|
|
|
|
|
|
|
While predicting that a global information network would come into play, at the time of his death Teilhard de Chardin would have had no concept of the Internet or even that computers could even be small enough for practical use. Despite tipping his hat to technology, he insisted, ''It is not our heads or our bodies which we must bring together, but our heartsHumanity is building its composite brain beneath our eyes. May it not be that tomorrow, through the logical and biological deepening of the movement drawing it together, it will find its heart, without which the ultimate wholeness of its power of unification can never be achieved?" |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
While this visionary of the recent century had great hope for the new millennium, many prophets have not been quite so optimistic. In fact, the turning of 2000 offered a focal point to every sort of doomsayer for the past four millennia. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Millennium Predictions |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
If you're like most people, every time you think of the new millennium, you're filled with a sense of dread, however subtle it may be. Just consider the popularity of the TV show Millennium, which features psychic seer and detective Frank Black and his clairvoyant visions as he counts down the days until 2000. A recent episode of Millenium involved the computer glitches that may occurand supposedly disrupt every institution from the Social Security Administration to banks and airlineswhen the date rolls over to the year 2000. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
But have you ever stopped to ask yourself what causes this near-panic whenever the new millennium comes to mind? What does a millennium change really mean? Basically, it's just watching the first two numbers of the year change on the calendar as the clock strikes midnight on January 1. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Well, that doesn't sound so scary after all. To us, that change sounds hopeful: It's a milestone in bringing all the nations together. It marks the first time in history that the entire world will share the changing of a millennium because the Gregorian calendar was not followed worldwide until after World War I. This time around, technology such as satellite television and the Internet shows that we can all share the changing times in tandem. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
But what about all the bad press surrounding the millennium? Writers from a long way back have been spreading the news of negative prophecies. What's their source? And shouldn't you pay them some mind? We say: Yes, pay them some mind. Learn the lessons they offered by acting to create change. Don't just grovel in potential misery. |
|
|
|
|
|
