The Foundation of Truth, part 2- the Kiss of Death

I started a series a couple days ago which ended with the following:

"In upcoming discussions I want to define truth and why it's so important to seek and resolve to believe absolute truth as opposed to "many truths" that may sound appealing and all-encompassing, accepting and tolerant, but actually are completely imaginary...like a child's imaginary friend. I also want to show you why insisting on believing in fallacy is deadly."

I didn't mean to imply that believing a myth is deadly in the eternal sense (rot in hell stuff), but deadly NOW.  Let's examine the meaning of deadly as the adverb I used it: "In a way resembling or suggesting death; as if dead." Believing in a myth means we live a dead life.  Our thoughts bring death, our feelings bring death. This happens because we have placed our experiences and emotions far above reality. We then cause our reality. For example, if I believe that people are jerks and out to get me, I will live in that reality. No doubt manipulative jerks exist, but they do not have to rule my experiences. I can shrug them off and think, "that poor jerk doesn't have a clue about his/her value in the kingdom. Help him/her, Lord!"  If superstition rules my life and I think every time I spill salt, walk under a ladder, or a black cat crosses my path, I'm screwed, I unleash hell to persecute me.

Before you scoff at what appears to be eery spiritual hokum, let me submit to you that the spiritual side of life trumps the physical, whether you decide to believe that or not. Much like living in an impoverished third world without the luxury of televisions, computers, books and cell phones, this would shape you into believing certain things don't exist, such as Ferrari's, McDonalds, and polar bears, all because you have never seen or heard of them. In like manner, just because you haven't experienced or seen the spiritual in a way that has convinced you of it's reality does not mean it is nonexistent. Experience, emotions, and the rational mind are not be be-all end-all of TRUTH.

Before I quote scripture to prove the above, I first need to provide credible evidence that Scripture can be believed and trusted as reliable and accurate; that it isn't some brand of holy book on the same level as the Qur'an,  the Talmud, the Tao-te-ching, the Veda, Apocrypha or  Book of Mormon. I'm not slamming any of the former, but I also don't promise this blog to be politically correct and/or completely inoffensive.

As Jesus said in Matthew 10, "Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household." (verses 34-36).

 In part 3 of this series, I will attempt to show you, with the help of many scholars and scientists far smarter and more educated, why the Bible is THE BOOK of Truth.

The Foundation of Truth, Part 1- Reality Shapers

In order to make sense of life, we all must hold some foundational truth. I submit to you that your beliefs about God are the absolute foundation of your reality.  For instance, if you believe that He does not exist, then your foundation is that of a world built by random chance that somehow managed to produce life, and you're not all that important.  If you believe it's possible that He exists and possible that He doesn't, then your foundation is a bit more murky: God might exist, but if so He's not that big of a deal, though sometimes cool unexplained things might be God.  If you believe God exists, and you also believe that He is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving, etc., then your foundation is of a purposeful creation of an amazing Universe with humankind as the crowning creative achievement.  You also most likely believe that you were created to live an eternal life and your role on earth is to live for that eternity and you are intrinsically valuable and loved.

I admittedly don't know all the details and fundamentals of all the world's religions so won't embarrass myself here by discussing them. Here's a few I vaguely comprehend: the New Age belief system (we are the same level as God in that God dwells in every molecule; Buddhism (following the path to Nirvana which achieves cessation of suffering; essentially no God), Hinduism (striving for Dharma or perfection; there is a God), Islamic religion (there is a God and I must strive to be perfect so that Allah won't reject me), etc.

For the sake of this article, I've flung core belief systems into five categories (rummage-sale style):

1. God exists

(with the subsets of earning vs. unconditional acceptance)

2. God does not exist

3. God might exist, but He also might not.

4. Many (mini) gods exist (and I'm one of them, or will eventually be one of them)

5. My religion is too complicated/bothersome for me to understand, but I claim it anyway.

What you believe shapes your entire life, your future, your mental and emotional health, and how you handle adversity.  What you believe is a choice. You choose to believe (or to not believe) based on a variety of factors, and most of them are not logical: experience/senses (I have never seen or experienced God, therefore He doesn't exit), what you were taught growing up (indoctrination), what you have read about and decided makes sense (study/intellect), or what you feel like should be the case (desires/ethics).

In upcoming discussions I want to define truth and why it's so important to seek and resolve to believe absolute truth as opposed to "many truths" that may sound appealing and all-encompassing, accepting and tolerant, but actually are completely imaginary...like a child's imaginary friend.  I also want to show you why insisting on believing in fallacy is deadly. Stay tuned...

Why Rummage?

Rummage (verb): "to search unsystematically and untidily through a mass or receptacle. Search (through), hunt through, root about/around (in), ferret about/around (in), fish about/around (in), poke around (in), dig through, delve through, go through, explore, sift through, rifle (through)." 

Eureka!  I hit upon the perfect title for my new blog. After all, I come from a long line of junk rummagers: people who scavenge for gold amidst the garbage "One man's trash is another's treasure." Amen.

I was raised by "the junk man," aka my dad, and my grandfather did plenty of scavenging during the depression, bringing home odds and ends from the Richest Hill on Earth (aka Butte, Montana). I think my other grandpa was a garbage collector, but I may have made that up. I also osmotically absorbed the penchant for rummage by living with my husband for 28+ years; his mother never passed up a garage sale or auction if she could help it.

This blog, however, will serve as a probably disorganized search  (if I'm blessed with brave, opinionated readers) for TRUTH.  Not doctrine, not rules, not church tradition, but the most basic of all truths. That THE GOD created us and our reality. That He formed us into carbon beings with free will and infused our earth-bodies with a mind, will, emotions (soul) and also an eternal SPIRIT, by which we are equipped to relate to Him.  He also allowed us to choose to live in such a way as to doom ourselves to ruin (sin).  He then sent His Son (which is also Himself because of the unique trinitarian structure of GOD-which you don't need to worry about right now as we'll explore another time-it's a God-thing not a human-thing) to rescue us-to REDEEM us from the mess we made of ourselves.  And by that action He enabled us to be truly free. Not free to be selfish jerks and "I can do whatever I want," but free to experience the fullness of an eternal relationship with the most fantastic, brilliant, amazing, rescuing, powerful and loving Being who ever has existed or will exist.  To be ALL that He made us to be, which is far cooler than amassing great fame, fortune and/or power.

But then bad stuff happened to the simple redemption story.  Fallible and fearful leaders and thinkers took the simple recipe of the gospel and mixed in other ingredients: rules, formulas, jargon, obligations and biblical misinterpretation.  So then the gospel became corrupted and no longer clear.

I don't like that. I am sick of believing things that I have been told since childhood that frankly, dear friends, is not the truth. Or perhaps there's SOME truth in it, but it is no longer pure truth. I want the pure truth, the unadulterated gospel, and my mission is to ferret the gems from the mud. To surgically extract pearls from the guts of swine.  To wield the Sword of the Spirit and the Word of Truth (bible) against the lies that have filtered in.

"For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. 3But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. 4For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough."