According to Jesus Christ, no. (Matt. 7:15-21):
“Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits. Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter."
First, I deliberately and consciously reject the assertion that this was said or spoken by god incarnated in a human body. If I take this paragraph at face value and believe what is asserted by a direct quotation
it is right there that I have stepped into a trap. Who, here, has set this trap? Within this conversation, Immanuel, it is you. You are a trap. You are like a goo that once you step into it you become mired. Extracting oneself from you then becomes the principle object.
What a trip!
So at the outset I have to see clearly and to speak clearly and say: I have been presented with a dialogue from a concocted discourse. The Divine Figure has been made to speak and within the structure of the narrative, because it is god and divinity speaking, it is set up in advance that I cannot argue against that figure. Once this is seen, and once it is stated, then it becomes possible to examine what, in fact, is being talked about.
However,
if I take this paragraph at face value I must I think turn the sense of it very acutely against you Mr Immanuel. If you are the 'fruit' of your association with Jesus you as a fruit are rotten indeed. What is it then that pollutes a man and renders him thoroughly dishonest and thoroughly untrustworthy? This is the core question that I realize that I need to face. Eventually I will have to answer it but right now I do not have that answer. Are you consequential to the larger question of human self-deception? Can I accurately and fairly draw a parallel between your *rottenness* to that of the rottenness and corruption that is so evident, and increasing it seems hourly and daily, that shows itself all around us? It seems possible but I admit it is fraught and dangerous.
This is why I say that we need to contextualize this abstract conversation about the metaphysical validity of Christianity, more specifically Evangelical Christianity (which is its own animal and a distinct manifestation) by reference to things going on around us. There is no better example then than that of President Donald Trump, his association with Pence, and through him with the larger Protestant-Evangelical mass. There is no more consequential contemporary situation playing out today than that of a sort of take-over of American foreign policy by power-hungry but piously dressed 'wolves' who set in motion a powerful and destructive military in those 'endless war' projects we are all aware of. Don't we have to bring this out into the open? Don't we
have to try to make the effort to contextualize contemporary Evangelical Christian Zionism and examine it through moral lenses?
Though you are a stunning and even a vile hypocrite you did nevertheless say:
"That's for you to decide. As Jesus said, 'By their fruits you will know them'."
At the very least you propose that it is we ourselves who have the obligation to examine and decide things through use of discriminating intelligence. But again I reject that in the quote it is *god* speaking. It is men or a man who has crafted a gospel story and, as I say, we are far better off seeing this as the work and design of a 'priest-class'. The fact is we do not need the admonition of a Divine Authority to perform the discriminatory operation that is suggested in the paragraph from Matthew. However, I have got the sense from you that in your way of seeing things that in order to *see correctly* and to make *proper choices* in life that one must have been converted (in the sense that you use this term) and effectively *be a Christian* in order to see clearly and act correctly. Within this construct, I will say, if indeed you and Evangelicals do believe such a thing, we can discern real wolfism of a sort that needs to be exposed as such.
If you are an example of Christian discernment then by god's grace I pray for the power to get as far away from what you represent as is possible. You are a danger. But what is it then that has made you into this?! What is the core thing, or the core error, or the core defect? That is a far harder question to answer. Because it goes right to the heart of general human hypocrisy. All that I can do in respect to that topic is to make reference, as I have recently, to Machiavelli and the Machiavellian philosophy and strategy. Why is such necessary? Why must we 'cloak' our wolf-tendencies, which are likely the most dominant feature of what we really are, with those pleasant and pious coverings? But isn't the answer right there? We choose the camouflage of piety because it gives us so much more advantage in the field of our manipulations and deceits. Is it possible just to be honest? What sort of man emerges who is then capable of honesty and indeed is honest?
So now, if I say (in relation to what I just outlined) that we can employ the metaphor of 'wolfs in sheep's clothing' as meaning people who present themselves in one way -- piously, reverently and decently -- but whose false-front and costume conceals 'real intentions' which are very different, I may then have a platform upon which I can
begin to examine what is going on in the world out there and, perhaps, make some sense of it.
But there is more. To refer to the phrase the "will of My Father who is in heaven" needs to be examined and thought-through. But again if I take it at face value I also step, right at the outset, into a trap. Father in Heaven? But we have been through a good deal of this over the last few weeks have we not? We know that the idea of a 'father in heaven' is an idea put into the mouth of a god-image and then sent up *to be believed* and
obeyed. And we know, if we know anything at all, that those who wield these god-ideas often and perhaps predominantly use them to manipulate people and also masses of people. And we know too that in this contemporary situation -- the state of the world today -- that mass-manipulation is the paramount underpinning to all that goes on and that powerful interests are vying for control over what all of us think and believe in order to pull us into their power-grasping schemes (what wolves
do essentially).
So the idea that you or anyone can get inside god's costume and intone to me what is and what is not 'the will of my Father in Heaven' has to be dismantled right at the beginning. Surely it is the atheists who have the most direct strategy. They deny that there is any 'father' at all. They say "everything that you ascribe to this father is only your own creation and your own projection". With that they effectively have done with the matter.
But from a metaphysical or transcendentalist perspective one has to examine the questions from the very foundations. And what goals and objectives does a metaphysician or a transcendentalist have? That is to say (and I did ask this before) what is the purpose of my involvement in any sort of religious ideology or philosophical-religious path? One has to define one's purpose. What is one attempting? What is the object that one seeks?
Obviously this leads back around to all the core questions: Where am I? What is *all this*? What is this world?
