Perception has replaced utility as the measure of worth. This is due to the abnormal attention which is focused on television and movies, which now have the power to distort human thought so that people are believing they need certain things, and need to be doing certain things, which in themselves have no value. Take for example the compulsive cell-phone user. Does he or she really need to be talking constantly on this gadget - even to the exclusion of those around him - or is this simply a modern image which the media portrays as glamorous and desirable? The same is true for computer usage, which is now perceived as "the thing to do" to the exclusion of simpler and more natural pursuits which used to involve the family. Current marketing efforts are targeting teenagers to try and convince them that they need to carry around pagers to be hip and cool. This is a distortion of human needs and priorities. It is taking a great toll on us. Not only are we constantly pressured to buy our children more expensive and utterly needless accessories, but our children are directly targeted by advertising and are led to believe that their self worth and acceptance by their friends is dependent on whether they have all the latest clothes and gadgets.

Advertising is the culprit in this problem, since it allows those with money and power to influence the population in any direction which they deem profitable. If a car manufacturer is willing to spend enough money marketing a new car model there is no limit to the popularity which can be attributed to the vehicle, no matter how un-spectacular the new car may be. A mass hysteria can be created in consumer demand, simply by unrelenting repetition of media images which portray the new product as desirable and fashionable.

This distortion in human perspective is creating a great deal of harm in our society. Parents are compelled to purchase for their children all sorts of expensive electronic gadgets, designer clothes and shoes, just to prevent the child from feeling inferior to his peers who have all these items. Few of us, as parents, have the resolve to instead teach our children to reject unreasonable trends, and to teach them the value of thinking carefully about the value of the item before deciding they must have it. But this problem is compounded greatly by the damaged self esteem of many in our society, who feel that they of themselves have no value and try desperately to clothe themselves with whatever is perceived to be fashionable, in an attempt to gain some measure of acceptance in society. I believe that if we were giving our children unconditional love and adequate attention, it would be far easier to teach them to reject foolish trends which are designed simply to enrich the corporations who sell the items. It is only when children do not receive love and validation from their parents that they seek to gain it by conforming to the public "model of perfection" which is portrayed by the media. In this manner, the media and advertising industry in particular, together with the corporations who promote products, are guilty of harming society and especially children, because their greed for profit is so extreme that they knowingly deceive children into believing they must have all the latest toys and clothes and products. In our commercialized culture, we consider it a right of all such companies to pursue profit in this unholy manner, and we regard our children’s’ welfare as secondary to the corporate well-being. We do this because we have been trapped into a Faustian relationship with the system and the corporations, so that our own financial well-being depends on the success of these corporations, either because they employ us or because we hold shares of these companies, or both. The entire corporate industrial world has created a society in which individual self esteem is controlled by those who sell us products.

So it appears we are trapped and doomed to trundle along behind the system, since to reject it means to reject our own standard of living. This is the impossible dilemma we are in, and I suggest there is no way for us, by our own hand, to extricate ourselves from it. It will only change through great pain and trouble when the system we have built finally collapses in upon itself, and the entire infrastructure we have built is destroyed, (and this will occur by God’s hand) only then will there be any hope for a return to a simpler and more natural existence without the corporate industrial system which presently dominates our lives.

Now am I justified in saying that this system will be destroyed by God’s hand? Let the reader interpret for himself the following scripture:

"Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great! She has become a home for demons and a haunt for every evil spirit, a haunt for every unclean and detestable bird. 3 For all the nations have drunk the maddening wine of her adulteries. The kings of the earth committed adultery with her, and the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries."

4 Then I heard another voice from heaven say: "Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues; 5 for her sins are piled up to heaven, and God has remembered her crimes. 6 Give back to her as she has given; pay her back double for what she has done. Mix her a double portion from her own cup.

7 Give her as much torture and grief as the glory and luxury she gave herself. In her heart she boasts, `I sit as queen; I am not a widow, and I will never mourn.’ 8 Therefore in one day her plagues will overtake her: death, mourning and famine. She will be consumed by fire, for mighty is the Lord God who judges her.

9 "When the kings of the earth who committed adultery with her and shared her luxury see the smoke of her burning, they will weep and mourn over her. 10 Terrified at her torment, they will stand far off and cry: "`Woe! Woe, O great city, O Babylon, city of power! In one hour your doom has come!’

11 "The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her because no one buys their cargoes any more - 12 cargoes of gold, silver, precious stones and pearls; fine linen, purple, silk and scarlet cloth; every sort of citron wood, and articles of every kind made of ivory, costly wood, bronze, iron and marble; 13 cargoes of cinnamon and spice, of incense, myrrh and frankincense, of wine and olive oil, of fine flour and wheat; cattle and sheep; horses and carriages; and bodies and souls of men.

14 "They will say, `The fruit you longed for is gone from you. All your riches and splendor have vanished, never to be recovered.’ 15 The merchants who sold these things and gained their wealth from her will stand far off, terrified at her torment. They will weep and mourn 16 and cry out: "`Woe! Woe, O great city, dressed in fine linen, purple and scarlet, and glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls! 17 In one hour such great wealth has been brought to ruin!’ "Every sea captain, and all who travel by ship, the sailors, and all who earn their living from the sea, will stand far off. 18 When they see the smoke of her burning, they will exclaim, `Was there ever a city like this great city?’ 19 They will throw dust on their heads, and with weeping and mourning cry out: "`Woe! Woe, O great city, where all who had ships on the sea became rich through her wealth! In one hour she has been brought to ruin! 20 Rejoice over her, O heaven! Rejoice, saints and apostles and prophets! God has judged her for the way she treated you.’"

Rev 18:2-20

The system will fall. This system has made profit for the elite of the world by trading in the "bodies and souls of men" (Rev 18:13). This means that those who are rich have become rich by exploiting the lives of human beings. The system of this world is evil and it will be crushed, and this will be followed by the Millennial rule of Christ:

11 I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war. 12 His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. 13 He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. 14 The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. 15 Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. "He will rule them with an iron scepter." He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. 16 On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.

Rev 19:11-16

Our materialistic lifestyle provides too many distractions and thereby makes God seem obsolete. Does this mean that God can only survive if He no longer has to compete with technology? No, but it is we who cannot survive if we have to choose between God and this modern lifestyle, for we are incapable of balancing our spiritual lives in the presence of the modern distractions. As it is written:

24 "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.

Matt 6:24

So then, the above argument should not be taken to imply that God is threatened by our modern lifestyle, for He is in charge of the entire universe, but rather it is we who suffer from it because we lose our perspective and forget our origins and our limitations, and so we are in danger of being deceived into the belief that we no longer need God. Technology should therefore not be viewed as a liberating force which "frees" us from dependence on God, but a dangerous peril which deceives us into arrogance toward our Creator. Therefore the fall of man, in which Adam and Eve desired the knowledge of good and evil despite God’s warning, can be interpreted as man’s insistence on obtaining "scientific" knowledge before he was spiritually ready for it.

We must not forget what the bible reveals will be the ultimate outcome of all this:

11 Let him who does wrong continue to do wrong; let him who is vile continue to be vile; let him who does right continue to do right; and let him who is holy continue to be holy."

12 "Behold, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done. 13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.

14 "Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. 15 Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.

Rev 22:11-15

Despite the hard lessons we have learned from our present problems, we will prevail and be returned to the garden and the tree of life if we adhere to God’s way and if we reject the false allure of Satan’s system. This is not to say that it is evil for us to use technology or to live in the modern world, but rather that we must be careful not to let a preoccupation with modern trends make us forget that in the end, our lives depend on the grace of God, and we must be willing to relegate material progress into its rightful place, as a mere temporary chapter in the human experience, which can serve to teach us the futility of life apart from God, and the futility of trying to live by our own standards, for in fact it is not our clever inventions which can save us, but only God.

But we should pause for a moment from the religious aspect of the discussion, just to make the point that even if we analyze our present lifestyle in purely "scientific" terms, it is apparent that the industrial lifestyle cannot be sustained. It is totally destructive and consumes everything until it exhausts all resources, and therefore it is doomed to fail one way or another. The bible indicates that it will be brought down, mercifully, by the hand of God before it can escalate to the point of destroying the entire earth. So we should not think that God will destroy the present system because he wants to deny us this "wonderful" technological progress we have accomplished, but the opposite is true: that the system we have created is so vile and creates such misery, that it will be destroyed for our own good and replaced with a better, more natural and healthier system under God’s leadership.

Therefore the way to look at scientific knowledge in our age is this: Without spiritual maturity scientific knowledge is corrupted and destructive for us, in the same way that if you give a small child a book of matches he will burn down the whole house - only a mature person can be entrusted with fire. So it is with the "knowledge of good and evil" which we obtained illegitimately in the garden. We obtained it before we were ready for it and our present circumstances today are the result. The book of matches - like nuclear fusion - was stolen by an immature child, and we are burning down our own house.

Your comments are welcomed. Mr. Lucas has been invited to respond to them as well. God bless.

Next blog - Introduction To Section 2

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