Another Religion Question?

Question

Just trying to see others' points of view here.

I heard someone say the other day something like this:

"The only reasons people believe in a god or gods, is because of human nature. Humans feel the need to have reasons why things exist, or why they happen."

-i'll interupt what he was saying to bring up the "a monkey sees food, and he eats it...he doesn't stop to figure out why it's there"
statement that i've heard before.

The guy the first guy was talking to countered with "People believe because that's what they were taught to believe."

My questions to you is:
Why is your religion right?
Why isn't one of the many other religions the one that has all its facts straight?
Are we all just too ignorant to think that maybe we weren't taught right?
And if you had been born across the globe where your religion wasn't the religion of choice, don't you think you'd believe something totally different and have just as much passion about it?

have a good day everyone

i didn't want comercials for your religion of choice, so thanks to those of you so far who have shared many good points

Answer 1

Well said.

I've spoken to religious friends and asked them if they were born somewhere else that they'd have the same religion as the people there. They accept that and then say 'but it would be the wrong religion'! Obviously not seeing that they'd think the opposite.

Faith is immune to logical rational argument. The only weapon you can use is ridicule for people so lost.

Answer 2

Wow, this is going to be a complicated answer, I think.
1. I don't know if my religion is "right." That's an impossible question to answer. I have reasons to believe in it (historical, archaeological, and scientific), but I don't know for sure if Christianity is the one and only "right" religion. I think it is. But I guess I won't know for sure until I die.
2. I'm not sure about this one either. Who am I to judge? Maybe all of those who believe in other religions really ARE going to heaven. I know what the Bible says, and I don't believe it's wrong, but who knows?
3. Actually, I did think I wasn't taught right, for twelve years. I only recently came back to Christianity. It's a prevalent assumption that people who are of a particular religion are that way because it's how they were raised. That isn't always true. I know many atheists who were raised Christian, and many Christians who were raised atheist. Upbringing is irrelevant.
4. I can't say for sure. I don't think that where a person is born has any effect on who that person was supposed to become. I'm not sure if that statement really says what I mean, so allow me to elaborate. For example, there are people born in China who hear the message of Christ who become Christians. There is also the Waodani tribe in Ecuador who were brought to Christ.
Where a person is born is irrelevant. If they're supposed to become a Christian, they will. If they aren't, they won't.
So there's no telling whether I would have become a Christian if I was, say, born in the jungles of Africa, or in India, or in Britain while the Black Plague was spreading, or in Israel at the time of Christ. Maybe I would have, regardless. Perhaps I would have just decided to follow Jesus then, and hear Him preach on Mount Olive. Or maybe I would have been in the crowds before Pontius Pilate demanding that Christ be crucified. I DON'T KNOW.
The same goes for everyone.

Answer 3

I am not a member of any organized religion, but I do have a collection of beliefs cherry picked from various other faiths and philosophies. I do agree that what religion you are a member of is most closely related to where you were brought up, and what religion your parents are/were. I think my beliefs are "right" because they make no particular claims about the history of the world, the origin of the universe or the existence of a deity or deities. I've tried to stay focused on living well, and treating others with dignity and honesty, even if they don't always return the favor. Many other religions recognize the importance of these things, and so it is easy for me to recognize them as "correct." The real problem seems to be many of the proponents of particular faiths get caught up on the details. Their primary concern ceases to be living well, and starts to become dogma. They begin to talk at you about your religion, instead of to you, and before long people start getting killed. For the most part though, I'd say every religion has a spec of truth to it, and something wonderful to offer.

Answer 4

One of the issues to contend with is loyalty. If you were taught Christianity, when you begin to question its validity, family members may see you as abandoning not only the faith, but also the family. This is also true of your culture. Religion has such a rooted place in society, when you move away from it, there are numerous social cues that you will be ostracized.

And given the choice between isolated intellectual integrity and beloved intellectual compromise, most people will choose compromise.

However, once you've made the compromise, there will always be the element of unconscious doubt that you must defend against within yourself. This, I believe, is the source of the vehemence directed toward those who challenge faith. The emotional strength is directed not only toward the "other" but also toward that intellectually questioning core of believers that must be kept bound and gagged within.

.

Answer 5

I have to admit that culture and environment are key factors in what a person grows up to believe in. Religion is a practice, though----it is not inherent. God is inherent, but God is not religion. Religion is man-made, not of God. Religion is self-righteousness, and God is not self-righteous, he is righteous. Christianity as Jesus originally intended it to be, and as established by his apostles was not religious, nor was it denominational. Christianity did not become religious until it was institutionalized in the third century with the formalization of the Catholic Church. It was split into denominations at the advent of the Protestant Reformation. I believe that Christianity, in its original structure of local churches, is the true direction that God has always wanted mankind to take, and that strict adherence to his word is the correct practice.

Answer 6

I believe Catholicism is true for many reasons, but the biggest ones are here:

1. We can at least trust that the Christian scriptures do speak of real historical events. We have thousands and thousands of manuscript copies of the scriptures, far more than any other writings from antiquity, so we can trust it hasn't been tampered with by comparing them.

2. Based on #1 and other non-biblical writings (such as Josephus) we can be certain that a man named Jesus Christ did in fact live and did in fact claim to be God.

3. If Jesus claimed to be God, he had to either be lying or crazy or telling the truth. He can't be a liar because there was no conceivable motive (he was only tortured and killed for it). He also didn't fit the profile of a liar (history tells us he was loving, caring, and compassionate to people).

We know he isn't crazy because people around him didn't treat him so. Crazy people make you uncomfortable because we feel superior to them, but Jesus made people uncomfortable because he challenged them. A lunatic does not make you feel personally challenged, but embarrassed or bored. This is not the effect Jesus had on people.

We know Jesus must have been really telling the truth when he claimed to be God. Enough so that thousands of early Chistians were willing to die by the hand of the Roman persecution rather than deny their belief in Jesus Christ. Jesus inspired St. Paul to spread Christianity like wildfire.

4. Catholic Christianity is the original form of Christianity. It is universal and practiced by people of every culture. The beliefs of the Catholic Church date back to the original Christians and are witnessed to by early writings by St. Polycarp, Ignatuius, Clement of Rome, Justin Martyr and many others.

5. The Catholic Church is clearly being guided by God. While many other Christian churches are compromising their moral beliefs, the Catholic Church remains solid amidts tremendous social pressure. The Church has never compromised on tough life issues like abortion, artificial contraception, homosexuality, or embryonic stem cell research, etc. The Church is like a house built on a rock that weathers the storm.

6. Christianity, when people embrace it fully and truly practice it, transforms peoples lives for the better. They treat fellow man with respect and love like they never could before they were Christian.

Answer 7

The bible says at Matt 5:5 "Happy are those conscience of their spiritual need." It's something we are born with, just like a conscience itself. It needs to be trained by taking in knowledge and meditating on the knowledge. John 17:3 says "This means everlasting life taking in knowledge of you the one true God, and the one you sent forth Jesus Christ". That means each individual needs to read and study the bible and find the truth of the bible themselves. If you are a certain religion, have you questioned it's beliefs, do they harmonize with the bible?

There's only one truth in the bible. Everyone can find it, if they really want it and search for it.

Answer 8

The point of most religions is to keep people in line.

That is where Jesus and Christianity varies. Jesus didn't keep you in line with threat. He put you to work for others with belief and faith. If you believed in Jesus and had faith, you did as he asked.

What did Jesus ask, that you carry the pack twice as far as you were supposed to. Jesus told you to do more work than required.

That's an unusual religion.

And Jesus told you to do this for no rewards. He expected you to live a life of poverty. Of the bare essentials.

Twice the work for no rewards.

What a strange religion!

Don't you think!

Not everyone can qualify to be a Christian. It's not an easy life. Do it wrong and you are in bigger trouble than if you didn't do at all.

God and Jesus aren't fond of liars and slackers and people who take the Lord's name in vain.

You want to win the respect of God and Jesus, you do what was asked and for no rewards.

Answer 9

I am a Baptist because its right for me. I believe God created the earth and that he sent his Son Jesus to die on the cross for the sins of the world. It took a pure sacrifice to pay that sin debt. Now Jesus is alive and at the right hand of the Father. If religions believe in that and are saved then their reward is Heaven. To the religions that do not believe in that then their reward is hell.

Answer 10

Is Christianity the One True Religion?

Yes, Christianity is the one true religion. That may sound awfully dogmatic and narrow-minded, but the simple truth is that Christianity is the only true religion. Jesus said that He alone was the way to the Father (John 14:6), that He alone revealed the Father (Matt. 11:27; Luke 10:22). Christians do not go around saying Christianity is the only way because they are arrogant, narrow-minded, stupid, and judgmental. They do so because they believe what Jesus said. They believe in Jesus, who claimed to be God (John 8:58; Exodus 3:14), who forgave sins (Mark 2:5; Luke 5:20; 7:48), and who rose from the dead (Luke 24:24-29; John 2:19f). Jesus said that He was the only way. Jesus is unique. He was either telling the truth, He was crazy, or He was a liar. But since everyone agrees that Jesus was a good man, how then could He be both good and crazy, or good and a liar? He had to be telling the truth. He is the only way.
Christianity is not just a religion; it is a relationship with God. It is a trusting in Jesus and what He did on the cross (1 Cor. 15:1-4), not on what you can do for yourself (Ephesians 2:8-9).
Buddha didn't rise from the dead, nor did Confucius or Zoroaster. Muhammad didn't fulfill detailed prophecy. Alexander the Great didn't raise the dead or heal the sick. And though there is far less reliable information written about them, they are believed in.
The scripture is right when it says in 1 Pet. 2:7-8, "This precious value, then, is for you who believe. But for those who disbelieve, 'The stone which the builders rejected, this became the very corner stone,' and, 'A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense'; for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this doom they were also appointed." (NASB).

The Mathematical Odds of Jesus Fulfilling Prophecy

"The following probabilities are taken from Peter Stoner in Science Speaks (Moody Press, 1963) to show that coincidence is ruled out by the science of probability. Stoner says that by using the modern science of probability in reference to eight prophecies, ‘we find that the chance that any man might have lived down to the present time and fulfilled all eight prophecies is 1 in 1017." That would be 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000. In order to help us comprehend this staggering probability, Stoner illustrates it by supposing that "we take 1017 silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas. They will cover all of the state two feet deep. Now mark one of these silver dollars and stir the whole mass thoroughly, all over the state. Blindfold a man and tell him that he can travel as far as he wishes, but he must pick up one silver dollar and say that this is the right one. What chance would he have of getting the right one? Just the same chance that the prophets would have had of writing these eight prophecies and having them all come true in any one man."
Stoner considers 48 prophecies and says, "we find the chance that any one man fulfilled all 48 prophecies to be 1 in 10157, or 1 in 10,00,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 000,000,000."

(This information was taken from the book Evidence that Demands a Verdict, by Josh McDowell.)

The estimated number of electrons in the universe is around 1079. It should be quite evident that Jesus did not fulfill the prophecies by accident. He was who He said He was: the only way (John 14:6).