I often encounter the “creationist Christian vs. atheist” debates everywhere and I must admit that I find them quite disturbing, in a way one would find it disturbing to hear zombies and vampires arguing at night in front of his house about whether to drink his blood or eat his brains.

Essentially, what it’s all about is that the creationists use arguments like “this or that tiny little thing in science isn’t right, therefore Adam and Eve”, and the atheists use arguments like “there is no spirituality outside of matter, and we should get rid of religions and other historical relics and go forth into the bold future of science and space exploration”.

The problem is, they both argue for the approaches to civilization that have already been tried before. The creationist religion produced the darkest period of the dark ages, when scripture was given priority over any other form of evidence, and atheism already tried to get rid of the primitive past. It’s historically known as “enlightenment”, and produced the bloody reign of the guillotine during the French revolution, where all the “reactionary elements” were purged in a very literal sense. But that was only the modest beginning. When the ideas really took hold, in the age of modernism, the concept of the “new age” for mankind, whose time has come to claim its destiny from the hands of darkness and ignorance, resulted in the terrible genocides of Communism and Nazism in the 20^th century. So, when the atheists say that the world would be much better if we sent all the priests to Mars, know that it’s been tried before, only Mars was out of reach so they used ordinary graveyards. So, when the creationists argue for God they in fact argue for the dark ages, and when the atheists argue for science they in fact argue for Stalin. Atheists often invoke the argument of horrible crimes committed in the name of religion, but what is actually true is that the crimes, committed in the name of “modernity” and “enlightenment” in the centuries where science showed itself on the map, were so brutal and massive, it’s almost without a historical precedent. In fact, only Islam showed to be the equal of atheism in sheer cruelty, and it’s probably because they both think that being on the “right side” justifies them in everything they do.

I think we need a different approach to those things, because we can’t leave things of such importance to those idiots.

On the religious side of things, I think we need to understand that the issue is much deeper and more intellectual than the American Christians make it sound. Their main problem is the idolatry of the Bible, and very poor understanding of what they are actually talking about. I am going to use the arguments of St. Augustine, who had a much wiser approach, and I am going to modernize his points in order to make them more comprehensible to the audience. You see, what he would say is that God didn’t create the Bible. It’s not the word of God. It’s history of the Jewish nation’s understanding of its relationship with the transcendental. Since they were inherently sinful and therefore unable to receive God’s point of view in the purity and fullness of its truth, their understandings remained flawed and limited until the appearance of Jesus, who revealed God for what he truly is, which is not God of the Jews, but God of certain principles: reality, truth, love, kindness, forgiveness. Furthermore, St. Augustine is not a deist, he is a theist. It’s an important distinction, because a deist sees God as the distant creator of the Universe who involves himself with the matters of men only to reveal the Law and to judge men at the end of their earthly lives. A theist, however, doesn’t see God as distant, but sees God as pervading the world with His being, as eternity beyond space and time that nevertheless pervades space throughout time and guides the beings from darkness to light, from ignorance to knowledge and from selfishness to love. A theist sees God as a presence in his life, a presence that guides him and tries to reveal itself to him, a presence that left breadcrumbs of truth and reality for him to find in the world and, if willing, to accept guidance and be lead out of the confines of this world, and into the infinity for which there are no mortal words. For St. Augustine, God’s word isn’t limited to the Bible. In fact, God never ceases to speak to us, his word is not limited to the people of the past who wrote some of that down, for other people to include into the biblical canon. It is good to know how other people perceived God, and that is what Bible is for, but for each of us individually God has guidance and a destiny and a plan, and He is the silent yet very vocal presence in each person’s mind, and in each person’s life. The crucial part is that we are free to choose what we are going to do about it. We are free to refuse or to accept. We are free to ignore and to ridicule. Each of those choices puts us in a certain relationship with the truth and the light, and each of those choices determines our fate in eternity, beyond space and time. So, instead of adopting idolatry of the Bible, you should rather adopt the attitude that Bible didn’t do mankind much good in the dark ages, and that this literal approach did not serve to reveal the depths of the reality of God to mankind. It was a failed attempt. However, you should also understand that science revealed much more about the nature and functioning of the world than religion, and it is quite likely that science is actually a better way of understanding the ways and intents of God than worshiping ancient scripture. Science has the attitude of actually listening to what the world has to say about itself, instead of trying to find some simplistic explanation that would fit the world into some nice intellectual drawer. So, how about trying that with God? How about trying to listen what God has to say about himself, instead of trying to jam him into some narrow intellectual drawer? How about listening to what the difference in the spiritual taste between gentle kindness and indifferent cruelty has to say about God? That, too, is a way of listening what the reality has to say.

As for the atheists and their faith in the way science “disproved” God, just let me remind you that science today is actually closer to disproving materialism and atheism. It suffices to invoke Occam’s razor, which the atheists routinely use to reject God as a superfluous supposition, and remember that the choice of scientific cosmology today is to either assume that the Universe was deliberately fine-tuned to an incredible degree in order to allow for our existence, or to invent the concept of Multiverse, an infinity of Universes with an endless number of variations in basic constants, for which there is no evidence whatsoever and is a mere figment of imagination.

So, basically, it’s a choice between saying that the Universe was created in a deliberate act by a conscious entity which you cannot directly prove, or that there is an endless number of Universes with endless number of variations in basic constants, which you also cannot directly prove. So essentially, since you can’t prove any of it, just shut the fuck up about science disproving God, because you simply chose to believe in one interpretation you couldn’t prove, while the others chose to believe in another, equally valid interpretation which they, too, cannot prove.

For all you know, this entire Universe could be a virtual reality that runs on some graphics card that’s only a few years ahead of our current technology*, and this interpretation could completely encompass everything science showed us so far, and could actually be proved if at least some people could temporarily wake up from the simulation and return to bear witness, and various spiritual experiences of the yogis and saints, as well as the near-death testimonies, are actually proving this hypothesis quite nicely, while the official materialistic science has no explanation for them other than pretending that they are not what they obviously are.

So, both the religious people and the atheists have quite an abundance of reasons to shut the fuck up and learn some humility for a change.

* For those who don’t believe that computers could render convincing universes, this can, as of today, be rendered on a $200 graphics card, and the real-time render is actually much better than the video:

https://youtu.be/8R5DOUXvBo0

There are a lot of people who think justice is a bad word, something associated with cruelty, formality, cold application of the rules without mercy. Mercy, however, is seen as a good thing, as something that corrects the merciless nature of justice.

How wrong you are.

Let’s first define justice, so that we know exactly what we are talking about. Justice is when good is victorious over evil. Justice is when good deeds are rewarded, exactly as much as they need to be. Justice is when evil deeds are punished, exactly as much as they need to be.

Justice is not only when a perpetrator of a crime is punished, and his victim is restituted. Justice is also when the power of God stands guard over the righteous ones, protecting them from evil, not allowing them to become victims in the first place. Justice is when one’s righteousness is a shield that protects him from all harm. Justice is when your evil deeds expose you to harm, in exact proportion with the gravity of the deed.

Justice is when one’s good and evil deeds are weighed separately, and the punishment for evil is such that it allows the good in the person to prevail and overcome evil, instead of destroying the good together with evil. Justice is also when trickery and deception are seen through, and the truth is known.

There is nothing more beautiful or merciful than God’s sword of justice. There is nothing I would like more, in this life or the next, than to be judged by this sword, without mercy.

Some people think that God, being the greatest and the most powerful, is somehow the most distant, inhuman, cold in his justice, not able to understand the human situation and view it with mercy, and so they seek the refuge of saints, the lesser holy beings, who are somehow closer to them and thus presumably better able to understand them and to forgive them.

But this is so wrong. God is not the greatest in the sense that he is most distant, bigger than the biggest object, more powerful than any weapon. No, God is the greatest because he is the underlying reality of all. God is the greatest not only because he’s above the galaxies of the Universe, but also because he’s between every two atoms that make up your mortal flesh. When your thoughts move, they do so in God. God knows you more intimately than you know yourself, and much better. He knows what you would ask if your mind were clear enough to do so and in knowledge of the greatest good you could possibly imagine, and beyond. The saints, they are the distant beings. You need to contact them, you need to call their attention, you need to explain things to them. They don’t know you, they are so far away, because they are more human, distinct from you, but God is already here. Your brain is made up within his thought, your feelings whirl the substance of his spirit, your most intimate desires and longings are known to him before you become aware that you have them. You think that your self is the closest to you, that you know yourself best, but God is closer, and knows you better. You cannot even imagine what it feels like, because you would probably instantly die of pure joy if you were to truly feel that.

That is why I would take his justice over anyone else’s mercy. You trust in mercy of human-like beings with human-like traits all you want, but I will stand to be judged by the perfect justice of the one who knows me better than I know myself.

By willing to be judged without mercy by the sword of perfect justice, I discover that I am the hand that wields it, and that it is the greatest mercy.

I can imagine quite a few people being confused by my quite open and unambiguous endorsement of Christianity against Islam, especially since I, myself, am not Christian. They would find it even more confusing if they knew that I am quite aware that Christians would and did openly oppose me. Actually, I personally had quite a few evil things done against me by Christians, and not much by Muslims, so, if I approached things from a self-serving perspective based on personal experience, I would probably be better off adopting a position of neutrality. However, I don’t.

To explain why, to someone who is not familiar with me or my thoughts, is not easy, but bear with me for a while, because you might find it interesting.

It would be easy for me to say that I see religions as ways, and God as the goal, and that some ways lead to that goal while others do not, and that some ways are outright wrong and point in ways that are opposite of helpful. That is partially true, but it’s not how I personally see things. You see, I don’t see religions as ways and God as the goal. I see God as the way, and religions mostly as a mistaken approach.

I know, it sounds like a very Christian thing to say, almost like John 14:6, but it’s actually a translation of the word darśanayoga, which I use to describe my spiritual practice. From the vision of God, you learn what God is, and you learn by becoming that which you observe. It’s like saying that love is not the goal, love is the way, or saying that photography is not the goal, it’s the way. You can only learn to become a carpenter by practicing carpentry, poorly at first, but gradually improving as you go along. You learn a thing by doing it. You learn love by loving, you learn forgiveness by forgiving, you learn God by being in God’s presence, and doing only the things that don’t remove you from God’s presence. You learn God by doing what God would do if he were in your shoes. God is clarity, so in its presence you learn to see the truth unobscured by bullshit. God is reality, so you learn to strip yourself of all illusion. God is an endless source of fulfillment, and, by just seeing that, you are cured of spiritual emptiness that motivates most evil deeds. This spiritual path has one consequence: you become quite perceptive of all things that are inconsistent with God. Knowing what would extinguish the presence of God in your spirit becomes an instinct, and after initial few months of diligent effort you don’t even have to work on it, it becomes automatic. It’s similar to being in love with a person of noble character: you instinctively know what you have to be and what you have to do in order for that person to love you; conversely, you instinctively know what would make that person despise you or hate you, and you instinctively shy away from those things.

If you see religions as paths, and God as the goal, it is very difficult to state with any degree of certainty that some religion is false, because the criterion of truth or falsehood is beyond the scope of any given religion, as they are defined. If a path is distinct from the goal, and their potential usefulness is to be known only after you die, it’s impossible to know if, in fact, any of them are of any use whatsoever. And here we come to the point: some religions are actually spiritually useful now, and not only in afterlife. Christianity, for instance, has a very interesting ability to produce spiritual experience in its actual adherents. I say “actual” because we’re not talking about those who think they are Christians because they decorate a Christmas tree or practice the formal shell of their religion without any actual feeling; I’m talking about the extreme cases of spiritual conversion, repentance, actual contact with God. I’m talking about actual experiences of God, that are profoundly real, profoundly substantial, and touch the core of one’s being. Apparently, Christianity has the “mandate of heaven”, since the spiritual experiences given to the non-Christians quite frequently contain Christian imagery and motivate those people to accept Christianity. I have seen exactly zero situations where someone received an authentic spiritual revelation that Allah is the true God and Mohammed is his prophet. Zero. I’ve seen emotions, I’ve seen hysteria, I’ve seen sectarian bullshit, that’s true, but as far as authentic spirituality is concerned, Christianity has the mandate of heaven, and Islam does not. Basically, if you’re a Muslim and you want to attain true spirituality, becoming a Christian is a much better path forward than trying to become a better Muslim or trying to join some Sufi school of mysticism.

The next question I’m facing is, why recommend Christianity, why not recommend the stuff you are doing? Well, I actually do recommend the stuff I’m doing, but there are significant difficulties there. You see, the stuff I’m doing is quite difficult to figure out or practice. It does have the mandate of heaven, in the sense that people do have spiritual experiences that reveal it, but it’s more of a post-doctoral study kind of a thing. I have no illusions about it being widely adopted; it’s too intellectual, too sophisticated, too spiritually demanding. However, it’s insanely easy to start on this path, if you’re a Christian who had a spiritual experience. All I would have to say to such a person is: absorb this experience, and remove everything in you that would be incompatible with God’s holy presence. Stop doing things that would offend this holy presence, stop saying, thinking and feeling things that do not emanate from this holy presence, and live your entire life in this holy presence. Everything else will come as the consequence of that one, permanent choice. So that’s why I recommend Christianity – because the main difference between a Christian who had a genuine, authentic vision of God, and myself, is 22 years of diligent, consistent practice. Everything else – the techniques of yoga, the complex philosophy, the intellectual power, I didn’t start with any of that, it’s all just manifestation of that one choice, diligently and consistently practiced. Don’t do anything God wouldn’t do, don’t be anything God wouldn’t be, don’t do things that would separate you from God’s holy presence. Yes, it sounds easy, but try to do it for one single day and you’ll tell a different tale. I’m not endorsing Christianity because of my great and previously unknown love for Christmas trees or Easter bunnies, that’s for sure. I’m endorsing it because if your starting point is Zagreb and you want to reach Split, a signpost that leads you to Karlovac is what you really need. When in Karlovac, you’ll be closer to your goal and see other signposts that are more specific as to where you need to go, and you’ll have a choice of either the highway or the country road. So you basically have choices and variety. However, a signpost that says “Split” and points to a slaughterhouse where you’ll be split into pieces, that’s what you presumably want to avoid. So basically, if you see the purpose of religion in finding God, stick to those that actually have the mandate of heaven. Stick to those whose converts had the actual experience of God, and, very much contrary to what the atheists believe, those are quite abundant.