MILLENNIUM WATCH November 29, 1999 Issue

Technology—it's not all-powerful, but it can be good

"We are not doomed to be victims of our own inventions."

Jennifer Bartlett Lobl

ALTHOUGH EFFORTS ARE being made to fix computers that were not programmed to recognize the year 2000, there is still fear that a failure to repair all the computers might result in widespread disruption, or even worse. The fear engendered by what might happen to society if computer systems fail has shown how dependent on modern technology we've become.

In thinking about our relation to technology, it appears that humankind have designed electronic systems and programs that can, in the worst of situations, hold people hostage to these very systems. One might wonder, have we created a monster?

It has been helpful to me to ponder a statement from Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy that I believe cuts right to the core of this issue: "The Science of being, in which all is divine Mind, or God and His idea, would be clearer in this age, but for the belief that matter is the medium of man, or that man can enter his own embodied thought, bind himself with his own beliefs, and then call his bonds material and name them divine law" (Science and Health P. 372).

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