The name of Jesus pops up here and there around this site. I make no effort to hide my desire to primarily work with churches and Christian organizations. Why? Isn't this the twenty-first century now? Aren't we past the two thousand year old morality blitz of some crazy Jewish carpenter who had delusions of divinity? There are all kinds of objections to Christianity. There are those who view it only as some sort of mass psychological hallucination, or an easily explained (and therefore easily dismissed) sociological phenomenon. There are those who despise imposition of a "divine" moral law. There are many who reject any theory of reality that includes anything other that natural, scientifically definable matter and energy. There are those who assert that belief in God is backward, primitive, and holds us back from the freedom of actualization. Many object to the exclusive claims of Christianity. However I don't want you to scroll down 8,000 pixels of screen space or click through 20 pages of apologetics.
To sum up why I believe in Jesus, it's simply that it's logical. Given the other choices, Islam, Hinduism, "Spirituality", Scientific Naturalism, Hedonism, Humanism, Nihilism, Liberalism, Republicanism, etc., the Christian world view makes the most sense, most accurately describes the human condition, and gives the most effective solution to the problems we all face in our personal lives, and as a race.
First, its far more logical to believe in the existence of a God than to believe in no God at all. The evidence is compelling that the universe as we know it, and especially that life could not come about without something with incredible intelligence intervening. Existence itself demands a first cause, something utterly self existent that begins the chain of bringing all other things into being.
Many religions, humanism, animism, paganism, Hinduism, materialism, ect. are naturalistic. Their answer to the question, "What came first?" is nature. Its actually interesting how similar the ancient religions of the Greeks and Mesopotamians are to contemporary scientific naturalism. Nowadays instead of the primordial chaos forming into beings with names like Uranus, Terra, and Chronos, we say that the primordial chaos of the big bang formed itself into Space, Matter, and Time (which incidentally are english translations of Uranus, Terra, and Chronos). Though populated by varieties of "gods" polytheistic religions are really just anthropomorphic renditions of forces of nature. The problem with worshiping nature, though, is that humans become nothing more than animals. When we humans think of ourselves this way we begin to act like animals. We kill each other for food, fight wars over territory, kill each other's children to assert mating rights, and so on.
But human's have this unique conscience, this unique, common understanding that this type of behavior is more than just self destructive, it's WRONG. And we react this way not just to obvious acts of intentional evil, we agonize over natural disasters, diseases and other pain that have little relation to human behavior. One of the chief objections to belief in God is this oft played card, "If God is really good and really, how come there's so much pain and suffering in the world? Why doesn't he stop it?"
This is one of the other main reasons I believe in Christ. More than any other religion's world view, any other philosophy, Christianity answers the problem of evil. Evil is the consequence of rejecting God. Evil is the consequence of rejecting the way our creator designed us to live. When you abuse your lungs to get a nicotine high, you'd better anticipate lung failure, cancer, and emphysema. When you abuse your sexuality, you'd better anticipate problems like STDs and associated genital cancers, anorexia and other symptoms of the objectification of women, abortion and all the side effects of devaluing human life, breast cancer, and infertility, social problems springing from increasing numbers of children in broken or abusive homes. When we try to play God because we think we know enough about biochemistry or physics, you had better anticipate advances like TNT, nuclear bombs, biological weapons, or even the more mild ethical conundrums we face with cloning, genetic engineering, and the like.
And Christianity offers the best solution to that problem. All other philosophies, religions, and world views offer the answer to the problem with human effort, piety, political obedience, discipline, meditation, right thinking, etc. Jesus is the solution to the problem. The solution to our rejection of God and his ways is unsolvable by people who continue to reject God's godhood and his right (responsibility, even) to tell us what to do. The only way to bridge the gap our rebellion tears between us and God is for God Himself to bridge it. That's just what Jesus is: God's bridge across our rejection of Him. Suddenly the evil that we face in the world becomes a tool God can use to make us stronger, more mature, more like Him. All our efforts, the things we tried to do to earn God's love, become instead responses to the love He's already shown us.
That's the short version, why I believe in Jesus. He's the best answer to my questions about Life, the Universe, and Everything.
If you'd like to get to know more about Jesus and how he can answer your burning questions, you can e-mail me.
If you want to express your objections, disputes, and other problems you may have with this statement, and otherwise like to open a debate about the topic of God you can also e-mail me. The address is liljenborg@liljenborg.com.
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