ChristianFaith

My Christian Faith is centred around the person of Jesus, the Christ who gives Christianity its name. As a Faith, as a piece of Mental Software that one runs at the centre of their Mind, what matters most to me are the consequences of belief, rather than the philosophical correctness of belief.

I believe the latter is the route to myriad unanswerable questions, and faced with these unanswerable questions to make myriad untestable assumptions, and then to build one's house on those foundations. The former, however, is far more amenable to reasoned analysis: instead of asking 'Does God exist?', which is basically an unanswerable question for many reasons, we instead ask 'What are the consequences of believing that God exists?' and 'What are the consequences of believing that God does not exist?' and 'How does this compare to having no beliefs about God?' What matters, as I say, are the consequences of holding beliefs, rather than correctness.

My approach is inspired in part by the axiomatic approach mathematicians take in the Foundations. The other inspiration, as my mention of Mental Software, is concerned, is that we judge a piece of software based upon the job it does, rather than aesthetic considerations of the source code. Sure, good readable code matters. But readability means nothing if the end result doesn't do its job.

My Minimalist Theology

The Bible in a nutshell:

Everything else is an implementation detail. (That is, everything else comprises lessons on how to fulfil these two commandments, or else some kind of resource to draw on in order to fulfil these two commandments.)

Any approach to theology or Biblical interpretation which runs counter to either of these (that is, leads one to not totally love God, or leads one to not love their neighbour) is wrong. If reading the Bible literally as an instruction manual leads to behaviours contradicting Love God or Love Neighbour, then reading the Bible literally as an instruction manual is the wrong way to read the Bible. No excuses, no exceptions. (This, in a nutshell, is why I am against 'Biblical Literalism'.)

Buddhist and Taoist Philosophy

Recall

Anything from Buddhist or Taoist philosophy which aids one in doing this (and there is a lot of this in Buddhism), provided it doesn't contradict Love God, is fine to take on and apply in one's life. Moreover, taking this attitude leads to greater common ground with others who follow other belief systems, and that common ground serves the purposes of Love Neighbour. Anything which positively asserts the non-existence of God can be a problem (but needn't be): you need to filter things or somehow compartmentalise them so that the end-result for you doesn't. (As such, you model the atheistic belief system in a hypothetical way, see what, if any, beneficial results come from it, and then find ways to gain those same beneficial results on a Christian theistic foundation. If somebody is enthusiastically atheist, in the way that Evangelicals tend to be enthusiastic about their Faith, the best thing to do is to let them enthuse, and explore their beliefs: you would wish them to do the same to you, which is of course what Jesus says in Matt 7.)

In the case of Buddhism, I'll say much elsewhere. For those who are interested in developing a Spiritual side in the absence of a God Concept, Buddhism is one of the directions I'd send them (trying to drive in God with a sledgehammer will simply drive them further into their atheism, and in so doing will drive them further from living in a way which Loves Neighbour). As for judgement, Jesus tells us not to, (hence don't try to decide whether or not your Buddhist neighbour is destined to an eternity in hell: that is God's job, not yours).

Live and let live, Love and encourage Love.