Hello! You’ve started reading the first of a four-part set of posts about our fallen nature, sin, reconciliation and its meaning. After reading this series of posts, it is my intent that you understand the basics behind your fallen nature and what sin means to you, others, and to G-d.

We begin with our fallen nature. G-d creates us to be inherently good beings. All human beings will intend to do the “right thing” as often as we can. The problem is, we are also predisposition to sin. This means we are going to “miss the mark” of doing the “right thing” from time to time. That is all sin really means: to screw up.

This predisposition was part of G-d’s plan for humankind. He knew long before He even created us that we were going to miss the mark and get things wrong. However, for our sake, He makes it part of our history when our first parents chose sin as an act of free will. When the original sin was committed, it opened the door to all other possible sins. While G-d made it possible for us to be forgiven of our original sin, there were consequences. They are:

• We must have a weakened will. After original sin, we no longer have the perfect ability to always say “no” to evil temptations and to say “yes” to all inclinations of G-d. Our will was weakened, we can now fall prey to future mistakes.
• We must experience life with a darkened intellect. This means that we are no longer going to know perfectly the difference between right and wrong. G-d’s messages to us become garbled, we can not have knowledge of every action we take as being right or wrong and we’ll sin again because of it.
• We must suffer. Suffering is as much a consequence of original sin as it is of our own personal sins. Its not so much a punishment as it is a way for us to understand G-d through reconciliation. Suffering puts us in our rightful place beneath Him.
• We must die. Humans must have an end to their earthly lives. There is no escaping death, and when we do die we can only take with us three things: our faith in G-d that He does exist and Christ is our salvation, our hope that He will save us instead of judging us for an eternity in Hell, and our love for G-d and all of his creations. The love is the most powerful of them all.

Sin is evident in our daily lives. It begins right as we are born. Anyone who spends five minutes with a new baby knows how selfish they are and how they will compete with other children for food and attention. Children will even go as far as making it impossible for other children to survive just so they can live and continue to prosper. Babies do not need to be taught this – its part of our makeup to commit sin.

The Dichotomy of Sin

To understand sin, it comes in six stages, as illustrated to the left of this text.

Temptation: We are tempted by another or our own fallen nature to commit a sin. We feel the need to do wrong. In itself, temptation is not sinning.

Sin: We consider a temptation and take joy in it, and accept it. By committing an action (or not performing an action) we sin by setting our will against G-d’s.

Reconciliation: After committing a sin, we realize it and find ourselves feeling sorry for committing it. We reconcile ourselves by saying we won’t commit it again and we’ll take steps so it won’t happen any longer.

Forgiveness: With a sorrowful heart, and a plan to change our lives we now ask for forgiveness. G-d always forgives us for our sins, as we ask Christ to die for our sin on the cross.

Atonement: We make reparations for our sin. As a gesture, we do something that makes us closer to G-d by some act of personal correction or in helping someone else in some way. We repair the fabric of our community that we damaged.

Consequence: Forgiveness is meant to be permanent. We forgive, and we forget. However, since we still are fallen creatures, humans can not perfectly forgive, forget, and atone. There are going to be after-effects.

Stay tuned throughout the next three posts, as a further explanation of these stages of sin will be discussed.

The Bible as great and wondrous of a gift from G-d as it is, its not a complete set of Truths. Simple logic says so: nowhere in the Bible does it say that the Bible is True — so how do we know it is True? Answer: something outside of the Bible has to tell us that the Bible is true. The Bible isn’t complete in of itself. Thus, Sola Scriptura isn’t possible.

Now, enter the Church. The Church has some hard-to-refute credentials when it comes to declaring what is Truth outside the Bible. With more than 33,000 versions of protestantism and evangelical faith-based initiatives, the Church has to! Here are two important ones to consider, both from the Bible.

And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it (Mt 16:18)

Simply put, Peter built Christ’s Church on Earth. Christ, who is G-d, could not be more specific. Wherever Peter went and formed this Church, that is where Christ’s teachings would be founded. Peter went to Rome and founded the Church.

I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven (Mt 16:19)

This would be an unbelievable statement if it weren’t in the Bible. G-d’s love for us humans is so great that He’s willing to allow us to affect His divine plan. This underlines the Church’s moral authority, it can make statements about the Bible and interpretations of the Bible that (when held consistent) are also True.

For instance, it was the Church that first taught us that the Bible is infallible and one hundred percent True. The Church first formulated the books of the Bible, and without the Church there would really not be the collection of books we call the Bible today.

Some important questions to ask.

When should we question the Church’s teachings?
The answer to this is: when learning. As we learn about Truths, its important to understand them with the human power of reason. While its great to take something on a leap-of-faith every once and a while, you should be skeptical about the things you believe. Thus, as you learn about Truths, its important to ask ‘Why?’. New Truths don’t come out of a fountain somewhere, they are revealed by studying other teachings and meditating on them in prayer. New Truths take root through word of mouth and other forms of communication. The Church can then carefully analyze them and eventually (it can take hundreds of years!), adopt them.

Is the Church some sort of answer machine?
No. It simply contains a large collection of G-d’s messages (all Truths) given to mankind. While it doesn’t have every answer to every problem, it can give you a good sense of consistency so you can have moral clarity on the issues you face in life. When you ask whether something is right or wrong, consider Church teaching first. While you may not get a direct answer, you’ll get a pretty good sense as to what G-d’s position might be.

Could the Church be led astray?
Its not possible, and that’s what Mt. 16:19 is really meaning. Whatever G-d reveals and the church binds itself to becomes Truth. The Holy Spirit guides the Church so that whatever it embraces it is not only the will of G-d, but the direction Christ wants us to go.

The Church did some really immoral things in the past, how could that be true?
This is the subject of a whole field of theology called apologetics. The most important thing to remember here is that the Church’s message has been consistent since Peter was at its helm. This is not the same as the person or people who occupied positions of power in the Church over time. These people, subject to temptation and sin just like you and I, fell prey to many bad ideas and selfish thoughts. Consequently, their actions — though immoral, aren’t what the Church stands for. Its a fact of reality that everyone sins, priests and popes alike are no different.

The Church says a lot of strange things, especially about the Saints and Mary, the “Mother of God”. How can this be True?
Creation didn’t end when Christ left this world and ascended into Heaven. G-d’ kept revealing new facts about the world that the Church carefully considered and “picked up” as time went on. This was a realization in the early times of the Church when the apostles and leaders realized that by approximately 60-70AD that the world wasn’t going to end immediately. They formulated a process in which revealed truths would be reviewed for consistency with all other known Truths. If the truth didn’t contradict anything, it became Truth. This is where many of the strange beliefs come from in the Church. In particular popular attacks — people like to ask why the Church believes certain ways about Mary. These strange teachings took years and years of influential people and scholars to formulate. Suffice to say, they’re very well thought out!

More on these subjects in posts to come.

I think most people wish they had an instruction manual to life sometimes. They want to ask the question, “really — was I right or wrong here” or, “I wish I knew if that was the right thing to do.” Unfortunately no one complete guide exists, it comes in bits and pieces. The important thing is that there is a collection of these “Truths”, things that are always right or always wrong.

My friends, I can teach you the most important thing you need to know about Truths — they are always consistent. What I mean is that in every situation, a Truth always gives you an answer. I recently debated two separate issues: embryonic stem-cell research and shooting the cat burglar. They are different, but they both are based on a simple Truth: murder is always wrong. With a clear definition of murder (read the articles) one has perfect moral clarity on both of these questions.

Its great to live your life in a consistent, steady course. I know many of you will disagree, but true happiness doesn’t come from being a ball of contradictions. No, a purposeful and meaningful life is one that is neat, orderly, and consistent. Once you know Truths you will see that the clutter of your life can be easily untangled. Consistency is everything.

Consistency is also important when it comes to discovering Truths. They all come from one source, G-d and they are in my opinion our greatest proof of His existence. If you discover some saying or something you read and ask yourself, “is that really a Truth?” — remember consistency. No Truth can contradict another Truth.

I will always respect your position as long as you are consistent in your beliefs. But make no mistake, if you can’t tell me consistently who and what you are, then what are you?

I will close this post by saying that the Church has the greatest collection of Truths. Guided by G-d, the Church can not go wrong. It will not embrace things to itself that are not clearly right or wrong. This is why many things (e.g., existence of life on other planets, Evolution, etc.) the Church has no position because there isn’t any truth revealed yet. So while we lack a “instruction manual” to life, the Church is your best collection to find one.

A man in Somewhere, USA saw that his neighbor’s house was being robbed and he called 911. While the police were en-route, he decided to settle the matter in his own hands. He took his shotgun and went outside. As the two robbers were leaving the house with his neighbor’s poseessions, he shot them both dead.

Dr. Mazz wanted to debate the morality of this, and what penalty there should be if any.

My friends, let us not make any mistake, what this man did was commit two separate murders. To answer Dr. Mazz, the cops should have arrested this guy and charged him with two separate accounts of murder, potentially with murder one (intentfully planned). This guy shouldn’t be on our streets deciding if small crimes are worthy of his smoking shotgun.

I’m being very consistent when I tell you that killing another person is only morally correct when you do as a last-resort action in defense of another life (including self-preservation). I said this when I spoke out against certain types of embryonic stem cell research and its the same morality as it is now. People’s lives are worth more than stuff.

It would be one thing if he confronted the burglars ready to defend his life if they came at him. That would be either brave or stupid (depending on your point of view), and although really unnecessary he could confront them and ask them to stop. But this is not what happened, he purposefully went after two people who posed no threat to his self or anyone else and killed them.

What this man did was commit two pretty serious sins, and we should pray for him and for the souls of the thieves who really had no time to repent before they met the end of their world. But make no mistake — killing is wrong in all forms except the one I aforementioned.

And America would do nothing.

After America decimated the Iraqi army in a matter of days, we sent a clear message: Our military is the deadliest in the world. Iran got that message, and although it may not seem to be on the surface — they got smart about it. Iran knows what attacking Israel means, it means America will rally the world’s support behind itself and attack Iran. Iran can not hope to win that battle. So what could they do?

Set the stage. Iran needs one thing to complete its goal — an alliance with Russia. Why? America can not attack Russia if its troops are attacking Israel along with Iran. Like the cold war there would be a stand off. If we confront them, they’ll stop selling us oil and bankrupt our economy. More of a threat is Russia’s 10,000 ICBM missiles.

It’s not inconceivable that Iran and Russia as friends could make a very clear statement: stand back America and you will not be harmed. Leave Israel alone.

This would make America very unwilling to enter such a conflict.

So much are we like the child in this story and the father is like our G-d. And so much like this story is how we can tackle a problem such as casual media theft in our culture. Americans are obsessed with media, it is our candy and our ice cream. We gobble it up and we’re seemingly always hungry for more. We live on it like a diet plan and when we can’t afford it any more we so easily resort to stealing it. G-d’s plan for us is to limit how much money that most of us have so that we don’t over indulge ourselves. If you don’t believe this, consider the fact that over 90% of the people in this world are by US standards poor. G-d has this in his plans — protect us from indulging by limiting what it is we can afford.

A rebellious child runs away from his father and goes off and takes the cotton candy that the father did not get for him. The child eats cotton candy, hot dogs, popcorn, and soda and then later when he returns to his father he is sick and malnourished.

In summary, this is really what casual media theft is. Its simply saying ‘no’ to G-d, and then going off and having as much as we possibly can without paying for it. This has serious consequences. First, we overconsume media and escapism becomes a way of life. It encourages sloth. Secondly, we lose respect for people’s properties and over time desensitize ourselves to what really matters — what G-d wants for us.

If you don’t believe me then take it from someone who feels empty the more media I consume and less time I spend with other people and with Christ. Take it from the thousands of people who play massive multiplayer online role playing games like Star Wars Galaxies that have ruined friendships, families and marriages. Because its so much easier to not live your life than to live it and listen to your G-d because he knows what is best for you far more than you ever could.

A loving father is one that forgives. The loving father might chide the child and punish him for his acts but a child that is sorry will regain his father’s love ten-fold.

In essense G-d wants us to love Him and follow Him. But He knows we fail and if you repent, He’s going to love you even more because He knows you’re going to make an attempt to follow Him even more.

Following Christ and following Him can sometimes be hard, and life is. Look at all the suffering in the world and anyone can attest to it, pain is part of life as is disappointment. But let’s be clear, G-d’s plan for each of us is better for us than anything we can think of. So we simply must place our trust in Him and hope and love with all faith that in the end when the world ends, this will be rewarded.

G-d blesses those who see children as blessings, applaud others who are blessed with a new baby, view children as G-d’s love in the flesh, and see the sacrifices needed to raise children as being more important than the self. For as Christ teaches us, the greatest love is that of a sacrificial love — to lay down one’s life for the sake of one other.

An angel is a supernatural being that like us, was created by G-d. However, its hard to make many more comparisons as they are drastically different than we are in nature. Whereas humans were created in the likeness (the look) of G-d, angels have different forms. They also don’t follow the same set of “rules” we have to completely obey when it comes to things like gravity, distance, and solid matter. Angels are stronger than humans, and smarter. They were intentionally made to be superior to us in ability.

Angels have an interesting history that we as humans only know a little about. They were created before we were and shortly thereafter were told by G-d that G-d was going to make us humans a half-ape half-divine creature just like they were. The angels rejoiced because G-d’s goodness allowed the creation of another “family” of His divinity. However, G-d threw a curve-ball to the angels when he revealed what his plan was to them.

Angels must serve man.

Something about G-d is His propensity to love and give more to those who have less. I think G-d wants us all, angel and man, to know that whoever is humbler becomes more powerful. Its almost as if G-d is rooting for the underdog constantly and whatever you and I do to make ourselves the underdog, the more we’ll be blessed in the end. But this didn’t occur to many of the angels who thought that because of their superiority they should come between G-d and man, instead of man being between them and G-d.

Exactly how much G-d loves us is a subject of many future blog posts, but the important thing is that the angels rebelled. Approximately a third of them, as it is believed by tradition rebelled against G-d. They refused to serve a smelly stupid human and humbly put them between themselves and G-d. So, they became the fallen angels and Satan was their leader.

Today, just as in the old days, angels roam about the earth to and fro doing all kinds of things. The fallen angels, or ‘evil ones’ as Christ would call them, do everything they can in their power to make us not go to heaven after we die. They will badly influence us, lie to us, tempt us to sin and make us look ugly in front of G-d so that he would reject us. They are destroyers of souls, and they are murderers. Its hard to say how many of these there are, but I would estimate that there are no less than 3 billion evil angels.

The good angels are like our older brothers and they embody some of the qualities of a good mother. They watch out for us, they defend us by chasing away the evil ones and they tempt us to do good works for G-d and they pray for us. Some are called to have a vocation to guard us. Each person has one guardian angel whose job it is to watch us 24/7/365. More on those later. There are no less than 6 billion of these types of angels

Ilts remarkable to think that angels are so proliferate. There’s ways to tell if there is an angel influencing you or if something is purely your own nature (self) acting. I will be glad to share with you more about my own ways of discovering when it is that an angel is “talking” to you. But until next time, just consider angels as a reality — because they do exist and they do interact with us human beings.

I say to you that the easiest way to understand Christ at first is to treat him as the ultimate role model of your life. Idolize him, read about him, follow his ways and emulate him. You can even copy his sayings, he won’t mind. My personal favorite is, “Away with you Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’” (Mt. 4:10). Try using that the next time you feel tempted to do something wrong, and you won’t.

G-d the Father who sent Christ to us did so that we can understand G-d and what living a perfect (ideal) life would be like. Christ reconciles us to G-d, he is the bridge we must cross to understand G-d and His ways. If we compare an action of ours to what Christ did, we can see where we might be wrong and need to change our ways to become more compatible with G-d. Reconciliation is done through forgiveness, a simple recognition that an action taken was not the right one and a promise to try to change using Christ to be the role model for you. That is how we grow closer to G-d through Christ, we use Christ as our role model.

G-d knows that we can’t do this perfectly. Even the holiest person must sin. Peter, the greatest of Christ’s apostles sinned by denying him at the end of Christ’s life. We can’t get it perfectly right, and believe me when I say G-d knows this! He still loves you anyways, even when you mess up. Its also worth saying that its not a contest as to see who is most like Christ. Some will be given more aptitude to receive Christ’s teachings and more is thus expected of them, others will be given less and thus less is expected of them. G-d will recognize even the smallest of your efforts and bless you immensely for trying as hard as you can to emulate Him by emulating Christ as your ultimate Role Model.

Lets begin with some basic information. Respect for human life is a center point of living a life of Christ. Life is more precious than any thing that we have ever been given. Valuing that life, from its beginning to its natural end is important to do because it demonstrates to G-d that you and I love life as much as He does. It is from this viewpoint of life that the question of ‘Is Stem Cell Research right or wrong?’ can be addressed.

Human life is most precious of all life for humans carry within them a soul, a tiny piece of the infinite G-d, perfect and divine in every way that G-d is. So much does G-d love you that he was willing to come to this world in human form and endure suffering and death just for you! This is so that you could come to know him and obtain one day the gift of living by his side for all eternity. But, I digress. Because you carry such a gift of a godlike presence within you (note the lower-case g), your life has value beyond measure. So do the lives of everyone else.

We as people are called to use our lives to help the lives of others. Unless it is in the act of defending another’s life, we should look to help others without irreparably harming our own precious life. Stem cell research can be right in many ways, following this consistent guideline.

First, adult stem cell research which has remarkable promise is certainly a right thing to do. This is when a human (no matter the age) uses cells that have the ability to reproduce into other forms without harming the human self. Since the body can reproduce the missing stem cells, they are replenished soon after extraction. Volunteering for this is like giving blood, a noble and wonderful thing to do for others.

Now on to the tricky part of embryonic stem cell research. When harvested from unused organs that don’t impact the life of a embryo or newly born human, this type of stem cell is perfectly fine and moral. Its important to pay attention to the consistency of my message – this is simply life using itself to help others without causing irrepable harm. Since this is the case for a baby, the child no longer needs its embryonic cells and thus it causes the child no harm to give them up for others.

The only time embryonic stem cell harvesting is wrong is when my message of life is no longer followed. This would be when harvesting the cells comes from the destruction or irreparable harming of one human to benefit another. To kill or permanently damage an embryo or a child to harvest their stem cells is thus wrong.

The question becomes more sticky because some will argue that an embryo isn’t a human life yet and thus to grow embryos to kill them is perfectly right. Of course, this gets into the question of ‘when does life begin?’ and quite simply, no one really knows exactly when this happens. G-d has eluded to it in scripture as occuring before the baby is born as in one (of many) examples, “When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child lept in her womb” (Luke 1:41) which indicates that the child was happy to hear Mary’s arrival, just as his mother Elizabeth was. The child had the ability to sense emotion and thus must indeed be alive. I will plan to write more on this question as time goes on.

The Church thus maintains in order to “play it safe”, life begins at conception and although it could be debated still, there’s really no scientific way to observe it by measurement. So I maintain that from the moment of conception, the preciousness of life must be maintained. Thus, harvesting cells in an destructive way from an embryo (i.e., post-conception, pre-birth) of a human beign for any reason is morally wrong.