Becoming a Christian Takes Work. ( Criticism of "Intellectual" Atheists and Others)

Staying atheist is certainly the more convenient option, if you are lazy. And let's face the facts, most people who live in the West and don't have faith in Christ are definitively lazy.

You have access to more knowledge in a day, without leaving the chair you're sitting at right now, than most people prior to the printing press had access to in their entire lives. A daily newspaper nowadays would be a month's worth of word-of-mouth overheard from travelers as they passed through your town.

The amount of time it took to copy a book just once was the amount of time it took for a person to gather together enough blank pages, ink, not to mention also a copy of the book, and then for him to rewrite every word on the blank pages, before binding the book and starting anew. Knowledge spread very slowly in a horizontal fashion (from one person to contemporaries, people alive at the same time), and knowledge spread through tradition, from parents to children (vertically) was much more effective. Consequently, a person's ideas could take a century or more to catch on, and they'd never live to see the effect of their work. But now history has come to a remarkable place.

We can access anything that anyone anywhere has found out about the past or found written in the past, so long as it has been transcribed or photocopied onto the Internet -- which is to say, any computer or database connected to the Internet information highway, so that anyone else can access the information as long as they are also connected.

And despite all this, the vast majority of people REFUSE to use the Internet to learn anything important!

You there, o atheist. You who have the knowledge of all the world's history at your fingertips, day in and day out, do you go looking for information that confirms and points to the Bible being true and its admonitions having the force of an ultimate Lawgiver behind them? Do you try to prove the Bible and do you go looking for evidence to utterly convince you that Jesus Christ is God, you are a man of sin, you need to repent, and you deserve His judgment but are utterly at the mercy of His unmerited favor in order to escape?

You can't make this claim. And I know from experience (the other benefit of the Internet is that it allows you to sample large amounts of people at a time to see how they think and consider their personal testimonies) that most people who are atheists are not so from being scholarly, studious and disciplined. They took the first lame reason to reject faith they could find, and clung to it, and now they're monstrously irrational and as a consequence of choosing not to think, CAN NOT think.

Treatise: Confessions of a Smart Guy

Originally posted in late December 2012 in Journal Green. Names have been changed.

In Journal 8 earlier, I was writing about how I mistakenly overestimate people’s capacity to understand me (and in many cases in online arguments, the ability to think clearly and reason logically). I’m averse to thinking about this, because I realize I’ll have a tendency to be dismissive and “look down on” their intelligence. This is rather arrogant, since I’d be acting as if I’m so much smarter and wiser and more knowledgeable. But then, experience has repeatedly proven to me that I AM smarter than most people I encounter, and this makes things confusing for me. In theory, I realize acknowledging that you’re smarter or wiser than someone else/others isn’t inherently arrogant or presumptuous, if it happens to be true. So the danger then is in thinking highly of oneself for being smart. If I want to tell myself that I’m more intelligent than the vast majority of people out there, in order to make sense of reality (mind you), then I must do this in such a way that I do not think of myself as being better than others because of it. Pan out for a bit and consider that this is difficult or impossible to do if you don’t believe in God. If your universe is naturalistic and materialistic, what is your standard for determining if something is ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ or if one thing is ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than another? Your estimate of worth would likely be pragmatic or merit-based. Without God, if you are smarter than someone else, then clearly you are better than they are, at least in that one sense! This kind of reasoning is inevitable when you pay no heed to the Cross and what it means—in this context, what it means about human goodness and the question of what makes one thing ‘better’ than another.

Consider briefly some evidence to confirm my reasoning here. Men without the Spirit—or men denying the Spirit’s power—will inevitably reveal that they think they are better than you (if not you per se, then at least someone). Christlessness is arrogance, because the fruit of the Spirit is humility [note: I checked and this one is not directly mentioned by name in the Galatians 5 passage, but it certainly wouldn’t be inconsistent]. Atheist Libertarian Guy thinks he’s better than me because he has more money—was born into more privilege. Grumpy Old Man thinks he’s better than me because of his age and life experience (and strangeliest, his daughter’s accomplishments). Depraved Greek Orthodox Guy thinks he’s better than me because of his academic accomplishments and (supposed) intelligence (Grumpy also boasts of his two Master’s Degrees). These are the more obvious blokes of which I have recent memory. I posit that their desire to assert themselves as being better than me has its foundation in their lacking theological views. Both Grumpy and Depraved would claim to be christians, but assuredly believe in a works-based soteriology. Libertarian Jerk, not having the luxury of pretending to belong to the Church, naturally has only the works-based option open to him. But the Cross says that there are none who do good—none, then, who are good. We are all in the same bucket, believers and unbelievers alike. God the Father looks down from heaven and sees two kinds of people: bad people, and Jesus. That’s it! Being a Christian does not mean nor make (by definition) you a better person. It means you are better off.

Likewise, then, I can take this knowledge and apply it to my intellect. See, I only have this wonderful ability to think the way I do by the Grace of God. My intelligence is a gift from my Father. And salvation is also a gift from God. You can’t earn a gift, and receiving a gift is not because you’re better than those who did not receive it. A gift reflects on the character of the giver, not the recipient. And so, if all the things I have, salvation included, are free gifts from God, then in the same vein as of salvation, none of these gifts are an avenue for me to brag. They are not for me to think highly of myself, but of God. They are not occasion for me to boast, or to make my name great. What God has given, God can take away.

Phreniology: Theory of the Mind-Brain Interaction

I've had an idea that the body is a machine, the brain is the computer that controls it and runs subprograms, and the mind is the "user" component that "operates" the brain-body system to get the living human being to perform the actions desired by the operator. As an allegory for how our bodies, corporeal and incorporeal, actually work together. I was interested when I picked up a magazine from the leisure-reading rack at the YMCA and read this:

Credit for the information: National Geographic Magazine, February 2014 edition.

"Caltech and UCLA scientists use pictures of celebrities to study how the brain processes what the eyes see. In 2005 they found an individual nerve cell that fired only when subjects were shown pictures of Jennifer Aniston. Another neuron responded only to pictures of Halle Berry—even when she was masked as Catwoman. Follow-up studies suggest that relatively few neurons are involved in representing any given person, place, or concept, making the brain staggeringly efficient at storing information."

I fired off a text to my college friends telling them what I thought:

This is interesting, and seems to confirm my phreniology theory (+10pts for using big words!) that the brain is not the thing that stores memories--the mind(the spirit/soul) is--it is merely the biological machine that allows our complete human form to have access to our spiritual-identity-associated-memories for the purpose of conscious, mind-and-brain thought processing of these memories. How's that sound?

If the brain itself doesn't store memories, then the one-neuron recognition finding would be consistent with this: the memories associated with identifying and recognizing Jennifer Aniston as a singular individual need only be accessed by a single neuron "tagged" as the gateway for the brain to interact with the mind's memories. The rest of the brain's activity, beyond this one neuron, makes up the biological "processing" of this connection, that allows you to consciously realize that you're looking at Jennifer Aniston.

Side thought: In other words, every individual you can recognize is represented by one neuron. So, it seems likely, is any given place, any given major event in your past experience, and any given major concept that you understand or believe in. They are like locked gates that your brain holds the key to; it opens each gate when prompted, and proceeds to open up related thoughts through that particular memory-jogging avenue. (Your mind-brain therefore has an almost infinite capacity for remembering things, since you have hundred billions of neurons. It would seem necessary, if we're going to live forever, and remember a near infinite amount of things, wouldn't it?) Have you ever found that, for example when remembering song lyrics, you can only remember some things if you first "go through" the associated stored memories that come before it, in a sequence? I've heard the old poets of old held a remarkable amount of history in oral tradition, and perhaps this is how.

This makes further sense when it comes to mentally impaired or brain-damaged individuals. Their brain-mind connection is hampered because the brain is damaged. The brain therefore can't interact with the mind properly, and conscious thought is hamstrung and takes place less efficiently. Even more interestingly, this can explain why seemingly smart people can make such mind-numbingly (points for relevant adjective!) idiotic decisions and go from reasonable starting points to impossibly bizarre and false conclusions. In this case, their brain isn't damaged, but their mind is. The Bible says that those who rebel against God and do not have the Holy Spirit in them have a 'natural mind' and a 'seared conscience.' (1 Timothy 4:2, 1 Corinthians 2:14) My understanding of this is that unbelief literally makes you unintelligent, and perhaps that's because the mind fails to interact with the brain properly--it's the reverse of the previously discussed circumstance, except in this case it's your fault for it. Romans 1:21-22 further buttresses this notion, that prolonged and obstinate refusal to repent before God will literally make people stupid. The smart choice, in more than one way, it would seem, is to submit in faith to Christ.

If my phreniology theory is right, then an interesting conclusion results: you don't actually lose your memories. You may forget them, but you've merely lost access to them. You'll be able to access them once more in the eternal state, when your whole human form--mind and body--is repaired to full capacity. Unless, that is, you never submit your carnal mind to Christ.

~ Rak Chazak

Further reading:
http://www.gotquestions.org/seared-conscience.html
http://biblehub.com/1_corinthians/2-14.htm

Journal Entry: Thoughts About Being Bad At Keeping Track of Time and Numbers

I keep a typed Journal on my computer, and I've been keeping track of a few countdowns and "countups," such as the number of days since my birthday, and one of these countdowns is until a particularly unusual astronomical phenomenon, which I'll address in a future post (take note, if you google it, I am not of the opinion that it's a date that predicts the Rapture or Second Coming--the latter would be impossible, anyway, because we would be in the midst of the Tribulation, and that's patently not the case). Here's what I wrestled with one day.

Monday, July 8

Countdown 2 is numbering the days remaining until September 23^rd, 2014. But I’ve been notoriously bad at keeping countdowns before, or countups for that matter, if you look at my [previous Journal] entries where I was trying to keep track of how many of the 180 days in the school year had passed. I was off by double digits by the end. So these counts I have are partly an experiment to see if I can keep track of time accurately and consistently.  I’m going to attempt to lay out my reasoning below so that it’ll be possible to check my process at some point in the future.

Okay, here’s my check on Countdown 2: Apparently I’ve been counting down to September 13. Here’s what I did. I counted the rest of the days in July, not including the 8^th, and all the days in August. Then I counted 22 days in September, thus not including the 23^rd. That gives me 23, 31 and 22, respectively, which add up to 76. The days from July 9^th through next July 8^th, inclusive, are 365 days, and so for the next year (2016 is the next leap year). The total of all this comes to 806. Subtracting 10 days gives 796 days until September 13, not inclusive. So even with meticulous attention, I can still have an error of one or two days after only a little more than a half year, as you can see. This irks me. I should note that the counts on the back inside folder page of (Volume 10) were done prior to the recount I’m doing right now. This way, anyone reading after can adjust for my errors. It would make so much more sense to me if the number I had was higher than the one I just got, because then I could justify it by saying that I was counting inclusively with either today’s date or the final date. But alas, the error is the opposite, and so I can’t find any other conclusion than that I have made a counting error at some point when I wasn’t going day-by-day. How frustrating! For a guy who isn’t stupid, to be this poor with numbers, it’s immensely irritating to consistently make mistakes of the simplest sort – forgetting a number here or there, or a minus sign, or misplacing a decimal. This is the ironic reason why I was bad at calculus. Not because the logic was difficult, but because I would make minute numerical errors that would completely throw off the answer, and it would be impossible to find out where the mistake was without a monumental waste of time that wasn’t guaranteed to even be fruitful. Logic isn’t hard for me to keep track off, it’s the quantifying of things that aren’t distinguishable (one ‘3’ is the same as any other ‘3’). I’m not the sort of person who can discover a new mathematical equation, or program a computer. I have a certain level of respect for those who can and do, although I’m reserved, because I recognize that they’re not fundamentally more intelligent than me (some are, quite a few, however, are not), just as I am not fundamentally more intelligent than someone whose expertise lies in law or economics whereas mine is in the life sciences – the thing to be aware of is that our brains work differently, and our minds think differently. Some people’s ‘way’ of thinking is simply better suited for highly numerical things, like accounting, cyber security, or teaching hyper-advanced Calculus to PhD candidates. Then there are those who are good with people, not numbers, and still others whose mindset (meant here in the same way as the word “skill-set”) makes them better able to be self-sufficient than others. There is a certain level of intelligence possessed by those who can build their own house, repair their own cars, farm their own land and hunt their own food, that is far too often overlooked by those who have been blessed by those who do these things for us, allowing our minds to think about things beyond what’s necessary to secure our immediate survival. My exasperating failure to keep track of numbers without an aid is a small blessing to me that reminds me to be humble in how I view myself, and to be appreciative and respectful of others who do the things that I can’t. My understanding of how intelligence works, moreover, prevents me from being overmuch impressed with someone’s performance to the point of being blinded to their fallibility as a human being. Just because someone’s an accountant, doesn’t mean he knows how to best improve the economy. Just because someone’s a psychiatrist, doesn’t mean they know how to talk to people. Just because someone’s a neuroseurgon, doesn’t mean he can tell you whether mind is all brain or if there’s a soul. Just because someone’s a biologist, doesn’t mean he can tell you how life begins. Just because someone’s smart, in other words, doesn’t mean that their knowledge is real knowledge, or that they can apply what they know wisely. Even smart people can make dumb decisions. So my wisdom to you is to be wary. No one can require you to listen to them as if they have a handle on the truth themselves, because no matter how much they know or think they know, there is ALWAYS someone better than them. Someone who knows more, and who can think about the same things without making mistakes. My voyage of thought has taught me this much.  

After posting this, now that I'm connected to the internet, I checked with a google search and found that my original end-date of September 13 was in fact the partial solar eclipse I was thinking of. I confused it with the final total lunar eclipse of that year, which is the 23rd. Alas, this serves to demonstrate why I lose track of dates so easily. But at least now I have the time remaining until both, accurate to the day. :P

~ Rak Chazak