Why is this here?

This page is a place for me to flesh out ideas and share them with those who care to read. I want to be among the (sadly few) explicitly Christian voices on the internet. I strive to support goodness and beauty.

P.S. I am not a priest. I am not even all that pious. If you have questions you’re welcome to ask me, but I may not have good answers (or I may not answer at all). It’s always best to ask someone who knows what they’re talking about, such as your local priest.

On Atheism

Where did it all start?

When I was younger I used to call myself an atheist. But there was one thing that always stumped me: Where did the Big Bang come from? Well it seems there’s an explanation for that. Apparently it has been observed that particles occasionally pop into existence and then shortly disappear as a result of quantum energy fluctuations. But where did that quantum energy come from? Heck, where did time and space come from? No matter how much scientists discover, this question will always remain: “But what was before that?”. You could also apply this question inversely, and ask what was before God. So whatever you believe, you must take something to have always existed. It can be quantum energy fluctuations, or it can be God. Either way, this is what your beliefs are founded upon.

You might ask, “But why explain it away with ‘God did it’ instead of trying to find a scientific explanation?” Again, I don’t think anyone can really know how the world was made, but nor am I suggesting that we do away with scientific investigation. Science and Christianity are not mutually exclusive. In fact, many of the greatest advances in science were made by men who believed in God (e.g. Newton, Euclid, Galileo, Copernicus).

Logic

There are certain things which aren’t bound by time and space. They are non-material, or transcendent. Some examples are logic, numbers, and ideals. God is also transcedent. He is above time and space, because He created them. Yet while He is transcendant, He also dwells among us, interacts with us, and has a relationship with us. This is one of the many mysteries of God.

The Gospel of John calls God the “Logos”, which is the Greek word which “logic” is derived from. It means “word”, “discourse”, or “reason”. According to Wikipedia it is related to the Ancient Greek word “lego”, which literally translates to “I say”. God speaks things into existence. He says, and it is so. “Let there be light” is one of His most famous sayings. In fact, “logos” is rendered as “word” in our English bibles. “Logos” is also related to the Latin word “lex” (lit. “law”). God literally is the law. God is perfection; He is the thing which we all strive for. Some of us just don’t know it.

Morality

You could try to define morality purely in terms of survival, though it can be confusing and can easily lead to narcisissm. “Survival” could mean your personal survival, or it could mean the survival of the human race.

In the former case, you would abandon standard Christian morality in life threatening situations. Otherwise there must be some external moral standard which you are appealing to.

So let’s consider the latter case. The survival of the human race depends on peaceful cooperation, and, as such, we’ll say that natural selection has hard-wired certain “morals” into our brains. By strictly adhering to these “morals”, even in life threatening situations, you and your family could gain respect in the wider community. Thus even if you die, your family will live on with extra support from the community.
However, using this framework it’s only possible to determine whether a decision was “good” or “bad” in hindsight. That is, unless you’re omniscient and can play out the complex results of every decision you make. “Morality” in these terms is not really possible to compute. So you need some sort of objective standard which is persistent across space and time…

God has gifted us with a framework of morality which we are to follow. It’s a gift because without it, we would have no realistic way to determine if a decision is good or bad. “The work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them” (Rom 2:15).

What is “worship”?

Everyone has a worldview, and a worldview requires a sovereign. The sovereign of a worldview is the supreme judge, it is the final arbiter. Therefore it is the being that you work to please. In the Christian worldview, this is God. As such, Christians make choices using the Law of God, as interpreted by you with help from your elders.

Conclusion

Whatever you believe, you believe it by faith. God is the highest moral standard. Whether we worship Him, or something else, we are bowing down to something. Just make sure that something is Good.

Afterword

Is Christianity just a fork of Judaism?

Christianity is the first so called “religion”. Though it’s less of a religion, and more of an having-a-relationship-with-the-divine-being-who-created-us.

Jesus makes a number of appearances in the Old Testament, though He is not known as Jesus back then. For example, Jesus walked in the garden with Adam, He appeared to Moses, He wrestled with Jacob, He appears in the fire with the three boys in the Book of Daniel, and much more. In Jesus’ time the priests had fallen away from God. These were the Pharisees and the Sadducees, which you read about in the New Testament. The people who we call “Jewish” today are the continuation of the false religion of the Pharisees and Sudducees’, while the people who we call “Christians” today are the group of people who repented and turned back to God as per Christ’s teaching. This is a common pattern throughout the Bible, where Israel (i.e. the Church) falls away and needs a prophet or some a catastrophe to turn them back. Though in this case it wasn’t a mere prophet; it was the Messiah.

If you’re thinking now that I’m an “anti-semite”, please don’t. I’m just saying they don’t worship God. Calling me an anti-semite would be like calling a Jew an “anti-christian” because he thinks Christians are worshipping a false prophet and a heretic.

What’s the big deal about Jesus?

Jesus is a member of the Holy Trinity which is God. The other two are known as the Father and the Holy Spirit. Each member of the Trinity is God, yet they are distinct from one another, yet they are the same being. This is one of the many mysteries of God.

Anyway, my point is that the incarnation of God, who we call Jesus, has always been around. In fact He appears a number of times in the Old Testament, though He wasn’t called Jesus back then. Pretty much all of history is centered around His death and resurrection, because that’s when God created a new covenant with us and broke the bonds of death. So it’s a pretty big deal.

How Do I Know Jesus is God?

I’m pretty sure most scholars will agree that Jesus was a real person. There is also a significant amount of evidence that He was resurrected. This site seems like a good resource if you want to dive in to that.

All of the apostles saw Jesus perform amazing miracles (such as resurrection). All of the apostles but one suffered painful gruesome deaths for sticking to their story. Would you be crucified upside down or boiled alive for something you knew was a lie?

Divine Child Abuse?

God didn’t kill His Son out of anger. A lot of Protestants seem to talk as if there was a heavenly bank account of wrath. They say that we had sinned, therefore God couldn’t forgive us. Someone had to atone for the sins because God is just. So He sent Jesus to be punished for our sins. But that doesn’t make any sense, and it’s certainly not just. Richard Dawkins amusingly summarizes the whole thing as “divine child abuse”. However, that is not what happened. God has always extended His grace to sinners, even before Jesus was crucified. Jesus came along to create a new covenant, because we had misinterpreted the old one. He came to show us what a perfect life was meant to look like. He came to conquer death, and to show us that it is not to be feared.

Does God “send” people to Hell?

No, with a bit of yes.

A good song puts it well: “Heaven’s desire burns like fire if you hate the light”.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ObXauowei3A

Contributing

If you’re a Christian and you’d like to contribute, feel free to make a PR on Codeberg. Alternatively, you could email me any suggestions you might have.

And/or you can put a similar page on your own website.