Faith • Life • Civics

The Christian Faith, holistic life, and politics. These three themes have increasingly become part of my life over the past five years. To me, their importance go in that order, each one flowing from the preceding. My recent interest in politics over the past four years has come from a desire to live a full life. If I want to do that, how can I neglect being informed about and involved in politics? (Admittedly, I've gotten a little carried away.)

I have chosen to focus my blog on these three themes, because I believe that they are important for everyone. I consider religion to be your beliefs (narrative/worldview or whatever term you choose to use) and your moral code and practices. Even if you are an atheist, or "not religious", have system like this that you live by. After religion comes holistic life. I believe that there are many "areas" of life, including religion (as previously defined), intellect, health, social, occupational, and more. One may be better in some areas than in others, but we shouldn't neglect one area because we are week in that one area.

Politics exists in two of the aforementioned areas: intellect, as you must have an understanding of the issues, and occupation, as you often must get involved. It is also influenced by religion, since your worldview and moral beliefs will effect your political ones. Now my religious views don't call for me to use political power to foist my faith on you. In fact, quite the opposite. However, as I've said before, I believe that there are certain self-evident moral laws which most of us can agree on and build our laws on. For instance, most of us can agree that murder and theft are wrong.

Therefore, these three topics, in my mind, encompass everything. These three themes are what I eat, sleep, and breathe. So it would only make sense for me to write a blog revolving around them.

My story

I was raised in the midst of Christianity. I was first Catholic, before switching to a non-denominational evangelical church. However, from a very early age, I suffered from deep existential and epistemological doubts. How could I know anything for certain, let alone the existence of an invisible God.

This doubt followed me until I was 18 or 19, when I took an apologetics and critical thinking class.

The teacher of the class, Keith, is a Christian apologist who hosts a radio show and podcast. I was familiar with apologetics, and very interested in the topic, but critical thinking principles helped me to look at it in a different way. The course helped me to realize that I can know certain truths for certain, and that I can be certain of God's existence.

Being certain of what you believe has a way of igniting your passion for it. Long after the critical thinking class, Keith began to mentor me one-on-one. We met up once a week for the entire summer, and talked about literally everything. One of our recurring themes, however, was the holistic life; particularly how the Christian faith applies to each area of life.

I don't know where my interest in holistic life started, but it continues to grow. I had an interest in a number of both real and fictional polymaths (or Renaissance men) like Leonardo Divinci, Bruce Wayne, and President James A Garfield (who became my favorite president after reading his biography my senior year of high school). I adopted my model of the six areas of life (spiritual, intellectual, physical, social, occupational, and financial) from Dave Ramsey and Zig Ziglar. Every year I've been setting more and more goals in these areas. There is always a sense of self-gratification when you make a change that betters your life. My goals for this current year include reading the whole Bible, reading a number of fiction and non-fiction books, learning one song on an instrument, writing these blogs, and ceasing my task-orientedness every so often to invest time in others.

During these meetings with Keith, I became convinced of the need to be an informed voter. I always liked controversy, but understood little about politics. It was at this time that I came to identify as a conservative (rather than a moderate or libertarian). After that, I have spent more and more time over the years learning more about politics from different perspectives. I wanted to share the things that I was learning, which is one of the reasons I started this blog. I also want to use this to share some of my thoughts on Christianity and holistic life, since I believe all three themes are connected.

Your Thoughts

So what do you think? Tweet at me @frank_perseo or comment on the Frank Talks Facebook page. Are these themes important in your life as well? If not, do you want them to be? Are you interested in reading more about these themes? What do you think of the definition I presented for "religion"? Do you think we talk about politics too much here on Frank Talks, or not enough?

Biblical veracity

In apologetics, one issue has always been interesting to me: Biblical veracity. (How do we know that the Bible is true?) Four years ago I was introduced to the cosmological argument, which really simplified and solidified my confidence in God's existence. Still, I couldn't figure out: why the Bible? Why do Christians cling to it? Is it reasonable to treat the Bible as authoritative in all areas of life? Where does this book come from? Why should anyone believe it? I don't have all the answers. In fact, I would like to study apologetics in graduate school, and focus specifically on this issue. But before I do that, let me share some things I have already learned on the subject.

This post only covers the premise for my argument of biblical veracity, and a few sources to help you along on your own research.

Paradigms

You could also use the word narrative, or worldview. These are different terms, but for the purpose of this discussion they can be interchangeable. We all have a paradigm through which we view the world. You can deny religion, by saying that you are an atheist (or just non-religious or whatever), but everyone has a paradigm through which they view the world. Atheists may tend to adopt a purely empirical (naturalistic) paradigm which denies anything supernatural... and they may also chose a side of an objective ethical theory to go with that (like deontology or utilitarianism).

Now although our paradigms are embedded into our very psyche, let’s pretend that you were to detach from it and (possibly) choose a new one. There are at least two things that your paradigm should be. First, the paradigm should be logically coherent within itself. Now, I think that we are fallible humans, so there may always be incoherencies in our personal reasoning, but we should seek to have paradigms which are as coherent as possible. Any religion or paradigm will have questions or problems to solve. Secondly, we want to find the paradigm which best matches the evidence. It can't just look good in theory, it must match the way things actually are in reality.

My Premise

Now, of course, I would argue that the Christian paradigm is the one that fits this criteria. Of course it would take me years of study to get a grasp on the subject, and an entire book to explain it sufficiently. Hopefully, I will be able to do that another day. I also do not have enough time (or expertise) to write on the origins of the Christian Bible.

Aren’t there contradictions?

Theologians have studied the Bible for centuries to form a paradigm from its texts. You may object "what about all the contradictions in the Bible? Don't they make biblical Christianity an incoherent paradigm?" Well, historians and theologians and other thinkers have found explanations for many of these apparent contradictions. If you search for it, you can probably find plausible answers to virtually all of your questions.

Furthermore, as with life, there are paradoxes: phenomenon that seem to be a contradiction (like light being both a wave and a particle) but are not. These apparent contradictions are only signs of our limited understanding. No matter what you believe (atheism, Christianity, Islam) none of us has it all figured out. We are all still learning.

In Closing

So that is the premise for my argument: the paradigm set forth by the Bible (when interpreted correctly) is the paradigm which best matches reality. Keep your eyes open for my book, which maybe I'll release in the next ten years on the origins of the Scriptures, and my arguments for their veracity.

Further Research

In the meantime I would recommend Me, The Professor, Fuzzy, and The Meaning of Life and Evidence that Demands a Verdict. The first is written as a comic book, targeted to a younger audience, and gives two solid syllogistic arguments: one for the existence of God, and one for the Christian religion. The second book is much more deep, but it talks about the origin of the Scriptures and evidence for the Christian faith.

My Story

 I wanted to write a blog post to talk a little bit about myself. Particularly I want to give a brief life story, in a way that relates to the forming of my ideologies. Everyone has their beliefs and biases, so we should stop acting like we don't. Our beliefs are shaped by our life events: either things we learned from parents, teachers, friends, research we did (and how well/poorly we conducted our research). We should be up front about our views and biases, and how we came to these conclusions.

One of the most important things in my blogs is wisdom: knowledge gained from experience. I want to obtain wisdom, and use my writing to spread wisdom, in all areas of life, but especially in religion and politics. I want to use this blog to infuse the wisdom of past generations, into the youthful vigor of my own generation. It is the young people who shape the world, the future, but too often we do so without learning from the experiences of generations past, and we plunge headlong into disaster.

I was raised Catholic, until I was 12 years old. My political influences? I was the son of two Democrats, living in a blue state. Even as a kid, I always wanted to be wise. I didn't want to make mistakes, I would much rather learn from the mistakes of others. I was a cautious kid, analytical (still am), always seeking to avoid mistakes. Kids, naturally, make mistakes and do stupid things. I did too, sometimes, but I deeply desired to be right, to do right, and to find the truth.

Children are believers, they believe wholeheartedly whatever we tell them, so it is important to tell them the truth. I was raised Catholic, so I never questioned the existence of God. That is until I was about ten years old, after I found the truth about Santa Claus. That event introduced doubt in me that followed me for the next 10 years. I still believed in God, mind you, but I always had a nagging doubt. I became a skeptical theist. I say this to prebuttal the genetic fallacy argument that I only arrived at my current ideology because I was raised into it. I have done a significant amount of reflection and research on what I believe. Not to say that I know everything, but I am not simply parroting what I was spoon-fed.

There is always an emotional element in what we believe. Many kids leave their faith because they feel hurt by their parents or simply want to rebel. Many take up political ideologies because they feel good. I don't want to say that I am immune to this, but I want to reflect deeply on what I believe and be open to critical analysis from myself and others.

When I was about 11 or 12 my dad, a very devout Catholic, began asking questions. When the priest didn't havd the answers he was looking for, my dad brought my whole family to an evangelical non-denominational church. It was here that our family became Christians (born-again), when I was twelve years old. This is probably one of the most significant and foundational paradigm shifts in my life. (The shift being in my soteriology: my view of redemption).

My faith waivered a lot over the next six years. In the back of my mind (not on any conscious level) I constantly dealt with this nagging doubt: what if it turns out that God is just like Santa Claus? Ok, well it wouldn't be exactly the same, obviously. My parents genuinely believed in God. How did I know that God wasn't also some elaborate hoax? I simply resolved that you could never know for certain.

In politics, my social views can be traced all the way back to my upbringing in the Catholic Church. They are not very different from what I was taught at my current church. Today, my socio-political views are slightly more complex then my childhood view. I openly admit that the philosophical foundation for my social and political view is in my religious views. However, I don't believe that you need to share my religious beliefs to share my political beliefs. You can come to the same conclusions by looking at the natural world that we share.

My economic views come from many small business owners that I have had the pleasure of knowing. I myself aspired (still do) to be self-employed, so I was attracted to the economic ideas which I felt would create a better climate for business. I think it was during this time that I became attracted to some form of libertarian ideology. In that time I had quite a few friends who were Ron Paul fans, so I thought I was too.

When I was 19, one of these small business owners (whom I was working for at the time) took me to town hall and registered me to vote. I really didn't know anything about politics at this point, only what I had been spoonfed (by both liberal and conservative sources). I wanted to pick one of the two major parties to register for, simply so that I could vote in their primaries. I knew that Democrats were liberal, and Republicans were conservatives. I didn't even know what 'liberal' and 'conservative' actually meant back then. So, I identified myself as a moderate, but registered as a Republican.

All through my life, one of my many mantras has been "balance between extremes". I used to always try to take the middle road. Hence, why I identified as a moderate. I still believe in this virtue of balance, however, I have found that often what seems like the "middle-road" position is simply a compromise of the truth.

In January of the next year, I was in a critical thinking course hosted at our church. The course became a launching pad for a Christian apologetics course. This course planted seeds in my mind that still continue to effect the way I think. Learning about critical thinking, epistomology, and getting back into apologetics, restored my rational confidence in God. I was very impressed particularly with the Cosmological Argument for God. Also learning more about epistemology taught me how we can know things with reasonable confidence, and not lapse into solipsism or agnosticism.

That summer, the teacher of the critical thinking class began to mentor me. We talked talked a lot that summer about Christianity, apologetics, philosophy, and simply life in general. It was also through these meetings that I came to identify myself as a conservative, rather than a moderate or libertarian. Before, I thought that conservative meant traditionalist. I didn't want to be a traditionalist, so I didn't identify as a conservative. Now I would frame the word a bit differently. To put it simply: conservatives support a strict interpretation of the Constitution, to limit the powers of government. No one is above the Law, not even the government.

I then spent two years at a Bible college in Upstate New York. I spent two semesters at community college, and now I'm finishing my degree at an online Christian college. For the past year and a half, I have spent my time checking out other views and testing them against my own views. I want to use this blog to share my own views, and maybe even hear some of your own.

Once again, I'm not without my biases, but hopefully I've exposes my biases and influences here, and laid them all bare.  

Movies- Woodlawn

My preliminary thoughts after watching Woodlawn

Now I don't watch a lot of sports movies. I was reluctant to see this one. Many Christians have been accustomed to so-called "Christian films" having terrible quality. I went and saw this movie because the producers are my fellow alumni. I never even watched the trailer (which is rare for me, because I watch trailers for everything).

I am so used to cringing frequently in "Christian film", but ten minutes into the movie I realized that I hadn't cringed once. In fact, it was an interesting movie, which I had become engaged in. I didn't understand everything that was happening at first, but I think that was a personal problem because I can't always hear movies well.

I don't watch football too often, but I enjoy the full-contact action when I do. Football movies are great for that, because they cut out all the boring stuff from the games. However, this movie captivated my interest before the first game, with a compelling story of a city torn by racism and social revolution. This aspect interested me more, as the civil rights movement has been of interest to me lately. The movie also touches a bit on the Jesus Revolution, but only in passing.

If you are not religious, this movie could still be for you, as it is not overtly religious (in my opinion). Certainly not down your throat. It presents the Christian message in a way that is respectful to believers and non-believers alike, and then the rest simply shows how that message applies to the issue of racial healing.

I loved the portrayal of the time and location: certainly not perfect by any means, as Birmingham in 1973 was torn by racial divide. On the other hand, I love southern culture. So many things about it, including their hospitality. Growing up, all of our vacations were in the South, and it was nice to visit again for just two hours. And darn-it, I loved the choice of Seventies music. I still have "Spirit in the Sky" stuck in my head. 

Some critics have stated that the film was a bit formulaic, and too close to Remember the Titans. This could possibly be true, but I wouldn't know, as I don't watch many underdog sports films. I still found it to be a compelling story on it's own. There are many inspiring stories to tell about overcoming racism in the South, and we ought to tell as many as we can. We must remember our country's history, or we will be doomed to repeat it.

Also, after reading this review I would like to respond to a few things. No, I don't believe that Christianity is a "persecuted minority". Yes, a majority of the world identify as Christians. However, there are many flavors of Christianity, and even false Christians. It is not my purpose in this post to talk about what makes someone a genuine Christian, but I will say that the more evangelical, conservative, or fundamental a Christian is the more likely they are to be ridiculed.

The above article ends with "if you only respect the beliefs of other people who believe in the divinity of Jesus, what kind of respect is that?" The movie never disrespects another religion (to my memory). Respect does not mean that I must agree with you and accept what you believe.


But enough of my talking. I encourage you to go see it and form your own opinion. For those of you who have seen it, please tell me what you thought in the comments below.