new church life: september/october 2014
has been necessary. But in the course
of this progress, three dramatic and
relatively rapid transitions took place.
The first was the invention of writing.
Recorded history begins about
5,000 years ago with the invention
of writing – the capacity to leave a
permanent record for later generations.
Writing also gave people the ability to
send fixed communications to those at
a distance, thus facilitating the growth
of commerce. The other thing that goes
with the dawn of writing and the dawn
of history is the dawn of civilization.
“Civilization” refers literally,
or at least etymologically, to the development of cities. And how are cities
distinguished from towns or villages? One aspect, of correspondential import,
is that cities are walled. But a more obvious connection with writing and
commerce is that cities reflect and depend upon the division of labor.
People within cities specialize in certain crafts. Cities themselves may
become the centers of certain industries, which then become the basis for
trade with other cities. The organization of trade and of the cities themselves
can only go so far without written records and communications.
Before cities, people lived in a tribal culture, either in villages, or leading a
nomadic way of life. Not only does this seem to be the way of life of those of the
Most Ancient Church; it seems to be pretty much what is reported of life on
all the other earths in the universe of which we are given accounts. Elsewhere
there apparently has not been the development of cities and commerce, let
alone the technology that eventually can arise from them.
The next big step toward modern technology was the development among
the Greeks of the 6th century BC of something recognizable as scientific
thinking. The ancient Egyptians and Babylonians achieved some notable
discoveries in astronomy, geometry and mathematics. But they remained
focused on the practical aspects and not the theoretical and philosophical
understanding of the scientific method that made possible later progress.
The third revolution occurred with the modern scientific era, beginning
with Bacon, Galileo, Newton and the emergence of empirically based
theorizing, and continuing into the industrial revolution of the 18th and 19th
centuries. This clearly set the stage for communication by means of waves of
electromagnetic radiation.
The most important
event in the history of
the universe took place
on our planet. Of all the
worlds in creation, the
Lord chose to be born
on our earth. How is
it that our earth was
singled out in this way?
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