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Posted by Mike Pearson on December 14, 2001 08:01:40 UTC

Well, you are so nice about it, I will
rush out the basic idea.
Jesus' words are the basis but I invoke logic of known science and strict limitations on what I claim. Any and all of the points I rely on may be contested, but I believe they stand up.

Part One
Assumptions which seem supported:
1. Government is inevitable, for it is defined as
"guidance, management and control of an organization." God," also, is inevitable, when defined as "having special powers over the lives and affairs of people and the course of nature."
Certainly in our time, when evolution now proceeds influenced greatly by the desires and thoughtful plans of planners. If aetheists deny the existence of a being higher than themselves, they must accept that they are claiming to be the Supreme Being.
2. We are, each of us, part of Universe and each one decides what each one believes, when one has become acquainted with the freedom to do so.
3. Standards of science, such as Occam's razor,
may be useful for measuring a theology. A simple, elegant version of God would show promise by this standard. It is at least permitted to consider such a measurement.
4. We would expect a real God to contain a microcosm of our own concerns, or it would seem incomplete -- an impossibility for an over-all God.
5. The story of Jesus in the Bible, even though internally inconsistent in some ways, at least makes a serious start about what a Supreme Being would have to know about Us in order to seem Supreme.
6. The misuse of any object or concept does not make the object or concept invalid. It might well raise the need to reconsider that object or concept.

Part Two
Definitions which are used in this "proof"
1. Proof: the conclusion or consequence of an internally consistent system of thoughts,
a consequence made possible but not necessarily necessary by the system
2. God: defined above
3. Jesus: the person whose life story and words are reportedly told in the four "Gospels" and possibly, though not necessarily, in apocryphal literature; since we cannot prove much of what Jesus did or said, this definition
is also including the abstract meaning of the story scholarly-type discussion about legitimacy of various sayings attributed to Jesus

Part Three
Brief Commmentary
All objections to this "proof" should be considered an opportunity to bring the matter into better focus.
Paul's efforts helped preserve the stories of Jesus, apparently, as have the efforts of many scholars and persons of many descriptions.
This helps explain what kind of God Jesus is...
but does not reasonably preclude criticism of any of the theology which has proceeded from the story.

Part Four
Summary of Main Idea
All the assumptions, definitions and commentary in Parts One, Two and Three are the context for this system.
If you define a Supreme Being in the way you believe one should be, then you may reasonably believe in that Supreme Being. That belief may be true or false still. The story of Jesus, in my experience, contains the elegance, simplicity, comprehensiveness, political realism, empathy, and transcendent possibilities of a Supreme Being very well for a story 2,000 years old. Some adjustment was necessary to work with Big Old Universe and Evolution by Natural Selection and Random Mutation.
Maybe better science emerges from realizing that thought itself is not highly featured in our Earth-bound natural history of the universe until the past few millenia. We are not alligators,
descended from dinosaurs. We are thinking beings, inhabiting forms which, perhaps, have descended from forms which co-existed with dinosaurs.
I doubt Jesus said some of the sayings attributed to him which are inconsistent with his main theme. For example, he said The Law is all expressed in love for God and love for your neighbor. So while self-sacrifice and religious attentions of various kinds proceed from Jesus' teaching, I have not been able to suspend disbeliefe that He reverses his position and declares all the rules of conventional ancient Hebrew practice would be dDivinely enforced and unchanged forever.

The proof is that the system is consistent with the conditions for which I am applying it and it is my right to so define the Deity.

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