the thinker

[jobee]

PROOF PLEASE

We have heard talk enough. We have listened to all the drowsy, idealess, vapid sermons that we wish to hear. We have read your Bible and the works of your best minds. We have heard your prayers, your solemn groans and your reverential amens. All these amount to less than nothing. We want one fact. We beg at the doors of your churches for just one little fact. We pass our hats along your pews and under your pulpits and implore you for just one fact. We know all about your mouldy wonders and your stale miracles. We want a 'this year's fact'. We ask only one. Give us one fact for charity. Your miracles are too ancient. The witnesses have been dead for nearly two thousand years. Their reputation for 'truth and veracity' in the neighborhood where they resided is wholly unknown to us. Give us a new miracle, and substantiate it by witnesses who still have the cheerful habit of living this world. Do not send us to Jericho to hear the winding horns, nor put us in the fire with Shadrach, Meshech and Abednego. Do not compel us to navigate the sea with Captain Jonah, nor dine with Mr. Ezekiel. There is no sort of use in sending us fox-hunting with Samson. We have positively lost all interest in that little speech so eloquently delivered by Balaam's inspired donkey. It is worse than useless to show us fishes with money in their mouths, and call our attention to vast multitudes stuffing themselves with five crackers and two sardines. We demand a new miracle, and we demand it now. Let the church furnish at least one, or forever hold her peace." --

Coventry Alternative Forums :: General Chat ~ Runboard

[Scotsgait]

Haven't you already been told about attributing pieces that are not your own to the author ?

[Hawkins]

Jesus already answered your request beforehand.

Luke 11:29
As the crowds increased, Jesus said, "This is a wicked generation. It asks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.

God sends witnessess here and there, you can't know all people on earth to know them. All you need is faith.

[ANDY-J3]

You will find similar claims in every creed - Islam, Christianity, Hinduism and countless others. What the bible teaches is no more likely to be true than any other religious doctrine.

[Hawkins]

Originally Posted by ANDY-J3

You will find similar claims in every creed - Islam, Christianity, Hinduism and countless others. What the bible teaches is no more likely to be true than any other religious doctrine.

They can be differentiated if you are willing to do a detailed study. Yet you need God's help in doing so in a correct direction.

[Hawkins]

Originally Posted by Hawkins

They can be differentiated if you are willing to do a detailed study. Yet you need God's help in doing so in a correct direction.

Some of my findings.

1. Religion is about faith. Yet not all religions have the self-awareness to realise that they themselves are of faith. From my speculation, only Abrahamic religions have such a self-awareness. The main theme is "you are saved by faith" or "you need faith to be saved".

2. Ultimately, a 'true' religion is about how one's after life is, which is the only part where 'FAITH' is demanded the most. Because we don't know what life will be after death, we need faith either to believe life continues, or we need the same amount of faith to believe that life ceases to continue after death.

As a result, religion can hardly be eradicated from humanity as long as humans cannot deliever a satisfactory answer about "will life continue after death, does soul exist?" Religons will continue to exist because you need faith to answer this question. And to a certain extent, you have to answer this question within your life time, subconscously if not conscously. It is thus a faith question demanding a faith answer for everyone to go through.

3. Now how practical religion is to address the question like "will life continue, or does soul exist?". To put it another way, how practical religions are in offering the saving of souls, that is, how practical the salvation theology is.

Amongst all religions, only Christianity offers the solution of Sin Atonement. All others are almost exclusively about the supressing of sin using strict rules which at least humans today can hardly abide by. They can't be practical enough to save human souls.

It seems that one sin atonement is practical enough to save a certain portion of human souls. As an illustration, how many humans before 30s of last century can get their hands on nudity? Very few. How about today? With the widespreading of the Internet, few can get away from nudity and exotics. Abrahamic God hates adultery so much that women in the middle east will have to wrap them up like mummies to avoid sin. So in today's world, how many can survive God's judgment if few of us can be fully away from nudity and exotics.

It only says that the only practical religion which fits the past and fits today and fits the future is Christianity.

4. Everyone can claim that he's inspired from God. What is needed at least theologically to distinguish the truth from the fake? It is witnessing! By the religion of the Jews, and it is emphasized in both OT and NT that false witnessing is a dead sin. Chritianity is developed by witnessing, at least so theologically speaking. Jesus Christ's deed is declared to be witnessed. Christianity spreaded so quickly because it is said that (theologicall at least) Jesus Christ's disciples are willing to die as a witnessing for His death, resurrection and ascension.

5. If it is said that the prophets can deliver messages from God, how will they know that those messages are truly from God the high power, instead of delusion and such? Again, theologically at least, prophecies and miracles are brain independent. And God may use them to confirm that the messages are from a higher power.

Acts 14:3
So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to do miraculous signs and wonders.

So God inspires men by putting messages into their brains, then performing message-related miracles of allowing prophecies to come true to confirm that the messages are from HIm.

To put it another way, God uses miracles and prophecies as testimony/witness for His own messages. Christianity is thus theologically sound, as it seems that the Bible contains tons of prophecies from the prophets and tons of miracles from those Jews who abide by the dogma that false witness is not allowed.

Proverbs 19:9 (OT)
A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who pours out lies will perish.

Revelation 21:8 (NT)
But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.

6. Humans are imperfect. Jesus makes a difference because His deity is known to His followers. God will choose a group of imperfect minds to craft the Bible such that His will will be done through the Holy Bible, by the hands of the imperfect humans. This is also a factor of witnessing. A group of prophets acting consistently saying the same thing as part of the witnessing of His truth is theologically sound instead of through a single person.

7. God knows the past and He knows the future. Has any God presented his case about a prophecy for his own religion and the book his inspired? Other than Christian God, it seems none. And God sent out His challenge for the false gods long time ago through His prophet Isaiah.

Isaiah 41:21-24
"Present your case," says the LORD. "Set forth your arguments," says Jacob's King.
"Bring in your idols to tell us what is going to happen. Tell us what the former things were, so that we may consider them and know their final outcome. Or declare to us the things to come,
tell us what the future holds, so we may know that you are gods. Do something, whether good or bad, so that we will be dismayed and filled with fear.
But you are less than nothing and your works are utterly worthless; he who chooses you is detestable.


Luke 21:33
Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

So now the Holy Bible is the all time best selling book.

Acts 13:47
For this is what the Lord has commanded us: "I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth."

So now Christianity is the most widespreaded religion of the world with 1/3 humans as its followers.

No another book nor another religion can ever foresaw its own future like this.

[ANDY-J3]

Originally posted by Hawkins

They can be differentiated if you are willing to do a detailed study. Yet you need God's help in doing so in a correct direction.


I've done a detailed study. I've read the Koran, the bible, as well as all of the apocryphal gospels and "lost" Hebrew scriptures, the Bhagavad Gita and Greek and Norse mythology. All of them promote the idea that God(s) exists- none of them however can claim to have any more validity than the others.