Love… The Only Fundamental Required To Be A Christian

Since the dawn of humanity we have struggled to define the spiritual meaning of our existence. Now, in the 21^st Century we are aware of several things:

1.    We do exist and live in a wonderful and complex earth in a solar system that is part of a universe filled with uncountable numbers of galaxies.

2.   We are self-aware. We have memory and are capable of rational thought, recall, and foresight. 

3.   Despite our capabilities everything we understand still seems to us to be related to something even higher than ourselves. We feel this because here we are, aware that we exist in a universe of spectacular structure, function, and life, somehow created, but not by us.  The name Christians give to the prime creator of all reality is  “God.”

The human mind rejects uncertainty, so there has been no lack of effort by humans to define God and God’s purpose for mankind despite our inherent inability to do precisely that. Religion is a creation of the human mind as our effort to eliminate uncertainty about life and God. Religious dogma, however, appears to reveal more about human anxiety than it does about God. Still, religion can and does help many of us discover our personal awareness of God, but the final truth is that God resides above and beyond religion.

Interestingly enough, if we bring to each moment unconditional love toward all who are with us in that moment, God is present, and any need to define God further, disappears. Positive solutions emerge and life improves. This is the practical truth  Jesus  taught about how God touches and influences human life.

Other concepts of God are presented in the Bible.  It is filled with many different human imaginings of God. Consider the following:

God As A Human Being: Genesis 3:8-9 “And they heard the sound of Lord God walking in the garden in the wind of the day, and the human and his woman hid from Lord God among the garden’s trees. And Lord God called the human and said to him, “Where are you?”   

In this case God “walks” around Eden and then doesn’t know where Adam and Eve are when they hide and God must call out. This is a portrayal of God as a human being, and clearly not omniscient.

God Speaking Through Angels In Dreams: Genesis 31:11 “And an angel of God said to me in the dream, ‘Jacob.’ And I said, ‘I’m here.’       Matthew 2:20 “But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying…”    

Dreams can be so vivid and real, it is understandable that dreams would be one of the means by which Gospel writers expressed spiritual communication from God to humans. They’re probably right.

God As A Voice From Heaven:  Mark 1:10-11 “…he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. ¹¹ And a voice came from heaven: ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.’ ”   

In the 1^st Century, it was believed that the universe consisted of three tiers, the underworld, the earth surface with all its features and inhabitants, and heaven or the realm of God (or gods) in the sky just above a dome that covered all the earth. Some even believed that stars were really windows in that dome through which the gods looked down on earth to keep watch on humans.

The author of Mark was suggesting that the baptism of Jesus symbolically tore apart this wall that separated heaven from earth.  This was an effective way of expressing the idea that Jesus lived in conscious oneness with God during his life on earth. By following Jesus’ teachings and example we can  tear down the barrier separating us from God. This is a powerful spiritual lesson and its meaning is lost if the text is interpreted as merely a record of a historical event.

There Is A True God…but for the most part we humans cannot begin to understand the boundaries of God’s reality. However, thanks to the Age of Enlightenment (1600’s-1800’s) and all the scientific discoveries since then, we understand our universe, our world, our bodies, our lives, and our environment so much better than did the ancient writers of scripture. 

Science and Spirituality Are The Same Truth:  It is popular to suggest that spiritual truth and scientific truth are different and that spiritual truth has dominion over the scientific. However, there is only one reality and science and spirituality are two aspects of this singular truth.  

           It does seem, however, that spirituality provides the inspiration for all possibilities (real and unreal) and that science provides objective confirmation of which of all possibilities are real. Inwardly we live in a personal reality constructed by the thoughts we choose. Outwardly, as a society, we live in a reality confirmed by experience and experimentation. 


           The less conflict there is between your inner thoughts and what your outer experiences confirm, the less you experience fear and the stronger is your sense of  faith.

There can be only one ultimate truth and we all basically understand that. Insights into significant scientific theories have come from experiences that were highly spiritual.

For example, Einstein’s theory of relativity was not a rational extension of the scientific knowledge of his time.  He came up with something  new and unexpected. He described his insights as occurring during moments of “reverie.”  They occurred when he was apart from the work-a-day world, thinking and meditating.

When you are exploring the limits of human knowledge, it frequently leads to spiritual insights. Science and religious faith are not mutually exclusive. They are related expressions of the same reality…life.

Once hypotheses (explanations of events) are proposed, the role of the scientific method is to help determine which one of all the proposed hypotheses best explains the events under observation. That’s it, and that’s true for rocket science, too.  Rigorous science reveals truth (what we accept as theories) because it is human bias free. That is why it is so powerful and useful.  

It is also possible to scientifically study the results of one’s faith or spiritual beliefs. It is already known that prayer and meditation lower stress in humans which leads to healthier, happier lives.

Changes in disease states can, also, be monitored before and after spiritual treatments and their effectiveness verified. Of course it is difficult to set up such studies because most religious groups are not interested in the scientific analysis of matters of faith, but, the fact remains, it can be done.

If human knowledge and life events are not consistent with predictions based on one’s religious faith, then it is the faith system that is in error, not life.

The Bible Did Not Exist Until The 5th Century CE:  We must remember that all the manuscripts that ended up being in the Bible were written for reasons that had nothing to do with specifically creating the Bible.   In fact, there were many additional early gospels and documents written, which, for various reasons of theology, didn’t make the final cut.

The books to become the Bible were known as a collection by the 3rd century, but they were not canonized by church leaders until the 5th century of the Common Era (CE). They held a conference, had contentious debates and voted on which ancient writings were to be sacred and which were not. Human minds created the concept of "the sacred Bible." Even then, many decades of bitter political debate followed, as Christian assemblies considered heretical were attacked. and scattered. The books that won the "orthodox" label were the favorites of the men with the most power at the time.  

The Book Of Revelation Was Not Popular: Not all the writings included in the Bible were considered equal in value. Many early church leaders considered the book of Revelation unworthy of the status of sacred scripture. Its ultimate inclusion was probably more a result of compromise than of wide spread respect.

It is an odd book in the New Testament. It is a sample of carefully encrypted apocalyptic literature, but the specific community and situations and characters to which its symbols apply are unknown, making precisely accurate interpretation impossible.  Suggesting that passages from the book of Revelation contain predictions of modern historical events is beyond meaningless; it is bizarre. 

The Bible Is The Word Of Men: The ideas that the Bible is without error and was dictated by God are not supported by anything we know or experience, except hearsay, when we are told what we must believe. Many do act as if the Bible were the word of God and combine passages of scripture from here and there to bolster their own feelings of fear, hate, or prejudice. In this way they pretend to avoid responsibility for their own actions.

Such pious, self-centered behavior is the very attitude exhibited by the priests and Pharisees of Jesus’ time. It is precisely what Jesus taught against (see Matthew 23:22-24) and his opposition resulted in his crucifixion.

There was no Christianity during Jesus’ lifetime; he and his disciples were devout Jews. But, after his death, his followers found strength in the memory of his loving example and dedicated themselves to living as Jesus had demonstrated as members of the Jewish sect known as The Way.

So, rejecting legalistic conformity to Jewish law and living with unconditional love in their hearts and actions towards anyone and everyone was the goal of the proto-Christian assemblies (followers of The Way) emerging a few decades after Jesus died.

In contrast to that, present day Christian fundamentalists are devoted to strict conformity to church doctrine that does not conform to the actual teachings of Jesus. Fundamentalist dogma arises from the teachings of religious institutions such as the Roman Catholic Church and from individuals such as John Nelson Darby, a 19th century proponent of  "dispensational premillennialism." 

Darby's teachings were reinforced by the pseudo-scholarly Scofield Reference Bible completely based on premillennialism to the exclusion of any references to the findings of prominent Biblical scholars.  There is nothing in life that supports the validity of dispensational premillennialism beyond personal opinion. It is an idea with no demonstrated substance.

         Still, the certainty that fundamentalism asserts resonates with many rural populations made anxious by the rapid growth of scientific knowledge and changes in urban culture.    As a result, Christianity, as defined by fundamentalists and evangelicals from late in the 19th Century, represents a radical departure from what was considered traditional Christian spirituality prior to the 19th Century.

Sacred Teachings: The Bible is a human document, created, manipulated, changed, and canonized by political and religious leaders. However, this does not diminish its role as a book of significant spiritual importance over the millennia.

Can anyone read the Great Commandment and the parable of The Good Samaritan, which Jesus used to interpret its universal meaning (Luke 10: 25-37), and not realize the Bible contains important instructions for human living and spiritual completeness?

No miracles are required by anyone to understand Jesus’ parables and sayings. They strike us as fundamentally true. Jesus’ teachings are remarkable for their simplicity and profundity. Love was his only message…with no exceptions.

The Purpose Of Life: As Jesus taught it, learning to live with unconditional love in your heart toward everyone, just as he demonstrated, is all that is required for one to enter the Kingdom of God. Doing so creates a perfect balance of God, mind, and action. It is as easy to say as it is difficult to do, but that is our goal as children of God. This is the only fundamental belief required of anyone professing to be a Christian, or, for that matter, a spiritually enlightened member of any religious tradition.

Life Is About Learning To Love

I was fortunate to have been exposed to a progressive Christian environment when I was a child. When I asked questions such as “Did Jesus really walk on water?” or “Did Jesus really die, then come back to life after three days?” the usual response I heard was “What do you think?” Then I would talk with my parents or Sunday school teachers about what I thought. I am so grateful for these conversations, because by doing that they were teaching me how to love.

Love, for me, is accepting others completely as they are, just as I was accepted, with no judgment based on what I believed. I even learned that I could be truthful to people who lied to me, generous to those who stole from me, and faithful to those who betrayed me without my sense of God changing one bit.  These are the kinds of lessons you learn by applying the teachings of Jesus to the life situations you experience. Time and again I was surprised to discover how accurate the wisdom of Jesus’ teachings really is.

I still remember the moment I realized that applying the Golden Rule to help resolve life’s problems, works whether or not you believe Jesus walked on water, or  whether or not you believed he physically came back to life after being crucified. When you understand the spiritual truths to which Biblical metaphors point, then the question of whether or not Bible stories represent actual historical events is no longer relevant. I also realized that spiritual understanding and faith cannot come from merely believing in history anyway. Faith develops as you notice changes in your own life events that result directly from relying on higher, more universal truths.

When this understanding occurred, it was an “Aha” moment for me and it happened when I was a teenager standing  in the hallway of the old wooden Sunday school building of our Methodist Church in Annandale, Virginia. At that moment it was clear to me that whatever is spiritual and true is between an individual and his/her experience of God. I look back at that moment as the beginning of my personal search for a spiritual experience with God. It was a feeling of putting away “childish things”; what I had been told I could believe by others (including my parents, siblings, ministers, and Sunday school teachers) and taking responsibility for the evolution of my own spiritual awareness.

This search has led me to the understanding that God is love and love is a spiritual reality you can bring to awareness each moment of your life. Love does not require any specific set of acts, but rather simply appears when your conscious awareness of each moment includes God’s presence. I am no longer interested in being for or against others because they are Americans or foreigners, straight or homosexual, wed or unwed mothers, Republicans or Democrats, liberal or conservative. None of that matters in the presence of love.

Jesus was a radical teacher of the power of love.  He worked to fill his followers with the awareness of God’s presence and free them from the human sense of futility they experienced from the political-religious domination system of their day.  As Jesus demonstrated, we must be willing to dine with anyone, and still be true to ourselves and  God.  Only then might we be able to move with others toward the freedom and happiness we all seek, independent of circumstances.

Each of us wants to live a meaningful life, which requires we acknowledge and respect traditions or relationships that are meaningful to others. Love requires respect even when you don't personally understand others or cannot accept their standards in living your own life. Still, we have all evolved from the same source of life. We are all expressions of God’s truth and have the option to become one with it.  

          Efforts to describe our purpose in detail greater than this lead to unlimited opportunities for error. Consider the following. Can fish understand the realm of horses? Can horses understand the realm of mankind? Can mankind understand the realm of God? The answer is the same for all. Yes, we can understand the limited ways other realms touch us, but most of what is true outside our own realms is beyond our ability to grasp.

          An attitude of love puts us in the best position to learn all that we can and to accept whatever is beyond our awareness. An attitude of love is the foundation for faith.

The Evolution Of The Virgin Birth Tradition

What does the New Testament actually tell us that would support a literal interpretation of Matthew’s story of Jesus’ virgin birth? The short answer to that question is “nothing.”

What we do see when we look carefully at the first two Synoptic Gospels, Matthew and Mark, is the emergence of a virgin birth spiritual teaching tradition, not a record of an historic event.

All the ancient authors who wrote the documents that ended up in the Bible, had the daunting task of expressing spiritual insights through highly limiting human language. Still, they did reasonably well when Bible stories and events are interpreted from a metaphysical viewpoint, a perspective that gives the Bible's words universal practical importance.

Let us first look at the gospel of Mark, the first book of the New Testament to be written. It was probably written in the sixth decade of the Common Era (CE), in Rome. This was a few years before the Romans laid siege to Jerusalem then destroyed the Temple in 70 C.E.

The only mention of Mary, by name, is in the following verse:

Mark 6:3  “Where did this man get these things?” they asked. “What’s this wisdom that has been given him, that he even does miracles! Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.

Mark indicates nothing special about Mary and by referring to Jesus as “Mary’s son”, this verse suggests that Jesus’ paternity might have been in question. Other New Testament verses also suggest there was somewhat of a scandal relating to the legitimacy of Jesus’ birth. Consistent with this viewpoint, there is no mention of Jesus’ father (being either Joseph or God) anywhere in the Gospel of Mark.

Also, consider the following verses in Mark about when Jesus returned to his hometown, Nazareth, to heal and preach:

Mark 3:21 “And when His own people heard of this, they went out to take custody of Him; for they were saying, ‘he has lost His senses!’”

Mark 3:31-35  And His mother and His brothers arrived, and standing outside they sent word to Him, and called Him. And the multitude was sitting around Him, and they said to Him, ‘Behold, Your mother and Your brothers are outside looking for You’

And answering them, He said, ‘Who are My mother and My brothers?’

And looking around about on those who were sitting around Him, He said, ‘Behold! My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of God, he is My brother and sister and mother.’”

There is no suggestion here that God selected Mary for any special role. She was simply Jesus’ mother who wanted to keep him from making a fool of himself. Did Mark simply overlook something so important? Of course he didn’t. The virgin birth tradition, meant to raise Mary's status in relation to Jesus, had not yet emerged in evolving Christian theology, so the writer of Mark had nothing to say about it.

The idea of a virgin birth was first presented in the Gospel of Matthew. It was not created to report history, but, rather to raise the importance of Jesus’ life to a spiritual level that matched the impact he had, had on those who knew him.

There were no words big enough, clear enough, for this Gospel writer to say what he wanted. He did the only thing he could. He made God directly responsible for creating His own Christ reflection on earth through Jesus. Jesus did not act like anyone from our world, so he was symbolically given a different—a heavenly, origin.

There are additional hints that this is Matthew’s intention. Consider the genealogy at the beginning of Mathew’s Gospel (Matthew 1:1-17). Mentioned in this genealogy are four women, other than Mary. They are Tamar, Rehab, Ruth, and the woman who had been the wife of Uriah (from other references, we know this was Bathsheba). (This genealogy is unique to Matthew and is considerably different from the genealogy presented by Luke. But then, they had different purposes for their separate gospels.)

Tamar had what would have been considered an incestuous relationship with her father-in-law, Judah (Genesis 38). Rehab was a prostitute (Joshua 6:22-25). Ruth seduced Boaz by getting him drunk and climbing into bed with him. (Book of Ruth, Chapters 2-4). Their marriage produced Obed, King David’s grandfather.

Bathsheba was married to Uriah when she had an adulterous relationship with King David (II Samuel 11-12) David transferred Uriah, a soldier, to the front lines of battle so that he might be killed, which he was. David then married Bathsheba and, ultimately, their son, Solomon, was David’s successor.

Such a genealogy places considerable human sin and degradation in Jesus’ lineage from Abraham to David to Mary’s husband, Joseph. Matthew may well have been suggesting that the highest spiritual understanding (the Christ) trumps all human motives, events, and traditions.

The final point in this discussion is the word, virgin, itself. The Greek manuscripts of the Old Testament (the Septuagint) used the word, "parthenos", in Isaiah 7:14 that can mean either a virgin or a young woman.

In other words it is ambiguous and Matthew had to decide which meaning he wanted to use. He used the word that supported the concept of a virgin birth because that is how he wanted to write his story.

The Hebrew version of the Old Testament (the Torah), however, uses the word, "almah" in Isaiah 7:14 which, in Hebrew, only means young woman and it is not at all ambiguous. The Hebrew word for virgin is a completely different word, "betulah". Since "almah" is used in the original Hebrew text, its meaning must be accepted as the intended meaning, which means Matthew's assertion of a virgin birth is an error. Matthew's Christian fervor apparently overruled his skill as an Old Testament scholar.

It is also true that when you read the verses of Isaiah 7 both preceding and following Isaiah 7:14, the whole reading is a complete story about a promise God made to King Ahaz, centuries before Jesus’ life. The birth of the child it mentions was to be a sign to King Ahaz that his kingdom would be protected from his neighboring warring enemies, at that time. Literally, the story in Isaiah 7 cannot be interpreted as having anything to do with Jesus.

It did, however, have to do with the idea that those who seek the guidance of God will always find ways to survive difficult times. This could well have been the spiritual understanding Matthew wanted to present by inserting Isaiah 7:14 into the literary virgin birth myth he created for Jesus.

When remarkable things happen in the world, human writers try to capture the meanings and spiritual impact of such events. The Bible is filled with these kinds of stories.  They are meant to create mental glimpses of spiritual understandings that are not always discernible through the physical senses alone.

The authors of the books of the Bible wrote metaphysically because there was no other way to express what they had to say. As readers of the Bible, the only way for us to better understand its contents is to seek and discern the same metaphysical intents of its many and mostly unknown ancient authors.

The virgin birth tradition was one way used by the writers of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke to elevate the meaning of Jesus’ life above that of ordinary human existence. It is the very thing we can do when we see the world from a spiritual perspective instead of a materialistic viewpoint. 

    Perhaps that is the message Matthew and Luke wanted to share. The higher the spiritual viewpoint we seek to follow (the Christ spirit) the better we can deal with the material events in our lives. They just used popular 1^st century metaphors to form and illustrate their stories.

New Testament Teachings About Salvation: Jesus vs. Paul

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Perspective 1: Jesus’ Teaching: The Parable of the Good Samaritan

Luke 10:25-37

 ²⁵ On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

   ²⁶ “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

 ²⁷ He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’^[c]; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’^[d]”

   ²⁸ “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

 ²⁹ But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

 ³⁰ In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. ³¹ A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. ³² So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. ³³ But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. ³⁴ He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. ³⁵ The next day he took out two denarii^[e] and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’

   ³⁶ “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

 ³⁷ The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”

   Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

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Discussion:  When Jesus was asked directly what is required for a person to “inherit eternal life”,  Jesus responded by asking the “expert in the law” what he believed. The law expert states the Great Commandment, but probes further by asking for clarification about who his “neighbor” might be. Presumably, if Jesus were to include as “neighbors” a class of people not acceptable according to Jewish law and teachings, the “expert” could then claim Jesus was presenting false teachings.

            Interestingly enough, Jesus did exactly that, but in a way the “expert in the law” was compelled to agree with him.  Jesus’ response was to tell the parable of the Good Samaritan. 

            Samaritans were from the territory of the northern Jewish state of Israel but after Assyria conquered it. Most of the Jewish population had been removed and spread throughout the Assyrian Empire. The few Jews left behind intermarried with the pagan Assyrians who moved in and the “ten northern Jewish tribes” disappeared from history. The resulting inhabitants of this vanquished northern Jewish state were considered half-breeds and so defiling to the pure Jews in the south (Judah), that they were viewed with extreme disdain and treated as untouchable.

            However, Jesus uses the actions and motives of the Samaritan to define righteousness in God’s eyes. This must have created a huge conflict in the minds of his Jewish audience. However, it was clear that neither the Jewish priest nor the Levite, a member of the priestly tribe of Levi, acted like a neighbor to the man in need. 


           Within Judaism, at the time, there were strict prohibitions against touching dead bodies and this man appeared dead. However, Jesus taught from a higher perspective than religious law; claiming the needs of our neighbors are of greater importance than the letter of religious law.

            Jesus’ teachings focus on how we should behave with one another (metaphysical or spiritual considerations) and not on detailed theological definitions and explanations (religious dogma). In fact, Jesus was adamently, but peacefully, anti-dogma, anti-establishment. 


            Today's religious/political conservatives would be accurate if they labeled Jesus as a radical socialist liberal. In today's world, Jesus would likely not fit into the religious or political institutions  of most modern conservatives. In fact, he would work to defeat them. I do not write this to be sarcastic or flip. This is a point that deserves wide public discussion. There is a lesson here concerning universal spiritual priorities versus human tribal priorities.

Perspective 2: Paul’s Teachings on Death Through Adam, Life Through Christ

Romans 5:12-21

 ¹² Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—

 ¹³ To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law. ¹⁴ Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.

 ¹⁵ But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! ¹⁶ Nor can the gift of God be compared with the result of one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. ¹⁷ For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!

 ¹⁸ Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. ¹⁹ For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.

 ²⁰ The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, ²¹ so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

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            Discussion: Paul presents an almost rambling barrage of statements all meant to express the following ideas: 

1. Because Adam sinned, that made all his descendants (i.e. all humans) sinners
2. God’s penalty for sin was death (eternal condemnation)
3. God’s grace (life) was offered to mankind through the sacrificial death of Jesus. 

       Paul saw Jesus’ death as the highest possible sin offering from the viewpoint of the ancient Jewish tradition of making sacrifices to God to win forgiveness or favor. This was Paul’s religious background. Remember, he was originally an ardent and faithful Pharisee. Instead of annually washing sins away with the blood of a goat on Yom Kippur,  Paul saw Jesus’ crucifixion as the ultimate and final human sacrifice whose blood permanently washed away (“justified”) the sins of everyone who believes this was Jesus’ purpose.

Paul’s teachings focus on theology, not on how we should behave with one another to live righteously.

These two scriptures could hardly be more different in their content and perspectives. Jesus’ is spiritual (metaphysical) and practical and Paul’s is a theological in-your-face treatise and not much about living spiritually. Paul made the same error in judgment most of us do. He created a theological position based on his own personal needs and desires, then taught that everyone else should believe it, too, or suffer the consequences of God's condemnation. Paul was not a modest man. He was a self-proclaimed apostle of Jesus; an equal in his own eyes with Jesus' disciples.

The way the author of Luke portrayed Jesus’ style of thinking and teaching is consistent with the messages we read in Jesus' parables. However, Paul's theology is not consistent with Jesus' message. Luke portrays Jesus as approaching every teaching opportunity with an attitude of acceptance, peace, and love.  Paul was more like a bull in a china shop. 

        The apostle Paul was certainly a dedicated and committed teacher for his religious viewpoint, but through his own writings we discover a man struggling to survive tremendous inner turmoil and self-loathing. Any notion that Paul wrote "words of God" must be rejected. What he did write were the words of Paul.

Ending The Battle Of Right Versus Wrong

Humans know lots about electricity, magnetism, gravity, light, societies, medicine, geography etc., but we are almost clueless about how and why these things exist in the first place. In other words, there are a number of “what’s” about our universe we’ve learned and have mastered to a moderate extent, but we know almost no “why’s.” 

Wisdom comes from knowing and accepting this uncomfortable human dilemma. It is uncomfortable because the human mind does not like unanswered questions. We are smart enough to know that there are, ultimately, correct answers for all questions, but we’re so far from being knowledgeable enough, or even smart enough, to know what those answers are, it is disturbing. So, in the meantime, to fill the void, we make up our own answers.

Religions are the result of humans wanting to answer the question, “Why do we exist?” This means that all religions and their holy books are man-made, incomplete, and invariably wrong about some aspects of ultimate truth. At the same time, the common themes of love, compassion, and the imperative to serve others are found in the teachings of virtually every major religion. Such spontaneous spiritual unanimity strongly suggests that religions are right about some aspects of ultimate truth.

The line separating these two realities is blurred by the limitless potential of our own human emotions and imagination to move us, alternately, between fear and love. Only when you are wise enough to know that you just don't know, will you be able to work consistently and harmoniously with those who live and think differently. 

Actually, the same can be said for competing political and social movements. Only when you are wise enough to know that you really don’t, and can't, know everything, will you start proposing meaningful solutions that will actually help you and others.

As Jesus suggested time and again, when we approach each other with love, empathy, and thoughtful consideration, there is no need to battle and there are no enemies. The reasons for being right or deciding others are wrong become meaningless. There is only God, absolute creative reality that supports and guides us in our quest for the highest understanding and expression of life.

Thoughts On Scientific Reasoning & Evolution

 Statistical Significance

            When speaking with my fundamentalist Christian friends they have said, “You can use statistics to prove anything.” and “Researchers can prove anything they want to prove.” 

This appears to be their way of discrediting the science that discredits their fundamentalist beliefs. I must agree with them that there is bad research all around, however, bad science proves nothing for anybody.  The importance of the good and valid research in our world far outweighs the irritations created by the bad.

       Good science is responsible for our long list of unbelievable modern achievements. We have medicines that cure and comfort. We have air and space travel that is the safest transportation available.  We have radio, telephone, TV, and computer sciences all blending together to make worldwide communications and business both possible and affordable.

When the same objective scientific method is used to study the Bible, whole new levels of religious understanding appear. Of course, you must be willing to look at the findings to understand them.

The problem is most folks haven’t had a chance to understand research methods well enough to tell the difference between good and bad scientific reasoning.  One of the things I found interesting when learning about statistics, for example, is that statistics, themselves, prove nothing at all. They never have and never will.

Statistical procedures are ways to get sample scores that indicate what the real score probably is, without having to test everything. Using statistical procedures, for example, you can figure out the average height of 10-year-old girls in the U.S. without having to measure all of them. You can sample some of them, in a random manner, and still come up with a measure that will be so close to the real average height, that the difference can be considered insignificant.

Ah, yes, but there is the question. Who is responsible for deciding whether or not statistical differences are significant or insignificant? Well, the scientists have that responsibility, not the statistical measure they use.  Scientists make those decisions based on how their individual results compare to previous and current research results reported within their scientific community. 

Only when the vast majority of scientists, in a research community, keep getting the same statistical results when using the same procedures, is it gradually agreed that the theory represents something real; something factual.

Theories that are consistently verified and accepted in this manner are used in future problem solving as facts. It is not a quick process and certainly requires more than one study or one run of statistical tests. Still, the ultimate decision of truth comes from the human mind, not the statistical tools.

When scientists applied Einstein’s theories to space flight it helped them determine how to send space ships to the moon, to other planets, and out into the cosmos. However, even Einstein’s math has to be adjusted to make things work out as planned.

This means his theories explain a lot, but not everything. That’s the way science is, though. We try carefully to explain as much as we can by using the most efficient theories, even when those theories can’t explain everything.

Creationism and Intelligent Design

The entire evolution versus creationism (or intelligent design) debate is an example of comparing good science with non-science. Creationism has to be considered non-science, because it starts with an absolute assertion that the Biblical account of creation is literally true.

That is simply an idea, not a fact. I can have an idea that college students who drink beer have green ears, but that doesn’t make it real or true. Ideas that are going to be held as eternal truths deserve validation. To do anything else is to use verbal trickery in the name of truth.

Every intelligent design proponent looks at the evidence of evolution saddled with a conclusion they must reach, no matter what. That renders them incapable of accepting valid scientific evidence. The scientific method requires that conclusions be based on observations, not beliefs. That is why it works and answers our questions.

Also, when reading critiques that intelligent design proponents make of evolution, two major arguments consistently emerge: 1) Evolutionary theory does not explain everything.  2) The structures of life are so complex they could not possibly have happened by chance and must have been formed by an intelligent creator.

These arguments are so weak they are meaningless. Of course evolutionary theory doesn’t explain everything. Most accepted theories have some areas where they are weak. That in no way voids the parts of the theory that have be validated. Theories are always in the process of being proposed, modified, and improved. Accepted theories are just the best explanations we have until better explanations can be confirmed.

Concluding that the structures of life are too complex to be explained by evolutionary theory is nothing more than a cop-out. It means that, that critic has simply decided things are too complex for him/her to want to think about it any further.

It is as if they assume they should be able to understanding everything. So, if they don’t understand something, their only explanation is, God did it. It is an attempt to tie up those nasty loose ends at the edge of human knowledge. I understand the desire, but that’s a meaningless way to handle it.

We all know there was a time in history that the leading scientists on earth could not even conceive of the notion that earth was a sphere traveling through space around the sun. However, when they started running into evidence that could only be explained if the world were a sphere, they didn’t throw up their hands and say things are just too complicated to think about it any more.

They sought more evidence and new information to try to figure out the truth. Observations and reasoning were those scientist’s most valuable assets. The same is true for us, today.

Unfortunately, church leaders did not respond to those early scientific discoveries with the same attitude of open inquiry. They used excommunication, exile, and death as techniques to discredit or silence scientists. To avoid punishment, scientists had to recant their scientific findings.

 It is clear now who was right and who was wrong.  Yet, we still hear the same kind of debate on evolution versus intelligent design. Creationism and intelligent design arguments are but fading echoes of the same irrational religious thinking that has been wrong every time before.

Berating evolutionary theory because it considers  “chance” occurrences shows extraordinary naiveté. The only reason it is called “chance” is that we don’t know why it happens….yet. In the future, the mechanisms of DNA mutation will probably be understood well enough that they won’t be called “chance” mutations any more. When you only see what you have decided ahead of time that you must see, that is not science.  Let’s quit pretending that it is.

The real beauty of evolutionary theory is not that the chance events are so important, but rather its explanation of how organisms in a particular environment respond to mutations that do occur.

If the resulting change to the organism improves its ability to survive in its environment, then it flourishes and creates more of its kind. If not, it dies out. Extinction is commonplace in evolution. (Note: This certainly does not mean that humans have the right to plunder the environment to the detriment of surviving species. If we are smart enough to destroy nature, we need also be wise enough to preserve it.)

Evolutionary theory is as elegant as it is brutal, but it helps us understand the ebb and flow of life that has occurred as earth’s environment suffered drastic changes. Who is to say that the small role that “chance” has in this process is not part of a highly organized natural mechanism for the preservation of life? Let’s consider human beings, for example.

The Single Race of Mankind

Mitochondrial DNA studies have shown that all humans on earth are related to a single ancient black woman in northeast Africa and up to seven of her daughters. Whatever mutations resulted in her unique genetic design, now account for all humans alive today. No other women alive at the time of our common prehistoric mother had what it took to create offspring that could survive until today.

Whatever unique features she had meant survival for the human race as we are now.  It’s not the fact that the mutation was chance that is so important, but, rather, what our ancestral mother’s environment was like at the time this particular mutation occurred. Her adaptation potential helped all of her offspring survive in that and succeeding environments. They flourished and reproduced more humans with her traits.

The offspring of all other human mothers who gave birth at that time, for whatever reason, eventually died out. We surviving humans have done quite well with those critical traits our ancient mother passed on to us.

DNA evidence alone shatters any notion that creationism or intelligent design are credible. You cannot form a biological theory if your only data are statements of faith or opinions that things are just too complex to explain.

There are no sets of scientific measurements of the earth that suggest the earth and all life forms were created in six days. Everything points to some type of evolutionary process (for both plants and animals) over billions of years. Evolutionary theory may rule out theism, but it does not rule out God. On the contrary, I believe it places us directly in the middle of God’s workshop.

With no objective evidence to support them, creationism and intelligent design concepts cannot be presented as alternates to evolution in the schools. Such a notion is blatantly absurd. They are NON-SCIENCE, and nonsense despite the fact many, otherwise intelligent people, want us all to believe these ideas as truth. 

The Miracle Of Reality

How substantial can a faith be if it cannot stand on its own, scientifically, outside the existence of a Godhead who must perform magic?  Actually, I think the science of life itself is miraculous. Why is there such a desire to ignore the laws of chemistry and physics as part of a truly magical expression of God’s presence on earth?

We struggle to understand the simplest elements of our world. We use electricity all the time, but have no idea how and why electrons do what they do. What on earth is a magnetic field? No one really knows. What is gravity? We are still trying to figure that out.

We are awash with miracles throughout our daily lives, so why do we feel the need for a God that breaks the few laws of the universe that we do understand? I think the total of all scientific knowledge is a very small part of God’s immutable Truth. For example, there are many facts about human spiritual healing we have yet to learn and understand. We need to make it okay not to know everything, now, and enjoy the thrill of discovery that God offers us one day at a time.

“Human science, and rational thought are part of God’s fundamental expression of truth.”

The Bible Mystique

Evangelical Christians make some interesting and absolute statements about the Bible. They claim it is the inerrant word of God, literally true and complete. This idea emerged during the Protestant Reformation to free devout Christians from the dictates of a series of corrupt and murderous Roman Catholic popes. It was named the Doctrine of Verbal Inspiration. 

It was decided in the heat of religious/political debate at a time when no one realized that different Bibles throughout the world contained different words, phrases, and even sections. Had they realized this, they might have seriously reconsidered such a doctrine. Still, it is an idea proposed by very human religious leaders to justify their desire to remove themselves from the dictates of the Roman Catholicism.

It is claimed that if any Bible passage were shown not to be true then none of the rest of the Bible could be trusted as true. Such logic utterly defies logic. Anyone can write a true statement immediately after a false statement and the truth is unchanged. Truth is immutable and becomes known through understanding and demonstration.


      Truth cannot be captured in an arrangement of words in a Bible just because it gets the most votes to be sacred literature by members of a church council. Fundamentalists have twisted the meaning of inspiration completely out of phase.

Their viewpoint suggests that average humans are spiritually inert. It implies we cannot detect inspired teachings unless someone else, our religious leaders or church hierarchy, for example, tell us what is inspired and what is not. 


      Then those same church leaders interpret the Bible text according to the dogma of their particular denomination. Thereby each church or denomination comes up with different and conflicting interpretations. 


      If God had inspired a literally perfect document, then there would be no differences of opinion among those reading it. That clearly is not the case. The Bible contains humans’ words and ideas about God, not God’s exclusive words to man. Besides, who is wise enough among us to say that the best of mankind’s words, from any source, are not inspired?

I know the Bible contains inspired teachings, because when I read it I am inspired by the wisdom, clarity, and truthfulness of many parts of it. Other parts of it are hopelessly lost in a god-image that is brutal and depraved.  I don’t have to have approval from church officials or any religious council before I can read it and recognize inspired thought. Inspiration occurs during the reading because of what you know and have experienced in life.

I can recall the first time I reread the first chapter of Genesis after studying evolution in school. I was amazed at how accurately the writer of Genesis was in stating in this first chapter that there must have been an orderly progression of development of both the cosmos and of life itself. I consider Genesis a very inspired writing and generally consistent with evolution. 

The writer described progressive stages of development from the original void to human kind. The exact sequence and details of what happened are not important. The basic notion, idea,  general theory that life evolves from one stage to the next more complex level, is there. That was a marvelous discovery for a young 20^th Century boy finding himself in harmony with the keen intellect, rationality, and wisdom of an ancient writer.

The real mystery to me has been how creationists (and intelligent design proponents) can read something other than evolution into this same Genesis story. It seems to me that the second Creation Of Man story that starts in verse 4 in the second chapter of Genesis totally refutes their assertion that the Bible can be interpreted literally. The description of the creation of man in the second chapter is not the same as the one found in the first chapter.

The only way to reconcile the two is for you to interpret one version in a way that explains how it is consistent with the other. However, as soon as you do that you can no longer claim that your interpretation is literal. Such a reconciling interpretation is yours, based on your faith, and not on what the words in the Bible say, literally.

In fact, identical literal interpretations by two or more readers would likely never occur. Everything you read only makes sense based on what you know from your experiences and in what you have decided to have faith. Two people can read the same passage and have completely different “literal” interpretations, based on their different perspectives and life experiences.

Evangelical Christians talk a lot about authority. As long as they feel that the Bible is God’s perfect word to mankind, they feel free to interpret the Bible however they wish and act on their own interpretations as if directed by God. This kind of thinking has resulted in religious prejudice, wars, and the ruthless destruction of native cultures around the globe.

We now understand that most cultures, even those considered "primitive", develop religious and moral systems. The sacred teachings of most religions have parallels to the teachings of Jesus, because they involve universal truths for all humans. How others learn God’s Truth is just different from the lessons in Christianity. The need to be “the” chosen people of God and to impose that on others is a human trait that always leads to conflict and disappointment. As I see it, the Great Commandment offers no exceptions, not even religion.

Anyone who considers the Bible as the literal Word of God, complete and infallible, is displaying enormous ignorance of the Bible and what we have learned about it during the last 200 years and counting. The Bible is a collection of ancient writings expressing the best and the worst human thinking about religion and God. It is a revealing look at the spiritual growth of the human mind over thousands of years.

We now know that conservative Christian dogma started with the early Christian evangelists, not Jesus. Paul never met Jesus, did not agree with Jesus’ disciples, and created a theology that uniquely patched the holes in his own self-image. He used his own belief in God’s ability to raise Jesus' spirit to heaven. (Heaven was thought to be just beyond the sky and the sky was considered a huge dome.) Jesus' ascendancy  legitimize what Paul saw as God’s plan for the world, until it was to end, which he stated would occur during his lifetime.

First, the world didn’t end as he predicted and will not end as many evangelicals still expect. Second, apocalyptic Christian dogma elevating Jesus to be equivalent to God occurred after his crucifixion. Compare the human view of Jesus in Gospel According To Mark with the super human view of Jesus in Gospel According To John. There is definitely an evolution of Christology about Jesus after his crucifixion. Claims of his own divinity are not found in Jesus' parables and sayings in the Synoptic Gospels, which are believed by Bible scholars to contain the best historical traces of what he actually taught.

For example, let’s consider Matthew 16:24

Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

The phrase “take up his cross and follow me” means that all who accept Jesus as their personal savior will, at times, be persecuted because of that belief. We must bravely accept and steadfastly meet those challenges. It is a powerful image of how we must sacrifice our personal comfort, if necessary, to express our faith in Christ by recalling His greater sacrifice of dying on the cross for our sins.

This is developing Christian dogma and because of that, it is clearly nothing Jesus ever said. The phrase “take up his cross” did not have that commonly understood meaning until long after Jesus’ crucifixion when early Christian theology was evolving. 

There is certainly a truth expressed in such a teaching about the importance of maintaining integrity between your beliefs and your actions. However, we know that Jesus could not have actually said these words, because the people of his day would have had no idea what he was talking about. 


      Even his disciples didn’t believe he was actually going to die. They were still wondering if he was the expected Messiah-King, which, up to that time had always been a human anointed by God to be the king of the state and the heroic general of its armies. They did not understand much of what Jesus was teaching. This is understandable since Jesus’ ministry lasted a relatively short time.

These words were put in Jesus' mouth by Matthew because it was something the author wanted Jesus to have said. It was not a crime to create quotes for revered religious teachers who were no longer alive. It was a common literary practice of the time. There is a meaningful message there, but it just is not Jesus', it is Matthew's.

 Virtually all modern Bible scholars agree that there is no evidence that Jesus ever spoke any of the quotes attributed to him in the Gospel of John. The writer of that gospel was, in part, reacting to efforts of strict orthodox Jews to have the followers of Jesus (both Jews and former Gentiles) kicked out of  membership in their synagogues.


      This accounts for the harsh tone against Jews and the spiritual descriptions of Jesus (based on the ancient wisdom [Sophia] traditions) as a new standard for all that was important in Judaism at the time.

The Gospel of John is a political/religious document, and a statement of Christian dogma created and promoted long after Jesus was gone. Understanding why it was written and what made the writer so passionate about his beliefs is the most important lesson to be learned.


      On the one hand the Gospel of John provides some of the most inspiring and beautiful descriptions of Christian spirituality found anywhere. Yet, accepting the Gospel of John as literal truth requires Biblical ignorance or the denial of literary and historical facts. The point is, Bible passages do not have to be historically factual to be inspiring and to reveal spiritual truths.

Evangelical Christians don’t have to give up anything. In fact, I could not be more supportive of their ability to demonstrate love and compassion for those in need.  Many of their service programs are to be honored and supported. 

They must, however, accept the fact that many of us have discovered and are whole-heartedly devoted to living the practical teachings of Christianity without accepting the institutional dogma that seems so important to them. 

Like my evangelical Christian friends, I, too, accept my spiritual understanding on faith, because in my heart it just seems right.  I can’t say that they have to change what they believe, because they are free to hold to whatever ideas they find meaningful. But I can say that their viewpoint makes no sense to me in the life that I experience and in the Bible I read.

                                                 When Viewed Literally or Objectively

                                        The Bible Is Full Of Errors

                                       And Contradictions…There

                                                For All To See