Technology and Artificial Intelligence

"Never trust a computer you cannot throw out the window" - Steve Wozniak, cofounder of Apple

As technology advances, mankind is increasingly fascinated by the possibilities it offers. Since the daily life simplest objects, such as household appliances and smartphones, to the most sophisticated systems of space exploration and robotics, technology has proven to be a great ally of the material evolution of civilization.

Technology has provided previously unthinkable gains in human productive capacity, in medicine resources, in food production, in energy generation, in the capacity and speed of transportation means, in ease of communication and access to information and in physical comfort of much of humanity.

Although the overall cost of technology still limits the access to some of its benefits, it is clear that the trend of this cost is to decrease along time, thus making it possible to extend the access to those benefits to a growing number of people. Technology is so important for the human being that it can be considered as the main engine of civilization.

The greatest material advances made ​​in human history were promoted by technological revolutions, based on scientific discoveries that made ​​them possible: The agricultural revolution, the industrial revolution, the information technology revolution and the newest possibility, that turns out to be the next step in this process, the revolution of robotics and artificial intelligence.

However, the use of technology by the human being has revealed some very harmful problems, spanning biological, psychological and spiritual aspects. Those problems are still poorly understood by science and therefore have been addressed in partial and precarious ways, since there are not enough studies to assess the damage caused by the misuse of technology.

Among the cases of misuse of technological resources I can single out three major issues that are certainly among the most serious: a) people emotional attachment to objects and everyday resources, b) the consequences of indiscriminate use of genetic engineering and c) the thoughtless development of artificial intelligence.

Emotional attachment to tech gadgets and resources is more common in the use of mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets, game consoles and in the usage of the internet itself.

This addictive use of technology has caused serious problems of psychological dependence, in addition to the impoverishment of human relationships, which are replaced, in such cases, by mere virtual interactions. Those interactions are usually intensive, but are also marked by shallowness and detachment.

The indiscriminate use of genetic engineering, in its turn, has promoted certain genetic mutations in agricultural products and in living beings, whose consequences are not yet fully controlled, thus posing serious risks to human health and to the biological balance of the planet.

But the most serious of these problems caused by the misuse of technology is, in my view, the reckless development of artificial intelligence, or AI. This issue has been addressed in many cultural ways for a long time, whether as fiction, in books and movies, or seriously, by philosophers and men of science.

The technicians and scientists engaged in the development of artificial intelligence do not hide their enthusiasm and wonder at the possibilities presented by AI: the development of super-robots and supercomputers, able to perform tasks now performed exclusively by humans, much more efficiently, and also new tasks that will require intelligent and robust machines.

AI promises to develop machines not only able to think and to behave similarly or even identical to humans, but also to self-replicate and make decisions themselves. The benefits that could be yielded by this breed of cyber beings in the service of mankind would be unlimited. Starting from the work in harsh environments, on land and under the sea, to the exploration of other planets, through the execution of various services, both domestic and in most areas of human economy.

However, little has been discussed about the actual risks posed by this technology. Technicians and supporters of AI scientists have fun when questioned about the risks of a possible loss of control of superintelligent machines.

However, those risks are real, in the opinion of many knowledgeable people of AI projects in development. It may sound far-fetched to think that machines may eventually turn against humanity, but the hypothesis is well grounded. So says, for example, Nick Bostrom, a philosopher and professor at the University of Oxford, in the book Superintelligence: Paths, Hazards, Strategies", published in 2014. Every intelligent machine requires a programming, but the super-machines, according to Bostrom, are capable of abstractions unforeseen by its developers, which he calls "perverse instantiation".

In the extreme case, this problem could lead to the extinction of the human race. Another question is what the author calls "infrastructure profusion." This would be a situation in which the machine interprets the physical limits to its actions, including humans, as obstacles to the fulfillment of their goals. For Bostrom, machines designed in this way are not possible to be fully controlled, and are able to plan strategies absolutely subtle, in order to achieve their goals.

In an interview with BBC, Stephen Hawking talked about the technology he uses to speak, which was recently upgraded; involving a basic form of artificial intelligence. He said then that "the development of top form artificial intelligence can lead to the end of the human race."

According to Hawking, the primitive forms of artificial intelligence created to date have proved useful, but he fears the possible consequences of creating something that can overcome the intellectual capacity of the human being. "This can evolve and redesign itself, continuous and increasingly," claimed the physicist. "Human beings, limited to a slow biological evolution, are not a match to that, and would eventually be dominated."

In the TV show Extant, aired in 2014 by the American network CBS, a scientist of the AI area is responsible for a project called Humanich, consisting in creating learning capable androids, and of developing their intellectual and emotional intelligence in a natural domestic and social environment, reproducing the human life cycle; as children, youth and adults.

When showcasing the project to a group of potential investors, he was asked by one of the audience members, about the possibility of permanent deactivation of these androids in the critical case of threat to human life. The scientist, visibly angry, returned the question to the person who asked him, asking her if she had a son. When she replies that she had a daughter, he then compares the android-child he has in his house; which is like a son to him; with the biological daughter of this person. He says that, just like she has not planned a way to kill her daughter should she disobey her, he also had not planned resources to eliminate his android if he broke away of his control. The scientist also claimed that the brain of his android was identical to the human brain and therefore it did not require an off switch in case of exceptionalities, only ordinary education, in order to instill in him moral values, similarly to the education of a human being.

Although being a work of fiction, the show expresses the opinion of most AI's fans. Those scientists and technicians conceive the human being as a biological machine. According to them, consciousness is only the result of neurological interactions of the brain. An individual therefore would be moved only by his brain and would not have a soul or a spirit. Life therefore, for these people, is seen as an absolutely natural and spontaneous phenomenon, without any divine intervention. It is exactly this mechanistic view of the human being that makes for the greatest risk of artificial intelligence development.

Because of the lack of a soul or spirit, a race of super-intelligent machines would never acknowledge itself as a human or human-like species. So, even if they were instilled in their programing with peaceful and orderly humanitarian ethical concepts, their attitude towards humans would be unpredictable, when they realized their physical and intellectual superiority. In addition, these machines would evolve to the point of developing their own skills and technology, apart of all living species. The course of this progress would be also unpredictable, both in its constructive as destructive potential.

They would also probably review the ethical principles that were instilled in them, tending to the creation of their own ethics code. Human beings, when spiritually mature and broken, recognize God as their creator and submit to His sovereign will, because we were created by God. Such machines however, would never respect human as their creators or would submit to their counsel, once aware of their own existence.

The development of super-machines still requires a long time. Scientists are still trying to develop a cybernetic brain that blends the memory capacity and the speed of data processing of a machine with the information treatment process of the human brain. However, it is important that governments pay attention, while there is still time, to the imminent danger that this technology brings within it. Otherwise, humanity will be running the risk of being in the course of creating its own fatal enemy.

Those Who Draw the Sword

It was certainly unfortunate and heinous the act of terror committed by Muslim extremists against the French weekly Charlie Hebdo on January.

No form of religion or ideology can be imposed or defended by violence because this is an aggression against free will, the basic principle of human life.

Only God, who is absolutely just and omniscient, can use violence to defend the righteous; in extreme cases of oppression and spiritual contamination by the wicked, as it happened in the early history of the Jewish people.

Jesus twice rebuked the use of violence by his disciples, to defend him. The first time was when he crossed the Samaritan territory, in his way to Jerusalem, and was denied hospitality there. When James and John asked permission to destroy that village, He said that He had not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. (Luke 9:56)

The second time was when he was arrested, on the orders of Jewish priests and elders. One of his disciples, angrily, hurts the servant of the high priest. Jesus then heals the man and says, "Put away your sword, those who use the sword will die by the sword.. " (Matthew 26:52)

In the case of religious extremism, typical of some Muslim sects, the religious principles of Islam are distorted, which has led to the oppression and murder of many who oppose their wicked doctrine.

Such cases of extremism must be fought, in all possible peaceful ways, just like all tyrannical and totalitarian political regimes and ideologies. However, there is one aspect of this tragic incident of the French weekly, which usually goes unnoticed, because it is a normal aspect of our times.

Freedom of expression is undoubtedly one of the consequences of free will and as such should not be hampered. However, the ideological and religious beliefs are also expressions of human free will and as such must be respected, as long as they do not impose a threat to life.

However, what is found very often in the media is the indiscriminate use of freedom of expression as a weapon to confront any form of ideology or religion, whose principles contradict the humanist and materialistic ideology that currently prevails in the world, especially in the West.

This confrontation is often offensive, by satire and mockery, which is also a form of disrespect for individual liberty. Although not threatening human life, this kind of criticism brings about a sort of moral violence, for some forms of expression can also be considered as weapons.

Christianity has been, throughout its history, one of the favorite targets of this critical violence. Even though many mistakes in the history of the Christian church deserve to be execrated and criticized, the media often turns its irreverence and mockery towards aspects of the Christian faith itself. The Christian principles, even when not fully understood, should be respected as an expression of religious freedom.

There are countless times when the human figure of Jesus was outraged, vilified, scorned and stripped of his divinity, both by the informative media and the entertainment industry. His role in human history was, many times, reduced to the one of a simple revolutionary leader; and his behavior compared to the wicked and ordinary men, and even to perverts. The weekly Charlie Hebdo published in November 2012, one of its most repulsive charges, satirizing the Holy Trinity.

The fact is that the Christian faith presents a model of life that reflects the standard of life expressed by God in the Biblical scriptures, a model that conflicts with the humanist and materialistic interests that lead the life in this world.

Those who draw the sword of irreverence refuse to recognize the sovereignty and the divine omnipotence and are resentful at all forms of constraint and restriction on their materialistic and hedonist views.

They cannot bear the anguish of feeling themselves limited in their ego, and recognize their absolute dependence on a true and living God, of whom nothing can be hidden.

God Is Not Cruel

Never have so many books contrary to God and to human religiosity been written, as of the beginning of this century. Being the religion with the greater number of adherents and also due to its exclusive character regarding the other religions, Christianity has been particularly criticized and attacked in many ways. The devil is in a hurry. He has been working relentlessly (and effectively) to reach his highest goal: to keep as many people as possible away from God.

Many of these books are the result of morally degraded, malicious and senseless spirits. However, most of them have been written by earnest people, even by scholars and scientists. One of the issues that most draws my attention in this literature concerns the alleged cruelty of God, identified in the texts of the Old Testament. After all, how can God, who presents himself as a loving father, be capable of such violence?

One of the books written on this subject is Drunk With Blood: God's killings in the Bible, by Steve Wells (2010). The biblical vision of God depicted by Wells is perfectly understandable from a human point of view. Any non-Christian people who come across biblical episodes such as the massacre of the Midianites in Numbers, can not hide the instant feelings of indignation and horror. Passages like this have become a huge barrier that keep a large number of people away from the Bible - rejecting it as a text inspired by God - and from the biblical God Himself. However, the problem with this vision is exactly that, to limit the perception of God to the very humanity of its advocates.

It is already about time for humans to recognize the existence of a spiritual dimension of life, though science has not yet developed resources that allowed to acknowledge the existence of this dimension, let alone investigate it.

When we look at the world from the spiritual point of view, the biblical narrative, which previously seemed to consist of a compilation of Jewish history, legends and myths, is revealed in all its richness and depth of meaning.

God acted with absolute justice in His creation and in His relationship with man, but that justice can only be understood from a spiritual point of view, transcending in scope and meaning the strictly rational and natural human vision.

God loves His creation, but that love is not fully grasped by human reason and does not even compares with the love experienced by us; human beings, in our relationships, even in its most sublime kind.

However, because God knows that the spiritual life is the only eternal and true life , He regards it as more valuable than the biological life, with its characteristic transientness and corruption. This divine vision often clashes with the limited and egocentric human judgement, who values the natural life in the highest degree.

Human life, as we know it, has, however, no value at all if it is not committed to the search for deliverance from sin and reconciliation with God. There is no life outside God, for every man begins to die from the moment he is born.

God showed, in a practical way, this hierarchy of values, when He chose to incarnate as a man and to give this man's life in sacrifice so that His whole creation was not destroyed by sin.

God Himself gave the world the greatest proof of His love and His righteousness, through His only begotten Son, who gave his life on the cross on behalf of the whole manking, to retrieve it later, victoriously, as spiritual life; thus making possible the reconciliation of creation with his Creator.

But how to understand the justice of this God who commands people to kill people?

This understanding is only possible if we consider that man, having broken his communion with God and declared his existential independence, also gave up his real life and chose to live between good and evil, a choice that subjected him to physical and spiritual death, due to the consequences of sin. God could have indeed destroyed his creation, which had lost with its sin the right to life, but He did not do it, for the love of it.

Because of human sin, all nature has been corrupted and deprived of the true life, peace, happiness and beauty with which it was originally endowed. All the evil in the world is actually a consequence of this ontological choice that has perpetuated, as a tragic stigma, throughout mankind’s history.

God did not destroy or punish man for his downfall. By choosing to ignore the will of the Creator and satisfy his personal ambition, human life has become incompatible with the original conditions it was created. God only allowed man to live according his own choice, an imperfect life in an imperfect world, under the rule of good and evil. God is not accountable for that, for a father can not be blamed for the acts of a teenage son, who decides to leave home and venture out in the world, on his own.

God does not force anyone to love Him or to be spiritually faithful to Him, but He does correct and guide the ways of those who recognize Him as their true spiritual father and bid Him their loyalty.

Neither has God abandoned his creation to its own luck. Through Israel, He built and set apart a nation of men and women willing to reconcile with their Creator, set free from the bondage of sin and find their way back to their original home.

This nation, even with all its faults, would become the cradle of human existential redemption, in which was born the Son of God. To preserve this nation from the corruption of the world around them, it was often necessary for God to uproot from his conviviality many of its neighbors, steeped in sin and spiritual corruption.

But why the biblical God seems so cruel and vindictive?

God is absolutely inconceivable to human reason and therefore can not be described by any form of language. Therefore, He reveals Himself to man, through His many theophanies, in the most diverse ways, whether assuming human or non-human forms, but always in a way that is understandable to human reason. That is why God chose, in order to relate to man, to express himself through human traits, including emotional and cultural aspects.

So God always appears in the Old Testament as being endowed with emotions and feelings similar to those with whom He communicates, also using the same customs and cultural references of that time. God reveals himself to the Jewish people in those ancient times sometimes as the Almighty Creator, sometimes as a Caring Father and sometimes as Jealous Husband, to demonstrate to all mankind His absolute power, His infinite love and His perfect justice.

Although the wrath of God expressed in the pages of the Old Testament may shock and even evoke the image of a cruel and vengeful deity of the pagan myths, this behavior is only to show, through human feelings and emotions, the absolute rejection of God to sin and idolatry. Emulating human feelings and emotions, God imparts to man the essential absolute notions of good and evil and straightens his ways, preparing him for the spiritual redemption.

Until the advent of Christ, God often used violence as a means of spiritual purification, but in His hands these resources are used with absolute justice and property. What is more, it is essential to notice that God has never used violence to force unfaithful people to worship Him, but rather to protect the nation of Israel from these people.

Contrary to what the Church proclaimed centuries later, nevertheless, God has never authorized any man or institution, whether by his own determination or on His behalf, to use violence to enforce Christian principles or the authority of the Church over any people or nation.

Why believe the Bible?

It is true that the Bible is not a book written personally by God . If God wished to write with His own hands His message to humanity, he would certainly have produced a perfect book, which would not be subject to material or time degradation, in which text would be impossible to change even a comma.

However, God chose to reveal himself to mankind through man himself, with all his idiosyncrasies and imperfections. To do so however, he chose straight-hearted men, to whom He inspired his word and it is in that sense that the whole biblical text, over more than one and a half millennium, was actually written by God.

The biblical texts we have today are fully reliable, since God has managed to grant that the core of his message would be preserved, and the essential character of his original words would not be changed. Copy failures and occasional changes in the manuscripts pointed out by the biblical criticism in today’s biblical texts are, in their entirety; absolutely superficial and irrelevant in relation to the essence of the content of these texts.

The Bible is infallible in the sense that it is categorically the only true, secure and reliable source of moral and spiritual guidance for humanity. Therefore it is inerrant in the sense that the Word of God it conveys is free from all falsehood or mistake.

The divine inspiration of the Bible is not therefore, in any way, tied to linguistic human limitations and was not based on the skills, knowledge or holiness of any man, but has imbued the original texts with an intrinsic and truly miraculous characteristic, so that those texts were able to preserve their real meaning, despite all human limitations and interferences, over the centuries.

The Bible distinguishes itself from other religious literature by declaring, in several passages, that its text is inspired by God. This inspiration is distinguished from the alleged inspiration for several sacred books by other spiritualist authors because in the Bible God reveals himself to man as the one true God, clearly stating that there is no other god like Him.

But the main proof that the Bible is a book inspired by God is the fact that Jesus Himself, in the New Testament, makes several references to the text of the Old Testament, thus attesting to its authenticity and its divine inspiration.

Furthermore, God acts, at all times, on the minds of those who seek Him with earnest purpose, giving them the absolute certainty that the Bible is indeed the word of His revelation and His teachings, written by human hands. This is the principle of true faith, not to be mistaken with religious belief, but fruit of authentic spiritual intuition, the true divine enlightenment.

Most people who deny the divine inspiration of the Christian Bible do it, if not due to mere ignorance and blunt prejudice, for two main reasons, as stated by the preacher Billy Graham: intellectual pride and moral cynicism.

Intellectual pride leads many people to intellectually reject the biblical principles, for not accepting the idea of the existence of a God whom they can not rationally understand. However, God does not reveal himself entirely to human reason; not because He is an unreasonable construction, but for the simple fact that human reason, in its current stage of evolution, is not able to comprehend him. However, God has always revealed himself to man spiritually, since his creation, and that is how the intellectual pride prevents an individual from knowing God, when he denies a priori that possibility.

This intellectual pride however denotes a greater pride, the existential ontological pride of man who, knowing to be separated from God by his own choice, shows no regret and does not give up his claimed independence of Him, thus recurring to intellectual denial as a way to silence his conscience.

The moral cynicism stems from a more crude existential attitude, turned to the preservation of carnal hedonism. The morally cynical individual knows, intimately, that the Bible is actually the expression of truth, but dismisses it as a morally retrograde literary work, a collection of myths and legends. Or hastens to point out the hypocrisy and intolerance of many Christians, and also the mistakes and failures of the Church, even though being aware that there are good Christians everywhere, and that despite their mistakes and failures, the Church fulfills its spiritual role in the world, under divine inspiration, through many men and women faithful to God.

Those people actually avoid, this way, to face the inevitable choice that is posed to every human being along his life: to recognize the superiority of divine will and submit to it, with all the life changes that it entails, or remain under the will's mastery of his own self, under the yoke of the flesh. Yet, that is a choice of life or death, and walking away from it is already a choice.

In general, these attitudes lead to complacency or to conformity in relation to one’s own existence. Some consider themselves good enough to not need to change, others think that it is up to them alone lead their life, according to their own judgment. Others yet simply do not believe it is possible to change anything in their personality.

Those attitudes also lead to an existentialist view of life, often proclaimed with arrogance and prejudice, based on an absolute faith in science and in the human capacity for self-transcendence. This arrogance proclaims the total independence of man regarding the existence of any superior entities or any metaphysical considerations for his very existence.

Those people are the ones who show a most caustic rejection of religions in general, but especially of Christianity. This rejection can be either explicit or tacit, but always reveals, often laden with sarcasm and irony, a set of negative feelings ranging from a solemn contempt to a corrosive anger, which can escalate into hatred.

That class of people, from which come most luminaries of society, is responsible for all the humanistic philosophies and ideologies; on which are based the political and economic systems that build the civilizations.

The failure of these humanistic ideas to produce equality of wealth, justice and well-being throughout mankind history so far, has not been enough to move these leaders from their beliefs and lead them to accept the existence of God and of a spiritual reality.

Blind men leading the blind, they confirm each day the choice of Adam, who seduced by the possibility of power and self-determination, preferred suffering and death, to the communion with God, happiness and the eternal life.

My Guide

"If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there."

George Harrison wrote in "Any Road" the line above, which evoques the dialogue between Alice and the Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll.

The former Beatle has devoted much of his life to a mystical spiritual quest. He lived in India for a long time in contact with the Hindu religion, searching of spiritual knowledge.Like many other people in the West, he was lured by the charm that springs from eastern religions and spiritual doctrines and was seduced by their aura of mystery, as well as by their promise of peace and spiritual enlightenment. George Harrison however has never found, through his long spiritual journey, the one and true God, because he did not know where he was going and, therefore, where to look for Him.

The pagan view of the world often acknowledges the existence of one universal God. It conceives of a Creator God who either absolutely transcends his creation or who is absolutely immanent to it, as in the pantheistic philosophy. However, this concept of God is deistic, that is, it does not acknowlege the existence of a personal manifestation of God, neither the ongoing relationship of God with His creation. In this cosmogony, God created the universe and its laws, but it does not interfere with it.

Deism therefore sees the created being as relying solely on his own judgment to guide his life. Some Deists however admit the existence of a preordained purpose for their lives but believe that it's always up to them alone to discover and fulfill that purpose.

The mystical aspect of Deism however, believes that to every person, in addition to his own insight, is also available the guidance of spiritual beings who are considered to belong to a higher evolutionary rank, and are called angels, guides, masters, etc.. According to those mystics, the Universe (with a capital U) is a living being, which manages to help every person to figure out the ultimate purpose of their existence. It depends therefore on each individual to identify himself with these spiritual beings, and be aware of the "signs" the Universe sends them in order to drive their lives.

These people marvel at a phenomenon that Carl Jung has called synchronicity, according to which some facts are not related to each other in a causal way, but rather by a common meaning. According to the Mystical Deism worldview, the universe would be responsible for concatenating these events in order to guide us in the proper direction, following an existing purpose for our lives.

However, there's actually no such entity called "The Universe" or "The Universal Spirit." The universe is not a living being in itself, it's the work of God and God is not to be mistaken for it, since those are totally distinct entities. God utterly transcends his creation and the only sense in which He is immanent to it is that His creation reflects His own image, like a work of art reflects the spirit of the artist. The universe absolutely does not "conspire" to our favor, as some mystics deists believe, but rather, the spiritual beings that dwell in the spiritual realms do certainly have an interest in our fate, and their intentions are not always noble.

Many of these beings have achieved great intelectual prowess and power and seek followers. The fact is that we become subject to the influence of those who we choose to follow. If we endorse the ideology of a philosopher or a religious leader or a politician, we align ourselves, explicitly or not, with the agenda of this philosopher or leader. As is stated in the Bible:

"Know you not, that to whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants you are to whom you obey; whether of sin to death, or of obedience to righteousness?" Romans 6:16

In the material world we live in the most elementary level of consciousness. One can certainly achieve, through specific training, higher levels of consciousness, as in Buddhist meditation, which taps the infinitely wider and deeper ontological awareness . This sublime state of consciousness makes for a mental condition often described as existential unity, which is often confused with the full human emancipation and spiritual fulfillment.

No higher level of consciousness however, can promote a real communion with God and it is only this communion that sets us free from the bondage of sin and enlightens our spirit. This reconciliation and communion can only happen by means of the personal manifestation of God in the world, through his Spirit and through the person of Jesus Christ his only Son, the only way of attaining the true spiritual freedom. It's through this personal relationship with God that we identify ourselves with His will and that He can effectively guide our lives.

But if we don't believe that God can guide us personally, we are left only to trust our own judgment, or the orientation of other people or spiritual beings, which we consider as being intellectually or spiritually better-equipped than us and therefore qualified to guide us. By choosing to abide by the guidelines of these entities, we are lining up, tacitly or not, with their ideology. This is a naive and dangerous option though, for two basic reasons.

First off, because it takes for granted the nonexistence of evil spiritual beings of any kind or, at least, the immunity of those who venture into the spiritual reality, regarding any possible evil influences. Mystical Deists believe in a moral neutrality of spiritual entities and that only those who believe in evil are subject to their influence. This is a serious mistake, because alike the material world, there are actually spiritual beings in the spiritual world whose nature is inherently evil.

Only God can protect from the harmful influences that exist in the spiritual world and if we are not in constant communion with Him, we venture into this reality at our own risk, which is a reckless attitude to say the least.

The second reason is that we make a serious error when believing that a spiritual being, just because being able to communicate in a supernatural way with a living being, introducing himself as someone trustful and sometimes of high spiritual rank, and/or showing deep knowledge and intellectual coherence, is therefore reliable and that his teachings are necessarily true.

Jesus, when going to the Father, said He would send to the world the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of Truth, to teach us everything we need to know about the spiritual reality. This is the true enlightenment and is available to all mankind, not just to a group of insiders, or adherents of a religion. Only what is revealed by God through his Word and his Spirit, is really true and reliable.

Much of the spiritual knowledge acquired by occult and pagan mystics are just theories, a product of musings of their own or conveyed by spiritual beings - evil or not - who have no full knowledge of this reality. But much of this occult spiritual knowledge, even when true, is not only useless for the real human spiritual liberation, which is only possible through Christ. This knowledge is actually very harmful, and although it may often seem to favor those who hold and practice it, it's only useful to move man away from his Creator, leading him by devious ways, according to the agenda of its authors.

When the human heart does not earnestly yearn to know God, but is rather moved by vanity and greed for spiritual knowledge, it's easily diverted from the true path of freedom and fulfillment, which is Jesus Christ. There are beings, in the spiritual world, who are moved by the same ambition and are eager to offer themselves as guides and teachers, making use of both religions and sects to amass a legion of human apostles, who are willing to serve them as messengers and promoters of his doctrines.

It's true that even those who really love God can also temporarily wander through tortuous spiritual paths. However, because in their hearts they know where they come from and where they are going, they are able to eventually find the true path leading to the house of the Father. They hear His voice and heed his call.

The True History of Islam

Islam, the most modern religious manifestation from Judeo-Christian root, has emerged as an Arabic version of Judaism, retelling the story of the revelation of divine truth to man through Abraham, from the point of view of his Arab descent, i.e. from his bastard son Ishmael. According to the Islamic religion, Muhammad is God’s last messenger and the greatest of the prophets.. In the Koran, the Muslims sacred scriptures, Abraham's spiritual connection to the Jews is denied, and Muhammad asserts that Abraham is the patriarch of Islam, but not of Judaism, because he "surrendered himself to Allah." (1) The Bible however, clearly states the opposite, i.e.; through the genealogy presented by Matthew; Jesus, the Messiah, is presented as a descendant of Isaac, the legitimate son of Abraham.

Although sharing the same basic principles of faith of Judaism, and having as one of its core foundations the claim of being the last revelation from God to man; and despite Muhammad’s claiming to be the "seal of the prophets and his teachings being touted as the only to bear a universal character; the ethos of Islam is not the same as of Judaism. The ultimate end of the Islamic religion is to teach Islam, or the worship and allegiance of man to a single God, in the form of compliance with his statutes, as described in the Qur’an and in the Sunnah, which for Muslims comment and clarify the teachings of the Prophet, in a similar way to the Hebrew Talmud, which is a rabbinic commentary of the Torah . The teachings of Allah (the Arabic word for God) are contained in the Qur'an or Koran (Qur'an means "recitation"). Muslims believe Muhammad received these teachings from Allah through the Angel Gabriel (Jibreel) through revelations that occurred between 610 and 632 CE. The Qur'an is considered to be sacred only in its original version, in Arabic, although it has already been translated into multiple languages.
Islam acknowledges the legitimacy of the Hebrew Torah, although claiming that the loss of its original manuscripts has generated many distortions in the interpretation of its contents. The Christian New Testament, however is not recognized as legitimate spiritual Scriptural source because, according to Islamic scholars, the manuscripts in which their texts were based and the source of its testimonies are not reliable. According to Islam, the Qur'an alone would be the true foundation of the new Covenant between God and man; for having been revealed to a single Prophet, by being based on the original texts and for being written in a living language.

Only a few people however know the real history of Islam. Many few know, for example, that Allah was originally the name for the God of the Moon, one of the several deities worshiped by Arabs before the birth of Muhammad, who later became the generic name of God in the cultures of the Middle East. The symbol of the Crescent Moon found in mosques’ minarets and on the flags of some Arab emirates at the beginning of the 20th century, is a remnant of the polytheistic beliefs that characterized the religious life of these peoples. (2)

When Muhammad was living with his uncle, head of the Hashemite clan, Mecca was a city-State in the desert, a large commercial and religious center. Muhammad was sensitive to the frequent conflicts that occurred between the tribes, an usual aspect of the nomadic culture of his people, and also bemoaned the intense polytheism and animism to which they were spiritually bound.

He also loathed the materialistic culture that dominated the community, and the way the poor, the orphans and the widows were excluded from society. Reputed for his wisdom and for his ability in arbitrating disputes among tribal leaders, he was then called Al-Ameen ("trusted") due to his sense of Justice, often revealed in these disputes.

Muhammad was part of a religious faction existing in Mecca which, inspired by the Judeo-Christian principles, had withdrawn from the pagan cults practiced there, calling themselves hunafa, a term derived from the Syriac hanephe, meaning Gentile or Pagan (3). The hunafa claimed to believe in the one God of Abraham.

Muhammad knew the history of the Jewish people, he also knew the God of Abraham and noticed how the revelation of God to the Jews had brought up a deep cohesion and a sense of ethnic unity among them. As well as among the Jews, religion was the most significant cultural trace of the life of the Arab tribes of that time. Muhammad thus saw that this would be the path to unification and social development of his people. However, he did not devise the possibility of adopting neither Judaism nor Christianity as an Arab nation’s religion, due to disagreements he had with the Jews and also due to doctrinal conflicts existing between these religions.

Muhammad then built, through the Koran, a cultural transposition of Judaism - and, to some extent, of Christianity as well - to his people, having as a primary goal to establish the worship of the one and only God, and to establish the cultural foundations for the emergence of an Arab nation. (3) Muhammad was therefore a great social leader, and although being illiterate, he was also a gifted poet. The Koran is indeed a magnificent religious poetic work of oral tradition, comparable to the Hindu epic Mahabharata. Muhammad certainly was inspired to create this work, but this inspiration could hardly be considered a divine revelation, primarily because the God to whom it refers, is not the same Biblical God.

In the beginning of his ministry, Muhammad himself was not sure about being a true prophet, neither about the source of his revelations. According to Daniel Shayesteh, Arab poets believed that only could be considered authentic poets those who were possessed by a jinn or djnn, a spiritual being, that compelled them to recite the verses they inspired. The moral nature of these spirits was not important, as long as they helped the tribe to grow and prosper. The spiritual inspiration of Muhammad is highly controversial, as testify the so-called "Satanic Verses" (53: 19-20) of the Qur'an, which exalted the pagan gods al-Lott, al-Uzza and Manat. Muhammad told later that these verses had been inspired by Satan, with the permission of Allah, in order to confuse the men of hardened heart. But later on Muhammad himself removed this revelation, according to him, following the command of Allah. (2)

Muhammad was persuaded as to the legitimacy and nobility of his ministry by Khadijah, his first wife, and by her uncle, Nofel. Khadijah, a prosperous merchant and poet, has always been the strongest support of Muhammad in his ministry, and he probably would not have made it without her.

It is impossible to tell however to what extent the Koran was spiritually inspired or a mere fruit of Muhammad’s personal convictions and of his Judeo-Christian influences. Proof of the influence of Judeo-Christian Scriptures in the production of the Koran, according to Seyyed Hossein Nasr, is the fact that his verses (Ayat), "Unlike the highly refined poetry of the pre-Islamic Arabs, presents in its structure rhymes and distinct rhythms, more similar to prophetic statements, marked by inspired discontinuities found typically in the Scriptures of Judaism and Christianity". (5)

Some Islamic rituals and Koran passages show also a strong influence of Zoroastrianism, a religion that Muhammad learned through a slave scholar called Salman Farsi. Muhammad was certainly inspired by the life of Zoroaster (Zarathustra) and in his struggle to eradicate polytheism from the culture of the people of ancient Central Asia. (2)

The religion founded by Muhammad, who preached Islam or humility and submission, was well accepted by much of the population of Mecca. Muhammad's leadership however was rejected by the majority of the Arab tribes and he was forced to leave the city, in 622 C.E. and flee to Yathrib, later called Medina. There he lived among Jews and Christians, which he called “The People of the Book”, a term used to designate non-Muslim adherents to faiths which have a revealed scripture called, in Arabic, Al-Kitab or "the Book" and "the Scripture". These adherents mentioned in the Koran are the Jews, Sabians (Arabians) and Christians.

In Medina he amassed a significant number of followers, who fought by his side. Around 627 C.E., Muhammad had united all Medina under Islam, with the defeat of his closer enemies. The Bedouins, after a period of battles and negotiations, became allies of Muhammad and accepted his religion. In 630 C.E., after several battles, Muhammad succeeds, in taking over Mecca and in destroying all the pagan idols still remaining there.

Due to the increasing disagreements with Jews, Muhammad changed the Muslims prayer direction from Jerusalem to Mecca and legitimized the war against non-Muslims, which led to the expulsion and extermination of all Jews in Medina. Soon after, Muhammad rejected also the Christian principles he had at first accepted. He denied Jesus being the son of God, his divinity and also the Christian concept of the Trinity. (6) Some verses of the Koran, that praised Christians and Jews above all other people (Q.2:62; Q.3:55) were later changed to reflect his new political stand, as in Q.9:5; Q.4:171 and Q.9:31.

By the time of his death in 632 C.E, Muhammad had already become the most powerful political and religious leader of the Arabian Peninsula, having managed to establish, after several battles, alliances with most nomadic tribes there. When converting to his doctrine, the faithful became known as Muslims, i.e. those who submit to God.

Islam has several requirements for salvation, but basically it is accepted that man is saved by his faith in Allah and by abiding to his teachings, as established in the Koran.

Sometimes seen as a separate branch of Islam, Sufism is considered a form of mysticism which seeks to achieve a direct communion with God through a series of practices that generally include outer asceticism, i.e.; the ascetic life in mosques and mystical practices such as meditation and dance. Sufism gained adherents among a number of Muslims as a reaction against the worldliness of the early Umayyad Caliphate (661-750 CE).
The God of Islam is a God of justice, but not a God of love. He is, "as close as the jugular" to man (Q.50: 16), but at the same time he is so distant that no man can personally relate to him. It writes down the fate of men and may or may not change their destiny, according to the works of each, so that no Muslim has assured of their salvation, including Muhammad.

When a Muslim meets Christ, however, and Jesus reveals to him the true nature of the Father, then his spiritual eyes and ears open up, because he comes to know the one and true God. The greatest difference between God and Allah is the Son, Jesus Christ, the perfect manifestation of God’s love, justice and grace. The Muslims, like all men, find in Christ their redemption and the certainty of their salvation.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES

1. Bard, Mitchell G. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Middle East Conflict. 3rd Edition. NY: Alpha Books, 2005.

2. Shayesteh, Daniel. The Difference is The Son. Daniel Shayesteh, 2004.

3. Grypeou, Emmanouela. The Encounter of Eastern Christianity With Early Islam. Edited by Mark n. Swanson, David Thomas Emmanouela Grypeou. Brill Academic Publishers, 2006.

4. According to the website Answering Islam: "He [Muhammad] set himself therefore to transplant into their minds some of the "knowledge" of things religious which those who dwelt in more enlightened lands possessed. His own acquaintance with that "knowledge" was limited enough; and the opposition of the Meccans to his fundamental doctrine of Monotheism gave a denunciatory cast to the bulk of his deliverances there. But a certain amount of positive teaching he had acquired and promulgated in the Koran before he migrated to Medina. For this he had looked to those who had been Monotheists before him, i. e., to Jews and Christians. It is almost impossible to decide in particulars whether he drew upon Jewish or Christian sources. Nor does it greatly matter. For he does not in the early stages appear to have distinguished between them. All religion was for him revealed religion, and the content of the revelation given by the one God must be one. In any case, he had been in the habit of looking to previous Monotheists as the source of his knowledge, and he naturally assumed that they would agree with him (Who Were the Hanifs? – http://www.answering-islam.org/Books/Bell/hanifs.htm)

5. Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. "Qur'an." Encyclopædia Britannica Online. March 15, 2011. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/487666/Quran.

6. As Daniel Shayesteh shows in The Difference is the Son (pp. 132-136) the Koran is contradictory concerning the teachings about the divinity of Christ. This is due to the fact that Muhammad initially borrowed from some Christian principles and merged those principles, out of their original context, with other sources, arranging them in the Koran in order to differentiate his message from the traditional biblical text. However, the very logic of the Koran does not deny the divinity of Christ, as evidenced in verses Q.3 :45-47, Q.4: 171b; Q.19: 17, Q.21: 91. Nonetheless, some verses accuse Christians of affirming that God had a carnal relationship with Mary to generate Jesus (Q.4: 171c; Q.6: 101 and Q.112 :1-4), which is a distorted concept of the virginal conception. Muhammad admits the possibility of God having a son in verse Q.39:4 of the Koran, which contradicts his basic teaching that God is unknowable and also contradicts his condemning of this statement by Jews and Christians, in verse Q.9:30.

The Boldness of Christ

"The high priest said to him, "I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Christ,the Son of God."
"Yes, it is as you say," Jesus replied. "But I say to all of you: In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven."
Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, "He has spoken blasphemy! Why do we need any more witnesses? Look, now you have heard the blasphemy."

Mathew 26:63-65

When Jesus said He was the "way, the truth and the life" (John 14:6) and that no one comes to God except through him, he was consciously setting off a relentless worldwide battle.

Although Jesus, who was also called the Prince of Peace, said He came to the world so that we might have life, and when leaving this world to meet the Father He has given his followers His peace (John 14:27), He has also made it clear in Matthew 10:35-37 that, in order to actually there be peace and life in the world, it was necessary first that a distinction between the children of God and the children of the world was done:

“For I have come to turn 'a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.'

"Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” Obviously Jesus was not here allowing His followers to declare a holy war against the infidels, or to set about any kind of persecution of their opponents. He said only that this distinction would happen naturally, through the freedom of choice of each man, because whoever does not take his cross and follow Him is not worthy of Him. (Matthew 10:38).

How is it possible however, in a world with such a cultural diversity, that one single religion can become so absolutely hegemonic among so many all others? If it is difficult to conceive of this hegemony within a single nation, how to expect that people with histories and cultures as essentially different from the history and culture of the Jewish people would be willing to recognize Christ as the one true Messiah, the Savior of the world? How to accept the fact that God has singled a historically insignificant nation, born from long struggles against the enemy nations around her, out of so many greater nations of her time, to be the cradle of the spiritual redemption of the world?

The idea of facing a single valid choice can be daunting and unsettling for most people in our time, raised in a culture which main feature is the multiplicity of choices. However, God revealed himself to mankind only once, through Israel, and that is why Christianity is the only true expression of this revelation. Christianity is the first and only true spiritual teaching, revealed by God to the world. God spoke to the world through men, who wrote down His redemptive message under the inspiration of His Spirit, and not inspired by any philosophical ideas or by any spiritual beings, as happened with the world's religions.

There are two kinds of faith: the unstable, sterile and subjective human faith, and the genuine faith that produces conversion of life and salvation, which is freely given by God to those who sincerely seek Him. This true faith is available to all who humble themselves before God, acknowledging His sovereignty and perfect will, and their total dependence on Him:

“Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.” (1 Peter 5:6)

Christianity has accomplished, over the centuries, the wondrous feat of becoming a universal religion, professed not only in Western countries, but in many countries of the East as well. Many would quickly attribute this hegemony initially to the political imposing of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire by Constantine and, later, by the Roman Catholic Church, at the height of its power. Although this is partly true, and unarguably many "conversions" to Christianity were due to mere political reasons (as in the case of Constantine himself), or to social motives, as still happens today, it is also undeniable that Jesus’ Gospel has produced, since the dawn of Christianity, many significant conversions, motivated by a genuine expression of faith.

Most people are typically familiar only with the dark ages of the Roman Catholic Church, but not with the benefits bequeathed by Christianity to Western civilization. Thomas E. Woods, who holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Harvard and his master’s, M. Phil., and Ph.D. from Columbia University, retrieves this memory in his How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization (Regnery, 2005). Woods reminds us that Christianity was responsible not only for most of the ethical foundations that shaped Western civilization, but also for the first steps of science and of the academic teaching institutions, for the fundamental principles of law and for the first charitable institutions. The merit of the hegemony achieved by Christianity throughout history however, should not be credited to the efforts of the Catholic Church, whose methods were often questionable, but to the power of truth inherent in the Christian doctrine.

Most people discuss religion the same way they talk about philosophy; that is, based only on superficial knowledge. Few people take the time to deepen their knowledge of the many religions of the world and of the history of Christianity. The spiritual ignorance of man leads him to instinctively reject the idea of the Christian hegemony. Regardless of the ideological conflict caused by the Christian Gospel, which points out the natural human tendencies, produced by self-centeredness and hedonism as forces in outright opposition to spiritual salvation, man has always rejected as absurd the notion of the existence of an absolute truth. Thus, the Christian exclusivity, intrinsic to his own doctrine, is always regarded with distaste by the followers of other religions and also by those who claim not to profess any religion.

However, this antipathy is largely misplaced, since at no time a true Christian or Christian church claims to be himself the "bearer of truth", but that the gospel of Christ and all the Scriptures are the expression of the absolute truth concerning the spiritual life, as revealed by God to his prophets. Understanding this truth is an ongoing enlightenment process that every Christian undertakes in their spiritual walk. On announcing the Gospel, the Christian is not being narrow-minded, arrogant, intolerant, he is only accomplishing the so-called "great commission" given by Christ to His disciples, as written in the Gospels of Matthew (28:19), Luke (24:47) and Mark (16:15): "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." What might be questionable, therefore, is the way this evangelistic mission is carried out, but not evangelism itself.

Furthermore, the natural man, still in his spiritual immaturity, is unable to grasp the fullness of the nature of the biblical God, which from a humanistic and materialistic worldview appears to him like an unjust, arrogant, inconsistent, discriminatory and cruel God. Anyway, how could a God who claims to love the world to destroy his own creation, condemning people to eternal suffering and deny salvation to those who have not heard of Christ? Even the mere idea of a personal God sounds narrow-minded for most educated individuals, who prefer the complex notion of God as present in Eastern religions; as an abstract Being, absolutely inaccessible to human reason, a kind of energy that permeates all the creation.

According to those religions, Christ was just one of the many high spiritual masters who came to the world to teach men one single and same path of spiritual fulfillment. Well, this is absolutely not true. The path Jesus pointed out to men is essentially different from all other spiritual paths taught by the spiritual mentors of the religions of the world. Actually, Jesus did not teach a spiritual path, but he said He was himself the path and that no man could reach God unless he was led by Him (John 14:6). This means that even if one of the great spiritual masters had taught exactly the same teachings of Jesus, yet these teachings could not save a single one of his disciples. Only Jesus had the power not only to teach, to heal and to set the people free from the bondage of evil; but above all, the power to forgive sins and to save the broken, because only He is the Savior.
The human-centeredness and pride prevent those who abhor the one true God, revealed to man through Israel, of recognizing that it is because of the hardness of their heart that they have become unable of understand the nature of God and his truth, revealed to man through the Scriptures. The same human pride, which prevented the Jews from recognizing Christ as the so long awaited Messiah, has always been, after sin, the greatest barrier between man and God. As Paul said:

"And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God." 2 Corinthians 4:3-4

Most people see Christianity through the facades of their churches, and judge it by what they see behind them. However, the thousands of existing Christian denominations are not the true expression of Christianity. The true Church of Christ on Earth is formed by his approved disciples, which are scattered amid those denominations, in the midst of false Christians. Even if a particular church were composed only of authentic Disciples of Christ, it would not be perfect. It would still have many flaws, for the simple fact that it would still be composed of human beings. The Christian is not sanctified in a single day. Just like the understanding of the message of God in Scripture, which is a continual learning, thus preventing any particular Christian denomination of claiming to have reached the full understanding of Truth; the sanctification of every Christian is also an ongoing process, which will only be completed in the spiritual world, when they can reach the full stature of Christ.

Christianity is an entirely different path in its essence, from the other spiritual paths shown by the religions of the world. There are three basic concepts in Christianity, among others, which make it a doctrine absolutely unique and distinct from all other spiritual doctrines: the principle of the spiritual fall of man, the principle of sin and the principle of one single life for every individual. These principles essentially contradict the teachings of other religions, that mankind is not irreparably doomed to spiritual death because of sin, but only separated from the Unity or from the Dao, to which they must return. Christianity also states, contrarily to the other doctrines, that every man lives a single life, after which comes the judgment of his works and his resurrection, and not an indeterminate cycle of existences, along which he would eventually evolve to perfection.

Christ says that only who believes in Him can be saved. This means that we can not, by our own means, to achieve our spiritual fulfillment, but only by God's grace through the vicarious sacrifice of Jesus, we receive salvation and take hold of the eternal life that only Him can give. This is a completely strange concept to all other religions, who claim that the individual must build, through his works and the devotion to their gods, the path of his own spiritual freedom. It is clear therefore that the common idea that all paths lead to God is absurd. Either is Christ who reconciles man with the Creator or are the world's religions that lead man to God. This is a realization that brings in a high existential, cultural and even political stress, and therefore the human ideology that rules the world prefers to ignore it, insisting on the isonomy of all religious creeds.

This ecumenical, universalistic and conciliatory attitude however, will not stand for long. Christ demands of every man to decide on a position with respect to their spiritual life. There are no uncompromising positions, the choice is clear: with or against Christ, as He said: "He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters." (Matthew 12:30). To believe that Jesus is the only way to God means believing in the whole Bible. One cannot believe some things in it that we like but not in others, which we dislike. One cannot mutilate the Gospel as do many spiritual and ecumenical doctrines. Either we believe God is powerful enough to preserve the integrity of his message throughout the centuries, in spite of human interference, or we become atheists, agnostics or even worse, take false spiritual paths or still, as many do, make up our own God and our own customized religion.

The Kingdom of God has already come to the world and in the end times the angel of the Lord will harvest the fields and set apart the weeds and the wheat. The citizens of the Kingdom of God will reign with Christ, but the citizens of the world will perish by their own choice, with the Prince of this world.

I have a great respect for pastor Francis Chan, from Cornerstone Church, at Simi Valley, California, for his bold, deep and whole view of the Gospel. I found this interesting post in his blog Cornerstone News and Updates (blog.cornerstonesimi.com) called THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF “ONE ANOTHERING” YOURSELF, posted on May 18th.

We would probably all say that we desire to honor God. Who would deny this? But in reality, we have deceived ourselves into thinking that we can actually live a life that honors God apart from being in continual relationships with the body of Christ.

Many would say that this is an overstatement. After all, every one of us has relationships. But I’m talking about something deeper than getting together with people for dinner once every few weeks. This level of interaction may be a blessing to us, but it simply does not fulfill what the Bible calls us to. Really, this type of interaction doesn’t give us anything more than a progress report. But if we were to develop deep, regular relationships with other people, then we would have opportunities to practice the “one anothers” of Scripture.

We run into this problem because we exalt independence.
As a culture we esteem independence—it has become one of our main measures of success. But our exaltation of independence actually hinders the body of Christ from functioning in the way that God desires.

Do you realize that it is impossible to live a life that honors God on your own? In order for us to fulfill the commands of Christ we must be in true relationship with other believers. We need to reject our culture’s exaltation of independence and finally humble ourselves and express our need for the body.

It comes down to this: you cannot “one another” yourself. Yet the
Bible is full of commands to do various things for one another. The inescapable solution to the dilemma is this: we need each other.
In order to be and do what God has called us to be and do, we must renounce individuality and embrace community.

You can start this process in two ways: (1) Identify someone who has a need and do what you can to help them out. (2) Identify some of your own needs or weaknesses and bring other people into the process. Our arrogance is the only complicating factor. When we actually begin doing this, we will find that this is exactly how we were mean to live.