User:Arlen22/Thesis On Christianity

April 1, 2023

Humans long for a community to successfully be part of long-term. In other words, humans deeply desire successful symbiotic relationships. A parasitic relationship (in either direction) drains the life and energy out of a person. Every human being desires to belong, thrive, and succeed. Not alone, but together.

Every human is programmed to play a permanent role in life and it is our primary goal to effectively play that role. As a result, most neurological and psychological disorders are rooted in this goal. But this goal is not the cause. Rather, almost like a virus, foreign agents attack this goal and subvert it to carry out their own goals. And indeed, these "mind" viruses are the work of biology. Our own biology selects rather simply based on total reproductive success. A "mind virus" which improves the reproductive success of the family will naturally continue unless challenged by a more successful agent.

So our biology is the cause? No. Our biology naturally selects based on total reproductive success. A virus is a sickness which a healthy system can overcome. And just like our immune system fights viruses based on past exposure, our mind attacks these foreign agents based on our life experience and knowledge.

Earlier

The combining of partial truths from many sources to obtain the whole truth is not an easy or simple exercise. But the assertion or discovery that this has been the case certainly does nothing to detract from the truth as discovered or obtained from any sources.

The truth of the sources does not remove from the truth of the work. The proof that Christianity combines ideas from many teachers, however true or false, does nothing to make Christianity any less spiritual or factual, but rather opens the door to debate on the matter of ultimate truth, a discussion which the church of every age has shown it does well to conduct itself in rigorously without pretense or conceit, in order to make sure that only the truth of the word of God is presented, and not man's misunderstanding, misinterpretations, and misapplications. For man does not think in his natural mind the way God does and so he cannot depend on his instincts to instruct him in what is ultimately truth. For if man knew ultimate truth, he would not think of anything the way he does now, but would think of it in a much different way.

It is no secret that Christianity shares many principles with many other religions, and the reason for this is very basic. If Christianity is the truth, then it cannot lay exclusive claim to the truth in any way, because the truth is not exclusive to one sect or group, and God's word is a record of God's revelation of truth to humanity through 4000 years of human history prior to Christianity. So then not only is it perfectly reasonable that Christianity will share truths with other religions, it is in fact required, because if God's revelations of truth took root in the hearts of mankind and became the seeds of religion, then for Christianity to be true it must contain all of the revelations of truth which mankind has ever witnessed, in addition to those which are unique to Christianity.

It is for this reason that the writers of the gospels point to Jesus as the truth. It is not Christianity that is true, it is Jesus that is true. While this is a difficult concept for many to grasp, the reason is simple. Human beings have a hard time understanding the mechanical workings of a system (as I well know being a systems engineer), but they find it easy to follow the patterns and models demonstrated by a person who does understand the system. This basic ability of human nature to imitate others directly is a core principle of humanity's survival. People do not understand themselves well, and so they are not good at explaining why they do things, and may do things for entirely different reasons than they think they do. The ability to empathize and imitate is therefore absolutely essential to the survival of humanity. When information is communicated, it must allow the hearer to empathize and imitate in order to be at all effective.

The ability for any person to sift through all the knowledge available to them and discern what is true and what is not can only come from God. He gives wisdom to everyone generously. Any person who claims that they can know the truth must be able to demonstrate that what they're saying actually is true and not just conjecture. This is demonstrated by the many times the Bible refers to reality as proof of a statement or claim. It is not enough to say something is true without demonstrating the proof of why it is true.

That is to say, not only are science and the bible not in disagreement, they are in complete agreement. For if something in the bible cannot be accurately and consistently reproduced, then it is not being correctly understood. That is the most central implication of the claim that the bible is the true word of God. For God cannot lie, and therefore cannot make a statement about reality that isn't true. Being able to correctly discern scripture is not about determining what reality should be, but rather about determining what God is saying about reality. If that leads us to a conclusion that we know contradicts what God says, then we know we don't know everything about it yet, because God cannot lie and therefore cannot contradict himself.

Allow me to give some examples now.

Judge not, that you be not judged.

I read in my bible the passage in Matthew 7 where Jesus said that we are not to judge so that we aren't judged. This could be referring to the judgment day, but since we know that everyone will be put on trial, without exception, this isn't going to mean that. This could also be referring to deciding what we think of another person's actions, but since we are called to judge righteous judgment, we are clearly not being told not to decide what should happen in random situations. Let's examine Jesus next sentence, which is an observation of how reality works. "For with what measure you mete it shall be measured to you again, and with what judgement you judge you shall be judged." In another place, Paul says "Who are you to judge another man's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And God is capable and shall make him stand." It begins to become clear that we are being told not to judge how each other is following God (or declare what their "karma" will be). Each of us stands to account for our own actions, but in the meantime, God is able to keep us. But when we judge another, we also judge ourselves, and God will hold us to that standard. So Jesus says not to do that because God has to be just and if you judge another in something you don't do yourself, God has to hold you to that standard in order to be fair to the other person. So then the curse you put on the other person for their actions comes back on you as well.

A few of my own thoughts that support this conclusion

• My earlier observation that I can't know everything about myself and often can only see my blind spots in other people, which makes it human nature to judge others in things we are guilty of because we aren't aware of it and think it makes us more righteous than them.
• Jesus said in another place not to swear at all but to simply let your yes be yes and your no be no. The point of swearing in the old testament was to place a curse on yourself if you fail to do the thing you promised. This was intended to scare the flesh into submission because the flesh is mostly survival instinct and needing to survive the wrath of God is a powerful motivator. This spiritual principle certainly did not end with Jesus, but is still in effect today, as demonstrated by those who come out of Freemasonry. Generally a former Freemason must renounce each curse they have placed upon themself in order to be free of it. If you think that's too detailed, remember that we're giving account of idle words on judgement day, so it is perfectly reasonable to keep track of curses we put on ourselves. The same principle applies to blessing, making Jesus words "bless, and curse not" all the more meaningful.
• It is reasonable in the same way to renounce each curse we have put on others as God brings them to mind.
• Putting curses on people is witchcraft.

I have not come to bring peace on earth but a sword

I read in my bible the passage where Jesus says "Think not that I am come to bring peace on earth. I am not come to bring peace, but a sword." At first it sounds to me like we should always expect conflict as a result of Christianity, but this is clearly not the case, as Jesus spends most of his ministry teaching how to bring peace. He says "blessed are the peacemakers", and Paul makes numerous references to living in peace. So he clearly isn't saying that we should live in conflict or expect conflict with fellow believers. It makes a lot more sense to assume that he means conflict with unbelieving family members, since that is exactly what he mentions in that passage, but not with secular governments, as he doesn't mention that here or anywhere else, and would not have been killed by Rome except for the pressure and threats from the Jewish religious leaders, and Paul even says to pray for all who are in authority so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.

People often bring up communism as an example of secular governments not allowing people to live quiet and peaceable lives, but my response to that is fairly simple. Soviet communism did not come against a church that was quietly and peacefully spreading the gospel. They were keeping to themselves and not effectively spreading the gospel, which often results in a massive and decimating response. I don't know exactly why or what principles are at play there, but I can say that it seems very consistent in Church history that the only defense is a good offense. A church, region, group, nation, economy, etc. which is spreading the gospel within their own borders is often preserved against overwhelming odds. They don't necessarily have to be sending missionaries elsewhere, but that is often a strong indicator of the health of their domestic mission.

Asian communism has not specifically targeted Christianity but simply targets all religions. Nor have the prosecutions and sentences been particularly out of character for Asian penitential systems, as they are often rather brutal with their own people. Nor have they been particularly adverse to the personal practice of religion or even the public practice of it within their own ranks, as long as they maintain control. And communism has made the non-Christian parts of Asia better, not worse, so they've technically earned their keep. Even the boxer rebellion was more brutal than communism has been and the communist takeover could well be seen as being brought about by God in a similar way to how the roman occupation prepared the middle east and europe for the gospel. The concept is the same, as communism in Asia has had a very unifying effect on the people groups there and brought education to a lot of remote regions that wouldn't have had it otherwise. They sure aren't perfect, but I'm pretty sure they're still a lot better than the Roman empire was. The interplay between regional and local government is as interesting in Asia as anywhere else, but on a national level the gospel has flourished in China as a result of communism, I think.

So the sword Jesus brought to earth, as he said, was interpersonal relationships with unbelieving family, not with government. He doesn't say government here at all, and the bible says the opposite in many other places, so it's a bit unreasonable to conclude that he was intending to refer to government persecution of Christianity here.