I Believe - But What Do I Believe?

Interestingly, rather than receiving input from atheists or anyone who would like to try to defend the transhumanist or posthumanist "saved by technology" point of view, I have received feedback from passionate believing Christians who care about the fine points of religious belief systems and who have asked me to elucidate them before moving on in an attempt to speak in behalf of a majority of people of faith.

My friend and valued colleague, Stellenbosch theologian Gerrit Brand, has even gone so far as to say that it is a strategic mistake to juxtapose religious belief as an antidote for the posthumanist and transhumanist belief systems, for he says that there are many non-believers who would feel quite as scared of these movements as I am. He is right of course, and indeed I have had feedback from such readers too, who have said to me that they share my concern albeit for reasons that have nothing to do with religious belief.

While I granted Gerrit his point (and it is an important one) immediately, I nonetheless wish to emphasize that it is the transhuman/posthuman movement itself that has identified its opposition (real and potential) as consisting of mainly two kinds of people: environmentalists and, as they themselves put it, "people of faith." They did not specify which faith; they simply said "faith." They of course forget that atheism itself is a faith; there is no scientific basis for atheism for you cannot disprove the existence of a Creator or of an active universal creative force, any more than you can prove it empirically (as Gerrit is quick to point out we cannot purport to want to do even though I am, like many philosophers and theologians in history, apparently about to fall for the temptation of giving it my best shot!) ... so an atheist could theoretically be a "person of faith" too, for he holds as a tenet of his belief the notion that no God exists, or that no-god exists; he believes in the existence of nogod, or nothing - a conceptual impossibility in fact, but it is a belief that he nonetheless holds, as stubbornly as I hold to my clear observation that the world could not have created itself.

Agnosticism is the only philosophical position that is completely consistent with scientific enquiry: a consistent "we are not sure" or "we just do not know" which includes the possibility of postulating at least for the sake of hypothesis, the existence of a creative force of one kind or another.

I am going to stop here for today and continue again tomorrow. Izak please be patient, I will get to the fine points of mainstream Christian theology versus alternate viewpoints very shortly, for I completely agree that it is important to get those out in the open and completely sorted out before we proceed. If "people of faith" (other than atheists of course) oppose the transhuman/posthuman trends, then who are they? Which people of faith, and for what reason, and based upon what suppositions of theirs (Gerrit elucidated the aspect of assumption in the belief system beautifully in earlier comments) do they oppose these trends? These are important questions, and they have very clear and specific (albeit broad and encompassing) answers.

For Hashem: An Invitation

o Hashem
would you return at daybreak
to your broken world
and would you pick up
these dark shards
these dangerous pieces?

before the sun touches the windowsill
this morning,
would you consider
touching the earth once more
as you did that morning when they disappointed you
in the ancient days of yore?

remember, when you came to walk in your garden
and they hid from you there?
would you come now?
could you
please
just
come
now?

it is severely damaged but it is still
recognizably yours
your world is here
it is waiting
and I will watch it for you all the time until you arrive
I will leave all the windows open to be sure to hear you
and I will definitely not close the doors
if you could please
consider
coming
this morning

and if not, if this is too soon
for you,
would you perhaps consider
returning to the earth at noon?

would you consider returning
before the lunch cup
touches the tinkling spoon
Hashem
o Hashem
would you just
come
for lunch
today
please?

and if lunch
if you are busy
at lunch
if you already
have another appointment
with another world
perhaps
could you
could
you
could you fit us in
by perhaps, say
four o'clock
later today?

we are really very desperate o God
we really need you here
we really
we really

and if
and if
that is not possible, will you send
will you send
will you send
Messiah
by six o'clock tonight
he is invited
he is very much invited
to dinner here
to dinner here
to dinner here
at this table, see, this table, right here
I will prepare a place for him
for tonight
right
right
right

allright
?

On Intelligent Design

In the beginning, God created the world and everything in it, according to the Bible. In the beginning, the Word was with the Name, Christ with God.

Evidence points decisively towards the Big Bang as the beginning of the known Universe. That phenomenal sonic boom is in fact in my view the very sound of the Word whereof the Bible speaks, and there is no contradiction between scripture and science in this respect. What science observes and what scripture describes in narrative form, could be one and the same prehistoric event without any contradiction in terms.

The fact that science can observe and describe in its own terms the results of God's activity by no means disproves the presence of God; on the contrary, there are scientists who have arrived independently at the conclusion that there is so much evidence for intelligence in the way the Universe is put together, that there must be more to this natural world than what meets the three-dimensional perception of the human eye.

There is no shame in such a conclusion, yet there is no end to the scorn, mockery and derision that is routinely poured upon scientists who believe in intelligent design. When you read some of the writings of those who seek somehow to "disprove" the existence of God - an impossible task in any event, and a folly to boot, for it is no more possible to "disprove" the existence of God scientifically than it is to "prove" it! - they consist more of empty rhetoric than of actual scientific proof. Sarcasm is not a substitute for research, yet many of the currently fashionable authors on these topics get away with a lot of verbal pyrotechnics in lieu of rigorous proofs, and their books are selling quite well nonetheless.

Atheism must necessarily be regarded as a faith rather than a scientific position; among philosophical positions, only agnosticism - an honest "we don't know for sure" - would meet the criteria of rigorous scientific enquiry.

"The beginning" is not defined in the Bible as a specific time identifiable in relation to human history. I am definitely certain that this "beginning" was longer than six thousand years ago, and wish to make it clear that I am by no means a Biblical literalist with respect to my reading of Genesis. I do believe in intelligent design, for I cannot accept that this intricate, delicate and highly organized world with all the infinite perspectives and non-physical concepts, intuitions, feelings, emotions and ideas in the minds of all the creatures that inhabit it, would have come about by means of mere happenstance. The grotesque foolishness of such a debilitating outlook on our natural world is in my view so extreme as to be actually laughable. It is clear to me that this world has, and will always have, a Creator and that the Creator is active even today.

The Name and the Word

The ransom sacrifice of Jesus Christ is a topic which has been relegated in recent times almost to the realms of insignificance. Few are shocked at the notion that an innocent man who is deemed to have been without sin or moral blemish, is reputed to have been offered up as some kind of sacrifice in return for all of humanity's sins; as preposterous as this notion may sound, many people do not seem to have a problem with it.

Those who believe that Jesus died "for [their] sins" seem to have no difficulty with the notion that this apparently unfair trade was made in their behalves, and those who do not believe it, either disdain the notion that such a trade would be possible at all, or in the case of non-believers with a strong sense of morality, find it profoundly abhorrent. But what is the ransom and why was it considered necessary?

When you question mainstream Christian believers you will mostly find a lot of misinformation about the actual Biblical teachings surrounding the ransom. I would like to explain my understanding of it in the course of these postings, without claiming any kind of institutional authority from any church or religious movement. This understanding comes from Bible study and from thinking about the questions a lot, and from prayerfully submitting my conclusions to God.

The Identity of God

Orthodox Jewish rabbis possess authoritative knowledge on the identity of the Creator. They have for centuries been the custodians of the truth about the bearer of the Sacred Name, HaShem. They know that the name of the Creator is extremely sacred, and so they have taught the observant Jewish people not to use the Name in any way, shape or form. Instead, observant Jewish people use the term HaShem which means The Name, by way of oblique reference to the Creator and in lieu of the real name, which is usually spelled YHWH in English when referring to its Hebrew origins. The vowels are omitted because of the way the Hebrew alphabet is organized, but the rabbis know how to pronounce the Name, and they have traditionally reserved such pronounciation only for the most sacred of occasions, which would be the religious ceremonies associated with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement for sins.

Knowing the identity of the Creator is absolutely key when it comes to understanding God's commandments and living by them. That is why true Christians - whose beliefs are far closer to those of Orthodox Judaism than meets the eye! - know of the sanctity and importance of the Name, because when we say "God" it could mean more than one concept to more than one person, but the identity of Hashem is unique and is completely sacred to all who are aware of this.

Some have adopted a popularized version of the Name, and they refer to God as Jehovah in order to make very clear that they are aware of the importance of the Name. Unlike the Orthodox rabbis who have guarded the sanctity of the Name closely, these believers have distributed the popular translations of the Name as widely as possible. They have deliberately taught people to use the name Jehovah, in order to promote understanding that God is not just any god, but a very specific person, for as they say, "Jehovah our God is one Jehovah."

Now, what is the identity of Jesus Christ in relation to Jehovah? It is said in the Bible that he is his son, and moreover that he is his firstborn.

Every right-thinking parent knows that there can be no-one more important in one's world than one's child. The identity of Jesus Christ as God's firstborn son dates back long before the foundations of the natural world.

When you define Jehovah as a "spirit person" - a helpful way of drawing a distinction between a person who exists in spirit form and a person who exists in a physical form in the natural world - then it stands to reason that his son Jesus (known in the Hebrew tradition as Yeshua) would likewise have been, at the time of his creation, a non-physical entity, a spirit person. It is said in the Bible that Yeshua was the first ever created by Hashem. The proper Hebrew name of Jesus the Nazarene, Yeshua, actually translates as "Salvation." Surprise!

God is like an eternal, self-sustaining fire which burns through all the ages. The Name literally means "He Causes Becoming" or "Self-Sustaining." Christ can be defined as "the first spark that was generated by the self-sustaining fire." Thus it is possible to view the birth of Christ as the moment, lost in the mists of time, when the first spark was generated out of the metaphorical creative fire that is God. The birth of the spiritual identity of the Son of God, the first in(ter)dependent identity generated by the creative force of Hashem, precedes the physical birth of Yeshua, who is widely viewed as the incarnation of that firstborn spirit child of God, by many millions of years.

The first spark of God's creative fire bears all the characteristics of the original fire, and it is a bright morning star, perpetually burning with the passionate devotion of the Love Force that created it. For God is also defined simply as "Love" - the governing principle of this Universe. To fear God is to fear Love, and yet it is said in the Bible that "perfect love drives out all fear" (1 John 4:18) so obviously one who fears God, fears nothing at all except the absence of God, for the absence of God would constitute the loss of all love, and that would be unthinkable.

On Human History

When the world was created, Yeshua was with Hashem. The Word was with the Name. "The Word was with God" is what the Bible says, and we know that the Word is in that context a reference to the first spirit entity that existed in addition to the One Who Causes Becoming.

It is said that they worked together, that they consulted with each other on the foundations of creation as it were, and that they decided to create humankind "in [their] image." That is to say: even in our current mortal physical form, we resemble the spirit persons Yeshua and Hashem, or Jesus and Jehovah if you prefer. They are the concept models on which our own spiritual identities were built!

We are both sentient beings and potentially, spirit entities. We may perish in ignorance and without accepting or recognizing our origins as creatures of Hashem; however this is not to say that there is any kind of "eternal suffering" waiting for us, should this occur: such a notion is completely unBiblical, inimical to God, and bears no relation to the truth.

A break in communication occurred at the beginning of history between the Creator and the sentient beings who currently inhabit this earth. This is because our ancestors chose to sever their ties with Hashem the Creator, and to follow instead what they believed was a path to freedom. Self-government was what was offered to them by a spiritual deceiver who wanted to claim the authority of the Creator and, in so doing, to take for himself the right to govern this world. He was successful because our ancestors were unutterably foolish. He falsely promised us democracy, self-government, and a free-for-all in which we did not have to obey any of God's laws, but all of history has proven that this change of spiritual government was a disaster.

We do not need to see any more of this nonsense to know that we want to return voluntarily to the care and custody of our Heavenly Father. But how can we do this when our Father lives in the realm of the immortals where we cannot reach, while we have inherited mortality?

This deceiver, known as Satan the devil, was originally himself a spark of the original fire but in his case, unlike Yeshua who has always worked with Hashem, he thought to establish an independent sphere of influence outside of the authority of the Creator. Indeed he did not deny that Hashem was the Creator; he simply challenged the right of the Creator to be the sovereign ruler over the created things.

The Creator, as a safety measure, created sentient beings potentially mortal. This was done more by way of protection for vulnerable living creatures than for any other reason; there was no motive of vengeance on the part of Hashem when he devised mortality as an escape from potentially cumbersome circumstances. There is nothing more horrifying than a physical existence outside of the sphere of God's influence, for in such a realm anything would be possible, all safety measures would fail and unimaginable horror would be the result. Satan knew this and he challenged God's authority by tempting mankind to leave God's sphere of influence. He also challenged God himself by claiming that God had no right to stop him, that he knew a better way to rule over these creatures than God's way, and that if they were to follow him, God should let him take control over their destiny because to do otherwise would be undemocratic, authoritarian, unfair.

God allowed the historic temptation - or opportunity, if you wish - for mankind to consider self-rulership independent of his direct control, to occur because he is an absolutely fair God. A hypothesis had been postulated by Satan - who is also sometimes known as The Accuser - which may or may not have contained some validity, and it had a right to be tested even as our ancestors had a right to choose. Hashem found the idea of imposing his own rulership upon people and enslaving them against their will, profoundly abhorrent. He actually agreed that they should be free to choose, but he certainly hoped that they would voluntarily choose to obey him. And so it came about that our ancestors chose to succumb to temptation rather than to obey the clear directives which had been given to them by their Creator, and in so doing, endangered all of us by dragging us into the wrong sphere of spiritual influence. That is the source of all the endless war and troubles of our human history. There is only one way to repair our broken world, and that is by returning to the original divine order of things that God had presented us with in the first place.

We now reject the authority of the impostor, and we reclaim the right to obey the legitimate ruler of this world, the sovereign Lord Jehovah our God, Hashem of Israel.

This is where the role of the Messiah is indispensable. After the ancestors disobeyed God, the built-in failsafe of mortality was released like a proverbial trap door by which to capture the forces of chaos. Only one spiritual identity had the power to open that trap door and to rescue those who were trapped behind it: the flawless one, the blameless, he who had chosen the love of Hashem over any other form of power or authority or spiritual independence.

Messiah would adopt mortal form and travel through the barriers of physical existence and of mortality, to the nether reaches of Sheol, mankind's common grave, and back to the exalted realm of his Father. In so doing, he would earn the authority to bear the keys to that proverbial trap door, so that he can unlock it and save those who want to come out and be with God once more.

This perilous journey is reminiscent of the "quest" theme that can be found in many mythological tales, but I believe that those tales were structured in this particular way because of a universal expectation in the hearts of humans that this rescue would happen in fact.

What is the alternative to accepting the ransom sacrifice? Well, it is to continue unchanged and to perish eventually. I have to stress once again that the part about the eternal suffering of human souls is absolute nonsense. It is unBiblical albeit church-sanctioned, unsubstantiated dogma that is rooted in a misunderstanding of a mistranslation of parts of the Bible that have been put to copious misuse, in order to undermine people's faith and to "prove" what a mean, authoritarian, nasty and unfair God it is that we are rejecting, and to bolster our resolve to continue rejecting that God. It is a slander against Jehovah to say that he would put us in that kind of "hell."

The whole object of the ransom is to liberate us from any potential hellish existence (such as the one we presently endure under this system of things) and even from our inherited mortal state. If we continue in a physical realm that exists outside God's influence, unimaginable horror is potentially possible. God would not in fact permit such a realm to exist, although humans are trying quite hard to turn the earth realm, our beautiful home, into such a hell! Some of them want to be robots it would seem, they want to be governed by microchips, and they want to exist without dying? "I am cyborg and mortality is obsolete" is the rallying cry of the transhumanist movement. Would they consider removing from human existence perhaps even the option of dying, should their technological dreams come true and should they somehow find a way to make death "obsolete"? That would be the closest contemporary approximation of the traditional (pagan) notion of hell - a place of indefinite, everlasting suffering! - that I have ever heard of, and I for one want no part of such an existence.

Every environmentalist knows what is possible with today's technology, and it truly is frightening. Death is the least of our worries when we have to consider possibilities such as self-replicating nanotechnology running amok and literally turning everything to some kind of primordial "goo," uncontained nuclear devices being put to misuse by opposing political forces, or any number of apocalyptic doomsday scenarios that unfortunately have become very possible due to the untrammelled development of technologies that exist, no longer in the realm of science fiction, but in reality today. A mere untimely demise by comparison would be an absolute mercy considering some of the things that we ourselves have made possible and that might happen to our world as a result of our own activities, and that is why I characterize mortality as a "failsafe device" in creation. It is not even Sheol that we need to worry about, for Sheol is a comparatively safe place, a place of non-consciousness! Hashem is a decent and kind-hearted God who would never, ever in a million years subject anything in his creation, no matter how rebellious or deserving of punishment, to anything as appalling as drawn-out torture on purpose. It is living under Satanic rulership, by contrast, that would bother me. It is not difficult to see the possibilities for a tremendous amount of political manoeuvering, based upon the notion of a scientific conquest of the failsafe device of mortality.

Let me spell it out further. I do not trust humanity with my life. I trust Jehovah God to the end of recorded time, for with Him I am always safe. He will never allow me to perish, even if my physical form is destroyed, for he was my Creator in the first place and He can, if He so chooses, reassemble my molecules at any point on the space-time continuum. He created the heavens and the earth and all the stars and the planets in them; how would it not be possible for Hashem to recall my form, to call the atoms, protons and electrons that constituted me, by name even, and to put me back together again even if I am broken into a million pieces?

And if He chooses not to ressurrect, or "reassemble" me (for the mechanically minded among us), then that is perfectly acceptable to me too, because then I would not be conscious and I would not know the difference and it would not matter to me! For the dead, the Bible says are not conscious of anything at all, and that is the truth of the matter. There is no bogeyman in hell who can torture me forever. However, there are plenty of would-be bogeymen on earth, and I am worried about the things they might do, particularly if my body were to acquire any semblance of "immortality" under this dreadful present system of things!

Therefore the last thing we want, is for medical science to "crack the code" and "cure" death. We want nothing to do with such a possibility, and our loving Creator will permit no such thing to occur ever in the history of this world.

To perish is purely and simply to cease to be conscious, to cease to contribute our individual perception to the multitude of perceptions and to cease, consequently, to exist - and this is quite certainly what will happen to all sentient beings and spirit entities who consciously and deliberately choose to disassociate themselves permanently from their lifegiving Source. We may choose this and in a sense if we do, there is no damage done; the loss is ours, but the freedom to choose is perfectly fair. We may on the other hand acquire the permanent qualities of Yeshua and Hashem by reclaiming our association with them. That is why we possess a universal sense of right and wrong regardless of our religious beliefs, and a universal conscience and an intuition of what we should and should not do, even when we are wholly ignorant of the teachings of the Bible.

I will tell you more about Yeshua and Hashem later. I am doing this because of my love for them and because I am tired of the misunderstandings and the half-truths and the groundless accusations of injustice that are routinely levelled at our Creator by millions of arrogant, ill-informed and sometimes even well-meaning humans. The truth wants to be told in simple, plain English for all with a mind to acquire understanding, to be able to see.

My purpose is clarification, so if you have questions, please do absolutely post them here and I will do my best to share such knowledge as I may possess, and if I do not have the knowledge, to consult with authoritative and trustworthy sources.