If truth is absoluute then why are therre so many different religions?

[Arthra]

Jesus came to Earth and destroyed religion

That's interesting... He destroyed religion...Hmmm.

 

[willubraptured2]

It's true that some bad things have happened in atheistic societies.

On asking God into my heart, I have tried that numerous times throughout my life. I honestly think God doesn't care if we believe in Him (if He exists). In fact, I think God prefers for people to make the most out of their lives and not waste their time on religion. That doesn't mean God wants us to be hedonists, but He wants us to be free of fear and do what we truly want to do with our lives. That is the atheist lifestyle IMO. So either way, I'm covered.

Perhaps you could clear something up for me. From your post, I'm not sure if you believe God exists or not. You seem to imply that you do. Correct me if I'm wrong. I agree with you that God doesn't want us to waste our time on "religion". I define "religion" as man being the center of his universe either trying to reach up to God and trying to be "good enough" to win God's favor, or totally discounting God's relevance from his life, which I believe could be categorized as atheism.

I also agree that God wants us to be free, "And the Truth shall set you free". He wants us to know the Truth so we can make an informed decision to follow Him. God wants us to be free to choose Him, which is why He has given us free will. Faith plays an important part in the equation. "Without faith, it is impossible to please God". But, the mind plays into it as well.

I agree with you that He wants us to be free from fear. But I think He comes at it from a different angle than we do. From what I've gleaned from the Bible, He wants us to accept Jesus as the answer to our problem of being eternally alienated from God. You probably know this, but Jesus serves as the bridge between humans and an all perfect and powerful God. Humans don't have the capacity to fill the gap, only Jesus does because He is God-man, lived a sinless life, took our sins on Himself and conquered the grave. The Bible says that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God". Someone might say, "well, I've lived a good life. I haven't robbed or murdered anyone. I'm a moral person". But in God's eyes that won't be good enough. So the fear and guilt that I think we all instinctively feel, unless we've so suppressed those emotions, can be quickly and easily be dealt with by accepting Jesus as our Savior.

I know you said you have tried to let God into your heart, but have you let Jesus into your heart to perform His spiritual surgery on you. That is the only true way to be free, live a life filled with true joy and to be fearless. (Many religions profess belief in a god, but only the Bible provides Jesus). It's as easy as asking Him to forgive you, a sinner, to come into your heart and come into your life. Don't depend on feelings to tell you if anything has changed. If you have sincerely asked Him for forgiveness, He has. You are a new creature and you will be saved. Saved from what, you may ask. From eternal separation from God, which is a fate worse than death.

If I've still got your attention and you need some more reasons to accept Jesus Christ of the Bible I'll be happy to elaborate. I've enjoyed our discussion.

 

[jacknife]

That's interesting... He destroyed religion...Hmmm.

He did a really poor job of it.

 

[WeAreTheChristianGems]

By destroy religion I mean Jesus gave us the option of not having to adhere to all these crazy rules.
Saying He did a poor job is like saying someone was getting their friends out of prison, they paid all the bail so they could be free men, but they decided they want to stay in the prison anyway. For some odd reason.
He visits them later and they say
"Well, you did a poor job trying to get us out of prison, since we're still here."

 

[cloudyday2]

Perhaps you could clear something up for me. From your post, I'm not sure if you believe God exists or not. You seem to imply that you do. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I think God might exist, but I recognize that I have no solid evidence. Also philosophy has some good arguments against the existence of various definitions of God (omnipotence, omniscience, omnibenevolence, ...). My belief in God is mostly a result of childhood indoctrination, and it will never disappear entirely - no matter how many atheist arguments I learn. Apparently other atheists are more logical than me, and they can completely put their childhood indoctrination behind them. Good for them, but I know my limitations.

 

[cloudyday2]

^Here is a good analogy to explain how I feel about religions. When a new baby is born, parents used to say that the stork had delivered the baby. This story about the stork is the equivalent of religious belief. What is more inspiring - a stork carrying a baby in a basket or a baby developing from a single cell? The possibility that there is NO God and that everything developed by chance is far more amazing and inspiring than the religious stories IMO. The idea that our consciousness is a fleeting BYBRODUCT of physical reality, and that or physical bodies are part of a larger physical environment, therefore our consciousness is part of a larger consciousness - that's more interesting to me than the religious stories about discrete souls roasting in heaven or hell based on religious belief.

 

[willubraptured2]

I think God might exist, but I recognize that I have no solid evidence. Also philosophy has some good arguments against the existence of various definitions of God (omnipotence, omniscience, omnibenevolence, ...). My belief in God is mostly a result of childhood indoctrination, and it will never disappear entirely - no matter many atheist arguments I learn. Apparently other atheists are more logical than me, and they can completely put their childhood indoctrination behind them. Good for them, but I know my limitations.

^Here is a good analogy to explain how I feel about religions. When a new baby is born, parents used to say that the stork had delivered the baby. This story about the stork is the equivalent of religious belief. What is more inspiring - a stork carrying a baby in a basket or a baby developing from a single cell? The possibility that there is NO God and that everything developed by chance is far more amazing and inspiring than the religious stories IMO. The idea that our consciousness is a fleeting BYBRODUCT of physical reality, and that or physical bodies are part of a larger physical environment, therefore our consciousness is part of a larger consciousness - that's more interesting to me than the religious stories about discrete souls roasting in heaven or hell based on religious belief.

You seem to be using the term "religions" and God interchangeably. I'm curious, who is God to you? [You have somewhat answered this but in pretty vague terms] How do you define Him? Also, do you believe in Jesus? Who do you say that He is? It will help me to respond to you if I know your position on these questions.

 

[Arthra]

By destroy religion I mean Jesus gave us the option of not having to adhere to all these crazy rules.

"...not one jot or tittle..."

Alright ... well at least until all is accomplished.

 

[cloudyday2]

You seem to be using the term "religions" and God interchangeably. I'm curious, who is God to you? [You have somewhat answered this but in pretty vague terms] How do you define Him? Also, do you believe in Jesus? Who do you say that He is? It will help me to respond to you if I know your position on these questions.

My ideas about God and Jesus come partly from experiences, but my experiences come partly from psychology and religious indoctrination, so they are biased. I try to test my ideas with science, history, and philosophy, but I am not a Vulcan - good reasons to dismiss experiences don't prevent the experiences from affecting my ideas.

I don't believe anything in the Bible (OT or NT). I think there may have been a historical Jesus, but I suspect he may have been very different from his portrayal in the NT and even more different from my experiences of Jesus. So I might experience Jesus and God with Christians symbols, but they seem to tell me that those symbols misrepresent them. I don't know who they are, and I don't know if they actually exist.

 

[cloudyday2]

^I have sometimes wondered if God and Jesus have no connection to the God and Jesus from the Bible but that they are willing to take on the guise of Bible characters to interact with people who expect those guises.

 

[willubraptured2]

^I have sometimes wondered if God and Jesus have no connection to the God and Jesus from the Bible but that they are willing to take on the guise of Bible characters to interact with people who expect those guises.

Do you have facts that support your premise that Jesus and God are different from the entities portrayed in the Bible? If there was a historical Jesus how can we know that He existed except thru the written record of Him? Kind of like, "How can we know that Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great existed except thru the written record?" History (non-Christian records, for example the writings of Jewish Historian Josephus) and archeology have demonstrated that the Bible is a reliable source of historical record. To my knowledge there has not been an archeological find that has proven the Bible wrong. If it is reliable as far as history goes, doesn't it make sense that it would be a reliable portrayal of God and Jesus? If the Bible is an accurate portrayal of the historical Jesus, then one of two scenarios present themselves. Either Jesus is the Son of God and the only true way to God (Jesus says " I am the way the truth and the life, no man comes to the Father except through me"), or Jesus is a fraud, a deceiver and/or a lunatic on the level of one that would say "I am a poached egg", because of the claims He made to be God. He has not given us the option of just saying he was a good man.

 

[jacknife]

I never really understood the idea of ultimate truth, seems to me like a lot of people search for it and get nowhere.

 

[Robban]

I never really understood the idea of ultimate truth, seems to me like a lot of people search for it and get nowhere.

Maybe it is, when there is no more darkness there is only light.

If evil is darkness and good is light,
it would not be correct to say,
it is a battle between good and evil or darkness and light.

But, light disperses darkness.

In a dark room one sees nothing, where is the truth of where I laid my sock.
turn on the light, ah, there it is.

Light a Candle in a dark room and light will be given to as many in the room.

Check it out,
Stand in a dark room with a bottle, the bottle will be filled with darkness,,
plug the end with a cork, and turn on the light,

Where did the darkness in the bottle go?

Or, when facing the sun, your shadow is behind you,
when your back is facing the sun, your shadow is before you.

Don,t know if it can be called ultimate truth, but, it is true.

 

[cloudyday2]

Do you have facts that support your premise that Jesus and God are different from the entities portrayed in the Bible? If there was a historical Jesus how can we know that He existed except thru the written record of Him? Kind of like, "How can we know that Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great existed except thru the written record?" History (non-Christian records, for example the writings of Jewish Historian Josephus) and archeology have demonstrated that the Bible is a reliable source of historical record. To my knowledge there has not been an archeological find that has proven the Bible wrong. If it is reliable as far as history goes, doesn't it make sense that it would be a reliable portrayal of God and Jesus? If the Bible is an accurate portrayal of the historical Jesus, then one of two scenarios present themselves. Either Jesus is the Son of God and the only true way to God (Jesus says " I am the way the truth and the life, no man comes to the Father except through me"), or Jesus is a fraud, a deceiver and/or a lunatic on the level of one that would say "I am a poached egg", because of the claims He made to be God. He has not given us the option of just saying he was a good man.

I don't agree with your assessment of the Bible's historical accuracy, but that is a small issue. One reason that I suspect a God of some kind might exist is that I've had synchronicities, hallucinations, and dreams where it seems that God has been trying to show me things. If I was a Vulcan, I might be able to ignore such things, but I'm not a Vulcan. God and Jesus seemed to be challenging Christian dogma. So if I dismiss my experiences then I'm an atheist. If I accept my experiences, then it seems that God and Jesus do not agree with Christian dogma.

 

[willubraptured2]

I never really understood the idea of ultimate truth, seems to me like a lot of people search for it and get nowhere.

Maybe because they are looking in the wrong place.

 

[willubraptured2]

I don't agree with your assessment of the Bible's historical accuracy, but that is a small issue. One reason that I suspect a God of some kind might exist is that I've had synchronicities, hallucinations, and dreams where it seems that God has been trying to show me things. If I was a Vulcan, I might be able to ignore such things, but I'm not a Vulcan. God and Jesus seemed to be challenging Christian dogma. So if I dismiss my experiences then I'm an atheist. If I accept my experiences, then it seems that God and Jesus do not agree with Christian dogma.

To which "Christian dogma" are you referring? If I understand your point, I agree that Jesus challenged religious dogma, such that He challenged the religious leaders of His day calling them "whitewashed graves [paraphrase]" because they were more concerned with demonstrating to people how righteous they were than truly being concerned for their fellow man. He said they pile on rules and laws without being willing to lift so much as a finger to help. As I said earlier, I'm against "religion" too. Christianity isn't a religion. It is about Jesus.

Can you point to some examples where you would challenge to reliability or historicity of the Bible? Thanks

 

[jacknife]

Maybe because they are looking in the wrong place.

You sure? thiers quite a lot of them you'd think one of them would be looking in the right place. You ask me their is no such thing as the "ultimate truth"

 

[willubraptured2]

You sure? thiers quite a lot of them you'd think one of them would be looking in the right place. You ask me their is no such thing as the "ultimate truth"

Pretty sure. Jesus said

You sure? thiers quite a lot of them you'd think one of them would be looking in the right place. You ask me their is no such thing as the "ultimate truth"

How would you define "ultimate truth" to know it if you found it?

 

[jacknife]

Pretty sure. Jesus said

How would you define "ultimate truth" to know it if you found it?

Well since it's a philosophical concept i suppose that each person would have a different definition but i would say a truth beyond all other truths. something very distinct, also Jesus said what?

 

[willubraptured2]

Well since it's a philosophical concept i suppose that each person would have a different definition but i would say a truth beyond all other truths. something very distinct, also Jesus said what?

Sorry, slip of the post reply button. I'm new to this web site and still trying to learn how to navigate. I had a thought and then meant to erase it and not include it in the post, guess that didn't happen. However, in view of the fact that you asked, Jesus said many things about truth. Probably most importantly, He said "I am the way, the truth and the life, no man comes to the father except thru me". I understand that to mean He is "Ultimate Truth". That is a pretty distinct truth. He also pointed to the Holy Spirit, the third part of the God head, and said that He would make truth known to believers in Jesus. (John 16:13) Off course, a person has to start with some confidence that the Bible is the Word of God to accept these Truths, but I offer them for your consideration.