I have to start this article with a disclaimer. I am writing as a Christian, and the topic here is closely related to pornography. I hope we can understand some issues in our modern world, without being drawn into the behavior. If Christians don’t speak about some topics, the conversation will only be one-sided. Some challenges need an answer.

There are some things we should be aware of.

I will not give references or links to visual and video sites, because they tend to be pornographic. There is a line in a country song “I know what I was feeling, but what was I thinking?”

So, what are we thinking?

A few years ago, I was in a retail store, and I looked for something to buy, but they didn’t have anything for me. It was a strange place. As I was leaving, I passed a mannequin display, and I heard an angry woman.

Another shopper, a woman, told me that something was disgusting. I wasn’t sure what she meant, so I looked around, and I noticed that one of the mannequins was a posable doll, probably made of soft rubbery material. As I stood there, it occurred to me that the mannequin was a sex doll. This one was modestly dressed and posed, but the woman near me was disgusted and angry.

I was on my way out anyway, so I made a comment supporting the angry woman, and I hurried away. I wasn’t surprised by the choice of mannequins, in that place.

This could be a complicated issue, and feel free to form an opinion. I believe there are two things that we should know about here: technology and economics

Technology: Information, including pornography, must be distributed, or it will be forgotten. About two hundred years ago, camera and film technology came together with the paper industry and commercial printing. The result was books and especially glossy magazines. We can all name at least one popular magazine, with explicit content.

More recently, we have the internet, with words, pictures, and videos. I don’t have to explain, but computers and cell phones are everywhere, and web content is easily available.

And then we have three-dimensional objects made from soft material like silicone. Those objects are expensive, but we also have TPE, tri-poly elastomer. That’s another way of saying rubber is made from plastic, like the soles of our shoes, and it is cheap. Add industrial mass production, especially in China, and pornography is close and personal, three-dimensional, and affordable.

Economics: This is an industrial revolution. Did you know? I don’t have sales figures, but they are in the millions and the industry is worth millions and possibly billions. The world is changing under our feet.

• RELATED: Sex Doll: Wikipedia

Psychologists are concerned about what this revolution will do to us. We won’t feel the need for people so much, when we believe we can get everything we need from an Internet site, with the help of a credit card.

• RELATED: Using Love Dolls As a Substitute for Human Intimacy: Psychology Today

We are told in the Bible that an actual human being is a good thing:

“He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.” (Proverbs 18: 22)

A plastic substitute is something very different. It’s possible to understand why that woman was so unhappy when she saw that mannequin in a store.

Human beings are losing their value, and they are being pushed aside to make room for plastic toys. Personal pleasure is replacing love and healthy social interaction, and this trend is on an industrial scale.

This will not end well.

We don’t need Christian and biblical morals to know that we have a problem; that is obvious to people who are not religious. It is interesting though, that the Bible predicted just what is happening, and we are told this narcissism is a sign of the end:

In the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. (2 Timothy 3: 1 to 4)

We can find enough words, in that text, to fit what is happening with our three-dimensional pornography industry. We are traveling down a road, and it will change us.

It is important to know that real morals protect us from our own destruction, and they give us space to find good things in life.