The following post on the topic of Facebook is only a week old but it is all over the news again. This from the Boston Globe and Hiawatha Bray..."Someday soon, you'll come home from a hard days work, flop down on the sofa, switch on the TV and watch a little Facebook." You can now transmit live video to your friends, as Mr Bray notes..."from the beach or (your) favorite nightclub." This is not new but Facebook is adding some changes where a user can notify all his 'friends' that he is on Facebook...live with video. The news media is already utilizing this service app. the Democrat 'sit-in' was broadcast on Facebook. Breitbart London reports "The number one trending story on Facebook on the day Britain votes on its membership of the EU is radical hate preacher Anjem Choudary lending his support to remain.' The Financial Times reports that social media is taking over advertising. And these are only the latest news items.
It should not have to take a futurist to see that all civilization may eventually revolve around this medium. It should not require a prodigious imagination to picture the darkness to where this may lead. It should not take a Bible prophesy 'expert' to see that these are not end-times indications but end-times blueprints. On a personal level Facebook and its competitors are dismantling the individual and reconstructing him into an automaton devoid of free thinking, inquiry and often even reality. To the Christians, it is setting them up for a fall where their involvement and fascination in social media could obscure warnings from God's Word that would normally be discernible, and this may already be happening. To all citizens it may become Big Brother.
We certainly cannot stop this but we can refuse to be a part of it, and even there the economic pressures and possibly even the legal strictures may make non-participation next to impossible. What we can do is pray for discernment as if we were praying for our daily sustenance. We are setting up this particular technology on the high places, and worship may not be far off if it in fact has not already started.
Moral Equivalence.....June 15th
Facebook is a monster that we welcomed in with open arms. Hardly more than a few days go by before Drudge will have yet another report on some sort of suspected abuse by Facebook or research on the negative effects of social media in general on a person's psychological or mental health. They don't mention spiritual health but I will. It cannot edify. God doesn't need social media. We actually support Facebook through participation while not only failing to warn others but encouraging them in their participation.
The moral equivalence fallacy is employed often today in polemics...and many buy into it. For example, if a conservative would bring up the Clinton's decades long, disgusting, possibly criminal and maybe even treasonous lust for cash, all a liberal has to do is bring up one example of Republican greed and corruption. It then becomes an everybody does it kind of thing with no mention of, or concern for, the degree or consistency of the offenses. I can see a similar fallacy employed in the defense of social media. As I write, the Fox News headline is "BREAKING NEWS: Orlando terrorist's chilling Facebook posts from inside nightclub during rampage." Maybe you have heard of the recent horrific terror attack 35 miles north of Paris where a terrorist stabbed to death a police chief at his home and then tortured and murdered the policeman's wife....on live streaming Facebook? God does not need Facebook to evangelize. The intellectual and emotional slavery of social media and Facebook cannot simply be countered by positive results from Christian ministries attempting to turn something bad into something good.
I'm bringing back the topic of Facebook because of an article on Drudge right now titled Facebook is predicting the end of the written word. Nicola Mendelsohn is Facebook's operations chief in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. In an interview she said that in five years Facebook "will be definitely mobile, it will be probably all video." According to the article she suggested that "stats showed the written word becoming all but obsolete." Apparently there was some uneasiness in the room as she made these comments so she added that the written word will not entirely disappear because "You'll have to write for the video."
It should not have to take a futurist to see that all civilization may eventually revolve around this medium. It should not require a prodigious imagination to picture the darkness to where this may lead. It should not take a Bible prophesy 'expert' to see that these are not end-times indications but end-times blueprints. On a personal level Facebook and its competitors are dismantling the individual and reconstructing him into an automaton devoid of free thinking, inquiry and often even reality. To the Christians, it is setting them up for a fall where their involvement and fascination in social media could obscure warnings from God's Word that would normally be discernible, and this may already be happening. To all citizens it may become Big Brother.
We certainly cannot stop this but we can refuse to be a part of it, and even there the economic pressures and possibly even the legal strictures may make non-participation next to impossible. What we can do is pray for discernment as if we were praying for our daily sustenance. We are setting up this particular technology on the high places, and worship may not be far off if it in fact has not already started.
Moral Equivalence.....June 15th
Facebook is a monster that we welcomed in with open arms. Hardly more than a few days go by before Drudge will have yet another report on some sort of suspected abuse by Facebook or research on the negative effects of social media in general on a person's psychological or mental health. They don't mention spiritual health but I will. It cannot edify. God doesn't need social media. We actually support Facebook through participation while not only failing to warn others but encouraging them in their participation.
The moral equivalence fallacy is employed often today in polemics...and many buy into it. For example, if a conservative would bring up the Clinton's decades long, disgusting, possibly criminal and maybe even treasonous lust for cash, all a liberal has to do is bring up one example of Republican greed and corruption. It then becomes an everybody does it kind of thing with no mention of, or concern for, the degree or consistency of the offenses. I can see a similar fallacy employed in the defense of social media. As I write, the Fox News headline is "BREAKING NEWS: Orlando terrorist's chilling Facebook posts from inside nightclub during rampage." Maybe you have heard of the recent horrific terror attack 35 miles north of Paris where a terrorist stabbed to death a police chief at his home and then tortured and murdered the policeman's wife....on live streaming Facebook? God does not need Facebook to evangelize. The intellectual and emotional slavery of social media and Facebook cannot simply be countered by positive results from Christian ministries attempting to turn something bad into something good.
I'm bringing back the topic of Facebook because of an article on Drudge right now titled Facebook is predicting the end of the written word. Nicola Mendelsohn is Facebook's operations chief in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. In an interview she said that in five years Facebook "will be definitely mobile, it will be probably all video." According to the article she suggested that "stats showed the written word becoming all but obsolete." Apparently there was some uneasiness in the room as she made these comments so she added that the written word will not entirely disappear because "You'll have to write for the video."
