Sunday, April 17, 2011

Have faith in God, not technology: Benedict XVI

Thanks to the miracles of modern science, we humans are more powerful now than ever before. We are masters of our world and masters of our lives. Right?

Modern technology lets us to fly from one side of the earth to the other in less than 24 hours. And we can get through the airports at other end in only six or seven hours.

Modern technology enables us to know in the first months of a pregnancy whether a child is healthy and whether it's a boy or a girl. And if it's a girl, modern technology helps us to kill her before she sees the light of day.

Modern technology gives us access to literally 1000s of channels of information and entertainment. We can see pornography from all over the world on our tablets, Blackberries, even our cellphones, 24 hours a day.

At the risk of being called a technophobe, Walt ventures the opinion that today's world is a worse place -- more complicated, more contaminated and more inhospitable -- than ever before.

Why? Because the modern world has been created by humans who think their science has made them better than God. We can do anything, they think, except maybe create life and we're pretty close to that. Aren't we humans great?

Pope Benedict XVI is of a different view. He told Palm Sunday worshippers that man will pay the price for his pride if he believes technology can give him the powers of God.

The Holy Father's homily, delivered to tens of thousands in St. Peter's Square, had as its theme man’s relationship with God and how it can sometimes be threatened by technology.

"From the beginning men and women have been filled — and this is as true today as ever — with a desire to ‘be like God’, to attain the heights of God by their own powers," the pontiff said. "All the inventions of the human spirit are ultimately an effort to gain wings so as to rise to the heights of Being and to become independent, completely free, as God is free."

“Mankind has managed to accomplish so many things: we can fly! We can see, hear and speak to one another from the farthest ends of the earth. And yet the force of gravity which draws us down is powerful,” he said.

While the great advances of technology have improved life for man, the Pope explained, they have also increased possibilities for evil, and recent natural disasters are a reminder, if any were needed, that mankind is not all-powerful.

In spite of being "powered by technology", today's world is in a horrible state. The lesson to be learned, Pope Benedict said, is that "the great achievements of technology...contribute to the progress of mankind only if they are joined to these attitudes – if our hands become clean and our hearts pure, if we seek truth, if we seek God and let ourselves be touched and challenged by His love.

"All these means of 'ascent' are effective only if we humbly acknowledge that we need to be lifted up; if we abandon the pride of wanting to become God. We need God. He draws us upwards; letting ourselves be upheld by His hands – by faith, in other words – sets us aright and gives us the inner strength that raises us on high. We need the humility of a faith which seeks the face of God and trusts in the truth of His love."

Walt says "amen".

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