Christianity vs. Other Religions

[Short1]

Hi I was wondering what some of you had for insight as far as what makes Christianity the 'right' thing.. coming from a couple different angles here:

-I could argue my faith is correct because I have experienced the Holy Spirit, but what about people from other faiths who claim the same? Are they faking or are we?
Or are we both wrong and really religions aren't in the picture at all?

- Do you have any comments on the atheist argument "you were born here and so you are Christian.. if you were born there, you would be Muslim.. no matter which situation, you would just call yourself right and consider only your faith to be correct" That's tough because everything seems so right about Christianity.. so what do you do about everyone else? Are they lying? Did I hallucinate? Do I just simply not know enough?


I guess I'm just looking for insight about us vs. them.. what makes our point of view more dependable. Its hard because we know only what we go through, and only they know what they have. Its near impossible to compare.

Kinda broad.. thanks a lot!

[Maytan]

-I could argue my faith is correct because I have experienced the Holy Spirit, but what about people from other faiths who claim the same? Are they faking or are we?
Or are we both wrong and really religions aren't in the picture at all?

I just answered this question in another topic, here's what I said:

Dr. Craig puts it something like having two jars, one filled with water and the other filled with an identical looking liquid. Say they're both labeled 'Water', does the incorrect label falsify the correct one?

He puts it better than I do, but that's the best way I can summarize it. In short, false claims of spiritual experience do not falsify real claims of spiritual experience. If it comes down to comparing claims, you'd have to go back to the evidence that each claim would be based on. As you said, the evidence clearly proved the claims of seeing a 'ghost girl' false. In the same way, you can affirm your spiritual experiences with God by backing it up with the evidence of Christianity's truths.

See Dr. Craig's Reasonable Faith podcast, "Religious Experience: Subjective or Objective?" http://www.rfmedia.org/RF_audio_video/R ... ective.mp3

I would also highly suggest you listen to or read some of Dr. Craig's other material. His website is http://www.reasonablefaith.org/.

- Do you have any comments on the atheist argument "you were born here and so you are Christian.. if you were born there, you would be Muslim.. no matter which situation, you would just call yourself right and consider only your faith to be correct" That's tough because everything seems so right about Christianity.. so what do you do about everyone else? Are they lying? Did I hallucinate? Do I just simply not know enough?

That's a genetic fallacy. You can't prove a belief wrong by stating where the belief originated, you have to falsify the belief itself.

[Kristoffer]

Christianity vs Islam vs Buddism


Tell me if im wrong:
C

• Triune god
  Salvation by atonement?
  Many denominations
  Exclusive (john 14:6)
  Abrahamic Religion

I

• Monotheism
  Salvation by "submission"
  May presumably get a harem in paradise.
  Multiple wives but not husbands.
  te-totaller
  Few denominations
  Exclusive
  Apostates face death penality
  Abrahamic Religion

B

• Non-theistic/Polytheism/Pantheism
  Enlightenment (meditiation, contemplation etc)
  Rebirth/Reincarnation
  Inclusive
  Anti-suffering(many are vegetarions)
  Eastern

Just trying to list some facts. But tell me would you call a large amount of denominations a strength or a weakness? Hard to tell really. How could my lists be improved?

[Seraph]

The list seems pretty accurate for the most part.

I would argue that the "true" revelation from God would have many denominations. God is a complicated entity so efforts to understand Him are going to result in a bunch of different camps.

[Katabole]

Hi Short1,

The apologist Ravi Zacharias claims that Christianity is unique among all other belief systems, not because it claims to be the truth as other belief systems also claim but because it contains four basic fundamentals that other belief systems do not answer. These are origin, meaning, morality and destiny.

Here's a link of Ravi explaining it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgJmsK2s0uI

Here's a link to the Oxford university mathematics professor John Lennox explaining why faith is not delusional. There are five parts, you should listen to all five.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3t-g4z0Igw

Hope that helps you.

[Kristoffer]

Does the mathematicion mathematically demonstrate why it is reasonable? Or is it just a faith thing?

Oh yea and of course believing in things is reasonable, aslong as it is justified.

These are origin, meaning, morality and destiny.

most other religion do "provide" these, just they cant all be right when they wildly contradict one another.

[Gman]

Hi I was wondering what some of you had for insight as far as what makes Christianity the 'right' thing..

Easy.. Because the CORE value of Christianity is LOVE. It's foundational. It truly stands out from the other faiths because of the this.

God literally dies for you in Christianity.. The others don't..

[jlay]

- Do you have any comments on the atheist argument "you were born here and so you are Christian.. if you were born there, you would be Muslim..

This is a fallacious argument. A fallacious argument doesn't warrant an answer, only showing that it is fallacious.
while it is certainly true that i grew up in a country that is favorable towards Christianity, that in itself has nothing to do with whether I have good reason to believe it to be true. In fact it is a natural thing in this country for children to rebel against the way they are raised.

Personally I have good reasons to reject Christianity because of the environment I grew up in. My father rejected the faith and abandoned our family. I grew up around hypocrisy. If I was born there i would probably be Muslim. But that still wouldn't change one iota whether one was true or the other false, or answer whether I had sound reasons to believe or reject.

This argument is faulty because it is a faulty appeal.

[Noah1201]

It is not necessarily a fallacious argument. Yes, it would definitely be fallacious to say that "Christianity is false because you believe it because you were were born here and there". But I don't think anyone is saying that.

Here's a better argument.

1) God loves everyone and will do everything in His power to have as many people as possible saved (this is accepted by nearly all non-Calvinists).

2) Being a Christian is necessary to be saved (all non-universalists and non-inclusivists accept it)

3) The religion one will adopt, for the most part, is a matter of geographical and historical accident (sociological fact--i.e. if you were born in Iran, you would be a Muslim and so on)

4) Therefore, salvation almost entirely depends on geographical and historical accident, in other words--chance.


4) seems blatantly incosistent with 1).

The only ways to avoid the conclusion "There is no Christian God" is to adopt inclusvism, universalism or Calvinism. So I think most Protestant Christians are self-incosistent.

[Maytan]

The only ways to avoid the conclusion "There is no Christian God" is to adopt inclusvism, universalism or Calvinism.

You sound like you have an axe to grind. One scenario that you feel may be inconsistent and you're jumping all the way to "There is no Christian God"? Dr. Craig would disagree, as he's an advocate of Molinism. I hate to go around posting nothing but links, but he offers a plausible explanation to the 'problem' you've presented.

http://www.rfmedia.org/RF_audio_video/R ... -Heard.mp3

[Seraph]

It is not necessarily a fallacious argument. Yes, it would definitely be fallacious to say that "Christianity is false because you believe it because you were were born here and there". But I don't think anyone is saying that.

Here's a better argument.

1) God loves everyone and will do everything in His power to have as many people as possible saved (this is accepted by nearly all non-Calvinists).

2) Being a Christian is necessary to be saved (all non-universalists and non-inclusivists accept it)

3) The religion one will adopt, for the most part, is a matter of geographical and historical accident (sociological fact--i.e. if you were born in Iran, you would be a Muslim and so on)

4) Therefore, salvation almost entirely depends on geographical and historical accident, in other words--chance.


4) seems blatantly incosistent with 1).

The only ways to avoid the conclusion "There is no Christian God" is to adopt inclusvism, universalism or Calvinism. So I think most Protestant Christians are self-incosistent.

Number 3) isn't always the case though. There are many who hold a religion different than the one their native country tends to hold. Thus, even though people are largely influenced to accept the religion of their parents, they aren't determined to. Therefore I think 3) is the weak premise of the arguement.

[Noah1201]

You sound like you have an axe to grind. One scenario that you feel may be inconsistent and you're jumping all the way to "There is no Christian God"?

No. I already pointed out three possible alternatives to the conclusion.

Dr. Craig would disagree, as he's an advocate of Molinism. I hate to go around posting nothing but links, but he offers a plausible explanation to the 'problem' you've presented.

http://www.rfmedia.org/RF_audio_video/R ... -Heard.mp3

I'm not talking about those who have never heard. I'm talking about those who have heard but keep their religion due to socio-cultural conditioning.

Number 3) isn't always the case though. There are many who hold a religion different than the one their native country tends to hold. Thus, even though people are largely influenced to accept the religion of their parents, they aren't determined to. Therefore I think 3) is the weak premise of the arguement.

I did not say it was "always" the case. But it is, in the vast majority of cases. Therefore, as I said, for the most part, it is the case that the culture you are brought up in has a major influence on what you will believe when you grow up.

This is not only a sociological fact, it is also pretty much common sense. Just observe the behavior of yourself and people around you--how did they come to adopt their religious beliefs? For most of them, the answer will not be because of long, exhaustive inquiries into the existence of God, but because they were brought up that way. Most of them have probably never even bothered to even look into Hindusim, Islam and alike.

The same is the case with most people in the world, from all religions. People accept what their parents taught them, and rarely consider the idea of adopting a religion practiced on the other side of the planet. Even if they bother to actually look into a different religion, they will rarely be exposed to apologetics, and that is the least that is needed to outweigh the force of cultural conditioning.

[Seraph]

You're correct. I wonder the same thing.

Ironically, even though I tried to point out a flaw in the arguement, I was actually about to post one very similar to yours before I saw that you did.

[RickD]

It's amazing how God calls us wherever we are in life. I was brought up in a Protestant family, in a predominantly Catholic area of the country. Both my parents were Protestant, and God called me out of the Protestantism of my youth. My wife was brought up Catholic, and God spoke to her and brought her out of that religion. God calls people out of their religions, into a relationship with Him through Jesus Christ. Whatever man-made religions we formerly held onto, are worthless garbage compared to what we have in Christ.

[Maytan]

No. I already pointed out three possible alternatives to the conclusion.

But dogmatically stating that those three conclusions are the only way to have a coherent belief in the Christian God is utterly wrong. That's nothing but axe-grinding, quite frankly.

I'm not talking about those who have never heard. I'm talking about those who have heard but keep their religion due to socio-cultural conditioning.

He addresses the issue of people being born into areas where Christianity is not dominant or well-known. Namely, the possibility that God puts only the people that he knows wouldn't believe in him into positions like that. In other words, a place for everyone and everyone in their place.

It's amazing how God calls us wherever we are in life. I was brought up in a Protestant family, in a predominantly Catholic area of the country. Both my parents were Protestant, and God called me out of the Protestantism of my youth. My wife was brought up Catholic, and God spoke to her and brought her out of that religion. God calls people out of their religions, into a relationship with Him through Jesus Christ. Whatever man-made religions we formerly held onto, are worthless garbage compared to what we have in Christ.

Amen!