On Tue, 06 Jan 2009 13:56:56 -0800, the infamous Gunner Asch
scrawled the following:

On Tue, 06 Jan 2009 12:06:33 -0500, Bob Engelhardt
wrote:

Larry Jaques wrote:
[on on-topic reply]

--
Books are the compasses and telescopes and sextants and charts which other
men have prepared to help us navigate the dangerous seas of human life.
--Jesse Lee Bennett

I saw a TV documentary once, about the introduction of the printing
press. What stuck with me was that the printing press made what had
been closely-held information widely distributed. In fact, initially
the predominant genre was how-to books. Knowledge that only guild
members had previously had access to was now available to the public.

Fast forward 300 years, or however long it's been. Today the Internet
has trumped books in that regard. Not only is the information
available, it's easily found. That was/is the Achilles heel of books -
the knowledge may be in a book /somewhere/, but finding it was something
else. The Internet is changing the world as much as the printing press did.

Bob


The printing press made Bibles and religious tracts readily available to
the masses. The flock could now read what only the priests had
previously had a lock on.

Yeah, there was that downside of the press, too. Once the SOBs
got their bibles in mass-production, gazillions of missionaries went
hog wild. The rest is history. (Crusades, Spanish Inquisition, etc.)


It really hurt the control the Church had over the masses and was
considered the Devils Tool by some of the Church hierarchy...some.

Anything which takes potential money out of the church's pocket is
evil and must be destroyed! They can't have their scams taken over by
someone else, now can they?

--
Books are the compasses and telescopes and sextants and charts which other
men have prepared to help us navigate the dangerous seas of human life.
--Jesse Lee Bennett