Why do you choose to believe in God over other religions?

Jamdoc

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Does Mohamad claim to be God as His Word given directly thru the Holy Spirit as God? I think not.

No, because Islam's core foundation is that there is only one god, and that he is transcendent and does not have children (it's part of their deliberate spirit of antichrist attack on Jesus). But they do claim that the Qur'an is the word of God.

So when it comes down to it, scripture claiming to be the word of God is not unique to Judaism or Christianity. Every religion claims its scripture is divinely Inspired, and that their god, or gods such as in the case of Hinduism, is the true one.

So a claim to veracity, is not really much ground to stand on. People saying that as their reason why believe Christianity... strike me as people who were basically born and raised in a Christian family and have extremely limited exposure to other religions.

Now if you reason through fulfilled prophecy that other religions cannot do, okay, that's a bit of a more nuanced answer, although Muslims will try and make their prophecies be fulfilled like the ISIS black flags are to fulfill a prophecy in hadiths, and many of Islam's prophecies parallel Christian prophecies although many times they are from the perspective of the antichrist.
Honestly I think Islam was created by Satan based on his interpretations of biblical prophecy attempting to garner people who'd follow his guy, but Satan doesn't actually know the future, so it would be based on his biblical interpretation at the time. Satan may have revised his own eschatology since then. I don't know.

But the core thing is.. other religions do not have a savior. Christianity does. Every other religion bases your eternity based on what YOU do, leaving you in doubt as to what will happen in your eternity, because we all know we can never be "good enough".
So you have a religion that fulfills prophecy in line with what it's scripture says, AND actually has a savior so that you can have security and trust in your eternity, AND a God who actually cares about His creation and doesn't just see an ant pile and Him with a giant magnifying glass and a pack of firecrackers.
 
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Citizen of the Kingdom

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No, because ...
But the core thing is.. other religions do not have a savior. Christianity does. Every other religion bases your eternity based on what YOU do, leaving you in doubt as to what will happen in your eternity, because we all know we can never be "good enough".
So you have a religion that fulfills prophecy in line with what it's scripture says, AND actually has a savior so that you can have security and trust in your eternity, AND a God who actually cares about His creation and doesn't just see an ant pile and Him with a giant magnifying glass and a pack of firecrackers.
I'm not going to debate you but thanks. Christ being savior and God inspiring the bible that teaches that is paramount imo.
 
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Chris35

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And this is life eternal: that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.

27They say to wood, ‘You are my father,’
and to stone, ‘You gave me birth.’
They have turned their backs to me
and not their faces;
yet when they are in trouble, they say,
‘Come and save us!’
28Where then are the gods you made for yourselves?
Let them come if they can save you
when you are in trouble!

3For the practices of the peoples are worthless;
they cut a tree out of the forest,
and a craftsman shapes it with his chisel.
4They adorn it with silver and gold;
they fasten it with hammer and nails
so it will not topple.
5Like a scarecrow in a cucumber field,
their idols cannot speak;
they must be carried
because they cannot walk

8They are all senseless and foolish;
they are taught by worthless wooden idols.
9Hammered silver is brought from Tarshish
and gold from Uphaz.
What the craftsman and goldsmith have made
is then dressed in blue and purple—
all made by skilled workers.
10But the Lord is the true God;
he is the living God, the eternal King.
When he is angry, the earth trembles;
 
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Jamdoc

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I'm not going to debate you but thanks. Christ being savior and God inspiring the bible that teaches that is paramount imo.

I think you're missing the point
and that is that every religion claims its true and that its scripture is the word of God/gods
your idea that "well only Christianity has a bible that claims that it is the word of God" is false.

What OP is questioning, is for someone who wasn't born into a church going family, or perhaps was born into a family that practices another religion, what stands out about Christianity and why have faith in it vs any other religion they could be exposed to (that also have scriptures claiming to be the word of God) or born into practicing?

Say someone is born into Islam, having been taught since they could form words in their mouth that there is one God and his name is Allah and Mohammad is his prophet. Like that has been beaten into their head as truth, and they've read the Qur'an as the word of God since they could read.
How do you convince them that your holy book is the word of God and not theirs?

and honestly, I ask this because I talk to Muslims frequently online and am always looking for ways to reach them and witness to them. My best angle has been Jesus Himself, who they believe is a prophet, they even believe He will return, they just don't believe He died for their sins and is the Son of God. They believe He will come back and proclaim for Islam.

Sometimes, because I believe Jesus is returning very soon, I compare Eschatology with them, and teach them to recognize what Jesus said His return will be like, and to not believe the first person who might claim to be Jesus returned. But rather one that is preceded by the sun and moon darkening.
They anticipate following Jesus when He returns and sometimes it's all I can do to make sure I point out what the right Jesus will return like, and pray that they'll follow Him when He returns, They might not accept Jesus as their savior but they know to follow Him when He comes back. so if I can point them to the real Jesus.. I can hope that they cannot deny who He is and repent then at least.. because convincing them against their entire life teachings that has professed to be the one and only true word of God for decades in their life .. that's hard to do.
Their book makes the same claims the bible does.
The difference is ours has a savior and theirs does not.
 
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Citizen of the Kingdom

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I think you're missing the point
and that is that every religion claims its true and that its scripture is the word of God/gods
your idea that "well only Christianity has a bible that claims that it is the word of God" is false.

What OP is questioning, is for someone who wasn't born into a church going family, or perhaps was born into a family that practices another religion, what stands out about Christianity and why have faith in it vs any other religion they could be exposed to (that also have scriptures claiming to be the word of God) or born into practicing?

Say someone is born into Islam, having been taught since they could form words in their mouth that there is one God and his name is Allah and Mohammad is his prophet. Like that has been beaten into their head as truth, and they've read the Qur'an as the word of God since they could read.
How do you convince them that your holy book is the word of God and not theirs?

and honestly, I ask this because I talk to Muslims frequently online and am always looking for ways to reach them and witness to them. My best angle has been Jesus Himself, who they believe is a prophet, they even believe He will return, they just don't believe He died for their sins and is the Son of God. They believe He will come back and proclaim for Islam.

Sometimes, because I believe Jesus is returning very soon, I compare Eschatology with them, and teach them to recognize what Jesus said His return will be like, and to not believe the first person who might claim to be Jesus returned. But rather one that is preceded by the sun and moon darkening.
They anticipate following Jesus when He returns and sometimes it's all I can do to make sure I point out what the right Jesus will return like, and pray that they'll follow Him when He returns, They might not accept Jesus as their savior but they know to follow Him when He comes back. so if I can point them to the real Jesus.. I can hope that they cannot deny who He is and repent then at least.. because convincing them against their entire life teachings that has professed to be the one and only true word of God for decades in their life .. that's hard to do.
Their book makes the same claims the bible does.
The difference is ours has a savior and theirs does not.
I think your missing the point and that is that the author was not anyone but the Holy Spirit for our training (interpretation aside) and that is what makes it unique. That now brings the trinity into focus.
 
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Jamdoc

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I think your missing the point and that is that the author was not anyone but the Holy Spirit for our training (interpretation aside) and that is what makes it unique. That now brings the trinity into focus.

Telling that to a person falls on deaf ears, because they'll say the exact same thing about the Qur'an.

You have a book that says it's Inspired by the Holy Spirit.
They have a book that they say is given to the Prophet by an Angel sent by God (which is also how some of the old testament and Revelation was written, there are Angels explaining things in the scripture)
Both claim to be true.
"Mine is true and yours is a lie" doesn't work for someone who has been raised for 20+ years in Islam.
Because they'll turn around and say "Your book was corrupted by Saul of Tarsus who influenced the Disciples of the prophet Isa (PBUH) to also write lies"
That's the #1 counterclaim from Muslims, is that salvation by grace was not taught by Jesus but was a fabrication by Paul (who they almost always refer to by Saul to make him more Jewish and according to their theology, therefore less honest). They will use words from the Gospel of Matthew to show that Jesus consistently taught salvation by works. I've went to the Gospel of John to show salvation by grace apart from Paul, who they refuse to trust on the issue. Using the most famous verse in it, John 3:16.
Their claim? That that verse was added by the Catholic church at a later date. You see many Muslims will default to the Christian Bible when the Qur'an is silent about something that has to do with the ministry of Isa, such as the names of the Disciples. They will affirm that Isa had 12 disciples and consider them in a high place of honor and read the gospels written by them (they won't do the same with Mark or Luke, mostly Matthew, and John but they'll consider John more corrupted by the Church).
But what they'll do so with a grain of salt, believing that they have been corrupted by Paul and the Church over time in order to elevate Isa to being God, which they claim He never did claim to be God. If you show them something from the Gospels, they'll say that verse was added in later by the church.

They look at the bible as having been written by 40 different human authors, and that's just the ones we think we know the human authors for, some other authors were anonymous.
They say that in that, you get a lot of editing and translation errors and corruption.
They point at the Qur'an as having a single human author, Mohammad, and delivered by Gabriel, from God. So the telephone game only has one intermmediary, where the bible they claim has so many intermediaries that it's impossible for it to be the true word of God.

See where I'm going?
Your apologetics has to get way more refined than "my book was Inspired by the Holy Spirit and yours is a lie"
It's very difficult.
In fact it's so difficult that many Muslims have had to be turned to Christ through Dreams.. like God is actually having to make up for our shortcomings in being able to break through the deception that is Islam because it is so cleverly crafted and so convincing that just preaching the Gospel usually doesn't work.
They're so firm on their own faith and their own holy book.
 
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Jipsah

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Does Mohamad claim to be God as His Word given directly thru the Holy Spirit as God? I think not.
Nor do I. Mohammed, like the OT prophets (of whom he claims to be one), says "Thus saith the Lord God". Christians do not believe this to be true. So once again, the question is: Is Christianity True Or Not? The question Is Christianity Better than Hinduism (or Islam, or Judaism, of whatever) is silly. "Is Christianity True" makes sense.

It's rather like arithmetic. 2+2 isn't said to be four because it's a better answer than 2+2=17. It's becase 2=2=4 is true, and 2+2-17 is not. If you're an accountant needing to balance your books, 2+2=17 may be a much better answer for your purposes, but alas, it isn't true.
 
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Jamdoc

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Nor do I. Mohammed, like the OT prophets (of whom he claims to be one), says "Thus saith the Lord God". Christians do not believe this to be true. So once again, the question is: Is Christianity True Or Not? The question Is Christianity Better than Hinduism (or Islam, or Judaism, of whatever) is silly. "Is Christianity True" makes sense.

It's rather like arithmetic. 2+2 isn't said to be four because it's a better answer than 2+2=17. It's becase 2=2=4 is true, and 2+2-17 is not. If you're an accountant needing to balance your books, 2+2=17 may be a much better answer for your purposes, but alas, it isn't true.

actually let's look at that fact, and why it is also an argument used by Muslims.
Without believing in the New Testament message of salvation by grace, what Muslims see across the old testament and through Jesus if Jesus was not proclaimed to be the Son of God by the New Testament, if they just went by things like the sermon on the mount and such, if you add in the Qur'an as an extension of this, what you have is a seemingly consistent message of salvation by works, given to human prophet messengers by God, often with the assistance of Angels particularly Gabriel. All the prophets proclaim essentially the same message. To them this marks it as true, that it confirms what was written before it, and doesn't change things.

Meanwhile they look at Christianity, and because they do not see salvation by faith in the Old Testament but emphasis on works, when they come to the Gospel of John and Paul's writings they see a RADICALLY NEW MESSAGE proclaimed by a prophet of God, who now claims to be the Son of God, and it goes to a single God, to what appears to be 3 Gods. To them this is like a train derailment off onto a new track, and then Mohammad brings it back to the original message in their eyes. They don't see the law of God as a means of condemnation into needing a savior. They look at the laws of God is this is how you live in order to obtain salvation, and Jesus was even more hardcore about that than previous prophets, including thought crimes rather than just acts.

Where they are blind, is that the old testament gives pictures of salvation by faith, referred to in the New Testament, and Jesus gives examples of it all the time too, even in the Synoptic Gospels that don't lay it on as thick as John. They don't understand Isaiah 53, like the Jews don't, they don't understand how Messiah is supposed to suffer and die for their sins as a savior. They don't see Daniel 7 with the Son of Man riding the clouds to meet the ancient of days as equating both people as being God, and Daniel 9 saying that Messiah must die, but not for Himself.. They don't understand that Messiah is supposed to save from sins, or be God incarnate even though study of the old testament reveals it, so they are severely offended at the idea that God would take on human flesh.
What they see is a narrative in the old testament that the qu'ran continues, and the New Testament got corrupted and derailed, so when they refer to it they treat it like the book of Enoch, containing some truth, but also error.
 
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Jipsah

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What they see is a narrative in the old testament that the qu'ran continues, and the New Testament got corrupted and derailed, so when they refer to it they treat it like the book of Enoch, containing some truth, but also error.
Agreed on all points. You've obviously done your homework, thank you!
 
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Jamdoc

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Agreed on all points. You've obviously done your homework, thank you!

It's more that I've witnessed to Muslims and these are the arguments they pose
and I can play around with hermeneutics, but at the end of the discussion, about the best I can do is.. "are you sure you won't end up in hell, are you sure you obey the law good enough to not be condemned". and leave that conviction on them.
Because under their theology.. they have no way of knowing, they have no savior.
and they know they still sin.

I think a Jew would be easier.. well humanly speaking anyway, they are unfortunately mostly spiritually blind.
But Jews don't really have this... continued word of God after the New Testament. They have the revealed word of God in the Old Testament, and then Rabbinical oral traditions that are not the word of God. So you could show them places like Isaiah 53 to show what they were missing, then they can believe in the New Testament. That's why we have Messianics. They learned that they had missed their Messiah, repent, and turn to Him.

But Muslims.. with this.. before: Angels and the Holy Spirit (thus sayeth the LORD) gave to Human prophets the Torah and Psalms and writings of the Prophets, then the New Testament claimed to be spoken by the Son of God *record scratch, freeze frame*.. and then after ... an Angel giving a human prophet the Qur'an.

To them it plays "one of these things is not like the others". That half truth that Satan gave Mohammad.... really damaging.
 
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Der Alte

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YHWH, is the only one of the [NOT] gods who reached out to me.
Here is why I know that Allah is not God.
From the Quran and writings of the prophet.
Qur’an 18:83-86—And they ask you about Dhul-Qarnain. Say: “I shall recite to you something of his story.” Verily, We established him in the earth, and We gave him the means of everything. So he followed a way. Until, when he reached the setting place of the sun, he found it [the sun] setting in a spring of black muddy (or hot) water. And he found near it a people.​

Sunan Abu Dawud 3991—Abu Dharr said: I was sitting behind the Apostle of Allah who was riding a donkey while the sun was setting. He asked: Do you know where this sets? I replied: Allah and his Apostle know best. He said: It sets in a spring of warm water.

I heard this on Christian radio while working in southern California in the mid '90s. I immediately went to the library on the Marine base I worked on and borrowed the Quran to verify what I had heard. Having verified it my next step was to buy a copy of the Quran. It is online for anyone who wants to check it out.​
 
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atpollard

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This is just a question seeking an answer, I don't understand why believing in God is better than other religions
I was not looking for “better”. If I wanted the pick the “best” religion, I like ‘Shintoism’. I went looking for TRUTH and found most religions fail the test of truth … the God of the Bible passed the test of reality.

Hinduism: Are wealthy Brahman objectively better people than members of other casts? No, not really.

Islam: Does the teaching in the Qu’ran accurately reflect reality and morality? Is it historically true? No, not really.

Astrology: Do the predictions reflect reality? No.

Test them for yourself.
What does the Bible say people are like? Is it correct?
What does the Bible say will change us for the better? Does it?
 
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fhansen

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This is just a question seeking an answer, I don't understand why believing in God is better than other religions
The greatest conceivable being cannot be inferior to you or me so that being would have a mind, be rational, have knowledge, and have personhood, all at a much higher level than ourselves. But greater than omniscience and omnipotence would be if this being loved.

In Christianity the greatest virtue is love. It’s the nature of God and the motivation behind everything Jesus said and did. There’s nothing greater, nothing that could make our existence better, than the fact that God is love. Goodness and love, then, are foundational to this universe, even with the messed up world we live in. Creation: us, needs to get on board with that love as well and then our world would be rid of sin, God’s will would be done on earth as it is in heaven. It comes from Him, the source of love. And it’s ours as we turn to Him, beginning with faith.

What greater God, what higher thing, could there be than a Creator being who would enter this world and suffer and die in human flesh at the hands of His own sinful creation, because of their sin, forgiving all the while in order to prove a love so wide and vast and deep that we can only begin to comprehend it. That’s a God worth believing in, hoping in, and, most importantly, loving.
 
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Jamdoc

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The greatest conceivable being cannot be inferior to you or me so that being would have a mind, be rational, have knowledge, and have personhood, all at a much higher level than ourselves. But greater than omniscience and omnipotence would be if this being loved.

In Christianity the greatest virtue is love. It’s the nature of God and the motivation behind everything Jesus said and did. There’s nothing greater, nothing that could make our existence better, than the fact that God is love. Goodness and love, then, are foundational to this universe, even with the messed up world we live in. Creation: us, needs to get on board with that love as well and then our world would be rid of sin, God’s will would be done on earth as it is in heaven. It comes from Him, the source of love. And it’s ours as we turn to Him, beginning with faith.

What greater God, what higher thing, could there be than a Creator being who would enter this world and suffer and die at the hands of His own sinful creation, because of their sin, forgiving all the while in order to prove a love so wide and vast and deep that we can only begin to comprehend it. That’s a God worth believing in, hoping in, and, most importantly, loving.

Yes, spot on.
that's the thing for me.
even if, IF the "true" god was Allah, there is nothing about his character that would lead me to love him. I'd simply wish I had never been born into such an awful universe with such an awful god.
 
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Jipsah

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even if, IF the "true" god was Allah
One quibble: Arabic speaking Christians (most Copts, for instance) refer to God the Father as Allah. Our gripe with Islam is not that Muslims worship some pagan deity of their own; they don't. They worship God, but they've been taught a bunch of stuff about Him that just ain't so. They're heretics, but not idolaters.
 
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Der Alte

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One quibble: Arabic speaking Christians (most Copts, for instance) refer to God the Father as Allah. Our gripe with Islam is not that Muslims worship some pagan deity of their own; they don't. They worship God, but they've been taught a bunch of stuff about Him that just ain't so. They're heretics, but not idolaters.
In the mid 90s I was serving as associate pastor in a church in Irvine CA. The church once had an Arabic mission which had moved out and left a case of Arabic bibles and other Arabic literature. A medical missionary team from a very militant Muslim country, which I will not name, visited our church. He was a pharmacist, she was a nurse. After their presentation I spoke to them about the Bibles they were very happy. I was able to recognize the Arabic "Allah" in the Bibles. She said they could work with that. They said they were unable to keep enough Bibles on hand. The locals would sneak up to the hospital at night and ask for "The Book", That is what it is called in the Quran.
When proselytes came for baptism they would construct a temporary baptismal on the roof and post guards to watch for the religious police. Sometimes they would go out in the desert to an oasis again with the guards.
They were concerned about their daughter. She was 12, the age when Muslims would start considering a young female for marriage.
저는 한국 장로교의 부목사입니다.
 
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Jamdoc

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One quibble: Arabic speaking Christians (most Copts, for instance) refer to God the Father as Allah. Our gripe with Islam is not that Muslims worship some pagan deity of their own; they don't. They worship God, but they've been taught a bunch of stuff about Him that just ain't so. They're heretics, but not idolaters.

I understand that, I mean "God" is not really His name afterall, it's using a Germanic term for a deity, and I know that Allah is Arabic for "the God". But I use it to distinguish between the Islamic characterization of God vs the Christian one.
In Islam God is too transcendent to do something like lower himself to our level to reveal himself, too lofty exalted, glorious etc etc etc. It comes across as a god that is full of himself, a god that views us like ants in an ant pile, or as I used as an earlier analogy, a kid playing a sim city game with all the natural disasters open and just haphazardly reducing numbers of population in his game without any concern of the individuals who's numbers are being reduced by their wrath. He only reveals his word by angel messengers in this theology.
Meanwhile even before the New Testament Jehovah lowered Himself to reveal Himself to humans, He walked with Adam and was Adam's companion before He created Eve. He wrestled with Jacob, He gave Moses the law Himself, not via an angel, He told angels to explain things to Daniel, and Daniel saw, and heard Him (as Jesus, without knowing who He truly was), and of course He became flesh and sacrificed Himself for us. All of this spells out a God who actually cares about what happens to us, which shows a different character than what Islam proclaims, even if they are said to be the same being, the God of Abraham that created the world.

if God sees me as an ant, I see him as a terrible tyrant I want nothing to do with. If God sees me as a person He loves and wants to save, then I see Him as a person I love and want to be with.
 
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