Progress: the forward movement toward a goal. There must be progress in one's life to grow and learn. It is progress to mature from a child to an adult. It is progress to better the world for the common good, i.e. technology has enabled us to warn the masses in danger of a tornado, modes of transportation have become more quicker and more efficient, the refrigerator provides an environment to prevent food spoilage, and the list goes on.
But is all progress good? For the sake of a simple blog entry, I cannot do justice to this topic, but may it cause you to think about what is going on around you, and spurn you to make choices that are not good for only you, but those around you.
Due to the busyness of life (and there is a difference between being busy and having a full day) we crave instant gratification....we want to know "now," we don't have time to wait. Enter all the media devices. We now can watch anything at any time, communicate with anyone, anytime, and have the world's knowledge at our fingertips. Our physical beings are never at rest. Obesity rates have soared and depression meds fly off the shelves. Social media is now a relationship. Much progress has been made with the computer chip...but it hasn't stopped....the speed of change is becoming incomprehensible. We are hurtling with it....
In seeking to provide bumper crops, herbicides and pesticides are abundantly used. Genetically Modified Organisms are now in plenty. (The general principle of producing a GMO is to alter the genetic material of an organism's genome in order to make life easier for humans, i.e. increasing the nutritional value of a food, or alter it so a pest can't destroy the crop.) As a consumer, many of us don't even realize what is going in our mouths when we sit down at the dinner table. Herbicides and pesticides are poisons...designed to kill. GMO's alter the DNA of said organism. Does this make sense? A person is what they eat. I am ingesting a poison (designed to kill) and a substance with an altered DNA....what does this do to my body? Simple common sense causes me to halt.
Vaccines are purported to have made giant strides in eradicating disease in our world. I recently began researching the flu vaccine (simply because it is starting to make headlines, and I have never thought I needed one) and I have been shocked. I think most of us blindly accept "the shot" as a good thing. Take some time and read the insert found in the vaccine (this can be found on the internet). Again, poisons and toxins (along with the vaccine) are being injected into our bodies without our knowledge. Our children are being inundated with vaccines. In 1983, ten vaccines were required before age 6; today 30 are. Autism rates were 1 in 10,000 in 1983, they are now 1 in 50. When my youngest was born, (1993) vaccines at birth were just being introduced. I simply told the nurse I did not want that. It did not make sense to inject my newborn with a vaccine. We may have curbed disease, but at what cost? Our immune systems are paying the price. (A vaccine causes the immune system to react differently than if a person were to be sick.) Auto-immune diseases have soared.
Scientists applaud the progress made in food and medicine. I don't mean to diminish their efforts. But we must take a step back and evaluate what really is progress: we are moving forward to.....what?
My mom grew up going to country school (where education was lighting a fire, not filling a bucket), lived on a farm, had the mumps, measles, and chickenpox, food was grown in the garden and the chicken coop, and entertainment consisted of outdoor play.
Today, schools are "progressing" toward the cookie-cutter kid (simply filling the bucket), the farm is "redneck", being sick is bad for you, many foods are chemicals we pick off a shelf, and the big screen TV and smart phone are the "in" things.
I am not one to have wishful thinking of the "good ole' days" for they had their problems too. Life was not a bed of roses. But is it possible to embrace some of the wholesome living from those days? We are not God, and we don't live in a fairy-tale world, thus we simply need to take a step back and not take progress at face value, but educate ourselves. Progress should not simply make life easier or create more of something....but create a better life holistically for all.....what seems good today, may not be tomorrow.
Don't get me wrong. Progress is necessary and good in life. But it is not all as it seems. When we blindly accept the changes as they come, and not evaluate the end goal, we fail to be responsible to one's self thus giving that control to another.
I did not comment on these "progressive" topics; but just had to share this cartoon. Blind acceptance?
The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty. Prov. 27:12
Progress....I am learning its successes and dangers.
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