Robert White White1
Rossetter
English 101
Date: 2/17/04
Searching for God
The search for God started long ago after man had somehow lost his connection to Deity. It didn’t take long before someone realized they could establish authority over their fellow humans by declaring that they had had a vision and had talked to God. In their vision instructions were received for establishing laws to govern the people and the seer would be the one of authority, the governor. In a short time, the governor would give a group of individuals of his choosing the authority to act in his name; and in so doing, a control was established over the people. This rule over people became so dominant that one dare not to question the authority or to declare knowledge or information that would be contrary to the laws of the governors. To do so would put the individual at risk of life and liberty.
Now along comes a man that doesn’t believe in the governor’s authority. He starts teaching his followers that he is a representative of an authority that is much higher and in fact the highest authority of all, and to declare allegiance to this higher authority is the most precious thing of all; more precious than life itself. In a short time, this prophet has many followers. They believe in his teachings and start ignoring the governor’s authority by preaching and teaching the prophet’s message. They start writing the teachings down in journals to be preserved and protected in case of persecution, and they code the writings so that only members of the faithful group will be able to decipher them.
The governor’s officers finally arrest the prophet and many of his disciples, put them on trial for heresy and put them to death. Only a few of the disciples escape the purge and only a few of the many journals survived. As it turned out, these few remaining disciples scattered far and wide, each taking with them a few of the coded journals.
After many years the few remaining disciples that could decode the journals died off, and then only some of journals were decoded. Teaching was still being given using the partially decoded journals, and information that appeared to be missing was filled in by the well-meaning teachers. Many sayings of the prophet were paraphrased because the exact quotes were missing, and the new students used a more up to date language in the paraphrasing to make it more readable. Many of the original journals were lost and many were unable to be decoded by even the best scholars.
As the centuries passed, the journals were reorganized, categorized, transliterated, grouped, deleted, and regrouped. Many of them were never decoded but just left as they were. They were translated and retranslated without having been first decoded, with result that it may now be impossible to derive the original message.
Two things have continued over the centuries: One, the keepers of the journals have somehow managed to be at the top of the authority hill, dictating to all the people below what is the correct meaning of the messages of the journals. Their authority has ruled nations, has dictated national policy, has caused wars between nations, has forced conformance to their beliefs, and has in general caused human behavior to be just opposite of what the prophet intended. Two, each group of keepers has declared their decoding to be the proper decoding, and that any other interpretation is in error and not of the proper authority for teaching.
Now along comes a seeker of truth that doesn’t believe in the keeper’s authority. He is searching for the final authority, the Deity, God. Everywhere he turns; the keepers are trying to convince him of the correctness of their decoding and are throwing quotations from the decodings at him. He is told the decodings are the words of the prophet and should be believed. To not believe in the decodings is to be in danger of hellfire. This is unacceptable to the seeker because he believes the prophet’s teachings have been corrupted over the centuries, and that the prophet’s real message is a simple message; that being to love one another as he loves us, and to treat our neighbor as God treats us. He questions himself,
“Where do I search to find God?”