Why Christianity?

Here is my catechism on “why Christianity” as well as “why have religion at all?” It’s based on reason and not scripture.

Why have Religion at all?

To have religion means to believe in a soul.  If someone does not believe in the soul then they have two choices: to be a complete nihilist and generally duck out of politics (and almost everything else) entirely, living only for their own enjoyments.  Most find that unacceptable even if they don’t believe in spirits or souls, so they go and affiliate themselves with a political ideology that makes quasi-religious overtures.  These overtures are usually a reference to the idea of creating a “heaven on earth” through wealth redistribution.  Wealth redistribution seems easy at first, but if one person grows their share of the wealth while others do not, you eventually have inequality all over again.  This usually results in those want to create a heaven on earth becoming communists or fascists.  These ideologies accept the idea of constant and endless warfare as a solution to the return of inequality.  Their governments don’t seem to stand the test of time; they are prone to corruption and infighting.  They never seem to satisfy themselves as much as other civilizations can, not even if they succeed in expelling their outside enemies and securing their hegemony.  The “revolution” never stops and this failure must rationally draw into question the objective value of their beliefs and goals.

This dilemma is one of the destructions that I believe God heaps upon the unfaithful; that they can never rest and never succeed.

I do believe in spirits or souls; so why not Buddhism?

You could be a Buddhist and believe in the soul but Buddhism has a doctrinal flaw.  This flaw is the idea that you are expected to avoid all “attachments” without exception.  A Buddhist’s own family is considered an attachment to the material world.  This means that Buddhists are encouraged to reject and even leave their own families, as the first Buddha Shakyamuni did.  This anti-family dialogue is probably why Buddhism is declining and is probably also indirectly responsible for the low fertility rates found in east Asian countries.

Why not Islam?

You could be a Muslim but this requires something very difficult and rationally questionable; namely Jihad.  Jihad is the state of endless conflict against the unbelievers and most of all against the fake Muslims.  The warrior Jihadist is said to rank above the non-violent Jihadist in heaven and this naturally means that the conflict will spill over into physical altercations.  Ironically, this makes Islam very similar to communism and fascism in that all of these ideologies result in endless conflict.  Islam is basically a totalitarian ideology (as communism and fascism are) except that Islam believes in a soul.  As with communist and fascist countries, Muslim countries usually lack the peace and prosperity which Christian (or non-totalitarian) countries have due to the infighting engendered by their beliefs.

Why Christianity?

If you’re a Christian, you can strive to do good and even to obtain and distribute communal luxuries.  You can avoid the pitfalls of extreme political ideologies because you believe in the soul; this belief obviates the need for building a heaven on earth.  Unlike with Buddhism, you can strive for (and are encouraged to seek) a large family.  Unlike with Islam, you can forgive and even be kind to those who won’t follow you.  Only in Christ can you find peace.  For me, I studied all of the major religions and decided that Christianity was rationally the best choice.

Seven Spiritual Concepts

Character for “Rén” in Simplified Chinese

I have a set of seven concepts that I’m working, slowly but surely, into a book on Christianity.  It’s kind of like the seven virtues from past Christian theology but a bit more topical in nature.  I thought I would blog them up for some possible feedback.

First: Christianity isn’t about fighting capitalism, it’s about fighting economicism; that being the application of economic concepts to society in a manner that subsumes the fundamental value people have.

Second: The interaction between power and responsibility.  Power without responsibility is tyranny; responsibility without power is scapegoating.  It’s anti-social and unreasonable to expect that no one should ever have any power over you.  The proper course for an individual is to determine whether those who have power over you have responsibility that’s consummate with their power.  If they do then there should be no problem when you agree with their cause.  This applies to people who are leaders as well; they should strive to be responsible in proper scope to whatever their powers are.  This idea obviously has some political ramifications as well as religious ones.

Third: The spiritual world should be presumed to follow different rules than the physical world.  Certain things “belong to God” and are off-limits to otherwise normal, economicism-oriented interpretations.  An example of this is the argument that receiving a good feeling in return for being charitable actually makes charity selfish because the giver seeks the good feeling as their reward.  Besides being the kind of thing a real hater would say, this idea is wrong because the good feeling from being charitable (called Rén in Confucianism) is something that exists within the spiritual world; i.e. it doesn’t follow principles of economicism.  Also, charity should be anonymous when possible because that limits the economic benefits received by the giver.

Fourth: The terms of forgiveness.  Some people want to be forgiven just so that they can get some leeway to hurt you again.  It’s sad but true.  In applying economic concepts to forgiveness, we’ve forgotten that forgiveness belongs to the one who forgives.  We sometimes treat forgiveness like a currency which is received by the forgiven.  That is the wrong idea.  Just what forgiveness entails and what its terms are belong to the forgiver, not to the forgiven.  It’s possible to forgive someone without giving them an opportunity to hurt you again.

Fifth: God’s Unconditional Love does not mean freedom from judgement; if it did, there would be no commandments in the Bible.  God’s love may be unconditional (I haven’t come to my own interpretation on that yet) but like a parent to a child, sometimes you need to judge someone you love harshly.  It’s been popular to say that God loves everyone no matter what because then you can seem nice and popular, that was never God’s intended message.

Sixth: Honor means following a rule which benefits the community even when you would be better off individually in not following it.  An honorable rule can’t be petty because pettiness isn’t in the community’s best interests.  This means that there is no honor in following laws that severely micro-manage people since those laws are petty in nature.

Seventh: Charity is for your neighbors and your brothers, or for people who have honor; it’s not something you are supposed to give to everyone unconditionally.  If there are no conditions at all attached to charity then your charity is inviting people to break Christ’s covenant and that is not what he intended when he told people to be charitable to their neighbors and brothers.  As far as honor goes, people who have honor will respect your charity and might be able to become your brothers, so charity towards them is optional.