Spiritual Quest - Part I

After spending some quality time with my beloved God-fearing family this past weekend, I feel it's time to tackle the intimidating and frightening topic of...[foreboding music] - religion. The 6 hour drive each way between San Diego and Tucson afforded me ample time to consider the role spirituality plays in my own life, how I feel about my personal purpose, and my belief or disbelief in a God and [his] constituents.

But before I launch into that mountainous molehill, some background info. I wasn't really exposed to religious/spiritual elements until about age 6, when my stepmother came into my life; at which point I was intensely exposed to Charismatic Christianity1. At approximately age 14, I was baptized in the Holy Spirit2, and voluntarily attended church regularly until approximately age 18, shortly before moving out of my parents' house. Christianity played a predominant role through most of my teen years and virtually all of my social activities centered around our church and the friends I made there.

Fast forward 10 years; I'm making the monotonous commute, alone between San Diego and Tucson, conflicted about the disparity between my chosen spiritual path (or lack thereof) and that of my family's. Suffice it to say, my current social situation presents little to no opportunity for discussions on the topics of religion or spirituality, but I guess that's what I get for hanging out with a bunch of young, Computer Scientists; not that I'm all too excited to broach those topics myself.

My current approach to religion and the spiritual hows and whys of life is much the same as my approach to all conundrums; logical reasoning. Let's start with the basics; how did I get here? As a scientist, I find the perfect symmetry present in all aspects of the natural world to be far too large a coincidence for a divine-less explanation. I do believe in the element of a single, divine Creator that authored us and the world we know.

Having established that belief, now the difficult part and the question that has likely claimed more lives throughout history than any other; which one? If I were THE God, how would I go about establishing my presence to humans? Humans are inherently skeptical so I'd probably perform feats before their eyes that they knew as impossible. Miracles such as raising people from the dead, walking on water, instantly multiplying finite materials, etc. And who is historically and repeatedly recorded as performing these feats? None other than Jesus Christ.

In spite of the loose translations and and cultural influences prevalent within most historical writings, the similarity and quantity of recorded miraculous events performed by Jesus Christ leads me to intuitively believe there is some truth to the recounts. And since I believe Jesus Christ did, in fact, perform those acts that I know to be impossible, then I believe Him when He says He's the Son of God. Because again, I'm a student of reason and if someone else were to appear today and do the things that Jesus Christ is recorded as doing right before my eyes, I wouldn't hesitate to jump on their bandwagon, too.

Alright, so at this point, I would consider myself a Christian insofar as I believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God and died for our sins on the cross. However, there are elements of popular Christianity that I do not believe were originally intended by Jesus and that I do not readily agree with. For example, the widely accepted Christian belief that the entire Holy Bible (and all its translations) are the black and white moral law to be obeyed and followed in its entirety, word-for-word. Rather, I approach the Holy Bible as exactly what it is; a historical document recounting the life, teachings, and death of Jesus Christ, written by authors with varying degrees of cultural influence and suffering countless loose translations.

The Bible is a remarkable document and highly useful for gaining insight into the life, purpose, and beliefs of Jesus Christ. But it's also chock full of the authors' personal opinions and culturally accepted norms. It is inherently counterintuitive to believe that a document comprised of human selected authors with human written, edited, and translated words could reach us today in a purely divine form.

That is not to say the Bible is not a worthwhile reading because I believe it's absolutely a worthwhile undertaking for anyone, whether it's to better understand Jesus Christ as one's Lord or for evaluative purposes in one's own search for their personal beliefs. That said, I also believe the literature should be consumed in a proactive format, weighing its content against cultural, gender, and individual preferences of the time. The Bible, in my opinion, is not a step-by-step instructional guide for life, but rather an overall, big-picture concept of what it means to live the life Jesus prefers, but ultimately the best source for those instructions is Jesus Christ Himself.

There are many who will label me as a 'lukewarm' Christian or any other of a number of catch-phrases distributed amongst the congregation(s) because of my opinions, and so be it. There are 2 primary criticisms I have of Christianity as a whole; its adoption of a number of beliefs and traditions that have no basis for origination with Jesus Christ Himself and an immediate and harsh judgment of all those not participating within the Christians' vein of spirituality.

I believe Jesus is and was a remarkable human being who behaved very differently than many of those who claim to fashion themselves after His likeness. I believe He was inherently empathetic and quite logical and that He inspired people by His example, not His criticism. Much of His original intention has, in my opinion, has been lost in the Christian masses and Christians of all kinds should step back and evaluate everything they believe to be Christ in origin.

1 Charismatic Christianity is often characterized by highly unorthodox activities such as church services containing loud, highly boisterous musical praise performances complete with church members dancing in the aisles and speaking in tongues. These activities are done at the influence of the Holy Spirit2.

2 The Holy Spirit, one third of the Holy Trinity (God and Jesus being the other 2), is said to be the spiritual incarnate of God, while Jesus is God's physical incarnate. God cannot, himself, directly interact with humans due to his benevolence since his mere presence would likely kill us, so he uses the forms of Jesus and the Holy Spirit to have direct contact with humankind.