Tag Archives: Mythology

Suspending Disbelief

Posted by on April 5, 2013 1 comment

This blog has been largely ignored and it’s time I get back on since there’s a lot to get off my chest. For starters, I am going to begin posting interviews and episodes of Canary Cry Radio along with some more thoughts and commentary exclusively for the blog.

Canary Cry Radio Interview with Brian Godawa

I got to have a great conversation with award winning author and screenwriter Brian Godawa. He is the author of the Chronicles of the Nephilim, a fast moving fantasy-fiction that portrays a deeper understanding of the Old Testament characters through the use of fiction. Some of these ideas don’t jive with what Christians traditionally understand about topics regarding what I’m going to call the Nephilim Paradigm (N.P.). The storyline, characters, places, and situations are drawn from the Bible and other Ancient Near East scriptures. But the great thing is that this platform allows for the discussion to take place about the NP in a non-intrusive way.

In 1817, Samuel Taylor Coleridge coined the phrase “suspend disbelief” while describing his approach to poetry. This is great description of what I believe is a healthy practice to do in proper context because we as humans tend to do this anyway. We as humans have the insatiable urge to entertain ourselves. We do it as a means of comfort and relaxation. An escape from the real world. In fact, this mode of thinking is precisely what I believe author Neil Postman in his book, Amusing Ourselves to Death was describing; A world in which is not threatened by scarcity, but rather “drowned in a sea of irrelevance.” This is the very crux of the satanic temptation; being financially free to have all the time to do what “I” want to do. The scary thing is that it has permeated the church!

So it should be no surprise that on the day Obama calls for a brain mapping project a majority of Christians yawn and carry on with their own daily agendas. I know that sounds mean but it’s simply my reflection of some personal experiences. In fact, to comment on this matter, I don’t believe a majority of Christians are ignoring such issues on purpose. I believe the platter upon which the traditional Protestant Christian view has been served was missing a vital piece to the puzzle and it starts with Genesis 6 and the N.P.. Because of the this flaw, Christians don’t particularly know or understand how to deal with topics like bran mapping when it hits the wires. This loss for any sense of understanding leads to complacency which is why I think many Christians simply brush off these issues.

But there is something brewing that both myself and others are beginning to see. A sort of revival that is largely driven by internet ministries. A movement of young people who are able to consume the N.P. largely because they have grown up in a society where suspending one’s disbelief is a pass time. The downfall to this of course is that they are constantly distracted and indoctrinated into poor theology and occult philosophies. The upside is that they can take in the N.P. without too much prejudice. In just the last several months, I have had many people contact me with stories of how the topic of the sons of God and the Nephilim brought them back to the church, the Bible, and Jesus. Not only is it “new and exciting” but I think it’s precisely the kind of topic that resonates because it’s true and it helps people understand the Bible and God better.

There is a profound connection between the world we live in now, the largely forgotten ancient history of man, and what the Bible reveals to us regarding this massive epic we are a part of. This is a point I would like to press upon. Our history is far more fantastic then we ever thought. And God’s story is far more powerful and epic than than our own individual lives.

Our own individual lives are a mere hair on the brush that God is using to paint His masterpiece. Even the most painful and tragic moments we all experience are somehow being made into an integral part of the entirety of God’s epic. But we must shift our thinking from focusing on what God can do for us (which is still important: healing, comfort, wisdom, etc), and ask what God’s will for us is. Okay, a little Kennedy there; but you get the point. I believe we are in a time where we will witness a revival in the interest of the Bible and Jesus due to the rise of watchmen all over the planet. But it is my contention that this will have a dark side to it as well. What we read in Bible prophecy is unsettling to say the least.

2 Thessalonians 2:3 says: “Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, hunless the rebellion comes first, and ithe man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction…”

Of course the word there translated “rebellion” is in fact apostasy:

GK G686 | S G646   ἀποστασία   apostasia  a falling away, a rebellion, apostasy

Surely a rebellion against the truth has been a part of society throughout history, especially since God Himself became a man two millennia ago. But this falling away has something else that is associated to it.

We read in Revelation 16:6, 17:6, and 18:24 about the blood of the saints. Without getting into a deep word study, most scholars agree that this is the blood of martyred in the end times by the Antichrist. While pretribulationists submit the idea that this will only apply to those who becomes believers after the rapture, I believe instead that this is going to be the ultimate manifestation of evil and hate against the truth where millions of believers across the planet make a stand in the name of Jesus, only to lose their lives. It takes a particular mindset to arrive at a place where one is willing to give up his or her own life for the sake of defending a belief. But what I believe we may be seeing in the rise of watchmen across the planet, is just that; a generation who is going to be the most on-fire disciples in human history who make the ultimate stand against the wiles of the devil. And so what we may be seeing in the near future, sadly, is the further separation and distinction between being true disciples of Jesus, and those who are only selling Jesus as a brand. In fact, it may come to pass that even the ecumenical institutions themselves will play a role in drinking the cup of iniquity. But some words of encouragement from Paul:

It says in Romans 12:12: “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.”

I went all over the place today. Let me tie this all back to the Brian Godawa interview. I think what Brian is doing has a role in this larger endeavor. Science-fiction-fantasy of the Old Testament; simply brilliant. The N.P. requires one to suspend disbelief and because we live in a generation that does so on a regular basis, it’s a great time to be injecting truth into this medium. In fact, what I find interesting is that packaging God’s epic through science-fiction-fantasy is actually reducing the level of reality that God’s word gives us so that it can be ingested slowly. Again, it seems that because God is so good, truth is far stranger than fiction.

UPDATE

Spiritual warfare is real. As I had about 30 minutes of AODII (Age of Deceit II) completed on my Macbook Pro, something happened last week, my worst fears. My hard drive failed. Not great for a laptop that’s not even a year old. And while I certainly ran it hard with all of my applications, it should not have died so soon. But I wouldn’t mind so much unless a lot of my work was saved on it…which it was. I lost many pages of writing I had done in preparation for the conference, AODII, and books and articles I have been working on. On one hand, I was naive to think my hard drive would last a year without having to back it up. But on the other, I believe this is just a hit from the enemy and doesn’t deserve the kind of anger and disappointment I would normally be subject to under such circumstances.

The positive thing is that I am back up and running, and I am starting over with the film and all of my projects. My prayer is that God will make all this work even better than what originally would have been had  this not have happened. Thanks to anyone who supported me through prayers and donations to get things up and running again.

Restoring the Supernatural (Part 3 – Exploring the Elements)

Posted by on May 28, 2012 No comments

QUICK UPDATE

Before I jump into to todays post, I wanted to let you know that I have began a project with Douglas Hamp. Basically, we are making his book Corrupting the Image: Angels, Aliens and the Antichrist Revealed into a film. This will be a essentially a way to visualize a lot of the concepts he brings up in the book to a wider audience. It will be done in a very professional manner and hopefully will get some views on youtube since it will be posted there on my page once it’s done. Doug has asked me to be the director for the project. We also have some phenomenal talent that will be a part of the making of this film including a guy who has worked on some major motion pictures in Hollywood in the CGI (Computer Graphic Imaging) department. So hopefully it will look cool. This last week, we recorded Doug talking about his book. We got about three hours of footage so the next step will be to build a proper script around the narrative that Doug provided.

After this post, I’m going to take a break from writing Restoring the Supernatural and focus on the video projects. As I read back what I have written, it’s been somewhat scattered and poorly written in many parts, so much like the way the film Age of Deceit was a “build-deconstruct-rebuild” I feel that this topic and my aspirations of making it a PDF book are similar. I am writing a whole different thing on the side that I hope to release much later. But working 50+ hours a week with a family leaves little time for doing this kind of stuff. In any case, here’s Part 3.

EXPLORING THE ELEMENTS
Throughout the many years of human history that we do have record of, it is blatantly apparent that the earlier the writings, the more fantastic they appear. Mythologies of strange creatures, giants, gods, heavens and the underworld are found in many ancient literatures. It is my conviction that this is the reason why God inspired the authors who penned the many scrolls of the Bible. It was to shave away all the deception and fluff in order to get to the core truths that are important for humanity to hold onto. However, I do believe it is important to look at how these ancient narratives and how they reflect on the Biblical text for a couple of reasons.

First, it helps us be informed about the enemy. While some are okay with holding steadfast to the Word of God alone and tune out the rest of the world, others like myself feel that knowing a little bit about the enemy can help the body of Christ be informed of the impending attacks. This is what being a watchmen is all about. It’s not for everyone and certainly God has appointed various people to do various things for the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:10). The common analogy used here is that of a sports team. Scouts always take a look at the other teams scheme so they can prepare for what they can expect to see when they face the opposition. We also have to keep in mind what God reminded us in the Word in the book of Luke when the rich man pleads with Abraham who was on the other side of the chasm that separated himself and the pit of Hades. The rich man wanted Abraham to somehow warn his brothers so they would be spared of the pain. Abraham replied, “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.” (Luke 16:31). So in a similar fashion, all someone like myself is trying to do is heed warning. Again I am no prophet, but the bottom line is that if the people don’t listen, and something excessively supernatural does go down, and I believe it will in a short time, the responsibility falls on the individual who heard the warning and didn’t do anything.

Second, if we know that the Bible is true, then ancient written records that do not conflict with the Biblical narrative should also be taken into account. Certainly not as inspired text, but at least to gain a better understanding of the context to which the Bible reveals truth to us.

Inevitably, the centerpiece and punch line to all of this is always going to be Jesus Christ. And this will be a recurring theme throughout our investigation of many of these topics. There is no need for this kind of knowledge to be saved by the love of our Lord Jesus, but it certainly does help us get a grasp of why Jesus is important.

But in order to even begin to explore what these ancient text reveal to us in light of the inspired text, let’s explore where, when and why we find ourselves in a culture that either ignores the supernatural all together, or has gravely misplaced its implications and effects in our world.

WHAT STARTED THE DESCENT?
The question that really made me curious about how we have come to this secular, materialistic view of reality was when it all happened. For centuries, ancient stories and mythology were not taken as mere folklore or fiction but as some form of history. Yet in the last few centuries, we have completely tuned out the supernatural elements of the ancient writings dismissing them all as “religious” writings, predominantly in the realm of academia from which cultural trends flow.

Just a quick overview of recent history and we know that sometime around the beginning of the enlightenment period, a major shift happened in the authority of academic scholarship. Almost all the text of religious or spiritual significance from ancient times that were held as historical for over a millennia were suddenly tossed aside as unreliable and unreasonable. A wikipedia source explains the enlightenment period as follows:

“The Age of Enlightenment (or simply the Enlightenment or Age of Reason) was a cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe and America, whose purpose was to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted science and intellectual interchange and opposed superstition,[1] intolerance and abuses in church and state. Originating about 1650 to 1700, it was sparked by philosophers Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677), John Locke (1632–1704), Pierre Bayle (1647–1706), physicist Isaac Newton (1643–1727), and philosopher Voltaire (1694–1778).”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment

As a consequence, anything that defied reason was touted as false or superstition. The age of enlightenment is the foundation to the state we find ourselves today in culture and society. The Institution of Church has also been greatly affected by the age of enlightenment. Anything supernatural is seen as somewhat taboo and almost unwarranted. And while there has been a slight revival in a sense of the supernatural elements in the modern church, it seems the pendulum has swung the opposite direction into the highly suspicious charismatic movement.

One place where the ancient records were not overturned were the Egyptian hieroglyphs. While this is speculation, I believe that those who were part of the enlightenment, although didn’t openly accept the supernatural, in specific regard, the Biblical accounts, for some reason felt that the ancient Egyptian records were the most accurate. Perhaps it was because of the wealth of records left behind by the Egyptians, or their alleged accomplishments of the Great Pyramids and Sphinx. Or if we really want to get speculative, it may be because the folks who touted “reason” we’re not doing anything new, but were resurrecting an ancient philosophy of wisdom and knowledge as the benchmark for attaining godhood. This makes a lot of sense in light of the secret societies that came out of the enlightenment period. The most popular group that emerged from this time period was the Order of the Illuminati.

 

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