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Christian Morality Derivation of Principles Gary Novak
When knowledge is acquired, its correctness is evaluated. What is correctness? Correct reality is the same inside of the mind as in the objective universe. To determine correctness, relationships to surrounding realities are compared. Consistent relationships between realities is the test of correctness, which of course means truth. The test of truth is consistent relationships to surrounding realities. Corrupters teach people that criticism, the most important type of truth, is a corruption, because it is negativism or an attitude problem. They demand positivism as an attitude, because it protects their corruptions from criticism. But there is nothing positive about their attacks upon enemies. They are hypocrites and frauds. Promoters of corruption are very sanctimonious in trying to put boundaries around truth, but truth cannot be divided up anymore than the air can. The only correct boundaries around realities are between falsehood vs. truth. Even the private realities are only different in that truth cannot be produced in areas where there is not a general interest. Often the assumption is that information must be concealed from enemies, but that whole set of realities only exists in the war mongering arena which satan controls, it's not a set of conditions that exists where morality sustains life. Truth is the communicated representation of unified reality. Unified reality is the combination of all realities which have consistent relationships between them. It includes the essence of spiritual and material life. Therefore, the test of truth is consistent relationships between realities. Logic is the strictest test of relationships. Reason is making relationships, usually by adding evidence to a subject. Criticism is reason applied to errors. There is only one truth, because it is objective and universal. For example, one and one can only equal two, not three or anything else. More philosophically, there can only be one significant unified reality, because it is the size of the universe, and alternatives are subdued by their conflict with it. Nobody can arbitrate truth or say exactly what it is. One major reason is because words are too limited; they represent realities too imperfectly to convey in a highly exact way even a small part of unified reality. Another major problem is that words never enter a person's mind meaning the exact same thing they meant when they left another person's mind. Another problem is that a large context is needed to properly represent truth. Since truth is determined by relationships, all significant relationships determine its meaning, and they are numerous. They create the context of truth. What this all means is that truth can only evolve, as understanding increases in minds. Consider the world being round. It's a truth that evolved as evidence increased. Another important thing to know is that truth evolves forward automatically as realities interact. Evolution of truth cannot be prevented when realities interact. And the interaction of realities does not have to result from communication. Events are very powerful sources of truth. This occurs because whenever realities interact, the consistent relationships are reinforced by evidence, and the inconsistent relationships are weakened by contradictions. The strengthening of the consistent relationships is the evolution of truth. Therefore, what people are supposed to be doing is adding evidence to truth through a process of reason (primarily criticism), not arbitrating truth. What is the difference between reason and arbitrating truth? One difference is the expectation. Arbitrators of truth tolerate no dissent. They assume there is a pre-existing, fixed truth which cannot be questioned, and knowing what it is is an endpoint. Reasonable persons are satisfied with a little forward progress as increased understanding knowing that there never is an endpoint in increasing truth or understanding. There is a lot of difference in methodology. Arbitrators of truth do not show evidence or adequately explain their position. Reasonable persons explain evidence as much as possible. A large part of evidence for truth is in relationships between realities. Showing the relationships is how truth is increased. Fundamentalist Christians say there is an absolute truth. What they really mean is that truth is objective, but they use the wrong term. Then the wrong term is a basis for tacking on some falsehoods. So we need to separate out the objectivity from the falsehoods. Objectivity means that humans cannot change what truth is. But the term absolute is not appropriate, because it is a quantitative term, not a qualitative term. To be absolute, there has to be a quantitative end point, like absolute alcohol. There is no end point for qualities such as perfection. There is no absolute truth any more than there is an absolute bird or absolute humor. The motive for claiming there is an absolute truth is to prevent anyone from questioning the person's own version of reality. Supposedly, absolute truth is so simple and unquestionable that there cannot be any question about the purveyor's representations of it. Of course, there isn't any such animal. The promoters of the supposed absolute truth cannot agree with each other or explain the endless contradictions in their version of the complexities. A related falsehood is the assumption that truth is conveyed through one-way communication, generally from authority to peon. Again, the assumption is that truth is so simple that there is no question about its meaning. The model for testing this assumption is the claim that abortion is sin. No one can fail to understand what abortion means. But what about the use of abortion to save the life of the mother? All Christian authorities promote it. When is a mother's life being saved, and when is it necessary? And this is the simplest question in western religion. Closely related to one-way communication is opposition to criticism. Promoters of falsehood must protect their reality from criticism, because truth always evolves forward through interactions of realities. Any reality that cannot stand up to criticism is not valid. Therefore, walling realities off from criticism is not valid—that is, when the questions are socially relevant and not personal realities which are no one's business. To use invalid methods of promoting realities is fraud. Fraud is not being wrong; it is using standards which prevent the evolution of truth from moving forward. The ultimate fraud is to prevent criticism. Yet preventing criticism is almost synonymous with authority. It's certainly not the path to life which Christ described. It's closer to the path to Gehenna followed by a brood of vipers (Mat 23:33). Another related corruption is supposed inerrancy. God is of course the source of the claimed inerrancy, as everyone knows that to error is human. But supposedly, the error prone humans can convey God's infallibility without error. In other words, inerrancy is another method of preventing anyone from questioning someone's corruptions. It is impossible to define whether words are in error or not, because their meaning depends upon context and intentions, neither of which is close to completely knowable or definable. If there were such a thing as an inerrant Bible, humans would not be able to arbitrate its meaning, because they do not have inerrant understanding of what it says. In addition to the limitations of words and human understanding, a large part of the Bible was written by or altered by promoters of falsehood, who could be called false prophets. About a dozen persons tacked material onto the end of Isaiah and Jeremiah. Some of them were constructive persons, and some were not. The lying Scribes (Jer 8:8) altered or added to any text which they found to be vulnerable. An example is Wisdom 2:23. The Scribes wanted to reinforce a corrupt interpretation of Genesis by adding a phrase to Wisdom. Rationalizers often say humans were created in God's image, which is supposed to do something to dampen criticism of their corruptions. Genesis says, "Let us make man in our image" (Gen 1:26). But Genesis is about material creation including the human body. It is not about creation of spiritual beings, some of whom were created by the satan (Mat 13:38). God and other persons in heaven use a form similar to humans. Angels often use a form similar to animals, because they evolved their souls in animal bodies where they could not be touched by sin. In the next cycle of the universe, they will be among the humans, after becoming exposed to sin and needing to learn how to overcome it. To then claim that Genesis is describing the wisdom and virtues of humans is a corrupt interpretation. So the Scribes added a tack-on to Wisdom which says, "For God formed man to be imperishable: the image of his own nature he made him" (Wis 2:23). They also added the next verse (24) for a transition, even though it has no relationship to the subject at hand. Imperishable applies to souls, while Genesis is about bodies, not souls. This material was tacked on after the statement, "nor discern the innocent souls' reward" (Wis 2:22). God did not make man imperishable, and whatever man acquired, it was not the innocent souls' reward. The key phrase is "image of his own nature." It changes Genesis from describing the bodies of humans to describing God's nature, which indicates moral character. This concept contradicts the fact that spiritual beings enter the human society for the purpose of overcoming sin. According to the lying Scribes, spiritual being enter the human society with the flawless nature of God. Another section of the Bible which is corrupt enough to be referred to as false prophesy is the book of Ezekiel. Most of it would be irrelevant even if true. This is because the falsehoods must look innocuous enough to pass criticism. The general technique of the false prophets is to mimic the true prophets with phraseology pretending to make profound statements. But the more profound statements that are strung together, the less coherent and relevant they get. Corruptions such as Ezekiel and alterations of the Bible are meticulously designed by a large group of researchers who work for satan and explore every minute detail and implication of words. The results might look ingenious, but the corrupt motives put them in blatant conflict with rationality. Having said this, the book of Ezekiel may have started out as a constructive work and then been altered so thoroughly by frauds that it lost recognizable constructivity. Either way, its overwhelming characteristic is that it has the fingerprints of satan's frauds all over it. The point is that everything in the Bible is worth whatever it is worth, just like everywhere else. Being in the Bible does not turn falsehood into fact. It is only the test of objective reality found in the lessons of life that can tell anyone whether anything in the Bible is worth reading. Only the test of objective evidence indicates that Christ's words are God's words. One of the most important things to know about truth is that sin cannot exist in the light of truth. The most corrupt persons such as satan are the most sensitive to truth. They have so much to hide and have been burnt so often that they are very reactive in avoiding truth. Truth then creates a barrier which limits what satan can do. As truth increases in the human society, it widens the barrier of satan's activities. This result does not diminish his activities, it just forces him to use different methodologies. For example, he used to be able to tell people that sacrificing to him would improve their lives. Now he has to use other methods of control. Another example of how the power of truth works is when television news programs expose some corruption, and results occur the next day, while other methods could not produce results for months or years. Scandal is misusing the power of truth. But scandal is not just a lie where there should be truth; it is attacking personal realities which are not supposed to be anyone's business in the first place. One of the main reasons why personal realities must be handled differently is because there is no way to properly represent realities which no one has been in contact with but individuals. Also, no one has a stake in personal realities but isolated individuals; so corrupters have no incentive to be honest. This is why Christ said to not throw pearls before swine (Mat 7:6). It applies to personal realities. Socialized realities are everyone's business, and the moral and constructive way to solve problems in the social area is by developing truth. When the subject is appropriate, truth about it is infallible. The power of truth is the force of justice; and it is the only thing that defines and creates justice. Truth is the only force which corrupters cannot defeat. Therefore, it is where a large part of the war between good and evil is fought. Christ was crucified for producing truth. Corrupters hate and despise truth and truth seekers; so they try to relegate truth seeking to a status of corruption. There is no sin but the truth about sin to corrupters. One of their tactics is to accuse truth seekers of being intolerant. Truth certainly tolerates no error. But if intolerance is about that subject, it is a virtue for that abstract entity which pervades the universe called truth to be so intolerant. The intolerance which humans are supposed to avoid is the use of force, not the use of truth. Force is the basis of sin; while truth is the basis of justice and life. It is a truism that persons who do not use truth to solve their problems will use force. For this reason, the sanctimonious do-gooders who are out to sweep truth under a rug are in fact subverting everyone else's interests. The most significant method of suppressing truth is attitude control. Once the focus is on personal characteristics which are judge as subjectively as attitudes, the fate of individuals is controlled on a whim. Whim is what sin thrives on. Truth seeking is of course never the right attitude. Attitudes are so abstract that they are handled subconsciously. This means attitudes are judged by feel rather than analysis. What feels right to corrupters is sin, not virtue. "Sometimes a way seems right to a many, but the end of it leads to death" (Proverbs 14:12). Morality by feel is the way that seems right but leads to death. What feels right to corrupt persons is domination, elitism, bigotry, jealousy, etc. Truth never feels right to them, because they have been burned by truth so often that it creates a negative reaction in their subconscious minds. To Chapter 3. |