Perhaps I just look at things with a too logical or literal eye but I still see it saying what it says. Secrets of the kingdom of heaven may mean exactly that and they were to be kept secret and not told to anyone outside an inner circle. It's not an uncommon practice.And how would you know if you were privy or not to a secret anyway? It's the nature of secrets to be, well, secret.
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"The hidden component isnt actually hidden for us, it is the death on the cross that needs to be completed."
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Similar logic stops me from believing the Jesus story. If he really were god then the crucifixion was more suicide than anything else and no more consequential that having a haircut. Actually not even suicide as he didn't die and knew he wasn't going to die,but off doing other things as soon as his heart stopped beating, so actually nothing was sacrificed, the whole point of the exercise. As the jews were big on sacrifices,it was a common practice, but when a lamb was sacrificed it stays dead and isn't wandering around three days later. That is IMO a real as opposed to pseudo sacrifice. If he weren't god(my father why hast thou forsaken me ????) which seems to be more likely,then it was a fair dinkum, agonising death that then had no more intrinsic meaning than any other death(other than spawning Christianity). I have heard the argument that god needed a blood sacrifice for some reason or another and jesus was it. That to me is absurd, as if an infinite god, creator of the universe, omniscient, omnipotent etc needed to be bound by a ritual. What the??
All that said, I am a supporter of Christianity as an institution and it saddens me to see its marginalisation in society, so this is no anti-christian rant. I have no problem supporting something whose core story I find absurd as all societies need core myths to survive.
