About

This blog is an attempt to use economic (and other scientific) concepts to better understand the religion of Christianity. I hope to give the reader a way to see past the mysticism and rituals of Christianity that may contradict preexisting scientific and rational beliefs. I believe that these “contradictions” act as roadblocks in their path to seeing the truth in Christianity. I hope to create for the reader a framework that enables them to see past these obstacles and to receive the core spiritual message of Jesus Christ, the message of God and Love.

This blog is intended for two types of people. Those who do not accept religion because of their own firm foundations in rational thought and trust in scientific reasoning. And those who have been brought up with faith, but are questioning their beliefs in light of their increasing knowledge in science and other worldly secular matters.  These two types share one thing in common, which is the experience of cognitive dissonance. This is a psychological terminology that describes the internal conflict one faces when posed with two ideas that are in seemingly obvious contradiction to one another. More specifically, it is the internal conflict that arises with the introduction of a new idea that is in contradictory juxtaposition with an existing belief.

When faced with cognitive dissonance, a rational person naturally seeks harmony within their mind and chooses to dismiss one idea in favor of another. The aforementioned two types of people differ in how they deal with the cognitive dissonance. The scientific type often chooses to reject the spirituality of religion in favor of scientific reasoning. For instance, the science types would often pick at the physical infeasibility of miracles documented in the Bible. “Clearly, a man cannot walk on water, and therefore, Jesus could not walk on water – if such fallacies are written in the Bible, Christianity is based on fictional imagination of mortal men and therefore other messages drawn from the Bible must also be invalid.” We can think of many other examples of this type of argument.

The second type are those who were brought with faith from childhood (they are sometimes referred to as “Cradle Catholics/Christians”). For these types, I assume that faith in God was accepted as the truth in their initial formative cognition prior their education in science and initiation into the secular world. These types deal with the problem of cognitive dissonance in a more subtle and sustained manner, however equally damaging to their spirituality. These types sometimes rebut that science too is an act of faith where one must also blindly trust certain fundamental assumptions and methodologies. Therefore, they achieve internal harmony of mind through a semi-rejection of both religion and science. Or, sometimes they are not able to achieve internal harmony in the face of this cognitive dissonance. They dwell in their confusion which causes them to slowly lose their faith God, as they feel increasing pressure to accept science and reasoning as the de facto framework, just as the rest of the educated and secular world has seemed to have done.

I was motivated to write this blog because it pains me to see the struggles of my fellow men who find themselves in such intellectual quagmire. Drawing from my personal experiences I can relate to this struggle and the real negative effect it can have on our daily lives. I have felt firsthand the utter darkness of being separated from God.  I have also felt the spiritual enlightenment and glorious joy one can receive from choosing to be one with God. I am convinced that my writing can be an intellectual’s guide to salvation (as the subtitle suggests).  It is important to note that there is a third type of person, those whose faith in God is strong and remains resilient in face of the dominance of scientific and rational thought in this world. I believe that these people are already saved, and do not need our words of advice to reach salvation.

Also, and ironically, I feel compelled to write this blog because of the intellectual injustice that is being committed by my fellow men through the indifference of beholding secular thought against the values of Christianity. I believe that the just society that we live in today, albeit imperfect, is a product of the proliferation and accessibility of education to the common people. The importance we have come to place on education and values of meritocracy, in turn, can largely be credited to the egalitarian principals founded through Christianity. Therefore, it seems that the good will of the God-believing people and their sacrifices through the generations to create this better world have also created the condition which freedom of thought can be tolerated. I believe that this tolerance, or rather, the hubris in secular liberalism has also allowed for the seeds of doubt against God to grow. And as this seed grows, it takes away from the “goodness” of the society that is the natural fruit of a society that is one with God.

As a personal disclaimer, I am a direct offspring of this hubris in liberalism of the modern world. In fact, I was born into an atheist family and have been an atheist during most of my formative years. My only exposure to Christianity has been sparse, and never took firm root. Although my parents gave me the freedom to choose my beliefs, given the absences of a regular education in the Christian faith, and also my success in the education system in the areas of science, I was naturally led to uphold the atheist view on religion. I remember as a youngster confronting my Christian classmates and debating them against the validity of Christianity. I recall one such event, when I brought a girl to break down into tears publicly because she could not defend the position of Christ for which she had so passionately believed.

During my time at Princeton University, I would like to think that I had become wiser, and therefore left room for the existence of God. I took on the position of an agnostic – one who does not deny the existence of God but does not subscribe to a specific religion and the entirety of its doctrines. But this was a philosophical position rather than a religious belief, and I did not completely free myself from the shackles of my intellectual hubris. I believe that through this gradual development, which may have been my soul’s unconscious search for God, I have come to where I am today to write this book. I now consider myself to have a firm belief in the values of Christianity and feel gratefulness in God’s blessings. And it is because of this feeling of gratitude and humility that I feel compelled to write this book.

I can foresee certain criticisms of this work based on my personal background. Some may believe that the messages of this blog may have been more convincing had it been written by someone with credentials relating to the topic of religion. Certainly, I am not a pastor with real life experience in spreading the message of Christ or leading a congregation. Nor am I an academic who has studied the topic of religion from the ivory towers and built a respectable track record of publications on such issues. On the contrary, many would deem me unqualified to write on such a topic of such depth and gravity. When I began to write the first few pages of this blog, I was a mere twenty-five-year-old who has just recently been turned unto Christianity.

However, I believe that I am uniquely qualified to deliver a message of Christ to the world because of this very path that I had taken as a non-Christian. If a former atheist such as myself can see the truth in the teachings of Christ, and if a sinner such as myself can rejoice in the glory and the blessings of God, I believe that my personal experiences alone serves as a convincing argument in itself. Further, the theme of this book is to understand Christianity by using principals drawn from the study of mathematics, science and economics. With respect to the said disciplines, I believe that I have built a respectable track record of accomplishments that speaks to my credibility.

In addition to the personal disclaimer, I feel oblige to disclose my “spiritual” disclaimers regarding this work. By spiritual disclaimer, I am referring to certain aspects about this work that pose an ethical dilemma as a Christian.

First is regarding the exercise of removing mysticism and ritualism from religion. Although the purpose of this book is to reach out to the intelligent reader who does not accept religion because of these mystical elements, it inevitably takes away a fundamental and necessary aspect of the religion. I believe that the general population (the “masses” in lack of better words) requires mysticism and rituals in order to stay interested in religion and to become genuinely “motivated” to seek Christ. While entertaining such thoughts, I have found myself asking: “Am I undoing the works of Christ by removing the mysticism that calls for men to revere God and Jesus Christ?” Taking this idea to the extreme, some may even call this book the work of an antichrist. One popular interpretation of the methods of an antichrist is using the gospel of humanism – the happiness of man, the glory of man, the peace and prosperity, the health and wealth of man. This is in some ways congruent with the methods that will be used in this blog to motivate the reader towards accepting Christ. The result of such work by the antichrist is the dethroning of Jesus Christ from his rightful place at the head of the Church. Ultimately, one may interpret the possible success of this work as having the result of putting man above God, by allowing God to be understood, and his Gospels readily digestible using the science of man.

The second disclaimer, somewhat related to the first, is the possibility that the reader may sense an elitist undertone in my approach. I have conceded that the mysticism and the rituals of Christianity is a necessary aspect to keep the institution of Christianity in tact throughout time because its survival ultimately rests in the hands of the masses and the resilience of their belief in Christ. I also mentioned earlier in this section that I believe that these types of people whose faith does not waver in the face of dominance of science in this secular world do not need my words of advice to seek spirituality in Christ. I fear that this could be interpreted as my targeting an audience composed exclusively of intellectuals, who can benefit from what is written, whereas the masses who believe in God without question need not bother and in fact would be thrown into confusion by reading my writing.

I hope that the self-selection of readers would resolve these ethical conundrums. I am almost certain that those who will find interest in this blog will be those who fall into the aforementioned two types of people who suffer from the cognitive dissonance.  I believe that these types have much to gain from the framework of thinking provided here, and dismiss the notion that the ideas presented are elitist, or anti-Christian.