Thursday, August 28, 2008

Two internet newbies

My old Congregational church had a Sunday morning class called Paradoxes which I attended off and on from age 16. There were dozens of members, and we'd study science and the Bible and how they relate, under the direction of a really cool astronomer named Hugh Ross. I daresay we thought we were the intelligent set.

But on one particular Sunday about ten years ago, Hugh Ross stood down for a while and we began the class with another man giving a short talk on that newfangled invention, "The Internet". This man clearly was proficient in the use of The Internet, but less so in explaining its nature to those who had never used it. With some effort he got across the concept of a web page.

I was in college at the time and proud that I knew all about it. But many of the adults in the class were getting their first crash course, and they began having real difficulty when the man started explaining links. Then my own mom raised her hand.

"But what if you just linked to all your enemies' web pages?"

Pause. "Um, why would you do that?" asked our Internet expert.

Mom: "To destroy them!"


Around the same time, my future friend Eanah was watching her mom make use of the house's new Internet access. It was curious-- before leaving any page, she would first scroll up to the top of it. Eanah asked her mom why she was doing that.

"So it'll be at the top for the next person who goes to the page," her mom informed her.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Please be sure to thank your friend's mother for her consideration.I have yet to find a page that is not at the top...she must really be busy these days.

JimAroo said...

You had Hugh Ross giving a Sunday morning class at your church? How astounding is that?

Rachel said...

Farfarolla, it's people like her who keep the Internet running.

Jimaroo, Hugh Ross was and is the minister of apologetics at Sierra Madre Congregational Church in addition to running Reasons to Believe on the side. The class description is here: http://www.smccnet.org/Education/Adult_Sunday_School.shtml Not only does it have Hugh Ross, but it has the best refreshments of any Sunday School class, no question. :)