Thursday, January 24, 2013

All Religions Are NOT the Same – part 3

Scripture John 18:38

Pilate said to him, "What is truth?" ……

Comment

What do you say to people who say "all religions are equal" or "one is not any more true than the other"?
"all religions are equal and all that matters is are you spiritual"

This is how I approach it.

I respond by asking "do you agree there is a difference between 2+2=4 and 2+2=6?"
Do you agree there is a difference there?
Yes, one is right and one is wrong
Or at least you gotta acknowledge that they both can't be right.

Put it real simple .

If you look at Islam, in Sura (or Surah) 5 of the Koran, it says Jesus Christ is not the Son of God
We go to the Bible and the Bible says "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son."

They both can't be right and they both can't be wrong.
One of them has got to be right.
Either He is or He isn't.

The point is "It is absurd to say that faiths that present absolute polar opposites (to each other) concerning the truth (can both be right).

Buddhism says there is no God, there is no (atma) soul.
We say there is a God and there is a soul.
Hindu's also believe there is a soul and the Buddhists don't
Guess what - they both can't be right.

We can go down the list.
Judaism denies Jesus Christ is the Messiah.
We acknowledge He is

What we have to do is get beyond the nonsense like that, using simple terms and then what I like to do is turn the discussion to Jesus.

Because if you are going to be a serious student of religion you cannot avoid Jesus Christ.
(Even if someone makes a flippand comment like "all religions are the same - my comment)

Think about it.
The Hindus acknowledge Him as one of the 125,000 avatars.
Muslims acknowledge Him as number 4 of the 5 Great Prophets
Jews acknowledge that He claimed to be the Messiah. In the Talmud they even acknowledge He performed miracles.
They acknowledge Jesus as a historical person.

In Christianity of course, we claim Him to be God.
We need to examine this man Jesus Christ who changed the world.

He is literally the centre of time for us in the West.
You need to examine this man.

and when you do, as CS Lewis said it in his great book Mere Christianity, although I don't agree with the concept of mere Christianity, he makes a lot of great points.

And the thing about Jesus Christ is this, from a historical perspective Jesus Christ really did live.
The life death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is a matter of history. It is a historical fact.

We have more evidence of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ than any other event in all of antiquity. In fact, I argue all other events of antiquity combined.

It is attested to not just in the Gospels but by extra-biblical non Christian sources.
Read Pliny the Younger and Tacitus - both Roman historians
Josephus, a Jewish historian.
Suetonius.
You have so many different examples of non Christians.

I mentioned the Talmud.
Even the Jewish folk who didn't believe in Him acknowledge that he did miracles.
They claim He did it by the power of the devil both in the Biblical text and in the Talmud.
But folks when you examine the miracles of what Jesus did they can't be explained.

Source: Tim Staples - Are all religions equal,  Catholic Answers - www.catholic.com

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