What will be the future of technology once into the Tribulation?
Bill Salus: Technology develops so rapidly. You said you had a typewriter when you were in college. I remember when I first started my business the fax machine was a big thing, and now I hardly ever use it because it is all email and scanning. When I got my first cell phone it was the size of a loaf of bread it seemed like, and I felt I could launch a rocket with it. But now, I've got one that I can fit inside my shirt pocket. I can Skype, I can shoot videos, I can be on the Internet and I can retrieve emails. This has all happened within 10-15 years.
Where do you see this rapid progression of technology going? Is it going to continue to improve to a point where we can't even imagine what it is going to end up like?
Nathan Jones: Just in the last 10 years of technology that I have been involved with, I have seen incredible advancements. It's almost impossible even working in the world of technology to stay up to date. Most guys who get into technology within 3-5 years become project managers because the technology out paces them and then they have to bring in a new slew of graduates or even high schoolers to start programming and developing.
It used to be every three years there would be a technological revolution, but now it is every year and a half. Just recently with the introduction of the iPad and other tablets and the iPhones, we've seen a major technological revolution of how people use computers. The desktop that sits on your desk is giving way to the laptop, which is now going to portable devices.
Keeping up with all the amazing technology can be difficult. I checked out 3D televisions the other day. Can you imagine if the next generation of televisions could project via hologram? We might actually be inside our televisions within 10-15 years at the rate technology is increasing.
On the other hand, we are also seeing a slow down of technology in some areas. Space science for instance has hit a stand still. Most nations don't really want to develop it. We've mothballed our shuttle program. Iran last sent up some earth worms, so that is about as high tech as we are getting.
We know that when the Tribulation comes on the world that there is not going to be people living on other planets, because it is a judgment of humanity on this world. We can then know at some point Jesus has to return before we start colonizing planets.
Also, the supplies of especially rare minerals used in making all this technology are running out. You can read about it in a number of articles. This is a big concern. Where is your plasma television going to get's its specialized minerals? China right now has a hold on much of the rare mineral rights, and so a lot of companies are going over to China begging them to release their special minerals because we need to make our cell phones and televisions. We know there is a time limit on how far technology can go based on the current materials we use, unless other raw materials can be found. I think that this depletion shows we aren't going to see technology advance so far that we have something sci-fi like replicants running around impersonating us. Based on availability of natural resources, our time limit is ticking on how advanced technology is going to get.
Nathan Jones: What is interesting when we talk about technology is that we know at some point technology will eventually no longer exist during the Tribulation. By the end of the Tribulation at Armageddon people we read are fighting on horses. I hear a lot of people say, "Well, that is crazy because we have tanks and aircraft and all today." But, it looks like the world will be left so devastated that there may not even be fuel for these tanks and all of the equipment which will leave people resorting to horses and more primitive weapons.
Another clue technology will be destroyed or at least greatly decreased is that some of the Tribulation punishments involve lots of solar flares and eruptions. As I build our Web Ministry and we leave Gospel messages behind for the people left behind, I know that the Internet technology will probably only last up to the mid-point of the Tribulation. After that it gets a little sketchy because the solar flares will end up breaking our technological ability to communicate with the satellites and disrupt power grids. No power means no technology.
By the end of the Tribulation, I doubt there will be any technology left, or if so very little. God would have crumbled our technological Tower of Babel.
This is very interesting, no technology near the end of the Tribulation. Never thought of it this way before...something I need to pray about.
Nathan that is a very thought provoking post. I work with police technology and it changes so fast the budgets can't keep up with buying the next great tool.
Just because horses are mentioned in the prophesies and not tanks etc does not mean that there were not any tanks etc. Remember the Bible authors who had visions were limited in how they could describe what they saw. How do you describe a tank. aeroplane etc two to three thousand years ago? They could only use terminology and images which was within their capability of description.
"The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. On their heads they wore something like crowns of gold, and their faces resembled human faces. Their hair was like women’s hair, and their teeth were like lions’ teeth. They had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle. They had tails and stings like scorpions, and in their tails they had power to torment people for five months."
Sounds like 21st Century technology to me.
I agee that technology WILL exist to the end. It's not that the technology won't be available, more likely it's just that it won't be as useable as Nathan did point out.
In an another post I said “While the Internet is one tool that can be used to spread the Gospel, I am of the opinion that the Internet has been more successful at spreading filth, lies and evil.
If I had to decide if we would be better off without it I'd say yes - get rid of it. Most of us have lived our lives just fine without it and the Gospel has been spread just fine as well without it for 2,000 years.
Can you deny the Internet is a major part of this “technological Tower of Babel”.
DTTM “Sounds like 21st Century technology to me”.
Not at all; this isn’t technology, these are strange, demonic beings, released from the Abyss.
The ancients would indeed find it difficult to describe armoured vehicles, flying or otherwise – but they would know the difference between a metallic ‘chariot’ with which to compare a horse.
We need to read literary, literally, as written by the author. In my opinion the Church does not seem to grasp the hugeness of the global upheavals, with billions dying which starts from the opening of the first seal when lawlessness will be the ‘rule’. The resulting Anarchy will prevent any technological advances imo!
JUST BEFORE the Day of the Lord begins, there is to be a global blackout – i.e. no natural or artificial light in advance of the 70 Week. Joel 2.
As for ‘don’t take THE mark’ – THE mark doesn’t come until the False Prophet sets it up just before the AoD is set up in the Temple during the midst of the 70th week.
EVERYTHING about this world we live in is ‘marked’ and fallen, not just technology. We are in the world but we are not OF the world.
Billy, is technology evil, or the one who wields it? Can a hammer be used to build a house as well as bash in a head? I don't believe the Internet is inherently evil, but during the Tribulation it will be under the Antichrist's full control and so fully weilded for evil. Agreed, on the evil side, the scope of the Internet does resemble the Tower of Babel.
EI, yeah, I have to laught at Hal Lindsey's suggestion that those demons are helicopters. Helicopters out of the Abyss?!
Also agreed on another of your posts that we just can't fully comprehend the amount of carnage that the earth will endure during the Tribulation. With power grids going down and no juice to recharge our gizmos, technology can only wane up to the very end of the Tribulation.
See, we use the net to get the truth out.
Yeah, he saw the 'writing on the wall' as soon as WND said "forgery of a public document is a felony" and decided it's time to distance himself from them, tuck tail, and run!