i was searching for all the common teachings in all the holy books of all religions
to lead a life worthwhile :)

If this does not immediately fill you with a sense of abject horror as to the reasoning ability of the author, then you definitely have no place claiming understanding of science or physics.

I also see the way that the authors of the New Testament produced their writings in Greek as a strong defence for those who read the Bible in a language they understand. Greek was the marketplace language of the Roman Empire. It was easier for people to keep that language than trying to force everyone to learn Latin. When the authors of the New Testament wrote their letters and Gospels they wanted the most amount of people to be able to access their writings as possible so rather than using Hebrew or Aramaic (the common language of the Jewish people) or Latin they decided to use the Koine (or common) Greek. I am confident that if they were here today they would encourage the translation of the Bible into people’s mother tongues so that they can grasp the wonderful truths that are contained there.

I think far more important for our understanding of the Bible is our relationship of dependence on the Holy Spirit. Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit will teach us all things and bring to our remembrance all that Jesus has said to us (John 14:26) so our best resource for understanding what God is saying to us is His Holy Spirit. Whenever we come to the Bible we need to pray and ask for His help to understand and apply what we read there. I know of many people who are skilled in the original languages of the Bible but have totally missed the truth of relationship with God because they have not depended on the leading of the Holy Spirit. Without Him and His help there are only words and no life.

I encourage you to keep on studying and always look to the Holy Spirit for His help.

May YHVH’S Blessings be with you and on all the work of your hands. It is the Insight of YHVH Elohime to hide a matter and the Glory of Kings/the studious to seek the matter out. Proverbs

You say you have no evil in your heart because you have rejected it. I am not exactly sure what you are saying. Have you rejected the thoughts of evil in your heart so that they no longer tempt you or have you rejected that those thoughts are evil and embrace them as part of who you are and therefore they are moral?

You say we have different definitions of what good and evil are. Would you say that telling a lie was evil, or cheating on your taxes, or taking advantage of someone who is weaker than you, or hatred of another human? What about cheating on your partner? What about losing your temper with your children? How about taking something that does not belong to you? How do you determine what is moral for you?

I did not “neglect” to answer you. Your answer was hypothetical, so I treated it as such. I am a scientist, not a philosopher, so I don’t deal in hypotheticals unless they can be tested. Yours could not. I acknowledge the existence of good and evil, but I doubt my definition of them would match yours. For example, I think it is wrong, if not outright evil, to raise children with a belief system that requires them to deny that which is demonstrably true. Every religion on earth does this to some degree, including yours. Your response to Epicurus’ conundrum is one that I have heard a hundred times before: that evil is a creation of man (or Satan) and that God allows it because he has given us “free will” and to eliminate evil would be to eliminate free will. That’s baloney. Heroic people fight evil not to punish evil people (although that is part of the equation), but to protect the innocent, something that is not addressed in your apologetics. If I had the ability to cure cancer with no more than a thought, then no one within the range of my perception would ever suffer or die from cancer. I would do this of my own free will, not out of any obligation. I would do this without any expectation of reward. I would not require the people whom I cure to obey or worship me. I would not establish any criteria for who gets cured and who doesn’t. That makes me morally superior to your god on every conceivable level because, according to your dogma, he CAN do that, but chooses not to. There is no evil in “my heart”, because I have rejected it as surely as I have rejected belief in gods. This may comes as a surprise to you, but many people in this world require neither the promise of eternal reward nor the threat of eternal punishment to live moral lives. Some of us believe that doing the right thing is its own justification. It’s too bad you have been led to believe that your awareness of the magical invisible man in the sky is the only thing that’s keeping you from becoming a serial killer, but not everyone is so afflicted.

I think I responded to that but you have neglected to answer my question. I am curious to know how your worldview helps you to understand the presence of evil in the world. When you say that there is evil you must assume that the opposite–good–must also exist. If you assert that there is such a thing as good then you have to assume that there is a moral code by which you can distinguish between the two. That moral code does not come from the evolution of matter and chemistry, thus there must be one who has established that moral code. I don’t know how else you could explain the existence of evil. Perhaps you could explain for us how that works in your worldview. Your raising of Epicurus’ argument obviously shows that you have concern with evil in the world so it would be great to hear how you have made sense of its existence.

The second part of my question is much more personal. I explained how the existence of God and His efforts to save me from the evil in my own heart helps me deal with the dark things inside of me. My question to you is: how do you deal with the parts of your personality that you try to keep hidden? How does your worldview help you handle the evil that is in your heart?

I guess I would have a similar question for Habib: how do the teachings of Islam help you to deal with the evil in your heart? I am in the same boat as Xephon in that I have never been a Muslim and so I have not had much personal experience or study in the Quran. How does Islam help people to deal with the evil (minor and major) in their own lives? Jesus said that because of our natural inclination to rebellion against God we are unable to deal with that evil ourselves. It would be like trying to wash clean a white wall with a muddy rag–it doesn’t matter how much you scrub, the dirt just continues to spread. God’s plan from the very beginning was to deal with the problem of evil in the hearts of humanity through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The sacrifices that Abraham made were a symbol of what Jesus would do. The ritual worship that God instituted during the time of Moses was a further development of the symbols that pointed people to the hope of the Messiah, Jesus. Jesus died on the cross to take on Himself the penalty for our sin and deal once and for all with the evil in our hearts. As Paul wrote in his second letter to the Corinthians, “God made him [Jesus] who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2Corinthians 5:21) Jesus is our only hope for dealing with the evil in our hearts. He not only took the punishment that should have been ours but He also rose back to life to live within us and guide us towards good and away from evil. This was something that could only be done by God; His perfection is the only way that our wall can be cleaned.

I think this distinguishes Christianity from all other worldviews including Islam–only Christianity declares that our hope for salvation from the evil within us is God acting on our behalf. We cannot earn that by following any ritual, making any pilgrimage, attaining any higher level of enlightenment, being martyred, or even living as good as possible. All of those things depend on us reaching out to God; only Christianity depends on God reaching down to humanity and saving us from our evil.