This is my first post, for it I would like to pose a general question. How do you know Christianity is the true faith? Please have some sort of evidence in your answer.
A sub question why do you believe in god?
i'm not meaning to target anyone I just want to hear personal opinions
How do you know Christianity is the right faith?
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Re: How do you know Christianity is the right faith?
Post #11[Replying to post 1 by ReallyGod]
I know that Jesus Christ is God, because he personally told me he is God. I have seen Jesus, and he has done healing, miracles, and have walked in a number of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus/Holy Spirit has given me the grace, and direction to keep God’s Commandments for forty years now. That keeping God’s commandments includes not sinning at all.
I know that Jesus Christ is God, because he personally told me he is God. I have seen Jesus, and he has done healing, miracles, and have walked in a number of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus/Holy Spirit has given me the grace, and direction to keep God’s Commandments for forty years now. That keeping God’s commandments includes not sinning at all.
Re: How do you know Christianity is the right faith?
Post #12Divine Insight wrote:ReallyGod wrote:
How do you know Christianity is the true faith?
Having been born, raised, baptized, and born again, in Christianity I had accepted that it was true. Mainly on the "faith" that my parents and the pastor of our church knew what they were talking about.
So I decided to teach the word of God myself and I studied the Bible so that i could understand precisely what God's word was. Even our preachers seemed to be confused so I could see they needed help.
However, the more I studied the religion the more I began to realize that it cannot possibly be true. And this became crystal clear with the more I learned.
So now I am completely convinced with 100% certainty that the Bible cannot be true verbatim. In fact, the whole issue of a literal or verbatim Bible itself became quite literally a joke.
At the very best the Biblical stories might have some vague abstract truth associate with them that would be basically be impossible to determine with any certainty.
ReallyGod wrote:
Please have some sort of evidence in your answer.
Ironically once I realized the evidence I also realize that it's blatantly obvious.
Here's the evidence against the bible being any sort of literal or verbatim picture of God.
1. The bible stems from very ancients myths about the Israelites.
No one can even agree on the certainty of those ancient myths.
2. The original Judaism is unclear on their ancient texts and don't even agree among themselves.
3. Christianity is an offshoot of Judaism and has taken many different forms as well. And the original Jews do not even buy into Christianity.
4. Christianity has fallen into at least two major disagreeing factions: Catholicism and a myriad of protesting Protestantisms. Some people even point out that there are even other forms of Christianity that don't even fall under these two factions.
5. The Protestantisms continue to fall into more divisive sects to this very day and that process appears to be never-ending.
6. Shortly after Christianity broke off from Judaism some Muslim fellow plagiarized the whole shebang and created the Qur'an and Islam.
7. The plagiarized Islamic versions of this religion also continued to break apart into disagreeing Islamic sects.
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So the one thing we can know with absolute certainty is that there is no such thing as a "Verbatim" or "Literally true or infallible" Bible.
That's a historically given FACT.
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Therefore the Bible cannot possible hold any verbatim truth.
What it might potentially have to offer is some sort of subtle abstract picture of a creator that might be obtained by trying to discover what all of the above distortions of these myths might have in common.
However, I personally don't even bother with that anymore.
After I have realized that the Abrahamic myths are in shambles I began studying other spiritual and mystical philosophies and actually found Taoism and various forms of Buddhism to be far superior in their picture of what a "God" might actually be like. They also ring more true for me on an intuitive level.
My favorite to date is Taoism, but even Taoism has various forms so it's open to abstraction as well. I also favor Tantra Buddhism, but against this is just based on my own personal intuitive preferences.
ReallyGod wrote:
A sub question why do you believe in god?
I have three main reasons for my continued believe in a mystical essence to reality. And a forth lesser reason.
1. I have always had profound mystical experiences and intuitions since very early childhood.
As a child I intuitively "knew" that there was never a time when I was not and there will never be a time when I will cease to exist.
Is this just my own intuitive imagination? It may very well be, I make no claims of absolute knowledge of anything. I'm just answering the question of why I believe in "god"
2. I also have scientific reasons for why I feel that there is a spiritual or mystical essence underlying reality. And yes, those reasons are associated with our scientific understanding of things like Quantum Mechanics, and the physical nature of spacetime as described by General Relativity.
3. I confess that I also find the idea of a mystical essence to reality to be romantically attractive and emotionally fulfilling. I'm not going to pretend that I don't.
Therefore if I am faced with having to guess whether reality is mystical or not mystical why not guess in favor of what I find to be most appealing?![]()
4. A purely secular atheistic materialistic accidental reality, sincerely make absolutely no sense to me. Neither is it the slightest bit romantic or attractive.
This forth reason is not really a reason to believe in mysticism, but it's certainly a reason not even bother with purely secular materialism.
I mean, let's face it, if purely secular materialism is true, then life is nothing more than a freak fleeting accident that will very shortly be over for me, and at that point in time it may as well have never even happened at all.
So I don't see any value in bothering with purely secular atheism. It has absolutely no value to me whatsoever. If true, then reality was just a short spurt of wasted time. Especially in the case of my particular life. This may not be true for someone who had lived a really great life, but my life has been rather mundane, and so for me, a single spurt of life would basically have been a waste of time.
So if pure secular atheism is true, then my life was a waste of time. Of course the same is true if mysticism is true. However if mysticism is true, it was only a waste of one of infinitely many incarnations.![]()
And that I can handle.![]()
So there you have. My personal views on stuff. It's just a worldview. Not a proclamation of truth.
Except the part about the Bible being really screwed up. I think it's safe to say that part is true as I had described. I mean, history itself has that coffin pretty well nailed shut.
You have gone down the normal path of all seeking the truth. You are correct, all religions, and the Bible are not from God.
The first clue those seeking the truth learn..."The bible is full of holes." Why? it is a man-made book. The Roman emperor Constantine who did not believe in God, had the book made. he wanted to make Christianity the State religion. this would help control the people. Of the over fifty scrolls only four were used to build the State Bible. These four also contain many changes from the scrolls. God is a God of order, not division. All Christian religions are divided. They all claim they alone have the truth, and all others are false. What they have in common are the same false doctrines...going to heaven,or Hell.
Match the scrolls to the Bible, and you will think you are reading a book of fiction. The scrolls are Gods written word. religion? God never made a religion.
yes there are many scriptures in the bible taken from the scrolls...because to mix some truth with a lie is easer to sell.
There is one man in the Bible God loved very much, Enoch. He is named three times in the bible as being loved by God. God loved Enoch so much that when Enoch was old and near death, God would not let him die, but took him into heaven. it seems if God loved Enoch that much, why did they leave the five scrolls Enoch wrote out of the bible? You should read the books of Enoch. You can find them on the computer in English...he wrote about what took place before the flood, named names and what they did.
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Re: How do you know Christianity is the right faith?
Post #13INDEX: More bible based ANSWERS
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 81#p826681
"For if we live, we live to Jehovah, and if we die, we die to Jehovah. So both if we live and if we die, we belong to Jehovah" - Romans 14:8
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 81#p826681
"For if we live, we live to Jehovah, and if we die, we die to Jehovah. So both if we live and if we die, we belong to Jehovah" - Romans 14:8
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Re: How do you know Christianity is the right faith?
Post #14I don't know, actually ( that's why it's called faith. In my church's confessions, it's admitted that a lot of things that the church teaches actually can't be grasped by reason). In my experience, faith is a highly subjective thing. That being said, I was born and brought up in this religion and I can accept that a lot of things listed in the Bible are as much metaphor, myth and legend as are literal history.ReallyGod wrote: This is my first post, for it I would like to pose a general question. How do you know Christianity is the true faith? Please have some sort of evidence in your answer.
A sub question why do you believe in god?
i'm not meaning to target anyone I just want to hear personal opinions
I can also accept the fact that there has been seven million years involved in the evolution of hominids and a couple billion years ( give or take) in the evolution of life itself, from the smallest bacterium to the emergence of the Blue Whale.
I do believe in the Power that caused the Big Bang and the evolution of life on earth and I do pray to that Power ( if only to articulate and to solidify in my mind goals I have to meet and people I hope God helps through the use of medical treatments). I understand the Resurrection as being a perfectly spiritual matter per 1 Corinthians 15:44 and that one can find the Risen Christ every Sunday in Church, in community. I call myself a Freethinker and that means ( to me) that if something people call " supernatural" is objectively nonsense, I should accept that and look for less literal interpretations. The Power that binds life together, that has established natural law that we are all subject to, I can accept that freely. Motivation to constantly improve myself and to constantly learn has brought me to these opinions that can be altered as new evidence presents itself.