Many have wandered whether religion and Christianity in particular is against knowledge. Not because of it being related to the “dark” Middle Ages (a story which has been discredited a long time ago by Harmonia Philosophica; read the relevant article “Middle Ages – An enlightened era“) but because of the famous story of God forbidding Adam to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
This story, along with the hostility of the church against enlightenment (something which is completely justified; read the relevant article “Enlightenment was darkness” in Harmonia Philosophica), has made many people wander whether the church has any dogmatic stance against knowledge per se.
The short answer: Yes. But only because it values knowledge!
Let me explain my self. Knowledge is something which for millennia was held in very high esteem. And for that reason it was kept away from the majority of the people who were not worthy of it. This was not only a church thing. Think of Pythagoras for example. His students had vows not to reveal anything they learnt to the non-worthy on the penalty of death. Think of the alchemists, who encoded everything they wrote so that they don’t fall into the wrong (not worthy) hands of the people outside their closed cast.
Harmonia Philosophica in general is a testament to that belief. Its articles are written in such a way that they draw people away and which seem to convey nothing more than a vague hint to what they were meant to convey.
The Fathers of the Church have explained that eloquently: God doesn’t forbid Adam from eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil for no reason. He does so because Man is not yet mature enough to handle this knowledge. If we had the patience we would be allowed to eat from the tree; we are part of God Himself anyway aren’t we?
So the church doesn’t want to forbid knowledge in general. But it wants to impose respect to knowledge as such. Knowledge is not something you read in Wikipedia (Read the articles in Harmonia Philosophica by the way against Wikipedia). Knowledge is something which you should earn with sweat and huge effort. As Buddhism says, “When the student is ready, the teacher appears”.
And we are certainly not ready.
Education and knowledge without ethics generate monsters. Remember, Mengele the “Angel of Death” had two PhDs. (Read the relevant articles “The source of ethics” and “Against the fallacy of education as a source of ethics“).
Don’t worry.
You will soon eat from the tree of knowledge.
For now you just have to compromise.
Come on.
Eat a banana.
And some day, if you are a good boy, Pythagoras will speak to you…
Only to tell you not to speak.
