Editorial July 14, 1945 Issue

On Being Informed

Margaret Morrison

The world today seems athirst for information, and innumerable are the ways of satisfying that thirst. Information is pressed upon one from every side; specialized schools, magazines, trade papers, newspapers, radio. It would seem that there is no excuse for ignorance on any subject and that this should be a well-informed world, and so it is from its own worldly standpoint. We are living today in what would probably be called the most enlightened age of all time. At the same time we have been experiencing the most cruel, barbarous, and devastating war of all time. Is it possible that we have not been properly informed; that there is something wrong with our kind of enlightenment? May it not be the kind of which Christ Jesus spoke when he said, "If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!" Information or knowledge that is based on falsity must in the end prove to be darkness and confusion, hiding truth and harmony.

Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, on page 196 of the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," says, "Man has 'sought out many inventions,' but he has not yet found it true that knowledge can save him from the dire effects of knowledge." And in the Glossary of the textbook she gives a definition of knowledge most surprising to the human mind, showing it to be a veritable Babel of human opinions and beliefs, based on the falsities of materiality, the opposite of Truth and spiritual understanding.

The radio is a good example of this Babel of information. It gives one particular information as to the state of the world generally and individual health particularly, how to think about the one, and how to preserve the other through "beans, vitamins, and nutrition." Here is offered full information as to what will best preserve one's health, regulate his diet, form his opinions, determine his political policies, govern his thinking. Wise and alert indeed must he be who can sift the wheat from the chaff and gain a gleam of true light amidst this confusion.

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