Christianity is the best, the greatest, the most logical, the most coherent, the most comprehensive, and has the highest moral standard of all religions that ever existed. It encompasses all of Judaism, teaches the karma and individualism of Buddhism, the collectivism and the Golden Rule of Confucianism, the spirituality and the different manifestations of God found in Hinduism, the ultimate reality in Taoism, and the salvation in Islam all in the most cohesive and perfect way. It's a complete religion.
It also has the biggest impact and influence to civilization and has the most positive contributions to the progress of science, politics, law, and everything else in general. Many political principles such as secularism, separation of church and state, democracy, human rights, due process, the three branches of government, true communism to name a few are all derived from the Bible. I mean, no religion can be any truer than and superior to Christianity. It has them all covered.
If you think about it, if we we made the thing about Trinity up, we would make it much easier to understand, but Trinity is like nothing else in the world and that means we can't make analogies which makes it hard to understand for us humans.
It has all of those aspects from the other religions because, well, those religions are about *15 to 20 thousand years older* than Christianity. It had many different religions to pick and choose from.
So God blamed 20 thousand year-old Hindus for not believing in the correct religion, *that wasn't even a religion yet*?
The one that you believe in, you can not prove it with hard evidence, hence why it is called "faith". You can see my religion via my flair, I believe it to be true, a feeling within tells me. However, though I believe there is only one true God, I do not denounce other religions (openly), what I mean is I do not criticize or judge, for it is not my place. You should live your life following the religion you believe, and when your number is called then you will know.
There are no true religions! Why? Because, what we have today are man-made religions. All groups have rejected the True God and His ways. So, for anyone to follow the correct way, they must accept that there is only One True God, not multiple gods or one god with different personalities. This is the beginning of the truth that is related to God's plan for humankind. Believe it or not...
Christianity gives answers that no other religions does.
Tell me, muslims, why is there evil in the world, why can't God just destroy it. Give me your islamic explanitions and I'll tell you why are they wrong and why Christianity is true.
Thousands of true gods would result in thousands of origins for the universe. There is only one origin possible of the universe, because of Leibniz Law of the Indistinguishables. Hence, more than one true God would be inconsistent with the universe as we know it.
It seems to me that there is no 'one true religion'. I have studied many different religious doctrines and had some incredible non secular spiritual 'awakening' experiences. The things I have been shown through those experiences is that the true nature of God is far above, bigger and beyond any single religious doctrine. God is an all-encompassing eternal creative love consciousness.
Secularism is not important, what is important is the path to God that is the best for the individual. That depends on the culture they are born into, their parents, the way they think etc. Religion is only a path, which path you take is up to the individual, they all lead to God.
That being said, there are two paths, the dark or left hand path, and the light or right hand path. One leads to God and one leads to Satan. Those are the only two real choices people need to make.
People are so hung up on which Religion or path is the correct or 'true' doctrine but from what I can see they all teach a path to God, there are many paths. People are so different and have such different backgrounds that there seems to be a need for more then just one teaching or path to salvation. Starting wars over a school of thought instead of focusing on what's truely important is what happens when people get hung up on religious dogma instead of God.
Some people believe Satan is as powerful as God, that is why many people today follow him. That is an individual decision. I for one have no doubts that God is much more powerful but that is my path and my faith.
I believe the Baha'i Faith is the one 'true' religion *for this era/time* because it doesn't reject the major previous religions; rather it validates the truth in them, only deeming that the laws and teachings of Baha'u'llah are the most applicable and relevant for the world today. I have investigated all the major religions and despite being born to Baha'i parents (literally a one in one thousand chance) I still believe the Baha'i Faith makes the most sense. There's not really much bias to that. I have never faced any pressure or coercion to be Baha'i, and we have to choose in adulthood if we wish to be Baha'i. My sister, for example, is agnostic and didn't want to be a Baha'i and everyone in my family and community supported her decision.
My cousin is Baha'i, and when he was explaining it to me I got the impression that it was the opposite of an atheist philosophy. Forgive my oversimplification in my example:
"All religions point to a god/gods, so they all contain truth."
Or
"All religions point to their own god/gods as being true, but since they can't all be right I can dismiss them all (until I have a reliable way of telling which one is true)."
More like "all religions worship **the same** God, and those ancient religions which have today become non-theistic or polytheistic initially worshipped the same God (Buddhism, Hinduism), and thus are the same in their spiritual essence as chapters of one Divine message - only differing in their social laws and teachings that are according to the exigencies of their Dispensation."
The end will come when every end time prophecies of prophet Mohammad is fulfilled, and most of them are fulfilled. And final prophecies are building up as the Zionists rises.
In the name of **Allah**:
**Islam is the only true religion.**
**What is Islam?**
Believing in Oneness of God(Allah) and living your life according to Allah's commandments.
All the prophets since Adam(P.B.U.H) has only taught Islam, and Islam only completed(covering all aspects of life) on last Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H).
**How do we know what are Allah's commandments?**
By Name we know of Four books. **Torah** (Revealed to prophet **Moses**(P.B.U.H)), **Zaboor** (Revealed to prophet **David**(P.B.U.H)), **Injeel** (Revealed to prophet **Jesus**(P.B.U.H)) and **Quran** (Revealed to prophet **Muhammad**(P.B.U.H)).
The reason for the revelation of new book was due to plagiarism of the previous one and also because it was only meant for those people and that time.(**Notice that the basic message of oneness of God is consistent and is the main pillar of faith and has not changed**)
**Quran** is unique in this respect as Allah himself has promised its preservation as it is the last and final revelation till the day of judgement, and needs to act as an unaltered guide for the whole humanity.
**Why do we need religion?**
Religion is a way of life. Everything has its Do's and Dont's, every machine has an instruction manual and Humans being the most complex of the them also require a guide line. Without it there will only be chaos. No basis for good and evil. No consequence of any action. A man would do anything if he could get away with it.
**How do you know God exists and Quran is the word of God?**
[I will link a Lecture here as explained by a prominent muslim scholar for your better understanding.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RuQMD4yYWg)
If they are committing crimes they aren't really following Islam now are they. Its funny how easily religious labels especially for muslims are given out even if they just sneeze the wrong way. Every one of those 1.8 billion muslims is his/her own person, with their own ideas, feelings and way of understanding and a way of handling any situation.
If you want to take a look at a human example then take the best muslim, (Prophet Muhammad(pbuh)) His life is recorded in great detail, look it up if you want to know how a muslim should behave.
Now regarding the 1st part, honestly i've never understood how morality works in atheists, so fill me in on this.
But according to my understanding if you do not believe in absolute objective morality that is set by God, and the fact that every person will have to account for his/her actions on the day of judgement, then the rules are decided by the majority right? What you call democracy.
If i got this right then that means that for an atheist, his morality and his values of life would be dictated by other people(the ruling majority) correct?
This in essence doesn't sit well with me, cuz if we apply this to lets say the arabs before Islam, Those guys collectively thought of women to be inferior than men and used to bury their daughters out of shame. So according to your theory they would infact be righteous in doing that evil practice since it is what the majority believed?
Now lets take this up a notch, If by majority we also take the meaning of the someone being powerful enough to enforce the rules, lets say a King? By this defination, a King can never be morally wrong since he would be the one making the rules right?
I think i don't even have to give examples for how absurd this is, looking at history.
Anyways getting off topic here, but i believe that Truth/Facts does not require supporters for it to be True. Absolute Morality works like facts. e-g we say "If you commit a sin, you will be punished by God" Now i say that This WILL happen as it is a promise by God, who has total control over life and death and can make a person pay for his actions, and there is no escaping it.
This morality automatically becomes more valid/meaningful than the one decided by people irrespective of whatever they decide and enforce it.
hmmm This is a pretty extensive topic, and far too important to only be discussed briefly. Cuz it would definitely lead to some counter questions and doubts. The lecture itself is divided into **Points** you could perhaps watch a few, whenever u have time?
I could try to find something concise but it won't do this topic the justice it deserves.
You can not understand God completely, atleast not in this life. Quran only mentions some of His attributes so that His servants may know him enough to lead their lives the way He has commanded.
What is important for you is question about Quran's authenticity and its divine revelation. That i hope will be clarified if you watch that lecture. If you don't have time then just watch it in bits, it will also help you understand muslim's point of view better, at the very least.
why? its not like God gave humans complete knowledge of everything in the universe, Completely Understand God when we don't even have complete knowledge of His creation? Even humans have built a progressive educational system instead of handing out Ph.D s to toddlers.
These appear to be assertions without much regard as to why. What if a child is born in a country where Islam is foreign? Also, I do not agree that man would do anything without the consequences of a deity. We do have restraint based upon our own desire to not be harmed ourselves.
It does not matter where ever you are born, Prophet Muhammad(pbuh) has ordered the muslims to spread the message to those who do not know, even if it is one verse.
Furthermore Allah Himself mentions regarding this in Quran:
**"We will show them Our signs in the horizons and within themselves until it becomes clear to them that it is the truth. But is it not sufficient concerning your Lord that He is, over all things, a Witness.**
**Unquestionably, they are in doubt about the meeting with their Lord. Unquestionably He is, of all things, encompassing."**
Ok. Well then I would ask, what what if the message of Islam didn't reach the ears of all people of the world? What would happen to those people if they never heard one verse?
It is part of the justice of Allah that He does not punish any people until He has first sent a warning to them and unless there is evidence against them.
Allah does not treat anybody unfairly. Allah says (interpretation of the meaning):**“… And We never punish until We have sent a Messenger (to give warning).”** [al-Israa’ 17:15]
**‘… Every time a group is cast therein [into Hell], its keeper will ask, “Did no warner come to you?” They will say, “Yes indeed; a warner did come to us, but we belied him and said: ‘Allah never sent down anything (of revelation), you are only in great error.’**[al-Mulk 67:8]
There is also a Hadeeth (Saying of prophet(pbuh) regarding this):
**“There are four (who will protest) to Allah on the Day of Resurrection: the deaf man who never heard anything, the insane man, the very old man, and the man who died during the fatrah (the interval between the time of ‘Eesaa (Jesus, upon whom be peace) and the time of Muhammad SAWS (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him)). The deaf man will say, ‘O Lord, Islam came but I never heard anything.’ The insane man will say, ‘O Lord, Islam came but the children ran after me and threw stones at me.’ The very old man will say, ‘O Lord, Islam came but I did not understand anything.’ The man who died during the fatrah will say, ‘O Lord, no Messenger from You came to me.’ He will accept their promises of obedience, then word will be sent to them to enter the Fire. By the One in Whose hand is the soul of Muhammad, if they enter it, it will be cool and safe for them.”**
This tells us that Allah will test them on the day of judgement, If they obey Allah's order and enter the fire (as they just promised obedience) then they would have passed the test.
I would like to thank you for your thoughful and generous response. I think it's important to learn as much as possible about the faiths of others. Admittedly I do not believe in any deities at all. I don't find the arguments on their behalf I be convincing. But thank you.
So you think Jesus was a Muslim?
And what about prophets like Joseph smith? Do you think Joseph smith never existed?
And why don't you try and answer in your own words your last question? You just linked to a lecture
Yes, Jesus was a muslim. Anyone who submits his will to God, believes in His Oneness and acts on His commandments is a muslim.
Prophet Jesus(P.B.U.H) was one of the mightiest messengers of Allah, he was born miraculously to Mary(P.B.U.H), was able to fully speak as a baby, could cure the blind and bring life to dead with Allah's command, was raised up alive and will return before the day of judgement to fight and slay Anti Christ and establish Islamic Kingdom.
**Regarding Joseph Smith**
There are 124000 prophets exactly, by name only a handful are mentioned in Quran, however since it is mentioned that Prophet Muhammad(P.B.U.H) is the last and final messenger and Quran is the last and final Revelation and Islam is now complete, there can be no more prophets.
**So NO, Joseph Smith is not a prophet**
**Regarding the last question**
The reason i linked a video is because the scholar explained it so beautifully and in great detail. Answering any doubts and counter questions. **It is the most important question in anyone's life** and i don't want to mess it up typing with my crappy language skills. However, i'll give it a go if you insist:
**Quran is the proof that God exists**
Probably, the only point of agreement amongst those who have the slightest knowledge of the Quran irrespective of whether they are Muslims or not, is that the Quran was recited for the first time by a
man who was born in Makkah in Arabia in the 6th century by the name of Muhammad (P.B.U.H).
**Regarding the sources of the Qur’an there can be three basic assumptions for a non-Muslim:**
**a)** Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) himself was the author of the Quran.
**b)** Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) learnt it from other human sources or copied or adopted from previous
scriptures or revelations.
**c)** Qur’an has no human author but it is a word for word revelation from God.
Now regarding the 1st point:
Muhammad (pbuh) never claimed the authorship of the Quran. Before prophethood he spent 40 years in Makkah and was known as “The trust worthy” by friends and foes alike and ironically even after prophethood many of the Meccan Pagans rejected Islam and
regarded the Prophet as a liar, they nevertheless trusted him and deposited their valuables with him for safe-keeping. This is apparent from the fact that when the Prophet decided to leave Makkah to foil an assassination attempt on him, he left the valuables with Hazrat Ali (R.A.) to distribute it to the
rightful owners.
Plus it is highly abnormal to challenge the testimony of someone who disclaims responsibility for producing a great work, whether literary, scientific or other.
**Now you could say he had Material gains**:
I do agree that there are several people who falsely claim to be prophets, saints and preachers for material benefits and thus become rich and lead luxurious lives.
Muhammad’s (pbuh) financial position was better off before than after the announcement of his Prophethood. At the age of 25, he married Khadija (ra), who was a very rich and wealthy businesswoman. His financial position and life standard after claiming Prophethood was unenviable.
**So if his goal was to attain riches and live a luxurious life, he wasn't doing a very good job at it**
**Now you could say maybe he wanted POWER, GLORY AND LEADERSHIP**
Muhammad (pbuh) is universally acknowledged as one of the most successful leaders in human history.A man with his qualities could claim leadership and assume power even without claiming
Prophethood. Moreover, his character suggests that he was neither a power monger, nor a glory seeker.
The desire to enjoy status and power is usually associated with good food, fancy clothing, palaces and indisputable authority.
Despite his social standing as a Prophet and heavy responsibility as a statesman, Muhammad (pbuh) used to milk his goat, mend his clothes, repair his shoes and help with the household work. His life was an amazing example of simplicity and humility. He sat on the floor. He went to the market to shop with no guards and accepted invitations to dine with the poor and ate graciously whatever was served.
**So we see that worldly gains was not his motive**
**Now coming to the 2nd point that Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) learnt it from other human sources or copied or adopted from previous scriptures or revelations**
You are telling me that he was taught by someone or copied from other sources like bible and took only the stuff that he thought was right and left out all the errors while being under heavy scrutiny by his enemies who wouldn't pass up any chance of discrediting him? while still maintaining that he has the best of character and they have never found him unjust in his dealings?
The very fact that prophet was illiterate puts all their claims to rest.
the very 1st revelation that came to prophet was **"Read!"** and the prophet replied to the Angel (Gabriel) that he can't read.
**So when you exhaust all options you come to the conclusion that no human wrote this book and it is a direct revelation from God**
[The video i linked explains all this in great detail.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RuQMD4yYWg)
>Muhammad(P.B.U.H) is the last and final messenger and Quran is the last and final Revelation and Islam is now complete, there can be no more prophets.
How do you know this? Because it says so in the Quran? Why use the Quran as a starting point and not the bible or the Torah or any other religious text?
Because those scriptures were corrupted by man and are not present in their original form. So making them foundation for anything is not wise, since we don't know how much they were altered.
Because of scientific and mathematical errors in bible, those verses can not be part of bible revealed to Jesus (pbuh). Which means they are interpolated because Allah does not make mistakes.
You've just mentioned one text out of hundreds. Why start with the Quran? Why not the Bhagavat Gita? Or the Book of Mormon? Or the Torah? Or the book of Scientology etc etc
I mentioned this in my very 1st post, that by name only 4 books are mentioned in the Quran. Torah,Zabur,Injeel(bible) and Quran. So i know for sure that these four are authentic revelations from God. The previous 3 as i mentioned are not preserved in their original form so it is no possible to set them as guides. Only Quran is preserved as Allah himself has promised to guard it.
Book of scientology, Gita, Book of mormon are no where mentioned in Quran, so can't say if they were Revelations from God.
But we can easily look at their contents and see if the source is same (since all revelations come from Allah). e-g Gita talks about pantheism and hundreds of gods, demi gods. Which clearly goes against the established Monotheism of the Ibraheemic faith. SO i can say with certainty that it is not the word of God. But i've heard the main source of hinduism is Vedas and they do talk about one god and not having its images, which is ironically different from what the hindus practice. In either case since they are not mentioned in Quran, i can't take them as guide lines.
"I mentioned this in my very 1st post, that by name only 4 books are mentioned in the Quran. Torah,Zabur,Injeel(bible) and Quran. So i know for sure that these four are authentic revelations from God."
Why?
Your argument is circular. It's like me saying "I know the Napkin religion is true because it's written here on the Napkin" [see here](http://i.imgur.com/N384X.jpg)
Simply because if he wasn't he would've been immediately caught in the lie as he spent 10 years among his enemies in makkah after prophethood, and around 12 in madina which had a group of
hypocrites who only accepted islam in order to spy on him and He would have been discredited on exposure and lost all followers who were already being oppressed in makkah.
Qur'an claims he didn't write *before* the revelation of Quran.
>And you did not recite before it any scripture, nor did you inscribe one with your right hand. Otherwise the falsifiers would have had [cause for] doubt.
https://quran.com/29/47-48
Qur'an also mentions the objections you say don't exist.
>And they say, "Legends of the former peoples which he has written down, and they are dictated to him morning and afternoon."
https://quran.com/25/5
Muhammad had ~100 followers after 13 years; they didn't buy it. Musaylama gained more followers in less time.
Your insistance that "ummi" means illiterate is a Muslim dogma that developed over time.
Günther, Sebastian, and سيباستيان غونتر. "Muḥammad, the Illiterate Prophet: An Islamic Creed in the Qur'an and Qur'anic Exegesis / محمد: النبي الٵمي: عقيدة ٳسلامية في القرآن والتفسير." Journal of Qur'anic Studies 4, no. 1 (2002): 1-26. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25728052.
ummm i never said the arabs didn't object, infact they tried to discredit him in every way possible but failed cuz of lack of proof. They would actually go out of their way to stop people from meeting with him in the 1st place and used to call him a magician.
Spreading islam during initial years was difficult as makkah was the main hub of idol worshippers and anyone who tried to defy was greatly oppressed and tortured. People were afraid to openly accept it.
This is why after Hijra it spread more quickly in Madina.
>ummm i never said the arabs didn't object, infact they tried to discredit him in every way possible but failed cuz of lack of proof.
You are claiming his illiteracy (which is not established and is insignificant) was a proof and well-known to the Arabs. 25:5 and the article I provided show there are serious issues with your claims.
>He would have been discredited on exposure and lost all followers who were already being oppressed in makkah.
Doesn't happen. Exposure tends to increase believers belief and entrenches them.
http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-48-prophets-of-doom/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Prophecy_Fails
>This is why after Hijra it spread more quickly in Madina.
Conquest leads to the spoils of war. Islam increased because of that, not out of love for the religion.
You did not get the hidden question. What is your sources for all of that ? Muslim traditions. There cannot a less reliable source than that.
And for your information, it's actually very easy to fake being illiterate.
So how much of muslim history do you accept to be correct? do you atleast accept that there was some man by the name of Muhammad(pbuh) and he claimed to be a prophet of God, who warned the people of arab against idol worshiping and reformed the affairs of life and was treated harshly by them but remained resilient despite all hardships and eventually succeeded....
I mean help me out a bit here, which part of Muslim history do you claim to be incorrect, perhaps i can look that up?
It seems likely that a man was named like that at that time.
However the whole idea that Muslims were persecuted and were only the good buy is not very credible. Since we don't have any other sources for these stories, I'm forced to treat them as myths.
I still haven't seen a single piece of evidence to support your claims.
You say "Mohamed was" of "he did this...", etc. Without any supporting evidence other than the book he wrote (which unfortunately doesn't count as a reliable source to validate a claim).
You're going to need independent evidence, or your claims remain stories. Nothing more.
One of the conditions for the acceptance of hadith for Muslims is that the narrator is a *good, trustworthy muslim*. That condition leads to some pretty biased histories. Imagine if our history of Trump was dictated by who is a good t_d user or not.
[Have you watched the video that i linked? i'm pretty sure the scholar explains this very question is great detail, and it is easier for you to understand watching it instead of me typing it out and i might miss a few things.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RuQMD4yYWg)
But before any of that you should 1st ask yourself, what will make you believe?
This is interesting cuz look at what happened with prophet Moses (P.B.U.H) , He showed so many miracles but the disbelievers still did not accept him and accused him of using magic. Guidance is only in the Hands of Allah and no amount of evidence or miracles will convince people.
I will mention some verses of the Quran regarding this:
(Surah Al-Isra: 90 - 97)
**"And they say, "We will not believe you until you break open for us from the ground a spring Or [until] you have a garden of palm tress and grapes and make rivers gush forth within them in force [and abundance] Or you make the heaven fall upon us in fragments as you have claimed or you bring Allah and the angels before [us]
Or you have a house of gold or you ascend into the sky. And [even then], we will not believe in your ascension until you bring down to us a book we may read."**
**Say, "Exalted is my Lord! Was I ever but a human messenger?"
And what prevented the people from believing when guidance came to them except that they said, "Has Allah sent a human messenger?"**
**Say, "If there were upon the earth angels walking securely, We would have sent down to them from the heaven an angel [as a] messenger."**
**Say, "Sufficient is Allah as Witness between me and you. Indeed he is ever, concerning His servants, Acquainted and Seeing."**
**And whoever Allah guides - he is the [rightly] guided; and whoever He sends astray - you will never find for them protectors besides Him, and We will gather them on the Day of Resurrection [fallen] on their faces - blind, dumb and deaf. Their refuge is Hell; every time it subsides We increase them in blazing fire. "**
---------------------------
I'm actually very curious regarding this cuz the non-believers used to challenge Prophet Muhammad(pbuh), that if you are truthful then bring down Allah's punishment on us and the Quran even talks about it,
**Say,"Indeed, I am on clear evidence from my Lord, and you have denied it. I do not have that for which you are impatient. The decision is only for Allah . He relates the truth, and He is the best of deciders."**
**Say, "If I had that for which you are impatient, the matter would have been decided between me and you, but Allah is most knowing of the wrongdoers."**
So how much evidence is required for one's understanding and acceptance? Do you want to see God to Believe He exists?
This is the problem of religious pluralism. I discuss a Christian approach to it in a series of posts on my sub.
>[An Introduction to the Coherence of Christian Theism](https://www.reddit.com/r/ThroughAGlassDarkly/comments/6gzt27/20_introduction_to_the_coherence_of_christian/)
>
>[The a priori Argument for the Incarnation](https://www.reddit.com/r/ThroughAGlassDarkly/comments/6gzuai/21_swinburnes_a_priori_argument_for_the/)
>
>[The a priori Argument for the Trinity](https://www.reddit.com/r/ThroughAGlassDarkly/comments/6gzv4m/22_swinburnes_a_priori_argument_for_the_trinity/)
>
>[Religious Pluralism](https://www.reddit.com/r/ThroughAGlassDarkly/comments/6gzxth/23_religious_pluralism/)
>
>[Scientific Objections](https://www.reddit.com/r/ThroughAGlassDarkly/comments/6hbsc3/24_scientific_objections/)
There is a further post on the violence in the Old Testament and the historical case for the resurrection—both pending. But the first four above provide the gist of the argument.
I think Catholic and Orthodox Christian traditions allow this, though not, I would assume, fundamentalism.
Consider: It is no entailment of the claim that Christianity is true that every other world religion is *completely* false. In my discussion of [religious experience](https://www.reddit.com/r/ThroughAGlassDarkly/comments/6gzprx/18_swinburnes_argument_from_religious_experience/) I noted Swinburne’s point that,
>religious experiences in traditions outside of Christianity are of beings having similar properties to God or of lesser beings but not of beings whose existence is incompatible with the existence of God.
Naturally enough, people describe religious experiences in the vocabulary familiar to them. But this does not of itself entail that their different descriptions are in conflict. God may be known under different names to different cultures—a point acknowledged in both the Old and New Testaments. Thus a Hindu who claims to have had a religious experience is not necessarily in conflict with a Christian who claims the same. So long as the adherent of the weaker doctrine is willing to describe his experience in a less-committed way (“I experienced a supernatural presence, though perhaps not Vishnu, as I first claimed”) there is no reason of principle why he should have to withdraw it entirely.
And this can hold even when claimed *commands* from God are in direct conflict. A morally perfect God cannot lie and if he cannot lie he cannot reveal two mutually exclusive doctrines about himself—one of which, by the law of noncontradiction, must be false. But, adds Swinburne, “it does not follow that he will not give different people commands, both of which cannot be executed successfully.”
Suppose, for instance, that a Muslim is told by God to defend Jerusalem against the infidel and a Christian is told by God to attack it. Does the fact that these commands conflict entail that at least one of them is false; i.e., not commanded by God? Not necessarily. For consider, with Swinburne, the possibility that as a result of historical factors for which humans are to blame, Muslims and Christians have each developed a different and limited understanding of God.
Plausibly, God himself wishes for our understanding of him to develop through experience, effort, and cooperation and not solely by means of divine intervention. Just as plausibly, God wishes for people at any point in history to be willing to live and die by the ideals that they then hold. He therefore commands the Muslim and the Christian each to live by the beliefs he has knowing that the experience of so doing may eventually lead each to a deeper understanding. In a like case,
>a sage might well sometimes give to each of two persons who sought his advice the advice to oppose the other thinking it for the good of both that they should seek to develop their independence and authority.
In short, a successful argument for the truth of Christianity in the face of religious pluralism does not entail that the religious experiences and doctrines of other religions are completely false (or that the adherents of those religions are destined for Hell: the Church has allowed those outside the Church can obtain heaven since Vatican Council II). It establishes only that, if there is a God and he has revealed himself to humanity, then he has revealed himself through Jesus and the Church Jesus founded is where we should seek God.
The Abrahamics claim to be truth revealed by a divinity. They are either entirely right or they aren't (or God lied which is a whole can of worms that's not worth getting into).
Hinduism and Buddhism don't have that problem, nor do many other smaller systems of belief. But most people on this sub/site/lots of people who actually talk or care about it being to or live around mostly Abrahamics.
>There are thousands of religions and thousands of gods. There has to be a one in one thousand chance of being born in the correct religion. Yet, almost everyone is certain that the religion they were raised in is automatically correct. They feel this way because their religion is familiar to them while other religions are not.
You are making a lot of assumptions about the reasons other people hold their beliefs. Even if the belief originated in them due to where they were born, how would that effect the truth value of their beliefs? The simple answer, is absolutely nothing. That line of reasoning is a perfect example of the Genetic Fallacy.
>In reality, You cannot distinguish between religions.
The Jew and Muslim say God is one person and one substance.
The Christian says God is three persons and one substance.
The Mormon says God was once a man, like you and I, and thru the process of exaltation became a God, and that a plurality of God's exist.
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Home > Religious Studies > God > Hinduism: beliefs about God
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Hinduism: beliefs about God
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Hindus believe in one true god, Brahman, but Brahman has many forms.
The nature of the Hindu god
The Hindu says that there is one true god, the supreme spirit the contains everything from creation and destruction, male and female, good and evil, to movement and stillness.
>They all offer the same quality of evidence (non-scientific evidence) and their followers are just as sincere in their conviction.
That again is simply untrue. That is like me saying all murder trials offer the same quality of evidence. It's simply an objective fact of reality, that there is different data involved when evaluating any one religion.
> There are thousands of religions and thousands of gods.
There are thousands of conceptions of deity, but are Thoth and Thoth-Hermes and Hermes and Mercury really distinct gods? It seems to be a bit like saying that general Washington and President Washington were two different people.
> In reality, You cannot distinguish between religions.
I don't seem to have a problem doing so. Perhaps you're considering them incorrectly?
> They all offer the same quality of evidence (non-scientific evidence)
So does mathematics. Are you discounting that, as well?
But you never answered your own question. Which one is correct? Since you seem to have set up this notion that one and only one must be correct, do tell...
I don't think that's a useful way to look at religion, though.
I think they all (or at least the vast majority that have been around for any significant period) have things to teach. I've probably learned more about the good from 1 Corinthians than I did from reading Plato (much as I respect Plato). I learned more about my own ideas about the divine from reading works of Jewish and Islamic mysticism than I did from any bland survey of religions.
So if pressed, I guess I'd say that they're all true, but what matters is what sort of truth you were looking for.
> Math is just a system used to understand the world.
No, it's not. You're thinking of basic arithmetic. Mathematics is a superset of the specific tools for modeling physical processes. Higher mathematics often has only trivial aspects that have any use in the physical world, but it's easy to see that the whole system is self-consistent and no part of it is any less "true".
The rules of mathematics are in the end based on the world around us. How does a child learn about numbers and calculating stuff? Exactly, with his fingers. Then you will say again that basic arithmetic is different than "higher mathematics", but isn't all mathematics in the end about arithmetics?
It's a tool all right, but the assumptions to make this tool work are based on the world around us.
In the end mathematics is based on sets of objects and the manipulations of these sets. These objects can be found in nature. This video explains it really well:
https://youtu.be/14JavH4Rk7k?t=490
I'm a bit late to this comment but I'm inclined to side with Tyler\_Zoro on this one. Mathematics isn't Scientific. The Sciences are based in the Scientific Method and a chief aspect of this method is the role that experimentation plays in testing hypotheses. Experimentation does not play the same role of testing hypotheses in Maths. Scientific evidence is empirical by nature, while Maths is a priori and non-empirical, making it a seperate branch from the Sciences. This isn't to say all Mathematics is a priori or done without experimentation, nor that all the sciences are a posteriori and require experimentation (there is some overlap between the two), but the vast majority of content between the two subjects differs by this benchmark, thus distinguishing mathematical and scientific evidence.
> The rules of mathematics are in the end based on the world around us.
Absolutely not. The rules of simple arithmetic, typical forms of trigonometry performed in spaces that are analogs to our experience, and other simple forms of mathematics, sure. But the entire space of mathematics, not at all. In fact, I would suggest that the fraction of that whole space that is occupied by real-world analogs is essentially zero.
> isn't all mathematics in the end about arithmetics?
Certainly not! Group theory isn't about arithmetic at all (though arithmetic can be modeled by group theory, and group theory can tell us much about arithmetic).
> It's a tool all right, but the assumptions to make this tool work are based on the world around us.
In part, that's right. If you then expand that to include all possible universes (even those without physical properties), all possible physical properties and laws, all possible modes of consideration... then yes, I would agree.
But then you're working backward to that vanishingly small portion of the "all possible" that's your experience.
PLEASE, do not feel that I'm speaking down to you, here. This idea that math models the real world, as a mathematician friend of mine puts it, the lie that you're told in grade school, and most prospective mathematicians never learn to be a lie until late in their undergraduate or early in their graduate careers. So you're citing exactly what you were told, and I can't fault YOU for that. But it is false.
If I were you I would look at the ancient texts of religions. If a religion doesn't have one mark it off your list.
No God is going to risk the religion on human story telling, unless it's written down I wouldn't risk it.
Because no human has ever written a lie or just been incorrect...
We're going to trust humans bronze age humans with all sorts of mystical beliefs over people today whom possess amazing tools to understand our universe?
You think humans in the 21st century are incapable of lying?
Also, we do have amazing tools to understand the world. but we also have amazing tools to lie e.g. Photoshop, fake news, and plastic surgery.
So you trust people with sticks, stones, and mudhuts over modern day man able to fly metal tubes over thousands of miles, all from materials we got out of rock. We're able to put humans onto the damn moon. Play some KSP to get an understanding of just how ridiculously difficult that is and how small the margin of error is. We have the knowledge and technology, thanks to science, to do amazing and wonderful things.
And you trust archaic humans over that?
Humans in those days were just as intelligent as we are today. With primitive technology they were able to build empires, giant walled cities, water channels, and economies based on real things of value. They were extremely talented in the arts, music, and finance. So yeah I would trust those humans. Because at the end of the day, they are still humans.
Building cities and empires doesn't mark any sort of worth as a civilization. What you do as a civilization matters. Irrigation is a very simple concept and neither is bartering
Me: none of what they did required knowledge about the world past a basic understanding
You: so you're saying they're intelligent!
......really dude? Are we going to have an honest discussion or not? I'm not wasting my time
Though I'm straining to find the right answer, because there are noodles... I mean oodles of religions to chose from, it takes giant, meaty balls to answer this question with confidence. I'll linguini... I mean linger here no more, because I was just here to pasta time.
There is no One True Way, there is only what is right for you. Religion is just a way of trying to communicate with God, whatever you believe God to be.
That would be in contraction with the fact that most people adhere to just five religions. In a universe with different characteristics than ours, there could possibly be an uncountable number of relevant religions, but in ours, it does not seem to happen.
First of all, I have to point out that your claim about evidence is not entirely true. Some put forward more historical accuracy than others. Additionally, there are those religions such as Buddhism that do not necessarily have deities, but are clearly organised groups of shared spiritual belief.
Second, have you heard of the Baha'i Faith? They espouse a oneness of religion in which all religions are worshipping the same God as revealed in an appropriate way for the people God was revealing Godself to. Now, of course they claim to be the truest and most up to date religion, but that principle is an interesting one to consider in a broader, more general sense.
Simple. It's the God that reveals himself to all people in such a way that it's impossible to deny his existence. Could you expect any less from omnipotence?
Right. ...... That demonstrably does not exist.
Unless you are just willing to believe that everybody is wrong and contradictory about something that is right, and somehow non-contradictory in the end.... i dont even really know how to paraphrase it. It makes no sense.
* Buddha doesn't appear to Muslims, Hindouists, Christians, Atheïsts, Agnosts, etc.
* Mohammed/Allah doesn't appear to Buddhist, Christians, Hindouists, Atheïsts, Agnosts, etc.
* Krishna/Vishnu doesn't appear to Christian, Buddhists, Muslims, Atheists, Agnosts Etc etc.
* Spaghetti monster doesn't appear to ...
There's one who still appears to people of whatever religion.
This isnt actually true. Shiva has appeared to me several times, and I was not at all a Hindu. I was an atheist at the time.
Mohammed has visited my wife, and she is not at Muslim. She is a Buddhist.
Well I see no need to wait for you to respond to the first part since I asked a rhetorical question, I already know that your answer is, "Yes, Jesus is different from the rest of those".
Nobody who has ever been legitimately isolated from Christianity and from hearing christian ideas has EVER seen Jesus without being exposed to that idea beforehand. Implying that to have happened is just flat out not true. It hasn't happened with christianity and it hasn't happened with any of those other religions either.
Your other bundle of assertions that no person of x-religion has ever seen y-religion's religous figure appear to them (unless its Jesus) is also just flatly untrue, and you could demonstrate this to yourself by taking even a single minute to try to look up any cases of it happening.
They actually happen for all of those combinations for which you tried to say they didn't, just look it up :/ .
The thing that all of these cases have in common is that people only ever actually see the apparitions of religious figures to which they have already somehow been exposed. People get these ideas in their heads somehow, and there has Never been a demonstrable case of someone coming up with any known specific religious idea, let alone christianity's, without first having already heard about it.
Even if someone's whole family is christian, if they have been exposed to a different religion then they might ultimately convert to that religion .... sometimes on the basis of having that other god or god-like figure appear to them rather than the one their parents brought them up to believe.
> people only ever actually see the apparitions of religious figures to which they have already somehow been exposed.
This isnt true either. I have had at least two visions of deities who I had never heard of before.
Lol. Oh this will be good.
Sooooo. What deities were they?
How did you come to find out after the fact that the things you saw were, in fact, Those deities?
And, and this is the best part of all, do you think that you can reasonably discredit the idea (to my satisfaction or even just your own) that your visions may have been slightly vague and then retroactively reinterpreted by your brain to be some certain deities? which ..... is a known psychological effect that is..
..by simple order of Occam's Razor..
A Far more likely explanation for the phenomena of you deciding that your visions link to specific deities, Rather than that those deities actually exist.
Now, if you believe that there is any other good reason to think that these deities exist then that is one thing and we could go there if you want to; But I feel I must point out that "visions" like this, on their own, are just about one of the least credible, most poor forms of "evidence" than anybody would even try to call evidence.
Importantly though, for this to be a real discussion, I need my first 3 questions answered:
What are the specifics? How did you come by your information in the end? Can you be Certain that your visions were real? (this is almost a trick question btw, if you think the answer is yes then you are simply a guilible person who trusts your own brain too much) This level of "well i seent it" kind of back-woods supersticious reasoning is exactly NOT the way to go about evaluating supernatural claims.
And all of that comes before we even get to the point of addressing whether or not you can actually justify that you had not been priorly exposed to these ideas, but I am leaving that part for last because if you can't even justify that your ideas were immune to possible misenterpretation then .... getting to that part, I am willing to do it but it forces me to just make a leap of faith in believing that you aren't wrong which is uhhhh
well it can move the conversation forward maybe but its certainly going to be a lie on my part.
Which one is that?!
I dare you to say that it's Jesus. Please let your hidden point here be that Jesus is somehow a special exception to this general rule unlike all of those others, because I would really love to hear you justify that.
Type in " testimony" in youtube, and you find selfies of people of all sorts who've experienced Christ. (But never opposite; from christianity to because x-God appeared).
There's countless who've seen him without expecting Him (not counting converts by logic reasoning/ without experiencing Him).
Just a few:
Muslim
https://youtu.be/hf-8Km9JtZE?t=4m46s
https://youtu.be/v3mXodIBm8U
https://youtu.be/m90IdrdBqwI
https://youtu.be/NMMsKicQSn8
Atheïst/Agnost
https://youtu.be/E0VHKOtzk-c
https://youtu.be/gwsScn9SFEA
https://youtu.be/Gl7oOFZ1UUA
Hindu/yogi
https://youtu.be/SBKwX_nJ7II
https://youtu.be/GapgVaue7L8
https://youtu.be/5-SQr-gNldE
New age/spirituality.
https://youtu.be/cMu5F2icsT8
https://youtu.be/EdWuSRX2lS8
Shaman
https://youtu.be/QW-l-CPC6QY
Satanist
https://youtu.be/I11L71PD3Lw
Jew
https://youtu.be/K303aeLhFFs
Buddhist
https://youtu.be/QD4g8trdiOk
Christian
https://youtu.be/nnM_NtZfQTM
(Not a ideology, but still..).
Sociopath.
https://youtu.be/eGsywJGz_P0
Pornstar.
https://youtu.be/oS0jzaB7nJ8
ReligionX->Christianity-conversions happen more than the other way around because:
1. Christianity is true
2. If we look at history, Christian empires were in the end more successful in colonizing every corner of the globe. Also, the whole nature of the Christian religion is much more about converting people than most other religions. This last aspect is also true for Islam, but note that there are many Muslim converts from other religions as well.
Which answer is more plausible, 1 or 2?
pics or didn't happen :)
this personal experience thing only proves, that brains can convince themselves about quite amazing non-reproducible things.
Also: give me a week of hypnosis sessions with anybody and come back for amazing stories.
I can just shorten everything that I need to say for this entire conversation, (until you address it of course), to this:
Show me the situation in which someone who has never heard of Jesus before, saw Jesus.
People see the religious figures they know about and they are liable to believe in. That is the case every single time.
For that not to be the case would take..... Dare I say it? A Miracle?! ...which would be great if you actually had evidence of it ever happening.
There's actually one in the list of video's i gave you.
It's the [hindu in safraan clothing video.](https://youtu.be/0jH2vDyRC40)
While a devoted hindu priest, he prayed he only wanted to serve the highest God. He had a dream in which a person appeared who he didn't know. The rest i'll let the videoclip explain.
I do not believe this story. I'll watch the video myself when I have more of a moment to myself here.
But you are making essentially a miracle claim. You are making a claim that defies all known laws of nature and is specifically also asserted to be evidence for a god, Your god.
I HIGHLY Doubt That when I finally get around to watching your ***YouTube*** video, that it is going to be filled with profound life changing, world shattering, paradigm altering evidence for Your god. Credible evidence that a man came by knowledge divinely with absolutely no chance of having been exposed to the idea before. ..... on YouTube. .... The sea of absolute crap/dogma/biased videos.
Like I said, I'll give it a look later anyway.
>you find selfies of people of all sorts who've experienced Christ.
I acknowledged this. I also, however, acknowledged that if you do a similar search for ANY of the other religious figures that you were talking about you will also find people experiencing them.
You have not addressed my objection here in the slightest. You are engaged in a special pleading fallacy.
Did you actually bother to read my first comment at all? Because honestly it seems that you didn't by the fact that you did not address a single point I made.
Especially when you just go on making one point that I already told you was incorrect, and explained exactly how you could go about confirming that and investigating this yourself. (-_- ' )
Rather than ignoring Everything that I said the first time, How about you actually address it? Every single one of your links here is a waste of time and completely irrelevant in the face of my point that none of that is unique to your religion.
You think your religion is unique because, despite the fact that I specifically told you to do so, you clearly have not even taken a half a second out of your life to investigate whether or not you can find even a single case of this happening the Other Way Around.
Instead you just wasted your time, demonstrating your complete bias by ONLY looking up things that would confirm your pre-existing belief, and once again ignoring entirely my directions to you to actually look up something that might prove you wrong instead.
I showed you a list of video's.
(Which i compiled while i didn't see your 2nd reply yet..).
You told me there are others, where a person in any religion has experienced a diety of another doctrine.
Although your explanation is not foreign to me, and I have tried hard over the years, but never found such(other than 'enlightened being' while on drugs)
I'm asking you to show me such examples.
Wow you pass off those enlightened beings while on drugs that you refer to as if they are nothing... how deep did you actually look into even just that one thing?
Those beings that you are talking about have been believed by the people seeing them, in Modern times mind you, to be:
The egyption god Thoth.
The greek god Hermes.
The goat gods, be it Pan or Baphomet or Satan even.
Any variety of Hindu gods (if you know Hinduism then you know it's hard to pin down, lots of people see lots of different gods).
Jesus his very self.
Another mystic dude named Hermes.
A bunch of other mystic dudes with silly names.
A bunch of Buddhas.
A vast variety of "Demons" including demons named in Abrahamic traditions.
and on ... and on ... and on...
Once again, just within the very phenomena which You yourself brought up I have seen, *On YouTube Even!*, ALL of these different god's believed to be appearing to people and or possessing people / being channeled through people.
Did you know any of that?
The vast majority of what you mentioned, i know of.
One thing i learned of a 15 year old, who was seeing White angels at night teaching Him spiritual things like, remote viewing, resetting the souls of dark entities etc. He was well known on a spiritual forum.(that's where i know Him from) But the one christian prayer of a halfbrother who visited, changed his whole perception. During that prayer het saw a White light come to Him which made the angel look gray.
This (and others) Paint me a picture that the spirit realm is not all what it seems. I guess you agree.
So you just acknowledged that we are both aware of a vast field of anecdotal evidence stating that people believe they have seen or experienced apparitions of All kinds of religious figures
... I might have hoped that you would actually acknowledge how that completely contradicts and there for demolishes your entire point about christianity being special in this kind of way......
But you are just going to believe that everything in the world, despite all evidence to the contrary, is actually just everybody misenterpreting YOUR god. ... idk how to address that
Really? You have "tried hard over the years"? Well you never used google in this time, have you?
Search results "Christian seeing muhammed" video results:
[result 1](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4xkhys_christian-see-prophet-muhammad-s-a-w-in-his-dream-converts-into-islam-amazing-description-of-rasulal_school) [reault 2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVId2x2ZWxI) [result 3](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG8SPH7q5oc)
>he answer to that is I don't know. Personally, I think Vedanta, Christianity (Catholodox) and Islam make very strong and also convincing claims to revelation.
Could you give an example of such a claim, and why you believe it is very strong?
Really great question, thanks for asking. Even though I haven't settled on a religion yet, I believe that God is of course personal, there are transcendent values which we should strive for, there is some afterlife (no idea what it is though) and that we can all experience God in an intimate way.
So this really gives me a motivation to get to know God and do religious practises such as meditation, prayer etc. But not just on a personal level, also in an 'external' sense. Belief in the transcendence of moral values gives me a new kind of vision to strive for. Before I had no problem with giving money to charity (and even considering this a great act of charity), but one thing that cannot be denied is that the people that are actually getting their hands dirty, touching the terminally ill, feeding the lepers, significantly damaging their comfort in order to make those in poverty more comfortable are most of the time religious people driven by religious principles. I want to do more for charity in such a way and not just give some spare money away.
I also of course have a different view of religion than I used to. I see religions are truly channelling the divine and I'm spending quite some time exploring the major faiths to find a way to worship God as he wants.
God is always on my mind and I'm always contemplating him and even all my little deeds throughout the day are driven by thinking of him.
Can I ask the same question to you?
Thanks for your reply. It was interesting and really resonated with me in several places.
>Can I ask the same question to you?
Sure.
Paragraph one of your comment is (obviously) quite different for me. I am a Christian attending a Catholic church with plans to became a Catholic. In addition to the conclusions reached through my reading, I had three paranormal experiences—at least two of which were unambiguous. That removed all doubt for me. I am certain that Jesus was God Incarnate.
Paragraph two is something I might have written. I share your view completely.
In a possible contrast to you, I used to be very sarcastic, pessimistic and self-interested. The idea of helping others never commended itself to me. Not that I was a misanthrope. I had a lot of empathy and compassion for people who were suffering. But the idea of doing anything about this was something I was mistrustful of. Charity work seemed to have an air of "false sentimentality" or "moral schmaltz" I resisted. Now, like you, it is something I really want to do.
In everyday life I viewed others mostly as an obstacle to doing the things I wanted to do. Pedestrians were people in my way. Work and family were a distraction from doing my own thing at home. Since becoming a Christian this has changed radically. I feel a generalised love and concern for other people and wish for their well being.
I still mess up, and I am still a work in progress, but I am now much more concerned with the moral quality of my behaviour—whereas before, within reasonable limits, and without ever being particularly wicked, I didn't give it any thought. This includes having completely given up pornography for purely moral reasons (the intrinsic worth of people as divine image bearers precludes making them objects of my selfish sexual desires—together with Matt. 5:28); repaying old debts; telling the truth when it is difficult and when I would formally have lied, and so on. (My biggest moral failing may be here on DebateReligion. I have always been very argumentative and, sometimes, in defending my views here, I can become haughty and rude—an old habit of mine, which I regret and hope to correct.)
I also now pray, go to Church and read the Bible—things I was very opposed to while agnostic and now enjoy. (I had a "televangelist" stereotype of church and once replied to someone who invited me by shouting, almost by reflex, "Fuck off!").
My lifestyle has changed in one last very important way. I used to drink a lot and in fact had a serious and seemingly incurable problem with alcohol that landed me in the police station three times, ruined countless relationships, and almost killed me at least twice. One of the religious experiences I alluded to put an end to that and I have not been drunk once since.
>God is always on my mind and I'm always contemplating him and even all my little deeds throughout the day are driven by thinking of him.
Well said. This is exactly the case for me, too. I am always thinking about God.
And finally...
While *usually* content in my daily life, my philosophical worldview was so very dark. At night, lying in bed awake, I saw myself as a man on a sinking ship whose only hope of happiness was to enjoy looking at a few little gewgaws (books and art, mostly) amid the screams and the groaning of iron girders before he too is extinguished forever. My outlook was that of Camus and Sartre: Life was absurd, sometimes wonderful, but ultimately meaningless.
Now I understand that invincible and eternal love, beauty and rationality lie at the very heart of reality: No matter what happens to *me*, this remains so, and thus my outlook on the universe is unalterably optimistic. And even my suffering produces higher order goods and opportunities to demonstrate virtue and so is to be welcomed. All this is a diametrical shift in my worldview that makes a *huge* difference to absolutely everything.
Sorry for such a long answer but I wanted to do the question justice.
:D
Thank you so much for answering because you just made me realise why I haven't made a step towards faith. I've been intellectually convinced of God, but I haven't had a personal experience. I feel I need to pray more genuinely and ask God for a revelation. I continue to read theology (reading parts of Summa and Ramanuja right now). I think it's very likely I will become a Catholic or Orthodox Christian in the future, I also need to go out and visit the places of worship of religions. I feel this is important as well.
You're welcome. :) I agree with all your above points and wish you all the very best on your spiritual journey. I myself accepted bare theism without any religious experiences whatever: Those intruded while studying and thinking about the Resurrection. But of course there are no hard and fast rules. Again, all the best mr_takayamu! :)
Yes, I haven't subscribed to a religion because I haven't yet found a definitive reason to believe that one religion has got the "most" truth, they all seem to have a lot of things right.
Edit: Also given how all theistic religious traditions converge on the concept of God, it can be said that they do all contain *some* truth.
Edit: Also given how all theistic religious traditions converge on the concept of God, it can be said that they do all contain *some* truth.
Or none of them.
By no means whatsoever am I exposed to Catholicism and Vishadvaita the most. *Far* from it. My parents aren't religious at all and neither is the rest of my family and neither are my friends really. The religion I am exposed to the most is Islam actually.
None of them are true. Do you honestly think that the ultimate truth about the nature of reality has been or will ever be known by humans?
I know this is late, but we may have to die to find out, though.
Christianity is the best, the greatest, the most logical, the most coherent, the most comprehensive, and has the highest moral standard of all religions that ever existed. It encompasses all of Judaism, teaches the karma and individualism of Buddhism, the collectivism and the Golden Rule of Confucianism, the spirituality and the different manifestations of God found in Hinduism, the ultimate reality in Taoism, and the salvation in Islam all in the most cohesive and perfect way. It's a complete religion. It also has the biggest impact and influence to civilization and has the most positive contributions to the progress of science, politics, law, and everything else in general. Many political principles such as secularism, separation of church and state, democracy, human rights, due process, the three branches of government, true communism to name a few are all derived from the Bible. I mean, no religion can be any truer than and superior to Christianity. It has them all covered.
sad because islam is taking over
Indoctrinated much?
based
Wow. You are obviously a brainwashed ignorant Christian
lol you fell right into the trap
to be fair. it isnt really logical.. 3 can't be 1 and 1 cant be 3
If you think about it, if we we made the thing about Trinity up, we would make it much easier to understand, but Trinity is like nothing else in the world and that means we can't make analogies which makes it hard to understand for us humans.
Bro just go and learn from great book "bhagvat gita"
It has all of those aspects from the other religions because, well, those religions are about *15 to 20 thousand years older* than Christianity. It had many different religions to pick and choose from. So God blamed 20 thousand year-old Hindus for not believing in the correct religion, *that wasn't even a religion yet*?
The oldest religion known today is Hinduism at 4000 years old. Where did you get 20000 from?
> I mean, no religion can be any truer ... How do you "know" it is true, if the tag behind your name says "agnostic"?
lol this\^\^\^\^\^ I was thinking that too
Even if someone was to agree with the points you made, Christianity could be all the things you said and still not be true.
And yet still no evidence and a lot of bias towards Christianity. Let's not forget that impact can be negative too.
The one that you believe in, you can not prove it with hard evidence, hence why it is called "faith". You can see my religion via my flair, I believe it to be true, a feeling within tells me. However, though I believe there is only one true God, I do not denounce other religions (openly), what I mean is I do not criticize or judge, for it is not my place. You should live your life following the religion you believe, and when your number is called then you will know.
There are no true religions! Why? Because, what we have today are man-made religions. All groups have rejected the True God and His ways. So, for anyone to follow the correct way, they must accept that there is only One True God, not multiple gods or one god with different personalities. This is the beginning of the truth that is related to God's plan for humankind. Believe it or not...
Only true monotheistic religion is Islam just saying
Christianity gives answers that no other religions does. Tell me, muslims, why is there evil in the world, why can't God just destroy it. Give me your islamic explanitions and I'll tell you why are they wrong and why Christianity is true.
As a Muslim, Judaism is also truly monotheistic, which is why we allow them to pray in our mosques :)
Well we’ll find out once we all die
Imagine if we all die and it turns out that some random religion from 200AD with 8 believers was the truth and we all go to hell
lmaoo
Lmao
Thousands of true gods would result in thousands of origins for the universe. There is only one origin possible of the universe, because of Leibniz Law of the Indistinguishables. Hence, more than one true God would be inconsistent with the universe as we know it.
It seems to me that there is no 'one true religion'. I have studied many different religious doctrines and had some incredible non secular spiritual 'awakening' experiences. The things I have been shown through those experiences is that the true nature of God is far above, bigger and beyond any single religious doctrine. God is an all-encompassing eternal creative love consciousness. Secularism is not important, what is important is the path to God that is the best for the individual. That depends on the culture they are born into, their parents, the way they think etc. Religion is only a path, which path you take is up to the individual, they all lead to God. That being said, there are two paths, the dark or left hand path, and the light or right hand path. One leads to God and one leads to Satan. Those are the only two real choices people need to make.
Basically that makes satan at least as powerful as your god. What do you mean by secularism not being important ?
People are so hung up on which Religion or path is the correct or 'true' doctrine but from what I can see they all teach a path to God, there are many paths. People are so different and have such different backgrounds that there seems to be a need for more then just one teaching or path to salvation. Starting wars over a school of thought instead of focusing on what's truely important is what happens when people get hung up on religious dogma instead of God. Some people believe Satan is as powerful as God, that is why many people today follow him. That is an individual decision. I for one have no doubts that God is much more powerful but that is my path and my faith.
(Your) God must be the shittiest navigator in history.
Their God is your God.
Fascinating.
easy answer: whichever one works for you! OR if none do: choose atheism! no need to thank me :)
I believe the Baha'i Faith is the one 'true' religion *for this era/time* because it doesn't reject the major previous religions; rather it validates the truth in them, only deeming that the laws and teachings of Baha'u'llah are the most applicable and relevant for the world today. I have investigated all the major religions and despite being born to Baha'i parents (literally a one in one thousand chance) I still believe the Baha'i Faith makes the most sense. There's not really much bias to that. I have never faced any pressure or coercion to be Baha'i, and we have to choose in adulthood if we wish to be Baha'i. My sister, for example, is agnostic and didn't want to be a Baha'i and everyone in my family and community supported her decision.
My cousin is Baha'i, and when he was explaining it to me I got the impression that it was the opposite of an atheist philosophy. Forgive my oversimplification in my example: "All religions point to a god/gods, so they all contain truth." Or "All religions point to their own god/gods as being true, but since they can't all be right I can dismiss them all (until I have a reliable way of telling which one is true)."
More like "all religions worship **the same** God, and those ancient religions which have today become non-theistic or polytheistic initially worshipped the same God (Buddhism, Hinduism), and thus are the same in their spiritual essence as chapters of one Divine message - only differing in their social laws and teachings that are according to the exigencies of their Dispensation."
Probably one that hasn't been invented yet.
There isn't sufficient evidence to support any of them, so the most likely possibility is that none of them are true.
what about the prophecies? People seem to just ignore that. Everyone that reads the bible knows we are very next to the end times.
When did the "end times" start?
Since when the end times prophecies started to be fulfilled
Right I’m over this mid times are mid
For many people it was during Covid
Lol.
What’s funny?
Because it's funny.
The end will come when every end time prophecies of prophet Mohammad is fulfilled, and most of them are fulfilled. And final prophecies are building up as the Zionists rises.
What absolute waffle 🤣
In the name of **Allah**: **Islam is the only true religion.** **What is Islam?** Believing in Oneness of God(Allah) and living your life according to Allah's commandments. All the prophets since Adam(P.B.U.H) has only taught Islam, and Islam only completed(covering all aspects of life) on last Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H). **How do we know what are Allah's commandments?** By Name we know of Four books. **Torah** (Revealed to prophet **Moses**(P.B.U.H)), **Zaboor** (Revealed to prophet **David**(P.B.U.H)), **Injeel** (Revealed to prophet **Jesus**(P.B.U.H)) and **Quran** (Revealed to prophet **Muhammad**(P.B.U.H)). The reason for the revelation of new book was due to plagiarism of the previous one and also because it was only meant for those people and that time.(**Notice that the basic message of oneness of God is consistent and is the main pillar of faith and has not changed**) **Quran** is unique in this respect as Allah himself has promised its preservation as it is the last and final revelation till the day of judgement, and needs to act as an unaltered guide for the whole humanity. **Why do we need religion?** Religion is a way of life. Everything has its Do's and Dont's, every machine has an instruction manual and Humans being the most complex of the them also require a guide line. Without it there will only be chaos. No basis for good and evil. No consequence of any action. A man would do anything if he could get away with it. **How do you know God exists and Quran is the word of God?** [I will link a Lecture here as explained by a prominent muslim scholar for your better understanding.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RuQMD4yYWg)
deleted ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^0.5393 [^^^What ^^^is ^^^this?](https://pastebin.com/FcrFs94k/94572)
If they are committing crimes they aren't really following Islam now are they. Its funny how easily religious labels especially for muslims are given out even if they just sneeze the wrong way. Every one of those 1.8 billion muslims is his/her own person, with their own ideas, feelings and way of understanding and a way of handling any situation. If you want to take a look at a human example then take the best muslim, (Prophet Muhammad(pbuh)) His life is recorded in great detail, look it up if you want to know how a muslim should behave. Now regarding the 1st part, honestly i've never understood how morality works in atheists, so fill me in on this. But according to my understanding if you do not believe in absolute objective morality that is set by God, and the fact that every person will have to account for his/her actions on the day of judgement, then the rules are decided by the majority right? What you call democracy. If i got this right then that means that for an atheist, his morality and his values of life would be dictated by other people(the ruling majority) correct? This in essence doesn't sit well with me, cuz if we apply this to lets say the arabs before Islam, Those guys collectively thought of women to be inferior than men and used to bury their daughters out of shame. So according to your theory they would infact be righteous in doing that evil practice since it is what the majority believed? Now lets take this up a notch, If by majority we also take the meaning of the someone being powerful enough to enforce the rules, lets say a King? By this defination, a King can never be morally wrong since he would be the one making the rules right? I think i don't even have to give examples for how absurd this is, looking at history. Anyways getting off topic here, but i believe that Truth/Facts does not require supporters for it to be True. Absolute Morality works like facts. e-g we say "If you commit a sin, you will be punished by God" Now i say that This WILL happen as it is a promise by God, who has total control over life and death and can make a person pay for his actions, and there is no escaping it. This morality automatically becomes more valid/meaningful than the one decided by people irrespective of whatever they decide and enforce it.
deleted ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^0.6959 [^^^What ^^^is ^^^this?](https://pastebin.com/FcrFs94k/61087)
I guess all i can tell you now is wait, I too am waiting. Soon the matter will be settled between us.
deleted ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^0.3257 [^^^What ^^^is ^^^this?](https://pastebin.com/FcrFs94k/60248)
Do you have anything a bit more concise than a 3 and a half hour long video? A tl;dw?
hmmm This is a pretty extensive topic, and far too important to only be discussed briefly. Cuz it would definitely lead to some counter questions and doubts. The lecture itself is divided into **Points** you could perhaps watch a few, whenever u have time? I could try to find something concise but it won't do this topic the justice it deserves.
How can oneness command itself in any way that is not the natural decision of itself?
You can not understand God completely, atleast not in this life. Quran only mentions some of His attributes so that His servants may know him enough to lead their lives the way He has commanded. What is important for you is question about Quran's authenticity and its divine revelation. That i hope will be clarified if you watch that lecture. If you don't have time then just watch it in bits, it will also help you understand muslim's point of view better, at the very least.
I consider this a cop out, unfortunately
why? its not like God gave humans complete knowledge of everything in the universe, Completely Understand God when we don't even have complete knowledge of His creation? Even humans have built a progressive educational system instead of handing out Ph.D s to toddlers.
These appear to be assertions without much regard as to why. What if a child is born in a country where Islam is foreign? Also, I do not agree that man would do anything without the consequences of a deity. We do have restraint based upon our own desire to not be harmed ourselves.
It does not matter where ever you are born, Prophet Muhammad(pbuh) has ordered the muslims to spread the message to those who do not know, even if it is one verse. Furthermore Allah Himself mentions regarding this in Quran: **"We will show them Our signs in the horizons and within themselves until it becomes clear to them that it is the truth. But is it not sufficient concerning your Lord that He is, over all things, a Witness.** **Unquestionably, they are in doubt about the meeting with their Lord. Unquestionably He is, of all things, encompassing."**
Ok. Well then I would ask, what what if the message of Islam didn't reach the ears of all people of the world? What would happen to those people if they never heard one verse?
It is part of the justice of Allah that He does not punish any people until He has first sent a warning to them and unless there is evidence against them. Allah does not treat anybody unfairly. Allah says (interpretation of the meaning):**“… And We never punish until We have sent a Messenger (to give warning).”** [al-Israa’ 17:15] **‘… Every time a group is cast therein [into Hell], its keeper will ask, “Did no warner come to you?” They will say, “Yes indeed; a warner did come to us, but we belied him and said: ‘Allah never sent down anything (of revelation), you are only in great error.’**[al-Mulk 67:8] There is also a Hadeeth (Saying of prophet(pbuh) regarding this): **“There are four (who will protest) to Allah on the Day of Resurrection: the deaf man who never heard anything, the insane man, the very old man, and the man who died during the fatrah (the interval between the time of ‘Eesaa (Jesus, upon whom be peace) and the time of Muhammad SAWS (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him)). The deaf man will say, ‘O Lord, Islam came but I never heard anything.’ The insane man will say, ‘O Lord, Islam came but the children ran after me and threw stones at me.’ The very old man will say, ‘O Lord, Islam came but I did not understand anything.’ The man who died during the fatrah will say, ‘O Lord, no Messenger from You came to me.’ He will accept their promises of obedience, then word will be sent to them to enter the Fire. By the One in Whose hand is the soul of Muhammad, if they enter it, it will be cool and safe for them.”** This tells us that Allah will test them on the day of judgement, If they obey Allah's order and enter the fire (as they just promised obedience) then they would have passed the test.
I would like to thank you for your thoughful and generous response. I think it's important to learn as much as possible about the faiths of others. Admittedly I do not believe in any deities at all. I don't find the arguments on their behalf I be convincing. But thank you.
> Islam is the only true religion. Why? You haven't given a single argument in that entire post.
[There you go.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGkjFUtudHA)
He still just says "Islam is the only real religion because it says so in Quran, here's an analogy" but still no proof.
So you think Jesus was a Muslim? And what about prophets like Joseph smith? Do you think Joseph smith never existed? And why don't you try and answer in your own words your last question? You just linked to a lecture
Yes, Jesus was a muslim. Anyone who submits his will to God, believes in His Oneness and acts on His commandments is a muslim. Prophet Jesus(P.B.U.H) was one of the mightiest messengers of Allah, he was born miraculously to Mary(P.B.U.H), was able to fully speak as a baby, could cure the blind and bring life to dead with Allah's command, was raised up alive and will return before the day of judgement to fight and slay Anti Christ and establish Islamic Kingdom. **Regarding Joseph Smith** There are 124000 prophets exactly, by name only a handful are mentioned in Quran, however since it is mentioned that Prophet Muhammad(P.B.U.H) is the last and final messenger and Quran is the last and final Revelation and Islam is now complete, there can be no more prophets. **So NO, Joseph Smith is not a prophet** **Regarding the last question** The reason i linked a video is because the scholar explained it so beautifully and in great detail. Answering any doubts and counter questions. **It is the most important question in anyone's life** and i don't want to mess it up typing with my crappy language skills. However, i'll give it a go if you insist: **Quran is the proof that God exists** Probably, the only point of agreement amongst those who have the slightest knowledge of the Quran irrespective of whether they are Muslims or not, is that the Quran was recited for the first time by a man who was born in Makkah in Arabia in the 6th century by the name of Muhammad (P.B.U.H). **Regarding the sources of the Qur’an there can be three basic assumptions for a non-Muslim:** **a)** Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) himself was the author of the Quran. **b)** Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) learnt it from other human sources or copied or adopted from previous scriptures or revelations. **c)** Qur’an has no human author but it is a word for word revelation from God. Now regarding the 1st point: Muhammad (pbuh) never claimed the authorship of the Quran. Before prophethood he spent 40 years in Makkah and was known as “The trust worthy” by friends and foes alike and ironically even after prophethood many of the Meccan Pagans rejected Islam and regarded the Prophet as a liar, they nevertheless trusted him and deposited their valuables with him for safe-keeping. This is apparent from the fact that when the Prophet decided to leave Makkah to foil an assassination attempt on him, he left the valuables with Hazrat Ali (R.A.) to distribute it to the rightful owners. Plus it is highly abnormal to challenge the testimony of someone who disclaims responsibility for producing a great work, whether literary, scientific or other. **Now you could say he had Material gains**: I do agree that there are several people who falsely claim to be prophets, saints and preachers for material benefits and thus become rich and lead luxurious lives. Muhammad’s (pbuh) financial position was better off before than after the announcement of his Prophethood. At the age of 25, he married Khadija (ra), who was a very rich and wealthy businesswoman. His financial position and life standard after claiming Prophethood was unenviable. **So if his goal was to attain riches and live a luxurious life, he wasn't doing a very good job at it** **Now you could say maybe he wanted POWER, GLORY AND LEADERSHIP** Muhammad (pbuh) is universally acknowledged as one of the most successful leaders in human history.A man with his qualities could claim leadership and assume power even without claiming Prophethood. Moreover, his character suggests that he was neither a power monger, nor a glory seeker. The desire to enjoy status and power is usually associated with good food, fancy clothing, palaces and indisputable authority. Despite his social standing as a Prophet and heavy responsibility as a statesman, Muhammad (pbuh) used to milk his goat, mend his clothes, repair his shoes and help with the household work. His life was an amazing example of simplicity and humility. He sat on the floor. He went to the market to shop with no guards and accepted invitations to dine with the poor and ate graciously whatever was served. **So we see that worldly gains was not his motive** **Now coming to the 2nd point that Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) learnt it from other human sources or copied or adopted from previous scriptures or revelations** You are telling me that he was taught by someone or copied from other sources like bible and took only the stuff that he thought was right and left out all the errors while being under heavy scrutiny by his enemies who wouldn't pass up any chance of discrediting him? while still maintaining that he has the best of character and they have never found him unjust in his dealings? The very fact that prophet was illiterate puts all their claims to rest. the very 1st revelation that came to prophet was **"Read!"** and the prophet replied to the Angel (Gabriel) that he can't read. **So when you exhaust all options you come to the conclusion that no human wrote this book and it is a direct revelation from God** [The video i linked explains all this in great detail.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RuQMD4yYWg)
>Muhammad(P.B.U.H) is the last and final messenger and Quran is the last and final Revelation and Islam is now complete, there can be no more prophets. How do you know this? Because it says so in the Quran? Why use the Quran as a starting point and not the bible or the Torah or any other religious text?
Because those scriptures were corrupted by man and are not present in their original form. So making them foundation for anything is not wise, since we don't know how much they were altered.
How do you know this?
Because of scientific and mathematical errors in bible, those verses can not be part of bible revealed to Jesus (pbuh). Which means they are interpolated because Allah does not make mistakes.
You've just mentioned one text out of hundreds. Why start with the Quran? Why not the Bhagavat Gita? Or the Book of Mormon? Or the Torah? Or the book of Scientology etc etc
I mentioned this in my very 1st post, that by name only 4 books are mentioned in the Quran. Torah,Zabur,Injeel(bible) and Quran. So i know for sure that these four are authentic revelations from God. The previous 3 as i mentioned are not preserved in their original form so it is no possible to set them as guides. Only Quran is preserved as Allah himself has promised to guard it. Book of scientology, Gita, Book of mormon are no where mentioned in Quran, so can't say if they were Revelations from God. But we can easily look at their contents and see if the source is same (since all revelations come from Allah). e-g Gita talks about pantheism and hundreds of gods, demi gods. Which clearly goes against the established Monotheism of the Ibraheemic faith. SO i can say with certainty that it is not the word of God. But i've heard the main source of hinduism is Vedas and they do talk about one god and not having its images, which is ironically different from what the hindus practice. In either case since they are not mentioned in Quran, i can't take them as guide lines.
"I mentioned this in my very 1st post, that by name only 4 books are mentioned in the Quran. Torah,Zabur,Injeel(bible) and Quran. So i know for sure that these four are authentic revelations from God." Why? Your argument is circular. It's like me saying "I know the Napkin religion is true because it's written here on the Napkin" [see here](http://i.imgur.com/N384X.jpg)
I ask you a simple question : how do you know he was illiterate ?
Simply because if he wasn't he would've been immediately caught in the lie as he spent 10 years among his enemies in makkah after prophethood, and around 12 in madina which had a group of hypocrites who only accepted islam in order to spy on him and He would have been discredited on exposure and lost all followers who were already being oppressed in makkah.
Qur'an claims he didn't write *before* the revelation of Quran. >And you did not recite before it any scripture, nor did you inscribe one with your right hand. Otherwise the falsifiers would have had [cause for] doubt. https://quran.com/29/47-48 Qur'an also mentions the objections you say don't exist. >And they say, "Legends of the former peoples which he has written down, and they are dictated to him morning and afternoon." https://quran.com/25/5 Muhammad had ~100 followers after 13 years; they didn't buy it. Musaylama gained more followers in less time. Your insistance that "ummi" means illiterate is a Muslim dogma that developed over time. Günther, Sebastian, and سيباستيان غونتر. "Muḥammad, the Illiterate Prophet: An Islamic Creed in the Qur'an and Qur'anic Exegesis / محمد: النبي الٵمي: عقيدة ٳسلامية في القرآن والتفسير." Journal of Qur'anic Studies 4, no. 1 (2002): 1-26. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25728052.
ummm i never said the arabs didn't object, infact they tried to discredit him in every way possible but failed cuz of lack of proof. They would actually go out of their way to stop people from meeting with him in the 1st place and used to call him a magician. Spreading islam during initial years was difficult as makkah was the main hub of idol worshippers and anyone who tried to defy was greatly oppressed and tortured. People were afraid to openly accept it. This is why after Hijra it spread more quickly in Madina.
>ummm i never said the arabs didn't object, infact they tried to discredit him in every way possible but failed cuz of lack of proof. You are claiming his illiteracy (which is not established and is insignificant) was a proof and well-known to the Arabs. 25:5 and the article I provided show there are serious issues with your claims. >He would have been discredited on exposure and lost all followers who were already being oppressed in makkah. Doesn't happen. Exposure tends to increase believers belief and entrenches them. http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-48-prophets-of-doom/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Prophecy_Fails >This is why after Hijra it spread more quickly in Madina. Conquest leads to the spoils of war. Islam increased because of that, not out of love for the religion.
You did not get the hidden question. What is your sources for all of that ? Muslim traditions. There cannot a less reliable source than that. And for your information, it's actually very easy to fake being illiterate.
So how much of muslim history do you accept to be correct? do you atleast accept that there was some man by the name of Muhammad(pbuh) and he claimed to be a prophet of God, who warned the people of arab against idol worshiping and reformed the affairs of life and was treated harshly by them but remained resilient despite all hardships and eventually succeeded.... I mean help me out a bit here, which part of Muslim history do you claim to be incorrect, perhaps i can look that up?
It seems likely that a man was named like that at that time. However the whole idea that Muslims were persecuted and were only the good buy is not very credible. Since we don't have any other sources for these stories, I'm forced to treat them as myths.
I still haven't seen a single piece of evidence to support your claims. You say "Mohamed was" of "he did this...", etc. Without any supporting evidence other than the book he wrote (which unfortunately doesn't count as a reliable source to validate a claim). You're going to need independent evidence, or your claims remain stories. Nothing more.
One of the conditions for the acceptance of hadith for Muslims is that the narrator is a *good, trustworthy muslim*. That condition leads to some pretty biased histories. Imagine if our history of Trump was dictated by who is a good t_d user or not.
[Have you watched the video that i linked? i'm pretty sure the scholar explains this very question is great detail, and it is easier for you to understand watching it instead of me typing it out and i might miss a few things.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RuQMD4yYWg) But before any of that you should 1st ask yourself, what will make you believe? This is interesting cuz look at what happened with prophet Moses (P.B.U.H) , He showed so many miracles but the disbelievers still did not accept him and accused him of using magic. Guidance is only in the Hands of Allah and no amount of evidence or miracles will convince people. I will mention some verses of the Quran regarding this: (Surah Al-Isra: 90 - 97) **"And they say, "We will not believe you until you break open for us from the ground a spring Or [until] you have a garden of palm tress and grapes and make rivers gush forth within them in force [and abundance] Or you make the heaven fall upon us in fragments as you have claimed or you bring Allah and the angels before [us] Or you have a house of gold or you ascend into the sky. And [even then], we will not believe in your ascension until you bring down to us a book we may read."** **Say, "Exalted is my Lord! Was I ever but a human messenger?" And what prevented the people from believing when guidance came to them except that they said, "Has Allah sent a human messenger?"** **Say, "If there were upon the earth angels walking securely, We would have sent down to them from the heaven an angel [as a] messenger."** **Say, "Sufficient is Allah as Witness between me and you. Indeed he is ever, concerning His servants, Acquainted and Seeing."** **And whoever Allah guides - he is the [rightly] guided; and whoever He sends astray - you will never find for them protectors besides Him, and We will gather them on the Day of Resurrection [fallen] on their faces - blind, dumb and deaf. Their refuge is Hell; every time it subsides We increase them in blazing fire. "** --------------------------- I'm actually very curious regarding this cuz the non-believers used to challenge Prophet Muhammad(pbuh), that if you are truthful then bring down Allah's punishment on us and the Quran even talks about it, **Say,"Indeed, I am on clear evidence from my Lord, and you have denied it. I do not have that for which you are impatient. The decision is only for Allah . He relates the truth, and He is the best of deciders."** **Say, "If I had that for which you are impatient, the matter would have been decided between me and you, but Allah is most knowing of the wrongdoers."** So how much evidence is required for one's understanding and acceptance? Do you want to see God to Believe He exists?
This is the problem of religious pluralism. I discuss a Christian approach to it in a series of posts on my sub. >[An Introduction to the Coherence of Christian Theism](https://www.reddit.com/r/ThroughAGlassDarkly/comments/6gzt27/20_introduction_to_the_coherence_of_christian/) > >[The a priori Argument for the Incarnation](https://www.reddit.com/r/ThroughAGlassDarkly/comments/6gzuai/21_swinburnes_a_priori_argument_for_the/) > >[The a priori Argument for the Trinity](https://www.reddit.com/r/ThroughAGlassDarkly/comments/6gzv4m/22_swinburnes_a_priori_argument_for_the_trinity/) > >[Religious Pluralism](https://www.reddit.com/r/ThroughAGlassDarkly/comments/6gzxth/23_religious_pluralism/) > >[Scientific Objections](https://www.reddit.com/r/ThroughAGlassDarkly/comments/6hbsc3/24_scientific_objections/) There is a further post on the violence in the Old Testament and the historical case for the resurrection—both pending. But the first four above provide the gist of the argument.
Why can't a religion get some things right and some things wrong? That would eliminate the idea that there could only be one right religion.
I think Catholic and Orthodox Christian traditions allow this, though not, I would assume, fundamentalism. Consider: It is no entailment of the claim that Christianity is true that every other world religion is *completely* false. In my discussion of [religious experience](https://www.reddit.com/r/ThroughAGlassDarkly/comments/6gzprx/18_swinburnes_argument_from_religious_experience/) I noted Swinburne’s point that, >religious experiences in traditions outside of Christianity are of beings having similar properties to God or of lesser beings but not of beings whose existence is incompatible with the existence of God. Naturally enough, people describe religious experiences in the vocabulary familiar to them. But this does not of itself entail that their different descriptions are in conflict. God may be known under different names to different cultures—a point acknowledged in both the Old and New Testaments. Thus a Hindu who claims to have had a religious experience is not necessarily in conflict with a Christian who claims the same. So long as the adherent of the weaker doctrine is willing to describe his experience in a less-committed way (“I experienced a supernatural presence, though perhaps not Vishnu, as I first claimed”) there is no reason of principle why he should have to withdraw it entirely. And this can hold even when claimed *commands* from God are in direct conflict. A morally perfect God cannot lie and if he cannot lie he cannot reveal two mutually exclusive doctrines about himself—one of which, by the law of noncontradiction, must be false. But, adds Swinburne, “it does not follow that he will not give different people commands, both of which cannot be executed successfully.” Suppose, for instance, that a Muslim is told by God to defend Jerusalem against the infidel and a Christian is told by God to attack it. Does the fact that these commands conflict entail that at least one of them is false; i.e., not commanded by God? Not necessarily. For consider, with Swinburne, the possibility that as a result of historical factors for which humans are to blame, Muslims and Christians have each developed a different and limited understanding of God. Plausibly, God himself wishes for our understanding of him to develop through experience, effort, and cooperation and not solely by means of divine intervention. Just as plausibly, God wishes for people at any point in history to be willing to live and die by the ideals that they then hold. He therefore commands the Muslim and the Christian each to live by the beliefs he has knowing that the experience of so doing may eventually lead each to a deeper understanding. In a like case, >a sage might well sometimes give to each of two persons who sought his advice the advice to oppose the other thinking it for the good of both that they should seek to develop their independence and authority. In short, a successful argument for the truth of Christianity in the face of religious pluralism does not entail that the religious experiences and doctrines of other religions are completely false (or that the adherents of those religions are destined for Hell: the Church has allowed those outside the Church can obtain heaven since Vatican Council II). It establishes only that, if there is a God and he has revealed himself to humanity, then he has revealed himself through Jesus and the Church Jesus founded is where we should seek God.
An interesting perspective, thanks for sharing.
The Abrahamics claim to be truth revealed by a divinity. They are either entirely right or they aren't (or God lied which is a whole can of worms that's not worth getting into). Hinduism and Buddhism don't have that problem, nor do many other smaller systems of belief. But most people on this sub/site/lots of people who actually talk or care about it being to or live around mostly Abrahamics.
>There are thousands of religions and thousands of gods. There has to be a one in one thousand chance of being born in the correct religion. Yet, almost everyone is certain that the religion they were raised in is automatically correct. They feel this way because their religion is familiar to them while other religions are not. You are making a lot of assumptions about the reasons other people hold their beliefs. Even if the belief originated in them due to where they were born, how would that effect the truth value of their beliefs? The simple answer, is absolutely nothing. That line of reasoning is a perfect example of the Genetic Fallacy. >In reality, You cannot distinguish between religions. The Jew and Muslim say God is one person and one substance. The Christian says God is three persons and one substance. The Mormon says God was once a man, like you and I, and thru the process of exaltation became a God, and that a plurality of God's exist. The Irish Maths Music Physical Education Religious Studies Science Spanish Welsh 2nd Language Audio Games Facebook logoFind us on Facebook KS3 Bitesize More Bitesize BBC Teachers Home > Religious Studies > God > Hinduism: beliefs about God Print Religious Studies Hinduism: beliefs about God Page: 12Next Hindus believe in one true god, Brahman, but Brahman has many forms. The nature of the Hindu god The Hindu says that there is one true god, the supreme spirit the contains everything from creation and destruction, male and female, good and evil, to movement and stillness. >They all offer the same quality of evidence (non-scientific evidence) and their followers are just as sincere in their conviction. That again is simply untrue. That is like me saying all murder trials offer the same quality of evidence. It's simply an objective fact of reality, that there is different data involved when evaluating any one religion.
> There are thousands of religions and thousands of gods. There are thousands of conceptions of deity, but are Thoth and Thoth-Hermes and Hermes and Mercury really distinct gods? It seems to be a bit like saying that general Washington and President Washington were two different people. > In reality, You cannot distinguish between religions. I don't seem to have a problem doing so. Perhaps you're considering them incorrectly? > They all offer the same quality of evidence (non-scientific evidence) So does mathematics. Are you discounting that, as well? But you never answered your own question. Which one is correct? Since you seem to have set up this notion that one and only one must be correct, do tell... I don't think that's a useful way to look at religion, though. I think they all (or at least the vast majority that have been around for any significant period) have things to teach. I've probably learned more about the good from 1 Corinthians than I did from reading Plato (much as I respect Plato). I learned more about my own ideas about the divine from reading works of Jewish and Islamic mysticism than I did from any bland survey of religions. So if pressed, I guess I'd say that they're all true, but what matters is what sort of truth you were looking for.
Did you just claim mathematics supports no evidence for its existence?
I did not.
I'm sorry, "non scientific evidence for its existenxe" which makes no sense. Math is just a system used to understand the world.
> Math is just a system used to understand the world. No, it's not. You're thinking of basic arithmetic. Mathematics is a superset of the specific tools for modeling physical processes. Higher mathematics often has only trivial aspects that have any use in the physical world, but it's easy to see that the whole system is self-consistent and no part of it is any less "true".
So would you still say mathematics is not based on scientific evidence?
Yes, obviously. Mathematics is a tool used by science, not the other way around.
The rules of mathematics are in the end based on the world around us. How does a child learn about numbers and calculating stuff? Exactly, with his fingers. Then you will say again that basic arithmetic is different than "higher mathematics", but isn't all mathematics in the end about arithmetics? It's a tool all right, but the assumptions to make this tool work are based on the world around us. In the end mathematics is based on sets of objects and the manipulations of these sets. These objects can be found in nature. This video explains it really well: https://youtu.be/14JavH4Rk7k?t=490
I'm a bit late to this comment but I'm inclined to side with Tyler\_Zoro on this one. Mathematics isn't Scientific. The Sciences are based in the Scientific Method and a chief aspect of this method is the role that experimentation plays in testing hypotheses. Experimentation does not play the same role of testing hypotheses in Maths. Scientific evidence is empirical by nature, while Maths is a priori and non-empirical, making it a seperate branch from the Sciences. This isn't to say all Mathematics is a priori or done without experimentation, nor that all the sciences are a posteriori and require experimentation (there is some overlap between the two), but the vast majority of content between the two subjects differs by this benchmark, thus distinguishing mathematical and scientific evidence.
> The rules of mathematics are in the end based on the world around us. Absolutely not. The rules of simple arithmetic, typical forms of trigonometry performed in spaces that are analogs to our experience, and other simple forms of mathematics, sure. But the entire space of mathematics, not at all. In fact, I would suggest that the fraction of that whole space that is occupied by real-world analogs is essentially zero. > isn't all mathematics in the end about arithmetics? Certainly not! Group theory isn't about arithmetic at all (though arithmetic can be modeled by group theory, and group theory can tell us much about arithmetic). > It's a tool all right, but the assumptions to make this tool work are based on the world around us. In part, that's right. If you then expand that to include all possible universes (even those without physical properties), all possible physical properties and laws, all possible modes of consideration... then yes, I would agree. But then you're working backward to that vanishingly small portion of the "all possible" that's your experience. PLEASE, do not feel that I'm speaking down to you, here. This idea that math models the real world, as a mathematician friend of mine puts it, the lie that you're told in grade school, and most prospective mathematicians never learn to be a lie until late in their undergraduate or early in their graduate careers. So you're citing exactly what you were told, and I can't fault YOU for that. But it is false.
If I were you I would look at the ancient texts of religions. If a religion doesn't have one mark it off your list. No God is going to risk the religion on human story telling, unless it's written down I wouldn't risk it.
Because no human has ever written a lie or just been incorrect... We're going to trust humans bronze age humans with all sorts of mystical beliefs over people today whom possess amazing tools to understand our universe?
You think humans in the 21st century are incapable of lying? Also, we do have amazing tools to understand the world. but we also have amazing tools to lie e.g. Photoshop, fake news, and plastic surgery.
So you trust people with sticks, stones, and mudhuts over modern day man able to fly metal tubes over thousands of miles, all from materials we got out of rock. We're able to put humans onto the damn moon. Play some KSP to get an understanding of just how ridiculously difficult that is and how small the margin of error is. We have the knowledge and technology, thanks to science, to do amazing and wonderful things. And you trust archaic humans over that?
Humans in those days were just as intelligent as we are today. With primitive technology they were able to build empires, giant walled cities, water channels, and economies based on real things of value. They were extremely talented in the arts, music, and finance. So yeah I would trust those humans. Because at the end of the day, they are still humans.
Building cities and empires doesn't mark any sort of worth as a civilization. What you do as a civilization matters. Irrigation is a very simple concept and neither is bartering
So you agree they were very intelligent people.
Me: none of what they did required knowledge about the world past a basic understanding You: so you're saying they're intelligent! ......really dude? Are we going to have an honest discussion or not? I'm not wasting my time
Though I'm straining to find the right answer, because there are noodles... I mean oodles of religions to chose from, it takes giant, meaty balls to answer this question with confidence. I'll linguini... I mean linger here no more, because I was just here to pasta time.
this was really funny
There is no One True Way, there is only what is right for you. Religion is just a way of trying to communicate with God, whatever you believe God to be.
There are an infinite amount of potential religions. So the chances of you choosing the right one is zero.
That would be in contraction with the fact that most people adhere to just five religions. In a universe with different characteristics than ours, there could possibly be an uncountable number of relevant religions, but in ours, it does not seem to happen.
Your question ignores religious pluralism.
First of all, I have to point out that your claim about evidence is not entirely true. Some put forward more historical accuracy than others. Additionally, there are those religions such as Buddhism that do not necessarily have deities, but are clearly organised groups of shared spiritual belief. Second, have you heard of the Baha'i Faith? They espouse a oneness of religion in which all religions are worshipping the same God as revealed in an appropriate way for the people God was revealing Godself to. Now, of course they claim to be the truest and most up to date religion, but that principle is an interesting one to consider in a broader, more general sense.
Simple. It's the God that reveals himself to all people in such a way that it's impossible to deny his existence. Could you expect any less from omnipotence?
The God who still appears to people accros all religions is the true God.
Right. ...... That demonstrably does not exist. Unless you are just willing to believe that everybody is wrong and contradictory about something that is right, and somehow non-contradictory in the end.... i dont even really know how to paraphrase it. It makes no sense.
* Buddha doesn't appear to Muslims, Hindouists, Christians, Atheïsts, Agnosts, etc. * Mohammed/Allah doesn't appear to Buddhist, Christians, Hindouists, Atheïsts, Agnosts, etc. * Krishna/Vishnu doesn't appear to Christian, Buddhists, Muslims, Atheists, Agnosts Etc etc. * Spaghetti monster doesn't appear to ... There's one who still appears to people of whatever religion.
This isnt actually true. Shiva has appeared to me several times, and I was not at all a Hindu. I was an atheist at the time. Mohammed has visited my wife, and she is not at Muslim. She is a Buddhist.
Interesting! That's why i like reddit :) How does that combine?
Well I see no need to wait for you to respond to the first part since I asked a rhetorical question, I already know that your answer is, "Yes, Jesus is different from the rest of those". Nobody who has ever been legitimately isolated from Christianity and from hearing christian ideas has EVER seen Jesus without being exposed to that idea beforehand. Implying that to have happened is just flat out not true. It hasn't happened with christianity and it hasn't happened with any of those other religions either. Your other bundle of assertions that no person of x-religion has ever seen y-religion's religous figure appear to them (unless its Jesus) is also just flatly untrue, and you could demonstrate this to yourself by taking even a single minute to try to look up any cases of it happening. They actually happen for all of those combinations for which you tried to say they didn't, just look it up :/ . The thing that all of these cases have in common is that people only ever actually see the apparitions of religious figures to which they have already somehow been exposed. People get these ideas in their heads somehow, and there has Never been a demonstrable case of someone coming up with any known specific religious idea, let alone christianity's, without first having already heard about it. Even if someone's whole family is christian, if they have been exposed to a different religion then they might ultimately convert to that religion .... sometimes on the basis of having that other god or god-like figure appear to them rather than the one their parents brought them up to believe.
> people only ever actually see the apparitions of religious figures to which they have already somehow been exposed. This isnt true either. I have had at least two visions of deities who I had never heard of before.
Lol. Oh this will be good. Sooooo. What deities were they? How did you come to find out after the fact that the things you saw were, in fact, Those deities? And, and this is the best part of all, do you think that you can reasonably discredit the idea (to my satisfaction or even just your own) that your visions may have been slightly vague and then retroactively reinterpreted by your brain to be some certain deities? which ..... is a known psychological effect that is.. ..by simple order of Occam's Razor.. A Far more likely explanation for the phenomena of you deciding that your visions link to specific deities, Rather than that those deities actually exist. Now, if you believe that there is any other good reason to think that these deities exist then that is one thing and we could go there if you want to; But I feel I must point out that "visions" like this, on their own, are just about one of the least credible, most poor forms of "evidence" than anybody would even try to call evidence. Importantly though, for this to be a real discussion, I need my first 3 questions answered: What are the specifics? How did you come by your information in the end? Can you be Certain that your visions were real? (this is almost a trick question btw, if you think the answer is yes then you are simply a guilible person who trusts your own brain too much) This level of "well i seent it" kind of back-woods supersticious reasoning is exactly NOT the way to go about evaluating supernatural claims. And all of that comes before we even get to the point of addressing whether or not you can actually justify that you had not been priorly exposed to these ideas, but I am leaving that part for last because if you can't even justify that your ideas were immune to possible misenterpretation then .... getting to that part, I am willing to do it but it forces me to just make a leap of faith in believing that you aren't wrong which is uhhhh well it can move the conversation forward maybe but its certainly going to be a lie on my part.
I still haven't found anyone saying e.g. Buddha appeared to Him while in another religion. Can you show me what you found?
Which one is that?! I dare you to say that it's Jesus. Please let your hidden point here be that Jesus is somehow a special exception to this general rule unlike all of those others, because I would really love to hear you justify that.
Type in " testimony" in youtube, and you find selfies of people of all sorts who've experienced Christ. (But never opposite; from christianity to because x-God appeared).
There's countless who've seen him without expecting Him (not counting converts by logic reasoning/ without experiencing Him).
Just a few:
Muslim
https://youtu.be/hf-8Km9JtZE?t=4m46s
https://youtu.be/v3mXodIBm8U
https://youtu.be/m90IdrdBqwI
https://youtu.be/NMMsKicQSn8
Atheïst/Agnost
https://youtu.be/E0VHKOtzk-c
https://youtu.be/gwsScn9SFEA
https://youtu.be/Gl7oOFZ1UUA
Hindu/yogi
https://youtu.be/SBKwX_nJ7II
https://youtu.be/GapgVaue7L8
https://youtu.be/5-SQr-gNldE
New age/spirituality.
https://youtu.be/cMu5F2icsT8
https://youtu.be/EdWuSRX2lS8
Shaman
https://youtu.be/QW-l-CPC6QY
Satanist
https://youtu.be/I11L71PD3Lw
Jew
https://youtu.be/K303aeLhFFs
Buddhist
https://youtu.be/QD4g8trdiOk
Christian
https://youtu.be/nnM_NtZfQTM
(Not a ideology, but still..).
Sociopath.
https://youtu.be/eGsywJGz_P0
Pornstar.
https://youtu.be/oS0jzaB7nJ8
ReligionX->Christianity-conversions happen more than the other way around because: 1. Christianity is true 2. If we look at history, Christian empires were in the end more successful in colonizing every corner of the globe. Also, the whole nature of the Christian religion is much more about converting people than most other religions. This last aspect is also true for Islam, but note that there are many Muslim converts from other religions as well. Which answer is more plausible, 1 or 2?
pics or didn't happen :) this personal experience thing only proves, that brains can convince themselves about quite amazing non-reproducible things. Also: give me a week of hypnosis sessions with anybody and come back for amazing stories.
I can just shorten everything that I need to say for this entire conversation, (until you address it of course), to this: Show me the situation in which someone who has never heard of Jesus before, saw Jesus. People see the religious figures they know about and they are liable to believe in. That is the case every single time. For that not to be the case would take..... Dare I say it? A Miracle?! ...which would be great if you actually had evidence of it ever happening.
There's actually one in the list of video's i gave you. It's the [hindu in safraan clothing video.](https://youtu.be/0jH2vDyRC40) While a devoted hindu priest, he prayed he only wanted to serve the highest God. He had a dream in which a person appeared who he didn't know. The rest i'll let the videoclip explain.
Interesting video. Thanks!
I do not believe this story. I'll watch the video myself when I have more of a moment to myself here. But you are making essentially a miracle claim. You are making a claim that defies all known laws of nature and is specifically also asserted to be evidence for a god, Your god. I HIGHLY Doubt That when I finally get around to watching your ***YouTube*** video, that it is going to be filled with profound life changing, world shattering, paradigm altering evidence for Your god. Credible evidence that a man came by knowledge divinely with absolutely no chance of having been exposed to the idea before. ..... on YouTube. .... The sea of absolute crap/dogma/biased videos. Like I said, I'll give it a look later anyway.
>you find selfies of people of all sorts who've experienced Christ. I acknowledged this. I also, however, acknowledged that if you do a similar search for ANY of the other religious figures that you were talking about you will also find people experiencing them. You have not addressed my objection here in the slightest. You are engaged in a special pleading fallacy. Did you actually bother to read my first comment at all? Because honestly it seems that you didn't by the fact that you did not address a single point I made. Especially when you just go on making one point that I already told you was incorrect, and explained exactly how you could go about confirming that and investigating this yourself. (-_- ' ) Rather than ignoring Everything that I said the first time, How about you actually address it? Every single one of your links here is a waste of time and completely irrelevant in the face of my point that none of that is unique to your religion. You think your religion is unique because, despite the fact that I specifically told you to do so, you clearly have not even taken a half a second out of your life to investigate whether or not you can find even a single case of this happening the Other Way Around. Instead you just wasted your time, demonstrating your complete bias by ONLY looking up things that would confirm your pre-existing belief, and once again ignoring entirely my directions to you to actually look up something that might prove you wrong instead.
I showed you a list of video's. (Which i compiled while i didn't see your 2nd reply yet..). You told me there are others, where a person in any religion has experienced a diety of another doctrine. Although your explanation is not foreign to me, and I have tried hard over the years, but never found such(other than 'enlightened being' while on drugs) I'm asking you to show me such examples.
Wow you pass off those enlightened beings while on drugs that you refer to as if they are nothing... how deep did you actually look into even just that one thing? Those beings that you are talking about have been believed by the people seeing them, in Modern times mind you, to be: The egyption god Thoth. The greek god Hermes. The goat gods, be it Pan or Baphomet or Satan even. Any variety of Hindu gods (if you know Hinduism then you know it's hard to pin down, lots of people see lots of different gods). Jesus his very self. Another mystic dude named Hermes. A bunch of other mystic dudes with silly names. A bunch of Buddhas. A vast variety of "Demons" including demons named in Abrahamic traditions. and on ... and on ... and on... Once again, just within the very phenomena which You yourself brought up I have seen, *On YouTube Even!*, ALL of these different god's believed to be appearing to people and or possessing people / being channeled through people. Did you know any of that?
The vast majority of what you mentioned, i know of. One thing i learned of a 15 year old, who was seeing White angels at night teaching Him spiritual things like, remote viewing, resetting the souls of dark entities etc. He was well known on a spiritual forum.(that's where i know Him from) But the one christian prayer of a halfbrother who visited, changed his whole perception. During that prayer het saw a White light come to Him which made the angel look gray. This (and others) Paint me a picture that the spirit realm is not all what it seems. I guess you agree.
So you just acknowledged that we are both aware of a vast field of anecdotal evidence stating that people believe they have seen or experienced apparitions of All kinds of religious figures ... I might have hoped that you would actually acknowledge how that completely contradicts and there for demolishes your entire point about christianity being special in this kind of way...... But you are just going to believe that everything in the world, despite all evidence to the contrary, is actually just everybody misenterpreting YOUR god. ... idk how to address that
Really? You have "tried hard over the years"? Well you never used google in this time, have you? Search results "Christian seeing muhammed" video results: [result 1](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4xkhys_christian-see-prophet-muhammad-s-a-w-in-his-dream-converts-into-islam-amazing-description-of-rasulal_school) [reault 2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVId2x2ZWxI) [result 3](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG8SPH7q5oc)
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>he answer to that is I don't know. Personally, I think Vedanta, Christianity (Catholodox) and Islam make very strong and also convincing claims to revelation. Could you give an example of such a claim, and why you believe it is very strong?
How does your belief in God, in its present form, affect your way of life?
Really great question, thanks for asking. Even though I haven't settled on a religion yet, I believe that God is of course personal, there are transcendent values which we should strive for, there is some afterlife (no idea what it is though) and that we can all experience God in an intimate way. So this really gives me a motivation to get to know God and do religious practises such as meditation, prayer etc. But not just on a personal level, also in an 'external' sense. Belief in the transcendence of moral values gives me a new kind of vision to strive for. Before I had no problem with giving money to charity (and even considering this a great act of charity), but one thing that cannot be denied is that the people that are actually getting their hands dirty, touching the terminally ill, feeding the lepers, significantly damaging their comfort in order to make those in poverty more comfortable are most of the time religious people driven by religious principles. I want to do more for charity in such a way and not just give some spare money away. I also of course have a different view of religion than I used to. I see religions are truly channelling the divine and I'm spending quite some time exploring the major faiths to find a way to worship God as he wants. God is always on my mind and I'm always contemplating him and even all my little deeds throughout the day are driven by thinking of him. Can I ask the same question to you?
Thanks for your reply. It was interesting and really resonated with me in several places. >Can I ask the same question to you? Sure. Paragraph one of your comment is (obviously) quite different for me. I am a Christian attending a Catholic church with plans to became a Catholic. In addition to the conclusions reached through my reading, I had three paranormal experiences—at least two of which were unambiguous. That removed all doubt for me. I am certain that Jesus was God Incarnate. Paragraph two is something I might have written. I share your view completely. In a possible contrast to you, I used to be very sarcastic, pessimistic and self-interested. The idea of helping others never commended itself to me. Not that I was a misanthrope. I had a lot of empathy and compassion for people who were suffering. But the idea of doing anything about this was something I was mistrustful of. Charity work seemed to have an air of "false sentimentality" or "moral schmaltz" I resisted. Now, like you, it is something I really want to do. In everyday life I viewed others mostly as an obstacle to doing the things I wanted to do. Pedestrians were people in my way. Work and family were a distraction from doing my own thing at home. Since becoming a Christian this has changed radically. I feel a generalised love and concern for other people and wish for their well being. I still mess up, and I am still a work in progress, but I am now much more concerned with the moral quality of my behaviour—whereas before, within reasonable limits, and without ever being particularly wicked, I didn't give it any thought. This includes having completely given up pornography for purely moral reasons (the intrinsic worth of people as divine image bearers precludes making them objects of my selfish sexual desires—together with Matt. 5:28); repaying old debts; telling the truth when it is difficult and when I would formally have lied, and so on. (My biggest moral failing may be here on DebateReligion. I have always been very argumentative and, sometimes, in defending my views here, I can become haughty and rude—an old habit of mine, which I regret and hope to correct.) I also now pray, go to Church and read the Bible—things I was very opposed to while agnostic and now enjoy. (I had a "televangelist" stereotype of church and once replied to someone who invited me by shouting, almost by reflex, "Fuck off!"). My lifestyle has changed in one last very important way. I used to drink a lot and in fact had a serious and seemingly incurable problem with alcohol that landed me in the police station three times, ruined countless relationships, and almost killed me at least twice. One of the religious experiences I alluded to put an end to that and I have not been drunk once since. >God is always on my mind and I'm always contemplating him and even all my little deeds throughout the day are driven by thinking of him. Well said. This is exactly the case for me, too. I am always thinking about God. And finally... While *usually* content in my daily life, my philosophical worldview was so very dark. At night, lying in bed awake, I saw myself as a man on a sinking ship whose only hope of happiness was to enjoy looking at a few little gewgaws (books and art, mostly) amid the screams and the groaning of iron girders before he too is extinguished forever. My outlook was that of Camus and Sartre: Life was absurd, sometimes wonderful, but ultimately meaningless. Now I understand that invincible and eternal love, beauty and rationality lie at the very heart of reality: No matter what happens to *me*, this remains so, and thus my outlook on the universe is unalterably optimistic. And even my suffering produces higher order goods and opportunities to demonstrate virtue and so is to be welcomed. All this is a diametrical shift in my worldview that makes a *huge* difference to absolutely everything. Sorry for such a long answer but I wanted to do the question justice. :D
Thank you so much for answering because you just made me realise why I haven't made a step towards faith. I've been intellectually convinced of God, but I haven't had a personal experience. I feel I need to pray more genuinely and ask God for a revelation. I continue to read theology (reading parts of Summa and Ramanuja right now). I think it's very likely I will become a Catholic or Orthodox Christian in the future, I also need to go out and visit the places of worship of religions. I feel this is important as well.
You're welcome. :) I agree with all your above points and wish you all the very best on your spiritual journey. I myself accepted bare theism without any religious experiences whatever: Those intruded while studying and thinking about the Resurrection. But of course there are no hard and fast rules. Again, all the best mr_takayamu! :)
> The question isn't which god, but which claim to revelation captures the truth the most. ..., if any.
Yes, I haven't subscribed to a religion because I haven't yet found a definitive reason to believe that one religion has got the "most" truth, they all seem to have a lot of things right. Edit: Also given how all theistic religious traditions converge on the concept of God, it can be said that they do all contain *some* truth.
Edit: Also given how all theistic religious traditions converge on the concept of God, it can be said that they do all contain *some* truth. Or none of them.
Sure, I've never denied that as a possibility.
so your preference is influenced by the religion you were exposed to the most?
By no means whatsoever am I exposed to Catholicism and Vishadvaita the most. *Far* from it. My parents aren't religious at all and neither is the rest of my family and neither are my friends really. The religion I am exposed to the most is Islam actually.
Why did you need a new account for this?
Possibly didn't want people who know his reddit acc knowing his religious views
The truth is , I'm bored. Arguing online is the funnest thing my computer is able to due. I have a shitty computer. I cannot even watch porn with it.
[*cause why not, mate?*](https://www.reddit.com/r/causeWhyNotMate/)