Secret Knowledge
Anyone claiming secret knowledge in regards to religious truths should be watched, and carefully.
The entire notion that a loving God could sequester truths and riddle the history of mankind without revealing them is deplorable. Particularly, Christians know Jesus spoke adoringly of children and spoke in parables. Simple thoughts easily understood and rightfully so. Life is not meant to be perplexing, it is meant to be enjoyed. I do read a lot and do think a lot upon my faith, but whenever I find references to secret codes of truths the general public cannot readily attain I find myself desiring a lightning bolt to strike that person.
Modern theorists postulate computers can unlock codes buried in biblical canon. Think about this; how could God secret away these codes for thousands of years and not allow the people who wrote them or who decided they were canonical in the first place to know about alleged hidden messages? Where is the sense in it? Of course an omnipotent God could foresee technological advances which could supply the capacity for such coding. But why would God hide the codes from the people in the stories, the people writing the stories, and the people reading the stories? The Bible is not written for a computer to read, it is written for humans to read and our ability to interpret its messages.
Likewise, it's hard for me to accept cult-minded reading of passages out of context. The context is meant for children and uneducated people, spoken from the mouths of fishermen. It really is that simple, it is meant to not omit any segment of humanity. So whenever people postulate about hidden truths I cringe. It is entirely possible that God uses logic from the fifth dimension, but since that is not in our capacity to understand and is not anywhere present in the words spoken by the prophets we aught to dismiss it outright. Apocalyptic visionaries use tactics to obscure the Scripture and their messages. If there were a date and time for the end of life as we know it and we were meant to know, God would have said as much through revelations. The Apostles themselves spoke of the Apocalypse within their lifetimes. What Christians would know better the words of Christ than those who spent their time with Jesus? Yet individuals thousands of years later try to convince people they know better because they interpreted some manner of secret knowledge. It confounds me.
I can concede conspiracy theories about human applications of faith. Debates about sects and schisms are a result of humanity, but they should not reflect back to the reality of faith and God. It is entirely true there have been efforts to edit Scriptures. The process of selecting the texts from all available documents was done by men, not Jesus. We can argue about the choices these men made. We should not construe it as representative of the work of the Lord. Of course. However, the Gospel of Judas is neither new nor novel. Gnostics were heretics from their inception. The basis for the worldview is to undermine everything that the Judeo-Christian-Islamic faith is built upon, to violate the most prominent of the Ten Commandments and to deny God as depicted in the Torah-Bible-Koran. It is a notion that predates Christianity, offers frighteningly debasing docetic ideas, and persists in films today like the Matrix. A friend once stated after that film that the main character Neo is "totally a Jesus character"; I wanted to cry at how outlandishly incorrect it was - Neo usurps control of reality and flies around kicking the behinds of his enemies into oblivion, taking control of all things in an incorporeal environment that masks the true, bleak reality. It was a good movie, but for entertainment value only, and should not reflect back upon the story told throughout Christianity, throughout Judaism.
It's sad that the DaVinci Code warrants more attention in my nation than Jubilee, but that is the state of things. People seem to want to ignore the concept of studying the readily known and available truths, preferring to create their own worldview from a warped piece of fiction repeatedly demonstrated to be inaccurate. There is a desire for complexity beyond that offered by the faith. A desire for novelty. Life is basic. Life does not consist of quiz show morality. Life consists of circumstance, challenge, suffering, endurance. Life is hard enough. Maybe that is the problem for so-called advanced civilizations where hunger means going more than a couple of hours without food. We do not see the animals slaughtered, prepared, or cooked most times, so it is easier to eat without prayer and to eat without understanding of the larger ramifications of that action. Sweat shops. The division of labor. Countries demoted into "third world" status. It is like we are too comfortable with our lives to be able to fathom how someone else might be able to put an idea above their own well-being. Such behavior exists in our history, which we idealize. However, when people in other nations are willing to die rather than accept their station in life our nation - with it's two minute, commercial break memory - cannot understand that struggle. We are Christian in name, partially in deed. Partial is not enough. There are no secrets really and the obvious truth of this goes ignored.
So, I prefer the religion handed down by the words of Jesus. The religion that spread among the poor and uneducated, the religion that espouses the innocence of children, the religion consistent with its own historical roots. Inserting a search of secrets where there exists a field of study already is like looking for truffles in an abundant apple orchard in full bloom. If you were hungry you would just eat the apples instead of insisting upon digging around through the dirt everywhere. People looking for secret knowledge are sure to come away with some dirt on their noses, but it won't satisfy their hunger. Anyone with curiousity or desire for knowledge of the Christian faith need look no further than the Bible for guidance. It's all online. There's even people willing to give out free Bibles. There's nothing to hide and no secrets, but there is a regiment of truth readily available if you look.
The entire notion that a loving God could sequester truths and riddle the history of mankind without revealing them is deplorable. Particularly, Christians know Jesus spoke adoringly of children and spoke in parables. Simple thoughts easily understood and rightfully so. Life is not meant to be perplexing, it is meant to be enjoyed. I do read a lot and do think a lot upon my faith, but whenever I find references to secret codes of truths the general public cannot readily attain I find myself desiring a lightning bolt to strike that person.
Modern theorists postulate computers can unlock codes buried in biblical canon. Think about this; how could God secret away these codes for thousands of years and not allow the people who wrote them or who decided they were canonical in the first place to know about alleged hidden messages? Where is the sense in it? Of course an omnipotent God could foresee technological advances which could supply the capacity for such coding. But why would God hide the codes from the people in the stories, the people writing the stories, and the people reading the stories? The Bible is not written for a computer to read, it is written for humans to read and our ability to interpret its messages.
Likewise, it's hard for me to accept cult-minded reading of passages out of context. The context is meant for children and uneducated people, spoken from the mouths of fishermen. It really is that simple, it is meant to not omit any segment of humanity. So whenever people postulate about hidden truths I cringe. It is entirely possible that God uses logic from the fifth dimension, but since that is not in our capacity to understand and is not anywhere present in the words spoken by the prophets we aught to dismiss it outright. Apocalyptic visionaries use tactics to obscure the Scripture and their messages. If there were a date and time for the end of life as we know it and we were meant to know, God would have said as much through revelations. The Apostles themselves spoke of the Apocalypse within their lifetimes. What Christians would know better the words of Christ than those who spent their time with Jesus? Yet individuals thousands of years later try to convince people they know better because they interpreted some manner of secret knowledge. It confounds me.
I can concede conspiracy theories about human applications of faith. Debates about sects and schisms are a result of humanity, but they should not reflect back to the reality of faith and God. It is entirely true there have been efforts to edit Scriptures. The process of selecting the texts from all available documents was done by men, not Jesus. We can argue about the choices these men made. We should not construe it as representative of the work of the Lord. Of course. However, the Gospel of Judas is neither new nor novel. Gnostics were heretics from their inception. The basis for the worldview is to undermine everything that the Judeo-Christian-Islamic faith is built upon, to violate the most prominent of the Ten Commandments and to deny God as depicted in the Torah-Bible-Koran. It is a notion that predates Christianity, offers frighteningly debasing docetic ideas, and persists in films today like the Matrix. A friend once stated after that film that the main character Neo is "totally a Jesus character"; I wanted to cry at how outlandishly incorrect it was - Neo usurps control of reality and flies around kicking the behinds of his enemies into oblivion, taking control of all things in an incorporeal environment that masks the true, bleak reality. It was a good movie, but for entertainment value only, and should not reflect back upon the story told throughout Christianity, throughout Judaism.
It's sad that the DaVinci Code warrants more attention in my nation than Jubilee, but that is the state of things. People seem to want to ignore the concept of studying the readily known and available truths, preferring to create their own worldview from a warped piece of fiction repeatedly demonstrated to be inaccurate. There is a desire for complexity beyond that offered by the faith. A desire for novelty. Life is basic. Life does not consist of quiz show morality. Life consists of circumstance, challenge, suffering, endurance. Life is hard enough. Maybe that is the problem for so-called advanced civilizations where hunger means going more than a couple of hours without food. We do not see the animals slaughtered, prepared, or cooked most times, so it is easier to eat without prayer and to eat without understanding of the larger ramifications of that action. Sweat shops. The division of labor. Countries demoted into "third world" status. It is like we are too comfortable with our lives to be able to fathom how someone else might be able to put an idea above their own well-being. Such behavior exists in our history, which we idealize. However, when people in other nations are willing to die rather than accept their station in life our nation - with it's two minute, commercial break memory - cannot understand that struggle. We are Christian in name, partially in deed. Partial is not enough. There are no secrets really and the obvious truth of this goes ignored.
So, I prefer the religion handed down by the words of Jesus. The religion that spread among the poor and uneducated, the religion that espouses the innocence of children, the religion consistent with its own historical roots. Inserting a search of secrets where there exists a field of study already is like looking for truffles in an abundant apple orchard in full bloom. If you were hungry you would just eat the apples instead of insisting upon digging around through the dirt everywhere. People looking for secret knowledge are sure to come away with some dirt on their noses, but it won't satisfy their hunger. Anyone with curiousity or desire for knowledge of the Christian faith need look no further than the Bible for guidance. It's all online. There's even people willing to give out free Bibles. There's nothing to hide and no secrets, but there is a regiment of truth readily available if you look.
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