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Joe's avatar

I have a love-hate relationship with technology. Indeed our notion of technology has changed. In the industrial societies this was considered more of a mechanical thing. Machinery made people's live less laborious. Now we see it as electronic.

The electronic things bug me and here's why, they are immersive for people's minds. Mechanical things made people productive. Arguably Eli Whitney's inventions may have led to the end of the slavery economics had a war not started. I understand that is a monochromatic view of a complex issue and period and thus, it is speculative.

But cars and trucks and diggers and airplanes made the planet what it is. In some ways it brought us closer. The electronic world seems to me to have an insidious undertone. It is mentally immersion and for man, where the mind goes actions and feelings follow. Those actions, thoughts, & feelings if left unmonitored by self are subject to some manipulation by the one who programmed the widget being used. Therein lies my fear: that we give up the self for immersion into a world that is increasingly separate and yet more impactful than it's real cousin. Man is a terrible God. We have failed utterly each time we try and yet we persevere in this.

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Bernadette's avatar

It seems to me that humanity never learns its lesson. The original temptation of "you shall be like God", is only ever repackaged. Inevitably, it seems, we always pluck the fruit from the tree and reap its consequences.

The only antidote is, like Christ, voluntary submission and acceptance of the cross God sends you. IMO, this is where Christianity has been failing at large. We have forgotten that all life entails suffering and it's what you do with it that matters. We do not trust God or want to accept our crosses.

When we accept certain technologies...especially those that enable cutting corners in our moral lives or simply to get what we want, we are no better than the ancient Jews who would participate in the forbidden pagan child sacrifice rituals in order to get some perceived advantage. That always ended badly for Israel.

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