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.