Philosophy or Confusion?

This is an ongoing conversation between an old friend and I. You may want to start from the beginning. If you have already been following then please, read on. If not, then check out these;

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To Chioke,

Well, I have read and re-read your blog post and I think I’m ready to respond.

Here we go…

All right, when I said that “Jesus isn’t white”, I wasn’t really talking about God not having a racial identity, although I do believe that God transcends racial context, He’s not even human. I was talking about Jesus, Son of God, born a man somewhere in Bethlehem. Basically, Jesus comes from a town that is right between Northern Africa and the Middle East. So, if I were to try to imagine how Jesus actually looked I would guess much less like me, and less like most of the pictures and statues that portray Jesus Christ. However, If someone came up to me and said, I’m going to say one word and you need to tell me the first image that comes to mind, then that person said “Jesus”, the first image that came to mind probably would be the hippie version of Jesus with a beard, robes, sandals, and maybe looking like a tan white guy. So, I will agree with you that the image of Jesus has obviously been changed and for that I believe the world has been done a disservice.

I must say that I value these conversations for certain reasons. Although, we have different worldviews, I learn a lot from you and take what you say into account. Anyone that wants to help, especially in another culture or country would be wise to seriously consider one’s motives and methods. In no way, do I consider myself above doing wrong, or damage because I’m a follower of Christ Jesus. Being aware of that, I also know that there is a nasty history to consider and lessons to be learned from our history.

How can one man, even a ruler of some kind, declare that everyone in his nation is Christian? Would that mean that everyone residing within those geopolitical borders, suddenly believes in Jesus? Believing in something has to happen on a personal level. Of course there are many cultures, which are less individualistic than most Americans, and they will decide together as a family or a village. Even then, I think that each person chooses to believe in one way or another.

What do I believe? I believe that when one accepts Jesus Christ, that person then comes into God’s kingdom, a citizen of heaven. This does not simply make one perfect, and usually it takes many years for that person to understand and act according to his true citizenship, if at all. Often, one who has come into covenant with God and stepped into the kingdom of God will still operate out of their old self and old culture. This includes even me; I am just as susceptible as the next human. So, I will seriously consider what I am doing, and how I am doing it so that I will not coerce anyone to accept my culture or my ways over their own. The choice is one’s own, and I believe that the Kingdom culture is compatible with all other cultures.

As one reads through the New Testament, one might find that Jesus never forced anyone to choose. He simply said I am the only way to the Father. He never said that one must go to the Father. Also, as far as I can recall, the only times Jesus spoke harshly was to those who were the religious leaders, and his disciples. Jesus said that he came to testify to the Truth. This leads us to believe that there is one truth. One truth, that makes sense. The whole “no absolute truth” is confusion, smoke and mirrors, like a bad magic trick. I thought the point of philosophy is to search for truth, yet many philosophers subscribe to such confusing things. Philosophers read books from a hundred different men, written over hundreds of years and just begin to form their opinion from that. So, I guess even you have your collection of books that you hold on to.

It is astonishing, the unbelieving world that we live in, especially in the United States of America. I had an interesting conversation with a good friend earlier this year. He and I talked about many different things, politics, religion, and so on. After many hours of talking, he asked me if I really believed what the Bible says. I said “yes.” Then he said, “Do you really believe that a man named Noah built a boat and put two of each animal on it and survived a flood?” I had to think about it for a second, because when it is asked in such a way it sounded crazy, still I said, “Yes, I do. He then told me “If you believe that, then I can’t have a rational conversation with you.” This statement struck me a little funny, because we had been having many hours of discussion, over the past couple days. Then we continued for a bit, and later in that same sitting, he talked about the huge temples that the Mayans, had built long before the proper technology was invented to build such structures. He said that he couldn’t believe that they built these temples. I asked him “How then, were they built?” He said, “I think that had help from Aliens.” That night, I had a bit of trouble getting to sleep, as I was processing the long conversation that we had, and before I went to sleep I realized one thing. We live in an unbelieving world. Here was a guy, who thought I was crazy for believing in Noah and his ark, (which isn’t so hard to believe after believing that God spoke the universe into existence) yet couldn’t believe that an ancient tribe couldn’t build a temple that is still in standing for us to see with our eyes, so he thinks it must be aliens. If something doesn’t readily make sense to us the way we understand it, we throw it away and make something even crazier up. Maybe this is philosophy?


Scientists and Philosophers chose not to believe and have tried to explain away God, as though the idea or belief in God is far inferior to their own thinking. It’s funny to me that people say they don’t believe because it’s not true, yet those same people can’t really explain a better way. Scientists haven’t been able to figure out where the first living cell has come from, and will consider anything before God. Richard Dawkins, the author of “The God Delusion” abandoned his faith in God while studying Darwin’s theory, and believes completely in the theory of Evolution. Yet, in an interview on the documentary with Ben stein called “Expelled” is asked how he thinks the first living cell came into existence and he says it’s possible that a far more advanced life form come to earth and seeding this planet with the first living cell. What? This guy is anti-anything that could be considered intelligent design. This to me is incredible, and I ask why would a scientist consider that over the existence of a God, or even many Gods. The only thing that I’ve been able to come up with is that they are threatened. The aliens who supposedly seeded our planet, or helped Mayans build a temple haven’t spoken to us in any way, and therefore we can do, say, and think what ever we want without accountability. Same thing goes with the first living cell coming from a primordial soup, there is nothing threatening about it, but a God who is real and has spoken, well that would mean something altogether different. We might actually have to be accountable for what we do, say and think.

I hope to hear back from you on this.
Peace,
Nic