Brief Introduction
What you are about to read may sound “heretical” at first, depending on your belief system. I ask that you have patience and keep reading, because, no matter where you think I’m about to go with this, I promise that the conclusions will surprise you. My belief in God stems from three main sources, which are the moral teachings of Jesus, and two mathematical proofs, one of which is—to the best of my knowledge—is an original invention of my own. (Though I won’t bore you with long-winded equations, because, as you’ll see, it simply isn’t necessary to do so.)
Without further ado, let’s get into it.
How the American Hypnotist found Jesus
Even in my mid 30s, I still consider myself as being fairly new to Christianity, and I’m learning about it all the time. I believe my appreciation of it mirrors roughly the same attitude exhibited by Thomas Jefferson when he asserted that the most important aspect of Christianity were the moral teachings of Jesus, before any other aspect. The famous Jefferson Bible was simply the reported deeds and messages of Jesus, absent all the other parts. Some find this heretical—the Apostles Creed of the Methodists, for example, demands that you believe in the virgin birth and resurrection or else you are a heretic. Jefferson did indeed question these aspects of the Bible, but in my eyes he remains a Godly man, based on all I’ve learned of him thus far.
From what I’ve gathered, Thomas Jefferson was a ferociously independent-minded and scientific thinker (by “scientific” I mean rational/logical, rigorous, honest and being concerned with demonstrable proofs/results—mainstream “science” boasts almost none of these qualities). When asked whether or not he was Christian, his response was (paraphrased) “Yes, but only in the sense that Jesus truly meant.” He believed that the only way to truly follow Jesus would be to place his words above all the other aspects of the Bible, and then go from there, as it were. For what it’s worth, I do not believe that the Declaration of Independence could have been written without the aid of the Divine.
When I was young I was a typical atheist-democrat who looked forward to watching Bill Mahar every week on HBO. This was almost 2 decades ago, and my attitude towards religion today could hardly be any more opposed to the attitude I once held. However, if there were a single thread the connects the old “me” to the man I am today, it is the sincere belief that God must be rational and benevolent (“then why does He allow bad things to happen to good people?” I hear some ask… to which my answer is simply that we’re supposed to govern this realm. We were given dominion, were we not? Is it God’s fault that we seem to do such a piss poor job at our allotted task? No).
Being raised without Christianity, I approach it with an “outsider” perspective. Of all the religions, I hold Christianity in the highest esteem because, to the best of my knowledge, nobody has fought harder against the encroachment of communism than the Christian community. Furthermore, it’s bloody obvious that Christianity is the most vilified and mocked of all the religions—even many atheist-types will get performatively offended when you mock the deities of other religions. But when Hollywood makes endless films mocking the Christian faith—when comedians like George Carlin single out Christianity for mockery while rarely, if ever, mocking other faiths—then this all gives one pause to wonder…
If the Devil were real, then would he spend his time attacking faiths that don’t legitimately threaten him? Or would he single out the one that does?
Just some food for thought…
After my “atheist” phase (which ended at the conclusion of my teenage years) I dabbled in a wide variety of spiritual practices. I’m grateful beyond words that I didn’t accidentally induce schizophrenia in myself. According to the groundbreaking work of Dr. Jerry Marzinksy, a great many schizophrenic patients accidentally invited “spirits” into their mind by channeling or playing with Ouija boards and other such paraphernalia (which I never used by the way, though I practiced with similar devices).
Nonetheless, in the background, Jesus was always there, as though like a giant cosmic magnet drawing me closer and closer…
One day, about a decade ago, I was in a really bad spot. I had developed a case of weapons-grade insomnia—I would stay awake for days at a time, not by choice, but because my body quite literally could not rest. Then one day, I finally asked, “Jesus, if I call your name, how do I know it’s really you who answers?” Instantaneously, a wave of the most wonderful serenity flowed through my body, as though I had been plucked from my present circumstances and had been dipped into a pool of pure, liquid peace, and a voice said, “BECAUSE YOU’VE NEVER NOT KNOWN ME”.
That’s the one and only time I’ve ever heard that voice—probably because I didn’t need any convincing after that. Whether or not I was prepared to accept the Bible as the literal word of God, I have never doubted the existence of Jesus since that day.
In regards to the Bible, we know—again, thanks to Jerry Marzinsky—that the negative voices that schizophrenics hear in their heads freak out when one recites Psalms 23. “It’s like throwing worms onto a frying pan” is how one patient described it. Why would a “hallucination” have such a bad reaction to a Biblical passage? And why would that effect hold true over many diverse cases of schizophrenia? In many cases, Psalms 23 made the voices go away entirely. (To give other faiths their due, the voices don’t like any religion… but sure, mainstream psychology says these voices are purely in the imagination… right).
I still maintain that it’s possible that certain passages of the Bible have been altered to suit the needs of various ruling classes. The ruling elite of this world, though psychopathic, are at least smart enough to not completely destroy something of real value—instead, they like to introduce small alterations to the truth. The most successful disinfo campaigns of history use more truth than falsehood—and that is how they get the “false” to “stick”.
In summary: it seems perfectly reasonable to surmise that the Bible as we know it today is mostly true—with minor adulterations necessary to give usurpers the upper hand. I recognize that this perspective is controversial—and perhaps even wrong—but it is a perspective I’ve arrived at in good faith, over many years of thinking deeply about these things. For me to pretend to hold any other perspective would be supremely dishonest.
The standard of “believe everything in the Bible without question or else you’re a heretic who deserves to burn in Hell” seems utterly unbecoming for a God who gave us the powers of reason. If the truth is the truth, then wouldn’t scientific truth and Biblical truth line up perfectly? And if so, then why would anyone be asked to forego a rational process to arrive at said truth? The essence of logic and mathematics is self-consistency—and God, being the One who upholds the entirety of existence, is nothing if not eternally consistent!
Logical and Mathematical Proof of God
From one looking at Christianity from the “outside”, I learned to see the faith of Christians as beautiful—even though my process for arriving at knowledge of God was necessarily different, due to my upbringing. Though I once joined in on the mockery—back in my atheist-democrat days—I came to be repulsed by the sneering attitude of the so-called “scientifically”-minded “skeptics”. NEWSFLASH: if you don’t question your own beliefs then you ain’t a skeptic! If you asked the average “science”-guy why he believes in “science” as it is taught to him, you’ll discover that he can’t replicate the basis of what he believes. It almost always boils down to “argument by authority”—aka, “the designated authorities say it’s true, so therefore it is”.
In other words, atheist-skeptics are also people of “faith”—except the thing in which they have said faith pretends not to be an article of faith. But can any of the “science” fanboys out there legitimately explain to you how time works? How black holes work? How quasars work? Why the laws of thermodynamics explain existence (if indeed they do)? Furthermore, why on Earth do these types conspicuously—and typically—avoid answering the hard questions of consciousness, as though such lofty considerations were somehow beneath them?
They say that anything “not observable” is beyond the reach of scientific inquiry—to which my response is: so your consciousness is unobservable? And if so, then how can you possibly tell me when you’re happy or sad? To argue that thoughts, emotions (or even hallucinations) aren’t “real” is the equivalent of claiming that the wind doesn’t exist merely because you can’t see it.
Materialism cannot explain everything, and therefore to claim that it does is no more logical than believing in the tooth fairy or unicorns (to use an analogy that atheist-skeptics love to hurl at Christians).
In any event, we’re here to prove the existence of God not on psychological or religious grounds per se—but on purely mathematic and logical terms. If the Truth be singular, then religion and mathematics amount to two ways of describing the same underlying reality.
Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem
In the early 20th century a mathematician accidentally proved the existence of God (or maybe it wasn’t an accident but he had to pretend it was)—this man’s name was Godel. Interesting how his name starts with “God”, is it not? God-el.. What’s up with that????
Anyways, he came up with the famous “Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem” which proved that no mathematical system can prove its own sufficiency from within its own axioms. No “set” of objects (whether real or theoretical) can be perfectly described using a formal logical description derived from the attributes of said objects. Put in simpler terms, you can’t actually know the “reality” of an apple tree until you perceive it within the full context of the entire universe.
No matter what “set” you use to describe any grouping of objects, you can only fully describe the set by referring to a “larger” set—and the ladder goes upwards seemingly forever… or does it?
Well, it turns out that the only way to “complete” the incompleteness theorem (which must be done in order to yield a coherent universe) you must introduce a meta-set that is capable of generating all possible subsets from within itself…
And in order to do this, said “meta-set” necessarily possesses the power to both define and create—and this means that it must possess ultimate knowledge of all of it’s internal components, combinations thereof AND have the ability to intelligently learn from it’s own creations.
There is simply no escaping these truths—Godel’s incompleteness theorem, in order to be reconciled with observable reality, becomes a mathematical proof of the existence of God. No ifs ands or buts about it!
I have added nothing to the theorem other than to observe it’s logical conclusion. You simply cannot have a hierarchy of sets of objects that originate from nowhere—it’s utterly impossible. The origin can be nothing other than God—the necessary meta set that completes the incompleteness theorem is, by definition, singular and generative. It is the one “set” from which all other sets are invariably derived. Therefore, the “science” types have no choice but to accept the idea that God is implicit in all of creation, because you simply cannot transgress the need for mathematics to be self-consistent without destroying the integrity of both real and theoretic existence.
In Matthew 7:12, Jesus tells us that the whole of the law is to do unto others as you would have done to yourself. Well guess what… mathematically speaking, you and I are both children of God, and anything I do to you I ultimately do to myself! It could not be any other way, because we are both extensions of the same meta-set from which all other sets are derived. The universe hereby is demonstrated logically to be singular and multiple at the same time by virtue of the singular meta-set and it’s relationship with the many sets that it generates (in other words, God is singular, and everything else plural). Our origin point and our ultimate destination is God.
Sorry atheists, but there’s no out-arguing this.
The Cognitive Theoretic Model of the Universe
If all sets within existence are necessarily sub-sets of the meta-set we know as God, then how exactly does that “creation” process work?
Reality theorist Chris Langan, has an answer for us: God uses language (which is, in actuality, the most generalized possible form of algebra) to create.
Hmmmm… Were we not told that in the beginning was the Word?
His paper is called the Cognitive Theoretic Model of Existence. It’s quite technical but the takeaway is simply that the universe is quite literally a “living language” having a conversation with itself about itself.
Read the paper here to learn more… and stay tuned because in part 2, we’re going to do our best to simplify its essential characteristics to make it more accessible.
Faith and reason are hereby forever declared to be compatible with one another, and may we all use this knowledge to better ourselves, our families, our communities, and—at the risk of being too bold about it—transcend the world of constant slavery and war that presently threatens all of our future.
I thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated this piece as it was refreshing, honest, and authentic....thank you!
I asked God into my life 38 years ago. I was raised by a family that were Democrat (the old Democrat), moral, believed in God but didn't take us to church. But my parents were great in that they let us go to church with anyone that would ask us. So I experienced many different religions. I always had a hunger for learning about God. Then in 1985 I met my husband who was a Christian raised Baptist. The rest is history. I love you article. I can't wait for part 2.