Is Christianity true?

[Sabertooth]

How did you know that the rest was true? Why did you become sure it’s true information?

I see. So you felt the guilt and a need of redemption. Why you took the story of the 4 laws as true?

1. Coming to an "end" of myself produced a prerequisite humility. (I didn't feel guilt right away as much as I felt insufficient.)
2. In that condition, God was able to touch my heart.
3. "Original Sin" was/is the only model consistent with my experience.
4. Jesus' Blood is the only prescription for OS. (Nobody seeks a Cure before they recognize a diagnosis...)

 

[HARK!]

MOD HAT ON

From the SOP:

If another non-Christian seeker wishes to ask questions about the Christian faith, they may start their own thread. No more than one non-Christian Seeker (the OP) may post in a thread.

MOD HAT OFF​

 

[Handmaid for Jesus]

As an adult, after learning of otter ideas, what kept you in the Christian faith? Was there a period of questioning, search, doubts?

Nothing else made sense to me to be honest. The gospel promised eternal life through faith (trust.belief) in what Jesus did. I had learned, as a child, Bible verses that were promises of God. And, I knew that sometimes I was disobedient,I just could not help it. But, I believed those promises that God would forgive me.
John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
1 John 1:8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

I saw my disobedience as sin and I believed the word that Jesus loved me enough to fix me and make me right if I asked for forgiveness (repented). I believed, as a child, that Jesus was the Son of God and that He died for my sin. And I believed God raised Him from the dead. The promise was
Romans 10:8 But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach;

9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God
hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
11 For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.

As a child I learned the promises. As an adult they made too much sense to me. No other belief made more sense. I learned to trust and obey. I still mess up, but I still ask for forgiveness in prayer when I do.

 

[mmarco]

When you became adult, did you question any part of your faith?

I have spent a lot of time discussing with atheists and people of other religions;
this led me to analyze the reason why I believe in Christ, and I must say that this process has strengthened my convictions more and more because it made me understand the solidity of the rational foundations of the Christian faith.

 

[mmarco]

On what basis?

I cannot explain the specific reasons for every specific world view, don't you think?

 

[Original Happy Camper]

OK, I understand - you saw God’s authorship in the prophecies of the OT fulfilled by the NT?

FULFILLED FROM HISTORY AND THE NT AFTER IT WAS WRITTEN IN HIS WORD, history proves the Bible to be correct all the time

prophecy is history in advance
History is prophecy fulfilled

 

[OldWiseGuy]

How did you personally sense the calling? How much of your own will was responsible?

It's sort of like falling in love. Not easy to explain.

 

[Halbhh]

This is very interesting. So you first accepted Christ’s teaching as true,

No, I thought I'd find maybe just a couple of useful things. I was reading diverse thinkers/teachers/philosophies from around the world, and this was an interesting one in that it talked about love between neighbors, and so I wanted to get the precise wording (which turns out to be crucial), for that and see if there was anything else of value, expecting there might be a few things useful, or only 1, or none.

But when I tested the instruction about loving neighbors, and did it precisely as given (without leaving out the precise instruction: "as yourself", but doing that, exactly as the full wording says), then the results were so great I thought it had to be lucky or something, and kept testing it again in new ways with new people and new situations.

 

[ldonjohn]

Did you become convinced by reading the Bible?

Hi James. My journey to becoming a "believer" in the Gospel message began in my childhood as one who grew up attending a Baptist church until I was about 18-19 years old. By the time I was around 20 years old I had come to the conclusion that there was no way for me to know for sure that the bible was true and that God was real. Basically I just decided that all the bible stuff I heard in church was possibly a myth, and I forgot about God and got on with my life.

Several years later for some reason I began to be troubled by my "unbelief" and decided that if I was wrong about the bible & the existence of God, the I could be facing a very tragic future. After several years of living in fear & misery over the matter of my unbelief, I decided to search for answers. That was before the internet was available so my source for information was bible tracts and Christian books, but they just repeated all the stuff I had heard in church. I was confused about God & wasn't sure if He was real, and thought that there was no way I could ever know if the bible was true or if God was real or how to "believe in Jesus" if He was real.
One night I just gave up on myself being able to figure it out, and I said a prayer to the God I wasn't sure existed asking Him to show me how to believe in Him.
The next day I opened a bible, never had done that before outside a church, and started reading in the Book of John. By the time I had read through chapter 6 God answered my questions and convinced me that the bible is true, that He is real, and that Jesus will save anyone who comes to Him for forgiveness of sin and for a new life in Him.
My life was changed that day, and I found a peace that is impossible to explain to anyone who has never had his/her life changed by the message of the cross.

John

 

[James_Lai]

Thank you for your answers!!!

Leaving this thread, good bye!

All the best to you all.

 

[Mayflower1]

Hello.

How did you personally become convinced that Christianity is true?

I have a hard time seeing all aspects of it to be true, also I’m greatly confused by some of it.

When you are raised in the Bible as a child, you just start seeing God's faithfulness over and over. I've prayed and seen God work in my life and the lives of those around me. Plus the Bible was written by 40 authors over a period of 1400 years. Over 300 prophecies were fulfilled for one man, Jesus Christ in this time. The percentage of that happening are astronomical. It all points to God. Creation in itself, a intricate design of just one cell in the human body for example... It didn't happen from some big bang. I don't understand how people can see creation started from void or a piece of rock. It just seems like it takes more faith to believe that then a master author. As you said in another thread, people need God. But I do not believe He is a made up fairy tale. People do not need a fairy tale. People have a need and the true living God meets every need. God changed my life. He took this broken, abused, hurting person, and transformed me. I've seen miracles take place, healing, and just have felt the love and presence of God my entire life. I love Him. And He loves you.

 

[Hawkins]

How did you know that the rest was true? Why did you become sure it’s true information?

Confusion is caused by today's modern education. The much more intelligent angelic beings such as Satan himself laid a hand on it. Or else nothing can explain why so confusing you are as an intelligent human being.

Truth is always in the form of a testimony. Along the 1.5 years of covid-19 death tolls are listed on a daily basis. The majority of humankind don't have a single bit of evidence to back up the figures displayed on TV or Internet. Only those few directly involved in collecting and counting the figures actually have the evidence. This simultaneously means humans in majority don't rely on evidence or proof to get to a truth. Mostly humans rely on a testimony from direct eyewitness (i.e., in the case of covid death tolls are those directly collecting and counting the figures).

Modern education (i.e., the Tree of Knowledge influenced by the snake) however asks you to believe only when those figures are evidenced. This is the trick they play such that you are confused to think with the token of reasoning that "how can you believe in something which apparently cannot be evidenced". In reality we do almost exclusively believe in something apparently not evidenced to us, including the covid-19 death tolls. We rely on something else to determine that those figures are reliably credible to us.

We rely on testimonies to get to a truth exclusively no matter what, simply because it is out of human capability to get to a proof or evidence individually and handily. At some point we have to deliver our faith in order to get to a truth of any kind. Even science works this way. By faith we give credit to the works of our scientists (is it really their works?) to believe the fact that black holes do exist.

Evidence comes very much scarcely to humans especially when certain types of truth are concerned, such as a history. It is said in Chinese history books that Confucius has 3000 apprentices. You either swallow this as a piece of history or reject it, both done by faith and faith alone. Humans are almost futile to get to a fact happened in the long past. That's why the Japanese can deny Nanjing Massacre happened in WWII, which is said to have involved a death toll of 300,000 civilians. If you want this to be evidence based, then it never happened as the Japanese claimed. What has been leverage here is that humans lack the ability to evidence such a past, they have to rely on testimonies from eyewitnesses to get to such a truth.

That said. Which religion ever emphasized explicitly about faith and testimony? It's only Christianity. The Bible stands a testimony about what God did in the past, just like how a history book stands a testimony about what humans did in the past.

If the US government has an important message for its citizens, such as there's covid outbreak, then what should it do? It should broadcast the message through credible media as a piece of news to all the states of America, not just one or two states of it. Hinduism stays only in India. Its god either doesn't exist or he doesn't have a message for humans, in that case he can be ignored. Buddhism remains locally in the east (mostly China), simply because buddha didn't encourage people to spread the message. Monks are encouraged to spend their time on meditating instead of going out to spread their "truth". Only Christianity has an explicit command to preach (i.e., broadcast) the good news to all the nations. The bring forward Christianity globally is an explicit command since day one from Jesus Christ. Only Christianity is a human facing religion.

In a nutshell, humans rely on testimonies to get to a truth, not evidence. While only Christianity is an explicit account of testimony from eyewitnesses, and a human-facing religion with an explicit command and mission to bring forward its good news (the gospel) to all the nations on earth.

 

[aiki]

Hello.

How did you personally become convinced that Christianity is true?

I have a hard time seeing all aspects of it to be true, also I’m greatly confused by some of it.

I became convinced of the truth of Christianity by:

The explanatory power of a biblical worldview.
The supernatural character of the Bible.
The apologetic evidence.
A personal experience of God in the manner the Bible describes.

 

[dóxatotheó]

Hello.

How did you personally become convinced that Christianity is true?

I have a hard time seeing all aspects of it to be true, also I’m greatly confused by some of it.

To personally believe a religion to be true you always to seek why its true as I did, I read philosophy and theology books on Christianity and it stood out I am in faith with Christ and never gonna leave. A religious belief on the matter of existence and before it always should be logical and provable which Christianity is both of those. If you wanna truly find out if its the truth search.

 

[Silly Uncle Wayne]

Hello.

How did you personally become convinced that Christianity is true?

I have a hard time seeing all aspects of it to be true, also I’m greatly confused by some of it.

An encounter with God in a situation that made it certain that Christianity was the truth.

As for your confusion, there is certainly a lot to be confused about... but you don't necessarily have to get it sorted out to become a Christian.

Think in terms of higher education - quantum mechanics might be incredibly confusing (it is to me) but they start with the basics and work up to it. Unless your confusion is with the basics, it shouldn't be a stumbling block in any way.