It seems a foregone conclusion that the entirety of this book, its very purpose, is about sharing what I believe, and it may seem nonsense for me to dedicate this short chapter on the subject, but all other subjects in this writing extend out from a small group of core beliefs, and it is that set of core beliefs I feel need to be spoken of here.

First, however, I must talk about the word believe. I don’t believe in a God, a Creator, an Intelligent Designer of this life and existence. The very word, believe, implies a choice. To say we believe in a thing implies we have made that choice, and could, at any given moment, change our mind about it, choosing to not believe. I also don’t believe in gravity. I know gravity to be real, not as a matter of choice, but as a matter of fact. The next time you find yourself in a situation where gravity is having its way with you—you’re falling, for instance—try redirecting the situation by changing your belief in gravity and note the effect. Gravity cares not about your belief, because gravity is a fact. Likewise, this entity we Christians call God cares not about our belief. God is the ultimate fact.  I don’t believe in this entity we call God: I know this entity to be real. I may, on occasion, lapse into using the word believe as a matter of common parlance, but let there be no doubt as to where I stand on the matter. There is no choice in the fact.

Where I am able to legitimately apply the word belief is when it comes to my interpretation of those methods by which God operates. In this case, it is essential to remain teachable, to be prepared at any moment to change a belief based on new discovery, even to the point of disbelieving a previously held belief, and it is those beliefs I’ll explore with you here and in all other areas of this book.

As for my core beliefs:

I believe God spun this thing we call life into existence and gave it to us to be responsible for, providing us with everything we could possibly need to do so, including the intelligence to make proper decisions to that end.

I believe that once a soul is created—that part of us that is the whole of who we are—it is never ending.

I believe that this document we call the Holy Bible was dictated to humankind as a documentation of history and a guide by which we are to live. It is intended to be deciphered intelligently recognizing metaphor when it is present, simplified explanations when they were necessary, with an acknowledgement of the time of humankind’s development when it was handed down.

I believe that the man of Jesus, the Christ, was God coming to earth to live among and better understand this remarkably complex thing He  had created. The Old Testament is a study in frustration of an artist whose creation has, in the most literal sense, taken on a life and mind of its own, apparently beyond the Creator’s own wildest imaginings. There are episodes of destructive wrath, of wiping the slate clean and starting over, and the arrival of Jesus, I believe, was the implementation of God’s decision that if he was to ever truly understand his creation in mankind, He could only do so by becoming one of us, which He did. He did so knowing full well what we would very likely do, and ultimately did: we killed Him. But He allowed it because He knew there was no greater, more impactful means of getting across to us the point of who He is, who we are, and the magnitude of the  larger picture, through the event of His verified death, then His return after that fact. He did not come here simply to “Save us from sin”, that monotonous mantra that seems to trivialize the matter. He came to make clear what it is we are as creatures in possession of a most powerful thing called free will, that sin is a thing we have a choice of falling into, indulging in, that it is the very thing we are challenged to rise above and make the grade, and that He is the key to making that happen.

As I will in many instances, I find it easier to describe what somehting is by talking about what it is not