An Explanation

Before I move on, I want to explain my perspective, especially for new readers. What I am about to write, most people find confusing, and misunderstanding is the norm. Indeed, I lost my last best friend from church when I tried to explain this to him, which caused him to lose all respect for me, as he is a religious man.

I am not a religious man. I was for almost forty years. But I use the term “religion” differently than most. I prefer to say I am a philosophical man. Now, religious people, such as my old friend, always interpret this as my relationship with God is not rich, or personal, but theoretical and cold, or, as in my friend’s view, a “God hater.” That is absolutely not true. My admiration and deep emotional connection with the creator are far greater than at any time in my life, including those forty years as a deeply religious man.

After my years of study, I see religion is a manufactured system of beliefs and rituals that has one purpose: increasing one’s feeling of piety. The most powerful tool for doing so is by comparison with others. The demonization of those outside the faith is one way; trying to prove that your faith or spirituality is better than those within the same faith is another. If you are thinking, “Hey, I’m religious, and your description doesn’t define my faith at all,” then I am not talking about you, and I wouldn’t use the term religious for you, based on my definition. However, using my term also represents the religious establishment that Jesus despised, and which had him murdered.

While my definition may still sound as unimaginable to many, as the “sound of one hand clapping,” I will further define it by examples.

As I continue to share my discoveries and conclusions from thirty years of study, I speak philosophically. This means I do not have certainty, and my conclusions are not a moral requirement for others, in my perspective.

If I were a conservative, religious Christian person again, I would believe a plethora of doctrines and convictions, and I would make it a moral issue. If you do not believe what I believe, you are evil and hated by God, unlike me, who has it right with great certainty.

If I were a liberal or progressive religious-Christian person, I would say that there are no truths, and you can believe anything you want, and that’s okay. Still, you’d better have the same approach to spirituality as me, follow the same progressive gurus, or your spirituality is inferior to mine (which is another form of competitive piety or spirituality).

As a philosophical person, I can say that I think what I think is the truth because of the evidence I’ve witnessed over the years and my rational conclusions. However, I could be wrong. Also, it is not a moral issue. You are not a lesser person than I because you do not share these beliefs. So, philosophy, like science, is a humble pursuit of truth, not a competitive game. There are very rare exceptions.

In the same spirit, I welcome people to email me to correct any errors in my data, such as historical events, information, or conclusions. However, the emails I get from religious people usually start with a moral tone, because the purpose is to prove that I am morally inferior because I challenge something they hold up as a superior moral position. “Mike, obviously, you have never read the Bible,” or “Mike, I can’t believe that you really think that. What happened to you?” “Mike, are you stupid?” or “Mike, you are way off track and have left God, and that makes me sad,” and lastly, “Mike, you are a liar and the enemy of God.”

This is why I believe that the MO of religion is conformity (you must believe what I believe, or you are bad) and the MO of science is seeking factual truth. Philosophy is a science, the love of wisdom or knowledge. Yes, there is one branch of philosophy, Ethics, that deals with morality, but on a societal level, not a personal one (me being better than you).

Now, there is one caveat that I must confess to. I have been the punching bag for religious people, both conservative and liberal, for over thirty years, and I have been sensitized to insults. So, sometimes someone may have an honest question (such as pointing out that my data is wrong), and I react cautiously, trying to determine whether it is a prelude to an attack or an honest correction. Someone told me that I have a reputation at my own church of being oversensitive. I apologize for that if it is true. But the things that are hard for me aren’t statements like those made at me at church three years ago: “Mike, that’s a really bad idea.” It is when I am told that I’m not a real Christian, working with the devil, am a God-hater, and pure evil, all of which I have heard.

Now, back to my “brief summary” of this blog.

My journey, as I have stated, began in the early 1990s, with studies in history (Western civilization and the history of the church) and the natural sciences. I have continued my aggressive study schedule (hours per day) in the natural sciences up until today, with a love of paleoanthropology, archeology, geology, cosmology, biochemistry, and recently quantum mechanics and string theory.

Immediately after leaving evangelicalism in 1990, I put my Bible away. I had been reading the Bible daily for almost 40 years up until that point. But my reading of the Bible was so corrupted by the culture I had been in that I couldn’t look at it anymore.

It was during this time that I considered myself an agnostic and was flirting with atheism. But when I found a cul-de-sac with atheism, as I have mentioned, I picked up the Bible again. I read it straight through twice, but I was trying my best to remove my evangelical culture from my reading… reading it like an alien from a distant planet, reading it for the first time. It looked profoundly different to me. It is like setting a pail of muddy water to the side (meaning my brain) and letting it settle for a couple of years. All the silt at the bottom, I could now examine the Bible honestly. I will continue this thought next time.

I will end with a few conclusions about the Bible.

Conclusion # 8: I believe what the Bible says about itself. It is inspired by God and is useful for doctrines and training in righteousness. It does not say the inspired men wrote perfectly. The infallible nature of scripture was a modern (twentieth-century) invention of evangelicals, who were reacting to higher, scientific criticism of the Bible.

Conclusion #9: The Bible has been made an idol (made more important than God. The Bible is their creation, not them.) Therefore, the Bible is treated as a book of magic. A sentence with a certain syntax can mean one thing one day, but something else, even the opposite, the next day, rather than simply reflecting what the author meant.

Conclusion #10: As Augustine and Aquinas wrote, God has spoken in two volumes of messages. A. The canonical scriptures and B. Creation/nature. Aquinas said that nature, or reality, is the best commentary on the Bible. The two must be in agreement; if not, one (likely the Bible because it is a written story, not an observation of reality) must be reinterpreted to agree.

Conclusion #11: I often trust non-Christian Biblical scholars, such as Jewish ones for the Old Testament and New Testament experts for the New Testament, because they are scientists and do not have an agenda except for finding the truth. There are exceptions, but if you have an allegiance to a particular point of view (Catholic, any of the protestant denominations, Mormon), you can only–psychologically–read the Bible as your particular system demands.

Conclusion 12: Psychologically, people often “mine” the Bible to find words that support their own bias and bigotry. The slave owners did. The Christian nationals do. The White Supremists do, and those who hate non-heterosexuals do.

Lastly, the cartoonist who goes by The Naked Pastor and I are on the same page about so many things. Below is his cartoon on how religion makes our God small, to fit into the box we make for Him.

With Respect, Mike