How do you know Christianity is the "true" religio

Phoenix · Post by **Phoenix** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 11:44 am

This question is asked alot by the skeptics. They want to know how can you be sure that your belief is the one true way to heaven?

jerickson314 · Post by **jerickson314** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 11:57 am

Short answer:

1.) Evidence is available which verifies the truth of Christianity.
2.) If Christianity is true, other religions which contradict it must be false. (Law of noncontradiction).
3.) Jesus said, "No one can come to the Father but by me". Therefore, any competing claim for salvation will contradict Christianity, even if no other contradictions exist.
4.) Therefore, Christianity is true and the other religions are false.

Kurieuo · Post by **Kurieuo** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 8:30 pm

Shorter answer

: Because Jesus said He was the only way to God.

Any dismissal by the Atheist is therefore against Christ's own teachings. The funny thing is, many respect Christ as a great moral teacher, even many atheists. So if they wish to disgree with Christ being the only way, then they are ultimately disagreeing with Christ, not us Christians.

Kurieuo.

bcrazy · Post by **bcrazy** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 8:48 am

Jerickson, I think your part 1) is quite debatable- it would be more enlightening to explain what evidence there is that verifies the truth of Christianity that isn't available for other religions.

jerickson314 · Post by **jerickson314** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 3:21 pm

bcrazy wrote:Jerickson, I think your part 1) is quite debatable- it would be more enlightening to explain what evidence there is that verifies the truth of Christianity that isn't available for other religions.

Start here. However, this is quite a big topic, much too big for a single forum post.

"Historical apologetics" is a good place to start when proving Christianity. Some of the other apologetics does more to prove theism in general.

A decent general overview of several forms of apologetics is here.

bcrazy · Post by **bcrazy** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 4:05 pm

I'm afraid I don't see how that link even begins to verify the truth of Christianity- it merely raises ways in which Christianity may have attempted to be more successful. Obviously it isn't common for a religion to last as long as Christianity but some have lasted longer so it isn't on its own. I honestly dont understand how this even begins to suggest any truth in the religion- it simply indicates that the early followers were fanatics (for want of a better word) and did a good job spreading the religion as no doubt all other major world religions did.

jerickson314 · Post by **jerickson314** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 4:12 pm

bcrazy wrote:I'm afraid I don't see how that link even begins to verify the truth of Christianity- it merely raises ways in which Christianity may have attempted to be more successful. Obviously it isn't common for a religion to last as long as Christianity but some have lasted longer so it isn't on its own. I honestly dont understand how this even begins to suggest any truth in the religion- it simply indicates that the early followers were fanatics (for want of a better word) and did a good job spreading the religion as no doubt all other major world religions did.

The page lists reasons why Christianity should not have survived into the second century - reasons why those in the first century would never accept Christianity. And at the end, Holding offers comparisons to other major religions.

The idea is that there must have been something unique about Christianity if it could be accepted despite the insurmountable hurdles - hurdles for which no parallel existed for other religions at the time they were created.

Again, it's not about how long Christianity has survived, but rather about how it took off to begin with.

bcrazy · Post by **bcrazy** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 10:34 am

This does not verify the truth, it blatantly ignores the problems other religions hadto overcome and passes them off with half a sentence, choosing only to delve further when it suits- how convenient.

jerickson314 · Post by **jerickson314** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 11:58 am

bcrazy wrote:This does not verify the truth, it blatantly ignores the problems other religions hadto overcome and passes them off with half a sentence, choosing only to delve further when it suits- how convenient.

You didn't read all the way to the bottom, did you? Holding does offer analysis of three different religions. If you're going to take this path to refute it, you're going to have to offer an actual example of another religion that actually did have insurmountable problems.

bcrazy · Post by **bcrazy** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 1:59 pm

Any religion has the insurmountable problem of convincing people their God is "the real God". This is extremely difficult and to me any other problems are insignificant compared to this.

jerickson314 · Post by **jerickson314** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 2:19 pm

bcrazy wrote:Any religion has the insurmountable problem of convincing people their God is "the real God". This is extremely difficult and to me any other problems are insignificant compared to this.

You're going to have to do better than that.

The fact is that this isn't as big a problem as you seem to think. People follow religions all the time. Many are gullible, especially when there is no particular reason not to believe. However, in the article I linked to, Holding showed that the ancients of the first century had plentiful reason not to believe. The same parallels just don't exist for any other religion I have seen.

Did you actually read the article or just the introduction?

bcrazy · Post by **bcrazy** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 2:44 pm

Yes I did read the article but I still believe getting people to believe in a new God presents such a greater problem than anything else that if this can be overcome then the rest can be swept aside easily enough.

especially when there is no particular reason not to believe

Having no reason to believe is a massive reason not to believe (sorry for stating the obvious) and if somebody was capable of managing this it would take more than the problems stated in that article to stop it.

And, seeing as the reason you posted the link was to "verify the truth of the Bible" I still don't see how this is even a start- this goes down a different track of showing how a religion was given a good start despite many problems but doesn't mention the Bible!

jerickson314 · Post by **jerickson314** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 3:13 pm

bcrazy wrote:Yes I did read the article but I still believe getting people to believe in a new God presents such a greater problem than anything else that if this can be overcome then the rest can be swept aside easily enough.

I don't see any reason whatsoever to believe that. You have to look at the cultural context in which a religion originates in order to derive any such conclusion.

bcrazy wrote:
especially when there is no particular reason not to believe
Having no reason to believe is a massive reason not to believe (sorry for stating the obvious) and if somebody was capable of managing this it would take more than the problems stated in that article to stop it.

Not really. Maybe for a highly intellectual person, as you and I probably are. However, ever been in a social situation before? Not everyone is so intellectual.

I was referring to a direct reason not to believe - such as pretty much any of the reasons mentioned in the article.

bcrazy wrote:And, seeing as the reason you posted the link was to "verify the truth of the Bible" I still don't see how this is even a start- this goes down a different track of showing how a religion was given a good start despite many problems but doesn't mention the Bible!

It talks plenty about the Bible, through reference to Christianity. Not to mention the references to specific passages...

It is one attempt to demonstrate the historical truth of Christianity. Most others are in book form. Strobel's The Case for Christ is often recommended as an introduction, though it is quite entry-level and not written for the highly intellectual type.

Kurieuo · Post by **Kurieuo** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 8:16 pm

bcrazy wrote:I'm afraid I don't see how that link even begins to verify the truth of Christianity- it merely raises ways in which Christianity may have attempted to be more successful. Obviously it isn't common for a religion to last as long as Christianity but some have lasted longer so it isn't on its own. I honestly dont understand how this even begins to suggest any truth in the religion- it simply indicates that the early followers were fanatics (for want of a better word) and did a good job spreading the religion as no doubt all other major world religions did.

jerickson314 wrote:The page lists reasons why Christianity should not have survived into the second century - reasons why those in the first century would never accept Christianity. And at the end, Holding offers comparisons to other major religions.

The idea is that there must have been something unique about Christianity if it could be accepted despite the insurmountable hurdles - hurdles for which no parallel existed for other religions at the time they were created.

I do believe Jerickson's link does provide evidence for the truth of Christianity in general without getting into the specifics of what that truth is. However, Bcrazy, I believe your terminology "truth of Christianity" is quite ambiguous, and so I see that any misdirection of Jerickson not being specific enough to providing evidence for the "truth of Christianity" purely comes down to an ambiguity on your part. Such terminology can be taken in different ways, so until you define what you mean by this, then there is no point in badgering Jerickson for tackling how he understood it.

Now to me, "truth of Christianity" means Christ who was God incarnate came and dwelt among us on Earth, was crucified, and then resurrected from the dead which verified His claims of being equal to God and being God, being the only way to God, and so forth. A case has been mounted for this on the old board, which details certain accepted historical facts amongst scholars that need to be explained. If one accepts that God could intervene into our universe, then the resurrection account is certainly the most plausible hypothesis that explains all the facts.

Kurieuo.

jb48237 · Post by **jb48237** » Sun Oct 02, 2005 9:13 am

1.) Evidence is available which verifies the truth of Christianity.

I don't see this evidence.

Arguing from the existence of a Creator only proves that there is a Creator- not necessarily a historical God, which is someting else alltogether.

"Fulfilled prophecies" from the Bible don't prove anything. For a non-believer, all you have shown is that the Bible CLAIMS to have fulfilled prophecies, not that they actually WERE fulfilled.

Arguing from the fact that the early Church members were persecuted, and wouldn't have continued in a false belief under those circumstances doesn't work. The same could be said for Moslem suicide bombers- their beliefs must be true if they are willing to die for them. Or, you can say that the survival of Judaism over the past two millenia proves that their religion is right.

I have yet to see a logical argument that proves Christianity to be true, or any religion for that matter.