The Internet and Humanity
The most important change in human society over the past 2000 years is the speed and expansion of information spreading across the general public.
In these 2000 years, especially after the Industrial Revolution, evolution of technology has drastically changed many aspects of living. Human beings have conquered many diseases and inconvenience of environment by producing various products and services. However, with focus on direct influences on the human minds, the most significant development is on information collection, exchange, and distribution.
So, if a prophet appears today, the news about his appearance should reach to the end of the world in hours, days, or weeks without taking a period of decades and centuries. If Christ Jesus visits the human world again as advent, the news about His coming should spread all over the world in seconds, minutes, or hours without taking days.
In this respect, the Internet has a potential to be a holy tool, since it can transmit useful, sacred, or holy information and news generated at one location on the earth to all the users located everywhere on the earth in a matter of seconds.
From a secular point of view, if the Internet had existed before WWII, the rise of Hitler and the massacre of Judaists should have been prevented, since information about atrocity Nazis was conducting must have been widely and globally known so quickly. They could not conceal their evil acts. Even today, some autocratic states such as China control access to the Internet by their people. As they have many secrets they want to hide from their people, they restrict use of the Internet.
However, criminals also find a great potential in the Internet. The internet can be not only a convenient and efficient tool for committing a crime but also a place and a target of criminal acts. Somewhere in the Internet, a huge amount of wealth is accumulated. And, there is no universal police in charge of protecting the Internet from criminals including spies like Chinese ones stealing military secrets from US Government sites.
So, God might use the Internet to effectively send His prophets to the human world. Or Satan might abuse the Internet to accelerate demolition of the world.
In this context, we have to keep in mind this unique feature of the Internet. A piece of information transmitted through the Internet might trigger or prevent a war between nations. The Internet is changing the world, good or bad. And mankind may not be able to follow the speed of the change. Then, it will be out of control. No matter how much technology advances, this danger of the Internet cannot be essentially conquered.
The point at issue is, finally: Has mankind become so good enough to use the Internet in a very responsible manner.
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Mat 2:2 Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.
Mat 2:3 When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.