'What religion are you?' poll discussion

adrian_clark

arran_m wrote: »

i dont mean to state the obvious , but there a lot of other religions out there other than other fairly modern christianity, however i see know one who follows other religions trying to preach about their faith money saving or not as much as you sir

Do you remember coming to an awesome natural phenomena, like say a magnificent view of Cornish Cliffs, or maybe you have seen one the seven wonders? Do you remember the need to share what you seen? Have you had that wow factor and just had the urge to bring a spouse or loved one close to you and just share in that wow? That's my motive, to share the wow that comes with a living relationship with our Father in heaven. I have been around long enough and witnessed enough suffering, at home and overseas, as close as it is possible to get, to want to point people to the hope offered by the news of Jesus's resurrection.

I am no preacher, just an ordinary bloke who has seen extraordinary things. Learning of heaven, hell, love and justice is tough. It's a rough path strewn with doubts, fears, joy, tears and laughter. If you witnessed a child about to run into heavy traffic would you not yell, would you not, if you could reach out, grab that child with all the force necessary? Just hypothesize for a moment with me. Just imagine you did find out that the eternal conscience torments of hell, abandoned, lonely and loveless awaits those who you love, would you not do all in your power to warn them?

We know the world is full of lies and nonsense, we know that there are many truth claims and we know that only one can be true. Where there is true love you will find compassion, selflessness, sacrificial and covenantal love, there you will find truth. I discovered the truth about love at the cross of Jesus Christ and it has incredible wow factor.

DavidLaGuardia

bulletproof_1979 wrote: »

And here's the bit where we ask how do you know it's true? What evidence have you got for us?

I am not here to defend or advocate any particular kind of religion. I am personally agnostic but as an optimist would like to think there is something. That aside the "show me evidence" retort aimed at the religious is rather obtuse and/or misses the point.

Firstly, one does not need to see or sense a thing in any way to have evidence of its existence. A foot print in mud does not allow me to see or sense the person who did (unless they have left a cheesy smell ?) But seing that foot print is pretty good circumstantial evidence to say a person exists that made it. I could belief it randomly appeared, but I tend to believe what is more plausible. Saying that there is "nothing" intelligent behind the universe seems as equally implausible to me. It just may not be what is conventionally regarded as "god".

Secondly, most religion is based on faith and free will. IF "God" appears and it is proved beyond all reasonable doubt that he/she exists and a particular religion is what we should follow, then in awe of such a power, we would have to resign fully to it and we would therefore NOT have much free will, destroying the whole point of free will. Perhaps God deliberately elludes us for this reason. For Douglas Adams fans (yes I know hes was an atheist, but!...) - think of the Babel Fish in Hitch hiker's guide. God exsits by faith alone and the existence of the fish proved god exists and god therefore disapeared in a puff of logic.

Mr.Harley_Quin

I hope I do not come across as a 'nay-sayer', in fact I enjoy that a muslim, born again christian and an atheist can get 'stuck in' in a friendly way. However, my points remain.

Holy books fail in the same three ways.

1. Information that is claimed to be 'revealed by god' is either wrong or obvious.

We were not created. We evolved. Why is there no reference to 9 (or 8) planets in the solar system? Humans need water, that is obvious that should be struck from holy records.

2. Falsehoods were defended.

The earth orbits the sun. The Christian church hated that.

3. There are over 12000 ( twelve thousand) prophets.

Why would god need so many failures in order to get the right MAN to spread the right message?

The only idea I can come up with is is that it is all made up nonsense by men who intended to grab power.

There is most likely no god! If there is, it is NOT the god of silly holy books.

adrian_clark

Mr.Harley_Quin wrote: »

I hope I do not come across as a 'nay-sayer', in fact I enjoy that a muslim, born again christian and an atheist can get 'stuck in' in a friendly way. However, my points remain.

Holy books fail in the same three ways.

1. Information that is claimed to be 'revealed by god' is either wrong or obvious.

We were not created. We evolved. Why is there no reference to 9 (or 8) planets in the solar system? Humans need water, that is obvious that should be struck from holy records.

2. Falsehoods were defended.

The earth orbits the sun. The Christian church hated that.

3. There are over 12000 ( twelve thousand) prophets.

Why would god need so many failures in order to get the right MAN to spread the right message?

The only idea I can come up with is is that it is all made up nonsense by men who intended to grab power.

There is most likely no god! If there is, it is NOT the god of silly holy books.

You are not a nay sayer, you are expressing a view that is entirely in tune with the cultural mandate of our day. However, to appreciate my perspective you need to start at the person and work of Jesus Christ as he was there in the beginning, not with planets, evolutionary theories and the plethora of false holy books. Other than that you fairly present the truth claims that you have accepted. If you started by exploring Jesus's the claims of his divinity and his resurrection and then chose to reject them, as perhaps fabrications of the early Christians, then you are exercising your free will, intellect and rational, as DavidLaGuardia says above, is your gift. However, to characterize Jesus Christ alongside religions fails to recognise the exclusivity of his claims and his impact on human history.

DavidLaGuardia

Mr.Harley_Quin wrote: »

Holy books fail in the same three ways.

1. Information that is claimed to be 'revealed by god' is either wrong or obvious.

We were not created. We evolved. Why is there no reference to 9 (or 8) planets in the solar system? Humans need water, that is obvious that should be struck from holy records.

The Bible does not attempt to describe creation/evolution in detail. The idea that the first part of Genesis weas accepted universally as "history" before modern science is simply misinformed. The first interpretation of it as allegorical appears in Paul's letter to the Galations.in the New Testament!

Mr.Harley_Quin wrote: »

Holy books fail in the same three ways.


2. Falsehoods were defended.

The earth orbits the sun. The Christian church hated that.

Ah but the the sun does revolve round the earth from our relative stand point as terresttial beings on planet Earth. In order to describe the opposite one has to be an observer at a distant point from the earth. Even at that distant point one could selected any object to be their fixed point of reference which other objects has relative movement to. With this choice it is often sensible (however bizarre this may seem) to take the fixed point as the place of the observer. While it is counterituitive to the view of the solar system as a whole that we are "hard wired" to imagine, picturing an earth as a central point is completely compatible with the theory of relativity.

In any case the argument was histoically more about the authority and doctrine of the organized church than it was about what was in a "holy book".

Mr.Harley_Quin wrote: »

Holy books fail in the same three ways.


3. There are over 12000 ( twelve thousand) prophets.

Why would god need so many failures in order to get the right MAN to spread the right message?

This suggests that each prophet was a succession of prototypes like Edison's light bulbs until he got it right. The is nothing to imply this in any religious text Whether they were real or fictional, they are there to perform different functions at different times.

Salaam

Mr Quin: "Why is there no reference to 9 (or 8) planets in the solar system?" I have copied you a website in one my earlier posts (please see: (19-10-2010 9:57 AM) where you can see for yourself how verses in Quran relating to science, and there have been over 1,000, have been proven to be correct despite the fact they were revealed over 1,400 years ago.

"There are over 12000 ( twelve thousand) prophets." Please note that in Islam the belief is that from the beginning of time there have been 124,000 thousand prophets and messengers. One was sent to each nation with the same message - greatest commandment - to know that your Lord is One Lord. So that on the Day of Judgment, humans cannot argue that they were not sent a messenger/guidance. The message was the same. If you put aside the what prophet Muhummad and Jesus (peace be upon them) said, look at the other prophets said in terms of the greatest commandment in the Torah, Psalms, Bible and Quran respectively. Not ONE says about trinity. The word trinity does not even appear in the Bible.

You previously asked about showing your proof that God exists and I copied a link of a video you can see . Have you had a chance to look at it?

Kind regards

busenbust

none :cool:

adrian_clark

Salaam wrote: »

Mr Quin: "Why is there no reference to 9 (or 8) planets in the solar system?" I have copied you a website in one my earlier posts (please see: (19-10-2010 9:57 AM) where you can see for yourself how verses in Quran relating to science, and there have been over 1,000, have been proven to be correct despite the fact they were revealed over 1,400 years ago.

"There are over 12000 ( twelve thousand) prophets." Please note that in Islam the belief is that from the beginning of time there have been 124,000 thousand prophets and messengers. One was sent to each nation with the same message - greatest commandment - to know that your Lord is One Lord. So that on the Day of Judgment, humans cannot argue that they were not sent a messenger/guidance. The message was the same. If you put aside the what prophet Muhummad and Jesus (peace be upon them) said, look at the other prophets said in terms of the greatest commandment in the Torah, Psalms, Bible and Quran respectively. Not ONE says about trinity. The word trinity does not even appear in the Bible.

You previously asked about showing your proof that God exists and I copied a link of a video you can see . Have you had a chance to look at it?

Kind regards

It is important for readers to note that Islam and Christianity offer exclusive truth claims. The God of the Bible and Allah of the Quran are entirely different entities and not to be confused. Jesus Christ did not leave any margin for ambiguity in this matter. You either apply your free will to accept him as who he said he was or, as many choose to do, reject him. C.S.Lewis provided a really useful summary:

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Jesus: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg - or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."

Taken from CS Lewis's book Mere Christianity.

Gareth_Lazelle

adrian_clark wrote: »

Jesus Christ did not leave any margin for ambiguity in this matter. You either apply your free will to accept him as who he said he was or, as many choose to do, reject him. C.S.Lewis provided a really useful summary:

That's not quite right though is it,

What Jesus said doesn't give much room for ambiguity on this point (though the existence of the various different Christian faiths shows that much of what he said is open to ambiguity),

But what we take from it is open to interpretation,

Just because you take it that way doesn't mean that anyone else has to - they can interpret it exactly as they choose (free will, remember),

To suggest otherwise isn't exactly open-minded...

I guess if you accept that Jesus is god then accepting everything else he said might well be appropriate (assuming that god never lies anyway - but that's a whole new kettle of fish).

But if you choose to believe that Jesus was wrong on that one point, then Jesus is simply a man, and man is fallible even when (or if) he is mostly correct,

On that basis, how is it wrong to not accept that single point?

That, and far be it for me to point out that what Jesus allegedly said was written down by others (and I doubt that they all had their shorthand pads and biros to hand when he was talking) - and that is perhaps open to some editorial variation (i.e.: some of it may well have been made up by others even if it was mostly true),

Oh, BTW: C.S.Lewis was an OK author, but also human and also fallible,

adrian_clark

Gareth_Lazelle wrote: »

That's not quite right though is it,

What Jesus said doesn't give much room for ambiguity on this point (though the existence of the various different Christian faiths shows that much of what he said is open to ambiguity),

But what we take from it is open to interpretation,

Just because you take it that way doesn't mean that anyone else has to - they can interpret it exactly as they choose (free will, remember),

To suggest otherwise isn't exactly open-minded...

I guess if you accept that Jesus is god then accepting everything else he said might well be appropriate (assuming that god never lies anyway - but that's a whole new kettle of fish).

But if you choose to believe that Jesus was wrong on that one point, then Jesus is simply a man, and man is fallible even when (or if) he is mostly correct,

On that basis, how is it wrong to not accept that single point?

That, and far be it for me to point out that what Jesus allegedly said was written down by others (and I doubt that they all had their shorthand pads and biros to hand when he was talking) - and that is perhaps open to some editorial variation (i.e.: some of it may well have been made up by others even if it was mostly true),

Oh, BTW: C.S.Lewis was an OK author, but also human and also fallible,

Thanks for the thoughts. They are all reasonable especially if one doesn't accept Jesus's claims for divinity or Peter's claim that the Bible is God breathed; he was one of the Bible authors (there are 66 books with 44 authors). There is plenty of historical evidence through original documentation, both Christian and Roman secular that supports the Bible's claim of being a faithful record of events.

It is important to note that there is only one Christian faith. There are different denominations, with different church doctrines, but all mainstream churches agree on the central point of Jesus Christ being the Messiah, that is God come into human history. There are peripheral differences such as the need for clergy to be celibate, Jesus's mother's virginity, the drinking of alcohol, how old the earth is, pre-destination or how soon Christ will return. But the big E on the Christian eye chart is what is written on the tin, 'Christ'ian. Jesus Christ was unambiguous and CS Lewis is simply pointing out you choose to reject him or accept him. Either way it'll have a profound impact on your life.