I just found a 10-transistor, 3-diode portable radio in my attic. I remember begging my dad to buy it for my birthday, way too many years ago. It was underneath the glass in the electronics counter at JC Penny. Oddly enough, when I put batteries in it after so many years, it worked.
In an integrated circuit age looking toward the "next big thing," there are millions of people wandering the streets with iPhones and Blackberrys attached to their ears who don't know what a transistor, diode, or, heaven forbid, a vacuum tube is.
These folks use technology just fine. But their lack of perspective has one major drawback. They think the progress made with electronics since the era of tubes and transistors means we are now masters of the universe – at least the particular pin point of it that we know anything about.
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A quick scan of the news will reveal that the "masters of the universe" assumption could not be more wrong. Earthquakes, out-of-control weather, shrinking growing seasons, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, or even rain over your vacation travel are a much better indication of our "mastery" over our own universe – let alone God's entire universe.
Gadgets and technology have hurt us in at least two important ways.
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First, our gadgets give us the illusion of control over our world and our lives within that world. "Well, just look at the world of semiconductors …" Yes, and if every last one of them were to stop working tomorrow, life would still go on, much as it has for a very long time.
Second, gadgets allow us to shape our private world into what we want it to be, but it comes at the expense of misunderstanding the world as it really is. And our misunderstanding shapes our actions. Save time by keeping up to date with your friends and family on social media. But the dark side is the superficial relationships social media support. It's easy to block "friends" who have offended you – when they may have told you what they did because they cared about you. It's easy to isolate yourself from uncomfortable ideas. Easy to shape your world into what you think the real world should be.
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Yet the real world is still there. And it is as it is. Our illusions of mastery are just that: illusions. Wars continue. Good and evil coexist. Nature has her way with us whenever she pleases, leaving death and destruction in her path and the survivors to clean up after her.
Our political "solutions" to the things we "have to do something about" are often worse than the original problem. The law of unintended consequences still seems to elude our politicians' efforts to repeal it. Too often these days, the law of unintended consequences is simply God laughing at the self-imagined "masters of the universe" he created.
Even as confrontation is building in the world, the confrontation between the natural and supernatural worlds is building, also. Our gadgets have convinced us of our mastery of the universe. The impending conflict with the supernatural will forever disabuse us of our standing as "masters of the universe."
Let him who has eyes to see, and ears to hear, understand the story ...
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Media wishing to interview Craige McMillan, please contact [email protected].
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