Philosophy Theatre

With a little knowledge, you might think that there is no way to know the truth for sure. With so many possibilities how can you know? I’m going to go over major possibilities and demonstrate that logic and common sense points to Christ as the truth. This isn’t proof, but it will show that what the Bible says makes the most sense.

First, let us examine the main competitors of Christianity: Judaism and Islam.

The main problem for modern Judaism is that the Temple was destroyed and their nation was scattered for a long time. This is exactly what Jesus predicted would happen.

Mark 13:2: "And Jesus answered and said to him, 'Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone shall be left upon another, that shall not be thrown down.'"

Matthew 21:43: "'Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it."

Not to mention parts of the Old Testament that predict events in the New Testament. So how do Jews explain God’s judgement on them within a generation of their rejection of Jesus? Either He was the Christ or their religion was false. And I doubt God would only bring salvation to one group of people.

Islam can be dismissed by the very words the Quran says. The Gospel and Quran are incompatible yet the Quran says:

Surah 3:3: "He has sent down upon you, [O Muhammad], the Book in truth, confirming what was before it. And He revealed the Torah and the Gospel."

Now, Muslims will claim that the Bible we have is corrupt but the Quran says:

Surah 18:27: "And recite, [O Muhammad], what has been revealed to you of the Book of your Lord. There is no changer of His words, and never will you find in other than Him a refuge."

The Quran claims that the Torah and Gospel are also Allah’s word and can’t be changed. Yet, it denies what the Gospel plainly states like the deity, death, and resurrection of Christ! There is more I could go into, but I think this shows that Christianity, which came first, makes more sense. It seems to me that Islam is the most demonstrably false religion.

What about all the other religions? Well, most of those were conquered by Christians and lost their followers showing that their gods are false. Even if that isn’t enough to disprove them, most suffer from the problem of needing an infinite, eternal, and immaterial God as the ultimate Creator. There is also a lot of things to pick apart in their myths.

Hinduism is interesting in that it does seem to have supreme and immortal god, but they don’t even agree on who that is. Also, the true religion wouldn’t mostly only be popular in one region, and would have conquered the world at least at some point. Christianity fits that bill but Hinduism doesn’t.

What about Buddhism? The teachings were from a mere man who can’t be perfect. Only God can be perfect and truly good. The Gospel has more authority here, and Jesus performed miracles and made predictions to back up His words. Buddhism doesn’t even really claim to be absolute truth because it has no problem with other religions.

As for the philosophy of Buddhism, the idea of escaping suffering sounds nice, but shouldn’t we consider that suffering serves a purpose? Pain and suffering exists to teach us about what we should and shouldn’t do. Avoiding suffering and helping others is good, however, thinking that we can escape suffering all together without God is a bit silly.

Buddhism also denies that there is a supreme Creator who judges. We’ll get more into that later when discussing agnostic versions of God. That and my argument against the view of there being no God should be sufficient argument against Buddhism.

Speaking of which, let us examine atheism now. In order for the atheist position to have a possibility of being true, the universe must be eternal. Otherwise existence would need to be created by something which is immaterial, timeless, and infinite. The most commonly accepted scientific theories are that our universe had a beginning and that it will have an end. Maybe that will change in the future, but for now it is more logical to presume that something outside the universe created it.

Even if the universe was eternal, where did life come from unless it also is eternal? It has not been proven that life can come from non-life. Even us, intelligent beings, cannot create life from scratch with all our technology. All we can do is edit what already exists. The idea that life could arise randomly from the forces of nature is more ridiculous than saying a painting could be created that way.

For evolution to work it has to be done in small steps. How does something like DNA or even RNA just randomly come from non-life? What were the early building blocks of life? The simplest thing we know of is a virus, but those need a host cell to survive. The simplest bacteria you could have still has hundreds of genes. Science has no explanation for the origin of life, and I doubt it ever will. Our existence points to God.

Another point is that it cannot be proven the scientific process is true. You can’t even prove what we see and feel is real. Every belief about existence requires faith. I feel it does indeed take more faith to be an atheist than a Christian.

What if God exists but no religion has the truth about Him? Ask yourself why would an infinite and eternal being create anything? God is not lacking in anything so the reason is likely love. If God loves us, then He would tell us, right? And that is exactly what He does in the Bible. The only other thing to do is try to argue that God doesn’t follow the logic He created or need a motivation. Possible but less likely.

What if we live in a simulation or illusion, and we don’t know what true reality is like? That reality has to have an explanation as well. Maybe it is so different it doesn’t need a God. That is all just pure baseless speculation though. It is simpler to just believe that we live in reality unless proven otherwise. I think it says something when we have to deny reality to deny God.

I didn’t cover everything or in as great of detail as I could. You can get the general idea though. If this were a gamble, Jesus would be the safest bet. However, in the end you must truly have faith and accept Him in your heart. Not everyone is ready for that yet, and no logic in the world will convince them. But I pray that those who doubt will at least consider the possibility. Keep an open mind and love the truth more than convenient lies, and eventually you will be forced to the Gospel.