“I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:”
– Deuteronomy 30:19
How do I say this politely?
Dan Brown is a fool.
The author of “The Da Vinci Code” may have sold 200 million copies of a novel based on enormous lies about the history of Christianity, but that does not mean he has wisdom.
However, he does know how to sell books. And in Germany this week he did his best to make news about his latest release, “Origin,” by explaining why the Creator of the universe will not survive science, which, of course, is another way of saying God never existed except in the imaginations of man.
Brown says humanity no longer needs God, but may, with the help of artificial intelligence, develop a new “collective consciousness” that fulfills the role of religion.
Not surprisingly, he didn’t elaborate much on how. Nor did he define “collective consciousness,” which has been tried in the past – like at the Tower of Babel. He explained only that artificial intelligence would transform the concept of the divine.
“We will start to find our spiritual experiences through our interconnections with each other,” he said, forecasting the emergence of “some form of global consciousness that we perceive and that becomes our divine.”
There is one thing I’m sure neither science nor “collective consciousness,” whatever that means, can offer mankind – and that’s eternal life. That’s something only God offers, if we’re willing to turn from our wicked ways and follow Him.
“Are we naive today to believe that the gods of the present will survive and be here in a hundred years?” Brown asked. “Our need for that exterior god, that sits up there and judges us … will diminish and eventually disappear.”
The gods?
There’s really only One. All the other “gods” are illusions, deceptions, idols or demons.
You can serve other “gods,” but that folly won’t offer you eternal life.
Nor will that pursuit provide “collective consciousness.” It will just lead to death.
And, for false prophets like Dan Brown, who lead others astray, the fate is worse than mere death.
It’s sad that false prophets are often rewarded in this earthly plane. But it’s not worth it in the long run. This life is short, and eternity is a long time. Everyone, Dan Brown included, will face judgment. If not so, where is justice?
If there is no God, there is no right and wrong – except perhaps in our “collective consciousness.” But this notion of “collective consciousness” is simply Dan Brown’s religion, his own wishful thinking so that somehow he can escape accountability for his own sins.
Yes, we all are guilty, as the Bible teaches. And that’s a sad fact. It doesn’t mean we are all equally guilty. It simply means we all fall short of God’s standard of perfection.
But He gives us a chance at redemption through repentance and the sacrificial atonement of our sins at the death on the cross of His only begotten Son, willingly offered for us on Calvary.
Why did He do it?
Because He loves us. He loves His special creation made in His own image. That’s something else we will never get from Dan Brown’s fantasy of “collective consciousness.”
Have you ever been loved by “collective consciousness”? Do you think you will ever be?
There’s something in the human heart that craves relationship with our heavenly Father. But there’s also something in the human heart that resists obedience to His instructions. All of us want to do our own thing. Dan Brown wants to do his own thing. I get it.
But doing your own thing is not the narrow path to eternal life. It’s the broad path that leads to destruction – and death.
God says, “Choose life.”
You can listen. Or you can perish.
Choose life.
