Chapter One Godless Human Philosophy: Truth According to Man “The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall.” Francis Bacon, Advancement of Learning, 1605 Man’s Futile Search for Wisdom and Truth The origin of the word “philosophy” comes from the combination of the Greek words philos, which means love, and sophia, which means wisdom. The meaning of the word philosophy, therefore, is a “love of wisdom.” As sentient creatures made in the image and likeness of God, human beings have an inborn urge to know and understand the truth. No other creatures have this desire for wisdom and knowledge. That’s what separates us from the brutes. Merely surviving from day to day like the animals do is not enough for mankind, for we cannot live in peace with ourselves if we don’t ponder where we come from and where we’re going when we die. God recognizes this inborn desire we have, for he was the one who gave it to us in the first place, and has revealed himself to us in order that we may know the truth, and love him and seek him out, and ultimately be reunited to him when we die. As we have discovered from the modern sciences of archaeology, anthropology, and paleontology, the whole of human history has been a never-ending search for the truth about our creator. Primitive savages once believed that the heavenly bodies and the natural forces and elements of the earth were gods and therefore worshipped such things as the moon, the sun, the planets, earth, wind, fire, rain, crops, animals, insects, and many other things that exist in the natural realm. Savages, of course, did not yet have a fully revealed knowledge of their creator, so they were not to blame for this error. 21 22 THE BEAST IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING As civilizations progressed in knowledge and understanding, stories began to originate out of man’s active imagination about non-existent pagan gods and goddesses, whose characters and foibles were more human-like in nature than God’s. The Greek gods were often vindictive and slaves of immoral sensuality and pleasures like man. Other than the children of Abraham, most of mankind really didn’t comprehend the true nature and character of God. They didn’t understand that he was holy and perfect as well as loving and merciful and generous, or that he was one in being and not many. That understanding would not be given to the world until the fullness of time, in the coming of God’s son, Jesus Christ. Gentiles (non-Jews or pagans) living in the centuries before Christ, while having an inward understanding that a higher power other than themselves exists, did not have an accurate understanding of the true nature and being of God, so they created idols of whatever they thought was divine. The ancient Egyptians worshipped Amon-Ra, the sun god; Osiris, the god of fertility; and Isis, the goddess of nature. In the lands now occupied by Syria and Iraq, Assyrians and Babylonians worshipped the higher god Ashur, the divine founder of their nations; the lesser gods Anu, Bel, and Ea; the moon god Sin and sun god Shamash; and Isthar, the goddess of the crescent moon and queen of the stars. Over in India, the Hindus worshipped Brahma, the creator god; Siva, the god of destruction and regeneration; and Vishnu the preserver god. The Buddhists worshipped nature as God. On the continent of Europe, ancient Greeks created their own mythology of gods and goddesses who were in many ways pettier, more jealous, and more evil than men. Anyone who has ever read Homer and Greek mythology knows about the jealous and capricious exploits of Zeus, Hermes, Aphrodite, Athena, Apollo, Artemis, and all the rest. It was in the Greeks, however, with all their mythological gods and goddesses, that the spark of divine wisdom appeared. It began to illuminate the minds of a few of their learned and esteemed philosophers such as Socrates and Plato and Aristotle, and through them prepare the Gentile world for the coming of God’s Word five centuries later. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle were highly regarded and revered in their time for their wisdom. They didn’t buy into the ancient pagan superstitions and mythologies of Homeric legend because they sensed that there existed somewhere out there an absolute being that tran- scended the human idiosyncrasies and weaknesses of Greece’s mytho- logical gods and goddesses. Of course, they had their disagreements about the true nature of the supreme being and the universe he created, but they were remarkably astute in understanding his essence and being. Godless Human Philosophy: Truth According to Man 23 The teachings and writings of these famous Greek philosophers, there- fore, were very compatible with the teachings to come of Jesus Christ. When Jesus appeared four to five centuries later it was only natural for Greeks, Romans, Jews, Arabs, and Orientals familiar with Greek philoso- phy and language and customs to become followers of Christ. The learned men of Zion and the surrounding Middle East were well versed in Greek language and customs following the Greek occupation of the Middle East by Alexander the Great in the fourth century B.C. The Apostle Paul, who was fluent in Greek, traveled extensively within the territories of Greece to preach the Word of God. In fact, the original extant writings of the New Testament were written in Greek, which was the universal language at that time. Thus, the world owes a great deal to the ancient Greek philosophers for paving the way for Christianity. This chapter is a detailed history of man’s search for philosophical truth, beginning in ancient Greece and ending in modern times. You will first note how astute Socrates and Plato and Aristotle were in knowl- edge and understanding without having the benefit of direct revelations from God that the Hebrews had, but then you will note that as the centuries progressed, and man began to reject the divine revelations and commandments given to us by Jesus Christ, human philosophers sunk deeper and deeper into philosophical errors, concocting nonsen- sical axioms and theories out of their own perverted imaginations, which has drawn the world farther and farther away from the divine truths revealed to us by God; so much so that man doesn’t know what or who to believe anymore, or if there really is a creator. This has been especially true within the last five hundred years, when confusion and misunderstanding over religion and knowledge in general has caused the downfall of countless souls. And that’s exactly what the Second Beast of Revelation (godless human science) wants: the destruction of our souls via the human sciences we worship so much, especially through the scientific discipline of philosophy. Now, here is a history of human philosophy and how we have veered off of the path of truth into apostasy and error. The factual information can be overwhelming at times, but it is important to understand what the ancient philosophers believed in, and how many of their beliefs have been reincorporated in modern soci- ety as various lies and heresies, like in the New Age movement. Ancient Greek Philosophy Genealogically, the ancient Greeks who gave us so many great philosophers descended from a lost tribe of people called the Minoans 24 THE BEAST IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING who lived on the Island of Crete between 2500 to 1400 B.C. These people believed in a higher being and afterlife reward or punishment, and probably got their beliefs from the ancient Egyptians with whom they traded in maritime commerce. Before the destruction of the Minoan civilization in the fifteenth century B.C., their culture spread to Greece around 1600 B.C., where they became known as the Mycenaeans, the people depicted in the legendary writings of Homer. Following the migration of Minoans into Greece, three successive waves of people came next: first the Ionians, then the Achaeans, and finally the Dorians. The Dorians practically wiped out the Minoan- Mycenaean civilization and brought in their own Indo-European reli- gion and customs. Vestiges of the Minoan-Mycenaean culture, however, continued to survive in Greece, especially in the lower classes, and hence the religion and philosophy of the ancient Greeks became an admixture of both Cretan and Indo-European. The ancient Greeks learned the art of writing from the Phoenicians, but made a major improvement in writing by adding vowels to their alphabet. This, no doubt, helped contribute to the advancement in learning of the Hellenic (Greek) civilization. The first great writings of the Hellenic period were those of Homer the poet. The Homeric poems, the most famous being the adventures of Ulysses in the Iliad and the Odyssey, were written sometime between the eighth and sixth centuries B.C., and became an important part of Greek education, espe- cially in Athens (Greece was divided into city-states, the most important being Sparta, Athens, and Corinth). The Olympian gods of Homer were not holy like the God of Judeo- Christianity. They were immoral, capricious and whimsical, differing from mortals only in their possession of supernatural powers. The Greeks also worshipped Pan, the Greek god of fertility who had an over- sized phallus and was an avaricious lover of nymphs. Dionysus (Bacchus), the son of the deities Zeus and Persephone, was also popu- lar. He was the god of vegetation, wine, drunkenness, and orgies whom the Greeks adopted from the Thracians. The cult of Bacchanalia was founded to honor him.