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<\/a> <\/p>\nThere would seem to be at least some<\/em> truth in what Gaius<\/a> proclaimed. If we cannot come face to face with our faults, and accept who we are, then we can hardly expect to accept the faults we find in others. But there is a difference between regarding ourselves as perfect<\/em> and accepting ourselves \u2013 and others<\/em>. The challenge is to love even as we strive to improve \u2013 whether ourselves or the world we live in.<\/p>\n Yet there is in many forms of religion an inherent negativity about various aspects of human life, and rather than live with the guilt, we focus on the sins of others and create convenient blind spots with respect to our own. Or we focus on those sins that others do as the real<\/em> sins.<\/p>\n The danger if we cannot embrace our own humanity is that we will not be able to embrace that of Jesus either. Perhaps we will embrace an imagined doctrinal humanity, a Jesus who sweats and bleeds in key stories that we\u2019ve become accustomed to, but normally strides an inch above the ground, never needing a break, or a moment\u2019s privacy for a bowel movement. And then we proceed to hide our own worst sins from ourselves. Condemning others for that which we have not committed ourselves \u2013 murder, or adultery, or whatever else \u2013 we become blind to our own arrogance and pride.<\/p>\n Perhaps there is something to the Gospel of Gaius Baltar<\/a>. Then again, perhaps it is a Cylon<\/a> deception.<\/p>\n I presume that conservative Christians will be the first to dismiss the \u201cGospel of Gaius\u201d as either New Age claptrap (pantheism, after all, leads naturally to the affirmation of the perfection of all just as it is) or a feel-good pseudogospel. But the irony is that, if you truly believe Gaius is wrong, then that should lead to a self-critical introspective look at the ways in which you may have been accepting your own perfection uncritically.<\/p>\n Here are some of the ways that, in fact, brands of conservative Christianity have been proclaiming a form of the \u201cGospel of Gaius\u201d:<\/p>\n