Logical Pathways
One Step Thinking
[1] Jesus existed, this is a historical fact, witnessed to by the bible and by Roman (Tacitus) and Jewish (Josephus) historians.
[2] Jesus had a lot of power, this is evident from the number of Christians today and from the calendar.
[3] Jesus never abused his power so as to procure riches status or women for himself.
[4] Every other man that has ever lived after him, who had anything approaching that type of power, abused it to some extent to procure riches, status or women for himself.
[5] Every man that has ever lived after Jesus was a son of Adam.
Therefore all sons of Adam abuse their power to some extent.
Since all sons of Adam abuse their power to some extent, and since Jesus did not abuse his power at all, he cannot have been a son of Adam.
[6] Jesus claimed to be God's son not Adam's son as all other men who lived after him are.
Since we have no further options for Jesus' parenthood other than Adam and God, and since he was not a son of Adam, he must have been a son of God.
The above is a logical pathway. How much confidence do you put in it? If we assume that statements [1] to [5] are true then we have to have complete confidence that Jesus was not a son of Adam. Do you have that confidence (given the assumptions [1] to [5])?
Pathways such as the above are actually the basis of spirituality. God did not introduce himself to pre-adamic man until we had developed the capability to see with our minds what we could not detect with our senses. The mind sees through logic. For example Sir Isaac Newton deduced from the fact that an apple fell towards the earth that an invisible force was attracting the apple to the earth. He could not physically detect that force, he could only deduce its existence form the physically detectable effect that it had on the apple. Newton saw gravity with his mind. That is precisely how one sees God today.
For example, suppose your friend left London at 10:30 am (London Time) and arrived in New York at 9:30 am (Eastern Time) the same day. You would deduce from this that he must have gone on Concorde. There is absolutely no doubt about this at all, as mankind has no other non military was of achieving this. But how much confidence do you have in this deduction?
Your faith, your spirituality and your Christianity are all dependent on your confidence is such deductions because you cannot at this time see God or see Jesus himself. But if you have full confidence in your deductions, and you familiarize yourself with the scriptures then you can see the pair of them.
Have you ever seen your own brain? Most readers will say no. So how do you know that you have got one? Well you deduce it from books and from the fact that you may have seen other people's brains or pictures of other people's brain's and you are the same species as them. But this reasoning is precisely the reasoning we used above to deduce that Jesus was not a son of Adam.
If you can develop confidence in your deductive powers, then you will see God, if you are pure in heart. By this we mean and Jesus meant, if you look without regard for personal consequence. Obviously if there is a God then you are accountable to him. Not everybody likes this idea. So many make a rather limited search for him.
The way to approach this is to first of all forget about consequences and just decide to search for the truth. If you can do this, then you are searching with a pure heart, you are judging without a motive. OK the consequences could theoretically be dire, but you are not considering them. In fact God is a better judge than anyone could possibly imagine and the consequences of discovering him can only ever be good. If he is not going to allow you into the Kingdom of God it is because that is the best thing for you, because you would not benefit from or be able to deal with that particular 'school'.
Here are some examples of deductions that everyone has confidence in:
A map is not a reality, it is a symbolic representation, an abstraction, of the reality. We all trust maps. Most of us are confident that if we follow a route on a map we will indeed end up at the destination we seek, even though we may have never gone down that road before and may have never been to that destination before. The bible is such a map. It is just rather more symbolic in its representation and rather more abstract in its construction. And no human today has ever been to the destination which it gives the route for. But many people have never been to Stratfield Mortimer, that doesn't mean that the place doesn't exist, or that if you follow the appropriate road map you won't end up there.
Most people accept that many years ago Dinosaurs roamed over the earth. But no human has ever seen a Dinosaur. We just have bits of huge skeletons from which we deduce their existence. It is logic and confidence in our deductions that puts the flesh on those bones. We do not actually have any Dinosaur flesh to hand. Likewise we have the skeletal proof of the existence of God from the words of the bible and from nature itself. But logic and confidence in our deductions are required to categorically prove his existence. For logic and deduction are the flesh needed to create the body of God from the bones of nature and the bible. Now if you do not understand logic you may say: Does this mean that God is a Dinosaur? If you ask this question then you have failed to grasp one of the elementary rules of logic which is this:
All Horses are creatures with 4 legs. This does not mean that all creatures with 4 legs are horses. And if you don't get this, then you have just made a horses ass out of logic.
Sin is short termism, which is ignoring the consequences of your actions. Sin results from one step thinking. Christianity is basically two step thinking, thinking which takes account of the global consequences of actions when deciding whether or not to go ahead with them.
One Step Thinking: If we introduce strict anti pollution laws, then our companies will become less profitable so they will sack people and unemployment will rise.
Two Step Thinking: If we cut pollution, we will slow down global warming, so the climate will remain stable. Then the rain will fall evenly and slowly in the right places, rather than falling unevenly and quickly in the wrong places. Since the weather will remain predictable and consistent, we will not get unprecedented floods and droughts and hurricanes, so farming won't fail worldwide, so we won't all starve. (Alright it is a few more than 2 steps! more like 5 steps!)
One Step Thinking: I want this, I don't care what anyone else feels about it, I am having this because that is what I want.
Two Step Thinking: Everything I want is presently owned by someone else. My welfare is dependent upon others. They also have the same needs and desires as me. If we co-operate as a team we will both reach attain these desires and needs more quickly. So my plan to achieve my goals has to complement other peoples plans to achieve their goals, in other words I'll have to do a deal.
One Step Thinking: Close down the coal industry in the UK because you can buy cheaper coal from Germany.
Two Step Thinking: The cost of closing down our coal industry to the UK as an economy, in terms of lost jobs, unemployment benefit, lost utility revenues, lost factory rents, lost tax revenue, lost bank profits, lost shop profits, psychological demotivation of people etc. is much greater than the marginal difference between German coal prices and UK coal prices. So we are better off subsidising UK coal. Obviously the Germans understand this and have implemented a policy of subsidy which is based on two stage thinking. In the 1980s the UK was buying German coal which was inferior in quality to ours and which costed more to mine than ours but was subsidised to a greater extent.
One Step Thinking: The world is becoming one place, lets have one world wide government to make the world a fairer place.
Two Step thinking: Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. After the UN becomes the worldwide government, all of the power being in the hands of one government will be catastrophic. The UN itself will become like an African dictator answerable to no one and so it will inevitably become completely corrupt. We need a worldwide judge yes, for human rights issues, a worldwide social service yes, and worldwide health service yes, but a worldwide king with a worldwide army - NO. That would be the worst and most corrupt from of global police state.
One Step Thinking: Lets ask everyone what they want and give it to them in a political system - Democracy.
Two Step Thinking: Peoples individual desires are not as important as their collective needs. We need a political system which gives people not what they want but what they need. We may all want chocolate pudding, but what we need is protein and greens. To ensure that all people get what they need, which is a job, a house, healthcare, schooling for everyone, moral guidance, security (protein and greens), we need to do things that people don't want us to do, and so would never vote for. So we need to educate people so that they understand how to fulfill collective needs and so that they value these needs as much as they value their own personal wants. This education is Christianity. Christianity is your Brussels Sprouts if you like.