Science and Technology: Blessing or a Curse?

How should we relate to tech­nol­o­gy? Today, tech­nol­o­gy advances very rapid­ly as nev­er before in his­to­ry. It pro­vides us with pos­si­bil­i­ties which were nev­er imag­in­able ear­li­er. It aims to make our life sim­pler and eas­i­er. But, in spite of all its ben­e­fits, we are also faced with some of its neg­a­tive effects which influ­ence mankind phys­i­cal­ly, social­ly and spir­i­tu­al­ly. What are its spir­i­tu­al dangers?

How does our society misuse technology?

As was men­tioned, tech­nol­o­gy tries to make things sim­pler and eas­i­ly acces­si­ble but, with­out God, it like­wise opens up more ways for peo­ple to sin—its abuse is obvious.
We live in the age of tele­vi­sion, per­son­al com­put­ers, Inter­net, smart­phones and tablet PCs. Peo­ple spend hours on these devices for enter­tain­ment every day. Most tele­vi­sion pro­grams and videos feed people’s crav­ing for excite­ment and lust for the sen­su­al, expos­ing their minds to vio­lence, sex­u­al sins, immoral­i­ty, van­i­ty and wickedness—just to name a few of the reg­u­lar ele­ments which attract their con­sumers. Com­put­er games offer them to live in a fan­ta­sy world far from the real­i­ties of life and at the same time make them addict­ed by reward­ing them with vir­tu­al pos­ses­sions and suc­cess. The vast amount of infor­ma­tion pro­vid­ed on the Inter­net engross­es its users as they find plea­sure in know­ing more and more and become proud and boast­ful of it. Search engines give instant results to what one needs; con­se­quent­ly, peo­ple do not feel the need for oth­ers. The younger gen­er­a­tions have increas­ing­ly less regard for their teach­ers and par­ents since many things they need to learn can be obtained online. They eas­i­ly over­come bore­dom and kill time by explor­ing the lat­est videos, games, news, or apps—there is an enor­mous amount of them avail­able on the Inter­net. This quick and con­ve­nient access to infor­ma­tion is eas­i­ly mis­used for con­sum­ing pornog­ra­phy, which fills people’s minds with filth and arous­es an insa­tiable lust for more. On top of all this, smart­phones have made these vices avail­able at the touch of a fin­ger at any time and place. The use of these devices for sin­ful and sense­less things has become so wide­spread that, from an eco­log­i­cal point of view, if peo­ple abstained from using them, per­haps, at least a few pow­er plants could be turned off.
There are man­i­fold con­se­quences of being entan­gled with these devices. They are addic­tive, when used in a wrong way; con­se­quent­ly, they tend to neglect their respon­si­bil­i­ties and rela­tion­ships in real life. They grad­u­al­ly become unable to cope with real­i­ty, pre­fer­ring to escape into their own world where they feel they have more con­trol. This is now con­sid­ered by experts as a “mod­ern ill­ness” in our soci­ety besides alco­hol and tobac­co, a mal­a­dy which may even require pro­fes­sion­al ther­a­py. While feed­ing on enter­tain­ment and plea­sure, people’s minds and hearts get shaped by what they see on their screens. They become depraved and insen­si­tive, open to wicked thoughts, and inca­pable of lov­ing as they focus on their self­ish desires.
How­ev­er, some peo­ple claim to have gained more friends through the Inter­net, since com­mu­ni­ca­tion has become quick­er, con­ve­nient, and more afford­able. Dis­tance is no longer a bar­ri­er, thanks to e‑mails, instant mes­sag­ing, Inter­net tele­pho­ny, and video calls. With social net­work­ing web­sites like Face­book a new friend is just a few clicks away.
Indeed the Inter­net offers us the pos­si­bil­i­ty to get to know many peo­ple. Used in the right way, it can cer­tain­ly be ben­e­fi­cial. It also enables us to main­tain rela­tion­ships with those who are far away whom we are not able to meet, although some­one who is inter­est­ed in a deep­er rela­tion­ship would con­sid­er it only a tem­po­rary option. Nev­er­the­less, friend­ships built through social net­work­ing or in chat rooms are often shal­low and are not based on care and com­mit­ment toward each oth­er, but on fun and excite­ment. Here, pre­tense is com­mon; since it is not always pos­si­ble to know who is real­ly behind the user name, one can even pre­tend to be some­one else or assume a more attrac­tive and admirable char­ac­ter. There is plen­ty of room for emp­ty talk and irre­spon­si­ble words. No won­der deep trust and rela­tion­ships are so dif­fi­cult here.
Many peo­ple are so entan­gled in this dig­i­tal envi­ron­ment that they can hard­ly con­cen­trate on any­thing else while wait­ing for instant mes­sages on their smart phones or com­put­ers. They spend a lot of time with their gad­gets instead of build­ing rela­tion­ships. They have less and less con­tact with the peo­ple who live around them. Some cov­er up their actu­al lone­li­ness by the illu­sion of hav­ing many good friends on the oth­er side of the screen, even though they have nev­er met them per­son­al­ly. Some enjoy play­ing to be some­one who they are not among anony­mous friends, which would oth­er­wise be impos­si­ble in real life.
To sum up, with gad­gets that assist com­mu­ni­ca­tion at long dis­tances, you might find your­self more dis­tanced from the peo­ple close to you; and with gad­gets that car­ry out tasks quick­ly and effi­cient­ly, you might find your­self hav­ing less time for what is important.
Oth­er than com­mu­ni­ca­tion and mul­ti­me­dia devices, there are many oth­er inno­va­tions with sim­i­lar neg­a­tive effects, prod­ucts which have become part of peo­ples’ lives. Also, there are still oth­er impor­tant aspects we have not con­sid­ered such as the effects on the envi­ron­ment, health and human rights, which are beyond the scope of this arti­cle. Nev­er­the­less, the fol­low­ing points are worth men­tion­ing: some neu­ro­sci­en­tists believe that mod­ern devices affect chil­dren and young adults neg­a­tive­ly in their learn­ing progress because, among oth­er rea­sons, they encour­age mul­ti­task­ing and dis­cour­age deep thought and con­cen­tra­tion. As for human rights, a great major­i­ty of the elec­tron­ic devices are man­u­fac­tured under harsh or even inhu­mane work­ing con­di­tions. Greedy man­u­fac­tur­ers take advan­tage of poor peo­ple in devel­op­ing coun­tries. Those des­per­ate to earn their dai­ly bread are ready to ful­fil their demands for lit­tle pay and humil­i­at­ing treatment.

People are still drawn to all these things … Why?

They must be seek­ing some­thing that is miss­ing in their lives.
In God’s word, the Bible, we find an expla­na­tion of why peo­ple turn to sen­su­al­i­ty and futility.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heav­en against all ungod­li­ness and unright­eous­ness of men, who by their unright­eous­ness sup­press the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invis­i­ble attrib­ut­es, name­ly, his eter­nal pow­er and divine nature, have been clear­ly per­ceived, ever since the cre­ation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are with­out excuse. For although they knew God, they did not hon­our him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their think­ing, and their fool­ish hearts were dark­ened. (Paul’s let­ter to the Romans 1:18–21)

We can find real ful­fil­ment, secu­ri­ty and help in God alone—this is how we are cre­at­ed. If we reject God and sep­a­rate from Him, we are left alone and need to find a sub­sti­tute. Through­out his­to­ry, mankind has tried to reach this, e.g., through exces­sive con­sump­tion of food and alco­hol, emp­ty and immoral enter­tain­ment, or greedy pur­suit of mon­ey. Peo­ple keep com­ing up with new ideas but are nev­er sat­is­fied. Instead of ask­ing what is wrong and tak­ing time to look for the real solu­tion, many pre­fer super­fi­cial joy which only leads to despair and emptiness—the typ­i­cal con­se­quences of sin. They avoid think­ing about more impor­tant things in life. Since they do not seek ful­fil­ment in God, they cling to things which are of no last­ing value.
What is con­sid­ered valu­able in the world is most­ly based on sen­su­al plea­sure, self­ish desire, and pride. The Bible warns us about this atti­tude which leads to the destruc­tion of our souls.

For every­thing in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but who­ev­er does the will of God lives for­ev­er. (John’s first let­ter 2:16–17)

As already men­tioned, things can be done more quick­ly and with less effort through tech­nol­o­gy. This may tempt some devel­op­ers to self­ish ambi­tion, as they seek their own impor­tance in achiev­ing suc­cess and becom­ing proud of what they do. They for­get the one who gave them their cre­ativ­i­ty and made their work pos­si­ble. The prob­lems of self-cen­tered­ness and pride are not solved through technology.
The Bible also warns us against greed and heap­ing up things in this world. Instead, we should com­mit our lives to ser­vice and love.

Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not con­sist in an abun­dance of pos­ses­sions.” And he told them this para­ble: “The ground of a cer­tain rich man yield­ed an abun­dant har­vest. He thought to him­self, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build big­ger ones, and there I will store my sur­plus grain. And I’ll say to myself, ‘You have plen­ty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be mer­ry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demand­ed from you. Then who will get what you have pre­pared for your­self?’ This is how it will be with who­ev­er stores up things for them­selves but is not rich toward God.” (Luke’s gospel 12:15–21)

With­out God, people‘s val­ues are often deter­mined by what oth­ers think. They want to be accept­ed by oth­ers and are afraid that they might look down on them if they do not have a smart­phone, for exam­ple. On the oth­er hand, they com­pete with each oth­er to have the best or know the lat­est. Their lives are filled with pride, envy, and contempt.

How can we find the right approach to technology?

First, it is impor­tant to see that tech­nol­o­gy in itself is not in con­tra­dic­tion with God’s orig­i­nal plan for mankind. God made every­thing good and set man to rule over, cul­ti­vate, and take care of His cre­ation accord­ing to His will.

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruit­ful and mul­ti­ply and fill the earth and sub­due it and have domin­ion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heav­ens and over every liv­ing thing that moves on the earth.” And God said, “Behold, I have giv­en you every plant yield­ing seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heav­ens and to every­thing that creeps on the earth, every­thing that has the breath of life, I have giv­en every green plant for food.” And it was so. And God saw every­thing that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morn­ing, the sixth day. (Gen­e­sis 1:28–31)

The LORD God took the man and put him in the gar­den of Eden to work it and keep it. (Gen­e­sis 2:15)

God loved man and entrust­ed him with the respon­si­bil­i­ty of using and admin­is­ter­ing what he received, not for self­ish aims, but for the ben­e­fit of the whole of mankind. For this pur­pose, God equipped man with abil­i­ties to orga­nize, gov­ern, under­stand, assess, and inno­vate. His aim is that man should coop­er­ate with Him and not that he should work inde­pen­dent­ly. Man’s prop­er response to God’s love should be to respect His cre­ation and faith­ful­ly do things that please and hon­or Him. It is, there­fore, part of God’s plan that man uses his cre­ativ­i­ty for good things.
How­ev­er, man’s sin brought the world into a fall­en state; God no longer has the posi­tion He ought to have. Humans lost sight of the pur­pose for which they were created—they lost their inno­cence. Self­ish and evil inten­tions, which were for­mer­ly absent in God’s cre­ation, became part of this world. Peo­ple chose to act self­ish­ly rather than to seek and do the will of the right­eous God. This does not mean that man has become inca­pable of doing any­thing good; he is still free to decide accord­ing to his con­science and to do good deeds, even in a world formed by immoral­i­ty and godlessness.
Because of this, judg­ing whether an inven­tion is good or bad may some­times be com­plex. It may not always be easy to see a clear divid­ing line if we only con­sid­er the inven­tion itself. Let us take the exam­ple of a knife: it can be used for prepar­ing a meal for the hun­gry; but when one har­bors hatred in his heart, it could be used to injure some­one. We see that the inten­tions and atti­tudes of man play a great role in this mat­ter, and this is exact­ly what the Bible speaks about, the very thing that counts, which is of time­less importance.
There­fore, in order to find the right approach to tech­nol­o­gy, we have to say “no” to the atti­tude of this world, as it leads to eter­nal sep­a­ra­tion from God who wants to help us by call­ing us to repen­tance, to change our hearts, minds, and lives.

So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gen­tiles do, in the futil­i­ty of their think­ing. They are dark­ened in their under­stand­ing and sep­a­rat­ed from the life of God because of the igno­rance that is in them due to the hard­en­ing of their hearts. Hav­ing lost all sen­si­tiv­i­ty, they have giv­en them­selves over to sen­su­al­i­ty so as to indulge in every kind of impu­ri­ty, and they are full of greed. That, how­ev­er, is not the way of life you learned when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accor­dance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught, with regard to your for­mer way of life, to put off your old self, which is being cor­rupt­ed by its deceit­ful desires; to be made new in the atti­tude of your minds; and to put on the new self, cre­at­ed to be like God in true right­eous­ness and holi­ness. (Paul’s let­ter to the Eph­esians 4:17–24)

At one time we too were fool­ish, dis­obe­di­ent, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of pas­sions and plea­sures. We lived in mal­ice and envy, being hat­ed and hat­ing one anoth­er. But when the kind­ness and love of God our Sav­ior appeared, he saved us, not because of right­eous things we had done, but because of his mer­cy. He saved us through the wash­ing of rebirth and renew­al by the Holy Spir­it … (Paul’s let­ter to Titus 3:3–5)

There­fore, I urge you, broth­ers and sis­ters, in view of God’s mer­cy, to offer your bod­ies as a liv­ing sac­ri­fice, holy and pleas­ing to God—this is your true and prop­er wor­ship. Do not con­form to the pat­tern of this world, but be trans­formed by the renew­ing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleas­ing and per­fect will. (Paul’s let­ter to the Romans 12:1–2)

God can guide us to deal with tech­nol­o­gy with wis­dom and self-con­trol with the help of His Spir­it, His Word, and oth­er believ­ers. If we obey Him, He sets us free from the slav­ery and pres­sure of the world which is dri­ven by its self­ish aims. His Word tells us:

… but test them all; hold on to what is good, reject every kind of evil. (Paul’s first let­ter to the Thes­sa­lo­ni­ans 5:21–22)

God helps us dis­tin­guish good from evil that we may know how and whether to use what the world offers. He shows us real, eter­nal val­ues we can hold on to, and helps us resist what is evil and with­stand the temp­ta­tions of this world; he leads us to true free­dom. God can do what tech­nol­o­gy can­not do: He can puri­fy our hearts and restore us to a life of love and peace with deep, long-last­ing rela­tion­ships. We are no longer focused on the per­ish­able things. The fol­low­ing vers­es show the atti­tude a Chris­t­ian ought to have:

What I mean, broth­ers and sis­ters, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they do not; those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are hap­py, as if they were not; those who buy some­thing, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is pass­ing away. (Paul’s first let­ter to the Corinthi­ans 7:29–31)

Final remarks

If mod­ern tech­nol­o­gy already has a bad influ­ence on your life, we urge you not to be deceived and enslaved by the things which seem excit­ing for the moment. They will grad­u­al­ly rob you of your free­dom and dig­ni­ty, lead­ing you to emptiness.
Flee­ing from the real to the vir­tu­al world can nev­er solve prob­lems. The solu­tion can only be found if you face real­i­ty and take on the respon­si­bil­i­ty for your own life and the lives of oth­ers, even if it might be painful some­times. Instead of hid­ing your­self in vir­tu­al forums, look for real rela­tion­ships in true love with peo­ple and espe­cial­ly with the One who is the source of real­i­ty, who knows what is best for us. We would like to invite you to con­tact us in order to share our expe­ri­ence and thoughts on this mat­ter. Some of us have been through such sit­u­a­tions in the past and have found the way out through Jesus.

Come to me, all you who are weary and bur­dened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gen­tle and hum­ble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my bur­den is light. (Matthew 11:28–30)