For people deciding to lose weight, it is important to eat enough food to ensure that you get 100% of the vitamins and minerals needed, as well as sufficient protein, and essential fatty acids. This post illustrates how this may be done by eating a whole-food plant-based diet of about 1,000 calories. Most of us need more calories than 1,000, but using this as a base, one can be assured that they are getting the nutrients they need and adding more calories will simply increase the nutrients. This base has about 21 g of fiber as well. The foods used are broccoli, spinach, mushrooms, and brown rice. Using the free software CRON-o-Meter, we can play around and make substitutes. To begin with, we need to figure out how many calories we need daily to maintain our existing weight, to maintain our goal weight, and to lose weight to reach our goal weight.

Quick Rule of Thumb for Calories

If you multiply your present weight by 15 this gives you the approximate number of calories you need to eat each day to maintain that weight. For example, if you weigh 200 pounds, then you need 3,000 calories to maintain your weight.

To lose about 2 pounds a week, you multiply your weight by 10. For example, if you weight 200 pounds, then to lose 2 pounds a week (approximately) you would need to reduce your caloric intake to 2,000 calories.

Another way to look at this is to use your goal weight. For example, if you presently weigh 200 pounds, but would like to weigh 150 pounds (“goal weight”), then you multiply your goal weight by 15. This results in 2250 calories per day. Theoretically, using these rules of thumb, you should just eat 2250 calories per day or less to lose weight and then maintain that weight at 150 pounds for the rest of your life.

These rules of thumb are from the text Nutrition for Health, Fitness, & Sport, Ninth Edition; Melvin H. Williams (hereinafter referred to as “Nutrition“).

Protein

We need to eat a diet that provides all 20 amino acids — keep in mind, however, that humans can synthesize some amino acids in their bodies but cannot synthesize others. Nutrition, p. 213. Nine amino acids cannot be manufactured by the body: these are called essential, or indispensable, amino acids, and must be supplied by the diet. Those that may be formed in the body are called nonessential, or dispensable, amino acids. Id. Six of the dispensable amino acids are conditionally indispensable: they must be obtained through the diet when endogenous synthesis cannot meet metabolic demands, such as in severe catabolic states. Although nutrition scientists prefer the terms indispensable and dispensable, I will use the terms essential and nonessential since these terms are commonly used. Id.

The essential amino acids are: histidine, isoleucine (branched chain), leucine (branched chain), lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, and valine (branched chain). The nonessential amino acids are: alanine, arginine (conditionally essential), asparagine, aspartic acid, cysteine (conditionally essential), glutamic acid, glutamine (conditionally essential), glycine (conditionally essential), proline (conditionally essential), serine, and tyrosine (conditionally essential).

All natural, unprocessed animal and plant foods contain all 20 amino acids; however, the amount of each amino acid in specific foods varies.

How Much Dietary Protein Do We Need?

Humans actually do not need protein per se, but rather an adequate amount of nitrogen and essential amino acids. However, because all nine essential amino acids and almost all dietary nitrogen are derived from dietary protein, it serves as the basis for our daily requirements.

Here is the daily RDA for the essential amino acids for an adult male (70 kg or 154 lb):

Histidine — 980 mg (or 14 mg/kg)

Isoleucine — 1,260 mg (or 19 mg/kg)

Leucine — 2,940 mg (or 42 mg/kg)

Lysine — 2,660 mg (or 38 mg/kg)

Methionine plus cysteine — 1,260 mg (or 19 mg/kg)

Phenylalanine plus tyrosine — 2,310 mg (or 33 mg/kg)

Threonine — 1,400 mg (or 20 mg/kg)

Tryptophan — 350 mg (or 5 mg/kg)

Valine — 1,680 mg (or 24 mg/kg)

Total — 14,840 mg

Strength Training

Individuals involved in strength training, such as weight lifters, bodybuilders, and football players, are usually interested in increasing muscle mass and decreasing body fat, as well as improving strength and power. Other than water, protein is the main component of muscle tissue, so strength-trained individuals have valued dietary protein as a key nutrient for centuries as a means of maximizing muscle protein synthesis. Nutrition, p. 223.

Unfortunately, there is very little scientific information about the specific protein requirements for the development of lean muscle mass in weight-training programs. Protein balance is usually positive during these programs, and research studies have suggested that weight lifters could retain between 7 and 28 grams of protein per day, a range of about 12-50 percent of the RDA for an adult 70 kg male. Although it might be assumed this protein would be assimilated as muscle tissue, this has not been determined. A number of respected investigators have recommended that weight lifters and other athletes training to increase muscle mass and strength, particularly the developing adolescent athlete and those in the early stages of training, consume more protein.

The National Academy of Sciences notes that although athletes commonly believe they need a higher protein intake to maintain optimum physical performance, few studies have evaluated the protein needs of individuals engaged in strenuous physical activity such as resistance training. The Academy has criticized the available studies and concluded the available data do not support the conclusion that the protein requirement for resistance training is greater than that of nonexercising subjects.

Michael Rennie, an international scholar in protein metabolism, has noted that muscle contractile activity enhances the anabolic response so that habitual training makes individuals more efficient users of dietary protein, suggesting that physically active people probably do not need to eat more protein and could likely manage perfectly adequately on less.

Let’s look . . . at the young resistance-trained athlete who wants to gain body weight, preferably in the form of muscle tissue, through a weight-training program. The protein RDA for an adolescent male is 0.85 gram per kilogram. [Keep in mind that the RDA contains a safety factor and actually provides more protein than required by most individuals. Nutrition p. 234.] At moderate activity levels, the average 70-kg adolescent male would be in protein balance with about 60 grams daily. However, according to the suggested upper recommendation of about 1.7 grams per kilogram, he would need about 119 g daily, if involved in a strenuous training program. Is this a reasonable amount?

One pound of muscle tissue is equal to 454 grams, and its composition is approximately 70 percent water, 7 percent lipids, and 22 percent muscle tissue. hence, one pound of muscle contains about 100 grams of protein (454 x 0.22). If the desired weight gain is one pound of lean body mass per week, a reasonable goal, then this young male would need to assimilate an additional 14 grams of protein per day (100 grams/7 days) to supply the amount in one pound of muscle tissue. A gain of two pounds per week, although probably more difficult to accomplish, would require the assimilation of 28 additional grams of protein per day. Let us be liberal and estimate an additional 22 grams of protein per day to cover losses due to exercise. In summary, assuming that a portion of these protein needs are not covered by the safety margin incorporated in the RDA, this young athlete would need approximately 110 grams of protein per day (60+28+22) to gain 2 pounds of lean body tissue per week, or about 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram body weight. This value falls within the recommended range for resistance-trained athletes.

The average caloric intake for a moderately active young male averages 2500 to 3000 calories per day. It is important to note that adequate energy intake, primarily in the form of carbohydrates, will improve protein balance. In essence, an increased energy intake appears to decrease protein requirements somewhat. Nutrition, p. 225.

If the protein portion of the dietary Calories averaged 12 percent, a general recommended level of protein intake, then the intake of protein would approximate 1.5 — 1.7 grams per kilogram of body weight, which parallels the amounts estimated in the examples previously cited. Currently, the protein content of the average American is 12 to 16 percent, and Walberg-Rankin recently noted that most athletes consume this much or more in their daily diets. Consuming a diet with a protein content of 15 percent could provide a value of 2.0 grams or more per kilogram body weight, and other surveys among strength-type athletes indicate they obtain this amount. These values approach or exceed the higher amounts recommended by some investigators for individuals in training.

Consume protein, preferably with carbohydrates, before and after workouts.

Be Prudent Regarding Protein Intake

Whether or not athletes in training need additional protein is not clear at this time. Two experts in protein metabolism, Kevin Tipton and Robert Wolfe, noted that given sufficient energy intake [carbohydrates], lean body mass can be maintained within a wide range of protein intakes. They note that there are few convincing data to indicate that the ingestion of a high amount of protein (2-3 grams per kilogram of body weight) is necessary. Based on current literature, they conclude that it may be too simplistic to rely on recommendations of a particular amount of protein per day because the amount depends on energy intake, type of protein, and timing of intake.

Example of the Minimalist Diet

Alright, having discussed protein needs, its time to look at a minimum base diet that is healthful and that meets more than minimum needs of protein, carbohydrates, fat, fiber, vitamins and minerals. This is just an example, and one should substitute according to personal taste preferences.

One pound of broccoli flower clusters — 127.1 calories

1 cup of rice cooked — 684.5 calories

14 whole pieces of crimini mushrooms — 61.6 calories

One pound of spinach — 131.7 calories

This is about 1,000 calories. It provides 51 grams of protein, 197 grams of carbohydrates, 9 grams of fat, and over 100% of the RDA of vitamins and minerals.

Histidine — 1,000 mg

Isoleucine — 2,000 mg

Leucine — 3,200 mg

Lysine — 3,100 mg

Methionine plus cysteine — 1,300 mg

Phenylalanine plus tyrosine — 4400 mg

Threonine — 2300 mg

Tryptophan — 900 mg

Valine — 2600 mg

From the above, this minimalist meal provides a complete protein for a 154 lb male. Adding additional whole plant foods would increase the amount.

As for vitamins:

A — 55,907 IU

Folate — 1,057 mcg

B1 — 1.8 mg

B2 — 3.1 mg

B3 — 25.3 mg

B5 — 9.8 mg

B6 — 2.8 mg

C — 217 mg

E — 19.4 mg

K — 1,692 mcg

Minerals:

Calcium — 785 mg

Chromium — 117 mcg

Copper — 2.8 mg

Magnesium — 744 mg

Manganese — 12 mg

Phosphorus — 1,474 mg

Potassium — 4,713 mg

Selenium — 157 mcg

S0dium — 488 mg

Zinc — 11 mg

Essential fatty acids:

Omega-3 — 1 gm

Omega-6 — 2 gm

Fiber: 21 g

There you have it. If you want to lose weight and ensure adequate intake of nutrients, this is one diet you can follow with confidence. If you are a weight-trainer and eat 3,000 calories a day to bulk up using the above foods, then your protein intake would increase to 150 grams of complete protein — and that is plenty!!

This soup recipe provides more than 100% of the RDA of vitamins and minerals (except for B-12 and Vitamin D), 908 calories, 75 grams of complete protein, 153 grams of complex carbohydrate, 5.8 grams of healthful fat, and 47 grams of fiber.

Ingredients:

454 grams of raw spinach

74 grams (about 14 or so) shiitake mushrooms (raw)

3 big stalks of celery (raw)

4 T Nutritional Yeast (I use Lewis Labs yeast — its not bitter)

1 6 oz can of tomato paste (no salt added)

2 cups frozen green peas

1 cup frozen yellow corn

2 cups or so of boiling water

Add vinegar and salt to taste

Blend the above ingredients in a VitaMix starting with the spinach, then add the mushrooms, then the celery, then the nutritional yeast, then the tomato paste, then the frozen green peas, yellow corn, and add in the boiling water to fill up the VitaMix and continue to blend until everything is blended and the soup is hot. This is a creamy soup green in color (you can add a raw beet if you want a red soup).

Enjoy.

At the outset, there is no RDA for lycopene. It is not an essential nutrient; however, this post discusses the benefits of lycopene found naturally in certain foods (I am not talking about wasting our money on buying lycopene supplements — too many studies show that taking supplements does more harm than good even though there are benefits when eating natural whole plants to get such) and the benefits for our health even though there is no RDA. (As an aside, there are studies showing that we should avoid taking vitamin  pills and other supplements, and just get all the vitamins, minerals, etc., needed from natural, whole plant foods; e.g., http://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2010nl/may/vitamins.htm.)

The name of lycopene is derived from the tomato’s species classification: lycopersicon esculentum. Therefore, visually, lycopene is a carotenoid responsible for the red color of the tomato, watermelon and pink grapefruit. Interestingly, the highest natural concentrations of lycopene in food are found not in tomatoes, but in watermelon. So this summer, let’s eat lots of watermelon! (Importantly, however, of 46 fruits and vegetables evaluated, only tomato products showed a measurable relationship with reduced prostate cancer risk!)

Watermelon contains 15 to 20 milligrams (15,000 to 20,000 mcg) of lycopene per 2-cup serving; however, most all dietary lycopene is derived from tomato products. Lycopene content of tomatoes can vary significantly, depending on type of tomato and ripening. The redder the tomato, the more lycopene is present. However, as an example, one 6 oz can of tomato paste has about 48 mg (48,000 mcg) of lycopene.

Lycopene is also found in apricots, papaya, pink grapefruit, and guava.

In plants, lycopene is similar to other carotenoids, serving as a light-absorbing pigment during photosynthesis and protecting cells against photosensitization. It has a unique long chain molecular structure containing 13 double bonds, more than any other carotenoid. This configuration is responsible for lycopene’s special ability to neutralize free radicals. Among the carotenoids, it is the most efficient quencher of singlet oxygen free radicals.

Lycopene has been linked with reduced risk of prostate and cervical cancers, as well as supporting cardiovascular health.

Recent findings indicate that lycopene is an important part of the human organism’s natural defense mechanism that protects us from harmful oxidizing agents.

Lycopene is an acyclic isomer of beta-carotene. Beta-carotene, which contains beta-ionone rings at each end of the molecule, is formed in plants, including tomatoes, via the action of the enzyme lycopene beta-cyclase. Lycopene is a 40 carbon atom, open chain polyisoprenoid with 11 conjugated double bonds.

Lycopene tends to concentrate in bodily tissues at higher amounts than all other carotenoids, especially in the testes and adrenal glands.

The health benefits of lycopene are attributed to its ability to protect cells against oxidative damage. Lycopene has the ability to quench singlet oxygen (more so than beta-carotene), to trap peroxyl radicals, to inhibit the oxidation of DNA, to inhibit lipid peroxidation, and in some studies, to inhibit the oxidation of low-density lipoprotein (“LDL”).

Daily consumption of tomato products providing at least 40 mg (40,000 mcg) of lycopene substantially reduces LDL oxidation. High LDL oxidation is associated with increased risk of atherosclerosis and coronary heart disease.

Lycopene helps prevent degenerative diseases by donating its electrons to oxygen free radicals thus quenching and neutralising them before they can damage cells. Free radicals are molecules that have at least one unpaired electron. By donating an electron lycopene can stabilise the free molecule.

Because lycopene is a potent antioxidant and seems to inhibit growth of cancer cells, it is logical that a higher intake of this carotenoid may indeed be associated with reduced incidence of cancer.

Several studies suggest that eating vegetables rich in lycopene, such as tomatoes or tomato-based products, may reduce the risk of getting :

• breast cancer;
• cervical cancer;
• gastrointestinal cancer;
• colorectal cancer;
• lung cancer; and,
• prostate cancer.

Carotenoids work to protect against cancer and aging-related diseases by acting as an antioxidant to counteract damaging effects of free radicals in tissues.

Lycopene is one of the major carotenoids found in human blood and tissues, and is found primarily in the testis, adrenal glands, liver, prostate, breast, colon, and lung.

Also, lycopene is found to:

• prevent oxidation of lipids and low density lipoprotein cholesterol (“LDL”);
• reduce the risk of a person developing atherosclerosis;
• reduce coronary heart disease;
• inhibit cholesterol synthesis;
• inhibit HMG-CoA (hydroxymethylglutaryl coenzyme A) reductase activity; and,
• upregulate LDL receptor activity in macrophages.

Lycopene helps prevent heart disease through this same antioxidant mechanism via an inhibition of oxidative damage to LDL cholesterol. The strong lipid antioxidant properties of lycopene make it particularly effective in blocking LDL oxidation and protecting against free radical activity on the arterial wall.

• Human studies conducted at the University of Toronto on dietary lycopene confirmed that it acts as an antioxidant. As lycopene levels in the blood go up, the levels of oxidized lipoprotein, protein and DNA compounds go down.

• A study of 48,000 men by Harvard Medical School estimated that consuming tomato products twice a week, as opposed to never, was associated with a reduced risk of prostate cancer of up to 34%.

• Research conducted into breast, lung and endometrial cancer at Ben Gurion University and Soroka Medical Center in Israel shows that lycopene is even more effective than its cousins, alpha- and beta-carotene, in causing a delay in the cell cycle progression from one growth phase to the next.

• A study, conducted by the University of North Carolina, compared fat samples from 1,379 American and European men who had suffered a heart attack with those of healthy men. It found that those with high levels of lycopene were half as likely to have an attack as those with low levels.

Age-related macular degeneration (“ARMD”) is the most common form of blindness for elderly people in the western world. Lycopene is the only micro-nutrient whose serum level is shown to be inversely related to the risk of ARMD.

For sun-worshipers and seekers of the perfect tan but having a paranoia of getting skin cancer (melanoma), lycopene may help reduce the damage to the skin caused by ultraviolet light during and after sun exposure. Skin exposure to ultraviolet radiation is responsible for sunburn, tanning, premature aging and skin cancer. These effects are partly due to the formation of oxygen free radicals. Lycopene has the ability to quench free radicals, which are highly reactive compounds that are formed in the body from normal metabolism, as well as from environmental pollutants and radiation.

Exposure to certain types of UV radiation can cause damage to DNA (the genetic material of the body) and increase the risks of skin cancer. The powerful antioxidant action of lycopene helps to prevent the oxidation of serum lipids, thus promoting arterial health.

In conclusion, major epidemiological studies show that those who eat at least 10 servings of tomato products per week, averaging about 6.5 mg (65,000 mcg) of lycopene per day (that is a lot of pizza btw!!), had the greatest reduction in cancer risk. Additional research shows that drinking two cups (about 540 ml) of tomato juice per day provides about 40 mg (40,000 mcg) of lycopene. This is the amount recommended to significantly reduce the oxidation of LDL cholesterol, according to one human dietary intervention study.

Eat well, live long, and prosper!

A Stoic Perspective on Agency, Determinism, and Human Metaphysical Liberty

“Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” Gal. 6:7.

“But this I say, he which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.” 2 Cor. 9:6.

“For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one.” 2 Ne. 2:11.

“And if you should be cast into the pit, or into the hands of murderers, and the sentence of death passed upon you; if you be cast into the deep; if the billowing surge conspire against you; if fierce winds become your enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the elements combine to hedge up the way; and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after you, know you, my son, that all these things shall give you experience, and shall be for your good.” D&C 122:7.

“I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them.” 1 Ne. 3:7.

This is a passage from the text “A New Stoicism” written by Lawrence C. Becker on this topic:

[H]uman freedom . . . [consists] in the determinative effect we have, through the exercise of our agency, on what happens in our lives — including what happens with regard to the exercise of our agency itself. Without our agency, things happen independently of our desires, preferences, and purposes, whether as the product of antecedent conditions or not. Through the exercise of our agency, insofar as it has determinate effects, events are conditioned upon our desires, aims, deliberation, and choice. Since we imagine that deliberation and choice are themselves the products of antecedent events, we concede that the choices we make (or do not make) are necessary in the sense we have outlined. In that sense, each step we take by means of our agency is determined transitively by antecedents to it, and working forward by stepwise induction, there is only one journey via our agency that is possible for us — the journey defined by the complete series of steps necessitated by it and its antecedent conditions.

Notice that this is not at all conducive to the erroneous idea that somehow our destinies are fixed by particular, isolated events in the distant past. Conditional fatalism thrives on that idea, feeding despair about the power of our agency to determine our conduct. But human bodies adjust moment by moment to changes in the environment — changes in temperature, light, background noise, microbes — and continue to function, often without discernible effects at the level of our gross motor activity, sometimes with discernible but trivial effects. Human agency has equally powerful adjustment mechanisms, and the causal story of what we are doing at a particular moment can never be given in terms of a few isolated events. Rather, the story of what we are doing at a particular moment is the story of one causal thread of our whole lives to that point. . . . Some such threads involve the processes described as the exercise of agency, and others do not. Insofar as agency i snot a causal factor, what we do is not conditioned upon our conscious pursuit of ends.

We certainly agree that such a life is not radically autonomous, or free from antecedent conditions. But consider, now, two alternatives: on the one hand a life in which agency plays no causal role, and on the other a life in which agency plays a persistent and pervasive part in the causal story of its every waking moment. We stoics simply report that we prefer our lives to be of the second sort, and find the idea of that kind of life more than sufficient to assuage our longing for autonomy and metaphysical liberty.

Responsibility

Moreover, we are not dismayed by the conception of (moral) responsibility that is implicit in this deterministic picture of the world. It is simply this: agents are fully responsible for their acts if and only if they (a) are aware of what they are doing; (b) are aware of the causes of their actions; (c) assent to acting in those ways from those causes — that is, are actin in accord with norms they recognize as their own; (d) are aware of the causes of their assent — that is, the causes of their own norms; (e) thereby introduce new causal factors into the determination of their actions through their awareness of the causal conditions that shape it; (f) are aware of this iterative, self-transformative causal process; and (g) assent to that , in the sense that they recognize that this process is normative for them.

This account of responsibility locates it squarely “inside” the agent — within a particular constellation of abilities that agents may or may not have. On this account, when the responsibility of an agent is diminished — when to some degree he lacks these abilities — then to that degree his conduct is determined by external factors operating either directly or only through his primal agency. When he is fully responsible, however (fully an agent), then his conduct is determined by his agency acting upon, through, and in terms of its primal elements and factors external to it. We have sometimes expressed this by making a distinction between things that are “up to the agent” (within the agent’s control), and things that are not. This is probably a tactical error, for it erroneously suggests a paradox to our critics. They charge that on the one hand we assert that every thing operates deterministically, while on the other hand we assert that agents somehow stand outside the causal chain of events and have some sort of radical (undefined) autonomy with respect to it. As should now be clear, we do not assert the second part of that at all. Rather, we assert that the agency generated in some links of the cosmic causal chain has remarkable causal powers within that chain, and that the remarkable causal powers outlined in (a)-(g) above can quite plausibly be the bases for saying that an agent (and not something else) is responsible for his acts. There is no paradox in that position.

A free life without metaphysical liberty.

We despair of finding a way to say more to solve the riddle of determinism for people who are attracted to it. We are not attracted to it in the least. In the final analysis, perhaps, the reason for our lack of interest in it comes from our few that a life without metaphysical liberty can still be a life of undiminished virtue and happiness. If that is true, then given the aims of stoic ethics, what remains of the riddle of determinism is of no ultimate importance. Here is one line of argument for that conclusion.

Negative liberty is the absence of impediments to action. Positive liberty is the presence of the means necessary for effective choice and action. So conceived, negative liberty is not a “thing,” but rather the absence of something. It is like the hole in a doughnut; take away the doughnut and it is hard to see the hole at all, let alone regard it as valuable; take away the impediments to action, and negative liberty as an “object” vanishes with them. So it may be wise to organize a discussion of the value of negative liberty by beginning with things, rather than the spaces they leave–in this case by looking at the impediments rather than at the space those impediments define. When we do that, it is clear that among impediments, as among doughnuts, some are good and some are bad, from the user’s point of view. The friction caused by an obstacle is sometimes a necessary condition for doing what we want to do, and when it is, we see the obstacle as valuable. In fact, valuable impediments provide us with another sort of liberty–positive or material liberty. If the impediment is a good one, the corresponding negative liberty–or absence of the impediment–is derivatively bad. We should be able to learn all we need to know about the derivative values of derivative things (such as holes and other spaces) by immediate inference from the things that define them.

Positive liberty, by contrast, is not the absence of something but rather the presence of it: the presence, indeed the possession, of the means necessary for action. It is the “stuff” we require in order to act in the space provided by negative liberty. The presence of social and political institutions gives us some of the means–the liberty–to lead lives that we could not otherwise have. So do friends, courage, physical strength. We ordinarily resist labeling such things as liberty, but the description of economic resources, education, and many other things as “liberating” is surely a warrant for the label, and it is unassailable that negative liberty alone is of very little importance unless one can or might be able to use it. For using it, some resources (psychological and physical) are necessary, and we may plausibly speak of them as constituting our positive or material liberty.

Now consider the question of whether liberty of either sort is a necessary condition of a good life. Why should it be? Suppose my name is Calvin, and suppose that my creator has predestined every detail of my life, every nuance of my thought and action, including the fact that through theological study I have now discovered that my life is predetermined. Does this mean that I have not had a good life to this point, or that I cannot continue to have one? I have no genuine liberty at all to do anything other than what God has planned for me. I am, in effect, a total slave to God. But I certainly think I have a good life. I remember, and feel, and feel joy, anticipation, fear, responsibility, pride, guilt, shame, and obligation. I fear judgment. I do not know how things will turn out for me, but I suspect I am one of the elect, and am glad for that. In any case, I know that whatever happens, it will be exactly as God has planned. In the meantime, I will live the life that I have been given. Given God’s will, nothing else could have happened. I was never at liberty to do other than I did in fact do. I had a life without liberty. But I rejoice in it, and affirm it anew every day.

End of story. Now what is wrong with it? It surely does not suggest that we cannot have good lives without liberty. Negative liberty, in general terms, is the space left to us by the political, social, personal, and metaphysical impediments that surround us; positive liberty is the  stuff that enables us to act in that space. What Calvin imagines is that the space and stuff available to him are enough for exactly one life–the one God has given him to live, without liberty.

Enough for one life is enough.

End of quote.

OBEDIENCE – THE SOURCE OF BLESSINGS

The topic of this post is Obedience – the source of blessings. Immediately, this raises the questions of: obedience to what? What are we talking about? Obedience to the laws of Man? Or to the laws of God? Or both?

Plainly, obedience to law does not mean submission to tyranny.  In April of 1843, Joseph Smith, Jr., among other things, gave the following instructions relating to obedience as the source of blessings in our respective lives:

There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated – And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.

And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through his or her diligence and obedience than another, he or she will have so much the advantage in the world to come.

From these simple instructions are raised the following issues:

1. Whether knowledge and intelligence are obtained through diligence and obedience;

2. Whether we obtain blessings from God by obedience to a specific law upon which such blessings are predicated; and,

3. Whether reason and faith are related and necessary to understand irrevocably decreed laws.

The questions then become: how do we know which laws are true and should be obeyed, and which are untrue and should not be obeyed?

NATURAL LAWS

In my opinion, the first place to look to test the aforementioned instructions and to know which laws are true and which are false, which must be obeyed, and which may be ignored with impunity, is in our natural surroundings.

Gravity

For example, I believe we can safely argue that the law of gravity is one of those laws irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world. We exist on this planet in great part because of the irrevocable nature of gravity. What goes up must come down.

While Sir Isaac Newton took credit for this principle, I believe that this law was known from man’s earliest history: step off a cliff, and down you go – every time.  Through diligence and obedience to the law of gravity mankind has gained much knowledge and intelligence. Based on this knowledge and intelligence, societies have implemented laws regarding gravity to promote the general good and happiness of its communities. Hence, we have building codes to ensure that buildings will be safe structures, that bridges will be able to span vast expanses, and warning signs telling us to stay away from unstable areas or dangerous heights.

Inertia

Another example of a law irrevocably decreed is the law of inertia: bodies in motion tend to stay in motion; bodies at rest, tend to stay at rest. Mankind has learned to apply this law. To protect society, the laws of inertia have created the need to pass other related laws: such as speed limits, safe distances between moving cars, warning signs of impending curves, yellow lights to warn of an impending red light. Failure to obey the law of inertia often results in injury and death.

Manmade penalties for failure to obey the laws of physics.

Even though we have a very complete understanding of the laws of gravity and inertia, we have a tendency to disobey such. For example, speeding laws are understood. Everyone should know that if you drive too fast, you may be unable to stop before hitting a person or another vehicle, or you may lose control around a curve, or on a wet, oily surface. Unfortunately, many drivers either do not understand the laws of inertia, tend to ignore them, or believe that somehow they are not subject to such.

To protect us and others, governments post speeding laws and warning signs. Failure to obey a speeding law, however, does not always result in disaster. Many of us have exceeded the posted speed limit and nothing adverse has happened to us. It is possible to drive a Corvette or Porsche at speeds in excess of 160 miles per hour without incident. It is also possible to speed along curving highways ignoring the posted warning signs and speed limits. However, at the same time, we can read daily of disasters on our highways caused by failure to obey the posted speed limits. Statistically, the highways are exceedingly dangerous.

To protect society, therefore, law enforcement officers are vigilantly supposed to stop those who flagrantly violate these laws. Through the use of coercion by the imposition of traffic infraction penalties, most of society is willing to obey the posted speed limits and warning signs. And to ensure that those caught pay, society imposes a criminal penalty if you fail to pay the speeding fine. So the law is quite clear: you may speed and disobey traffic signals and signs if you are prepared to pay the imposed penalty when caught; however, society will only tolerate a fixed number of times you can be disobedient: after several infractions, your right to drive is revoked. And if you still choose to drive or fail to pay the tickets, then you will cross the line from an infraction to that of a criminal act.

With respect to the law of gravity, society imposes building codes that must be followed. Failure to obey building codes, however, does not necessarily result in disaster, but when disaster strikes it is so sudden and terrible that society must enforce these codes. It requires contractors, engineers, and architects to be licensed and to pass minimum competency examinations. Failure to obey building codes results in fines and liability for negligence or willful and wanton disregard for human life.

The sad fact is that society actually needs the imposition of penalties to coerce people to act responsibly vis-à-vis obeying the fundamental laws of nature.

SOCIAL AND POLITICAL LAWS

As mankind evolved, I think we can safely assume that people began to live in societies. Actions that were unharmful when a man lived alone in a state of nature became harmful when a man lived with others. Hence, man began to think in terms of moral behavior.

How should I live my life?

What is the right thing to do in this situation?

Should one always tell the truth?

Do I have a duty to report a coworker whom I have seen cheating our company?

Should I tell my friend that his spouse is having an affair?

Is premarital sex morally permissible?

Ought a woman ever to have an abortion?

The answers to such questions were addressed secularly and religiously by different societies – resulting in religious and secular laws.

As Socrates allegedly said in Plato’s Republic: “We are discussing no small matter, but how we ought to live.”

In some societies, moral behavior was motivated by, and grounded in, revelation and divine authority. In other societies, both ethics and moral philosophy were grounded in reason and human experience.

Ancient societies had legal codes. The codes that have the greatest number of similarities with the laws of Israel (the “Torah”) are the laws of the kingdoms of Eshnunna and of Babylon, both composed in Akkadian in the “Old Babylonian” period, the former by an unidentified king, the latter by the famous Hammurabi. Existing copies of ancient Near Eastern codes are the following (these dates are approximate and not fully agreed upon by all scholars):

Laws of Ur-Nammu, Sumerian, about 2100 B.C.

Laws of Lipit-Ishtar, Sumerian, about 1930 B.C.

Laws of Eshnunna, Akkadian, about 1900-1800 B.C.

Laws of Hammurabi, Akkadian, about 1750 B.C.

Laws of the Hittites, about 1400-1300 B.C.

Laws of the Assyrians, about 1100 B.C.

When one combines the laws of Exodus with those in Deuteronomy, a general similarity to the arrangement of the laws in the Code of Hammurabi may be observed. Israel, however, believed its Law, the Torah, to be at heart a religious document and thus essentially different from the legal systems of the age. The Law of Israel did not rest on custom but on divine authority. They were dogma and were based on revelation.

There are man-made laws and there are traditional habits and usages of community life which are hardened into law. Both are responsive to the changing needs of mankind, and, when they are just and long-established, they come to be regarded as divinely sanctioned. But the ideals and the ultimate moral standards are conceived as having been revealed to man. They are given to him by his Creator. They do not change. They do not ratify long-established tribal customs and time-honored practices. They proclaim that which should be done now and for all future time.

Our laws are based on Exodus (divine revelation) and the Justinian Code (moral philosophy). The impact of Exodus on Western Civilization has been incalculable and, in the history of law, without compare.

Which brings us back to faith (Exodus) and reason (Civil law).

RELIGIOUS LAWS

I would like to focus on the interplay of man’s reason and God’s revelation vis-à-vis obedience.

The real question therefore is what kind of place should reason have in our religion.

The Apostle Paul wrote: “See that no one makes a prey of you by philosophy and empty deceit.”

Paul’s warnings are directed at a certain kind of reasoning, namely, “worldly wisdom,” which is the product of a “human conceit that shuts itself up against the truth, ” not against the use of reason as such. A cursory reading of Paul’s letters shows that he frequently makes use of reasoning, analysis, and arguments in the course of his religious teaching.

The early Christian writer Tertullian asked, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” By “Athens” he meant Greek philosophy; by “Jerusalem,” the Christian church. Tertullian, however, despite his diatribe against philosophy, was trained in philosophy and can be shown to have made use of it in his explanations of Christian doctrines.

In order to obey laws revealed in Scripture, several approaches have been raised vis-à-vis reason and faith:

1.  Strong rationalism takes the position that in order for Scripture to be properly and rationally accepted, it must be possible to prove that the Scripture is true. Here, rationalism in this sense implies a reliance on reason, or intelligence, in deciding our beliefs and actions. The word “prove” to be sure is somewhat ambiguous; but it means show that a belief is true in a way that should be convincing to any reasonable person. Here then obedience to any law must be predicated upon conviction.

2.  A second kind of view is commonly called fideism – faith-ism. Here, Scripture is not subject to rational evaluation. To say, for instance, that Scripture is the word of God does not depend on any evidence or reasoning and that we should refuse to have anything to do with trying to prove or disprove God’s Scripture.  For a sincere religious believer, the most fundamental assumptions are found in Scripture itself. Religious faith itself is the foundation of one’s life – one’s ultimate concern. Here then obedience to any law must be predicated on faith alone.

3.  A third kind of view is called critical rationalism, which is defined as the view that Scripture can and must be rationally criticized and evaluated although conclusive proof of such a system is impossible. Hence, obedience to any law must be predicated on the use of our rational capabilities, to the greatest extent possible. The critical rationalist is never in the position of being able to decide, finally and for good, that any discussion concerning the truth and validity of his or her religious beliefs has reached its ultimate conclusion.

As stated earlier, religious ethics are grounded in revelation or divine authority, though generally using reason to supplement or complement revelation. We therefore must use our own free will to determine the irrevocable laws that must be obeyed regardless of whether we think we must be able to prove such laws or accept them on faith alone.

In this regard, it is interesting that the Lord told Joseph Smith, Jr., in August of 1831, that:

[I]t is not [suitable, fitting, or proper] that I should command in all things; for he that is compelled in all things, the same is a slothful and not a wise servant; wherefore he receives no reward. . . . [Men and women] should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness; For the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves.  And inasmuch as men [and women] do good they shall in nowise lose their reward.

Arguably, this means that we have to use reason in choosing right and wrong rather than only commandments from God.

Most of us would agree I believe that we need to have faith in God, hope of immortality, and charity for all mankind if we are to live Christian lives. However, faith is lost in sight, hope in fruition, but charity remains forever. As the Apostle Paul wrote: “And now abides faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.”

Thus, we should exercise charity by regarding the whole human species as one family, the high and the low, the rich and the poor. We should relieve the distressed, soothe the unhappy, sympathize with their misfortunes, compassionate their miseries, and restore peace to their troubled minds, to the best of our abilities. We do not need to be commanded to do this.

Also, to understand our duty and the laws which we should obey, we need to do more than study the Scriptures. Sometime on December 27th, 28th, 1832, or January 3rd, 1833, the Lord counseled us as follows:

And as all have not faith, seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; [yes], seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith.

On March 8th, 1833, the Lord told Joseph Smith, Jr. that he was to finish the translation of the Book of Mormon, and from time to time, as manifested by the Holy Ghost, receive revelations,

And, set in order the churches, and study and learn, and become acquainted with all good books, and with languages, tongues, and people.

At the dedication of the Kirtland Temple, the Prophet Joseph Smith, Jr. prayed as follows in pertinent part:

And as all have not faith, seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; [yes], seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom, seek learning even by study and also by faith. . . . And do thou grant, Holy Father, that all those who shall worship in this house may be taught words of wisdom out of the best books, and that they may seek learning even by study, and also by faith, as thou hast said.

The Lord is quite plain in admonishing us to seek wisdom from the best books of this world, and to seek learning by study, and also by faith. It is evident to me that we cannot be content to study just the scriptures, but he who desires to understand the harmonious and beautiful proportions of those irrevocable laws upon which all blessings are predicated must read, study, reflect, digest, and discriminate in his or her ardent search for knowledge. The best books of the world come down to us full-freighted with the intellectual riches of the past.

Hence, to learn, to attain knowledge, to be wise, is a necessity for every Latter-day Saint; to teach, to communicate that knowledge, to share that wisdom with others is a must. The Apostle Paul wrote in pertinent part to the Saints in Thessalonia: “Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do.”  This is one of the important reasons we meet together on Sundays.

By being obedient to these admonitions, we will attain knowledge, become wise, strengthen our faith, and edify each other.

It is not enough, however, that the conscience be taught by nature; but it must be taught by God, conducted by reason, made operative by discourse, assisted by choice, instructed by laws and sober principles; and then it is right, and it may be sure.

In March of 1839, Joseph Smith, Jr. recorded his prayer and prophecies while a prisoner at Liberty, Missouri. In pertinent part, we find counsel to:

[L]et virtue garnish [our] thoughts unceasingly; then shall [our] confidence wax strong in the presence of God; and the doctrine of the priesthood shall distil upon [our] soul as the dews from heaven. The Holy Ghost shall be [our] constant companion. . . .

Here, God reveals an idea that has been explained earlier by Plato and, especially, Aristotle, and that received support in the Epicureans, Stoics, and some sections of the Early Christian Church: “virtue ethics.” Virtue ethics centers in the heart of the person acting, in his or her character and disposition – being a certain type of person.

For traditional duty-based ethics the question is: What shall I do?

For virtue ethics the question is: What sort of person should I become?

Virtue ethics seeks to produce excellent persons, who both act well out of spontaneous goodness and serve as examples who inspire others. Here God reveals that we should inculcate virtue into our thoughts and lives unceasingly. We should be obedient to this law.

Some of these virtues are temperance, fortitude, prudence, and justice.

By allowing the virtue of Temperance to garnish our thoughts unceasingly, we will have that due restraint upon our affections and passions which renders the body tame and governable, and frees the mind from the allurements of vice. Hence, the virtue of Temperance should be our constant practice, as we are thereby taught to avoid excess or the contracting of any licentious or vicious habits.

By allowing the virtue of fortitude to garnish our thoughts unceasingly, we will have that noble and steady purpose of the mind whereby we are enabled to undergo any pain, peril, or danger, when prudentially deemed expedient. This virtue is equally distant from rashness and cowardice, and, like the virtue of Temperance, should be deeply impressed upon our minds.

By allowing the virtue of prudence to garnish our thoughts unceasingly, we will be taught to regulate our lives and actions agreeably to the dictates of reason, and have that faculty by which we wisely judge and prudentially determine on all things relative to our present, as well as our future happiness.

By allowing the virtue of justice to garnish our thoughts unceasingly, we will employ that standard or boundary of right which enables us to render unto every man his just due, without distinction. This virtue of Justice is not only consistent with divine and human laws, but is the very cement and support of civil society; and, as justice in a great measure constitutes the truly good man or woman, so should it be our invariable practice never to deviate from the minutest principles thereof.

Hence, by using reason and faith, and allowing virtue to garnish our thoughts unceasingly, we should be able to choose correctly those irrevocable laws upon which all blessings are predicated: whether physical, civil, or scriptural – and for selfish reasons we should be obedient to such.

I with one final “law” that has been revealed to us. Many people wonder why we have trials and tribulations in our lives if God loves us. In March of 1839, the Lord revealed the following principle to Joseph Smith, Jr. in pertinent part:

If you are called to pass through tribulation . . . know . . . that all these things shall give [you] experience, and shall be for [your] good.

Here, God tells us that even though we are obedient, we may still have to pass through trials and tribulations. Bad things may happen to us. We will experience anguish, abandonment, and despair at times. Accepting these tribulations and the vicissitudes of life as part of God’s love for us will bless our lives.

We have to remember that this journey on earth is but a moment in our eternal progression and that God wants us to have experiences: good and bad. We have to keep in perspective that every experience comes from God and is for our good, whether we comprehend the “good” rationally at the time or not. Obedience to law therefore is the source of our blessings.

Are You Unhappy With Your Religion? – Some Thoughts From a Freemason’s Perspective.

I think a common mistake is believing the notion that one’s spirituality derives from a group instead of from within oneself. In my opinion, you (hereinafter used in the collective sense, not referring to anyone personally) have to find your own personal relationship with God (assuming you are a religious-minded person; if not, then you have to find inner peace within yourself) regardless of whether you belong to an organized religion. Once you have developed this personal relationship (e.g., feeling the spirit, having your prayers answered, etc. (whatever it is that you are seeking from having a metaphysical relationship or experience)), then it really doesn’t matter which “church” you belong to (or whether you belong to any church).

In my opinion, the worthwhile purpose of an organized religion is not to disseminate “truth,” because “truth” to one person may be “falsehood” to another, and vice versa, but to provide relief in times of need, and traditions or a feeling of belonging to a group. As Mahatma Gandhi once said: “God appears before the poor in the form of bread.” The most important function in my opinion is the provision of relief and acts of charity. Of course, all good religions should (and based on my own comparative studies do) teach morality and ethics and to act charitably, but whether one conforms to such teachings or acts charitably depends on whether one feels compelled to so conform or act; i.e., you should have a personal relationship with God that allows you the freedom to choose how you will act or react in any circumstance regardless of the dogma or doctrine pertaining to a “premortal existence” or an “after-death existence” of any particular group to which you belong.

I will now try to use an analogy — forgive me if you find it idiotic. In other words, I do not think you can put on a religion as you can a suit of clothing and have it change you: you are who you are regardless of the clothes you wear (or the religion to which you may belong). So to declare that you are discarding one set of clothing for another set of clothing (or simply going naked) really is meaningless vis-a-vis being at peace with yourself and with God. From my experience, no two members of any organized religion believe exactly the same thing or interpret everything the same. Hence, every member of any particular organized religion wears different clothes – they may claim to be wearing the same clothing, but in fact they are not.

Continuing with my analogy (if you aren’t laughing so hard that your tears are preventing you from reading this far), what makes any religion great in my opinion is the diversity of the clothing all its members wear (of course having a common theme is nice). In other words, you have to have such a strong, real personal relationship with God that you can feel comfortable wearing anything you want when meeting with other members, and the subtle differences of opinions and understanding really make the religion strong and fun to belong to. In my own particular religion, I find myself disagreeing with most of what people say because of my education, etc., but I recognize that these are good people who would help me or my family immediately in times of distress (and consequently I do the same for others).

Now, as for doctrines, I think we have to use some common sense. The place to begin is with the proof that God exists. I find that too many believers of religion assume a priori that God exists when in fact there is no evidence that this is the case, and then they hurry on to discuss which doctrine is God’s doctrine, etc. So, any discussion of whether any particular doctrine or religion is true or false puts the proverbial cart before the horse. We simply have to begin with the proof that God exists. Now the best proof would be to see God and to talk with Him (or Her or It or Them (hereinafter collectively either “God” or “Him” or “He” with apologies to those who care), but this has never happened to any of us — or at least no one can prove to another that it did happen, if it did. In my opinion, if we can’t prove that God exists, then it is meaningless to attempt to prove or disprove whether any particular organized religion is God’s true religion. It is such a distraction from what really matters: can you study from the great books of the world in your religion and will your religion be there to help you when you need such help?

I do not believe that anyone can prove that God exists, even though many have tried. Assuming, arguendo, that someone could prove that God exists, I believe we would still have the problem of describing how God looks or His nature or His characteristics. I suspect that everyone who believes in God visualizes God differently than everyone else. Now if we can all visualize God differently, whether we belong to an organized religion, then why can’t we also all have different personal relationships with Him? I say we can; we should; we must. In other words, it is alright to accept:

• the “truth” that the existence of God cannot be proved or disproved (i.e., to be intellectually agnostic), it is especially difficult to prove that something does not exist; and,
• that spiritual (or metaphysical) experiences are something that can be experienced by all people regardless of religious or irreligious belief and such spiritual witnesses can be used to convince one that God exists (i.e., to be spiritually theistic).

One can say truthfully that one believes in God based on his or her metaphysical experiences but that intellectually he or she has absolutely no proof of such existence; i.e., your irrational belief in God is based on faith alone; but this faith must be a personal faith that springs from within, and cannot be based on any teachings of any organized religion to which you belong. The religion really should not be that important to your faith or lack of faith: your faith depends solely on yourself and your feelings about yourself. Of course, it is folly to question your faith or to attempt to use logic or stretch your imagination as much as possible in an effort to convince yourself that there is empirical evidence to support your faith: i.e., logic, evidence, and proof, are the antithesis of faith.

So, in my opinion, if one is unhappy with any particular organized religion to which he or she belongs (whether de jure or de facto), then the unhappiness does not spring from the particular religion and the person’s particular interpretation or understanding of its teachings, but from the person himself or herself. Now it may be correct that people can change religions as they change clothing but in my opinion if they find more happiness in one set of clothes than another then such happiness is only transitory, or perhaps the person actually had a real change internally and became happy with himself or herself when or shortly before she “found” her or his new religion or set of clothing, and simply mistakenly transfers this new-found happiness to the religion rather than recognizing that such happiness came from within.

Our happiness should spring from within and not from without. And, in my further opinion, our happiness has little to do with the doctrines and tenets of any particular religion (except in those situations when the idea of seeing a deceased loved one again after this life brings comfort and gives you strength to carry on). (Of course, you may find a particular system of belief that actually teaches ideas that you have always believed — if so, great — but once you have found such, you should stop looking or questioning whether the religion is “true”; it simply teaches what you believe, and that should be enough.) Basically, though, in my opinion, all religions teach the same fundamental core values (since what may have happened before this life, or what may happen to us after this life, cannot be proven, little weight should be given to these types of doctrines — if they are true, I suppose we will find out after we die; if they are not true, then maybe we will find out after we die, and maybe we won’t). What is important is now.

In summary, therefore, I suggest that the first step to religious happiness is to look within yourself and develop a personal relationship with your God, and then if you want to have a safety net look for a religion or fraternal organization (realizing that what matters is what the organization does now, not what it may have done in the past or promises to do in the future (it hardly matters if any particular organization did things in the past that were questionable)) that will relieve you when you are distressed, soothe you when you are unhappy, sympathize with your misfortune, compassionate your miseries, and restore peace to your troubled mind (all these require actual help from people and have absolutely nothing to do with any particular belief as to the nature of God, the existence of God, the pre-existence, the afterlife, eternal this or eternal that, or whether you can prove that any particular religion is “true” or “false”).

After you have developed a personal relationship with your God, then you should study the great books of the world and develop yourself. You should exercise charity and regard the whole human species as one family — the high and the low, the rich and the poor. Furthermore, you should contemplate on the divine attributes of what you consider to be “truth” and consider such truth as the foundation of every virtue, and by the dictates of such truth you should endeaver to regulate your conduct; i.e., while influenced by the principles of truth, hypocrisy and deceit should be unknown with you, and sincerity and plain dealing should distinguish you, and with heart and tongue, you should join in promoting other’s welfare and rejoicing in other’s prosperity.

Now you should be able to do this regardless of the organized religion to which you belong or were born in or associate with. Your religion should be personal to you, and be no one’s business (e.g., when Thomas Jefferson was asked what religion he belonged to, he allegedly said: “That is none of your business.”); i.e., your religion is your personal relationship with your God, and it is based on your own spiritual experience — not someone else’s. You will always keep in mind that you accept God based on faith alone; i.e., it is irrational to believe in a God that you cannot see, hear, smell, or touch, but faith was never based on rational thought or empirical evidence. (For example, read the writings of Paul or the Zen or Dao Masters.) This should give you a healthy humility that will allow you to accept the shortcomings and weaknesses of those with whom you associate (either personally or as a group (i.e., members of the organized religion or fraternal organization to which you belong)). In other words, you should be able to laugh at your belief in God based on nothing but a wonderful feeling within you and your acceptance of the stories and teachings in some books written long, long ago (or recently) by someone that you simply accept without any proof as being inspired or as being “Holy Writings.”

In short, all “Holy Writings” that you accept will be the rule and guide of your faith — it makes no difference whether these writings really came from God or were made up by men and women — if you believe they are holy writings, then that is good enough for you (if you are going to search the world for “true” holy writings, then you will be spending your whole life looking for that which can never be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, by clear and convincing evidence, or by a preponderance of the evidence). You simply accept the moral, ethical, and spiritual teachings found within them as you understand them. You could write your own book if you wanted, and it could have the same meaning to you; i.e., it could be a “Holy Writing,” if you will. So in my opinion you should not engage in the folly (as I see it) of trying to prove or disprove any “Holy Writings” as actually being or not being the “word of God;” this is an impossibility for the believer in and of such Holy Writings. Again, all religious belief is based on faith: not logic, not empirical evidence, and not the rantings and ravings or seductive or sophistical speech of others one way or the other. The values you find within these Holy Writings are what is important — not their origin. And, it should go without saying that since “faith” is irrational, you should not attempt to destroy the faith of another — regardless of how preposterous you may think its underpinings to be (i.e., pride is something to avoid). Besides, it is rude to argue with others about religion when neither you nor they can even begin the argument with a proof that God exists — talk about a waste of everyone’s time and a demonstration of prideful stupidity if one attempts to engage in such argumentation.

In other words, find a story you like and make that your religion, and the get on with living – stop thinking that it is important to believe your religion is “true.” Get on with living your life. Become focused, disciplined and dedicated to accomplish your life goals – don’t waste your time fretting about your religion.

Therefore, I think it is important to daily inure yourself with (1) habits of concentrated attention, energetic volition, and self-denial in unnecessary things (to quote William James), and (2) virtues of temperance, fortitude, prudence, and justice (to go Aristotelian here).

• Temperance is that due restraint upon the affections and passions which renders the body tame and governable, and frees the mind from the allurements of vice. This virtue should be your constant practice, as you are thereby taught to avoid excess or the contracting of any licentious or vicious habits, the indulgence in which might lead you to disclose things which you may have promised to keep secret, which would consequently subject you to the contempt and detestation of all good men and women who still believe that a man or woman’s word is his or her bond.
• Fortitude is that noble and steady purpose of the mind whereby we are enabled to undergo any pain, peril, or danger, when prudentially deemed expedient. This virtue is equally distant from rashness and cowardice, and like the virtue of Temperance, should be deeply impressed upon your mind, as a safeguard or security against any illegal attempt which may be made, by force or otherwise, to extort from you any of those valuable secrets with which you have been solemnly entrusted, by friend, organization, or client.
• Prudence teaches us to regulate our lives and actions agreeably with the dictates of reason, and is that faculty by which we wisely judge and prudentially determine on all things relative to our present, as well as our future, happiness. This virtue should be your particular characteristic, not only for the government of your conduct while with familiar associates, but also when abroad in the world.
• Justice is that standard or boundary of right which enables us to render unto every man or woman his or her just due, without distinction. This virtue is not only consistent with divine and human laws, but is the very cement and support of civil society, and, as justice in a great measure constitutes the really good man or woman, so should it be your invariable practice never to deviate from the minutest principles.

So Aristotelian virtues are in my opinion good for the soul, regardless of your “religion.” (As an aside, Aristotle wrote a great essay on the reasons a man should act morally and ethically, and in particular an essay on the reasons one should not commit adultery – arguably, most moral and ethical concepts have nothing to do with any particular religion.) Basically, respect yourself and be true to yourself: if you made any religious promises that you subsequently feel were meaningless and foolish, keep those promises to yourself and act honorably.

Perhaps, Bessie Anderson Stanley, in 1904, summed it up best when she wrote what to her constituted success:

He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much;

Who has enjoyed the trust of pure women, the respect of intelligent men, and the love of little children;

Who has filled his niche and accomplished his task;

Who has never lacked appreciation of Earth’s beauty or failed to express it;

Who has left the world a better place than he found it, whether an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul;

Who has always looked for the best in others and given them the best he had;

Whose life was an inspiration;

Whose memory a benediction.

The bottom-line is that religion qua religion should occupy about one-tenth of one-percent of your time and thinking. It is wholly subjective, irrational, and personal; you either believe in God or you do not; the bases for your belief are irrelevant to others. The truly intelligent realize that your belief is sincere and based on subjective, wonderful metaphysical experiences, and its irrationality is understood and respected in this case. You should be able to move from one religion to another and back and forth without any change to your personal viewpoints about, or personal relationship with, God; however, studying other religions and different moral philosophies may help expand your personal relationship with, and understanding of, God; hence the need to study the great books of the world.

But in my opinion once you have found a religion that provides the charitable support and teaches fundamental moral values, then that should be the end of your religious quest (but not necessarily your intellectual quest for knowledge about other systems of belief), and you should simply get on with living well, and truly become the man or woman you want to be (it may take a lifetime, and it may never happen (since our expectations have a tendency to expand as we improve ourselves, but the journey is worth the cost of the ticket if you pay attention along the way)), and this should take up the remaining 99.9 percent of your time and thinking.

So there is hope and happiness for all who have left any particular religion looking for happiness elsewhere: hope and happiness have always been within us. As a great Zen Master once said: “We are riding a water buffalo looking for a water buffalo.” And the Dalai Lama said when asked what one should do to join his particular brand of Buddhism: “First learn everything there is to know about your own religion.” I think this is good advice. My advice is that if your happiness or unhappiness springs from your religion, then something is wrong with you; your happiness should have nothing to do with the particular religion you belong to, were born in, or the God you believe in; it has everything to do with how you feel about yourself. To paraphrase a wise teacher: Religion was made for man; not man for religion. Of course, my wife says that man made religion, and Karl Marx is attributed to having said that “God did not create man, rather man created God.” So there are a lot of ideas out there, but what is important is what you believe and the reasons for your beliefs (that should always be personal to you).

My final thought:

Though there are many paths

At the foot of the mountain

All those who reach the top

See the same moon. (Author Unknown.)

So find a story you hope is true (that is, that would really be nice if it were true), then pick that path, stay on it, reach the top of the mountain, and see the same moon — it really doesn’t make any difference what organized religion you belong to, but if you keep changing paths, you may never reach the top, and you may miss a glorious moon.

I think I have used up my one-tenth of one percent of religious thinking for a few weeks.

Was hilft laufen, wenn man nicht auf den rechten Weg ist? German proverb.

Marshall McLuhan says TV opens out onto an electronic global village. It would seem, rather, that it gives us only the illusion of being. It reinforces security by presenting danger, ignorance by presenting news, lethargy by presenting excitement, isolation by promising participation. The media confines reality to itself. And it limits knowledge by giving the illusion of knowledge. In the same way that the most effective way to deflect, diffuse and terminate a social movement is to announce that it has been achieved (the feminist movement must contend with this on an almost daily basis), the most effective way to deflect inquiry is to present it as fulfilled. TV acts in this guise as a thinking presentation device which offers non-experience as experience and not-knowingness as knowing.

In the words of Mat Maxwell, “Television becomes the world for people…. The world becomes television.” The overall and cumulative effect of the media is to heighten our insensitivity to reality. Rather than breaking the chains of ignorance, political domination and illusion in our Platonic cave, something insidiously similar yet different is going on. Instead of actually turning away from the shadows to see the realities, instead of actually leaving the darkness of the cave and going up into the sunlight, we merely watch an image of ourselves doing this, we fantasize about doing it and think it’s the same.

“Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.” 1 Col. 2:8.

As you all know, I think any rational attempt to prove or disprove the existence of God is illogical. All the founders of all religions have all affirmatively advocated that religious belief is based on faith (alone). Obviously: if free agency (liberty, freedom, free will, etc.) is important then we cannot know that God actually exists as a fact; if we did, then we would be compelled to do “God’s Will” — admittedly, some will argue that people would still “sin” even if they knew that God existed. Really? If you knew absolutely that you would suffer greatly by “sinning” but be rewarded greatly by obeying God, would any intelligent, rational being willingly act out and be swatted down? Perhaps if they had the IQ of a child.

Anyway, for me, the one reason why atheists in America should support and encourage Christianity is because the American concept of freedom and liberty is rooted in the Christian religion (and I’m not referring to modern-day “Christians” preaching feel good religion and hatred of other Christian sects): We are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” (or something like that based on my memory of the Declaration of Independence I memorized in the Seventh Grade). Destroy religion in America and the argument that liberty comes from a source above the State disappears and we are left with the conclusion that liberty comes from, and may be circumscribed by, the federal government. QED

It appears that Mary Eberstandt may have written the book I have been working on. It is called the “Loser Letters.” In my opinion, this response supports my general theory of why today’s atheists are harming themselves and society in general:

Q: Is “New Atheism” different from old atheism?

A: In general, as Max von Sydow says in The Exorcist, “There’s only one.” On the other hand, there’s at least this difference. Some of the older atheists, Nietzsche most notably, at least understood that the hoped-for abolition of religion would bring dire consequences. Today’s antireligious tracts exhibit no such nuance.

Here is one comment from powerlineblog.com:

The Loser Letters consists of letters written by A.F. (Ä Former) Christian to the leading atheists of our time. As her name suggests, Ms. Christian, a confused 20-something, is a former believer who has become an atheist. She fancies herself as atheism’s only convert. The idea here (pretty much true, I think) is that people generally don’t convert to atheism, as they convert to religion, but instead drift into it.

As a convert, Ms. Christian wants above all to be helpful to her new cause. Thus, her letters take the form of advice to atheism’s leading lights – men of a certain age – about how atheism can win converts among her generation and among women generally. She focuses in particular on those arguments raised by believers that she thinks are the major obstacles to consigning “The Loser” (God) to the rubbish heap.

This premise enables Eberstadt to argue the key issues in the debate over atheism in the tragicomic tones of 20-something female-speak. Consequently, The Loser Letters never becomes didactic (and certainly not metaphysical in the bad sense). The touch is simultaneously light and profound – more profound because of the touch of lightness.

To those who enjoy books that debate the existence of God, I recommend The Loser Letters. To those who are skeptical about such books, I recommend The Loser Letters.

Here is the National Review interview: http://article.nationalreview.com/432363/dont-lose-out-mary-eberstadt-on-her-new-book/interview

The introduction to the interview:

Richard Dawkins wants Pope Benedict XVI arrested when the pontiff visits England in the fall. Canadian National Post columnist Robert Fulford rightfully slammed the Dawkins proposal as “a publicity stunt to denigrate the Pope and his Church.” In doing so, Fulford channeled Mary Eberstadt and her new book, The Loser Letters, a full-length satirical slap-down of the whole lot of contemporary, out-of-control atheists.

“The Loser Letters” were first published on National Review Online in the spring of 2008. Ignatius Press has now made them bookshelf-ready. Revisiting the conception, Eberstadt talks to NRO’s Kathryn Jean Lopez about the Letters.

Worth reading.

One Remarkable Life

Thoughts on the Early Christian Church and Secret Ceremonies: From the beginning his mother knew that he was no ordinary person.  Prior to his birth, a heavenly figure appeared to his mother, announcing that her son would not be a mere mortal but would himself be divine. This prophecy was confirmed by the miraculous character of this birth, a birth accompanied by supernatural signs. The boy was already recognized as a spiritual authority in his youth; his discussions with recognized experts showed his superior knowledge of all things religious. As an adult, he left home to engage in an itinerant preaching ministry. He went from village to town with his message of good news, proclaiming that people should forgo their concerns for the material things of this life, such as how they should dress and what they should eat. They should instead be concerned with their eternal souls.

He gathered around him a number of disciples who were amazed by his teaching and his flawless character. They became convinced that he was no ordinary man but was the Son of God. Their faith received striking confirmation in the miraculous things that he did. He could reportedly predict the future, heal the sick, cast out demons, and raise the dead. Not everyone proved friendly, however. At the end of his life, his enemies trumped up charges against him, and he was placed on trial before Roman authorities for crimes against the state.

Even after he departed this realm, however, he did not forsake his devoted followers. Some claimed that he had ascended bodily into heaven; others said that he had appeared to them, alive, afterwards, that they had talked with him and touched him and become convinced that he could not be bound by death. A number of his followers spread the good news about this man, recounting what they had seen him say and do. Eventually some of these accounts came to be written down in books that circulated throughout the Roman Empire.

But I doubt that you have ever read them. In fact, I suspect you have never heard the name of this miracle-working “Son of God.” The man I have been referring to is the great neo-Pythagorean teacher and pagan holy man of the first century A.D., Apollonius of Tyana, a worshiper of the Roman gods, whose life and teachings are recorded in the writings of his later follower Philostratus, in his book The Life of Apollonius.”

Apollonius lived at about the time of Jesus. Even though they never met, the reports about their lives were in many ways similar. At a later time, Jesus’ followers argued that Jesus was the miracle-working Son of God, and that Apollonius was an impostor, a magician, and a fraud. Perhaps not surprisingly, Apollonius’ followers made just the opposite claim, asserting that he was the miracle-working Son of God, and that Jesus was a fraud. (Hence, when we read in the Bible that Jesus is “the only begotten son of God” we should better understand the reason why Christ was referred to as the “only” one — all others making that claim were false.)

What is remarkable is that these were not the only two persons in the Greco-Roman world who were thought to have been supernaturally endowed as teachers and miracle workers. In fact, we know from the tantalizing but fragmentary records that have survived that numerous other persons were also said to have performed miracles, to have calmed the storm and multiplied the loaves, to have told the future and healed the sick, to have cast out demons and raised the dead, to have been supernaturally born and taken up into heaven at the end of their life. Even though Jesus may be the only miracle-working Son of God that we know about in our world, he was one of many talked about in the first century A.D.

Hence, the stories about Jesus were told among people who could make sense of them, and the sense they made of them in a world populated with divine beings may have been different from the sense that we make of them in our world.

Ancient Pagan Religious Organization

The pagan religions of the Roman Empire had no national or international religious organizations with elected or appointed leaders who had jurisdiction over the various local cults. There were no creedal statements or any necessary articles of faith whatsoever for devotees. Whereas ethics were generally as important to people then as they are today, daily ethical demands played virtually no role in the practice of religion itself. Many people evidently did not hold a firm belief in life after death; those who did, so far as we can tell from records, did not generally become more religious as a result. Pagan religions were never centered on sacred writings to guide the individual’s beliefs and practices. And there was no such thing as separation of church and state; on the contrary, since the gods made the state great, the state responded by encouraging and sponsoring the worship of the gods. Finally, virtually no one in the pagan world argued that if you worshiped one god, you could not also worship another; exclusive adherence to one cult was practically unknown.

What mattered  was how people showed their devotion to the gods. The gods wanted to be worshiped through proper cultic acts. The English term “cult” derives from the Latin term for “care.” The ancient concept of cultus deorum thus referred to the “care of the gods.” The pagans cared for the gods through prayer and sacrifice. Local and family deities had their own established cults. Daily cultic acts might involve pouring out a little wine before a meal in honor of one of the family gods or saying a prayer for a favor. Periodic festivals would be celebrated in which a group of worshipers would sacrifice an animal, or have a local priest do so, while set prayers were spoken. The inedible parts of the animal would be burned to the god, the rest would be prepared and eaten by the participants in a picnic-like atmosphere.

Throughout the empire, special festival days were set aside for the worship of the state gods. These were the powerful gods who had shown favor to Rome and made it great. People worshiped them to secure their continued favor and patronage. Romans generally assumed that if religious practices worked they must be right and must be retained (that is, a pragmatic approach to religion). The grandeur and power of Rome was plain for all that these rituals did work (a classic example of “post hoc ergo propter hoc” — the post hoc fallacy (after this therefore because of this): viz., this fallacy is based upon the mistaken notion that simply because one thing happens after another, the first event was a cause of the second event. Post hoc reasoning is the basis for many superstitions and erroneous beliefs..

The Divine Pyramid as understood in Greco-Roman Religion is the following heirarchy (in order from the top down — you have to imagine a triangle until I figure out how to add one on this blog):

• The One God
• The Great Gods
• Daimonia, local gods, etc.
• Divine beings, demigods,
• Immortals, heroes
• Humans

Recent scholarship has shown that most people in the Greco-Roman world conceived of the divine realm as a kind of pyramid of power, with the few but mightiest god(s) at the top and the more numerous but less powerful deities at the bottom. Some of the most highly educated thinkers – for example, philosophers and their students – maintained that at the very peak of the pyramid was one almighty God, whether understood to be the Greek Zeus, the Roman Jupiter, or some unknown and unknowable God, so powerful that it was all but inaccessible to mere mortals.

The pyramid’s next tier represented the powerful gods worshiped in different localities throughout the empire. Among Greek people, these would include Poseidon, Hera, Aphrodite, Artemis, Dionysus, and others of Greek myth and legend; in Roman circles these would be identified by their Latin names: Neptune, Juno, Venus, Diana, and Bacchus. These gods were thought to be incredibly powerful and altogether worthy of worship and praise.

Below this tier was another inhabited by lesser gods, including the local deities who had limited powers (although they were still far beyond anything humans could imagine) but who were in more direct contact with human affairs. Included on this tier were the daimonia. The Greek term is hard to translate into English. The cognate term “demons” carries the wrong connotation altogether, for the daimonia were not evil fallen angels who temporarily inhabited human bodies, forcing them to do all sorts of nasty things. To be sure, some of them were dangerous, but for the most part they were relatively indifferent to human activities and so had to be persuaded, through cultic acts, to behave in ways that would lead to benefit rather than harm.

In addition, most people had their own family gods – for example, in Roman religion, each household worshiped divine beings called Penates who had oversight of the pantry and foodstuffs, as well as deities called Lares (sometimes thought of as the spirits of the family’s ancestors) who protected the house and its inhabitants; and each family had a personal deity, a kind of guardian angel called a “genius,” thought to reside in the head of the household. Family gods were regularly represented through household shrines and worshiped through prayers and simple acts of piety.

Finally, on the bottom level of the divine pyramid was a range of divine beings who more or less bridged the gap between mortals and the gods. Included here were humans who, at their deaths, had been divinized (i.e., made immortal, like the gods). These were typically great men, philosophers or warriors, whose extraordinary deeds won them special favors from the gods at death as well as in life. Also found here were demigods, individuals said to have been born to the union of a god or goddess with a mortal, as found, for instance, in a number of Greek and Roman myths and folktales. Some people considered the Roman emperor to be this kind of divine being. He was not the one God, or even one of the Olympians. Indeed, from the divine perspective he was very much a subordinate. But from the human point of view, he was fantastically powerful, himself divine, and for some inhabitants of the empire worthy of worship and praise. Also included among such beings were Apollonius of Tyana, and other so called sons of God, whose supernatural teachings and miraculous deeds demonstrated their divine lineage.

Mystery Cults

Sanctioned forms of mystery existed in certain local cults, and some of these came to enjoy an international reputation. Modern scholars commonly refer to these forms of religion as the “mystery cults.” In some respects, the mystery cults stand out as exceptional in the religious climate of the Greco-Roman world; quite possibly, it was precisely their atypical character that made them so sought after. Regrettably, despite their popularity, we are remarkably ill-informed concerning these cults.  Indeed, they are called mysteries, in part, because participants could not divulge what happened during their sacred rituals. As a consequence, our evidence has to be pieced together from isolated comments and fragmentary remains.

The mystery cults were relatively distinct in focusing chiefly on the well-being of the individual. Moreover, whereas almost all other religions were centered on life in the here and now, mystery cults appear to have placed some emphasis (older scholarship believed it was exclusive emphasis) on providing a happy existence in the life after death. Finally, even though there was wide tolerance of different religions in the Greco-Roman world, and no general sense of exclusive attachment to one deity over another, within the mysteries we find individuals who are principally devoted to one god or goddess for life.

Each of the mystery cults was different; each had its own special location and its own customs and rituals. Many of them evidently centered around a mythology of the death and resurrection of a god or goddess, a mythology ultimately rooted in ancient fertility religion, in which the death of winter gives way to the new life of spring. Moreover, the periodic ritual of these cults apparently celebrated this mythology in a way that enabled the participants to become part of the entire transformative process of new life. That is to say, the enacted myth about the gods was transmuted into reality for the devotees, who believed they would live again, happily, after death. For those who had been found worthy to be a follower of the mystery’s god or goddess, there was promised not only a more satisfying existence now, but also a more blissful afterlife.

Not just everyone could walk in off the streets to join one of these mystery cults. Each of them appears to have emphasized rituals of initiation for membership.  Those who wished to join were typically put through a period of ceremonial cleansing (involving fastings, prayers, and sometimes ritual washings) and instruction prior to being admitted to the ranks of the devotees.

Among the better known mysteries in the ancient world were those involving the Greek goddess Demeter and her daughter Kore (sometimes called Persephone) at the town of Eleusis in Greece, the goddess Isis and her husband Osiris from Egypt, the Greek god Dionysus (also known as Bacchus), and the Persian god Mithras.

Initiation did not preclude worship of local and state gods; some of the Roman emperors were themselves initiates.

Philosophy and Religion in the Greco-Roman World

Greco-Roman philosophy was not concerned with placating the gods or petitioning their involvement in the affairs of the community. It was instead concerned with showing how a person could attain well-being in this world, a world that is at best filled with meaninglessness and boredom, and at worst wracked with pain and misery.

Of the important philosophical schools during the first Century A.D., three stood out as prominent: the Stoics; the Platonists; and the Epicureans. Each of these traditions traced its roots back over 300 years, and the differences between them ran wide and deep. Even though cults throughout the Roman world were by and large tolerant of one another, and religiously there was no reason to convert others away from one set of gods to another, the same could not be said of philosophy: here was an area in which if one person was right, the others were wrong. (Similar to the ideas of many religions today.) For this reason, proponents of various philosophical schools tended to insist on the validity of their own views and to be somewhat intolerant of the views of others (even though they freely borrowed their ideas from one another, making it sometimes difficult to discern their differences in many areas). In other words, unlike the religions of the Greco-Roman world, the philosophers worked to convert people to their points of view. These were, in short, missionary movements.

(As an aside, as Christianity evolved it conflated religion and the schools of philosophy or mystery cults — making Christianity the where all and be all for its followers — and incorporated missionary work to convert people.)

Judaism in the Greco-Roman World

Judaism was everywhere understood to be one of the religions of the Roman empire. Notwithstanding the caricatures that one sometimes reads, in which Judaism is said to have been absolutely unique and unlike other Greco-Roman religions, most people in the ancient world recognized Judaism to be an ancient form of cultic devotion similar to others in many ways.

As other Greco-Roman religions, Judaism included the belief in a higher realm in which there was a powerful deity who could benefit humans and who showed special favor to those who worshiped him in ways prescribed from antiquity. The principal cultic acts of this religion involved animal sacrifice and prayer. Sacrifices were performed in a sacred temple located in Jerusalem by specially appointed priests. Portions of the animal, for most sacrifices, would be burned in honor of the deity. The priest would skin, prepare, and sometimes cook the carcass; the worshiper would then take it home to eat with his family and friends as a feast. Prayers were an important part of the worship of the Jewish God, usually addressing personal and communal needs (e.g., peace, fertility, prosperity, health).

Judaism alone, however, was committed to the notion that there was one and only one true God who was to be worshiped and praised. Of course, some pagans, chiefly some philosophers and their followers, also believed that there was one chief deity who was ultimately responsible for the world and what happens within it, whether Zeus, Jupiter, or whomever else was thought to occupy the peak of the divine pyramid.

Jews too believed that there were immortal beings (perhaps similar to the daimonia and other demigods in the eyes of the pagans), far greater in power than humans, who existed somewhere between them and the true God; for example, cherubim and seraphim.

Other Jewish Miracle-Working Sons of God

Jesus was not the only one thought to be a miracle-working son of God, even within Judaism in his own day. His two most famous peers were probably Honi the “circle-drawer” and Hanina ben Dosa, both of whom are known through the writings of later Jewish rabbis. Honi was a Galilean teacher who died about 100 years before Jesus. He was given his nickname because of a tradition that he prayed to God for much-needed rain, and drew a circle around himself on the ground, declaring that he would not leave it until God granted his request. Lucky for him, God complied.  Later sources indicate that Honi was a revered teacher and a miracle worker, who called himself the son of God. As Jesus, he was martyred outside of the walls of Jerusalem around the time of the Passover. To punish Jews who had brought about his death, God sent a powerful windstorm that devastated their crops.

Hanina ben Doas (“son of Dosa”) was a rabbi in Galilee in the middle of the first century A.D., just after the time of Jesus. He was famous as a righteous and powerful worker of miracles, who (as Honi) could intervene with God to make the rain fall, who had the power to heal the sick, and who could confront demons and force them to do his bidding. As Jesus, he was reputedly called the Son of God by a voice coming from the heavens.

Accordingly, anyone who called Jesus a miracle-working Jewish rabbi, the Son of God, would have been easily understood: other righteous Jews, both before Jesus and afterwards, were portrayed similarly. (Which again, helps understand and explain why the New Testament written about 400 years after Christ makes it plain that Christ was and is the “only” begotten Son of God in the flesh!)

Early Christian Mystery Ceremonies

Minucius Felix, an eminent lawyer of Rome, who lived in 212 A.D., wrote in a defense of Christianity: “Many of [the Christians] know each other by tokens and signs (notis et insignibus), and they form a friendship for each other, almost before they become acquainted.” Minucius Felix boasted that Christians “both rise again in bliss and are already living in contemplation of the future.” Minucius Felix was referring to certain secret ceremonies of the early Christians called “mysteries.”  During the persecutions in the early ages of Christianity, the Christians took refuge in the vast catacombs which stretched for miles in every direction under the City of Rome. There, amid the labyrinthine windings, deep caverns, hidden chambers, chapels, and tombs, the persecuted fugitives found refuge, and there they performed the ceremonies of the Mysteries.

I should note that the first verse of the Gospel of John allegedly is a direct quotation from the Pythagorean Mystery Book. The Pythagorean doctrines are still traceable in the Christian Scriptures: the Christ of St. John’s Gospel is evidently a Pythagorean philosopher. Ye must be born again (John iii), is the characteristic aphorism of the Pythagorean school. In addition, we find references to the Egyptian Book of the Dead. “In one particular passage the speaker says he has given food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, clothes to the naked, and a boat to the shipwrecked; and, as the Osirified has done these things, the judges say to him, ‘Come, come in peace,’ and he is welcomed to the festival which is called ‘Come thou to me.’ Those who have done these things on earth are held to have done them to Horus, the Lord; and they are invited to come to him as the blessed ones of his father Osiris. In this passage we have not only the sayings reproduced by Matthew, but also the drama and the scenes of the Last Judgment represented in the Great Hall of Justice, where a person is separated from his sins, and those who have sided with Sut against Horus are transformed into goats. Here it is noticeable that Matthew only of the four Evangelists represents this drama of the Egyptian Ritual! Among the sayings of Jesus, or logia of the Lord, is the saying that ‘the very hairs of your head are numbered;’ and in the Ritual every hair is weighed; also the night of the judgment-day is designated that of ‘weighing a hair.’”

“The Gnostics all claimed to possess a secret doctrine, coming to them directly from Jesus Christ, different from that of the Gospels and Epistles, and superior to those communications. The most important sayings assigned to Jesus by the writer of John’s gospel are not recorded or referred to by the synoptics—Matthew, Mark, and Luke. These contain the secret wisdom of the Gnostics; they are the logia of the gnostic Christ, who was Horus, the Lord, in Egypt. They are spoken by the Son of Man, who is in heaven [John 3:13. 'And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.'], and who taught the twelve aeons there with the same doctrinal sayings that are here assigned to the teacher of the twelve on earth, or on the Mount. Moreover, in John’s gospel we meet with the seven fishers on board the boat. These correspond to the seven who are followers of Horus in the Egyptian Ritual, and who are said to fish for Horus. They go a-fishing with Horus in his boat; and they are also called the ‘Seven planks in the boat of souls.’[Allegedly from the Egyptian Ritual.] The miraculous draught of fishes occurs in both.” See, “The Lectures,” Lecture 3, The Logia of the Lord, Gerald Massey.

But there were also secret ceremonies in the mainstream Christian Church at that time, for example:

The Apostolic Constitutions, attributed to Clemens, Bishop of Rome, describe the early church, and state: “These regulations must on no account be communicated to all sorts of persons, because of the Mysteries contained in them.” The Mysteries were open to the Faithful only.

Tertullian, who died about A.D. 216, wrote in his Apology: “None are admitted to the religious Mysteries without an oath of secrecy. We appeal to your Thracian and Eleusinian Mysteries; and we are especially bound to this caution, because if we prove faithless, we should not only provoke Heaven, but draw upon our heads the utmost rigor of human displeasure. And should strangers betray us? They know nothing but by report and hearsay. Far hence, ye Profane! is the prohibition from all holy Mysteries.”

Clemens, Bishop of Alexandria, born about A.D. 191, wrote, in his Stromata, that he cannot explain the Mysteries, because he should thereby, according to the old proverb, put a sword into the hands of a child.

Origen, born A.D. 134 or 135, answering Celsus, who had objected that the Christians had a concealed doctrine wrote: “Inasmuch as the essential and important doctrines and principles of Christianity are openly taught, it is foolish to object that there are other things that are recondite; for this is common to Christian discipline with that of those philosophers in whose teaching some things were exoteric and some esoteric.”

Archelaus, Bishop of Cascara in Mesopotamia, who, in the year 278, conducted a controversy with the Manichaeans, wrote: “These Mysteries the church now communicates to him who has passed through the introductory degree. They are not explained to the Gentiles at all; nor are they taught openly in the hearing of [the uninitiated].”

St. Gregory Nazianzen, Bishop of Constantinople, A.D. 379, wrote: “You have heard as much of the Mystery as we are allowed to speak openly in the ears of all; the rest will be communicated to you in private; and that you must retain within yourself. . .. Our Mysteries are not to be made known to strangers.”

St. Ambrose, Archbishop of Milan, who was born in 340, and died in 393, wrote in his work De Mysteriis: “All the Mystery should be kept concealed, guarded by faithful silence, lest it should be inconsiderately divulged to the ears of the Profane. . .. It is not given to all to contemplate the depths of our Mysteries. . . . that they may not be seen by those who ought not to behold them; nor received by those who cannot preserve them.” And in another work, he wrote: “He sins against God, who divulges to the unworthy the Mysteries confided to him. The danger is not merely in violating truth, but in telling truth, if he allow himself to give hints of them to those from whom they ought to be concealed. . .. Beware of casting pearls before swine! . . .. Every Mystery ought to be kept secret; and, as it were, to be covered over by silence, lest it should rashly be divulged to the ears of the Profane. Take heed that you do not incautiously reveal the Mysteries!”

St. Cyril of Alexandria, who was made Bishop in 412, and died in 444, wrote in his 7th Book against Julian: “These Mysteries are so profound and so exalted, that they can be comprehended by those only who are enlightened. I shall not, therefore, attempt to speak of what is so admirable in them, lest by discovering them to the uninitiated, I should offend against the injunction not to give what is holy to the impure, nor cast pearls before such as cannot estimate their worth. . . . I should say much more, if I were not afraid of being heard by those who are uninitiated: because men are apt to deride what they do not understand. And the ignorant, not being aware of the weakness of their minds, condemn what they ought most to venerate.”

Here’s an excerpt from “The Secret Gospel of Mark.” The Secret Gospel of Mark is a longer edition of the Gospel of Mark, and has been known only since 1958. While cataloging manuscripts in the library of the Greek Orthodox monastery of Mar Saba, located southeast of Jerusalem, an American scholar, Morton Smith, came upon a 17th century edition of the letters of Ignatius. On the final blank pages of this volume, an 18th century scribe had copied a portion of a letter allegedly from Clement of Alexandria. In this letter, Clement indicated that Mark had produced two versions of his Gospel, one for church members at large and the other for the spiritual elite who could grasp the full mysteries of the Kingdom. Clement indicated that this second expanded edition, the so-called Secret Gospel, had been entrusted to the Christians of Alexandria, his own city, but that it had come to be misused by members of the Carpocratian sect, a group of Gnostic Christians known for their illicit sexual rituals.

I have one problem with Clement’s alleged criticism of the Gnostic group: the early Church fathers always used the charge of illicit sexual rituals against Christian groups they did not agree with doctrinally (in particular the Gnostics). However, from Clement’s, Ignatius’, and other writings of the early Christian Church, there were secret ceremonies in the first three centuries of the Christian Church in which passwords, tokens, and grips were used, and of which there were three different levels of mysteries that were taught. The critics of early Christianity attacked the Christian Church in part based on these secret ceremonies. Therefore, the following quotation from The Secret Gospel of Mark supports what I believe were ceremonies similar to the Temple Endowment performed in temples of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, including the ceremonial washing and anointing.

Bear in mind that The Secret Gospel of Mark is one of the hotly debated Christian texts to have been discovered in modern times, and critics find the quotation below to have homoerotic overtones, which has distressed Christian scholars to debate virtually every aspect of the Secret Gospel. For a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, however, familiar with the Temple Endowment of such Church this story should bring to mind a very simple yet important preparatory ordinance (the washing and anointing), and concerns about homoerotic overtones are laughable:

Citation I (follows Mark 10:32-34): “And they came to Bethany, and there was a woman there whose brother had died.  She came and prostrated herself before Jesus and said to him: ‘Son of David, pity me.’  The disciples rebuked her, and Jesus in anger set out with her for the garden where the tomb was. Immediately a loud voice was heard from the tomb, and Jesus approached and rolled the stone away from the entrance to the tomb. And going in immediately where the young man was he stretched out his hand and raised him up, taking him by the hand. The young man looked on him and loved him, and began to beseech him that he might be with him. They came out of the tomb and went into the young man’s house, for he was rich. After six days Jesus laid a charge upon him, and when evening came the young man comes to him, with a linen robe thrown over his naked body, and he stayed with him that night, for Jesus was teaching him the mystery of the kingdom of God. When he departed thence, he returned to the other side of Jordan.”

Early Christian Doctrines of Man Becoming God

Clement of Alexandria, who died around 215 A.D., and was head of the catechetical school, wrote, among other things, the following in his Stromata, 2.13.58.1 (Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte 52:144), in his description of the baptism of the Christian as an imitation of the “model” of Christ’s baptism, and he enumerated the effects of baptism:

“Being baptized, we are illuminated; illuminated, we become sons; being made sons, we are made perfect; being made perfect, we are made immortal. ‘I say,’ says he, ‘you are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you.’ This work is variously called gift of grace, illumination, perfection, and washing: washing, by which we wash away our sins; grace, by which the penalties accruing to transgressions are remitted; and illumination, with which that holy light of salvation is beheld, that is, by which we see God clearly.” See also Clement’s Tutor [Paedagogus] I.6.26.1-2 in Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der erstendrei Jahrhunderte 12:105.

For the Greek patristic tradition, especially in its mystical forms, the final goal and result of saving knowledge, this forgiveness, and this rescue from death was “deification.” The appeal of Clement of Alexandria to the Greeks, as written in Clement’s Exhortation to the Greeks [Protrepticus], 1.8.4, was that

“the Logos of God had become man so that you might learn from a man how a man may become God.”

Similarly, Origen of Alexandria, a theologian and scholar, who died around 254 A.D., wrote in Against Celsus, that he took the petition of the Lord’s Prayer for daily bread to mean that those who were nourished by God the Logos would thereby be made divine. In many other places, too, he defined salvation as the attainment of the gift of divinity. Identification with Christ would lift the believer through the human nature of Christ to union with his divine nature and thus with God and thus to deification.

Oral Traditions Behind the Gospels

No one knows for certain when Jesus died, but scholars agree that it was sometime around 30 A.D. In addition, most scholars think that Mark was the first of what Christians call the Gospels to be written, sometime between the mid-60s to early 70s A.D. Matthew and Luke were probably produced some 10 or 15 years later, perhaps around 80 or 85 A.D. John was written perhaps 10 years after that, in 90 or 95 A.D. Perhaps the most striking thing about these dates for the historian is the long interval between Jesus’ death and the earliest accounts of his life.  Our first written narratives of Jesus (i.e., the Gospels) appear to date from 35 to 65 years after the fact.

Pat answers and mantras. If one’s interpretation of a theory is overidealistic–even though the theory itself may satisfactorily answer some number of things–the demagogue will try to make his or her view of it impregnable to criticism with a pat answer for everything, so that you could imagine no outcome of any circumstance or test that they would accept as valid evidence against it.

Unfalsifiable excuses impervious to testability. In science there is a prohibition against explanations that are not “falsifiable”–meaning those that cannot be subjected to a test where one outcome would negate (“falsify”) the explanation, and the other outcome would support it. Otherwise the assertion is impervious to a fair test and will not be taken seriously by science because it is untestable. In other words, if in interpreting the results of an experiment you can always twist them so that they support your theory, and you cannot allow or conceive of any result that would count against the theory, then you are trying to have your cake and eat it too, and that is not allowed if you are going to be scientific.