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The Opium of the People
America is in a deep spiritual crisis, like never before.
The threat really isn't terrorism. It's something a lot more
devastating--the spread of technology and the Internet,
particularly to high school students and younger children.
This has one aim: to raise a generation of children and
young people who are spiritually dull, who live according
to logic and forget about God. We are raising a nation
capable of any and every atrocity in the end, without
raising an eyebrow, because of our own spiritual dullness.
Every human being has a conscience, which is far superior
to the intellect. If the conscience is silenced in us,
we are doomed.
Technology is our Achilles heel, which in the end will
be worse than any weapon of mass destruction. It will
destroy us from within. This frightening trend can only
be reversed if more and more citizens listen to their
consciences and say, "Enough is enough." Technology
puts the "I" in the center and ignores the fact that life
is only worth living if "I" depend on my neighbor.
The classics were once an integral part of education.
Just about every student read writers such as Aristotle,
Novalis, Shakespeare and Dickens. Now, in schools in
which every child has access to a computer, children are
not even being taught the basic skills of life, such as
how to express their thoughts and feelings in writing.
The website "MySpace" alone receives more hits than
Google and AOL together. It has 90 billion visitors and
about 4l million young users. On the outside it looks
beautiful. It supplies anything children might want,
giving them the false illusion that they are having
community and fellowship with others all over the globe.
Yet it does nothing but isolate children and put them
emotionally out of touch with reality.
We are infatuated with the ability the Internet gives us.
To be able to obtain everything that is available with
the click of the mouse gives us power and makes us feel
invincible. We also feel that the Internet is the
solution to all of our emotional and spiritual problems.
For every emotional disorder there is a self-help website
or a group blog.
In 1843, Karl Marx said that "religion is the opium of
the people." Today the Internet is the drug that cures
all ills. We forget too quickly the old saying that "not
everything that glitters is gold." The Internet has become
our god, our idol. Yet we have never been lonelier or more
isolated from other human beings.
What use is it to have all the possessions the world offers
right in my living room if they separate me from other
people? The essence of community is being systematically
destroyed. If in any culture the minds and hearts of the
children and youth have been captured, the war is already won.
The greatest challenge of education, the greatest challenge
to parents and teachers, is not to teach our children
reading, writing and arithmetic, which are important, but
to see that they do not become spiritually dull.
© Johann Christoph Arnold of Rifton, N.Y. is an author of ten
books, including Endangered: Your Child in A Hostile World
and a pastor with the Bruderhof Communities.
USed with permission and my sincere thanks to the author.
Midi: Come Now is the Time to Worship is from
Abana Praise & Worship MIDI
 
 
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