The Knights Templar

After reading The Last Templar I did some research online about the Templar Knights and why they really disappeared. It seems from what I found that the Templar Knights were "taken down" by the church and the current king at the time because of one major reason...greed.

The Templar Knights were extremely wealthy, powerful, and autonomous from the Church. After the Holy Land was taken back by the Muslims, the Templar Knights returned to Europe. There return posed a real threat to the current powers in control...The Catholic Church and the King of France, Philip IV. King Philip IV was in dept up to his crown to the Templar Knights and the current pope at the time had his own issues with the knights. The Templar Knights make for a good story and have a lot of mystery associated with them but it seems like their only true fault was being too powerful and too wealthy

Sources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_Templar
http://www.templarhistory.com/

Imus

Interesting view point on the whole Imus thing.
http://www.kansascity.com/182/story/66339.html

Wedding Bells

My best friend from high school got married over the weekend and I had the honor of being one of his groomsmen. The wedding was a wonderful ceremony and was held at a really need place called Funks Grove Church.

The reception was really great as well. A jazz quintet led by Dave Hoffman played the reception. Let me just say Mr. Hoffman is an incredible trumpet and piano player. He used play with and arrange music for the late Ray Charles. Several of the guests and members of the wedding party are accomplished musicians and had brought there instruments as well. By the end of the reception a full blown jam session had broken out! It was wonderful! Check out the link above for more info on Dave Hoffman.

My friend found a great person to spend the rest of his life with. They were truly made for each other :-)

The Last Templar

I just finished The Last Templar by Raymond Khoury. I had bought the book at O'Hare airport to kill a 3 hour layover. The book was pretty good. I have not read The Da Vinci Code but I've heard if you like that book you would like this one.

*SPOILER WARNING*

The gist of the book is the revolves around an FBI agent and an archaeologists hunting down a disillusioned and somewhat-psycho archaeologist who stole an ancient Templar decoder device. The device is the key component in finding the Templar's greatest secret which could bring down the Catholic Church and organized religion in general. While this is all happening, the Vatican has sent its own "enforcers" to ensure this does not happen. The secret they are all trying to find or protect is that Jesus was not truly the Son of God and that the Templars were trying to unite the three major world religions - Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. The antagonist in the book makes the argument that the world would be a much better place if not for all the "holy" wars and strife between the three major religions. It is argued that if the world is given the knowledge of the true nature of Jesus, through this enlightenment, wars would cease and the Catholic church would no longer have the hold over millions and millions of minds. In the end the "secret" of Christ is not revealed and having "faith" in something isn't so bad after all.

I didn't agree with the premise the back was shooting at with the "religion causes all of the problems". I am a Christian...follower of Christ, not a follower of a religion, and I was not offended by what was written in the book as long as you keep in mind it is fiction. Nothing more.

Overall, not a bad read but I'm not going to read it again so I'll taking it to my local book resale shop soon.