Criteria
- Thread starter WingsOfTheNeophyte
- Start date
ebia
Senior Contributor
- Jul 6, 2004
- 41,711
- 2,142
- Faith
- Anglican
- Marital Status
- Married
- Politics
- AU-Greens
I don't think you are going to get the answer you are looking for because very few people start from scratch, sit back and analyse all the faiths on offer, and then objectively pick one. Life doesn't work out like that.
Upvote
0
Criteria deciding correct faith was for me logic, happenstance coincidence & choice.. Not exactly a scientific approach or ‘shopping list’ but maybe scientific approaches have limited application. Anyhow -
Logic; Those who passionately believe and disbelieve in a god seem to require faith to sustain their beliefs.
Having chosen that a false faith is better than no faith then the conclusion (for me) was agnostic.
Happenstance: To move from agnostic believer to Christian believer was probably cultural; practical experience of other faiths was non-existent.
The biggest hindrance to ‘Christianity’ were the ‘Christans’; their attitudes, beliefs, behaviour….seriously obnoxious.
Coincidence: Christian baiting became a pleasant diversion, but to go from “Jesus didn’t die for me, he died cos he narked of the Romans” required a little basic theological knowledge.
Sometimes the ‘knowledge’ being examined seemed to mirror experiences.
At this point part of me is inclined to add ‘evil omen’ as a category, but I don’t think many Christians would ‘get it’ for ironic humour isn’t universal. It’s the point where, with the benefit of hindsite, you realise that numerically alone, there must be more than just happenstance or coincidence. It becomes far easier to accept the ‘supernatural’ than to accept the probability of a given sequence of events could ever occur. Which entails the realisation that while you were hunting down this mythical ‘Jesus’ figure, this supernatural entity was hunting you. Which is actually pretty frightening.
Choice: Its like the Blue Pill / Red Pill in ‘The Matrix’. Choose to walk on Like Alice into wonderland, or walk away.
I’m not sure if this helps or hinders.
~peace~
Logic; Those who passionately believe and disbelieve in a god seem to require faith to sustain their beliefs.
Having chosen that a false faith is better than no faith then the conclusion (for me) was agnostic.
Happenstance: To move from agnostic believer to Christian believer was probably cultural; practical experience of other faiths was non-existent.
The biggest hindrance to ‘Christianity’ were the ‘Christans’; their attitudes, beliefs, behaviour….seriously obnoxious.
Coincidence: Christian baiting became a pleasant diversion, but to go from “Jesus didn’t die for me, he died cos he narked of the Romans” required a little basic theological knowledge.
Sometimes the ‘knowledge’ being examined seemed to mirror experiences.
At this point part of me is inclined to add ‘evil omen’ as a category, but I don’t think many Christians would ‘get it’ for ironic humour isn’t universal. It’s the point where, with the benefit of hindsite, you realise that numerically alone, there must be more than just happenstance or coincidence. It becomes far easier to accept the ‘supernatural’ than to accept the probability of a given sequence of events could ever occur. Which entails the realisation that while you were hunting down this mythical ‘Jesus’ figure, this supernatural entity was hunting you. Which is actually pretty frightening.
Choice: Its like the Blue Pill / Red Pill in ‘The Matrix’. Choose to walk on Like Alice into wonderland, or walk away.
I’m not sure if this helps or hinders.
~peace~
Upvote
0
I am not stating that Allah is a separate God, but I am stating that the followers of Allah have a different faith, and since the question was about which criteria you used to decide between faiths, and you said "one God", it is inconclusive since if that were the only criteria then you might as well be Muslim or Jewish, so Im asking for which criteria you now used to distinguish between the 3 Abrahamic religions
I was asking from the point of view of the outsiders perspective, and from there all scripture is equivalent, so you might as well be quoting Buddha
I may still be confused, but I used no criteria in coming to Christ, as I said there is only one God. That is the Father, Son, HolySpirit, who are One, and so there is no other criteria, since there is only One God.
Again, tho I may be misunderstanding your question.
you said there are three abrahamic religions.
If there are 3 abrahmic religions as you say, but they do not worhship God, who is Father,Son and HolySpirit, then they are not following god.
Never heard Christianity referred to as abrahimic faith, but i do understand your usage of the term.
To be sure, using the term abrahmic faiths seems a bit wrong, for none in Christianity, nor in the ot put faith in Abraham, but in God. Again I do know why your using that term tho.
If one reads the ot alone, and does not know christ, since christ has come, then they have no faith in any god, since Jesus is God.
Upvote
0
Key
The Opener of Locks
One would have to take that into consideration, however, if a work contained both Divinity and Timelessness, and no other works did, then it by default would have to be authentic.
If a bunch of works contained divinity and timelessness, then, I would have to take all those works into consideration, but then would start the advanced process of looking at the Divinity and Timelessness of a work. It is not just a glance over process, but quite involved, and consistency is a large factor as well.
If you would like to learn more, I'll be glad to go in depth about this to help you grasp what my focus and demands were.
God Bless
Key
Upvote
0
This is a good question.
One of the basic criteria is God. By that I mean what is the god in the various religions. Many religions try to have no god, or nature is god, or man is god. Those fell by the wayside pretty fast.
Then we get into the various gods. It seems almost strange but many of them really aren't even taken seriously as god by the very people who taught them, and often we simply see a subcategory of nature worship where various parts of nature and given names and become a god with special powers.
Again those fall down pretty fast.
It didn't take too long to end up with Judaism, Islam, or Christianity.
Now the basic criteria there is Jesus. Jews reject Jesus, Islam says he was the second greatest prophet, Christians say he is God.
Let's take Islam first, the basic way that Jesus is dealt with is that the scriptures were falsified.
There is among them a section who distort the Book with their tongues: (As they read) you would think it is a part of the Book, but it is no part of the Book; and they say, "That is from Allah," but it is not from Allah (3:78 AYA).
They change words from their context and forget a part of that whereof they were admonished (5:13 MP/14 AYA).
But the transgressors changed the word from that which had been given them (2:59 AYA).
Among them are unlettered folk who know the Scripture not except from hearsay. They but guess. Therefore woe be unto them who write the Scripture with their hands and then say, "This is from Allah," that they may purchase a small gain therewith (2:78-79 MP).
The Quran clearly teaches that the scriptures are true.
O ye who believe! Believe in Allah and His Apostle, and the scripture which He hath sent to His Apostle and the scripture which He sent to those before (him). Any who denieth Allah, His Angels, His Books, His Apostles, and the Day of Judgement, hath gone far, far astray (4:136 AYA).
We believe in Allah, and in what has been revealed to us and what was revealed to Abraham, Ismail, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes, and in (the Books) given to Moses, Jesus, and the Prophets, from their Lord: We make no distinction between one and another among them (3:84 AYA).
Those who follow the Messenger (Mohammed), the Prophet who can neither read nor write, whom they will find described in the Torah and the Gospel (which are) with them (7:157 MP).
And when there cometh unto them (Jews) a Scripture (the Qur'an) from Allah, confirming that in their possession (2:89 MP).
So we have the question of what did Jesus actually say and do and what has been passed down to us. In order to accept the Muslim position, thing had to be changed.
While we do see through textual criticism that there have been mistakes and additions. The text as we have it in the critical text today seems quite solid. We just don't find evidence of wholesale tampering to change the story.
That leaves us with Jesus who claimed to be God, as either God or a scoundrel. The position of the Muslims of Jesus as a good man and a prophet can only be maintained by a position that I could find no support. The Quran talks about the books given to Jesus from God, what books would that be? You end up back to at least some of the New Testament with the story that it was changed after the fact.
I can see where the story would have been pretty believable a few years ago, but to cling to it when there really is no evidence for it and much against it isn't using criteria it's just deciding beforehand.
I also noticed that many Muslims believe that they have the original Quran and that every copy of the Quran in Arabic is exactly the same, I can't tell you how many times I have heard that. Problem is that's completely myth. The original Quran was written on a variety of things, leaves, rocks, whatever was handy. And it was memorized by many people. It was kept in memory for a time, but it was feared it would be lost and it was also noted that the various accounts were differing. So a written form was made. It appears that many things that were not agreed to by the various people present at the time were left out.
And then there were copies made and they were distributed. The original quran has been long lost, but people continue to claim that everything is exactly syllable for syllable correct and in agreement and that there never is any variation in Arabic. Something that doesn't stand up at all to examination.
But even those copies vary slightly. Just input "textual criticism Quran" into google and you can read about it.
So anyway, the story given by Islam about the Bible and Jesus don't stand up. Evidence is that Jesus did indeed claim to be God and indeed that he proved it.
At this point Judaizm doesn't need to be looked at much because we've already rejected their view of Jesus.
So then we are left with the various people that recognize the deity of Jesus. Rejected Mormonism and Jehovah Witnesses and such on the basis that there is one God. Not multiple Gods. That there is one God has just been held so true for so long that it would be unbelievable that God would permit it to continue among his chosen people without correction if it wasn't true.
Then we basically get down to doctrines and how they line up with what is trustworthy-scripture. And that's how I ended up a Lutheran whenever I found people add to scripture it always ends up with things contrary to scripture so I stopped with scripture.
Hope that didn't get too long, but that's the basic path I spent traveling over several years back when I pretty well chucked everything and started over. I know just because that's the conculsions I reached it doesn't make it right, I'm really nothing to base anyone's faith on. But I found Jesus to be trustworthy, and his view of scripture (It is written...) I tried to accept as my own.
Mohammed's story was the closest second, but I just didn't find the superstitious stuff surrounding it to stand up to history. And when I read the Quran it troubled me how it changed it's commands from one time to the next.
That hung me up on the Bible for awhile too, but then I learned how the Old and the New Testaments meshed and so it wasn't different teachings, but a progressive revelation. The book of Hebrews was most helpful in that and remains a favorite of mine to this day.
Marv
They change words from their context and forget a part of that whereof they were admonished (5:13 MP/14 AYA).
But the transgressors changed the word from that which had been given them (2:59 AYA).
Among them are unlettered folk who know the Scripture not except from hearsay. They but guess. Therefore woe be unto them who write the Scripture with their hands and then say, "This is from Allah," that they may purchase a small gain therewith (2:78-79 MP).
The Quran clearly teaches that the scriptures are true.
O ye who believe! Believe in Allah and His Apostle, and the scripture which He hath sent to His Apostle and the scripture which He sent to those before (him). Any who denieth Allah, His Angels, His Books, His Apostles, and the Day of Judgement, hath gone far, far astray (4:136 AYA).
We believe in Allah, and in what has been revealed to us and what was revealed to Abraham, Ismail, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes, and in (the Books) given to Moses, Jesus, and the Prophets, from their Lord: We make no distinction between one and another among them (3:84 AYA).
Those who follow the Messenger (Mohammed), the Prophet who can neither read nor write, whom they will find described in the Torah and the Gospel (which are) with them (7:157 MP).
And when there cometh unto them (Jews) a Scripture (the Qur'an) from Allah, confirming that in their possession (2:89 MP).
So we have the question of what did Jesus actually say and do and what has been passed down to us. In order to accept the Muslim position, thing had to be changed.
While we do see through textual criticism that there have been mistakes and additions. The text as we have it in the critical text today seems quite solid. We just don't find evidence of wholesale tampering to change the story.
That leaves us with Jesus who claimed to be God, as either God or a scoundrel. The position of the Muslims of Jesus as a good man and a prophet can only be maintained by a position that I could find no support. The Quran talks about the books given to Jesus from God, what books would that be? You end up back to at least some of the New Testament with the story that it was changed after the fact.
I can see where the story would have been pretty believable a few years ago, but to cling to it when there really is no evidence for it and much against it isn't using criteria it's just deciding beforehand.
I also noticed that many Muslims believe that they have the original Quran and that every copy of the Quran in Arabic is exactly the same, I can't tell you how many times I have heard that. Problem is that's completely myth. The original Quran was written on a variety of things, leaves, rocks, whatever was handy. And it was memorized by many people. It was kept in memory for a time, but it was feared it would be lost and it was also noted that the various accounts were differing. So a written form was made. It appears that many things that were not agreed to by the various people present at the time were left out.
And then there were copies made and they were distributed. The original quran has been long lost, but people continue to claim that everything is exactly syllable for syllable correct and in agreement and that there never is any variation in Arabic. Something that doesn't stand up at all to examination.
But even those copies vary slightly. Just input "textual criticism Quran" into google and you can read about it.
So anyway, the story given by Islam about the Bible and Jesus don't stand up. Evidence is that Jesus did indeed claim to be God and indeed that he proved it.
At this point Judaizm doesn't need to be looked at much because we've already rejected their view of Jesus.
So then we are left with the various people that recognize the deity of Jesus. Rejected Mormonism and Jehovah Witnesses and such on the basis that there is one God. Not multiple Gods. That there is one God has just been held so true for so long that it would be unbelievable that God would permit it to continue among his chosen people without correction if it wasn't true.
Then we basically get down to doctrines and how they line up with what is trustworthy-scripture. And that's how I ended up a Lutheran whenever I found people add to scripture it always ends up with things contrary to scripture so I stopped with scripture.
Hope that didn't get too long, but that's the basic path I spent traveling over several years back when I pretty well chucked everything and started over. I know just because that's the conculsions I reached it doesn't make it right, I'm really nothing to base anyone's faith on. But I found Jesus to be trustworthy, and his view of scripture (It is written...) I tried to accept as my own.
Mohammed's story was the closest second, but I just didn't find the superstitious stuff surrounding it to stand up to history. And when I read the Quran it troubled me how it changed it's commands from one time to the next.
That hung me up on the Bible for awhile too, but then I learned how the Old and the New Testaments meshed and so it wasn't different teachings, but a progressive revelation. The book of Hebrews was most helpful in that and remains a favorite of mine to this day.
Marv
Upvote
0
EmbracingHim
My foundation, my heart, our Rock, our Lord
- Sep 3, 2006
- 1,745
- 98
- Faith
- Baptist
- Marital Status
- Single
- Politics
- US-Republican
Hi WON!
I have been a skeptic my whole life of 'all' religions. The one thing I have tested and it has proven to be the 'truth' -- is the Bible.
I do not claim to be a religious person as the Bible itself shows the sin in man forming false religions and adhering to 'faith' for reasons less than the truth that the Bible offered us.
Consider an ant carrying more than it's own weight and another ant suggesting to the first: you are going to hurt yourself carrying that which is above your own weight. Yet the first ant continues on because he 'knows' he can despite the criticism received. It is natural to the ant. It works.
The Bible is like this. It works. I have read other writings...including the Koran. It didn't fit or work for me in witnessing this world and having the knowledge interally of what does work (like the ant).
The ant might not know the scientific reasons behind all things allowing this small creature to carry beyond it's weight--but it knows it works. It knows truth in this ability.
We though with an increased thinking capacity can see scientific proof of the Bible's accuracy. So my Faith is built upon the 'truth' I see in scripture after testing the rest.
-- Glad you are still around CF.
Upvote
0
Similar threads
