10 Spiritual Questions and Their Answers
Question 1: Why is there evil in the world?
If God exists, why is there evil in the world? You know, this is a difficult stumbling block and question for many people. The simplest way to look at this question is to examine God’s nature and his desire for mankind. Look at the logic. God loves us and wants us to love him back. And how could we love him back unless we have the freedom to not love?
God could have made us like robots who do nothing more than say, “I love you. I love you. I love you.” But we’d be forced to do that and that wouldn’t be real love. Love is a choice. And if you have a choice you have to be able to choose not to love and that in itself is the nature of evil. Evil is choosing not to love. So when God gave us the freedom to choose, he gave us not only our greatest blessing, but he also gave us our greatest curse because we can choose to do right or choose to do wrong.
The reason there’s evil in the world is not because of God, but because God gave us the freedom to choose. Now the potential for love outweighs the existence of evil, because you see, evil is only going to exist for a short time, but love is going to go on forever. And all of the suffering and all of the death that we see in the world today are the result because man has chosen to make wrong choices.
God could have taken our freedom, but He didn’t. I hope you’ll use your freedom to choose God.
Question 2: Is Jesus really God?
Well when you think about it you only have three options as to who Jesus Christ was. You see, Jesus claimed to be God. He said things like, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.” He claimed to be God many, many times. Now, that means either:
- He is who he says He was
- He was the biggest liar in history or
- He was crazy, He was a lunatic on the order of the man who calls himself a fried egg.
You see, you can’t just say Jesus was a good man. I’ve had many friends who said, “Oh, I believe Jesus was a good man.” Well He couldn’t have been a good man and said those things He said. For instance, if I said to you, “I’m Rick Warren and I’m a good teacher and a good husband.” You might say, “Okay, I buy that.” But if I said to you, “I’m Rick Warren and I’m God and I’m the only way to heaven.” Well, you would have to make a decision. You couldn’t say I was a good person because a good person wouldn’t say that. You’d either say, “He is who he says he was, or he’s a liar or he’s crazy.”
Now Jesus didn’t just expect us to believe Him and take Him at His word. He said, “I’m going to prove the claim that I am God.” He said, “I’m going to let people kill me on a cross, then let them bury me. I’ll be dead for three days and then I’ll come back to life.” And, of course, that was the event that changed history. The resurrection of Jesus Christ. Every person since then refers to Jesus Christ, whether they believe in Him or not, every time you right a date, A.D. or B.C., what’s the reference point? Jesus Christ. Because it was the event that split history when Jesus proved that He was who He said He was, He is God.
Question 3: Do all religions lead to God?
Well now think about the logic of this. Can I go into a phone booth and dial any phone number and get home? No, there’s only one number that’ll get me home. I could be sincere, but I could be sincerely wrong. The truth is, all roads don’t lead to Rome and all roads and all religions don’t lead to God.
You see, it all depends on which direction you take. Jesus said this, “I am the way and the truth and the light. No one comes to the Father except through me.” I’m betting my life on the fact that He was right because I figured Jesus knows more about it than I did.
The Bible tells us that on the road to heaven, there are only two directions, toward Christ or away from Him. You can accept it or you can reject it, that’s your choice. You can make Jesus the Lord of your life, that means the manager, the ceo, the person in charge of your life, or you can call Him a liar, but that’s what the Bible declares.
You know a lot of people sincerely believe that even though they’ve broken God’s rules that they can earn God’s forgiveness by doing good works, by observing the Five Pillars of Islam or the Buddhist Eightfold Path or the Hindu Doctrine of Karma, for example. But I don’t get it. How will doing some good works that we should have done all our lives, make up for all the countless times we failed? You see, heaven is a perfect place and that means only perfect people get to go there. If not-perfect people were allowed in, it wouldn’t be perfect anymore. Well I don’t know about you, but I stopped being perfect a long time ago. So God came up with plan b. He came to earth in human form, Jesus Christ, and He lived a perfect life and now He offers to let us go to heaven on His ticket. And I pray that you will trust Jesus Christ and stop trying to bat a thousand because you ended up not doing that a long time ago and accept God’s free ticket through Jesus Christ.
Question 4: What’s going to happen to those people in the world who’ve never heard about Jesus Christ?
You may have heard this question put this way: “What about the person living in the jungle somewhere who’s never heard the good news about Jesus Christ? Are you christians saying that a person won’t go to heaven based solely on where he lives?” No, we’re not saying that. The Bible tells us that God doesn’t work that way. We understand that God is perfect in His love and perfect in His holiness and He’s perfectly just and fair. Therefore, it’s against God’s nature to be unfair. It’s against God’s nature to hide the ball on salvation or to condemn somebody who’s ignorant of his truth. In fact the scripture, the bible declares that God is loving and patient and not willing that anybody should perish. But He wants everybody to come to repentance, to come to know Him.
So if God is a perfectly loving and righteous God, then He will figure out ways to help people understand Him. He somehow reveals the simple truth of the gospel to people throughout the world. You know, I’ve talked to people who were missionaries in Africa who’ve told me that Jesus has revealed Himself through nature. When you look at nature you learn that God is organized, that God is creative, that God likes variety. But it’s when we look at Jesus Christ we realize that God is loving.
And as Christians we are called to tell the good news to other people. It’s God’s decision to decide what happens to people who haven’t heard about Him. But it is our decision to take that news to as many people as possible. And the bible says we will be held more responsible because we have heard and we have known that God is love, that God wants a relationship to us and that God will forgive us if we give our lives to Jesus Christ.
So, what do we do about those who haven’t heard? We tell them. First we accept God’s good news and then we tell them and we leave the result in the hands of a fair, loving and just God.
Question 5: What about all the wars that are caused in the name of Christianity?
Well first, let me say that a lot of things have been done in the name of Christianity that Jesus Christ would totally disavow. And just because someone claims to be a Christian doesn’t necessarily make him a follower of Christ, nor does it make him a representative of Jesus. It’s very, very important to distinguish between the bible kind of Christianity and the actions that have been taken throughout history by people who claim to be Christians but really didn’t know.
You see there’s a difference between religion and a relationship with God. Jesus is not interested in the religion of Christianity. He’s interested in you having a relationship to Him. Jesus never said, “I’ve come that you might have religion.” He said, “I came that you might have life and have it more abundantly.”
Now a lot of people have claimed to be followers of Christ but they’ve lived their lives contrary to His teaching. And we shouldn’t label that group Christian. But let me say this, have you ever seen a counterfeit dollar? Well, maybe you haven’t, but maybe you’ve heard of them. Why are there counterfeit dollars in the world? Well, I’ll tell you why. Because there are real dollars in the world. If there were no real dollars, there would be no counterfeits. And if you find counterfeit Christianity in the world, it must mean that somewhere there must be the real thing. The point is we don’t identify Jesus by claiming that all the things that were done in His name were done by Him. In fact, Jesus proffended His own disciples from defending themselves against the enemies when He said on a personal basis, He said, “I want you to turn the other cheek.”
So a lot of wars have been done in the name of Christianity that Jesus probably would have disavowed. The real issue is do you know Jesus Christ? You see, it doesn’t matter so much what has been done by hypocrites or phonies or false followers of Christ. What matters is do you know the real, true, genuine item? Have you ever turned your life over to Jesus Christ? If you haven’t, I would encourage you to investigate Him today.
Question 6: Is there any real right or wrong?
You know, you might have heard somebody say, “I don’t believe there’s such a thing as right or wrong.” Or maybe you’ve heard a professor say, “There are no absolutes.” Whenever I hear that I want to say, “Are you absolutely sure?” You have to ask yourself, “Is this statement even logical? Is there any right or wrong?” Because when people say, “There is no right or wrong, or it’s wrong for you to impose your morals on me,” think about it, by them telling you that, they are imposing their morals on you.
The fact is we all inheritantly know right from wrong and we just have this weird tendency to disregard it. To disregard morality when it conflicts with our desires for pleasure or personal gain. Now, sure, you might justify having an affair, but certainly you wouldn’t condone your spouse having one. Or you might justify taking something without permission, but if you were the one being robbed you wouldn’t think it was okay. You see the fact is, there isn’t a person alive today who’d come home from work and discover that their entire house had been robbed and say, “Oh, how wonderful that this burglar is able to enjoy all my things without my permission. And who am I to impose my view of right or wrong on this poor burglar?” You see how ridiculous that is? Of course.
Even those who claim there is no right or wrong have their own moral conscious, they’ve just set their own standards. Here’s a good way to determine right from wrong. Turn the situation around on yourself. Jesus said it best. He said, “Treat people the same way you want people to treat you.” You see we all know that murder and rape and lying and stealing and torture and injustice are absolutely wrong. Why? Because we wouldn’t want any of these things to happen to us. The person who would say, “there is no right or wrong,” would not agree that it was okay for them to be raped. No, when you turn it on yourself, you realize that even inside ourselves God has placed a moral conscious and that conscious tells us when we do right and when we do wrong. And when we violate our conscious, we need forgiveness. That’s why the bible said, “God sent Jesus to earth so that we might be forgiven of all of our wrong.”
Question 7: Why do I exist?
That’s the most fundamental question of life. What on earth am I here for?
Well, you need to understand God to answer that question. You see, the bible says, “God is love.” It doesn’t say He has love, it says He is love. It’s part of His nature, His character, it is the essence of His being. God is love. Now, love isn’t very valuable unless you bestow it on something and the bible says, “God made you to love you.” You were created as an object of God’s love. If you want to know why you’re taking breath right now, why your heart is beating, it’s because God made you to love you. It’s the sole reason. You were made to be loved by God and to bring Him pleasure.
Now God wants you to learn to love Him back and that’s the first purpose of your life, to get to know and love Him back. One day Jesus was walking down the street and a man came up and said, “What’s the most important command in the bible?” And Jesus said, “I’m going to summarize the entire bible in one sentence. Love God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength.” That’s called the great commandment. And God wants you to get to know and love Him back. So that means when you get up in the morning, you should sit on the side of your bed and say, “God, if I don’t get anything else done today, I want to know you a little bit better and I want to love you a little bit more.” Because if at the end of the day you know God more and you love Him more, you have just fulfilled one of the purposes of your life.
If, on the other hand, you’ve accomplished all kinds of things and achieved many, many successes in life, but at the end of the day you don’t know God better or love Him more, you have missed the primary purpose of your life. Because God didn’t put you on this earth just to mark things off your to-do list. He put you here to know Him and love Him. That’s why you exist.
Question 8: What is my purpose in life?
Well the truth is, God created you for five purposes. You see, you were made by God and you were made for God. And until you understand that, life isn’t going to make sense. When you come to this question, what is my purpose, you only have three alternatives.
- First is what I call the mystical approach, and that is look within. You find this in a lot of talk shows, a lot of new age books a lot of seminars. They say, “look within to discover your purpose.” The only problem is that doesn’t work. We’ve all looked within and I didn’t like what I saw. It’s quite confusing. In fact, if you could know the purpose of your life by looking within, we’d all know it by now. It doesn’t work.
- The second way you can try to discover your purpose is called the intellectual or philosophical approach. And that’s where you go to a seminary class or university class and you sit there with a pipe and your latte and your coffee and you ask questions like, “Why am I here? Where did I come from? Where am I going?” I once read a book by professor John Morehead, the Head of the Department of Philosophy at Northeastern University in Illinois. And he wrote to 250 well-known intellectuals and asked them, “What is the meaning and purpose of life?” These were novelists, scientists, well-known intellectuals, and I read the book, it’s now out of print, it was quite depressing because most of the people said, “I have no idea what the purpose of life is.” Some of them admitted they just made up a purpose. And some of the admitted they guessed. And some of them said, “If you know the purpose, please tell me.”
- You see, there’s a better answer to speculation and that’s revelation. If I were to hold up an invention that you have never seen before, you wouldn’t know its purpose. The only way you’d know its purpose was either talk to the inventor, the creator who made it or read the owner’s manual. The owner’s manual of life is the bible and your Creator is God. And it is only as you get to know God you will discover his five purposes for your life. I hope you’ll begin that journey today.
Question 9: Does my life really matter?
Well, it’s a good question. You know, today we teach our kids that we’re all just one big cosmic accident. We came from the goo through the zoo to you over billions of years. Well, if that is true, in a nutshell it teaches that your life really doesn’t matter, you’re just the freak accident of random chance, you’re complex slime and you were an accident. And if you get accidentally killed, well, of course, that doesn’t matter. And that creates a lot of our sociological problems and a lot of our self-esteem issues.
But the truth is you are not an accident. You were created by a loving God who loves you and designed you with intricate detail in your life and when you understand that God made you to love you and that God made you to be a part of His family and that God made you to last forever, then you’re never going to have a problem with low self-esteem again.
It was Bertram Russell the atheist who once said, “Unless you assume the existence of God, then the purpose and meaning of life is irrelevant.” The truth is, if there is no God your life doesn’t matter. But because there is a God, God had a specific purpose in mind when He created you and you do matter. You matter because God created you. You matter because he sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross. If you want to know how much you matter, think of Jesus Christ with his arms outstretched saying, “I love you this much.”
Now, if you had to chose between a loved one and a material thing, even if that thing was priceless, you’d chose your loved one in a heartbeat. And when you’re on your deathbed, you’re not going to surround yourself with material possessions, you’re not going to say, “Bring me my trophies. Bring me my credentials. Bring me my certificates so I can look one more time at my grade point average.” No, you’re going to surround yourself with loved ones and everybody’s going to be crying because they’re going to miss you. You see, that’s how much you matter.
Personal relationships to God and to other people are the most important thing in life. And God wants you to know Him and He wants you to have a relationship with Him because you’re worth so much in God’s eyes that he sent His Son to die for you. I hope you’ll get to know Him very soon.
Question 10: Is there a real hell and why would a loving God send anyone there?
Well, first I believe in hell because Jesus talked about it. In fact, Jesus talked more about hell then He did heaven. He said it is a real place and it is a place of eternal torment. And I believe Jesus knows more about it than either you or I.
But second, I believe in hell because logic and fairness demand it. Think of all the atrocities and evil that have been done throughout history by evildoers in this world. For God to allow those crimes to go unpunished would mean that God is not worthy of our worship and love.
Now why would a loving God send anyone to hell? Well in a nutshell, God doesn’t. God doesn’t send anybody to hell. We choose to go there when we reject the love of God. If I were to say to my right is a door heading to heaven, and to my left is a door heading to hell, if you walk out the door heading to hell, you don’t have anybody to blame but yourself.
In fact, the bible tells us that God does almost everything – well everything possible to keep us out of hell. He cared so much to keep us out of hell that he sent Jesus Christ to come to earth, to die on the cross, to pay for our sins so that we don’t have to pay for them. He wants to set us free. He wants to give us forgiveness. God made us in his image and He gave us the ultimate power to say yes or no.
Now if we chose to reject God here on earth, then we, at the same time, are choosing to spend eternity separated from Him. You see, there are only two people in the world – two kinds of people. Those who say, “Thy will be done here to God on earth” and those to whom God says, “Your will be done,” when we say, “I want to do it my way.” And if we say, “God I don’t want you in my life while I’m here on earth,” then God says, “I don’t want you in my heaven for eternity.”
You don’t have to go to hell. In fact, Jesus Christ has made it possible for you to go to heaven. Open your heart to Him and say, “Jesus Christ, I need you, I want you, I trust you and I ask you to forgive me.” And He’ll come in and save you.
You can begin your journey today! Learn more about how you can discover purpose in your life.
ah, now see you don’t have a clear understanding of “spirituality” my friend. Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ even said in Luke 17:20-21 “The Kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say “here it is” or “there it is” because the kingdom of God is within you. Therefore, once we fully convert and accept His truth, looking within; the primary practice of “spirituality” is a powerful force in connecting with God through His Son which further impowers us in seeking and finding His ways!
That was awesome and so much of a blessing.I enjoyed reading about God’s love and I found my purpose and that is to keep God first.
Thank you Jesus,amen
God bless you!
The problem of evil is not so easily solved. This is saying that God allows girls to be raped and children to die so that he can be loved. A perfect and all-loving God would not allow this to happen just to benefit himself. That is wrong and not what God is about at all.
I think the use of the “lord-liar-lunatic” argument in #2 is out dated. Buddha was a cool dude, and I don’t believe that he is the path to enlightenment. I certainly don’t think he was crazy or a complete liar though because he has moral teachings similar to Christianity.
I also don’t believe that people who believe in other religions are going to Hell. They were born and raised that way, they literally had no say into which family they were born and what religion was pushed onto them. They may or may not be wrong, but they had no choice. If God just wants to know them then I’m sure whether you call him Vishnu, Yahweh, or God doesn’t really matter to Him.
I like a lot of the stuff on purpose but I have to question it for everyone. Do children who grow up in rural China and die at a young age have a purpose? Did the millions of humans who died fighting pointless wars and suffering terrible conditions all have a purpose? Did God make millions of people for the sake of letting them die later? Did God make Hitler for a reason? Just some thoughts.
I also think an interesting point is that Jesus died for everyone’s sins already, so he has already died for the people who don’t believe in Him. Also, when all people are raised from the dead to be judged on the last day, most of them will probably see God and turn and repent. If God is the perfect and merciful being that He is, He will forgive them and allow them into Heaven along with all believers because he will be more than happy to accept those who were first lost.
Ian, thanks for your comments!
Here’s some things to ponder, for yourself or anyone else who happens upon this article later.
I agree that the problem of evil is not easily solved. This is in part because pain hurts; even if we “solve” the problem intellectually, we still must deal with the difficult practical circumstances. But, two things to consider: If evil exists, God must exist, because without God we lose the very basis (grounding) which we use to call something evil in the first place. Greg Koukl explores this idea in more depth here:
http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6023
Second, there is sometimes a tendency to want to “remove God” from the equation when faced with evil. But this doesn’t help matters at all: Removing God ultimately removes ultimate hope and results in no gain. I’ve written about this topic here:
http://www.whyfaith.com/2007/11/13/on-evil-death/
Re the “lord-liar-lunatic” argument, I think you’re misunderstanding it slightly. Buddha never claimed to be God. Neither did Muhammad, Joseph Smith, etc. If I claimed to be God, I would either be a) Lying, b) Crazy, or c) Truthful. That’s the argument. If Jesus did claim to be God, he is one of those.
Re believing just because you’re born into a certain way of thinking … well, I was born into an atheist home in a mostly secular country (Canada) but am now a Christian. And there are many, many stories of how people have been (and still are) reached in amazing ways, like dreams and visions, people who’ve never even heard of Jesus before, for example:
http://morethandreams.org/
It’s not impossible to change. Everyone has a choice. But remember one other thing … no one goes to hell for not believing in Jesus. People go to hell because they have committed sin against God.
I won’t comment on the purpose questions, since they seem to be mostly rhetorical, except to say that if God exists, then certainly God can use any circumstances for His own purposes.
This is true, but don’t make the tragic mistake of thinking that because Jesus died FOR all, that all are automatically saved. This would mean that God did not care about the evil you are so (rightly) outraged about. Someone is not saved by reciting a prayer or going to church on Sunday. They are saved by trusting in God wholeheartedly, in Jesus’ death and resurrection as payment for their sins, and taking up “their own cross” and living every day to serve as much as they are able to.
At least that’s how I see it. Whether people will have a chance to repent after death or not is unknown; why take that chance? Why not embrace the kind of amazing God who would see our sinful lives, sacrifice himself in our place, and then proceed to welcome us back with open arms?
http://juststopandthink.com/
Hey Darren, thanks so much for your response and the links to the articles, they gave me a different perspective on things!
But I still have a problem with God, an all-powerful being, allowing terrible things to be done to his creation. Evil would not be necessary if God didn’t want it to be. Something is just wrong with that. God could make it perfect, but He doesn’t. I do not see why He wouldn’t. If an all-powerful king could stop all suffering in his kingdom, why would he not do it? Especially since God doesn’t need people to be God. He would be with or without us, so therefore having people suffer so that we can choose to love him seems selfish and not divine. I don’t think God minds me asking though and considering I’m just a freshman philosophy major, I figure I have some time to sort it out.
And with the “lord-liar-lunatic,” what I am saying is that Buddha claimed to have attained enlightenment and to have found the path to enlightenment. So therefore if we just plug his claim in for the “I am God” claim, we get: a) Buddha was enlightened and found the path to enlightenment. b) Buddha was just a liar. Or c) Buddha was just crazy. And since I make it my policy to love all people and traditions and to respect everyone, I cannot say that I think Buddha was crazy or a liar. Now do I think he found the path to enlightenment? Eh, he might have been on to something, but I think loving God might be a better way. I think Buddha did great things for all of Asia though, and I really like a lot of his principals and I think they lead in the same direction Jesus was pointing people in. So I don’t think that argument works very well because anyone can plug in any claim and get the same results that you get with Jesus.
Thanks for the comments about other religions, I am glad to hear that from someone finally. Mostly when I ask that question people give half answers, but I 100% like that one.
And I agree that it would be great if everyone embraced God and followed what was right, but since people don’t I just can’t believe that an all-good God would have them suffer for eternity. But once again, I have time to figure this one out as well.
Oh, and thanks again!
Our lives will not be complete if there is no trials that comes in our way like this evils things that we can see in our eyes; that it can test our faith to God, in how we can stand and stay on our believe; we cannot do these things because we love God heartedly, we are God fearing and because we know His laws.In every steps of our Lives there is trials of evils to think where we can be to be….for we have wisdom that God given to us, for God give us always strenght to be patient in all test that we have,to think right for the best.
As it said 1 Cor 7:23-24 you are bought with price but not servant of men; Brethren let every man wherein He is called their abide with God. for God gave us new man let it be in reasonable
our way in His way.
Msny can say about Lord Jesus Christ that He is like this and like that because they dont know His life, as it said Mathew 7:28-29 many are amazed after His preaching for it seem He has a power as not as scribes.For David called Him God as it said Mathew 22:41-46
While the pharisees were gathered together Jesus asked them, Saying what you think about Christ?whose son is He? they say unto Him, the son of david, for He said into them, how them do daivid call Him Lord saying; The Lord said unto my Lord, sit unto my right hand,till I make thine enemies footstool?if david then called Him Lord how it is He his son? and no man was able to answer HIm a word, neither durst any man from that forth ask Him many more questions.
they mis understood our Lord God by others it because of His word its hard to explain because its parable and only can give those who have spiritual thoughts, or those who have these talents. that we must believe in spirit and truth not in idols that they can carry and going around for this God is jealous and we know our God is alive, God is always with us for we are His temple, His dwelling place to live and by Him; He teach us everyday for the best so that we may not doing wrong.
God is powerful and living God those are in a jungle He can send His disciple to these place as missionaries to spread His word ,to know Him more and praise Him
As long we believe in our Lord Jesus Christ and on His laws is enough whether we are christians or not. The real right when we continue our living in our steps of Journey to our Lord God so by these we will be saved and by these we learn more wisdom and to know Him more for Gods purpose to us is to give us a life that we can think better that we can give light also to other as they may feel the real love of God as God shows to us. our purpose is to be a simple living , be contented of what we have, be in Gods way and what we learn share to everyone and when we do these we save many souls and all our sins will be forgiven.
it really matterwhen we give light to everyone and every good things that we do to others we leave heart prints in their hearts and they remembered you always that there is someone like you; use as instrument to give them the best about Gods life and laws.
the hell is when where you were not in God; you are boss of yourselves; for today you may not experience trials because you are in feeling of as high on the sky but when the times comes difficulties of trials comes in your way you will remember God who give you real Lvove and Life….
but God give us always hope and give us a chance to go with Him because our God is merciful and forgiving once we steps in…there is light for a better tomorrow….in You!
Thank you
Bro. Rick Warren
God bless
In Jesus name
more blessing in
this article
Maricor yang
Ian, glad you came back! :) Often people comment and never return to read any replies!
Since you are a philosophy major, one book you might want to look at is called “God, Freedom, and Evil” by Alvin Plantinga. He’s a past president of the American Philosophical Association. Having never studied philosophy formally myself, it was a bit tough to get through his book, but might be helpful because it’s apparently considered to have successfully deflected the deductive problem of evil (the evidential problem of evil being more subjective, and so harder if not impossible to falsify).
I see what you’re saying with the lord-lunatic-liar argument. I agree with you that this argument isn’t as strong as it’s sometimes portrayed as being. To give another example like the one you gave for Buddha, maybe for Muhammad we might fill in the claim that the angel Gabriel spoke to him and revealed the text of the Qu’ran.
Although, for the Buddha, it’s possible that there’s also d) He was honestly mistaken. ie, he thought he had found the path to enlightenment, but was just wrong. For Muhammad, there are theories that his mystical experiences with angels and so on were the result of some type of epilepsy. So he could’ve been honestly mistaken too. Jesus, though … thinking that he himself is one and the same as the God who created the universe and everything in it … seems to be on a different scale, harder to think he could’ve just made a mistake?
One other difference with the Buddha & Jesus, is that the historical sources we have about the Buddha and his life are relatively weak, with his biography being written 400-500 years after his death. Muhammad’s biographies were compiled into their first authoritative form about 200 years after his death. (This is the Hadiths, not the Qur’an.) For Jesus though there is much better historical documentation:
http://whyfaith.com/nt/
Thank you again for your comments Ian, it’s rare that we have someone as articulate and courteous as yourself engaging in dialogue here. Keep searching and questioning! :)
I apoligize but I think organized religion is the root of all evil. What makes Jesus more real then any other deity. Secondly Christians disagree with some parts of the Bible, hell it even instructs us to stone disobediant children to death, also it contridicts, God himself is jealous and a liar in the Bible, going in direct contridiction with the rest of it. And lets face it. Then again doon’t take my word for it, the Bible itself says there is nothing wrong with Jesus appearing before those who believe, and that he answers prayer. It also says Jesus is all loving, therefore there is nothing wrong with Jesus appearing, so pray. When he doesn’t appear you can prove Jesus is not god. I believe in God, but the concept of hell is utter foolishness. If god was alknowing why does he send people to hell, Hitler wasn’t even that evil. Obvious contridictions disprove organized religion. It really frightens me that people actually believe it all started with Adam and Eve and a talking snake in the garden of Eden. Read the Bible, honestly read it, there is no better way to stop believing.
Also don’t you think the Christian god is rather pitiful? Sending you to hell simply for not being his cheer leader. Of course I will be crucified by everyone on this board for these comments, but is it because your rationally analyzing what I’m saying or because your simply offended by me telling you that you believe a lie?
To Agnostic… LOL
I would gladly be God’s cheer leader. I delight in the sunsets he has created, or the majestic mountains, the beauty of women (yes God created some lovely creatures…) I enjoy the colors tastes and sounds that he brings into my life and that isn’t even the half of it. His love is amazing, his wisdom astounding, and I could go on and on.
Crucify you? No he was crucified for you because he loves you so much… and I would be delighted to have you in the family myself.
Hi,
I am wondering how to approach a friend of mine who is a very strong Muslim lady. She is a single mom, and is very thankful for the blessings in her life, and gives credit to “Allah” very often as she speaks. She was “married” (not legally but through the Muslim religion) to a former Catholic, who converted to the Muslim faith. Therefore, I know she has been exposed to Jesus, and obviously the reasons to leave Jesus and turn to the Muslim beliefs. I know our job is to share the Word as Christians. I would like some direction on this. Thank you!
The best way to approach your friend is to really love her, listen to her and to be her friend. There is a book that may be useful also called “Share Jesus Without Fear” by William Fey which may seem simple in its approach but it is very useful.
There are five questions that you ask and then just listen to the responses with out arguing… the last question is if what you believed wasn’t true would you like someone to tell you? If she answers no then drop it but if yes, then have her read scripture verses asking her what they mean. Having her explain what God is saying to her through scripture and the power of the Holy Spirit is what she needs. Then it’s not you she is confronted with but God speaking through his word.
Anyway, I am sure you could get a copy from the library… through inter-library loan if your local library does not have a copy.
For apollogetics on Islam see:
http://www.carm.org/islam
I most definitely agree with what Ian said, I mean you cannot rationally think that someone who is raised in a certain religion is going to go to hell for believing what he has been taught, and also in reply to the dreams comment, if Jesus is the only way and is apparently revealing himself to people of other faiths and religions in dreams on an everyday basis then why isn’t he revealing himself to the other “decieved” millions in the world?????? Also the Bible has a pretty historically accurate New Testament but I mean even it was changed and edited after the Council of Nicea by the Roman Catholic Church. Constantine carefully constructed a new form of Christianity that he knew would fit the political agenda and appeal to the thousands of pagans because it infused thousands of pagan symbols, myths and dates. You simply cannot blindly believe. I am not trying to discourge anyone I promise, because I myself was once so devout a believer and I absolutely hated it when people presented facts against my religious beliefs but trust me eve though it makes you feel uncomfortable now, research what I am telling you and you will discover the truth. May God bless all. :D
Also you should probably look up the history of the Gnostic gospels: Thomas, Mary, The Dialogue of the Savior, Phillip, and the other Secret books of Peter and James. It will truly reveal some of the original teachings of Christ which were deluded by the Church.
Also I just wonder how you can simply deny the obvious truths in other religions, which, for the most part teach the same principles and morals of Christianity and point people in the same direction as the teachings of Christ. Also as far as the looking within approach as being idenitified as a technique that did not work to find your purpose even Jesus Himself said, “The Kingdom of God is WITHIN you”
I am glad that everyone in this discussion is so polite and tolerante, most of my family would call me a damned soul without faith. Nevertheless I don’t see the appeal in organized religion, it seems more like a myth than a fact to me, to much of it has been proven impossible. Considering how the Bible is supposed to be the absolute word of God it seems illogical to disagree with it, yet moderate Christians disagree with it all the time. I assume most of you do not follow the Bible literally, how do you explain the discrepences between your morality and the Bible’s consistantly changing view of morality.
Hey Cody,
Pleas be careful, look into the Council of Nicea from primary sources.
The Nicene Creed (325 A.D.)was first formulated at the First Ecumenical Council, held at Nicea, located in what is now Turkey, in 325, as a response to the Arian heresy, which denied the divinity of Christ. It was revised at the Second Ecumenical Council, held at Constantinople in 381 as a response to the Macedonian or Pneumatomachian heresy, which denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit. This following statement of faith is what resulted:
“We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father. With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets. We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.”
Cody,
You said that, “Constantine carefully constructed a new form of Christianity that he knew would fit the political agenda and appeal to the thousands of pagans because it infused thousands of pagan symbols, myths and dates.”
Where do you get this information from? Please supply primary source information only. There is a lot of misinformation written and stated because of a religious bias (and I include in this both atheistic and agnostic religious bias)
I think that you will be pleasantly surprized that Consantine had no real influence in the content of Biblical or doctrinal beliefs of the early Christian church.
Cody & Agnostic,
I must apollogize that I don’t have a lot of time to spend writing … So I am not sure how often I can do this… I have a lot going on.
If you are going to quote CS Lewis (” He was crazy, He was a lunatic on the order of the man who calls himself a fried egg”) you need to credit him. In my opinion you plagiarized in this article and I find that very unethical.
“It’s God’s decision to decide what happens to people who haven’t heard about Him”
This statement makes no sense. If you have heard about love, and you practice the form of agape love Jesus taught (the giving of self), you have heard about God. This is taught by Pope John Paul II in his “Splendor of Truth” Encyclical Letter–which I highly recommend you read, Mr. Warren
“The fact is we all inheritantly [sic] know right from wrong and we just have this weird tendency to disregard it.”
Not true. Not everyone knows the exact forms of right and wrong you know. EXAMPLE: Many teens smoke marijuana and they truly think it is not WRONG. They think weed comes from the earth and that it should be legalized. As Father John Corapi says: “You can either be sincerely right, or sincerely wrong.”
Mr. Warren, this is only one of many, many statements in your article that can be refuted with ease. I highly recommend you broaden your horizons and listen to the Catholic Church’s teachings. Try watching EWTN a few times a week, by some CD’s, read some Augustine, Qauinas, et al. Just because you’ve sold 30 million people on your ideas does not make you sincerely right all the time. Many before you have sold millions, and been sincerely wrong.
Hoping you’ll widen your perspective,
Mark
Oops typo.. Aquinas
Nobody has mentioned Romans 10:9-10. That is all that is required to be born again. What we choose to do from there is our free will, and that’s why it depends if our lives go smoothly or not. God would never brainwash us; People do bad things in the world because we are given free will. God doesn’t cause bad things to happen, but he sure can warn us if we’re really walking with him. I’m sure some of you have heard the stories about 9/11 when, mysteriously, someone’s alarm never went off (just as an example). God works through the realm of this earth, which is science. He isn’t magic, does not brainwash. If we choose to follow His guidelines and tap into His protection and the abundant life, our lives on earth go more smoothly–for US!!! Because He loves us.
I believe in God, the creator 100%. I listen to the Wisdom of Jesus, but hell is a creation of man, in order to create order, by the Roman emperor Constantine (Rewritten by King James). To create fear, to tell man that if he does not follow the way of the bible, he is doomed to hell. You only have to look at the history of the Vatican to know Christianity is not righteousness.
God is a loving being, who wants man to follow his own path, not the path of other man. To find God, we must look within ourselves, not a book, not the word of man. You look inside yourself to find the message of God. Disregard the New Testament and look at Genesis. In the beginning… God created the Heaven and the Earth. To take this literally, God created the physical and spiritual plane. The physical plane is where we live as now, the spiritual plane is where our souls ascend to when we die, only to return when a new body is chosen. Only an Evil being would create hell, a place where you head to if you frak up in this life and you only get one chance.
Life is a learning lesson for both your soul (that has lived many lives) and God. In a sense, Earth is hell, as Earth is where you experience the pain and suffering, the trials and struggles.
Hell is real. Heaven is real. God loves all the people in the world! God will bring judgment to the people who rejected Him and not ask the Lord to come into there life. I call it when you ask Him to come in my life Get saved. Why I call it geting saved because He will save us in the end. I ask people did you get saved some people do not get what i mean or try to change the subject. who ever is reading this if you are not saved you have to know you did wrong and know all the story of Jesus is true. When people say you are saved when you go to church that is not true. When you get saved you ca just trust in Lord He will watch over you! The Lord loves ever one!
Jesus Christ of Nazareth is the true one and only son of God.Proof of this is in the bible and the bible is the one and only truthful book of all the religions.Say what u want to say because Christianity is the most truthful religion in the whole wide world.All u muslims out there who r killing off the Christians because of the truth that they speak just let me tell you something you are forgetting one of the prodest Christians in the world so people like ian who thinks buddha is god needs to be told the truth.We Christians have a GOD that listens to us.Have buddha ever listen to you?Isn’t buddha just a statue?Questions like these might be hard to answer for you the buddhists but easy for the Christians to say because CHRISTIANITY IS ALL ABOUT THE TRUTH no matter how much pain it may cost as long as it’s the truth the Christians are willing to tell so if you guys want to come and kill me you can always because the Bible stated “FOR GOD HATH NOT GIVEN US THE SPIRIT OF FEAR BUT OF POWER AND OF LOVE AND OF A SOUND MIND”,and the Bible goes again to say”THE LORD IS MY LIGHT AND MY SALVATION WHOM SHALL I FEAR,THE LORD IS THE STRENGHT OF MY LIFE OF WHOM SHALL I BE AFRAID.I have nothing further to say.
the logic in your paragraph about hell is pretty laughable. I am on your side but it just doesn’t make sense.
“For God to allow those crimes to go unpunished would mean that God is not worthy of our worship and love.”
Oh really? From what higher authority did you get that from? I don’t understand how you feel that this statement makes any sense compared to the spirit of much of this page which is in sync with how you “believe Jesus knows more about it than either you or I”. Did Jesus ever tell you or say that “for crimes to go unpunished, it would mean that God is not worthy of our praise?
“God doesn’t send anybody to hell. We choose to go there when we reject the love of God.If I were to say to my right is a door heading to heaven, and to my left is a door heading to hell, if you walk out the door heading to hell, you don’t have anybody to blame but yourself.”
Oh Really? So are you saying that everyone completely has faith in the fact that heaven and hell are completely real as described by the Protestant church, and therefore absolutely believes that he or she will be spending eternity in torment? That there is not even a small sliver of a chance that many people do not think that how they are living will not end in a terrible torment that never ends?
I’m sorry guys… i’m not trying to just be a jerk. It’s just that I saw some very large holes in much of your reasoning and I really wanted to share my thoughts and see what you guys think about it.
Dear Nequa,
I can quote one-liners from the Bible too. “Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.” Now, if we are to take the Bible as total truth, and as the direct word of God, then that means that God is cool with smashing babies onto rocks. God is NOT okay with that. The Bible has a good message, but has some seriously messed up stuff in it. And you fail to address how you know the Bible is the truth. Saying it over and over again does not make it so. A Muslim will tell you the Koran is true, so by universalizing your logic, a principal the Christian philosopher Kant would be a fan of, we arrive at the conclusion that the Koran is true as well.
Also, I fail to see where I deem myself a Buddhist. Poking a hole in a poorly formed argument for God’s existence by using Buddha hardly seems as just grounds for religious persecution. I am merely pointing out the fact, that whether you like it or not, Buddha taught many of the same things as Jesus (peace, love, give up worldly things) and that denying his sanity and morality, as must be done if we plug Buddha in for Jesus in the “lord, liar, lunatic” argument, seems faulty at best given his many parellel teachings.
I do not intend to sound mean or rude. I just am hoping for you to think about this and about all of God’s creation and all that He has done. For surely, if God is all powerful, all knowing, and all good, shouldn’t the religions of the world you seem to hate stem from Him? If He truly is in control, wouldn’t he be in charge of all things, including all peoples and their beliefs? Here’s some possible proof: “Those who are good he treats with goodness/ Those who are bad he also treats with goodness/ because the nature of his being is good.” That is a line from the Taoist book the Tao Te Ching. Does that not sound strikingly similar to the very words of Jesus? Another fun quote: “It is not righteousness that you turn your faces towards East or West; but it is righteousness to believe in God and the Last Day and the Angels, and the Book, and the Messengers; to spend of your substance, out of love for Him, for your kin, for orphans for the needy, for the wayfarer, for those who ask; and for the freeing of captives” Guess where that is from? The Koran. Sounds a bit similar to the Bible eh? Just think about it.
nequas ridiculously illogical comment is the kind of comment that causes me to lose my faith in Christians, if not in humanity itself
People you’ve got to get out of these SIMPLE-MINDED thought patterns and learn to think for yourself!!
Ian, thank you for your comments. However, criticizing someone for quoting Bible verses out of context (and then doing the same) doesn’t help. The verse you quoted is not a command from God, nor is God “cool” with it (so I do agree with you about that!). Rather it is from the Psalms, where the psalmist laments as he remembers the crime which was done to the children of his own people, and wishes for “an eye for an eye” so to speak in compensation. There is no suggestion that God approves of such a practice.
You are already aware of that of course, when you say “God is NOT okay with that.” But I wonder, how do you know that “God is NOT okay with that.”? To be clear, I agree with you. But I wonder how you came to that conclusion about God? On what non-subjective basis do you base this belief?
I find this sort of statement a bit confusing, since you seem to suggest that it’s wrong for others to say that their beliefs are correct. Are you not doing the same thing? You seem to have firm beliefs about what God is or isn’t like. (“all powerful, all knowing, and all good”) I also have strong beliefs. So does “justsaying” and “nequa”. That doesn’t mean that you are wrong, or I am right, or they are rude, as long as we disagree amicably.
And we do disagree … for example, I think that all religions are not the same. Now, yes, there is some overlap, as you’ve suggested. And certainly nuggets of truth can be found in the variety of religions of the world, so we should be willing to honor truth and wisdom wherever they are found.
But (and this is an important “but”) … the details matter. The difference between “running” a business and “ruining” it is a single letter, but it’s pretty important! So too with the various religions. Pluralism (ie, “all religions are fine, God likes them all”) dishonors these religions by eliminating their distinctions and claims that each of them are false. For if pluralism is true, neither Christianity, nor Islam, nor Buddhism are true; pluralism would then be true. By definition, a Christian does not agree that the Buddha was the wisest man, nor does a Muslim agree that Jesus is the Son of God, nor does a Buddha agree that the Qur’an the most important spiritual text. Pluralism chooses what it happens to like from the various religions and creates a new own of its own design. So it is logically possible that none of these (including pluralism) are true, or that one is true, but it is not possible that they are all true.
In my opinion, there are at three ways (actually many more, but three important ones come to mind) that Christianity is different from the other faiths.
The first is the reliability of the Bible; in particular, I’ve written a short free ebook on the topic of New Testament reliability here.
The second is the person and character of Jesus. I was not always a Christian, and before becoming a Christian I studied the leaders of many other faiths. The person and character of Jesus made him different from the others. (More on that is available here.)
And the final way is simply “grace”. You’ve quoted from the Qur’an, but the kind of grace that is taught in the Bible is foreign to other faiths which are, at the core, works-based, Islam included. As Paul explains, “it is grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.” A simple summary can be found here.
I hope what I’ve written does not come across as “mean or rude” either! Disagreement does not entail intolerance; after all, being tolerant implies disagreement, since there’s no need to tolerate someone whose views match our own! :) But I hope this has given a different perspective on the issues raised here, and I truly think it’s worth thinking about.
Thanks for a response Darren, but first off, I only responded because Nequa was misreading what I had already posted. Also, there seemed to be a lot of hate in the response, and I wanted to try to change that.
I quoted a verse out of context to show that exact point. I was trying to prove that you can “prove” most anything with scripture if you have no context. I believe I have been proven correct; context matters.
And it is absolutely impossible for me to know anything on a “non subjective basis.” We all rely on our experiences and past to make judgements. We all technically have our own version of God. We can read the same books, but will all come to different conclusions. I merely choose to believe that if there really is a God, He wouldn’t approve of smashed babies. We can never truly know anything. Now why do I think I am necessarily more right than other people? Well, if I didn’t think what I believed was right, I wouldn’t believe it. But I understand that I may be wrong.
And, if by some off chance God does enjoy smashing babies, or judging people by their religion merely because they were born in a different area of the world, then I would gladly burn in Hell for eternity. I would want nothing to do with a God like that. I believe God is Love. And all religions can be summarized by one word: love.
And I really don’t think the details matter. Does it matter whether I say “I love you” or “Ich liebe dich?” Or what about “Je t’adore?” No it doesn’t. ALL mean the same thing. It is not how you say it, or in what language you say it, but THAT you say it. Love knows many languages. Through music, religion, art, and many others, love speaks to us. Why then do we assume that our language is right? If I decided that I liked French best, because it was the best of the romantic languages, and it felt different on the tongue compared to the others, it wouldn’t mean that “I love you” doesn’t still mean “I love you.” And it wouldn’t mean that the other languages aren’t true. Yeah, they all overlap, and they all seem very different if we pick apart the grammatical structure and spellings and whatnot, but why do that when they are all just different ways of talking? It is good to be able to speak many languages, but the most important part is that we can just speak! I for one will never limit God to only talking in one language. He can do anything right?
And no, I don’t think it is bad to have people with different views. I respect all people and their views, but I will not tolerate hate. I will not sit by while someone disrespects others.