Social Media has proven to have re-enacted the fall of humanity, in light of the emotional health of many, it is the original depravity and the curse all over.
The Original Story of Depravity
As we read in Genesis 3, the serpent sold Adam and Eve on the idea that eating the forbidden fruit would make them like God because they would then know both good and evil.
After persistent persuasion, they both bit and became subject to depravity which meant
- Realization they were naked
- Getting kicked out of paradise
- Relegated to hard labor for life
- Being doomed to die physically and
- Spiritual separation from God.
In reading through the Old Testament, which can be looked as one big case study on what sin did to humanity, we see repeated examples that humans are depraved. In the story of Noah and the Ark God destroyed humanity through an epic flood except one faithful man and his family because everyone was wicked and then he started over. God then showed his attempt to reach out to one group of people by creating a covenant with them. This was the chosen nation that became Israel where he would have a relationship with them. Even with God's reaching out to them, the people of Israel did not stop being depraved as they were cruel towards each other and they turned their backs on God to the extent of the occasional report that some of the kings of Israel actually engaged in the barbaric act of cremating their live children in the name of idol worship.
Israel was eventually punished in the eyes of God for their centuries of repeated failure to obey God. The nation was divided after Solomon's reign and Israel was eventually dissolved by Assyria and Babylon. God was patient to the extent that he gave about 100 years warning through the prophet Habakkuk that the Babylonians were going to do his sovereign punishment.
Social Media Shows that it is Still a Dark World
In the 21st century Social Media shows us that we are not living in paradise; we are still living in a world as dark as Habakkuk's time and that human beings are no better. Being connected to each other has shown our angry and hateful sides. Furthermore, it is stressful to receive a constant, intense, online information stream that consists of conflict, drama and inflammatory messages. Some have disconnected from social media and realized that their mood states have improved. Being intimately connected through the computer and phone screens has been like being around that controlling mother-in-law or that verbally abusive drunk uncle 24-7 and it has emotionally scarred us
What is more tragic is the that opportunities to make us argue, insult and offend each other are actually leveraged by politicians and special interest groups in an effort to influence trends on social media to gain some kind of profit.
It appears for the foreseeable future that social media will be with us because it is a tool of commerce and official communication. While it has been promoted as a tool for good things, it has clearly been manipulated and exploited in ways that disturb us, depress us, and overwhelm us. There is economic competition to see who can get us mad or scared enough so as to be motivated to retweet, share, or do something non-digital to protest, contribute or buy and overall just pass on the pain and misery like it were a virus or bacteria.
The People Walking in Darkness have seen a Great Light?
There is no peace on earth to be gained from social media itself. It is just not going to happen.
Furthermore, underneath all of the embellishment of incorporated pagan symbols, Santa Claus, and happy, secular music Christmas still hints that the world is still a dark place, and human beings are incapable of fixing the world let alone themselves, and that there is a great light shining that you can try to ignore by singing another verse of Jingle Bells but you cannot.
The baby came for a reason beyond just to be laid in a manager. The reason he came still befuddles people and challenges their intellectualism and rationalism. It still shines a light on the fact that people are still under a curse due to Adam and Eve's sin. It still illuminates that there is an emptiness and lost-ness that the baby remedied when he grew up to be a 33-year-old man in his earthly life. Christmas shines a light on our emotional and spiritual bankruptcy that social media has only seemed to magnify.
Joy to the world, even the dark, depressing world of social media. A light is here if you really want to look at it before you go back to arguing and trolling each other.
No comments:
Post a Comment