisingly, this cutting-edge technology is already so far advanced that 3-D printers can be bought by private individuals in many prices ranges. Big commercial units are also available making large consumer products. For example, the first link details that a entire automobile with its major parts made via 3-D printers will soon be available for consumers to purchase. One of these car options will get 70 mpg while the upgraded version will get 120-290 mpg. With gas mileage like that, these cars will revolutionize the auto industry. Produced on a massive scale, such cars would make the USA energy independent and the negative environmental impacts of the auto and oil industries would be radically reduced.
The second link, from AlJazeera.com, has an excellent interview and story about the many types of products and applications that 3-D printers can already produce. It includes a discussion that 3-D printers will be able to manufacture shoes that will be a perfect fit for each buyer. What looks like a basketball is being produced on a 3-D printer in the background of the piece. For readers’ information, AlJazeera America, is a new cable news channel which has serious news stories and it deserves your consideration. I like its 24/7 news format with periodic news documentaries, and you will find many familiar faces hired from other US media networks on its programs.
The third link reports that 3-D printers will soon enable private parties to manufacture usable plastic guns in their own homes or shops when a federal law expires on December 9th. A previous release of “how to” plans on making home-made plastic guns with a personal 3-D printer has already been downloaded over 100,000 times so one should expect a lot of guns to be made with 3-D printers. Be careful though if you want to try to do this. The fourth link reports that while some guns made via 3-D printers can be fairly reliable, some might explode in your hands. The fifth link reports that 3-D printers are also now being used to make reliable metal guns. I have a question at this point. If small, consumer 3-D printers can be used to make handguns, what kinds of weaponry can be made with the large commercial 3-D printers that are used to make automobiles? Will we see mortars, machine guns, RPGs, etc. being made with large 3-D printers?
If you want to see the many applications of 3-D printers already in use, do a websearch and you will likely be amazed. I saw one story that a plastic surgeon made a “new face” for one patient using a 3-D printer.
This new technology is truly an example of “science fiction becoming science fact,” and it has definite biblical ramifications. Jesus Christ prophesied that the “latter days” would be a mirror image of Noah’s pre-Flood civilization (Matthew 24:37). The Bible gives us a glimpse into how high-tech the pre-Flood world was in Genesis 11. Soon after the Flood, mankind was already utilizing pre-Flood knowledge to make such technological strides that God Himself observed in Genesis 11: 6 that the “tower of Babel” represented such a tipping point of advanced knowledge that mankind would soon be able to do whatever they imagined to do. That is why God confused their languages and made them all illiterate. [Please listen to my audio message, As it Was in the Days of Noah, available at the speeches tab at the top of my homepage, for insights into how advanced the pre-Flood world really was and what the “tower of Babel” actually was. Hint: It was no tall ziggurat–God couldn’t care less about how tall mankind makes its buildings.] Daniel 12:4 also prophesies that the latter days (called “the time of the end” in this prophecy) would be a time when “knowledge shall be increased.” That language hardly captures the meaning of that prophecy. The Hebrew word used for “increased” in Daniel 12:4 is the same one used in Genesis 7:17 to describe how the waters “increased” on the surface of the earth during Noah’s Deluge when there was a global 40-day rainfall all over the earth! In other words, there was an unprecedented, exponential increase in the amount of rain on the earth then. The same thing applies to the prophecy in Daniel 12:4: It foretells there will be an unprecedented, exponential increase in mankind’s knowledge levels at the very end of our age before the return of Jesus Christ (the Messiah).
3-D printers are just one more advanced technology that is dramatically and literally fulfilling the prophecies of Matthew 24:37 and Daniel 12:4 and duplicating the situation that developed in Genesis 11:6. If anyone doubts that we are living in the biblically-prophesied “latter days,” please read my article, Are We Living in the Biblical Latter Days? It is amazing that the Bible’s prophecies are coming to pass so literally and yet mankind is largely ignoring them.
One story I saw about 3-D printers indicated that these machines would eventually be able to duplicate food. What has been publicly-released about 3-D printers is already amazing. In private secret labs around the world, what work is being done to see if food can be replicated too? I wonder how many years we are from a time like that in the Star-Trek episodes where Captain Jean-Luc Picard could say to his replicator: “Earl Grey tea, hot.”