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Barnes in Commonthe magazine of Churches Together in BarnesWinter2011
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The Internet - Ethical Issues "Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it." —Samuel Johnson Samuel Johnson would have been in his element now! In knowledge terms we are masters of the universe, having access to more information and wealth of knowledge than ever before, thanks to the World Wide Web! For the most part we take this revolution for granted. Perhaps we don’t even see it as a revolution anymore. Information technology is ubiquitous and yet is all-pervading and it has the power to influence and changes our lives. The instant access we have demands a responsible and an ethical approach to the way we use the internet and to the way investors place capital into services which could be harmful to society. There have been calls for Faith groups, such as the Catholic Church and others to become more internet savvy and to have a greater presence on line. Social media sites, such as Twitter and Facebook available through the Internet are replacing face to face friendships in some cases and church groups have cautioned against excess. If you want to know more you can get a basic guide to the WWW from the following site: http://www.w3.org/WWW/ The Information Age has allowed rapid global communications and networking to shape modern society. It isn’t the first communication revolution though and it could be said that the WWW and our current age owes its existence to an earlier revolution, brought about by the invention of the printing press in around 1440 by the German Johannes Guttenberg. Not quite 200 years later Francis Bacon declared that printing had “changed the whole face and state of things throughout the world". The same could be said of the WWW. The printing press caught on and the technology spread rapidly. Printing on a commercial scale is the most influential event of the second millennium. Gutenberg was a goldsmith and using knowledge of his craft he devised a hand mould which for the first time made it possible to create metal moveable type in large quantities. This improved upon a method, developed in China 400 years earlier. Printing became viable and faster leading to the first mass production of books in history. A Rennaisance printing press could produce 3,600 pages per day. Compared to only forty pages produced by hand. Gutenberg, a Catholic, chose the Bible as the first book he produced. The Gutenberg Bible brought the written Word of God to ordinary people to read for themselves. Today this awesome creation, which was printed on vellum and took the skin of 170 calves to print, can be viewed on line at the British Library: http://www.bl.uk/treasures/gutenberg/homepage.html The King James Bible is 400 years old this year and was produced using printing press technology. It remains the most widely published text in the English language. Carmel Blackie   |
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