This stems from the discussions around the border crisis, specifically, the kids that are coming over. How do you separate your American stances on things and your stances on what Jesus commanded?  How do you reconcile the two greatest commandments (Love the Lord your God with everything you have, and Love your neighbor as yourself) with your stances on immigration and the like? 

Through the discussions here and discussions I have had with other Christians that I know, I find it interesting some of the views people have. And I myself found my views not making sense in light of these two commandments.

Just curious where you are coming from.

Why do so few American Muslims support jihad?

Muhammad was quite clear that jihad, and not just the watered down "personal struggle"� many claim is jihad, is mandatory in Islam. Yet their actions and polls show American Muslims don't go for this jihad stuff. It doesn't appear that this is because they don't take their religion seriously. 2/3 of American Muslims report that religion is very important in their lives and half attend a mosque at least weekly. Anybody who gives up the Big 3 B's (Beer, Bacon and Bikinis) for their religion is obviously trying hard to follow that religion.

Yet they turn a blind eye to a requirement that is explicitly mandatory for entrance to heaven (for adult males under current circumstances). And it doesn't stop there. There is a whole lot in the Koran and Hadith that American Muslims don't follow or support. Why?

To non-Muslims the answer is obvious. Their religion was made up by a seventh century Middle Eastern warlord. It reflects the values and understandings consistent with a primitive time and place combined with the interests of a warlord. While many parts are reasonably compatible with living a twenty first century developed world life, others are not. It's a good thing for all of us that so few Muslims actually follow all of their religion. Not many people, Muslim or otherwise, are fanatics. They want to take care of their families and lead good lives. American Muslims (and really most around the world) can't do that and follow much of what their religion says. So they don't.

But how do they reconcile this? How can they claim to believe in and adhere to a religion and yet ignore so much of it in order to lead normal lives? You can try to glean this answer from Muslims until pigs fly and never find out. Without even realizing they're doing it, all you'll get are the five D's of Dodgeball. And that is telling of the real answer.

The real answer is that cognitive dissonance is far more ubiquitous and powerful than we used to believe. We all do it, and do it far more than we realize. We're surprisingly good at it. So good we don't realize we're doing it. The naïve understanding of the brain we believed was true for centuries had us developing beliefs through conscious reasoning. We now know that for the most part we do this unconsciously and use conscious logic to explain those conclusions, not arrive at them. We are storytelling and it is only coincidental if those stories are the real reason why we believe something. This is why we regularly hold contradictory beliefs. Our conscious brain tells us a logical story for why we believe the things we do and it feels like explains how we got there. If it was, our various beliefs should fit together quite nicely as they would all have been arrived at through the same logical processing our consciousness tells us we used.

But it is not true. We're justifying disparate beliefs we arrived at through unconscious processes hidden from us. Which is why we balance so many contradictions.

That doesn't mean we are pure slaves to this. People can and do change their minds when they realize these contradictions. Sometimes. But they have to be willing to, and that's where the unconscious comes back into play. Again, our brains are so good at storytelling to justify conclusions we prefer that truth can't win out unless we have a preference for the truth greater than the preference for the belief. Otherwise, we'll just use our smart minds to explain away the contradictions. And again, we won't know we're doing it.

And I don't see that preference as being absolute for any of us. All of us have beliefs that are simply too precious to us to accept dismissing those beliefs as allowable outcomes. We'll tell ourselves we are critically evaluating, but will really be working hard to do the opposite. That doesn't mean we all do it equally. As readily apparent in the Lounge, some do it more than others. But we all have sacred cows to varying degrees. (Just consider how willing you would really be to critically evaluate the love you and your spouse share.) Religion is a pretty big sacred cow, especially when you consider how disruptive it would be to give it up.

That is the real answer to how American Muslims reconcile their religious beliefs. Their stated answers are just rhetorical details.

So now to your question and the responses you received.

Yes, your question was clear despite objections (one of the first dodges in order to maintain cognitive dissonance). And yes, it is ludicrous to see the Jesus depicted in the Bible as advocating anything other than welcoming all in need with open arms "“ hence borders. While I enjoyed reading below about Libertarian Jesus and CFO Jesus, the one in the Bible surely would dismiss Mississippi Vol's very reasonable secular argument about the consequences of open borders. "We can't afford to help everyone"� would be met by:

1. Where is your faith that God will provide?

2. Didn't you read what I said about the poor? Did you think that was only meant to be token behavior?

3. Why are you worried about losing your standard of living? I told you the earthly world is going to end soon anyway and what matters is an eternity in Heaven. Your concerns are trivial by comparison.

The hard truth is that the real world has taught Christians that they can't really believe much of what Jesus said. The only Christians with faith as large as a mustard seed are crazy people. And crazy people lead unpleasant lives. But it is very important to Christians that they believe that they believe what Jesus said despite its contradictions with living a reasonable life in modern America. Closed (ish) borders and following Christ are compatible because they need to be.

Which is why the answers you receive aren't the real answers and why no Christian still reading this is going to agree with me.

But of course, I too could be wrong.