As the millennium approaches, many questions remain as to what direction technology will go in the near future. At the same time many questions are still being asked as to why technology has often gone in the destructive direction it has up until the present.
Just before the 20th century, technology was moving at a steady pace, but after the beginning of the century, technology took off in what has led up to an explosion lasting throughout the whole of the century and into the next. There are many beneficial inventions and uses that humanity has been blessed with by God through this increase in technology. However, many negative aspects of humanity have also come through this medium. Thus, we ask: "Is technology our hero or villain?" To get a clear understanding, we have to backtrack to illustrate some of the major characteristics of advanced technology in the 20th century.
When Max Planck was sitting at his kitchen table in Berlin in 1900, putting the finishing touches on his legendary quantum theory of physics, the only computer in the house was his intellect. As he turned around to reach for a snack, there was no refrigerator to open, nor any other electrical appliance for that matter. Max didn't have to put up with the constant buzz of airplanes flying overhead. Nor did he have to deal with the sound of car horns blaring from the streets.
Two years later, three little pips heralded the communications revolution that would change all that. "I placed the single earphone to my ear and started listening," recalled Gugliemo Marconi in 1902. "I heard faintly, but distinctly…pip-pip-pip." The pips, the letter "S" in Morse code, had traveled across the Atlantic Ocean. The transmission had been sent from Cornwall, England to St. John's, Newfoundland. Wireless communication was about to change the world.
Henry Ford invented the first gasoline-driven car in 1893. In 1913, he confirmed his status as America's greatest inventor by setting up the first moving assembly line. Mass production was born, enabling people to get their hands on as many Model-T Fords, baked beans or laptop computers as their pockets allowed. In 1926 John Logie Baird, forced by ill-health to sit at home and tinker, produced the first flickering images of what became another of the century's defining inventions: television. After Orville Wright piloted the Kitty Hawk bi-plane for a historic 12-second flight in 1903, he accepted US army backing to found the Wright Airplane Company six years later.
World War II in particular provided ammunition both to those who saw technological advance as the key to progress and those who feared the capacity for even greater tragedy. H.G. Wells saw this as "a race between education and catastrophe." What was feared became a reality. Orville Wright warned against "the use of a beneficial invention for diabolical purposes." The dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 opened up a moral debate that rages on to this day.
In 1969, communications technology was changed forever when the Pentagon (again, with military purposes in mind) inaugurated the Internet, a device that has since become as much a part of civilian life as the telephone or the television. Today, the Internet has exploded as a major resource for buying and selling products, and sending and receiving electronic information and ideas.
So the question looms, is technology a curse or a blessing? The answer is relative, depending on the eyes of each different person. It is quite obvious that there are positives to the technology that exists today. The ability to perform open-heart surgery, to benefit from telecommunications and aviation to bring the people of the world today together and the invention and development of computers are examples of how technology in this century has brought about very positive change.
On the other hand, there are also negative aspects of technology that have affected humanity. Forty years ago in the United States, talking about having sex before marriage publicly and in the open was considered taboo in American society. However, today women surf the web to see if they can afford to artificially inseminate the eggs of supermodels into their bodies in order for the DNA of the model to be mixed with their husband's.
Can we honestly say that all the hormones used in the growth of grazing animals are healthy for the animals and for us? Families who historically have been an average height between 5'8'' and 6'0'' are suddenly having children that grow up to be 6'7''. The parents think it's the protein in the meat, but they don't think about the chemicals that are put into the animals.
Third of all, can we say that the establishment of high-tech video games has really had a positive impact on American society? Months ago, we witnessed the story of an American mid-western youth who walked into his school and started shooting children at random. The newscasts reported that the boy's father had recently bought him a video game that dealt with shooting people when they popped up on the screen. The most points were given to the one who got the most headshots. The majority of the people that the boy shot that day were shot in the head. As soon as he had finished committing this act, he dropped the gun and said, "Oh my God! What have I done?"
So it seems that the various technologies that are available at present are in themselves healthy. However, when they have been put to use by some people, they have become very negative and unbeneficial to humanity.
Therefore, we must look at the user and not the object. It is the person that picks up a camera and films his own ideas of reality that spawns negativity and hatred. Hitler did it before WWII in an effort to bolster support form the German people. He used actors in film clips to imitate the Nazi regime being welcomed at parades to inspire his countrymen to support what had apparently massed an already huge following. It is the person that puts pornographic material on the Internet that is responsible for innocent children who know no better than to be exposed to that type of filth. It is the person that decides to bomb millions of innocent people in order to achieve selfish political goals that is responsible for the misuse of arms.
So the question should be rephrased. What should be asked is: Are people the heroes or the villains of the 20th century? Technology is a resource that becomes good or bad only when it is used for either purpose. Humanity determines whether or not these resources are used positively or negatively. To use technology for destroying human life or morality is one thing, and to use it for the betterment of mankind is something else. Until an effort is made to return to the latter standard, humanity will continue to be haphazard in its understanding and implementation of technology. God willing, the 21st century will be used as a stepping-stone towards this effort. 
