The Consistency of Christianity

If Christianity were a man-made religion, and the bible a man-made book, the guy writing it sure made a hell of a lot of precautions to make it consistent (better than HIMYM writers...). Perhaps this is what veers me towards it - that the theology and consistency of the bible has remained for the most part...faultless.

Of course, the same cannot be said for the practitioners of the religion but I guess that when assessing any religion, it makes only logical sense to look at the religion solely on its principle basis and not at the people practicing it. After all, we are only humans and therefore subject to the occasional mistake.

Anyway, back to the subject of consistency...

I have been struggling with the concept of a religion that is based by grace and faith as opposed to one that is based on works. I guess that stems from the way I (or singaporeans in general) was brought up... since everything that we do is subject to praise or criticism and the outcomes are measured in terms of rewards... So far, I had been living my life with this particular concept in mind. I wouldn't do things that I would feel guilty about because God might mete out certain 'punishments' or I would feel dejected over the lack of recognition although I'd been really active in church and whatnots.

Then it struck me....

You see, the bible (or to be specific, Paul) explicitly states that we were saved by grace and not by works... Now, the consistency lies in the fact that God, like a loving father, would want the BEST for his child (aka me). So I was thinking " That's true! If I were a dad, I'd probably want to give my child the best life that I can give him...even if he'd misbehaved. It actually also wouldn't matter if my child did a lot of stuff for me, since it'd probably wouldn't change how much I treasure him." It made logical sense to me. So, here we have on one side, us being saved by grace and on the other, God wanting to give us the best in life...being totally independent from the amount of work that we do in an effort to "please" him.

The implication of this is that we are no longer bound by the misconception of the need to "please" God....doesn't this take away a lot of the pressure that stems from the uncertainty of not knowing whether you did enough to please God? It is also consistent to the common knowledge that we were created equals in God's sight and therefore, are loved as much as the next man since the lack of work does not devalue your worth in God's eyes.

This allegorical perception of God as a "father" is thus once again justified and consistent to what I had just described.

It is firstly not easy to make any book consistent in terms of facts and figures but to make a book consistent in its teachings and values and figurative allusions? Now THAT'S TOUGH.... and for me, it only goes to underline the authenticity of the bible.

The redundancy of help and parallel universe observations

"If not for God/you/it, I never would have made it through this period of my life."

How often have you heard this sentence?

The answer? Too often.

Unless we are able to observe parallel universes in which you DIDN'T have the said person in your life, we will never know for sure what the outcome will be, right?

Think about it, what is the probability that you will go through a situation, dire enough, such that it causes you to attempt suicide/go into depression/etc.?

The fact that you are ok and alright now means it hasn't happened to you yet...and you will never actually know the alternative outcome.

So what's my point?

God probably didn't function science to provide answers for his existence (i.e. We cannot conclusively prove that He exists, since that will take away the element of faith).

If you accept that premise, and since the observation of a parallel universe would prove once and for all the existence of a God (you will then know whether He really existed by comparing different situations and monitoring the outcome), therefore, I can safely say that we will never ever gain the technological capacity to observe or communicate with a parallel universe as a human species.

So there! That's my point.

I'm willing to bet my life to anyone who manages to do so.

ps: BTW, seriously, do we actually need to rely on anyone or anything to get us through the hardships of life? Just wondering...