Don't be confused by the contemporary use of many ancient symbols. The illuminati did not invent the symbol of the all seeing eye, they simply adopted it. If you want to understand it, trace it back to its origin, find its original meaning.

was this cao dai character of any relation to the great cao cao of wei and cao pi and the rest of the cao family

My own personal policy is not to trust any religion less than 500 years old. Time is a great filter for seperatring the garbage from the truth. This is not to imply Cao Dai (or any other new religion, for that matter), is ultimately wortheless. I just don't trust my own limited judgement/have the time nor inclination to go sifitning through thousands of doctrimes. Cao Dai may turn out to be a very vauable and fundamental philosophy, but first to get the attention of this crusty old poster (myself) it has to stand a rather rigourous test of time.

[edit on 4-2-2009 by silent thunder]

The All Seeing Eye is a very ancient symbol that originally signified the Sun. In fact, that's where all religion and the idea of God came from, our life-giving savior of a Sun.