Philip: It matters VERY much what you call "it" - as one's eternal destination depends upon what you recognize and commit to as that "metaphysical force!" Is it the God of the Bible / Jesus Christ - or just some false deity? And yet, a first step towards identifying the Force that created all things is first realizing there must be some incredible, all-knowing, all-powerful Entity that created and controls it!
Challenger: Where did you get the idea that, for example, Allah is a false deity, and not the god that exists in the understanding of Christians? By what criteria do you determine the truth or falsity of beliefs?
Scriptural-based Christianity is the ONLY faith in the world that offers many evidences, historical, specific fulfilled prophecies, and archaeological evidences along with 16 centuries of writings by God’s prophets and apostles. It is the only faith that is not works-based – that is, ALL of the world's religions assert, in various ways, how to acquire some promise of a beautiful afterlife by trying to be good, do good works, and are designed to appease whatever supposed deities, build good karma, typically in a quest and hope that the good one does in life will outweigh the bad things they’ve done. In contrast, the God of Christianity cannot be appeased or satisfied by good works! To gain external life with the true God, one must accept and commit themselves to Him and believe / have faith that Jesus is fully God and was crucified and lives. He has done ALL necessary – we cannot EARN our salvation! NO amount of good works will matter – only a true faith and commitment to God / Christ matter.
The Bible’s most important teachings contradict what other faiths’ teachings assert, in key ways – most importantly, as to whom or what entities they assert to be god. In Christian teachings, JESUS is God, as is the Father, and the Holy Spirit – but these are all Persons that make up the ONE God. Other faiths assert multiple gods or different a different one – and they all deny that Jesus is God.
The Apostle Paul says in 1 Galatians: “6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7
not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.” And he continues: “11 For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel.[c] 12 For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it,
but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.”
The law of non-contradiction states that a thing cannot simultaneously be true and not true at the same time. So, we know that with the many and very different beliefs, various faiths assert who God or their god(s) is or how to gain their view of heaven - so we must realize that they cannot ALL be the same path to the real God. Either Christianity is true or one of the other faith or faiths is - but they ALL can't be!
Here’s a good chart that shows some key differences in what various faiths believe:
https://carm.org/miscellaneous-topics/c ... son-chart/
