God and Freedom: What Matters in Life

By Jon Rod Christie

My wife and I have a plan to one Christmas ride a Midnight Express to Salt Lake City. We are Christians, not Mormons, but we will spend a few days where thousands meet in His name and hear His music. We will attend Christmas by the Tabernacle Choir. Life is like a train station where two tracks run in opposite directions. One train runs uphill to where Christ dwells. Another train runs downhill to where he is ignored. Folks who board the downhill train are fully aware of the uphill train, but insist that theirs is the proper train. As the land they travel into turns dark and chaotic, they imagine that error is truth, that bitter is sweet, and that despair is the norm. As the uphill train travels its passengers see a new land where clear waters run deep, where the sun is bright and warm, where people come and go as they please, and where there is singing and joy.

God and Freedom, What matters in Life, by Jon Christie is a powerful book about life and how to live it. It is a profound analysis of many facets of life and a guide to truth. I will use it as a reference. The discussion of science to demonstrate the need of a Creator interpretation was accurate and clear, and helpful to the layman. I recommend that everyone read this book.

Keith Walker, author, T-Man of Steel, and Just Forgiven

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jun 16, 2016
• ISBN: 9781512744552

Jon Rod Christie

The author’s background in physics and engineering enabled him to provide convincing evidence that this complex, highly ordered and integrated universe could only have been created by a super-intelligence.

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Copyright © 2016 Jon Rod Christie.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-5127-4456-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-4457-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-4455-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016909010

WestBow Press rev. date: 6/16/2016

CONTENTS

Preface

Chapter 1 God Exists

The Fact of the Bible

The Presence of Spirit

The Complex, Orderly, Integrated Universe

Chapter 2 The Beatitudes, What They Mean

The Rich Man

Turn the Other Cheek

Chapter 3 How the Mind Determines Who We Are

Chapter 4 Quotes of Jesus Christ

Chapter 5 Some Subjects Important to Christians

Do Pets Go to Heaven?

Jesus on Government

Same-Sex Marriage

Abortion

Socialism and Propaganda

The Pilgrim Monument

Why Evil Exists

Chapter 6 We Need Work and to Be Close to Nature

The Welfare State

Camps for Kids

Endnotes

I dedicate this book to my grandson, Auden Lee.

Preface

In some places statements made by Jesus have been repeated where it seemed appropriate. For example, some of Jesus’s statements in the first part of chapter 1 are repeated in chapter 4. Quotes of Jesus are from the King James Version of the Bible. This book concerns what I have found matters in life. I have commented on social issues that I think are especially important to Christians, and I have discussed the role of liberty in God’s plan. The words he, she, and man are used in the gender-neutral sense.

This book has a few themes. A truth required by justice is that people have within them resources to succeed without outside help. The main title of this book is God and Freedom. God created people with free will, which is a requirement of life. We have liberty, which is bound to faith because we have life granted by God. When Christ met the Devil in the desert, the Devil promised Christ bread and all the kingdoms of the world if he would renounce the Father. But Christ replied that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. People do not live only by material goods and the creations of secular men and women. We live by the grace of God, which includes the gift of liberty. This should not be surprising or upsetting if you are inclined to the atheist faith. In a world created by God, there must be a close bond between the Father and his people who inhabit this universe. As Jesus said, the Father is the supplier of all that is good.

People need Christ. Because atheists do not think God exists, they view the Judeo-Christian religions as a surrender of individuality to a false belief and thus acquiescence to a waste of life. Nevertheless, atheists often admit to a spiritual pull. Socialists everywhere desire to create bliss on earth. Accordingly, the creator of this human-induced utopia will be man himself. Nor will he submit to any constrain to attain his goal. The Bolsheviks murdered tens of millions (sixty-six to a hundred million by some estimates) in recent times, and the national socialists perfected the extermination of people to an art. The Khmer Rouge opened its renowned killing fields, and China purged every suggestion of dissidence. Man will wade through blood to attain his paradise. Socialism runs the gamut of murderous tyranny to its milder forms of the mere cancelation of liberty. The opposite of liberty is the foundation of the modern American form. Socialists bank on the classic misbelief that liberty is to the masses a terrifying prospect. Dostoevsky’s fiction novel The Grand Inquisitor captures the principle well on pages 26 and 32. The Inquisitor, speaking for Socialism, says to Christ, They [free men] will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, ‘Make us your slaves, but feed us.’ Though from whom would the Inquisitor obtain bread? Continuing to speak to Christ, the Inquisitor comments on the implied contradiction. He says, And when they receive bread from us, they will be clearly aware that it is bread they have earned with their own hands, the same bread we took from them, that we performed no miracle by turning stones into bread, and yet the fact that they receive it from our hands will make them happier than the bread itself! It must be admitted that the Devil has an attraction. It is an attraction that plays to the desire for security and on the hope that people will come to believe that such desire supersedes or is incompatible with liberty. The Inquisitor would deny that liberty promotes security. Nevertheless, consistent with God’s first gift, the urge for freedom is rooted in life itself. Liberty is the rock of human identity that the Devil hopes to dislodge but cannot.

Chapter 1

God Exists

George Bernard Shaw once said that youth is wasted on the young. My wife’s mom said that you don’t learn how to live until you’re old. Several books that I read when I was young—and that at that time I thought were brilliant—seem ordinary upon rereading now. The list of people I would pay money to meet is considerably shorter than it once was. I no longer worry about money, not because I have it or don’t but because money, property, and recognition—those sorts of things—are not what bring happiness. If education is desired, there is a way to get it without money. Do like Abraham Lincoln did. He borrowed books and studied intensely while he was growing up. At one time I wanted to study physics, but I had no money to pay the university tuition. The university librarian let me take out most of the physics books. If I did not understand a point described in one book, I would study how another book explained that point. Furthermore, one of the professors let me sit in on his classes free of charge. There is always a way if you have a desire and know that you can do it. There is no greater tragedy than when people accept the notion they can’t succeed because they lack resources. I have always known that every person must light his or her internal fire—no one will do it for you, and they will if they know they can. Then the light that burns within can’t be extinguished. People must never allow others to convince them they can’t prosper. Such suppression is a crime no free person can tolerate.

When we are young, we have lots of energy, but we lack the tools and experience to know what way to go. Thus, our youth is partially wasted. As we age, some things that we ignored or were unaware of during out youth begin to grow in importance. These are more often the things of value. Personal confidence and inspiration comes when people follow Christ. Christ endows people with the knowledge of where the valid road lies. He opens minds to the desire to create and learn. When we are young, our eyes are bright. The world is new. Opportunities for exploration and creation seem limitless. This brilliant, promising world that surrounds us in our youth seems more than sufficient to keep us busy. Then as we age we begin to get some wisdom. We discover that there is more to life than what this physical domain offers. We learn that it takes more than what we have seen during our relatively early years to discover what brings purpose and meaning to our lives. As we grow older, we learn what matters. Our family relations matter. How we give to our wives and husbands as well as our children and parents matter. Our integrity matters. Reading Scripture and the desire to be near Christ are essential. As we gain experience, we realize that reflection on our soul’s matters. To open communication with the Holy Spirit is the beginning of wisdom.

People will say, But I can’t see the Holy Spirit. Nor can I see my soul. It is true we can’t see them visually. But we can identify them by the results we get when we presume they are there and act accordingly. Our souls are the pilots of our earthly journey, and it makes no sense to go through life without a pilot. Our ship runs oceans of hazards, and with the Holy Spirit at the helm guiding us, we discover islands of wisdom. In time our boat lands on a warm shore. We learn that we become transformed when we draw close to Christ. We realize that Christ gives us eternal life extended from this earthly life. I have found from the study of physics that this universe contains many things that are not apparent, and there are many mysteries we cannot explain. Our ultimate reliance, it seems, is upon evidence-based faith.

I will start this book with three arguments that God exists. Why? If the people who think that belief in a supreme being is silly or a distraction are wrong, then they are making a profound mistake. Faith in God is an issue that humankind has struggled with and probably always will. Some people do not wish for faith, and some have even made a faith of atheism and are proud of it. There is also the socialist faith, which is a faith in and reliance on man. But many folks wish for faith in God and have a hard time getting it. A common prayer says, Lord, help my unbelief. Some people readily admit they don’t believe in God but sincerely wish they did. Some folks imagine they lack faith but revere it nonetheless, and unbeknownst to them, they have it. Nevertheless, in almost every case, something that comes easier and can lead to faith is reason. All of us believe in the