Truth Seeker: The Human Condition

By Warren M. Mueller

Have you ever wondered why humans think and act the way we do? This book explores how we are wired and the limitations and biases of the way we are designed. It also explores the convergence of science and the Bible based on recent discoveries. It then develops models that synthesis and harmonize this information to explain the meaning and purpose of being human.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: May 7, 2019
• ISBN: 9781973659839

Warren M. Mueller

Warren was dramatically saved through faith in Jesus Christ by the witness of a deacon from a Bible believing church who took him through key verses in Romans. Before this, he had attended church, but he never had a born-again relationship with Jesus. After his conversion, he began to read the Bible and study it daily. This practice has continued since his salvation birthday in October 1979. Warren has read through the Bible numerous times and has memorized key verses to guide and sustain him. He has taught many small groups and Sunday School classes, served as a deacon and he has spoken in many churches as a member of the Gideons. For information about Warren’s other writings, go to his web site at www.warrenmueller.com

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Copyright © 2019 Warren M. Mueller.

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.

All Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

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ISBN: 978-1-9736-5982-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-5981-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-5983-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019904185

WestBow Press rev. date: 5/6/2019

CONTENTS

Introduction

Part I Who Am I?

Chapter 1 Tiny Stature

Chapter 2 Conflicted Creature

Chapter 3 An Ego-Centric & Social Creature

Chapter 4 Communication Challenges

Chapter 5 Personal Biases

Chapter 6 The Pursuit of Happiness

Chapter 7 Dreamers

Part II How Did We Get This Way?

Chapter 1 Paradigms

Chapter 2 Human Origin Paradigm

Chapter 3 Ancient Flood Paradigm

Chapter 4 Ancient Human History

Chapter 5 Age of the gods

Chapter 6 Creation Paradigm

Chapter 7 Earth & Life Origins

Chapter 8 What the Fossil Record Tells Us

Part III What Is Our Purpose?

Chapter 1 Mysteries of History

Chapter 2 Mysteries of Creation

Chapter 3 Limitations & Purpose

Part IV High Stakes Destiny

Chapter 1 A High View of Life

Chapter 2 Sources of Inspiration

Part V What Should We Do?

Chapter 1 Rags to Riches Reality

Part VI Exhortations & Warnings

Chapter 1 Time Is Running Out

Chapter 2 Parting Paradigm

Chapter 3 Post Script

Book Review Request

Bibliography

About the Author

Appendices

Flood Myths

Radiocarbon Dating Problems

Life Is a Matrix

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My earthly father, Frank A Mueller, diligently sought truth which is the most precious pursuit in life. He taught me to think deep and search beyond the way things appear for answers that explain them. His example helped me to find the source of truth and new life in Jesus Christ. This revelation has opened my eyes and has provided light to look deeper into myself and my surroundings.

INTRODUCTION

My father was a free thinker and voracious reader his whole life. In 1979, I became a born again Christian which he received with skepticism. He said, Come back in ten years and then I will believe there has been a genuine change in your life. Over the next thirty-three years, I have returned many times to my dad trying to convince him of my faith in Jesus and the changes that have resulted in me. While he liked to talk about religion and politics, he typically would soon become emotional which would end the discussion. In his later years, he gathered weekly with other retired men to discuss religion and politics despite the fact that frequently he became physically ill afterwards due to the strong emotions that such discussions aroused in him. While we remained close, we were never able to reconcile our views about the Bible or the meaning of life.

It has been forty years since the light of the Holy Spirit came into my life. The new birth that I experienced is the most astonishing and revolutionary event in my life. Words fail to capture the wonder of the changes in thinking and perspective that this new birth has produced in me. It is like the scene from the movie The Matrix where the main character, Neo, wakes from a deep sleep to find himself outside the Matrix or the world he thought was real. He sees multitudes of people asleep. These people were like him before he woke up. They believe that the Matrix is real but, in reality, they are living in an artificial world created by a computer that feeds their brains with an illusion which they accept as reality. Neo soon finds a small number of others who also have awakened from the Matrix. They show him how to travel in and out of the Matrix. Henceforth, he finds himself living in two realities. It takes him many years to explore this new dual reality which gradually transforms his thinking and reveals his true identity.

Truth Seeker: The Human Condition describes my journey through the past sixty-seven years of my life. For the first twenty-eight years, I lived only in the Matrix of ordinary human life. Thereafter, I have experienced the tensions and wonder of living a dual life. It is my hope and prayer that this book will resonate with you and that you will wake up to a greater view of who you are and what your purpose is in this life.

Every Human Being is a theologian. Every human being is a philosopher. Every human being is an archeologist who will dig through the mound of his existence and seek to make sense of his life. The way that one lives here and now—no matter who that person is --will always be shaped by what he or she believes concerning where we came from and where we are going. (Paul David Tripp, The Radical Implications of Eternity).¹

PART I

WHO AM I?

No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all his efforts to search it out, man cannot discover its meaning. Even if a wise man claims he knows, he cannot really comprehend it. (Ecclesiastes 8:18)

CHAPTER 1

TINY STATURE

I seem to be an insignificant speck of carbon–based chemicals that are saturated with water. I am one of billions of my kind who live on a small planet in a small solar system. This solar system is an insignificant speck in what is estimated to be a galaxy with one hundred to four hundred billion stars and at least one hundred billion planets.² Our galaxy is an insignificant speck among the billions of galaxies that we have observed to date. Estimates of the number of galaxies in the universe continue to grow dramatically. Recently, the number was increased ten-fold to one to two trillion.³ My life span is less than one hundred years, which severely limits my ability to experience this life. My senses define my experience, but they only extend to my immediate surroundings. Therefore, I live in a bubble world that is a small fraction of reality on planet earth. (Even though television and radio enable me to experience at a greater distance, these media are surreal to me as I am not immersed in what they depict.)

In order to understand who I am I must seek to understand my place in the universe. However, the complexity and scale of just my immediate surroundings quickly overwhelm my mental capacity. Indeed, even though the human brain is remarkable, its computing or processing capacity is very limited. For example, it takes about half of our brain power just to listen and process what one person is saying to us. Right now, I am looking out my window and I see a pine tree. But do I really see it? I notice that it appears as I expect it to be, based on my experience of looking out this window in the past. I quickly note its height and its general shape. This surface view registers as what I expect, so I move on to perform a similar scan of what I can see of my neighbors’ house and our yards. Within a few seconds, I am satisfied and move on to look at other things. However, I have not even begun to understand or appreciate the complexity of what I am looking at. For example, I have no idea of how many needles there are on the pine tree (nor do I have the desire or ability to count them). When I look at one pine needle under a magnifying glass, I see innumerable plant cells. If I increase the magnification, I can see the nucleus and other components inside a limited number of cells. At even higher magnifications, I see the double helix of the DNA inside one cell as well as proteins and cellulose of the cell wall. Going further, I would eventually see molecules, atoms, and sub-atomic particles. Although my brain accepts that I have seen the pine tree, I have clearly not seen it in the sense of coming anywhere near to understanding or appreciating the complexity before me. Therefore, my concept of my surroundings is superficial.

Human experience of reality is reduced to general images that lack detail. We see, but we do not understand. I have driven the same route to work for over thirty years and know what intersections and major features to expect to see, such as ponds, rivers, buildings, and landfills. However, I could not tell you anything about how many trees there are or what they look like unless there was something striking about them. This becomes even more problematic when I consider smaller and more numerous plants, such as shrubs, flowers, and grasses.

This limitation is compounded by the fact that my knowledge is largely limited by my experience. What I know is mainly based on sleep, work, and recreation routines. While it is true that I can learn indirectly by reading and watching television, these methods are generally less influential than my life experiences. My life experiences are largely limited to routines that shape my thinking and behavior patterns or habits.

Therefore, there is a massive amount of reality in this world that is constantly beyond my experience. Indeed, even if I could somehow extend my sensory abilities, I am limited in how much my brain can capture, process, and retain so that I experience and learn more. This is why humans selectively retain and forget many of our experiences. Even if every moment of my life is somewhere recorded in my brain, I can only access a very small amount.

Given these limitations, it is no wonder that humans seek immediate gratification or, at best, short term goals. I am one of a race of creatures that tend to seek pleasure, security, and purpose in events that seem shallow and are transient. Ultimately, what difference will my life make? Am I here just to reproduce and then pass into oblivion within a few generations? Perhaps this explains why humans tend to focus on the next sporting event, vacation, work assignment, etc. Perhaps this is why many turn to alcohol, drugs, and anti depressants. Could drug use be a means of escape or coping with an existence that seems insignificant and meaningless or an existence where there is anxiety over the future?

King Solomon had a reputation of being gifted with great insight and wisdom. He was also one of the wealthiest and most powerful kings in history. He reportedly pursued every pleasure he could conceive, built great buildings and gardens, and; amassed enormous wealth and livestock. However, he came to the conclusion that everything he accomplished in his life was meaningless and his efforts were like chasing the wind (Eccl 2: 1-20).

Why does human life seem so transient and meaningless? Are we really doomed to lives that will be forgotten? Humans dream and strive to achieve goals by pouring our focus and energy into accumulating wealth and power. We seem to be like industrious ants building a mound of sand and expanding our numbers, but, greater forces of nature and time ultimately destroy what we accomplish. In order to understand our tiny stature and possible explanations for our limitations, we need to further explore the depths of our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual dimensions. This is the journey that we will embark upon in the following chapters.

CHAPTER 2

CONFLICTED CREATURE

Besides being so small that my significance seems less than a grain of sand in a vast ocean, I am a conflicted creature. This is reflected in the anatomy of my brain, which has two symmetrical halves that control different thoughts and systems. The left side of my brain controls rational, logical, sequential, and analytic functions, as well as data, whereas the right side controls intuitive, emotional, visual, and creative functions, as well as impressions and relationships. Another way to view this is that my left brain tends to make me more introverted and prefers me to be in a controlled environment, whereas the right side wants me to be extroverted and, spontaneous and take risks in my environment. The left side drives me to compete and dominate, whereas the right side wants me to be collaborative, compassionate, and sensitive to others.

Through our culture, educational system, and life experiences, one side of the brain can become dominant. For example, I was raised in a school system that stressed the importance of reading, writing, and arithmetic. This educational system stressed the development of the functions of the left side of my brain, which tends to over-ride input from the right side. This duality in the way my brain functions causes me to have endless debates with myself over how I should react to my surroundings. I sometimes wake from dreams in a state of fear and imagine that I am in danger. My heart is pounding, and every small sound seems to validate that my dream was real. About this time, the left side of my brain tell me that it was only a dream and that any sounds that I am hearing are just part of my excited mental state.

This duality creates frustration when I have crazy thoughts, day-dreams, and impressions that draw my attention down rabbit holes that seem to waste my time and energy. On the other hand, sometimes the wild and unpredictable right side of my brain helps me visualize ideas that are revealed through imaginative and new (uncontrolled) points of view. This duality sets up frequent tensions within me. Every day, I am faced with situations and stimuli that force me to decide whether to be selfish or generous, withdrawn or involved, structured or spontaneous, safe or risky, honest or lying, myself or what others expect, patient or angry, curious or judgmental, fair or biased, etc. There are numerous conflicts based on which side of my brain drives my responses.

To further complicate matters, I tend to form opinions and thought habits that facilitate responses based on recurring patterns of life events. For example, when driving my car, I stop at a red light. When the light turns green, I put my foot on the accelerator to enter the intersection. I have done this numerous times and don’t think about this as it is a well engrained habit. I can free my mind to focus on other things, right? Well, I witnessed an accident in which the car ahead of me was hit by someone running through a red light. This caused me to realize that I needed to change my thinking and double-check the intersection before proceeding on a green light.

My life experiences have caused me to form mental patterns based on cultural, religious, social, political, and other values. These values act as built–in biases or filters that cause me to form opinions of others and situations that can result in conflicts. This tends