Minimalist Christianity

War, religion, God, and why I write

/ Minimalist Christian / 3 Comments

I remember a discussion soon after I became a Christian where I was asked “so what about all the other religions?”  My reply was that they were simply mistaken.  I think the remark was taken to be rather arrogant.

I read the news today. I see the conflict, anger and fear; fighting between Moslems of different sects.  I see forced imposition of religious dogma; conversion to another religion punishable by death.  We all know that this is not as it should be. And I am reminded of my reply.

Reason and evidence tells me there is a God, and my whole being tells me that love is our ultimate purpose.  And when I find that love underpins and is at the heart of Jesus teaching I begin to see how it all fits together; how we are meant to be.

If I were God and someone from another religion was praying to me, I would not ignore them because they think I have a different name, I would not condemn them because they don’t understand my intentions for them.  I would be saddened that they are misled, I would try to teach them, and I would restrain some of their actions, but I would still love them.

As a mere human trying to follow God’s purpose, I don’t hate the Muslims, or even the Westborough Baptists, but I believe they are misled and mistaken.  I hate what they do, and I want them to stop.  I want them to understand the truth, and find their real purpose.  I want that for everyone.

If we all really understood Christ’s teaching, if we really loved God with all our heart, and loved our neighbour as ourselves, if we really were ready to forgive others and restore broken relationships we know that the world would be a better place.

That is why I write.  That is why I follow Christ.  That is my purpose.

What is yours?

Direct from the San Francisco Book Review

/ Minimalist Christian / Leave a comment

The Big Picture – An Honest Examination of God, Science and Purpose
By P D Hemsley
eLectio Publishing, $4.99, 266 pages, Format: eBook

A former atheist/agnostic who gave God a chance offers open-minded readers this work which is both ambitious in scope and credible in approach: //The Big Picture: An Honest Examination of God, Science, and Purpose//.  Polarizing subject matter such as God and science, evolution, and intelligent design are revisited with the goal of gently challenging entrenched thinking on both sides.

Hemsley, a Chartered Engineer, “has lived on both sides of the faith fence.” His book is comparable to a technical presentation designed for a general audience. It is highly organized with stated goals, evidence, and the author’s conclusions. Fluid, straightforward writing helps the reader progress through several chapters or conclusions dealing with faith, science, purpose and design, quantum physics, free will, reason, Jesus, and more. Even so, those with less of a scientific bent will need to exercise their concentration skills in the scientific sections.

The strength of this book lies in complexity and compatibility. The chapters “Science Describes an Incredible Universe” and “The Universe Exhibits Design and Purpose” make for fascinating reading, especially the subsection where “challenged by the complexity of the biological machinery” Hemsley explores how a modern-day designer would engineer a human being and how long it would take. Additionally, the author’s version of the Genesis creation account featuring the compatibility of scientific discoveries and God’s design is an interesting interpretation to consider.

No emotional appeals are made to the atheist, agnostic, hardcore creationist, or plain honest seeker for a change in his or her worldview. In the words of the author, a self-described Minimalist Christian: “Whether you agree with my conclusion or not, I hope that many of the myths that currently inhibit so many of us will have been weakened or dispelled. I hope that a step can be taken towards finding purpose and experiencing life in abundance.”

http://citybookreview.com/the-big-picture-an-honest-examination-of-god-science-and-purpose/

Click HERE to buy a copy.

Four steps of reason leading to a personal God

/ Minimalist Christian / 15 Comments

As I begin this post, I ask myself “Am I deciding what to write?”  You might think that a strange question with an obvious answer, but if I were to have a materialist view of things then I would struggle to answer with a ‘yes’.  At the heart of the problem is the question of whether I have free will or not.  Am I able to exert any choice on any decision (such as what to write) or is my action simply a result of the state of the molecules in my brain at the particular time when I think I am making a choice?

If there is nothing but matter, and matter behaves according to strict laws then there is no scope for me, or you, to make a free choice about anything.  Holders of the materialist view have argued that those who believe in free will need to demonstrate a mechanism before free will can be accepted to exist.

I do not subscribe to that view of things.  A bumblebee flies even if I am unable to demonstrate the mechanism.

Other disagreements with such a view are subjective.  Whilst I recognise that many of my actions might indeed be simply as a result of my brain state at a given time, I identify situations where I stop myself behaving according to ‘habit’ and consciously choose to behave differently.

From a practical viewpoint, our whole society is built on the basis that we have free will.  If I have no free will to be able to choose how to behave, then what right has society to imprison me for murder?  I would have had no choice but to kill my neighbour – it would have been an action that simply resulted from the chemical configuration in my brain at the time.

So for all practical and from all subjective points of view, I accept that we have free will.

That is step one; that we have free will.

The fact that I can call an opinion subjective inherently means that there is an “I” that is choosing to have an opinion.  Similarly, I speak about personal experience which requires there to be a person.  My personal subjective view is that there is indeed an “I” who is considering the facts and deciding what to write.  Descartes’ famous statement “I think therefore I am” argues that the only thing I know is that there is an “I” who thinks, and therefore “I” must exist – even if everything else is just my imagination.

So step two is that there is an “I” who exists.

The next thing to consider is how I exist (with the proviso that my physical being might be a delusion – but I still exist).   I exist because I have the ability to exist; something is causing me to exist.  I am not causing myself to exist, it is something apart from me that is ensuring that I exist.  Some might call that something ‘the laws of physics’, but I shall choose here to call that something God.

That is step three.  There is something that sustains me (and everything else) that can be called God.

The final step is to ask whether it is reasonable to imagine that this something (God) could sustain an “I”, who has free-will (which must operate outside the laws of physics) without itself having an “I-ness” to it.  Can the physical properties of a human being, which are sustained by God, ‘create’ an “I-ness” that God does not have itself?  Can “I-ness” be dependent on the sustaining power of God and yet above and separate from God?  And if not, then the power that sustains us must also have an “I-ness” about it.

Step four: the power that sustains us has itself the characteristics of “I-ness”: it is a person God.

A fresh understanding of Grace

/ Minimalist Christian / Leave a comment

St Paul asked the rhetorical question “Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace?”  He then went on to answer with complicated and metaphorical language about being buried with Christ through baptism.  But I read this just after reading a facebook post from someone I care about behaving in a way that frankly won’t bring them happiness, and is simply satisfying their lustful urges. Looking at how I felt puts a new and simpler perspective on the question.

Let’s take it as read that God is love, and that he loves each one of us deeply.  We also need to understand that sin harms us deeply.  It may satisfy an immediate urge, but it harms us.  In the same way that it saddens me to see those I love harming themselves, it must sadden God so much more to see us harming ourselves.  Yet God still loves us, and in the same way that I still care about the person above, he cares about us.  I will not reject that person, and God will not reject us.  But it saddens Him so much that he was prepared to see Jesus tortured and killed on the cross to try to get through to us.

So if St Paul’s language seems confusing, just put yourself in God’s place and imagine how you would feel seeing your beloved son or daughter self-harming.  You would long for them to give up their life of sin, and return to your loving arms.  If they wanted to make a fresh start,  you would do whatever it takes to wipe their slate clean.  And that is just what God has done for us.

That’s why we shouldn’t keep on sinning; it causes God more pain and sadness and it does us no good either.

Simple.

“The Big Picture” – an honest examination of God, science and purpose – OUT NOW

/ Minimalist Christian / 3 Comments

“I recommend this book to all thinking people – we might just change the world.” 

“This book will definitely make you think and then think again. Hemsley did his research for this book, and I received many answers to questions I’ve pondered over the years.”

“it is a welcome relief to come across a book that presents such a broad and balanced overview”

“This book covers an considerable amount of territory in its 253 pages.”

The Big Picture is a much-needed book that allows the reader to consider the big questions of life without feeling bludgeoned to adopt the author’s opinion. The book explains basics of science, philosophy and religion in a straightforward manner.

It will encourage all those who want to live a good and purposeful life and would like a sound basis for doing so. Such readers may find a resonance with the teaching of Jesus and this book will explore whether we can trust what has been recorded in the gospel accounts, and whether the findings of science and a reasoned understanding of the Bible are consistent or contradictory.

Many books in the arena of science and faith are hostile and adversarial. The authors set up straw men of their opponent’s arguments, dismantle them and then preach their own arguments to their disciples. The author of The Big Picture recognises that there are intelligent atheists and intelligent believers, and that a case can always be made for whatever someone wants to believe. The reader is therefore treated with respect

ebook

paperback

Amazon UK

The Big Picture - cover

The Author’s Fear

/ Minimalist Christian / Leave a comment

For all those of us who write about God, I found the following by George MacDonald in an anthology of 365 readings compiled by CS Lewis.

If I mistake, He will forgive me.  I do not fear him: I fear only lest, able to see and write these things, I should fail of witnessing and myself be, after all, a castaway – no king but a talker; no disciple of Jesus, ready to go with Him to the death, but an arguer about the truth.

A wise reminder!

 

Related articles

Goodness – me!

/ Minimalist Christian / 13 Comments

Do you ever stop to think what you would like on your gravestone when you are dead?  It’s a good way of finding out what we really want to be like.  I don’t think any of us would like to see phrases like:

“Always selfish and greedy”

“Never had time for anyone else”

“Vindictive and hateful”

When we see a new baby, at a christening who would want to think that the baby would grow up to be a thief, or to have a string of husbands who she cheated on and deserted, or to be a child molester.

We know deep down that we want to be good.

In the 11th century, Anselm of Canterbury described how being good is possible through ‘goodness’, and how supreme goodness is God.  So that desire to be good is actually us wanting to be like God (supreme goodness), to act like God, to be in his image.

St John’s describes in his gospel that God is love.  So when we love one another, our love is possible through love, which is through God.  We are choosing to act like God, to be part of God.

Each of us has the essence of goodness in us, and the essence of love in us.  God is goodness and God is love, so we all have God within us.  Sometimes we choose to ignore goodness and love, and instead choose to be selfish, vindictive or hateful.  But that is not what we want to be – as we found at the start of this post.

The true Christian religion is about helping us to be what we want to be – good and loving.  It is about connecting with that goodness and love within us; God within us.  It is about learning from Christ what goodness and love looks like, and trying to imitate him.

And if you want to be good and loving, then that means that you want to be like God.  Jesus said that ‘if you have seen me then you have seen God’; Jesus represented supreme goodness and love in human form.  So if you want to be good and loving, since Jesus was supremely good and loving, then you want to be like Jesus, and if you want to be like Jesus you can call yourself a Christian.

Christians pray to help make that connection with goodness and love.  Here’s an example of a Celtic prayer from Lindisfarne:

Help me dear Lord to care too much

To love too freely

To pray unceasingly

To forgive endlessly

To laugh fearlessly

To question

To live

To be who I am

To be where I am

To be what I am

To hope

To believe

To reach out my hand

That’s a good prayer, isn’t it?  It’s about connecting with God within us.  It’s asking God to help us be who we want to be.

Do you want to be the sort of person that the prayer describes?  You can take a step closer by praying that prayer.

Related posts

https://philhemsley.wordpress.com/2012/06/21/an-argument-for-and-definition-of-god/

https://philhemsley.wordpress.com/2012/12/29/the-god-of-science/

 

Proof of God?

/ Minimalist Christian / 7 Comments

A friend asked “Let us suppose it was absolutely certain there was no god but many people honestly believed there was – how different would the world look today?”

I could answer that if there was no God there would be no universe and no people to observe it.

Clearly, as we are both intelligent people we must be talking about something different when we say the word ‘god’.

The God that I conclude exists is a creator, and a God who sustains the universe.  Clearly the universe exists and continues to exist.  Ask a physicist why and he will probably say ‘because of the laws of physics’.  A rose is a rose by any other name, so at minimum my God is the laws of physics – we just choose to give it different names.

Perhaps my friend’s question is going beyond that definition of God.  Perhaps he is asking about a God who has ‘character’, a ‘me’-ness that I have.  (I know that I exist, there is an essence that is ‘me’).  What would things be like if there was not a God who had an essence of ‘me’?

It’s actually not easy to define what ‘I’ am.  Science of course shows that my brain has massively complex computational ability, but that doesn’t really help.  Literature and philosophy, and our daily experience tells me that there are things like love, joy, peace, thoughts, free will.  Let’s consider these as parts of ‘me’, and think – what if there were not a god who also had these characteristics.

But once again, the same sort of argument applies.  God is love, joy, peace.  Therefore without God there would be no love, joy or peace.  There would be no literature, there would be no mathematics, no equations, there would be not science.

Free will though is slightly different.  We know we have free will, and yet it is inexplicable by science.  It is inconsistent with the laws of physics.  Free will seems a bit of a paradox.  If God is the laws of physics, and free will is inconsistent with the laws of physics then how can that work?  A rational explanation is that free will is something that is a gift of God, that is not constrained by the laws of physics.  Therefore we begin to see what would be different in my friends question.  Without God we would have no free will, we would not be able to choose right from wrong, we would simply be robots who respond to stimuli.

But to explore the question further.  My last paragraph introduced right and wrong.  We know that there is right and wrong – even if we don’t always know what is right and what is wrong.  Right and wrong are different from free will, so let’s suppose that we were able to have free will but had no knowledge of right and wrong.  Clearly right and wrong exist.  Goodness and evil exist.  And yes, my definition of God includes ultimate goodness.  So without God we would have no constraint on what we do, we would simply live to serve ourselves.  The world would be governed simply by whoever was strongest.  We would be like most of the rest of the animal kingdom.  States like North Korea would be everywhere and left unchecked.  Anarchy would reign.  The world would be a very different place to live.

So have I proved God exists?  I think so (but I would) – simply because my definition of God includes everything that we know exists.  I define that it is not possible for anything to exist without God, and so anything which exists must be God.

My friend asked what if God didn’t exist but people believed that he did.  I hope that I have shown that such a question is not directly answerable, it is like the “can god make a thing so heavy that he cannot lift it” question, or “can God make something that doesn’t exist”.  But perhaps I’ve also been able to answer the questions behind the question.  Will it satisfy my friend?  I doubt it.  If any of us really doesn’t want to change our views then no amount of logical reasoning will make a difference.  But perhaps others will find the discussion interesting….

If you found this post interesting you might also like:

https://philhemsley.wordpress.com/2013/05/03/goodness-me/

https://philhemsley.wordpress.com/2012/12/29/the-god-of-science/

https://philhemsley.wordpress.com/2012/06/19/can-god-answer-prayer-in-a-universe-that-operates-according-to-the-laws-of-physics/

Brian Cox’s “Wonders of life – what is life?” .. a review

/ Minimalist Christian / 5 Comments

Yesterday evening I watched the first in a new Brian Cox series on the wonders of life.  I was left with an uncomfortable feeling about the way the content was presented. In essence, the program shows very little science but a lot of metaphysical opinion. In essence it it propaganda.  As best as I can, I’ve transcribed phrases from the program in blue (thanks to iPlayer), to show what I mean.

“no matter how unscientific it sounds this, this idea that there is some kind of soul or spirit or animating force that makes us what we are that exists after our death is common.…. it ‘feels right’, it is hard to accept that you are … just something that emerges from an inanimate bag of stuff”.  This is filmed against the backdrop of smoky fires and gravestones where people are gathering to ‘connect with their dead relatives’. 

This section clearly communicates that spirituality is a magical force that is outside of science and is necessary to explain life – ‘spirit of the gaps’ – but that such an idea is wrong.  Although we might not like it we are just a bag of stuff (no explanation, but trust me, I’m a professor celebrity).

So this has set up the straw-man god that is not part of the natural world, but is outside of it, tinkering occasionally to start life through magical means.  No mention of a God who created and sustains the laws of physics themselves.

Feelings, and indeed we are ‘just something that emerges’ i.e. they have no meaning or purpose.  This is a metaphysical view that is essential if the idea of a purposeful God who set the universe in motion is abhorrent – yet the filming and presentation are designed to manipulate those same feelings.  This is not science, it is carefully crafted propaganda.

“if we are to say that science can explain everything about us then it is incumbent on science to answer the question what is it that animates living things what is it the difference between a piece of rock carved into a gravestone and me? …. For millennia, some form of spirituality has been evoked to explain what it means to be alive and how life began.  It is only recently that science has begun to answer these deepest of questions”  ,

Although the words don’t strictly say it, the message is clearly that science can explain life; no other explanation is necessary.  Again, the alternative is some magical force outside nature. The false dichotomy presented again (science OR spirituality) allows no space for a god who is consistent with scientific discovery, where scientific discovery allows us to learn more about God.  So science is getting busy and is providing the answers, which are:

  • Energy transforms from one form to another, and that caused and explains life – that is the reason we are here.  All life continues to be powered by the same process of transforming energy from one form to another.
  • We all have DNA, which is the “blueprint for life” and continues the organisation of the chemical processes from generation to generation, and shows that we have common ancestry with every other living things

“life is … a collection of chemical processes that harness flow of energy to create local islands of order…. Far from being some chance event ignited by some mystical spark the emergence of life on earth might have been the inevitable consequence of the laws of physics …. A living cosmos might be the only way our cosmos can be”

Mystical spark or science – the false dichotomy perpetuated.

The program focuses on a god of mysticism and magic, and appears not to know of the Christian God.

The God of Christianity is believed to be the creator of the universe, the cause of the Big Bang, the author of the laws of physics, the inventor and sustainer of a cosmos that has the inevitable consequence of producing life.  A God who cannot be seen – yet can be seen everywhere.  A God whose power has gifted us with the ability to feel and understand, and who gives meaning to each of us.  A God who is love; the love we feel is part of God rather than ‘just some emerging thing’.

It is frustrating when scientific programmes such as these don’t present a balanced view of the metaphysics.

Other posts which might be of interest:

https://philhemsley.wordpress.com/2013/04/07/god-miracles-and-the-laws-of-physics/

https://philhemsley.wordpress.com/2012/12/29/the-god-of-science/

https://philhemsley.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/proof-of-god/

https://philhemsley.wordpress.com/2012/06/21/an-argument-for-and-definition-of-god/

 

 

A vision and purpose for 2013

/ Minimalist Christian / 2 Comments

In the 2011 UK census, nearly 60% of the population want to be recognised as Christian.  Many other surveys show that the proportion of the population who regularly attend church services is between 5% and 15%.  (Tearfund report on churchgoing 2007, http://www.eauk.org/church/research-and-statistics/english-church-census.cfm, Religious Trends – Brieley)

This data shows that there are 45 – 55% of the UK population who want to be associated with Christianity but are not being supported by the various churches in the country.  To my mind this is not an acceptable situation.  Something must change.

The popular representation of Christians is that we are uncaring unloving people:  We are sexist, not allowing women bishops.  We are homophobic, not allowing gay marriage or gay clergy.  We are ignorant – ignoring scientific data and insisting that the world is 6000 years old and was created in six days.  We are hypocrites and child molesters.  We instantly jump to judge everyone else’s behaviour whilst being just as bad ourselves.  Our bottom line is that “you are going to Hell if you don’t believe what I believe”.  Of course, that’s complete b*****cks, but it certainly doesn’t encourage anyone to explore what Christianity is actually about.  I wrote my first book “The Leap” to address some of these issues.

So there is an image barrier that prevents the 55% exploring their spiritual roots.  But there are many other barriers. To name a few:

  • long working hours leave people exhausted (Nearly 20% of men and 6% of women work over 49 hours per week – 2011 census).  We want to relax and do something enjoyable at the weekend and the image of sitting in a cold uncomfortable church pew is not very attractive.
  • entertainment is at our fingertips in the comfort of our own homes, we don’t want to go to the trouble of going out.
  • nearly 50% of the population live alone (2011 census).  There’s all the housework to do. The barrier of going out alone can be immense, loneliness is a hard habit to break

Jesus came to bring life in abundance.  We are missing out!  We catch glimpses of what life in abundance might be in the spirit of the Olympics,  in the national celebrations and street parties of the Jubilee.  Neighbours got to know each other, perhaps speaking for the first time in years.  The hearts of the people in this nation are good – look at the response when Claire Squires died – nearly £1million donated. http://www.justgiving.com/Claire-Squires2

The church in the UK needs to provide opportunities for this spirit (which is a reflection of the spirit of God within all of us) to grow, for individuals to explore and develop their spiritual side, their humanity.

We need to fight against the materialist mindset that tells us we are simply a bunch of chemicals.

We need to fight against the economic mindset that tells use we are just consumers, human resources, a drain on the economy.

We need to free and inspire the hearts and minds of every man, woman and child to love one another, forgive one another, and love God – with all our hearts, minds and souls.

Let’s go for it! Let 2013 be a year we remember.