Why Does Fear Exist?
Fear is a natural emotion designed to act as a means for protection in this physical world, from dangers and ultimately death. Man is the only creature that has an awareness of his own death and even life after death. However, in a world where man has a greater intellect and awareness than any other creature on the planet, fear much of the time causes unnecessary stress and detriment to the physical body.
A very useful tool that helps man to compartmentalize and relieve him from the damage caused by fear is belief. Belief, in most cases, is not based on fact, truth or knowledge, but then neither is fear. Much of the time fear is just about something that could actually happen, but most of the time never becomes a reality and is more detrimental than protective especially when it is over-emphasized and unnecessary for his protection.
During life, most of the time, there is no need for Man’s mind to be preoccupied with anything outside of the activities of this physical life. This is because life is meant to be a learning experience for him, and preoccupations outside this present experience only serve to be a hindrance to his growth, in most cases.
Belief Can Relieve the Stress of Fear
Belief is not necessarily based on truth and factual evidence, but a holding onto an idea or opinion that serves a certain purpose is sometimes good, sometimes bad — but not always a good idea to rely on. Fear of the unknown is generally an irrational emotion that is created when there exists the impossibility of knowing the truth about something, especially about a potential danger. Belief serves to relieve the stress of not knowing, which much of the time is actually a good thing.
However, proponents of religion, over thousands of years past, have discovered that fear and belief are extremely effective tools to control and manipulate masses of people, sometimes for good reasons, but more often than not, for evil and selfish reasons.
This brings us to belief in something that is outside the realm of man’s control, in fact, things that have nothing to do with man’s life experience and even reality. Belief can be a good and useful thing, but the very nature of belief is the fact that there is no way for him to know for certain if things are real or imaginary, true or false, based on fact or merely someone else’s opinion, which are possible to be fabrications or even outright lies.
Impossible to Prove Death and Resurrection
Most things that are believed are impossible to prove, which is why they are beliefs. This is where we come to the death of Jesus. Did he really die, or did he not? Either way, it is impossible to prove. There were only 2 actual eye-witnesses to this fact, around 2000 years ago and they are both dead. Theoretically, to be “raised from the dead” one must be actually dead to start with. Obviously, if Jesus survived the execution, then he wasn’t raised from the dead. I suppose there is no harm in believing or even not believing he actually died.
But even though many people saw a man on the cross and laid in a tomb, that looked dead, and seemed dead, he may in fact might not have even been actually dead at all! No one actually saw God raise Jesus from the dead, and the only two possible eye witnesses are not recorded to have said anything. It says in a book that God raised Jesus from the dead, but how do we know that the accounts written by men who were not eye witnesses themselves were recounting a true story? We can only believe that the story is true — belief is different than knowing. No one really knows the Truth, except for two men who wrote nothing down and have been dead for nearly 2000 years.
The Existence of Hell is Impossible to Prove
According to what is written in the Gospels, Jesus is the “Savior” of the world. This is a belief that is highly disputed and impossible to prove. The Christian concept of “Salvation” is not a fact, but a teaching invented by religious theologians of years past. This concept says that one needs to be saved, by Jesus obviously, from the punishment of an “eternal”, unrelenting anguish in a place called Hell. This horrible fate, if one wants to avoid the “everlasting” experience to which there is no escape, one has to “accept Jesus as Lord and Savior”. However, the existence of a horrible place called “Hell” is impossible to prove — only a few badly translated bible verses. Here fear of the unknown is involved in a way that it can be used as a weapon in the hands of Christian churchmen.
Did Jesus Survive the Crucifixion?
The harmful part of the concept of salvation is that in order for one to be saved, he must “believe in his heart that God raised Jesus from the dead” (Rom 10:9). There is absolutely no way to prove that Jesus survived or did NOT survive the cruel Roman execution, much less that God raised Jesus from the dead. Being a belief, the concept of salvation can only ever be a theory or opinion at best, but never a truth or fact. The only fact here is that it is one man’s opinion, written in a 2000 year old book, as if it were a fact. Jesus promised that we would “KNOW the Truth…”. Knowing is much different than BELIEVING. And belief is required for being deceived. I’m not saying that millions of people are deceived, but they very well could be!
Confess to a Belief in One’s Heart that it’s Truth?
The idea is that the proof one is saved through grace, the believer will confess with his or her mouth this belief, so that others would hear. To require the believer to accept this belief of one’s “eternal salvation” on the statement written as fact (belief is not fact), of one man, written in a 2000 year old book, is based on a concept impossible to prove and is misleading at best.
The reason for this is that the motive behind this concept of Paul is wrong, designed to force the believer through fear, to accept everything Paul teaches, thus making it possible to control and manipulate the lives and minds of his followers.
Most importantly, this concept is diametrically opposed to the teachings of Jesus. This is the reason, it’s false: according to Jesus, salvation is based on righteousness, good works and doing the will of God. (Matthew 25) Paul said just the opposite. He taught salvation is NOT through our own good works and our own righteousness, but it’s a “gift of God”. (Eph 2:8,9; Tit 3:5; Rom 10:9,10)
This major theological contradiction has caused great harm within Christian religious denominations worldwide, in that institutions that are supposed to do good and help people, have only served to divide and cause great spiritual and psychological pain in many cases.
Paul Taught the Doctrine of Salvation by Grace
In the case of Paul’s doctrine, “salvation by grace”, the sinner is dependent on grace to save him. Nothing more to do than believe in his heart, that God raised Jesus from the dead. No making amends, no righteous living, no good works — nothing can save the sinner but belief in one’s heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, which leads to his confession to others.
In fact, according to Paul it is impossible to be good enough and do enough good works, in one lifetime to merit the entrance into Heaven. Furthermore, one lifetime is all the sinner has, if he doesn’t get it right the first time he goes to Hell for eternity — no second chances!
According to many Christian teachers, one who has lived badly all his or her life only needs to accept Jesus as personal savior and they get a free pass to the pearly gates for eternity. But those who have tried to live a righteous life and were born into the wrong religion, don’t make it to heaven, but must spend an eternity in Hell! That doesn’t sound like a just and loving God.
Jesus Taught the Doctrine of Reincarnation
Jesus’ doctrine is much different. Some would call it “salvation by works”. But according to Jesus there is no way to enter the kingdom of Heaven without righteousness, good works and doing the will of God — Jesus makes that very clear! However, behavior like the one Jesus describes is impossible to attain to in one lifetime. This is why salvation must be a process of purification and perfection over the course of many lifetimes.
No matter how much the Church tries to hide this fact and deny its existence, Jesus did indeed teach the doctrine of Reincarnation. Even Science has proven the existence and reality of Reincarnation. Reincarnation, according to them, is “incompatible” with the Bible and with Christianity. The reason is simple: it is contrary to everything the Church teaches and as much of the evidence that they could, they left out. What evidence they failed to remove from the Bible they make false interpretations about in order to explain that evidence away!
Next: Reincarnation 2 | Incompatible Reincarnation