At the end of the book of Daniel the prophet is told to "...shut up the words , and seal the book until the time of the end; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase." There is no doubt that in our age knowledge has multiplied exponentially. We are awash in more information than we can reasonably absorb in any lifetime. It is a great time to be alive and have the resources available to us today.

I was reading the current issue of Forbes magazine when this comment by publisher Rich Karlgaard caught my eye. "In ancient times the Library of Alexandria held the collected knowledge  of the Western world. Its more than 400,000 scrolls were the first systematic and serious collection of documentation  on physics, literature, mathematics, medicine, astronomy, biology,and engineering. The only trouble was that you had to physically be in Alexandria in order to tap into its resources, Now you can be in Bangalore, India or Bippus, Indiana."

Karlgaard was pointing appreciatively to the work of Sergy Brin and Larry Page who created Google, the free Internet search engine. We have all used Google and its name has entered our lexicon of everyday language. Instead on going to the phone book to tediously look up a number we go to Google. When we want information on any topic we "Google" it.

Google is our modern Library of Alexandria. We have the collected knowledge of our world instantaneously available through a computer and the Internet. Put that fact in perspective and it is astounding. We live in a unique period of human history.

Sadly, human experience also shows us that knowledge that is not harnessed for the good of mankind is either misused or squandered. The genius that can harness the atom can produce weapons of both peace or destruction. That is the double edged sword of knowledge being increased in the time of end.