My mind on Christianity

Raised as a Christian, as a child I accepted what my parents and my pastors told me to be the truth. Now, experiencing heavy cognitive dissonance, I need to distance myself from everything I have been taught, investigate everything and find my own path. This article is the expression of my mind today on Christianity - from the beginning till the present.

God’s created liability
Some thousand or millions years ago, God created the human species in His own image. Created in character like Him, but not in His physical abilities, for we are obviously limited. Moreover, He calls us His children, meaning that we are His sons and daughters. By creating us, He created a huge liability to himself, because He loves us dearly. He did not create us because He needs us, he created us simply for love. Perhaps he created us for the same reason we want sons and daughters of our own, likewise creating a huge liability. Liability, because from the moment a child is conceived, we naturally love this child. Even though this child may bring us down, we still choose to have this child and love it unconditionally.

Rebellion
We human species turned against Him. We wanted to be like Him, not only in character but also in unlimited physical abilities. God intended for us to live together with Him, having a relationship built on love. Love was not enough for us. Thus the consequences of such is that we removed ourselves from Him. We started to distrust Him, we started a rebellion against His rule, against his infinite glory. God allowed us to create distance between Him and us. He allowed us to live without having a relationship with our creator. However, the consequences of that was that we would die. So we united ourselves, anointing ourselves as the rulers of our own destinies. For us humans, the sky's the limit! Together we created the tower of babel. Once God divided us in speech, we dispersed from each other creating the many nations. This decreased our united power, our human glory which till today we have been working on to restore.

Restoration
After a long while, God decided to try to mend the broken relationship. He thought their might still be children who are willing to live in a relationship with Him. As the transgressions against God, nature and ourselves were many, the only way for the relationship to be restored was for the Son of God to take the blame of our rebellion. Only someone without fault could take the weight of our accumulated sin. Only the Son of God could make us right with our Creator again. He died at our hands and rose after three days, conquering the penalty of sin, death.

Now God has opened up a way for us to turn from our foolish rebellion. Foolish, because there is no life without Him, only death. He opened up the way for us to turn back to Him in a loving relationship, accepting that we would never possess the unlimited physical abilities God possesses. He still accepts us as His children. The Son of God is King of everything, and we would rule with Him. God is the supreme being who cannot be challenged. He is the beginning and the end. He is slow to get angry and full with unfailing love. He is love and He wants us to join Him in what he stands for.

Reconciliation
As King Jesus has conquered death, we no longer have to die. All human beings alive today who return to Him can already start to rule with Him. We are designed perfectly. We might often disagree as we find ourselves extremely limited in our capabilities. However, what is perfect is that we are created in His image, possessing the same character as our Creator has. If we are returning to our Father, we can share in the Father’s unlimited resources. Thus our own limitations are then negligible. It is only our character that matters. If we have a plan to restore the least of our society, character is all we needed. Resources like money, abilities and strength are at our disposal as long as our plan is aligned to what God intends for the earth. For instance, as a prince of a Kingdom goes out to battle, He himself does not posses the strength, weapons and abilities to succeed. However, if the battle is aligned to the wishes of his father the king, he will be given everything he needs to succeed.

We should stop looking at our own strength and capabilities. We should start looking at what battle needs to be fought, and everything will be provided for. We should look at what enemy should be defeated, start making a detailed plan containing strategy and all the resources needed. And all this in discussion with our Father so that our plans align, for only He came give you everything you need.

God has limited us in physical abilities. Therefore, we seek other human beings to join and be a little less limited. However, one human being fully relying on the unlimited resources of God could arguably do more in a lifetime than relying on his own strength.

Summary
The rebellion of the human species against God is like a group of toddlers rebelling against their father. These toddlers do not accept the care of their father. They want to join forces, make it on their own and together be as strong, intelligent and wise as their father. As the father loves them, he does not intend to rule them, thus he allows their rebellion. Moreover he knows that even though they join forces, they will never be as strong, intelligent and wise as him. He let them rebel and waits for them to return to him. As the time passes, these toddlers make a mess or themselves, each other and the earth they inhabit. By relying on their own limited strength, they degrade their characters to despicable actions. Their father asks them many times to return but they harden their hearts, and try harder to maintain their independence, degrading themselves, each other and the earth even more.

When we lived together with God, we lacked nothing. But as we turned against Him, we turned down His resources and wisdom. We wanted to be independent. What we didn’t realize is that there is simply no life without the Father. Everything we do without the wisdom and infinite resources of our father leads to death and destruction. Living in independence of God is like living independent from your lungs. There is no such thing! Everything created by God is dependent on Him. Nothing can exist outside of the creator.

If you follow the ways of the father, being tapped into His wisdom, there is no need degrade yourself to sinful practices. History has shown that societies who rely on the wisdom of God, thrive, and those who do not, crumble. The wisdom of God is life, everything else leads to death.

The fundamental attribution error - a life changing proposition

One of the most important things I learned in business school, two years ago during a social management and behavior class, is the fundamental attribution error, also called the correspondence bias or the attribution effect. The application of this theory in my life has made me a happier person.

The fundamental attribution error proposition was apparently thought of by social psychology professor Lee Ross (1977) after an experiment by Edward E. Jones and Victor Harris (1967). He called it the conceptual bedrock for the field of social psychology. Thus we can say he found it very important - and so do I.

When I was in my teenage years, I was quite confident in what I knew. I still remember telling my mother, that I judged myself to be pretty good at understanding why people do what they do. From then on, the older I got the less confident I became. Currently I find myself mind-blind, stumbling in the dark, finding myself resembling awfully close to the intelligence of a goat, and Jon Snow - who knows nothing.

Now what the heck is it? Let me try to explain…
When you have a certain interaction with another person, we have the tendency to attribute this person’s actions to his personal self, rather than external circumstances. Let’s just say that in most cases, for me around 80% of all cases, we tend to think that the actions of a person comes forth from his personality, rather than from outside factors. The fundamental attribution error argues that in reality it is the other way around.

Let me explain this by sharing a recent happening in which I made the error. When I fetched my daughter from daycare, I walked down the hallway to the front door which was just opened to another father who came to fetch his daughter. This big man, wearing a hat and a round sunglasses stood in front of the door opening, immovable with a cold exterior. I walked down the hallway with my daughter in my arms and greeted him. I registered no response whatsoever - his cold gaze continued looking down the hallway.

As foolish this might sound, this happening caused me to feel and think the following way - first of all I felt not acknowledged and respected, I felt like a little insignificant man. Further, these feelings let me to think this person is a prick. As I know the fundamental attribution error, I knew that I just made it. In reality it is most likely that his cold exterior countenance was due to external circumstances. Perhaps, this person was lost in his thoughts and did not hear me, or he greeted me with his eyes behind his shaded spectacles, or he just experienced a really bad day, or someone just made him feel like a little man, and so on. The correspondence bias tells us that most likely this person is actually not a prick.

So that’s basically what it is. If you’re still interested, let’s look at some of the implications...
Being aware of this particular error for two years now, I came to believe this error is one of the foundations of human miscommunication. On a personal level it can lead you to think that a lot of people around you are pricks, while they are not. On a national level it can lead in to society's thinking other societies are prick societies, while they are not. In reality, we actually have a lot more in common than we think. A good understanding of the fundamental attribution error therefore, could lead to world peace - there I said it! :p

In general, when you believe someone is a contemptible person or even an ‘evil’ person, rather than having a lot in common with yourself, you tend to restrain any further positive communication with that person. At first, you might ignore this person while feeding yourself confirmatory information supporting this person is bad. Going on, as no further communication has taken place which could liberate you from this distorted view of this person, you might actively condemn this person worsening your relationship with this person. This effect is most likely to be multiplied if this other person chooses to believe the same thing about you. There you go, a potential positive relationship to ruins by means of making the fundamental attribution error.

Sadly, you could suggest that if this happens on a personal level between one human being to another, this also takes place among nations. How many nations do you think to be prick nations, lazy nations, arrogant nations, self-serving raping donkey nations. The fundamental attribution error suggests, that most likely we are very much the same. We are no better, and no worse.

You could assert that from the beginning of humanity, we started making this error, increasing the distorted view of the other, making it worse to more worse. The accumulations of humanity’s undesirable actions against each other, would have today reached an enormous pile of guilt towards each other. Retribution after retribution does not balance the scale unfortunately, it only ads more guilt. Only forgiveness can remove guilt and a good understanding of the fundamental attribution error can prevent a person from adding more guilt.

References
Ross, L. (1977). "The intuitive psychologist and his shortcomings: Distortions in the attribution process". In Berkowitz, L. Advances in experimental social psychology 10. New York: Academic Press. pp. 173–220. ISBN 0-12-015210-X.

Jones, E. E.; Harris, V. A. (1967). "The attribution of attitudes". Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 3 (1): 1–24. doi:10.1016/0022-1031(67)90034-0.