How To Become A 'Christian'

Someday, somewhere, somehow . . . someone might make a comment to you (or me) somewhat along the following lines:

"I don't know exactly how to put this, but I have noticed that you always seem to be in control and more-or-less satisfied whatever situation you are in. Your face has a quiet, non-mistakably-consistent appearance of peace and contentment, with a sincere and responsive appreciation for others . . . a generous and outgoing brotherly love, even an honorable, self-giving admiration for me.

It sure is refreshing and noticeably different than how most people behave and react, who instead always seem to be moody, kind of ornery, impatient, and apprehensively quick-tempered. Their zombie-like sullen looks on their faces does not indicate satisfaction let alone gay happiness with life, but instead is rife and reeking with meaninglessness, and more often than not I am afraid to even say 'Hello' to them for fear that they will rudely not even respond to me, but maybe even make some spiteful confrontational remark.

What is it about you? How come you are the way you are? You are thoughtful, dependably polite, admirably considerate, without refractory sarcasm or meanness. I like being around you, and I would like to be that way myself."


The dialogue could then proceed as follows:

ME: "Well, I'm a Christian, and that probably has a lot to do with it."

THEM: "Oh. Oh well, that's interesting. I myself have never been that religious, but I am really intrigued by your dependably-pleasant mannerisms and attitude. I hope this does not embarrass you, and sorry about being so forward, but I guess that I do want to know more about being a "Christian." I suppose that that requires a belief in "God?"

ME: "Interesting that you suggested the existence of "God." I am glad you did, because that indicates at least a couple of vital things about you.

First, you logically assume (and not "presume") that environmental phenomena exist around us, and that it is not imaginary nor one big illusion -- and that neither you nor I, nor in all probability our parents, nor their parents, nor any other mere mortal human individual has so precisely and innovatively designed everything around us, perhaps even illegal aliens of whatever types and varieties in outer space.

Second, you logically assume (and not "presume") that those environmental phenomena were created by some Creator or group of them - Whoever or Whatever He or They have been and/or yet are. Astronomically-profuse, intricately-comprised, interdependent entities and phenomena we see and hear, touch and smell with our scientific senses clearly did not create themselves out of nothing whenever in the past because they wanted to, obviously having been completely assembled in perfect working condition right from the start instead of piecemeal one disconnected part at a disconnected time in wannabe magic here and there which then would have been like an explosion in a printing factory resulting in the production of a Webster dictionary or an explosion in a junkyard producing a shiny new completely-assembled-and-ready-to-run Porsche, Jaguar, or Mercedes. Duh.

Or proudly proclaiming in asinine pseudo-knowledge stupidity: "I simply do not know when and how that baby-talk "Big Bang" blew up, and I do not really want to find out, but instead continue to wallow in my ignorance supposedly seeking The Answer when the Bible has already given me a quite-suitable answer which I have baselessly rejected for no reason and no good cause, because it has a 'religious' aura."

Tell me, what do you think of that possibly-singular "God" the Creator, in view of everything you observe and experience around us?"

THEM: "Well, assuming the singular and not plural, "He" (and pardon me for not relegating His gender to the clearly inferior alternative) is obviously awesome, in the fullest and most complete sense of the word, in terms of how wise, knowledgeable, and powerful He must have been and probably yet is, assuming He is beyond what He created and not limited to that.

Moreover, what He created is generally quite accommodating to our survival as humankind, in that He could have been quite sadistic and put us into extremely-painful, constanting-tormenting and quickly-lethal surroundings. Instead, His benevolence pertaining to perfect balances of nature on this planet is most appreciated. And, in all fairness, whatever trouble we humans get ourselves into is our own fault for both failing to accommodate to how He has constructed things in nature and what He has constructed. So, we have only ourselves to blame for not studying and predicting more carefully what He has made, their characteristics and properties, and how WE should (in essence) "get out of His way" rather than expecting Him and His to get out of our careless and indifferent, selfishly self-centered, immorally-wasteful, and egotistically-ignorant way."

ME: "Correct you are.

Now, can you think of anything within our environment and the currently-existing entities therein which would give us more details about that Creator, as for example, His named identity, history, personal characteristics (if any), intentions and plans, and so forth?"

THEM: "Well, that info is not alphanumerically inscribed on much of anything around us in nature. The only definitive thing I can presently think of is what some (and probably you yourself) call "The Sacred-Sixty-Six-Books Judeo-Christian Holy Bible."

ME: "Bingo. You're absolutely right.

Admittedly, there are other sources (as, for instance, other people) who claim that they know certain things about God the Creator, and - to be quite honest - many of such persons I have deep respect for with a great reputation, and clearly they have done remarkably well in adjusting to God's creation around them.

But that Bible is probably where they also got most of their their additional or increased knowledge about various aspects of The Creator.

Have you ever read any part or parts of The Bible?"

THEM: "It almost goes without saying that I have seen a significant number of churches, synagogues, and mosques here and there during my life so far. I have heard snippets of it quoted on the radio and TV, seen Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell masterfully orate during their crusades, and even perused some of the entire document referred to as the King James Version with its chapters and verses on the internet. So I am somewhat familiar with it, but not a great deal. I was too scared to ever really get into it, and there have been a lot of naysayers who have tried to persuade me that it is generally a book of sometimes unbelievably-silly mythological fairy tales and allegories with a few common-sense axioms here and there amidst a literary conglomeration of hocus-pocus stories or legends of magic and judgmental superstition."

ME: "Your first step in exploring the possibility of becoming a Christian like I am is to read more and increasingly different parts of the Bible, both Old and New Testaments (though not all at once, of course)."

THEM: "I have heard of the Old Testament, and I think - if I am not mistaken - that that is called the "Jewish" Bible. My Israeli friends refer to it as "the Law, Prophets, and Writings" and the Law part is also called The "Torah" if I remember. Does not that also contain some incredibly-unusual stories of what are considered by some to be "miracles?" Why not convert to Judaism instead of Christianity?"

ME: "Judaism is only the forerunner religion compared to Christianity, and the Qur'an of Islam which was written 500 years after the time of Jesus is in fact a confused plagiaristic and somewhat-antisemitic revisionism in flowery prose of what had already been written in both the Old and the New Testaments of Jews and Christians. Christianity is the complete fulfillment of Judaism. Judaism alone, now that we have Christianity, is incomplete and inadequate by itself, and presents a vague foreshadowing of a much more complete revelation of The Creator with higher moral standards specified in the New Testament.

It is in that New Testament of The Holy Bible that the human authors (who were Divinely inspired by both the actual Voice of God from Heaven and that Voice speaking to Moses from above the Mercy Seat between The Two Cherubim of The Ark of the Covenant and the ideas-inspiring-and-recollecting Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ) made known Jesus as THE one-and-only "Son of God" (therefore indicating a Trinitarian-Godhead Creator) and Savior of all those who believe that His sacrificial death on a cross which He allowed Himself to suffer totally eradicates the complete penalty for all sins the believer in Him has committed because of non-solicited duress from the wicked.

If you believe that, and totally submit yourself to that Jesus, you will automatically become and be a bonafide Christian, if you agree that you have not perfectly accommodated to what He has made in nature and how He has made such, but want to always perform all His given and written moral (not humanly-concocted adiaphoric nor ceremonially-outmoded) commandments, elaborated upon in both the Old and the New Testaments."

THEM: "You are asking me to believe in the past existence of some controversial itinerant-then-lynched-and-murdered rabbi over in the Middle East some two thousand years ago, who somehow came back to life after being dead, thereafter rose up sort of like a NASA rocket into the clouds of the sky, is going to come back in person someday as a mighty fiery Judge, and that somehow His historically-recorded fatal crucifixion followed by His coming-back-to-life resurrection from the dead relates to me here in America now in the 21st century concerning my atoned-for sins as "sin" is defined in both the Old and the New Testaments of The Holy Bible."

ME: "Exactly."

THEM: "Well, OK . . . as long as all this is actually for real, and I am not gullibly swallowing some made-up lie hook, line, and sinker -- which would enrage me like you would not believe, nor want to believe!!!

That means that I will have to swallow my pride and just take that rather mentally-dangerous, embarrassing and somewhat humiliating, leap of assumption -- or "faith" as you call it -- to assume (not "presume") that that Jesus did exist and still exists, that He actually did what is historically recorded about Him in the Bible, and that that sacrifice of Himself for all want-to-always-to-right penitent humans (especially me, in my case) applies to me for the forgiveness of all my violations-against-nature-and-society mistakes, crimes, errors, shortcomings, failures, inadequacies, [infantile-and-spooky-termed:] "boo-boos," [childishly-sounding harmless-and-expected-little-mistakes-by-disgusting-anti-negative-compromisers:] "oopsies," [immature-comment:] "no-nos," but (best of all): "sins" -- and insures my future entrance into that Scripturally-alluded-to everlasting Heavenly bliss."

ME: "You probably should talk to Jesus personally about that, and ask Him to take you over completely from now on."

THEM: "Verbally speak to someone I cannot see? That sounds sort of stupid. Of course, I also cannot see radio waves, radioactivity, ultraviolet nor infrared light, radar waves, microwaves, oxygen, the probable rear end of Genghis Khan, nor the dark side of Pluto. Where should I look toward as I so talk out loud to who appears to not be there? Up, down, sideways? Close my eyes for non-distracted concentration?

I suppose the most sensible thing to say to Him is that I believe in His existence because of pure scientifically-deductive logic relating to contemplated cannot-be-denied obviously-did-not-always-exist origins of the environment around me, and that I find no reasonable cause to arrogantly and proof-lessly discredit anything contained in the Bible, even the once-in-a-lifetime-occurrence bizarre and wild miracles.

I guess you would call that "praying" to Him?"

ME: "Indeed. Tell The Builder of the Universe (or Jesus, by name) how much you appreciate the myriad phenomena of His environment around you. The plethora. The power. The beauty. The consistency. The stability. The extensiveness. The variety and imaginativeness. The predictability. The comfort of the moderate planetary temperature range, fortunate presence of that compound called "water" in various forms on the planet which floats and not sinks on lakes and oceans when expansively frozen, size of the planet for the right amount of gravity, the correct distance from the Sun, the correct size of the Sun in perfect balance of thermonuclear outward solar explosions counterbalanced by Sun's huge-size-caused gravity, the correct composition of gases in the dissolving-meteors-before-they-hit-ground atmosphere, the presence of protective Van Allen Radiation belts around Earth diverting potentially-lethal solar flares, life-restoring clouds and rain and snow, photosynthesis, instinctive animals and fish and plants for food, dexterous human fingers and voice-capable mouth and tongues, moving legs and extending pivotal arms and self-focusing color-deteching eyes and audible-range ears and nostils-filtering nose and more, Earth's rocky crust preventing catastrophic outbursts of molten-magma lava in most places, boredom-relieving seasons from tilt of the Earth axis in consistent orbit within the consistently-orbiting planets of our Solar System, the absence of huge asteroids colliding against Earth, ad infinitum.

Tell Him how enlightening the Holy Bible has been and is wherein you have discovered and will discover His wonderful characteristics and intentions. Ask Him to help you study and remember His life-preserving-and-sustaining moral laws in Scripture, provide the facilitating surroundings for you to do such rules as written and to reverently worship Him without disturbance, and make it so that you are enabled to escape harassment away from impiously worldly, defiant and idiotic, evolution-heresy-blattering fools who revile and ridicule common-sense and profound truths contained within Scripture.

You do not have to do it now with me around. I realize that this starting praise and petitioning is a very personal thing at the beginning, but sometime before you retire for the night, it would behoove you to so communicate to and with Him regarding (and not "concerning") all this."

THEM: "Sounds like a plan. Thanks, Christian, and we'll see what happens!"

Optional Addendum

(A VERY) IMAGINARY CONVERSION BETWEEN GOD AND ABRAHAM (NOT "ABRAM")

BASED ON THE NON-IMAGINARY BIBLICAL TEXT:

Genesis 22:2 [GOD] said, "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering upon one of the mountains of which I shall tell you."
3 So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac; and he cut the wood for the burnt offering, and got up and went to the place of which GOD had told him.
4 On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place way off.
5 Then Abraham said to his young men, "Stay here with the donkey; I and the lad will go over there and worship, and come again to you."
6 And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it on Isaac his son; and he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together.
7 And Isaac said to his father Abraham, "My father!" And he said, "Here am I, my son." He said, "Hey, the fire and the wood; but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?"
8 Abraham said, "God will provide himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son." So they went both of them together.

Hebrews 11:17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac; and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son,
18 of whom it was said, "In Isaac shall thy seed be called,"
19 accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead, from whence he also received him, in a figurative sense.

THE FOLLOWING DIALOGUE NEVER ACTUALLY TOOK PLACE:

GOD: Get up, take Isaac your son, go to some mountain, then stab him to death and burn him on some altar you first build.

ABE: That's not funny, Lord. I am not in the mood for jokes like that. Why would you want me to commit and not merely "perform" abortion-like murderous child sacrifices like the heathen of the nations you destroyed because they murdered their kids for child sacrifices.

GOD: Just do it.

ABE: What the fock are you telling me to actually do? Are you out of your apparently-antisemitic mind? Completely insane?

GOD: Just do it.

ABE: What the hell for?

GOD: A sacrifice will be offered, I assure you.

ABE: What if the cops arrest me for molestation or homicide? How would I ever explain this to the boy's mother, and my relatives?

GOD: Just do it.

ABE: OK OK. [Man, this is going to be interesting!]

Abe goes to the mountain, takes the kid and sacrifice equipment up with them, starts to tie up Isaac and lay him on the altar, then takes the knife to stab him to death.

ISAAC: What the hell do you think you're doing? Are you nuts? Have you gone beserk? Stop this, you insane old goof!

ABE: It's alright. God told me to do it.

ISAAC: "God" told you to murder and burn me? Are you sure it wasn't Satan instead? C'mon, stop fooling around and untie me before someone gets hurt. This is not my idea of fun!

ABE: Don't worry about it. God told me to do it.

ISAAC: Oh sure. And what else has "God" told you to do after that, when the police execute you for child murder?

ABE: Never mind. God wants a sacrifice, and He will get a sacrifice. Then "we" will go back to those young men guarding the donkey, and maybe explain why one of us is missing or exploited or dead.

As Abe is ready to stab Isaac, an Angel from Heaven speaks:

ANGEL: Stop! Do not hurt the kid.

ABE: Stop? You already ordered me to murder my own son with a knife. How come you are now contradicting yourself? I was getting psyched up to go through with this. And now you have changed your mind and want me to "stop?" What gives? Why the vacillation?

ANGEL: Sacrifice that "Lamb" (of/from God) over there instead of Isaac.

ABE: Gladly! What a relief! For me, the wife, the young men, the cops, and the relatives.

ISAAC: Yeah, what a relief!

ANGEL: Now I know that you love me more than your son, and will bless you and yours for it.

ABE: Couldn't you have tested me for that in some FAR less unsettling way? I might hereafter suffer massive post-stress-syndrome irreparable mental illness from now on because of that.

ANGEL: Naw, I like drama. You, and Isaac, will never forget this one, will you?

ABE: Never is a million years!

ISAAC: Make that a billion.