"Stop Thinking Like a Philosopher and Think Like a Christian"

Those were the words from one of the most brilliant minds I have ever personally known, and do know. I bought a 16oz bottle of Southern Comfort during the Christmas holidays a few years back. I was in Texas at my dad's condo. Not before long, I had drank well over half of the bottle. I was drunk. I was alone. I was depressed and full of thoughts that went no where good. I remember being very bothered by the fact that I didn't believe that Jesus was truth. I was saddened, as I had never been so close to wanting to leave this faith in the dust. I felt like someone close to me was dying. I felt as though I had out smarted Jesus and was ready to call him a fake, to tell him that he didn't make sense, that he wasn't pragmatic. I believed that I was god. I made the decisions and I decided for myself what was to be true and what was to be false.

I called Zach crying on the phone, explaining my ordeal. I knew that Zach would have good insight for me. Everytime I bring something up to Zach, his explanations often give me the impression that he'd been pondering the same thing, except much longer, and had come to a solid conclusion. I do not remember much, but I remember him telling me, "dude.. you gotta stop thinking like a philosopher and think like a Christian." Those words have been branded into my mind. They always linger. I am grateful for those words.


I wish I could stop there. Flip a switch, ya know? A switch that would go from Philosopher to Christian. But there ain't one. I am not by any means calling myself a philosopher. I respect the title too much to apply it to myself. But I don't respect it enough, at least right now in this post, to make it synonymous with Depraved Thinker. ha.

I am not a strict adherent to Reason. I am not much of a Rationalist. Some would disagree and say that I am. But in the honest sense, nah I'm not. I throw out reason and logic for emotions everyday. But I think trying hard to follow reason is what may get me in ruts at times. Bertrand Russel is someone I enjoy reading. He writes in a very clear and understandable way, and has a brilliant way of thinking and expresssing his thoughts. He was a dedicated and loyal follower of reason, perhaps more so than anyone in the history of philosphy. In many of his essays and books, he addresses questions about our place in the universe, religion, Christianity, death, morals, and sexual ethics blah blah blah. I always enjoy reading from his Why I'm Not A Christian. Here lately I picked it up and just read some of my favorite chapters. In his chapter What I Believe he explains his reasoning for not believing in eternal life. He confesses that when he dies, he will rot, and he is okay with that. He explains that eternal life cannot be, because the mind is powered by the brain. The brain is a physical organ wired by protons and electrons ane nuerons and all kinds of stuff. When we die, our body dies and rots, therefore leaving our brain rotting and dead as well, as it is a physical organ. Therefore when the brain is deceased, our ability to think and reason and dream has passed away as well. How, therefore, can we be immortal or inherit eternal life if we have not a brain or a mind, let alone a body, to enjoy it with?

He goes on to say that believers in immortality will reject his physiological arguments on the grounds that soul and body are totally disparate, and that "the soul is something quite other than its empirical manifestations through our bodily organs," of which he believes to be a "metaphysical superstition." Watchman Nee, in his large book, the Spiritual Man argues that Soul, Body, and Spirit are separate, and that man is triune, like the image in which he was made after, GOD, the father, the son, and the Holy Ghost. He says that the Soul is the product of the spirit being in contact with the body. The Soul is something unique. It is our organ of our own free will, the organ in which spirit and body are completely merged. "If man's soul wills to obey God, it will allow the spirit to rule over the man as ordered by God."

So when we die, I think we continue in spirit. Obviously the body is destroyed, leaving the soul out of luck because it needs the body, and we are left with our spirit (1 Corinthians 15:44). All this thinking and to what conclusion? Nothing really. Just a nice ride. I see the son lighting the streets. I have not went to bed yet. I guess I'll do that now. Thanks for reading, Alexis.