What makes Christianity right?

[Vale]

I don't understand what makes Christianity "correct" and everyone else wrong.

There are so many other religions in the world, other books, and other things that others follow. People believe in their own god, and their own god speaks to them. People preach, and d everything that Christians do.
It's not difficult to create your own god, the mind can easily create this for you. Why is Jesus real, and Allah, or any other figure false?

 

[TimRout]

What sort of evidence would you need to be convinced that Christianity is uniquely right?

 

[Vale]

I personally believe that religion is simply a guide to your way of life, a community with shared interest, and in some cases - hope of where you go when you die.

I personally think death is just the end, and it's the same as before you were born - Nothing.

 

[Stinker]

If one is taught that religion is the historical superstitious result of mankind's primal fears, then one would conclude that it means every religion. That one need not waste time and energy even trying to find if any one religion is realistically true.

If, however, one chose to investigate the valitity of the concept of true religion possibly existing, one would need to find the method/s that determine if it exists.

 

[TimRout]

I personally believe that religion is simply a guide to your way of life, a community with shared interest, and in some cases - hope of where you go when you die.

I personally think death is just the end, and it's the same as before you were born - Nothing.

As an evangelical Christians, I consider it my great pleasure and privilege to help people investigate my religion if they are genuinely interested. Are you interested in discussing biblical Christianity with an open and inquisitive mind, or are you simply looking for a venue in which to reinforce your disbelief?

 

[Vale]

I'll discuss, sounds interesting.

 

[TheLivingWater]

I don't understand what makes Christianity "correct" and everyone else wrong.

There are so many other religions in the world, other books, and other things that others follow. People believe in their own god, and their own god speaks to them. People preach, and d everything that Christians do.
It's not difficult to create your own god, the mind can easily create this for you. Why is Jesus real, and Allah, or any other figure false?

Well Jesus says that whoever learns from God goes to Christ
I guess if you don't want to go to Jesus then maby Christianity is not for you

 

[ebia]

I don't understand what makes Christianity "correct" and everyone else wrong.

Truth just is. What exactly is your question? Do you mean "how do you know Christianity is right and the others wrong?" or "how can I know Christianity is right and the others wrong?" or what?

There are so many other religions in the world, other books, and other things that others follow. People believe in their own god, and their own god speaks to them. People preach, and d everything that Christians do.

Given that all (other) religions are imperfections or parodies of the real thing you'd expect a lot of superficial similarities. What the others lack is recognising that the one and only creator God became human in Jesus of Nazareth, died on the cross to defeat everything that is wrong with the world, and resurrected from the dead to take over as Lord of all creation.

It's not difficult to create your own god, the mind can easily create this for you. Why is Jesus real, and Allah, or any other figure false?

I know Jesus is Lord because of the resurrection.

 

[Vale]

Truth just is. What exactly is your question? Do you mean "how do you know Christianity is right and the others wrong?" or "how can I know Christianity is right and the others wrong?" or what?




Given that all (other) religions are imperfections or parodies of the real thing you'd expect a lot of superficial similarities. What the others lack is recognising that the one and only creator God became human in Jesus of Nazareth, died on the cross to defeat everything that is wrong with the world, and resurrected from the dead to take over as Lord of all creation.



I know Jesus is Lord because of the resurrection.

Do you have any idea how common of a story that was? Greek mythology had 1000's of stories following that exact story line, written way before the bible's time. A savior dying for the world, god in human form, making blind see, yada yada yada.. It was all your average super-hero story back then.

 

[ebia]

Do you have any idea how common of a story that was? Greek mythology had 1000's of stories following that exact story line, written way before the bible's time. A savior dying for the world, god in human form, making blind see, yada yada yada.. It was all your average super-hero story back then.

Um, no it's not. There are highly superficial similiarites to be found between Jesus' story and certain myths, but when you bother to understand what is going on in each (and lose the hype, and occasionally lies, of the books and sites that try to make more of those similarities than re really there) you find Jesus' story is radically different from anything else on offer. It's fundamentally Jewish in ways that such offerings would like to ignore, but it takes that in extraordinary new directions that radically reinterpret the Jewish story in directions that simply did not exist in the paganism or philosophy of the time.

Resurrection stories in paganism are all about saying "death is a one-way street - you cannot be raised from the dead". They aren't central, they are there on the edge to say "death is a reality, find a way of dealing with it". Resurrection in 1st century Judaism is there as an idea, but again it isn't central, and it is something that can only happen at the end of time to all God's people. It cannot happen in the middle of time to one person. Resurrection from the start of early Christianity is the Jewish idea, but then.... "... and yet it happened on Easter morning to Jesus of Nazareth, and therefore he is Lord, and therefore we have a job to do." a) it happened. Something not possible in Jewish or Pagan thinking of the time. b) it becomes the absolutely central idea around which and from which everything else flows.

Likewise with the incarnation - if you phrase it as "god taking human form" it sounds a bit like what goes on in some pagan myths, but if you understand the Jewishness of what is going on it is fundamentally different. The trouble with oversimplified expressions is that things that are really very unalike can appear alike if you express them too simply.

If you tell the crucifixion story as "some bloke annoyed the authorities so they beat him up an executed him" it sounds like any of billions of other executions. If you tell the full story beginning with election of Abraham, going through the whole story of Israel, and culminating in Jesus nailed to a tree" then it has its proper uniqueness.

 

[TimRout]

It is important to remember that myth is by nature analogous. While pagans believed in the message or moral of a myth, there is little evidence to suggest they accepted myths as real history.

The Bible, on the other hand, does not present Jesus Christ as a myth. The New Testament writers painted the picture of a real man who lived in a real locality, had a real family, real followers, interacted with real historical characters, died a literal death, and experienced a literal resurrection.

The historicity of the resurrection is God's stamp of authenticity on the life and work of Jesus Christ [Romans 1:4]. While countless religious personalities have lived and died through the centuries, only Jesus physically rose from the grave. It is this fact, first and foremost, that sets Jesus apart from Mohammad, Buddha, Confucius, Guru Nanak, Joseph Smith Jr. and the rest.

Once a person becomes convinced that the resurrection of Jesus is an historical fact, then it becomes a relatively simple thing to believe everything else the Bible teaches about Him. And once a person has espoused a biblical view of Jesus, it becomes a relatively simple thing to step out in faith, repent of one's sins, and receive the Lord Jesus Christ as one's personal Savior.

 

[Stinker]

Oh yes. We have not only circunstantial evidence, but physical evidence of Jesus as well.

 

[Vale]

I am fully aware that Jesus was a real man, even atheists will admit that. But he wasn't the son of god.. intelligent? sure. But nothing more.

And even so, it's a good story.

But why are so many things in it so mythical, and physically impossible.

Noah's ark? Heh.. There are so many problems with that story alone!

• Wood rotting. Left out in the open, the partly-built Ark would be exposed to the elements, such as rain, wind, lightning (a large structure is likely to get struck quite often, and wood burns), fungus, termites and ravenous beavers (well, maybe not beavers). Maybe he first built a huge hangar in which he could construct it safely? That would have almost as great an enterprise as the Ark itself! Unfortunately, the Bible does not enlighten us as to the whereabouts of Noah's Shed. I guess it was washed away in the Flood...

• Theft and vandalism. The hordes of fiendish deviants living around Noah at the time would no doubt have had enjoyed enormous sinful fun by sabotaging the Ark, stealing the wood for themselves (why cut and prepare your own wood when Noah's done the job for you?) and harassing the few workers

• Where did Noah find the pitch to waterproof the Ark with? Flood theorists say that all the world's oil / petroleum deposits were formed during the Flood. How could Noah find and use pitch to waterproof the Ark before the Flood, when the pitch was formed during the Flood? Did he have SCUBA gear as well, and kept diving down to gather fresh pitch from the ocean floor and apply it to the Ark while it was floating around? Pitch is a petroleum deposit, which takes more than a couple of thousand years to form. (Some people argue that "wood-pitch" was used instead, although the commonly held belief is that it was petroleum-pitch).

Those are just a few of the problems with that story. The bible is such a "perfect" book, but it's only explanation for these things are "god used magic and made stuff happened."

 

[MrPolo]

If you are looking for truth, then Christianity is the way to go. If you are looking for "what I like", then you are a relativist and will not have the truth (unless what you like is Christianity ).

Christianity is different from all other religions in this way. With no exception I can think of, Christianity is the only one that doesn't rely on the testament of an individual person. Christianity has hundreds or thousands of original witnesses.

From a strictly historical perspective, Jesus Christ roamed the earth, matched the prophecies in the Old Testament. People heard Him say He would conquer death. They saw Him die. Then they saw Him alive 3 days later.

There are numerous witnesses attesting to this event. That's from a historical perspective alone.

 

[Vale]

So Muhammad didn't exist? People didn't see him? Didn't follow him?

Oh.. and thousand of witnesses? What about greek mythology... did people not claim to see the gods? YES! They saw the gods, they spoke with them, fought with them, etc. etc. etc.

 

[ebia]

I am fully aware that Jesus was a real man, even atheists will admit that. But he wasn't the son of god.. intelligent? sure. But nothing more.

And even so, it's a good story.

But why are so many things in it so mythical, and physically impossible.

Because Jesus is the crucial event in history - the resurrection is second only to the creation itself (if that). It's not (as it is sometimes portrayed) a decent guy with some good timeless truths getting nailed to a tree for antagonising some people, and then appearing a bit later to validiate it all. It is God dealing with every problem in creation, renewing and healing creation, so that it can resume it's proper course with people acting appropriately again and fulfilling their intended role in that. The "miracles" in the NT shouldn't be seen in terms of "magic" or "supernatural", but in terms of God's perfect future kingdom breaking forward into the present. Jesus sitting down and eating with taxcollectors is as much a miracle as his healing of the blind begger if you happen to be Levi the tax collector.
The resurrection is the ultimate, central, example of that; new, perfect, uncorruptable, life breaking forward into the imperfect, corruptable, old creation and thereby renewing and remaking it.

Noah's ark? Heh.. There are so many problems with that story alone!

Note that many (most?) Christians in the world do not take the flood story as literally accurate. No doubt it has its roots in a real event of some sort, but it's a mythologised account to describe part of what is wrong with creation, sitting between the fall (everything going wrong) and the call of Abraham (the start of the solution that will culminate in Jesus).

 

[ebia]

So Muhammad didn't exist? People didn't see him? Didn't follow him?

The role of Muhammed in Islam and Jesus in Christianity are fundamentally different.
Mohammed is (supposed to be) simply the messanger - the revelation itself is the Koran - a set of (supposedly) timeless truths. Islam is fundamentally about a timeless book.
Jesus is not the messanger, but God himself. He didn't primarily deliver a message but acted in the world. He is the revelation of God, not the deliverer of said revelation. Christianity is fundamentally about an historical event.

Oh.. and thousand of witnesses? What about greek mythology... did people not claim to see the gods? YES! They saw the gods, they spoke with them, fought with them, etc. etc. etc.

For the most part they are written well after the supposed event. At time of writting the big events in pagan mythology are "a long time ago", not "a couple of decades ago and you can go speak to his brother if you don't believe me".

 

[TimRout]

So Muhammad didn't exist? People didn't see him? Didn't follow him?

Oh.. and thousand of witnesses? What about greek mythology... did people not claim to see the gods? YES! They saw the gods, they spoke with them, fought with them, etc. etc. etc.

Again, you're not listening.

Even those whose pagan religions centered on various ancient myths, did not (for the most part) characterize such myths as literal history. The Romans, for example, clearly delineated their pseudo-historcal myths from their didactic records. Your suggestion that real eye witnesses claimed to interact with various mythical characters, demonstrates a limited understanding of mythology.

How then does Jesus differ from Mohammad? While Mohammad was a real person who started a real religion, he was not the Son of God who proved his identity by rising from the dead [Romans 1:4]. The historical fact of Jesus' resurrection is the stamp of authenticity you're looking for.

As for your rejection of all things miraculous.... If you're not willing to acknowledge the possibility that a supernatural God could act supernaturally, then you're not being logical. Like many atheists/agnostics, you superimpose a finite human paradigm on an infinite being, then stand back and smile smugly when the numbers don't add up. While this says much about your extraordinary bias, it says nothing about the accuracy and authenticity of the Bible.

 

[MrPolo]

So Muhammad didn't exist? People didn't see him? Didn't follow him?

Oh.. and thousand of witnesses? What about greek mythology... did people not claim to see the gods? YES! They saw the gods, they spoke with them, fought with them, etc. etc. etc.

Muhammed existed. As I said, what was witnessed in Christianity is Jesus being killed and rising from the dead, as promised. Also His fulfillment of prophecies that preceded Him.

Who are these people who en masse all attest to the same story with the gods? Could you give me a number of names like I could for the witnesses of the Resurrection and miracles? The gods people's stories contradict, do they not? It's like I said, scattered individual stories....not hundreds with one voice citing first hand witness of the Resurrection and miracles performed over Christ's 3 year ministry.

And let's say the gods people were challenged for their differing stories...did they, like the apostles and martyrs, die to maintain their story? En masse?

 

[Restube]

Christianity has more accurate prophecies than any other religion