Awakening to Reason & Rejecting Blind Faith – How I benefited from engaging the Flat Earth issue

[Conspiracy theories are like potato chips, it’s hard to eat just one]

INTRODUCTION

I will express some preliminary thoughts. Then explain how the flat earth movement led me to take a firm stand that the Bible is not the Word of God, but instead the word of man. And finally, I provide further elaboration and reflection on the religious and philosophical ideas expressed, the first part being where I encourage people as individuals to develop their own unique life operating systems (worldviews) and stick by them as best they can and carefully modify them as they learn more with time, but to be especially careful not to get swept away by the many snake oil salesmen of our day.

PRELIMINARY THOUGHTS

It has taken me a lifetime to get out from under the control and influence that evangelical Christianity had over me having been raised in it and intensifying my practice of it subsequent to that. But I feel like I am finally unraveling aspects of it in the last year or so (2017-2018) especially. At this point in my life I consider myself a Christian Universalist but also a religious pluralist. I no longer consider the Bible the Word of God, but instead the word of man. Much (but not all) of Christian theology takes the Bible (again word of man in my opinion) too literally and seriously to the point that you often end up with a concept of God that is over defined and self contradictory. Process theologian Dr. David Ray Griffin has written a book “God Exists But Gawd Does Not” where the term Gawd is used to differentiate the over defined concept of God from more reasonable, logical, and believable concepts of God, such as what process philosophy and theology suggests. With respect to those definitions, I could say that I am an atheist with respect to the Gawd concept of God. And this means that in many ways I feel I have more in common with the critical thinking atheists than I do with mainstream evangelical Christians. I also no longer feel like I have to get hung up on having an answer for everything. The further back in time you go the more uncertainty there is in understanding what took place and how everything came to be as we find it today in our lives on the earth. This is true no matter what view you hold. No one can really prove their view to be true. But the views that include more miraculous all powerful acts of God tend to be less believable in my view, because if you really view God this way, then you can pretty much believe just about anything. If there is anything you cannot explain, you can always just say that God did it. This is why I now lean more towards the scientific views of the age of the Universe and Earth and Evolution, not thinking that this necessarily removes God from the picture, but that perhaps this was the way that God could do it and chose to do it. I would like to see and participate in dialog between atheists and theists for the much common ground that I believe will be found, and they can also help each other improve their respective positions. Some may change their views from one way or the other, and even back again and so forth any number of times. I was reminded of a book that I read some years ago after hearing the author give a talk on the subject at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Sunnyvale, “Bridging the God Gap, Finding Common Ground Among Believers, Atheists and Agnostics,” by Dr. Roger Christan Schriner. So I have just gotten another copy of his book and am starting to read it again. He also has a blog on the subject at https://theistsandatheists.wordpress.com/

MY AWAKENING TO REASON & STRONGER REJECTION OF BLIND FAITH THANKS TO FLAT EARTH MOVEMENT

A year or so ago (2017) some of the conspiracy stuff I was listening to and entertaining the ideas of on Youtube were from devout Christian types (of the very narrow minded exclusivist type who also usually believe in hell as eternal (never ending) conscious torment) and within this there were some espousing flat earth theories based in large part on their literal interpretation of the Bible. And once I started delving seriously into the flat earth stuff from the standpoint of scientific evidence, and realizing how wrong they were, it also pushed me in the direction of drawing the line more precisely on what I was willing to entertain from a religious faith standpoint from that point going forward.

So whereas in the past if one was of a devout religious faith (especially Christian as I can relate more to that based on my background) and also speaking truth about much conspiracy related stuff, I would tend to give them a free pass and a thumbs up on the religious stuff without too much thought. But now I have concluded that more often than not there are flaws in their religious thinking that is now a red flag to me. I am not saying these are bad people, and I am still honoring and respecting them for their views and goodness of heart that resonates with me. But I feel I need to speak out and enter the dialog on areas where I now think they need to be questioned and challenged.

There are multiple examples I could give, that is, different people and authors, but I was just reminded of one recently when one of his books came up on Amazon as I was browsing. So I will use him. Just understand I am not singling him out. I am just using him as an example. The author is Edward Hendrie. So I read quite a few of this guy’s conspiracy related books years ago and thought they were pretty good. But I have now seen how he came out with a book in 2016 advocating flat earth truth.

And he is not the only devout truth seeking Christian student of conspiracy theories who has come out strongly taking this stand in favor of the earth being flat. There are many more. So about a year ago when I really started seriously digging into the flat earth arguments and realizing their claims could be soundly refuted, and spherical earth theory could be pretty easily confirmed in a variety of ways with measurements and experiments that ordinary people could conduct, that’s when I just had to draw the line. But the flat earth stuff led me to tighten up my thinking in other ways that I had previously avoided taking a stand on.

So I have changed my mind and now I am firm in my conviction that sacred writings like the Bible and those of other faiths are the writings of man, possibly reflecting man’s thinking about how he sees himself and God, and on that basis possibly having some information of value. But when man comes to believe and maintain that the Bible (as an example) is the inerrant Word of God, then this can and has led to a lot of problems for the human race, in my view.

And I have found that there are many people who were once very religious even to the point of being scholars and religious leaders, and eventually they just could not accept the dogma of their belief systems anymore. From these have come many of the great scholars and critics of fundamentalist religion.

Some of these people call themselves or identify as atheists, some agnostics, and some as progressives or religious pluralists. Where I am now in my life I have a lot more in common in my beliefs and viewpoint with these people than I do with the majority of the Christians in the United States, the fundamentalist Christian Zionist types who are likely supporters of CUFI. But there is a relatively small fraction of fundamentalist Christian types who are also students of conspiracy theories, and a good portion of these may be wise to the Jewish Question so are not Zionists, but their exclusivist Christian faith and belief in much end times Bible prophecy still remaining to be fulfilled in the future, taints the soundness of many of their other views, in my opinion, so I really have to be careful listening to these people in deciding the validity of everything they say.

Another viewpoint I have heard from these fundamentalist Christian conspiracy types who believe in much Bible prophecy to be fulfilled in the future, is that they definitely view Islam as being an evil anti-God religion, and it figures prominently in their views of Bible prophecy. It is amazing to consider that there are fundamentalist Jews, Muslims, and Christians, who all have their own end times God given prophesies that they take to be literally true. I no longer consider any of this to be valid or worthy of serious consideration as actual true prophecy, except to recognize that there are many influential religious leaders and believers in this stuff and at least two if not all three of these religions mentioned have significant influence on the leadership of nations with nuclear weapons, and if that is not enough to scare the living shit out of you, I don’t know what is. It is a recipe for world destruction and disaster, self fulfilling prophecies.

But what I have come to view as the poison pill in much of Christianity, is the turn or burn gospel, the belief in hell as eternal conscious torment. The turn or burn gospel is a sort of trauma based mind control method for inducting people into the faith. Do a google image search on “god loves you but will torture you in hell.” There are a lot of good ones, but I like the one where there is this guy with a smile on his face and a white beard (God) who says, “Worship Me or I will torture you forever. Have a nice day. Love, God.” So I came under this system of “trauma based mind control” for most of my life, but am now, at age 62, finally becoming free of it, and for good, and for good (doubled intentionally for two senses of good).

So I have already been burned (pun not intended) by this. I will not allow myself to be burned by this same thing again. So if (for example) a devout Muslim told me that if I did not convert to Islam, that I would go to hell and be punished by God forever, I would tell them that I have already been through this with Christianity, so I won’t fall for this type of fear based manipulation again. I don’t believe in God’s never ending torture chamber any more.

So when I see students of conspiracy theories who also have strong exclusivist religious faiths, and they are speaking out about the evils of atheism etc., I really feel that they are misguided and are just being manipulated into unfairly demonizing others, many of whom could actually be of much common interests for the well being of humankind.

This does not mean that all atheists are good people. But you cannot say this about any group of people. For example, can you say that all Christians are good people? Of course not.

Are there any atheists for 9/11 truth and if so how many? Does anybody know the answers? Also, how many different flavors of atheism are there? How many different nuanced positions do atheists take?

In my view now, many atheists are simply expressing their rejection of the over defined Gawd they were deceived into believing in, or the concept of God that is so loudly promulgated from fundamentalist evangelical Christians and possibly other fundamentalist religions that I am less familiar with. I really believe very strongly that people need to be and should be true to themselves and others as much as they can. I realize this is not always easy, because the exclusivist belief systems shun and retaliate against those who decide to leave them. If a person who was a Christian or Muslim or Anything decides that they are now an atheist, they should be honored and respected for that, for their right to make up their own mind on this. It is often hard for atheists to come out of the closet. Did you realize that? Some continue to go to church or whatever just to keep their family and friends happy. As I am just now starting to re-read Dr. Schriner’s book, I see he quotes two old definitions of “atheist” from respected dictionaries. “A godless person; one who lives immorally as if disbelieving in God.” Webster’s New International Dictionary, Second Edition, Unabridged. “One who practically denies the existence of a God by disregard of moral obligation to him; a godless man.” Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition, Volume One

I have recently re-read the books by Dr. Darrel Ray, The God Virus, and Sex and God, and have found them very helpful to me. He has a very solid Christian background, education, and experience, and yet he identifies as an atheist now. To me he comes across as a deeply spiritual, caring, and loving human being. To me, the fact that he identifies as an atheist means about as much as someone telling me they use Linux as their computer operating system rather than Windows or MacOS.

FURTHER ELABORATIONS ON SOME OF THESE IDEAS

BEST TO DEVELOP YOUR OWN OPERATING SYSTEM FOR YOUR LIFE, WORLDVIEW, PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE

Regardless of how many organized religions, movements, philosophies, rules to live by, cultures, groups, etc. that there are, every individual is responsible for managing this for themselves. Some latch onto exclusivist narrow minded groups and let those groups do a lot of the thinking for them. I have done this myself a lot in the past, and I have learned from it so that I try to avoid this approach as much as I can in the remainder of my life. So I really think that people should develop their own rules for perceiving and analyzing information, perhaps even do this in writing from time to time, and try to stick to their own rules as best they can, so as to avoid letting themselves get carried away by those who seem to be very knowledgeable and offer a good sales pitch presentation of their views encouraging people to jump on their bandwagon.

THE BIBLE IS THE WORD OF MAN

Much of this I have already mentioned, but here it is expanded a little bit. I have come to a very significant change of thinking on something over the last year or so that will have a significant impact on how I approach and live the rest of my life. I no longer believe that the Bible is the Word of God, nor do I believe that there are any other holy writings or scriptures that are such. I believe that holy writings are the words of man, where man may be writing about his views about God, and man may even think that he is inspired by God and that God is speaking through him. But this is just man’s nature to pretend and exaggerate his own importance. And the ruling elite perhaps write these scriptures as a means of organizing those under them in some kind of a cohesive force, where the lower followers may actually believe that their leaders really are speaking for God. And since this seems to work so well, this is a part of how religions and movements work.

MYTHS HAVE A PLACE BUT NOT AS LITERAL TRUTH

I don’t see a problem with calling these things myths, like for example, the founding myths of a religion or culture. Like the creation myths of the Bible, Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, etc. The myths are not so much expressing literal truths but deeper truths. If you accept the myths as 100% literal truths you can end up getting something like common evangelical Christianity, which has a lot of absurdities and inconsistencies. And creative atheists have developed a lot of very pointed and hilarious (in my opinion) material just based on ridiculing and making fun of these views. Just do a Youtube search for “kissing hank’s arse” or “if man obeyed god” for a couple I discovered for the first time not too long ago. Be warned. Many will find these offensive. And yet they are both expressing very logical arguments making fun of fundamentalist religion. I found these to be hilarious. I almost died laughing on the second one. In fact I wrote a comment, “In the day that thou watcheth the forbidden youtube video, dying, thou shalt surely die of laughter.” And there is even an entire version of the Bible based on making fun of it, called The Skeptic’s Annotated Bible, which you can get online or in a very high quality leather bound print edition.

TYPICAL EVANGELICAL CHRISTIAN SALVATION THEORY

I was raised in and I once believed in the common Christian evangelical belief system where one must accept Jesus Christ as their sin bearing savior in this life in order to be saved from going to hell after one’s life on this earth is over, a place of never ending torment and suffering from which there is no possible escape, and even God himself could not get you out of hell. I no longer believe this. I have come to the conclusion that this is a deeply flawed belief system on many levels. Much can be said about this, and I have dealt with this in more detail in some of my other blog posts. Even though I was raised in fundamentalist Christianity, when I really went off the deep end and swallowed the whole thing hook line and sinker as a senior in high school in 1974 with a troubled life, the initial appeal was the idea that if you had accepted Jesus Christ as your savior as a little kid, and then later you got off on the wrong track into much sin and died suddenly, you would still go to heaven, and you might actually be surprised that you ended up in heaven. But the flip side of this evangelical Christian approach to salvation theory is that it seems to suggest that there will actually be a lot of good people going to hell. Have you ever heard of this one? It is quite common.

A UNIQUE EVANGELICAL CHRISTIAN SALVATION THEORY THOUGHT EXPERIMENT

WHAT IF A ZIONIST U.S. ISRAELI DUAL CITIZEN NEOCON 9/11 FALSE FLAG CONSPIRATOR GOT SAVED?

Let me illustrate with a unique example. Take any one or more of the many Zionist U.S. Israeli dual citizens in the highest echelons of U.S. power who were conspirators in the false flag attack of 9/11. Suppose one of these individuals got exposed to the gospel of Jesus Christ through the Jews for Jesus ministry and the Holy Spirit convicted them of their terrible sins related to the 9/11 false flag attacks and their need of a savior, so that they wept profusely in repentance of their sins and accepted Jesus Christ as their personal sin bearing savior. This individual would then have a guaranteed place in heaven. But suppose there were a simple Jewish grandmother who was faithful to God in the way that she was taught in her upbringing and strove to be as good a person as she could be and she never ever even thought of planning or executing a false flag operation, in fact she did not even know what that was, but she was never convicted of her sin by the Holy Spirit and her need of a savior, so she died without accepting Jesus Christ, so she would go to hell forever, torment and suffering without end and no possibility of escape. Doesn’t this seem absurd? But this is what basic evangelical Christian doctrine actually teaches.

[I am thinking of something I loosely quoted in a previous blog post, where I remembered hearing the dogmatic evangelical Bible teacher say something like, “It is better to be mentally retarded and go to heaven than a genius and go to hell.” This statement was made in conjunction with expressing the view that a mentally retarded person would automatically go to heaven because due to their impairment God would not hold them responsible for making a decision to accept Jesus Christ as their savior. To these evangelical dogmatic Bible teachers and believers nothing is more important than eternal salvation. So I just thought of something similar to this on my own. I admit I probably first thought of this many years ago, but this is the first time I am sharing it with someone by putting it down in writing. If eternal salvation is so all important, then is this a true statement based on Biblical doctrinal truth? “It is better to have been a serial killer child molesting child raping child torturing child sacrificing Satanist saved by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ as one’s sin bearing savior and go to heaven than to have been a law abiding unbeliever and go to eternal hell.”]

VIEWED FROM MY CHRISTIAN UNIVERSALIST PERSPECTIVE

So if I were to put on my Christian Universalist hat, I would explain it this way. I would say that all people reap what they sow (aka Karma in eastern religions) regardless of whether they accept Jesus Christ as their savior in their lifetime, and that people would reap what they sow in the afterlife as well, but that God would ultimately draw all people to Himself in love and justice. God doesn’t end up being the warden of an eternal torture chamber, but nobody gets away with anything either. There is justice. I believe what I have explained can be justified by Bible scripture, but I cannot prove it is true any more that the evangelical Christian can prove that their view is true. But I can say that my view makes more sense and seems more reasonable and logical. But no one is required to believe the viewpoint that I have expressed in order to benefit. And my viewpoint does not threaten with eternal hell anyone who does not believe it. And with my viewpoint, no one should feel encouraged to live a wild life of sin with the idea that they have accepted Jesus Christ and are saved, because all will reap what they have sowed, in this life and/or the hereafter.

SELECT THE BEST FROM ALL FOR THE COMMON GOOD – PLURALISM

And if you look at history you can see a lot of examples of organized religions and movements motivating and bringing about a lot of really bad shit. Christianity is no exception to this. If I had to accept all of Christianity to be a Christian, I could not do it, because there is so much bad within it in my view. But if I look to it to select out from it only that which is good to the best of my ability, then maybe I do not have to abandon Christianity altogether. But the same can be said for other religions. So this is where I would like to encourage all religions to examine themselves and their beliefs and practices to seek reformations where necessary to become more accepting, nurturing, and respecting of the rights of individuals to make their own decisions without coercion or fear of harm. I also would like to see religious pluralism encouraged. But I seek these things with loving persuasion rather than forceful coercion.

PLURALISM INCLUDES ATHEISTS AND AGNOSTICS

And I really have to include atheism and agnosticism here as well. There are very many people who have had religious upbringing and some who have even pursued their religions academically and in dedication in their lives and careers, but they have eventually come to the place of moving beyond it, and many of these people have done so because they could no longer accept many of the things within their religions that simply did not make sense to them. It is good for people to be true to themselves, and if they have the courage, to be honest with others. In religious history respected Christian leaders have had fellow Christians burned at the stake for not having quite the correct Christian beliefs. It is hard for me to imagine that this would have been a society and culture where atheists would feel safe expressing their true beliefs.

So I welcome atheists and agnostics into the brotherhood and sisterhood of humankind. I want to hear their arguments. I already know that I agree with a large portion of their arguments and views. I do not believe that they are headed to hell, the imaginary “God’s never ending torture chamber,” because of their beliefs or lack of beliefs.

I am glad to have them as a part of our nation, a nation founded and dedicated to the principle of religious liberty and separation of church and state. I am glad for their opposition to the many dogmatic and exclusivist religious teachings so common in the world and in the U.S. I welcome them for their search for truth and meaning in their lives and for their ways of doing good in the world. I do not agree with the view that atheism is an inherently bad or evil approach to life.

If I had to condemn people for being atheists, I would have to condemn people for being Christians as well, in order to be consistent.

A COUPLE OF MY ANECDOTAL EXPERIENCES WITH ISLAM

I also want to offer a couple of experiences I had looking at Islam. Many years ago I saw on TV a couple of women of the Islam faith in a middle eastern country and their conversation reflected a simple humble faith in God, that reminded me of the simple faith that my grandmother had in her Christian faith. And much more recently, within the last 2 or 3 years I struck up a lengthy conversation with a devout young Muslim man working at a bank where I was doing business, and I was impressed by his sincerity of belief and practice and his knowledge of the scriptures, including the New Testament, and his respect for Jesus. Could this devout Muslim actually also be a Christian in some significant sense?

I realize that the typical evangelical Christian would disqualify him because he is not believing in the correct Jesus, something like that. Have you ever heard this line from the evangelical Christian camp? “Salvation is through faith alone in Christ alone.” What exactly does this really mean, from a practical standpoint? My impression is that it really means, “Salvation is through the precisely correct faith alone in the precisely correct Christ alone.” There are a lot of possible points of failure here. There could be problems with your faith and/or problems with how you view Christ. And if that is not enough potential for failure, there is the use of the word “alone” which occurs twice. I have actually heard dogmatic preachers say something like, “If you add anything to faith in Christ, you are not saved.” To me this is an example of extremely narrow minded evangelical Christian viewpoint to the point that it leads to convolutions, contradictions, and consternation.

FINAL COMMENTS & CONCLUSIONS

People of necessity need to have their own worldview or approach to life including how they deal with any and all new information coming their way. If a person is in dire straights like a homeless person on the streets barely surviving, then for them, survival is everything, so huge amounts of information if you were to suppose it could come their way, they could easily just pass on most if not all of it as being irrelevant to their situation. Obviously this is an extreme end of the spectrum. Somewhere in the middle there could be a middle class family struggling to makes ends meet, and they may be able to take in some information that is relevant to their situation and make decisions on it, but things involving more uncertainty and risk and controversy they would likely pass on. But if you get to the point where you have a person who has the interest and means to take on some controversial issue, such as something that the Fake News might seek to marginalize by calling it a “conspiracy theory,” then this type of person can face a dilemma. Conspiracy theories are like potato chips, it’s hard to eat just one. So this person is subjected to the hazard of having a barrage of conspiracy theories coming their way, and they can’t possibly eat or digest them all. So of necessity they need to develop a system where they can quickly eliminate the things that are likely not worth looking into further, and also quickly determine which ones might be worthy of their time and attention to look into further. There are so many factors at play here that anyone who might be in a situation like this has to decide and figure this out for themselves.

For me personally, at this point, based on the change in approach that I have made as I have explained in this writing, I will be tending much more on passing up on examining further any controversies or “conspiracy theories” that require blind faith in something, which often is some sort of religious belief. It’s possible that this could cause me to miss something important, but I do not have the ability or resources to investigate everything, so I have to draw the line somewhere. So that is what I have done. It has simplified my life in terms of what further investigations I am willing to take on.

And even with this, I do not have the ability to take on everything that is worthy to be taken on. So this is perhaps where synchronicity, serendipity, quantum entanglement, or the grace of God, whatever you want to call it, comes into play.

And it is OK to tell somebody that you don’t have an opinion on something because you have not studied it.

So I really am thankful for the Flat Earth Movement for kicking my butt to get me to start blogging almost one year ago, to get my views out there, and also for pushing me in the direction of upping my game.

The Gospel of Salvation through Jesus Christ with the Fine Print

INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY

I am going to give a pretty lengthy description of how I came to understand and conclude these things based on my experiences in life. But I want to try to give a brief introduction first, so you have some idea where I am going with this before you read the whole thing.

So I maintain that there is a lot of fine print associated with the gospel of Jesus Christ that many who become Christians don’t learn about upfront but instead over time they learn these things that can be very worrisome and distressing.

I believe that a key factor in this is that there are many different belief systems and denominations within Christianity and that most difficulties arise from dogmatic teachings on things that are clearly debatable and can have widely differing yet legitimate interpretations so no one can really know for sure who is right, even those who think, claim, and preach that they are right. And a common theme is that God is a pretty angry God toward sin and even though He may not want to do this, His perfectly good and righteous nature forces Him to place some of His creatures in a chamber of unending torture known as hell, if they don’t come around to seeing things His way during their short time on this earth before they die. It took me a long time but eventually I started to see that some pretty major doctrines are not as clear cut as you might have originally been lead to believe, causing the whole house of cards to come tumbling down. So I have come to the conclusion that to teach something as absolutely true, especially when it has very harsh ramifications, when you really cannot know for sure if you are correct, is one of the worst sins.

I have also come to the conclusion that Christian Universalism, the belief that God will ultimately save all through Jesus Christ, makes the most sense to me.

So the typical gospel I was raised under goes something like this. We are all sinners and are headed to hell, but God sent his Son Jesus Christ to die for your sins so that you could be saved from hell, but you need to accept (believe, trust) Jesus Christ to be saved. If you don’t do this before you die, then you will go to hell forever. There are no second chances.

If you end up believing, here is some of the fine print you might eventually come across. Calvinists teach that God predestines many to hell. What if you were predestined by God to hell? There is such a thing as an unpardonable sin taught in the Bible which is quite debatable exactly what it is, but what if you had already committed this before trying to be saved by faith in Christ? Some will say that you can be too far gone into sin to be saved, like Judas Iscariot, who they say couldn’t have been saved even if he wanted to be. Some will say that there are other things that are important and necessary for salvation besides faith in Christ, such as water baptism, but others say that salvation is by faith alone in Christ alone, and if you add anything to faith in Christ then you are not saved. And then there are many areas of disagreement among Bible believing Christians where some feel that holding certain views are really contradicting the bedrock of their faith in God and Jesus Christ. Here we have young earth creationists, old earth creationists, and believe it or not even today we have a revival of flat earth creationism. And there are those who reject evolution as a lie from the Devil, and those who accept evolution as a part of how God created. Some believe in once saved always saved, and others believe that you can lose your salvation. For some Satan, demons, and Satanism, figure prominently in their view of evil, and others not so much. For some Bible prophecy being fulfilled even today and in the future is a major part of their faith, but others not so much. Some put the modern state of Israel on a pedestal believing it is God’s regathering of His chosen people as prophesied in the Bible, whereas other do not think that this is the case at all.

Many preachers are a lot like the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain, scaring people with the prospect of unending torture by God in hell and they are the messengers of God to warn you and instruct you how to avoid such a horrible fate. But can anyone know for sure that this horrible message is true in every way? Perhaps the preacher should confess that he is not absolutely sure of what he is preaching. What if the word “unending” is the key word where the message is not correct. What if hell is a place of serious but finite punishment from God for the purpose of correction and ultimate salvation with God? For those who end up believing the preacher’s threatening message, the preacher’s power and authority over them is certainly made very strong.

So this concludes the introduction. Next will be a more lengthy discussion to explain how I came to these views. After that I will make an attempt to give the gospel with my own Fine Print.

WHY THE FINE PRINT OF THE GOSPEL IS SO IMPORTANT

Most people at some point in their lives have experienced having been convinced to buy into something and then later when they learn more, what I am calling the fine print, they have buyer’s remorse, wishing they had not been so hasty in making the decision to buy. Sometimes they can reverse the process, other times not.

When people have been through an experience such as this hopefully they learn to not be as hasty in the future and make sure they carefully read and understand the fine print, and perhaps sleep on it at least, and/or consult friends or other trusted sources of information, before making a hasty decision that they may end up regretting.

The seriousness or gravity of the decision certainly is a key factor. Picking a barber to go to for a haircut may deserve some careful consideration but the ramifications of making a poorly considered choice likely will not be of major consequence. But if you are going to need some surgery where the risks are high and you have the time to carefully select a surgeon, then giving this decision very careful attention is certainly in order. And another factor would be the factor of urgency. If you have been seriously injured in a car accident and have been treated by paramedics and you are being rushed to a hospital for further emergency treatment, then your time and opportunity for decisions may by necessity be quite limited.

So I want to examine the giving of the Gospel of Salvation through Jesus Christ (the sales pitch) so as to convince the recipient to make a decision to buy the product, to buy into it, to believe and be Saved, within the context of the other sorts of decisions I have described above.

So I need to give at least a bare bones description of what the typical gospel presentation might be like, if nothing else to at least have something as a starting point for the sake of discussion. So here goes. We are all sinners and are headed to hell, but God sent his Son Jesus Christ to die for your sins so that you could be saved from hell, but you need to accept (believe, trust) Jesus Christ to be saved. If you don’t do this before you die, then you will go to hell forever. There are no second chances.

Now you will notice a couple of things about the nature of the sales pitch of the gospel. It is very serious, more serious than brain surgery, but also there is a certain urgency to it, because if you don’t decide to buy it right then and there, and you should die before you have a chance to make that decision, you could end up going to hell forever.

And often the above giving of the gospel will add a suggested prayer you can say to God if you want to be saved, the so called sinner’s prayer, where you basically agree that you are a sinner, and you believe in Jesus Christ and want to be saved. And you are told that if you said such a prayer to God, and really meant it, that God will have saved you. Depending on the situation, like if it were a Billy Graham crusade, you might be asked to come forward to show your act of commitment to Jesus Christ.

Anyway, the above is basically the kind of gospel I grew up under. I don’t recall my parents ever spelling it out like this to me, but I heard it enough in our church and when we visited other churches and also when we actually went to a Billy Graham crusade, to get the basic message. I recall responding positively to the gospel on numerous occasions, usually in silent prayer to God. But my earliest recollection of God and Jesus are from when I was about five years old. I don’t recall having heard the gospel at that young age, but I do recall having a children’s Bible with a painting of Jesus on the cover with a bunch of children all around Him. I do recall I had a positive attitude toward God. My parents’ taught me that when you die you go to heaven. I believed that, but my only concern was would there be toys in heaven? I don’t recall hearing anything about hell at that age, and I am glad for that.

So when I was a senior in high school with a troubled life and searching for God, a friend of mine said I should talk to his mom. So she introduced me to a type of Bible teaching that was of the same basic theological background as the church I had been raised in, except that the Bible teacher (pastor) had a very dogmatic militaristic style and he really emphasized going to an unending hell if you didn’t believe, and many people all over the world followed his teaching by listening to his Bible sermons on reel to reel audio tapes. So I ended up becoming a gung ho follower of this guy’s teaching. I swallowed everything, hook, line, and sinker. He taught “the truth” and I now knew “the truth.” I was so thankful to have found “the truth.” So while listening to his tapes, the first time I heard him give the gospel, I said the suggested prayer silently to God just to make sure I was saved in case I had not been saved before.

So let’s examine a little about what is going on here with this sort of scenario. You have an authority figure, a pastor or an evangelist, or perhaps it’s an ordinary believer sharing verses from the Bible and what they have learned from their pastor or evangelist, and of course you have the authority of God, from the Word of God, the Bible, which is the ultimate source that is being relied upon for the information that is being shared as the sales pitch of the gospel and how very serious a matter it is, and how very urgent it is as well to make a decision to believe before it is too late.

So suppose you are one who has responded positively to such a gospel sales pitch, as I did, and as many people do. You end up feeling tremendous relief that when you die you are not going to go to hell but instead you are going to go to heaven. You are grateful to God, Jesus Christ, the person who shared the gospel with you and convinced you to believe, and you look forward to moving forward and learning more about the truth of God and sharing your faith with others so they also can go to heaven when they die rather than hell.

So I want to use another example to compare to the above scenario to help us understand it from a very much human psychological standpoint. Suppose instead of the gospel, you had a friend who had become a distributor for some sort of multi-level marketing product, and they were showing you how they have made so much money, or those above them who got them to sign up had done very well and made a lot of money, and how there was very much the prospect of becoming independently wealthy by becoming a distributor for this multi-level marketing product so that you wouldn’t have to live the rest of your life as a wage slave, and you could spend more time raising and helping your family and doing all of the things that you ever wanted to do in your life. So you get carried away with all the positive prospects and sign up without looking into it very much, because there is really very little downside risk, but a lot of upside potential. The worst that could happen is that you become a distributor for a really good product that you are going to want to purchase and consume as a family anyway, but you will get a better deal on it because you are a distributor, and getting others to sign up under you will be a piece of cake, once people see how well you are doing, and how great the products are etc. Many people have been through this sort of thing, myself included, and have signed up, but never really made a success of it like you were originally sold on it and thought you would.

Well the gospel has a lot in common with the above multi-level marketing scenario. I have to credit the author and skeptic Michael Shermer as the source of this idea that witnessing for Jesus Christ by Christians (spreading the gospel far and wide) is kind of like multi-level marketing with Bibles.

Both have the same sort of sales pitch. The upside and downside of buying into the product differ in degree, but they both have the similarity of inducing a hasty decision to buy the product. For the gospel you have been told that you might end up going to hell forever if you don’t buy the product, and to buy the product is very simple. All you have to do is say a simple prayer to God and you are in, safe and sound forever,

Realize also, that if it were a friend, or neighbor, or stranger coming to your door, or a stranger street evangelist giving you the gospel and trying to get you to believe, it would be kind of like if any of these people were trying to get you to decide to have brain surgery like they have had done to themselves by a particular brain surgeon who they can personally testify to their abilities and the excellent results and you better decide to have it done right away before it is too late. How ridiculous this would be. So how ridiculous it also is when the gospel is given in the same way. How presumptuous and rude these people are. But of course they are justified in this approach because of the tremendous seriousness and gravity of the issue. People could go to hell forever if you don’t get the gospel to them.

Anyway, back to the scenario of the person who just became saved by saying the sinner’s prayer to God. So now you know the truth and how easy it is to be saved so you want to go tell everyone else about it so they all can be saved too.

But eventually you might start getting some of the fine print. And you might find that the fine print is actually different from different Christians. And you might discover some of the fine print by reading the Bible for yourself. I can only share how some of this ended up becoming apparent to me. So after learning more from the reel to reel tape Bible teacher, I learned that the tiniest bit of faith in Jesus Christ secures eternal salvation. This was very comforting. I thought, I must have actually been saved as a young boy then, because I certainly did believe. But when I shared this insight I had gained from the teachings with my friend’s mother, she told me that the teacher has since taught that if you invite Christ into your heart you are not saved. So I thought back to the way I heard the gospel back when I was a kid and I did seem to remember something about inviting Christ into your heart. So maybe when I was a kid there was something wrong about the way that I got saved so that I really wasn’t saved back then after all. But then what about now? I remembered that when I had re-affirmed my faith in Jesus Christ in prayer to God based on the direction of the reel to reel tape Bible teacher, I had just followed exactly his suggested prayer, which I recalled had three verbs in it, trust, believe, and receive. And I thought the word receive sounded like it could have a similar meaning to invite, so I thought, what if again I had not done it correctly, so perhaps even now I wasn’t saved.

So this got me off on the whole thing about doubting my salvation, which I have since learned is not all that uncommon.

But now let me just fast forward to where I am now looking back on everything I have learned since then that I would consider some of the fine print of the gospel that it would be better to share ahead of time to prospective converts in my view, instead of having this all be stuff they will learn unexpectedly over time, and often causing a lot of distress.

First of all, I have learned that most Bible teachers, pastors, evangelists, ordinary believers, preaching the gospel are simply spreading what they were taught by others, be it in seminary, or in church. They for the most part have not studied things for themselves and come to their own independent conclusions. And often times their seminaries and churches have statements of faith that they need to affirm just to be accepted to go to the school or to be considered in good standing at the church where they go.

And a really key point that took me many years to even find out that this was a legitimate option for a Biblically based belief system, was that there is a form of Christian theology known as Universalism that is traced back to some of the earliest church fathers in the early centuries after Christ, where it is believed that all will ultimately be saved through Jesus Christ.

Thomas Talbott, author of the book “The Inescapable Love of God” explains three types of Christian theologies, Augustinianism (aka Calvinism), Arminianism, and Universalism. Calvinism says that God is able to accomplish all that He wills, and it is His will that only some be saved, so that all others will go to hell forever. Arminianism says that it is God’s will that all be saved, but God is not able to accomplish all that He wills, because man’s will supersedes God’s will in this case, so many will go to hell forever. Universalism says that it is God’s will that all be saved, and that God is able to accomplish all that He wills, so that no one will be lost, that is, go to hell forever. Christian Universalism does not say that there is no hell, only that it is a place of correction of finite duration, so that all will ultimately be saved by God and welcomed into heaven.

Now it turns out you can find various scriptures in the Bible that appear to support any of the three theological systems described above. Those who support any one of the three views will seek to harmonize with their view the scriptures that don’t seem to agree with it and will perhaps bring in other arguments from logic, philosophy, and common sense to help support their view. Biblical interpretation is not an exact science as many would like to have you believe. I have come to be a supporter of the Universalism viewpoint. But I don’t have to prove it to be true (something no one could possibly do anyway) to make my point, and that is that Bible teachers and evangelists who preach the “turn or burn” gospel, threatening a never ending hell to those who do not believe, are committing the sin of claiming to be certain of something that they can’t possibly be certain of, if they are honest, well read, educated students of the Bible, theology, and history.

The Universalism viewpoint solves many theological problems. The other viewpoints have countless problems.

Before I started learning about Universalism a little over 10 years ago, I did not even know that there was such a form of Christian theology known as Universalism. I had heard of Calvinism and Arminianism but I did not even know which of these two viewpoints was taught as the truth by the church where I was raised or by my reel to reel tape Bible teacher. I guess I had gotten the impression that in either case, hell lasted forever, and that was really all that mattered, so there was no need to dig deeper.

So now I am going to list all of the sorts of things I heard or learned from Bible teaching and my own Bible reading through the years, before I came into looking into Universalism, that tended towards promoting doubt in one’s salvation.

So you will hear that God saves sinners, and that no sin is too great in order to be able to be saved by God. The Apostle Paul of the New Testament referred to himself as the worst sinner because he persecuted the church. But I eventually heard the Bible teacher I was listening to say that Judas Iscariot had rejected Jesus Christ so much that there was no possible way that he could be saved, that he was too far gone to be saved. So to me, this raises the question, how does anybody who has ended up trying to be saved by believing in Jesus Christ know whether or not they might have been too far gone to be saved before they tried to be saved by believing in Jesus Christ? And another question would be how great of a savior from sin is Jesus Christ if some can be too far gone to be saved by Him?

If one eventually learns what Calvinism is, that essentially God predestines some to hell, how does one who has tried to be saved by believing in Jesus Christ know whether or not God has already predestined them to hell?

And then there are all sorts of nitpicking about just what is necessary for salvation. Some go through the Bible and find every possible verse they can related to salvation and then come up with a lengthy list of all the things you need to do, such as repent, believe, trust, accept, receive, be baptized, and on and on. And this really becomes quite confusing. And then there will be those who say salvation is through faith alone in Christ alone, and they may go on to say that if you try to add anything to that you are not saved. So if you were at a Billy Graham crusade and you thought that you had to go forward to be saved and you did go forward, then you are really not saved. I am sorry, but I just happen by my God given nature to have a very logical and mathematical approach to things along with a tendency to be obsessive compulsive, so I can’t help but examine these things very carefully to see if they make sense and whether those who say these things are consistent. So I had heard the same Bible teacher who taught that you are not saved if you add anything to faith in Christ, also say that you are not saved until you tell God the Father that you are believing in Jesus Christ. So I then observed over listening to many Bible teaching lessons of his on tape that at the end when he would give the gospel, sometimes he would suggest that the individual pray silently to God that they are believing in Jesus Christ, and other times he would not say anything beyond just quoting some verses from the Bible related to believing in Jesus Christ for salvation. Is this because he really doesn’t know what the right way is, so he is hedging his bets and at least he will be right 50 % of the time? And what if one thinks that saying the prayer is necessary for salvation? Isn’t that possibly adding something to faith alone in Christ alone?

Then you might hear others say that believing is not enough. The Bible says that even the demons believe and shudder. Some will say that if you believe just to avoid going to hell, you are not saved. Somehow this does not show the commitment to Christ necessary for salvation according to some. Some will say that just because you said the sinner’s prayer that doesn’t mean you are saved. Having said the sinner’s prayer is not a valid fire (hell) insurance policy.

Some believe in once saved always saved and others believe that you can lose your salvation. So if a believer goes off heavily into sin, some will say he probably did not truly have saving faith when he believed, so he was never saved to begin with. Or others will say he has lost his salvation. Then others might say he is still likely saved, but he is living as an unbeliever, and God is disciplining him, and if he does not come back to God he will die a horrible death as a final punishment from God, because God is not able to punish him once he dies, because he is a believer.

Then you have the whole question of the unpardonable sin. What exactly is it, and how do you know whether or not you might have committed it?

There is a principle in law that if you are induced to enter into an agreement where there was some deception or fraud involved, it voids the agreement.

Does this have any bearing upon those who hear the gospel and then believe, that is, enter into the agreement, while not fully understanding everything and possibly basing their decision on some false information that was contained within the sales pitch?

What about those who reject the gospel because of some false information contained within its presentation or sales pitch?

There are people who have lived lives of terrible sin and eventually came to salvation through Jesus Christ. So they have their testimonies. But there are also people who lived as committed believers in God and Jesus Christ who eventually came to turn against it and repudiate it, some becoming agnostics, some atheists, some finding their place in less dogmatic forms of Christianity, and some other faiths or religions. These people also have their testimonies.

There is also the sense in which one who becomes a believer in Jesus Christ by believing the “turn or burn” gospel, whereby they were threatened with unending hell if they did not believe, has been a victim of a sort of mind control, and perhaps even a sort of trauma based mind control. (Dr. Boyd Purcell’s groundbreaking books “Spiritual Terrorism” and “Christianity without Insanity” while probably not specifically using the terms “mind control” or “trauma based mind control,” these concepts are certainly included in principle within his work and at his web site at christianitywithoutinsanity.com)

They were informed that if they did not do a sort of mental ritual, the sinner’s prayer, that they were at risk of being tortured forever by God in hell. So they did the ritual, so now they are safe, but they have also entered into an agreement with God (at least so they think) and have also consented to have a sort of psychological mind trick played on them, the ramifications of which they really do not fully understand, nor was much of anything explained to them before scaring them into entering into the agreement. I will make you an offer you can’t refuse. And of course there are many who find the threatening of this gospel offensive and soundly reject it on that basis.

I finally came to realize that the only way I could be confident in my own salvation was to realize that God will ultimately save all. So there is nothing I could have done or can do to screw it up. God will be victorious over sin on my behalf and on behalf of the entire human race and it doesn’t depend on me or anybody else. This could be elaborated on much more, but I just want to mention one scripture. Ephesians 2:8,9 “For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” So if I were a Calvinist who believed that I was saved, then it seems to me that I could certainly feel that I am pretty special to God, after all He chose to save me, while many others He chose not to save. On this basis it would seem I would have something to boast about, how special I am to God. On the other hand, suppose I were an Arminianist who believed that I was saved, then it seems that I could credit myself that it was because I was so smart to make the right decision to believe, that I am saved. So I also would have something to boast about. Only the Universalist who knows that all will ultimately be saved by God has nothing at all to possibly boast about.

SO WITH ALL THIS IN MIND I GIVE THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST WITH THE FINE PRINT

Man has a tendency toward sin, doing wrong things, failure, and misery. Man can and has done good things also, but his negative tendency toward sin and failure is still there. Christians believe that God sent His Son Jesus Christ to the world to turn the tables on man’s sin problem, to be man’s savior. Jesus Christ is God’s revelation of Himself to mankind by becoming Himself a human being like us and living among us, and also dying under an unjust death sentence of crucifixion, but through the power of God subsequently being resurrected, raised from the dead to live forever as man’s victorious savior from sin. Christians follow Jesus Christ by faith in order to be victorious over sin in this life and for the promise of eternal life, living with God forever.

Beyond what I just described above, Christians vary all over the map in terms of how they give the gospel, and how they say man came to be, and also came to be a sinner, and what is necessary for salvation, and what the negative consequences might be for not following Jesus in faith. A very large portion of evangelical Christians give the gospel by threatening people with never ending hell if they do not believe before they die. This certainly has the effect of scaring a lot of people into making a hasty decision to believe, but it also turns a lot of people off as well. Whether threatening unending hell is a part of the true gospel (good news) of Jesus Christ is really an open question regardless of what many think. A key word here might be “unending.” Sin can have very negative consequences leading to much suffering in this life and also very possibly beyond this life as well, but whether God has in store for a portion of humanity an unending torture chamber called hell, this really is a very problematic position that many take but which has many legitimate and convincing arguments against it.

So I would counsel one considering the gospel of Jesus Christ to seek and learn and ask questions and go to God in prayer, and try to make as fully an informed decision as possible.

I realize that it does not always work like this in real life, because often people are in a state of crisis when they reach out to God for help, and they become very susceptible to making hasty decisions, and due to the urgency do not have the luxury of having all their questions answered or having 100 % accurate information.

So if there is urgency involved and you feel you want to go to God with a decision based on what you now know, then by all means go to God in prayer and express your faith and urgency. God seeks us out, draws us to Himself, and takes us as we come. Certainly do not think that you have to determine for sure what the absolute truth is on any or all of these things in order to make a decision.

Take the example of the salvation of the Apostle Paul, who was formerly Saul of Tarsus, a devout Israelite who was persecuting Christians even to the point of death, and how Jesus Christ himself appeared to him on the trail to Damascus and blinded him and spoke to him, and took him through an extreme crisis, and how he eventually took the name Paul instead of Saul, and became a renowned preacher of the gospel of Christ and a major writer of the New Testament scriptures.