Why my God is only true God.

in #religion8 years ago

It seems like every day, somebody posts a question like this one I saw just yesterday:

Why is your God the only true God?

The thesis statement in the above post reads, "I find it so very unreasonable to first of all believe, than to believe that my God is the only true God".

My contrasting answer is simply, "Because He says He is."

This points out a fundamental difference in the way people think. If there are 1000 man-made gods, it might be legitimate to demand that they all be treated "fairly" and that we not discriminate against any of them. After all people are free to choose from Windows, MacOS and Linux, so why can't we have different brands of God?

Well, if there really is a true pre-existing Creator, and He decides to reveal things about Himself, it wouldn't be at all surprising that He would only give one True Description, would it? Our challenge then becomes finding that revealed description in the haystack of all the other imaginative man-made descriptions.

This reminds me of the classic story of the Blind Men and the Elephant.

Yes. Man-made concepts of God are a lot like that. They are all different because we are all blind. The only way any of us blind men are going to know the true God is if He reveals Himself to us. Even then, we are only going to have an imperfect picture in our feeble minds.

My intention of this post is not to tell you the description I believe. I merely want to suggest how to find yours.

You start by getting rid of the idea that there can be many correct descriptions.

There can't be any correct description unless God provides it,
and if He does, there will be only one.

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If God revealed himself in the manner you contemplate, how would/could we know that it was indeed God revealing himself and that what he told us was true? How might we know, for instance, that "God" wasn't some incredibly powerful alien intelligence, or perhaps a demon, impersonating God and trying to mislead us?

In at least two of the most well-known religions that's exactly what appears to have happened. The Bible tells us that Satan can disguise himself as an angel of light.

And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve. 2 Corinthians 11:14-15

TERRI GIBBS
"Somebody's Knockin'"

Somebody's knockin'
Should I let him in
Lord it's the devil
Would you look at him
I've heard about him
But I never dreamed
He'd have blue eyes and blue jeans...

How can you say with any confidence that this phenomenon "appears" to have have need with "two of the most well-known religions" and not with others, including your's? By what means are you able to differentiate/know with confidence the "truth" of your religion and the falsity of their's?

I don't want to start a food fight here so I won't say anything specific about the other religions, or mention them by name.

One big difference is whether they were created on the testimony of a single individual, whether that individual got any temporal power, wealth, and glory, whether he granted himself special privileges, and whether there is evidence of him contradicting himself or getting caught telling false tales. There's also the nature, quality, and quantity of any signs the individual performed and who witnessed them. Finally there is the availability of confirmed prophesy to validate the individual.

Obviously, there are degrees of credibility for every one of these things, so it comes down to weighing the evidence.

The point of this post, was simply to provide a key insight on the things a seeker should be looking for. You eliminate the religions that are admittedly founded by merely wise men. Among the rest, you apply the tests I mentioned here and see if one stands out as far more credible than the others. Then you ask yourself whether that leading contender has crossed your personal threshold of belief.

If you set that threshold at 100% proof, you are requiring the true Deity to come prove to you personally that He is who He says He is. To me, that seems to be an unreasonable expectation and I assume such people simply don't want to find the answer.

No, I don't concede that all faith is blind.

Faith is what you add to make up the difference
between the facts you have and 100% proof.

I say all beliefs require a certain amount of faith because there is little that can be proven 100%. Even evolution requires faith in the technical details from scientists that claim to "know".

My original post had a very narrow focus: "The characteristics of a True Religion are that they have been revealed and if that ever happened, there would probably only be a single consistent set of facts that would be revealed."

From that observation, we can draw other conclusions, such as the belief that "all religions are interchangable and people can safely pick whichever brand they like" is manifestly false.

What an utterly insane, arbitrary way for God to sort the wheat from the chaff! Why in God's own name would he proceed as you suggest? And who would want to follow such a God anyway?

Because, God wants people who want to find Him. If there is no leap of faith for people to take because they want to find Him, then a lot of rebels will wind up believing while continuing to reject His authority. That last leap of faith separates those who will become members of his family from the demons - "who also believe, and tremble"

Regardless, your attempt to back away from your prior claim that faith is blind is just digging a deeper hole. You were, in fact, very clear in what you meant. Read your quote above again. According to your own theory, the geniuses of faith that you seemingly so admire didn't come to Christianity by evidence or reason but rather by overcoming their "rational skepticism". Again, why would God demand that only those who can overcome rational skepticism will be saved? Wouldn't it make sense for him to demand, if anything, that they overcome only irrational skepticism? But, even this requirement makes salvation "earned" rather than freely given.

I have backed away from nothing. I have doubled down on it. It is entirely possible to arrive at belief in two stages - first by rational skepticism and then by a leap of faith. Some, like children, only need the leap of faith. Those of us gifted with greater analytical skills are burdened with the difficulty of not knowing when to let go and take the final leap. Those who stubbornly, desperately, hold onto their skepticism to the point of demanding 100% proof with zero faith will never know anything - and that is what I am saying needs to be overcome.

And in any event, your geniuses of faith didn't know what we know today. They didn't know about genes. The didn't know, for instance, that order can arise from disorder (or less order) via "natural selection." They didn't know about plate techtonics or the dinosaurs. And they knew almost nothing about other religions (except maybe Judaism and Islam). In short, while geniuses of their age, they knew less about the world than today's average sixth grader, and they came to their conclusions from that dark place of ignorance. In short, they had an excuse. You don't.

They were the fathers of the Age of Enlightenment, the inventors of the scientific method, philosophers of the highest esteem, and an old rocket scientist. We have far more archeological evidence than they had that the Bible is correct. We have the Dead Sea Scrolls. And we have DNA - the Prime example of design if there ever was one. Natural selection is not in dispute. Natural creation of designs to select from is in dispute.

Anyway, my reason for mentioning them is not to imply they knew everything. It was only to point out that they were (a) brilliant and (b) rational. Two of the characteristics that unbelievers often try to say are missing from believers. That was my only reason for bringing them up.

My "complete non-discriminator" comment was stated to mean that you cannot look at an individual's intelligence and tendency to indulge in rational thought to predict whether they will be a believer or not.

I am specifically not saying that, "absent personal direct revelation from God himself, there's simply no amount of evidence that would cause rational persons to believe" On the contrary:

As far as I know, none of the people pictured in that post ever had any direct revelation from God themselves. But they all spent a LOT of time studying the writings of others who did claim to have had such revelation.

Based on their rational analysis of the credibility of those who had such revelations, they all became believers and devoted much of their lives to further study of those revelations as being the best use of their mental gifts.

Hmmm. I'm totally confused. The only answer you could have given to the question in my comment above that's rationally consistent with your original post above would be to have answered "blind faith." You've conceded that all faith is blind. Presumably this includes faith as to which religion is the right religion. Yet instead of appealing to blind faith as you did in your original post, you now appeal to "evidence" and reason.

So, your faith isn't blind after all? And it is actually possible, via reason/evidence/logic, to differentiate the authentic faith from imposters?

My original post had a very narrow focus: "The characteristics of a True Religion are that they have been revealed and if that ever happened, there would probably only be a single consistent set of facts that would be revealed."

Fair enough, perhaps your original post did. But your subsequent comment ("thought experiment", as you called it) went much further. Specifically, as part of showing how any "true" religion must be "revealed", you demonstrated (pretty conclusively, I might add) that "[r]ational thought and skepticism are complete non-discriminators in who will be a believer." Your reasoning on this was compelling--absent personal direct revelation from God himself, there's simply no amount of evidence that would cause rational persons to believe, on your word alone or on some small group's word alone, that things they know from experience to be impossible actually happened. In other words, pure "evangelism" is, by your own acknowledgement, insufficient to overcome rational skepticism. Consequently, "rational thought and skepticism are complete non-discriminators in who will become a believer."

"Complete" is a strong word. And it's your word. I'm holding you to it, because you were actually right. It's disingenuous to now back away from from the rightful conclusion of your thought experiment and instead fall back on "evidence" as the means of discerning the "true" religion from the false ones.

What rational argument would you make to your friends that would convince them? What do you do about the fact that God has no intention of dying on a cross over and over again so each skeptic on the planet can have her own personal proof? His plan is to give just enough evidence in His own judgement and then see who can overcome their brilliant, rationale skepticism to seize the prize. [emphasis in original]

What an utterly insane, arbitrary way for God to sort the wheat from the chaff! Why in God's own name would he proceed as you suggest? And who would want to follow such a God anyway?

Regardless, your attempt to back away from your prior claim that faith is blind is just digging a deeper hole. You were, in fact, very clear in what you meant. Read your quote above again. According to your own theory, the geniuses of faith that you seemingly so admire didn't come to Christiantiy by evidence or reason but rather by overcoming their "rational skepticism". Again, why would God demand that only those who can overcome rational skepticism will be saved? Wouldn't it make sense for him to demand, if anything, that they overcome only irrational skepticism? But, even this requirement makes salvation "earned" rather than freely given.

And in any event, your geniuses of faith didn't know what we know today. They didn't know about genes. The didn't know, for instance, that order can arise from disorder (or less order) via "natural selection." They didn't know about plate techtonics or the dinosaurs. And they knew almost nothing about other religions (except maybe Judaism and Islam). In short, while geniuses of their age, they knew less about the world than today's average sixth grader, and they came to their conclusions from that dark place of ignorance. In short, they had an excuse. You don't.

There can't be any correct description unless God provides it,
and if He does, there will be only one.

Let's wrestle with this piece of "logic" for a minute, starting with the first sentence.

Is the first sentence really true? Couldn't God have created the Universe and then stepped back and watched as humans try to "figure it out"? Might he not be impressed, or at least amused, that humans developed science as a means of gathering credible information about his universe? And that they developed logic and philosophy likewise? And might he not be somewhat entertained by the progress humans have made using these three disciplines over the last many thousand years? And might he not believe, or expect, that humans will indeed one figure day the Universe out even without his intervention? Or that he's just sitting back waiting to see if we can?

In short, it's possible that humans can determine the "correct description" of things without divine intervention. You only quibble with that because you suppose that science, philosophy and logic can only answer the "what" and not the "why", and you further presuppose that there is indeed a "why", and even further that God wants us to know it.

But, what if there's not a "why"? Or what if the why is...just for God's shits and kicks--much like we enjoy observing an ant hill for entertainment? Or, what if there's a why but God doesn't want us to know it since that might corrupt his "experiment"? After all, isn't it common to keep the subjects of experiments clueless as to its real purpose?

Now let's move on to the second sentence of your quote above. Is this sentence necessarily true? Perhaps God did at one time convey his message completely and perfectly to some loyal or worthy grunt. But...that grunt is not God, right? So that grunt won't be able to convey the message as perfectly or convincingly as God did, right? And even less so all the grunts that come after him (imagine a giant game of "telephone" lasting many thousands of years).

In that case, the message could be quite muddled by the time it got to us. Just like some languages originate from a single source but ultimately diverge to the extent that their respect speakers can no longer communicate, centuries of miscommunications, misunderstandings, legendary accretions, etc. could mean that there is no longer one "description" but a great multitude of them, and all of them wrong to a greater or lessor extent.

And, furthermore, if this is indeed the case, then the best way to piece together the original truth isn't to seize upon one of the present day descriptions and declare it to be the "one true one", because none of them are. If we know anything to a virtual certainty, it's that each and every one of the current descriptions has been muddled, or evolved, to at greater or lessor degree.

Just like with languages, it's simply inconceiveable that, absent divine intervention, one version would perfectly persist in its original state to the present while all others pervert or diverge from it. And, if God is gonna have to be constantly bothered to divinely intervene and correct the message, at least sometimes, every time some subsequent grunt miscommunicates it, is this really any easier on God than him just revealing his message correctly and perfectly to each person individually? I mean, if he really wanted his message to be reliably known and understood, wouldn't direct communication be his best bet? And surely such direct communication isn't beyond the capabilities of...God, right? He is GOD, after all.

Regardless, given that no existing version can be rationally expected to perfectly preserve the original description, then the best way to reconstruct the original is to, if anything, synthesize and harmonize all the various descriptions--to work out their commonalities and thus uncover their common "root". Just like we would, for example, with languages. Or genes. Or copies of the bible (via Textual Criticism). Or anything else that gets repetitively copied in an error prone way.

I know what you're thinking: But Jesus founded Christianity and we know that the books we have accurately preserve his teachings. We know that they have not been perverted.

But actually, as my book will show, we know the exact opposite, and we can prove it. I will do this in my book as it progresses.

But, even if that were not true and we did know that, in fact, the Bible perfectly preserves Jesus's teachings, it doesn't undermine my point at all. For who is to say that Jesus himself wasn't one of the later grunts who misunderstood and Miscommunicated the message. After all, we know that Jesus's teachings were a reworking, or a reinterpretation, of Judaism. And we know that Judaism shares much in common with the religions of ancient Egypt and Summeria. Perhaps God actually revealed his truth to Adam himself and everyone since, including Jesus, has simply misunderstood it and miscommunicated it leading to all the various religions that we have today?

Just like with languages, it's simply inconceivable that, absent divine intervention, one version would perfectly persist in its original state to the present while all others pervert or diverge from it.

Yet, the Dead Sea Scrolls were placed into a cave around 200 BC and when discovered 2200 years later in 1947 they said the same thing as the Bible on your grandmother's coffee table.

I guess we agree there must have been divine intervention. Precisely my point.

The Bible is inspired and protected by God. Even Islam claims this protection is true for the Quran. Yet, somehow Muhammad claims God wasn't smart enough to protect the Words he gave through Moses and the Prophets and Jesus and the Apostles.

I have secular archeological proof that God protected Moses and the Prophets for over 2200 years. (The Dead Sea Scrolls.) Given that, it is reasonable to assume he protected all True Scripture. But since the Quran disagrees with Moses and the Prophets and the New Testament does not... I'll leave the rest as an exercise for the student.

You are right. All of those are alternative possibilities.
But they don't have anyone like Jesus vouching for them.
You get to pick from the alternatives provided and the evidence supporting each of them.
Then you get to decide whether you want to take a leap of faith or not over whatever proof remains missing.
Obviously you won't leap across even one inch if you don't want what's on the other side.
That's the Whole Point.

I beg to defer with ur opinion. " Jesus" P.B.U.H=peace and blessings be upon him." Is free of any accusation" the blame is on the Jews, "who denied him fully knowing who he was and they were waiting for his, "Arrival, when he arrived they denied him just like they denied other messengers before him" the Jews and the Romans" distorted the bible. JEUSU, sayings can still be found in red ink, and no way would u find Jesus him self claiming to be God, or the son of God. In the bible, I dear all Christians to bring me one prof, where JEUSU him self claims to be God or the son of God.

Wow. You make a lot of claims for which you have no backing. Some of the Jews rejected Jesus, some became Christians. Neither the unbelieving Jews nor unbelieving Romans participated in the Bible or had any interest in it. The message of the Bible is obviously not the message of the unbelieving Jews or Romans. Christianity was persecuted by both for 300 years and that would hardly give them any influence on the Scriptures being preserved by Christians hiding in the catacombs. Your red ink argument is bogus. Red ink didn't appear until long after the printing press. And the people who quoted Jesus are the same people who paraphrased Him and taught what He taught in their own words. Putting words in quotes or red ink doesn't give them more credibility than other words from the same writers.

I have given you proof that Jesus claimed to be God many times. Why do you ignore that and keep challenging all Christians to bring you just one? Ok, I'll humor you one more time with just two of many:

Jesus' words to the Pharisee Nicodemus (John 3:16-19):

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God's one and only Son."

These are "red letter" words.

Some like to play games with claiming some Greek word has some other meaning. When they do I point out that the people of Jesus day who understood his words precisely, knew exactly what he was claiming. From John 10:31

Again his Jewish opponents picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, "I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?" "We are not stoning you for any good work," they replied, "but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God."

Ok let me make my point clear not all the Jews, i was talking about majority of Jews who rejected him and his message and are still. Waiting for the messiah to come.
Now let't tacle what u claim to be the words of Jesus, and instead stating John, and from the New Testament "English version" again I ask u or anyone to bring me JEUSU him self claiming to be God or the son of God. not what John mark or Mathew and Paul, claims. Just give me the statement of JEUSUS him self. I can give them to u very easily. Like what I already told u JEUSUS said he was only send to the lost shepherd of "ISREAL" and not to the Gentiles, and also where he says " I can cure the blind, bring back the dead in God permission" in what? " plz give me JEUSU statement only my friend with all joue respect.

Where do you think the quotes you just mentioned come from?

Jesus did not write anything. All we have is the accounts of his hand picked disciples who He instructed to spread the Good News. John 3:16 is the purest possible quote of Jesus as it was preserved by the Holy Spirit Jesus sent to help John recall His words exactly. In other accounts, Jesus said "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father." and "Before Abraham was, I AM" and "I and the Father are One." The Bible is full of such references which I have shown you before. Further, I published this especially for you just a week ago. Have you forgotten it already?

https://steemit.com/religion/@stan/top-ten-reasons-why-jesus-is-god

Even if I agree with theological, speaking then we are all from God "God" say's to me u are from and to me is ur return. So theological speaking so are we and yes, Muhammad is like Moses. Both prophets of God. P.B.U.Them but there is no need to reague about the topic we already addressed, my only question is, in asiah, illiterate prophet, was named, also the location, was mentioned the exact location. Of sela have u, went and Google where "Sela" is in what countery, that country is now known as "Saudi Arabia" or was this also a lie "Muhammed" P.B.u.H" did he also invent the bible. Because from your own scriptiors, in "Isaiah 42 : 11" God specificly mentions a particular area, did u go and do ur own research where that area is go do ur research, what country is that area in. But u don't want the TRUETH, u still want to be upon false, I hope and pray God, shows u the way, that's all I can do for u, my friend, and my brother in humanity. He who reject the scripture of God, will never inherit, "the kingdom of God"

You should keep on reading the very next chapter of Isaiah 43:1-5.
It tells of the regathering of Israel and the sacrificing of Egypt, Cush, and Seba.

But now, this is what the LORD says—he who created you, Jacob, he who formed you, Israel: "Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior; I give Egypt for your ransom, Cush and Seba in your stead. Since you are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you, I will give people in exchange for you, nations in exchange for your life. Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the east and gather you from the west.

Clearly, the regathering of Israel has happened as was prophesied over 2500 years ago. Keep reading the rest of Isaiah. Then re-read the Ezekiel 38 about the destruction of the forces of Gog and Magog. It does not go well for enemies of the Holy One of Israel. It is better to become friends while there is still time.

If we go into the Old Testament, you and I will really need to become scholars! Not saying that isn't a good thing to do, but it takes great knowledge to know what they are talking about and we could go on picking out individual verses that seem to point one way or another forever. (I do believe that that verse is pointing to people currently under control of Islam. The question is why are they rejoicing?)

Then there is this much more interesting list of Muslim territories in Ezekiel:

Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him, and say ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: “Behold, I am against you, O Gog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal. I will turn you around, put hooks into your jaws, and lead you out, with all your army, horses, and horsemen, all splendidly clothed, a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords. Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya are with them, all of them with shield and helmet; Gomer and all its troops; the house of Togarmah from the far north and all its troops—many people are with you. After many days you will be called to arms. In future years you will invade a land that has recovered from war, whose people were gathered from many nations to the mountains of Israel, which had long been desolate. They had been brought out from the nations, and now all of them live in safety. You and all your troops and the many nations with you will go up, advancing like a storm; you will be like a cloud covering the land. -- Ezekiel 38

I think its best to focus on the only thing that matters:

The essential point of Christianity is Jesus' death and resurrection is the key to Heaven. Muhammad denied this explicitly.

This is serious. It means that trusting Muhammad is turning your back on what Jesus says is the only way to eternal life.

All the rest is an interesting exercise. Since Muhammad denied this sine qua non of Christianity, everything else he said is moot.

The fate of nearly two billion people hangs in this balance.

My friend u are a very intelligent man, I ask you in the name of God the most high to use ur intelligence. Wiseley we had Muslims hold the commandments of all the messengers, including Jesus. P.B.U.H, and I am 100% not doing this to argue with you, but hold the law of all God "messenger's" love for ur brother what u love for ur self, this is God teachings to all his messenger's. To pass on to the people. Muammad P,B.U.H also said none of u truly believe until u love for ur brother what u love for ur self. He only came to fulfill. The prophecy which I quoted. "Isaiah" 42:10-13
10 Sing to the Lord a new song,
his praise from the ends of the earth,
you who go down to the sea, and all that is in it,
you islands, and all who live in them.
11 Let the wilderness and its towns raise their voices;
let the settlements where Kedar lives rejoice.
Let the people of Sela sing for joy;
let them shout from the mountaintops.
12 Let them give glory to the Lord
and proclaim his praise in the islands.
13 The Lord will march out like a champion,
like a warrior he will stir up his zeal;
with a shout he will raise the battle cry
and will triumph over his enemies.
Plz tell me where is "sela" sauid Arabia. In a city called madina. Did u now when he fled mecca he went to madina and the. Did u know all the people of madina came out singing and praising God and his messenger just like the prophesy in "Isaiah" described. Not to mention the prophesy, of JEUSU, P. B.U.H him telling his people. Listen to it carefully do ur own reasearch open ur heart and let the TRUETH guide u.

Rember on those statement that I quoted. Is not based on what Mathew or John Luke and mark. Are saying but based only on what JEUSU is saying so with all respect they are different. To the claims made against him, and clearly for any one who is seeking the TRUETH, this shows Jesus P. B .U.H never claimed to be God nor the son of God. I got a question what does begotten son of God mean. And how is he begotten by God?

This video makes the case that Muhammad was more like Moses, a mere man, than Jesus, the Son of God. That much is true, so how can he claim to be greater than Jesus?

Jesus clearly disagrees with this video. Jesus said He, himself, was the one Moses was talking about and the only prophets he predicted to come after him were false prophets, as I have shown elsewhere in this thread. Here are His exact "red letter" words:

John 5:39 You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life. ...46 "If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?"

Matthew 7:15 "Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

Muhammad's fruits were very different than those of Jesus.

Nowhere does Jesus indicate that there will be any more true prophets before He returns. This is because we have something better during this age, the "Spirit of Truth" which lives inside us. The Spirit of Truth is clearly not a reference to Muhammed, because Muhammed cannot live inside us forever. This video admits that Muhammed died like any other ordinary man.

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. John 14:16.

This Spirit is clearly identified above as the Spirit of Jesus since He says "I will come to you." More evidence that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are One.

The entire book of Hebrews points out how Jesus is superior to even the angels. There is simply no need for another prophet now that Jesus has come and left his Spirit with us forever:

In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs. - Hebrews 1:1-4

One characteristic of true prophets is that they never contradict a prior prophet. This is another thing that lets us correctly understand what type of prophet Muhammad was.

My friend do u stop and read ur post to try and make sense to yourself. Once ur telling usJesus is God, and then he is begotten son of God, all ur doing is contradicting ur self.

Nope. The son of God is God. It may sound strange, but it is theologically correct.

And do u believe those in ISREAL, now is due to the bible prophse?
Or are they going against the commandments.?

I have to respectfully disagree with you here, Stan:

"Well, if there really is a true pre-existing Creator, and He decides to reveal things about Himself, it wouldn't be at all surprising that He would only give one True Description, would it?

I support the hypothesis that a true pre-existing Creator would reveal Him/HerSelf in whatever the manner persons of differing perceptional, mental and/or emotional proclivities could take in.

I truly believe that people of many differing paths have reached communion with their Creator (in other words, there have been saints in Hinduism, Buddhism, Mohammedanism, the different brands of Christianity, Shamanism, etc.)

At the same time, spiritual superstars are few and far between. Much more by way of atrocity is being committed by people mouthing "belief" as their cover for acts of monumental egoism.

I would normally tend to agree with you, a single creator could decide to do things the way you suggest. Except that I have the following additional information which flat out precludes that option:

Neither the god of Judeo-Christianity nor the god of Islam will tolerate any other gods. Further, they won't tolerate each other because they each tell mirror-image stories. So to make the statement you just made you have to eliminate those two gods as false gods and with them the accepted beliefs of 3 billion people. Then you can, perhaps, say that about all the other belief systems, assuming they don't have similar objections.

Jesus explicitly states the He is the only Way and there is salvation in no other. Pretty intolerant, I know, but when you are God you get to make the rules. :o)

For the record, here is what Jesus says. Reject him for being intolerant if you must, but don't say that he is part of a smorgasbord of equally acceptable belief systems:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. - John 3:16-18

It's funny. I agree with both - you - and -Stan. I agree with you, but keep in mind, this could be our viewpoint as a regular man on earth without the wisdom of the "greater" plan of what's really going on here. As a man, I also think very much like you do.

On the other hand, Stan could be right. Faith, and belief is something individuals get to select on their own (which of course) you never said he shouldn't.

Life is very strange. We all have different views, beliefs, experiences, rationalities, thought processes, and logic. The only thing I care about the most, is people being kind and respectful to one another, and caring for the earth together. Who created it all? I really don't care. I'm here to do good, the best I can, and that what I strive for... eventhough it's easy mistakes doing it. :)

Good debate guys. You're both right I think, in some way.

I've never seen the blind men and the elephant graphic before. Very fitting for this article, glad I finally saw it. Thanks Stan. A picture speaks 1,000 words, and it also added 1,000 words to your point. :)

A small "modification" in the picture above :)

Kidding aside, I like the op.

Ha! That was an essential modification! :o)

Thank you for this, i completely agree.

The only way any of us blind men are going to know the true God is if He reveals Himself to us

That simple.

It's not that simple, for without using one's intellect and reason, how can you know whether it was, in fact, the "true God" who revealed himself to you. Perhaps it was instead a supreme alien intelligence or decietful demon impersonating God. How would you ever know without "proof", and how could that proof be based on anything but science/reason?

Agreed. Using intellect and reason in a series of logical steps is what I am advocating in this entire thread. We are seeking the most plausible set of facts that might constitute actual revelation from the Unobservable. At some point you have to decide whether the probability that we were deceived by aliens is so great that it overwhelms the probability that a caring God wanted to communicate useful information to those He created to further His reason for creating them.

The apostles are no longer with us my friend, the TRUETH of the matter still remains. Why would God die on the cross for our sins only to come back later in time again, if he already died for our sins. In order for us to believe or not believe why? does he need to come back the second time. This is the questions many priest would say one should not ask! The TRUETH is in the Quran Prophet JESUS P.B.U.H never died in the first place God rised him to heaven and will return him,not only to defeat the anti-christ but also to inform the Christian. He is a prophet of God and not God or the son of God. Only then will he die a natural death.

This is why I say that the Bible and the Quran cannot both be true. They disagree on this essential point among many others. I have the archeological truth of the Dead Sea Scrolls to prove that the Bible is has not been changed as Muhammad claimed. Q.E.D.

God's plan from the beginning of time is a series of human moves and His anticipated counter moves. All of Old Testament history tells of God's plan for redemption via the sending of the Messiah. Yet, when he came (on schedule, to the day, as predicted 500 years earlier in Daniel 9) the Jews rejected and crucified him as foretold in the prophesies. This led to the next stage in God's plan for redemption - the Church Age which will continue until "the fullness of the gentiles has come in." (We are getting close.) At that time, all of humanity will have had their chance at accepting what the Messiah did on the cross - as Jesus said he was going to do over and over again before his death and resurrection. Here are several of His statements, showing that His plan to die for all mankind was premeditated:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. - John 3:16

Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the Law said to Him, “Teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you.” He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. -- Matthew 12:38-39

“The Son of Man must suffer many things. He said. “He must be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and He must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” . --Luke 9:22

Can u plz try to correct me if I am wrong. In one hand @stan is claiming Prophet "JEUSU" P.B.U.H" is all 3 in 1, and then this is the reff. he is referring to I want to know if there is contradiction here is what is quoting.

@stans This is why I say that the Bible and the Quran cannot both be true. They disagree on this essential point among many others. I have the archeological truth of the Dead Sea Scrolls to prove that the Bible is has not been changed as Muhammad claimed. Q.E.D.

God's plan from the beginning of time is a series of human moves and His anticipated counter moves. All of Old Testament history tells of God's plan for redemption via the sending of the Messiah. Yet, when he came (on schedule, to the day, as predicted 500 years earlier in Daniel 9) the Jews rejected and crucified him as foretold in the prophesies. This led to the next stage in God's plan for redemption - the Church Age which will continue until "the fullness of the gentiles has come in." (We are getting close.) At that time, all of humanity will have had their chance at accepting what the Messiah did on the cross - as Jesus said he was going to do over and over again before his death and resurrection. Here are several of His statements, showing that His plan to die for all mankind was premeditated:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. - John 3:16

Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the Law said to Him, “Teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you.” He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. -- Matthew 12:38-39

“The Son of Man must suffer many things. He said. “He must be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and He must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” . --Luke 9:22

I'm not saying Jesus is all three in one.
The Bible is saying the God is three in one, and one of the three is Jesus.
I'm saying that the majority of Bible Scholars have reached this conclusion after considering all relevant passages of Scripture and it has been the prevailing view for nearly 2000 years.

"I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth." Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson is one of my top three favorite American founding fathers. He spent much of his retirement years cutting up his copy of the Bible to preserve the teachings of Jesus while eliminating the evidence that those teachings had merit. He substituted The Recommendation of Thomas Jefferson instead of The Eyewitness Accounts of the Apostles as the reason why people should adopt the teachings of Jesus. Pretty arrogant, actually. I still admire him. Nobody's perfect. :o)

As I have shown conclusively, the gospels are most definitely not "eyewitness accounts": https://steemit.com/bible/@sean-king/the-gos

I will have much more to say on this subject in coming weeks.

I highly recommend that thread, since I poured so much effort into refuting it.

The gist of your point is that you would like each of the authors to have provided a DNA sample and an affidavit with the emperor's seal on it that they were the authors. Every single point amounts to, "Why didn't they provide more proof?"

However, these documents were written by well known individuals and preserved, replicated and distributed by their contemporaries because of the high esteem and credibility that those individuals had achieved throughout the Roman Empire.

The best you have been able to do is to complain about what proof the authors provided when at the time it is clear that they didn't feel the need to include their credentials in their writings.

I'll leave it to the interesting reader to examine your points paragraph by paragraph in search of any points that constitute evidence for your case rather than complaints about the failure of the inspired authors to certify themselves. The arguments you present are merely proof that they were already well known and were not trying to convince a person opening a time capsule and discovering documents of unknown origin for the first time. These documents were born into a thriving Christian community, not a time capsule.

The proof of that is that the inspired texts are quoted so thoroughly in the writings of the early church fathers that it is possible to almost completely reconstruct the originals from all the quotes. As Paul said, "these things were not done in a corner."

the gospel largely was written by Romans, about 150 years after Jesus p.b.u.h, and can never be even 80% the word of God, can u imagine the God of Moses tells Moses it is impossible for u to see in this earth, when Moses asks to see him, but yet again comes down later on to die for our sons, and then he will come back to finish of where he left of.

The contemporaries of the Apostles would disagree with you about that. They are the ones who treasured, preserved, and distributed these writings throughout Europe and the Middle East. Christians were persecuted to death for 300 years before the Romans took any interest in their religion. The idea that the Romans produced any of these writings is ludicrous. By the time Rome took interest in Christianity with Constantine, there were copies of the scriptures in use by over 300 independent Christian bishops through out their empire.

Yes. The criterion used by those bishops at Nicaea to sort out the wheat from the chaff was apostolic authority. The majority of the bishops present had to agree that there was sufficient proof that a particular document could be traced back to an apostle or an apostle's associate. This process of challenging and reproving apostolic authority went on for several hundred years - and always the same canon was recognized.

Emperor Constantine didn't really care what documents the bishops picked. He just wanted Christianity to support his rule as emperor.

This was an era of oral teaching and hand-written documents. By 200-300 AD, there were countless false versions of the Scriptures circulating produced by adversaries or self-promoters.

So Constantine organized the Council of Nicea in 315. He invited > 1000 "bishops", but only about 200 made the arduous journey to Constantinople. It's a fascinating story how today's Bible was compiled that every Believer should know. After the work was done, King Constantine ordered a large quantity of Bibles produced... 50 copies.

There are only few trueth's in the bible watch this

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U are using big words, on me my friend on ur most resent reply. I am a layman, and don't understand this big words ur using. Lol

Please point out which words and I'll try to be more clear. :o)

My answer to you Stan - Pascal's wager

Very good! The engineer in me likes to frame the following corollary:

If a believer is wrong, she will never know.
If a believer is right, she will reap a great eternal reward.
If an unbeliever is right, he will never know.
If an unbeliever is wrong, he will reap a great eternal disaster.

Now, assign whatever probabilities you like to the proposition of who is right or wrong...

Then compute the expected value of taking one of these positions.
For the believer it is always positive.
For the unbeliever it is always negative.

The problems with this line of logic is as follows:

First it contains a fundamental assumption that the God of the believer cares what the believer believes. It's possible there's a God, and that God doesn't care one whit about what humans "believe". So, it's not necessarily true that "if the unbeliever is wrong, he will reap a great eternal disaster."

Second, Pascal's wager suggests only that it's rational to believe in God, but it's incapable of advising us as to which God to believe. As you noted in one of your comments above, many religions made contradictory claims about God and the requirements for gaining salvation/nirvana/heaven. Even among those that require certain "beliefs", the exact nature of the required belief is disputed.

So, even if I were to conclude that believing in "God" had the most upside and least downside, which one should I accept? My chances of picking the right one by luck, or by divine inspiration, are pretty minimal once we consider all religions and not just the most popular ones.

Pascal's wager suggests only that one should believe in a God

Agreed. I wrote almost exactly that in response to your other post, before I saw this one.

You both make some good points, and there is nothing bad against belief...

Belief is good and thats what Pascal says.

I just thik that a person should, at the end of the day, relay on his own sences to undersantd his own feeling to feel the entity he beliefs

A biliver of whom thought )))

You must see that what Pascal is hsowing is the fact that each religion is saying this

Yes. I understand that all but one religion is a false religion and that false religions do their best to imitate true religions. The existence of 1000 counterfeits says nothing about the validity of the One.

Besides, the Pascal point is between Atheism and the Most Credible Religion. You still have to do your own homework to figure out which One that is. I view the Pascal point as an argument that everyone should do that homework, since Atheism is a dead end. No pun intended.

For the convenience of the readers of this thread:

Pascal's Wager uses the following logic:

  • God is, or God is not. Reason cannot decide between the two alternatives.
  • A Game is being played... where heads or tails will turn up.
  • You must wager (it is not optional).
  • Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing.
  • Wager, then, without hesitation that He is. (...) There is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite. And so our proposition is of infinite force, when there is the finite to stake in a game where there are equal risks of gain and of loss, and the infinite to gain.
  • But some cannot believe. They should then 'at least learn your inability to believe...' and 'Endeavour then to convince' themselves.

Great post with an interesting concept... Many might disagree with you on there only being one GOD though. Hindu would especially.

And the ancient Greeks

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