To visit the Main Site of the Internet Church of Christ founded by Dr. Bob Benchoff, click here.

To visit the second page of sermons of the Internet Church of Christ founded by Dr. Bob Benchoff, click here.

__________________________________________________________________

Logical Religion Selection:

How to choose the right church.

Sermon by Dr. Bob Benchoff 12/20/2002.

1. God,

2. You,

3. Religion,

4. Church.

We will call the above list selection Sequence A. It is required if you are to select a religion and then a church of that religion.

The following are pertinent terminology values: Sequence A shows "God" first, otherwise if you place "You" first, that is called random; or if you place "Religion" first, that is called government; or if you place "Church" first, that is called business.

After selection (and joining), the following selection Sequence B takes effect:

1. God,

2. Renewal:

2.A. Relocation,

2.B. Externality Effects,

3. Applications:

3.A. Religion,

3.B. Church,

3.C. You.

With your selection, Sequence B continues to have God first as an absolute fixed point above relative renewal or reconsiderations applications.

Because your relationship with God, your Religion, and your Church is personal, renewal or re-evaluation per Sequence A may occur with a frequency similar to the frequency of your [2.A.:] home / house purchasing, that is, about as often as you buy a house in which to live or about as often as you relocate (depending on that religion's availability of churches in the new location). The same applies to church selection.

To a lesser degree (less personal unless you found them personal), renewal would be due to [2.B.:] externality effects or outside influences such as being invited to visit another church, hearing a preacher not of your faith, or similar.

Please note that my personal experience has been that once accepted as a member of a particular religion and / or church, that group typically believes you are a permanent part of their organization and never wants you to leave.

Sequence C applies to renewal frequency:

1. God's actions:

1.A. Do you find the religion and / or church steadfast in God's works in your opinion?

2. God's words:

2.A. Do you find the religion and / or church steadfast in God's words in your opinion?

Please note that text, even Holy Biblical text, can contain human errors, such as has been said for example: the actual translation meaning for {Peace on earth, good will to men.} is {Peace on earth to men of good will.}; and in absorbing information the human reader or hearer uses their own interpretation, differing from the author.

3. Of lesser importance: Do you find more important externality effects in line with God's actions and words, in your opinion, such as switching to another church not for your benefit, but for your children, such as switching to a church in a lower crime area or a church better focused on helping children?

4. If the above points in this Sequence C are significant, renewal may be considered.

4.A. Of course prior to renewal, analysis and efforts should be made by you to see if you can improve and as needed fix the group you are considering possibly leaving. Also, it is important to consider a new group prior to leaving the former.

4.B. Regarding interaction, belonging to a church is less similar to association such as joining a club, and more similar to relationship such as being in a home, hence analogous to relocation and / or buying houses for homes. Therefore the theory is now proffered that a correlation exists between personal (possibly including immediate family) relocation and personal belief system values.

For proof of a theory in cognizant pertinent prinicple, read the book Family Income Level Correlation With Migration...by same author 1977, California State College [currently California University of Pennsylvania pending becoming Eberly International University] library number Project 301.326 B457f [c.2].

BEYOND RELATIVITY

Falling under the above criteria are the following considerations to be made.

1. Religion selection,

2. Church selection.

For religion selection, faith is the deciding factor, such as per the popular inquiry "What is your faith?". Your faith is personal, but religion is according to group faith. So expanding on the above we have:

1. Religion selection,

1.A. Faith,

1.B. Documentation,

2. Church selection.

The above noted "Documentation" includes recorded text, illustrations, and / or verbal records. It can also include other, such as body language, such as when a mother holds her newborn lovingly.

Some people perceive faith as an emotion, but that is their personal discovering process or lack thereof. By definition faith is not about emotion, although in actual practice faith guides emotions and reasoning.

Absolute reasoning contains perceived reasoning (Reference: Absolute Reasoning), therefore optimal faith selection is focused on the absolute, not the relative, therefore as humanly possible, on righteousness with the understanding that there is more than human understanding, being divine love as a whole, having power and authority over relativity.

So faith comes from "Documentation" (hearing and similar, see above), and "Documentation" comes from absolute reasoning. Therefore an orderly progression emerges from absolute good (see above references).

1. Good,

2. Documentation,

3. Religion,

4. Church.

Historically, arts and sciences have dealt with perceived values so they would historically only marginally fit the above criterion, if of pertinent significance at all. Even the so-called pure science, math, has historically focused on relativity.

SUBSEQUENCE RELIGION SELECTION

So with the replacement of "Faith" with "Good", we do not discredit faith in goodness. By such replacement we do logically eliminate faith in badness.

Per the above including references, atheism, agnosticism, fixation on hate, fixation on vengance, fixation on money, and similar random chaos faith choices are logically eliminated.

Since "random" has been eliminated from the criterion, we conclude that the creator [God] of "good" remains within the criterion. Logic per the above process of elimination of the negative evil, results in "good".

For the person seeking to wisely choose the correct religion, by such replacement of "Faith" with "Good" we also shift focus from greed [or what a person might selfishly want] to a focus on good [what God wants].

So we don't have to decide which faith to follow, we only need to follow "good".

As indicated by the above math discussion, math alone has not been historically sufficient in following "good", therefore via that reasoning logic too has not been sufficient in following "good"; or in other words, good is greater than the sum of math plus logic.

In lay terms, consider the following analogy. Let's call the sky good, the ground neutral, and underground bad. A tree can grow up toward good, yet as it moves toward good, it's branches also branch-out, they move sideways.

Similarly, math and logic can be in a good area while moving sideways, missing the point of good.

This concept allows us to easily make further process of elimination decisions. Just as some big low branches get a lot of sunlight, some big "low" religions make a lot of good points. But we want to eliminate (or at least categorize appropriately) "low" ideas from our criterion and choose to keep high ideas most logically near good God.

So some roots sticking up out of the ground can be automatically eliminated because they resemble and are as roots underground; such as a cult mingling concepts of love and hate interchangeably (Reference Luke 23.8).

As such for comparison to a tree, the trunk represents your decision to faithfully (including logically) accept Jesus Christ as one with God and as your personal saviour; progressing from analogous lower trunk to analogous upper trunk through your being baptized in the Christian Faith (Reference: Uniform Code of God Section 1.1 "optimum" and "comprehensive civilization" discussion, and Section 3.2.1 applicable to other folds.

THE LOWER RELIGION BRANCHES

The church building, the people in the church, the church babysitting service, the church providing food to hungry people: all of these may involve very much goodness. But all of these involve the body and relativity, so you are cautioned.

Being steadfast to good God, we find good action in accord with the good word [or "Documentation"]. So per the acceptable reasonable criterion being established here, we must remember the prioritization we have already established above

1. Good,

2. Documentation,

3. Religion,

4. Church.

with "Documentation" being #2, and with lower order "Religion" being #3.

Therefore religious activities are ancillary to "Documentation". Logically (except in special cases such as deciphering translations), the priorities and the principles of the "Documentation" are of greater value than the semantics, spellings of names, or similar. This concept verifies the above reference link's resources as proof, in that the resources referenced are in agreement in priorities and principles.

In the previous section the move via the tree trunk analogy from lower trunk to upper trunk through baptism in Christ, is similar in logic to the move from lower branches to top branches through Christian reasoning.

At the beginning of this section, body and relativity examples are cited. Moving from lower branches to upper branches is a move from relativity to absolutivity.

For instance, logically consider that good God gives that which is good, through Jesus Christ. As referenced above, God is not a respecter of people, but of righteousness (and other blessed priorities and principles). Therefore Christ relying on God (not on people) does not need to receive from people for God is whole.

Therefore, even Christ's senses (such as seeing, and hearing) are not necessary (Reference Bible: Luke 22.10, vision with spiritual eyes).

CHURCH SELECTION

Within the Christian Religion, many people choose to be recognized as belonging to some particular sub-group classification of the Christian Religion.

Using prioritization, by starting the process of elimination to remove dross inclusive of body and relativity concepts, you begin to reveal and be left with the core value(s) of the applicable sects. Repeat the process with each sequential priority level principle.

You can then compare those remaining values to reveal the optimum sect.

Of that religious sect, choose your preferred church building according to the same process, then compare your personal concerns to find the optimum match.

So, via cross referencing we found that we can believe via divine intervention as discussed at the end of the previous section, and we can believe via the process of elimination to find the same conclusion: so we have proof with the name's sake of Christ in title and authority, and we have cross-referencing verification proof for the good works sake.

Having completed that, remember that although you chose Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ first chose you.

__________________________________________________________________

To visit the Main Site of the Internet Church of Christ founded by Dr. Bob Benchoff, click here.

To visit the second page of sermons of the Internet Church of Christ founded by Dr. Bob Benchoff, click here.