Comparing Christianity to Other Faiths

Islam, hindu, buddhist, mormon, atheist, christian. There are a lot of competing religious systems in the world, all claiming to be the truth. How can we know that Christians believe the truth and aren't deceived? I'm going to tell you. Coming up on this episode of Renewed Mindsets, let's go, boys. Hey, welcome to the Renewed Mindset Show. I'm Rick and I'm so glad you're here. So I had one of you send me a message last week asking how they could know that Christianity is right when people all over the world think their religion is the correct one. First, I want to say what a great question. You just changed my idea for this whole episode. Thank you so much. So let's find out Now. Before I begin, I just want to say you don't have to just take my word for it. Everything I say here today is easily verified, especially in 2023. It's amazing to me that people believed all of this 1500 years ago, when there was no way to easily verify anything, and today, so many more people believe something other than Christ. We are truly too smart for our own good. Now I have some criteria to answer this question, three, to be exact. First, christianity is only as true as the person of Jesus. He fulfilled prophecies. He claimed to be God in the flesh. He performed many miracles, died and physically rose from the dead. Christianity is about Jesus, his claims, his words and his actions. It is based on him and it's only as true as he is true. Second, christianity is consistent with reason, facts and shows evidence of God's inspiration in the Bible. Thirdly, all other religious systems are either unverifiable or irrational in their teachings. So let's talk about Jesus. For the Christian, the physical expression of truth is found in the person of Jesus, who said I am the way, the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father but through me. That's John 14.6. Now Jesus, who claimed to be divine, he performed many miracles and he rose from the dead, said that he alone was the truth. He was either right or wrong. There's no in between. If Jesus is wrong, then Christianity is wrong. If Jesus did not rise from the dead, then we need to all abandon our faith, because he would be no different than anybody else. If Jesus is not God in the flesh, then we need to denounce him as a madman, because you can't claim to be God and be sane at the same time unless the claim is true. So if what Jesus said about himself is true, then Christianity is true. Did Jesus fail to rise from the dead? Well, if so, why could no one produce the body? Were there eyewitnesses of his resurrection? Yes, were they conspirators and liars? Hmm, then how did they concoct such a lie based on eyewitness accounts that could have been verified at any time by anyone that lived at that time? No one refuted the historical claims of the gospel. Why would people invent a story that that they knew they would probably lose their lives because of? Because all but one apostle did Before the days of social media and Instagram influencers? Back then there were Pharisees. Pharisees were scholars and community leaders of the Judaic religion at that time and they held big time influence over religion and political standards. They were the celebrities of their time. One of the most influential big time Pharisees was Saul of Tarsus, a historically accurate man who was charged with destroying Christianity Because it threatened the status quo. Saul suddenly converted to Christianity. Now, that would be like if, 20 years ago, billy Graham announced one day that he was now a Muslim. That would have been unbelievable, but Saul publicly stated that his conversion was based upon the appearance of the resurrected Christ. Who told Saul that he was a Christian? Who told Saul that he was now to be called Paul? The same Paul whose writings are contained in most of the New Testament, in the Bible that's on your shelf, that you haven't picked up in six years Now? The answer to these questions is best found by believing that Jesus was who he said he was. He performed miracles and rose from the dead. See, christianity is only true if Jesus is true. If it can be shown that Jesus lied or failed to perform miracles, or that he wasn't God in the flesh and that he didn't rise from the dead, then Christianity is false and we're deceived. But see, I said if it can be shown, not if your opinion is. This isn't even my opinion. Everything about Jesus can be shown to be true. There is nothing within all of Christian teaching that denies reason. The doctrine of the Trinity Father, son and Holy Ghost might be a mystery, but it's not illogical, but it's not illogical. Saying that Jesus is both divine and human might seem crazy, but it's not impossible. The resurrection of Christ might sound far-fetched, but it doesn't defy logic. Unless you just deny miracles to begin with, christianity is reasonable. Or saying it another way, it does not violate logic. It might contain mysteries or paradoxes, but there's nothing within itself or its body of teaching that contradicts reason and there's nothing within Christian teaching that denies the facts of history. History and archaeology confirm the Bible. We have many non-biblical accounts of people and events from the New Testament era. There's writings from respected historical writers from that time and if you believe that they're accurate, you've got to believe that all of it's accurate. One of them was Josephus. He was a Jewish historian who lived in and after the time of Jesus. In his writings he mentioned John the Baptist and King Herod, as well as Jesus and James, who was the brother of Jesus. Then you've got Tecticus. He was a Roman historian from about the same time and he mentions Jesus in his writings. Then you have Thalus, around the year 52. He mentions the eclipse of the sun that happened on the day that Jesus was crucified. Now modern scientists say that there could not have been an eclipse of the sun that day and they look at a span of about five or six years and say there was no total eclipse of the sun that day. But here we have Thalus writing about it on that day and we believe everything else that Thalus wrote as historically accurate, but we don't believe that that's odd. So people are going to say that those stories were just expanded as the years went by and they're not accurate. Now you know about Julius Caesar, right? He was a. He was a political leader, he was a general and he's considered a historically accurate historian. Anyone who took World History 101 in college had to learn about what he wrote as truth. Yet the oldest copies of his writings are from 900 years after his death. Yet we consider what and I'm doing air quotes he wrote to be historically accurate. Now listen to this. We have two letters written by Paul. You remember Paul the Pharisee or ex Pharisee? We have two letters written by Paul dated between the year 50 and 60. That's only 20 or 30 years after Jesus died, and that's not accurate enough for you. There are over 30 writings by independent sources from the time of Jesus that aren't even in the Bible, and there's about 30,000 ancient Bibles written in many different languages, including the Codex, which is a complete New Testament from the year 300. But the Bible is not accurate. You still want proof. The facts of archaeology and history support the Bible and they don't contradict it. There's a lot of cities mentioned in the Bible that have been discovered Arad, bethel, capernaum, shorzin, dan, Ephesus, gaza, gezer, hazor, hezban, jericho, joppa, nineveh, shechem and Sousa. Now you know, I didn't get all those right. Now the Bible writes about a group of people called the Hittites and for centuries people were saying well, they're not even real, we don't have any proof of them. But in 1906, archaeologists verified that the Hittites were real, as well as the stables of King Solomon. The point is there's nothing in archaeology that contradicts the biblical truth. It agrees with it and it's consistent with archaeology and history. The evidence of biblical inspiration can be clearly seen in the prophecies found in the Old Testament and their fulfillment in the New Testament. Now here we are back on cities again. But in the Old Testament there were some cities that were prophesied to be destroyed and never rebuilt. Now we know that that prophecy has come true because they've never been rebuilt the cities of Nineveh, babylon, tyre. You got prophecies about Jesus in the Old Testament. That he'd be born of a virgin happened. His birthplace in Bethlehem happened. Led by a messenger happened. Side pierced happened, and that he would be crucified. That was fulfilled. Prophecies of the future and their fulfillment are evidence of God's involvement in Christianity. So much more could be said here, the evidence of God's work in the Bible can be shown to be true. It is scientifically accurate, archaeologically accurate and historically accurate. The people are going to say well, the Bible has been changed over 2000 years. That, my friends, is a lie. Have you ever heard about the Dead Sea Scrolls? Do you know what they are? Were Hebrew scrolls that had been hidden in a cave since 180 years before Jesus was born. They were discovered in 1946. Now the words that they found written on those scrolls, in Hebrew and Aramaic and Greek, are consistent with what is written in your Bible right now. There was no changes. The Dead Sea Scrolls, if nothing else, proves the Old Testament is accurate. Now we have examples of the Gospels Matthew, mark, luke and John, and Paul's writings that have been found that date back to the second century, and then we have all the writings of the eyewitness accounts that aren't even in the Bible. That leads me to conclude, with good reason, that the Bible is preserved excellently I like that word excellently and it's not just a product of human effort, it's divinely inspired by God. Like I said, there are critics who say that the Bible was altered to make it look as though Jesus fulfilled prophecy, but this would mean that the Bible was purposely written to be a deception. What evidence exists for that claim? A lot of people say it, but there's no evidence. How do the critics account for the Bible's declaration of teaching truth while it's based on a lie? Why would the disciples knowingly deceive and suffer? I mean, they were ostracized from their culture. They were willing to die for what they knew was false. Why would they do that? These basic questions need to be answered, because those who would propose a new theory, they need to answer the tough questions that their theories would raise. Can they give a more reasonable explanation than the one that's in the Bible that Jesus was who he said he was and did what the scriptures say he did? And if no more feasible theory can be proposed that would account for all the facts, then the critics have nothing on which to stand and the claims of scripture are true. Now there's other belief systems around the world that claim to be valid, but they're either non-verifiable historically or just irrational. I'm going to go through a few of them. You got Mormonism. It clearly contradicts the Bible. It teaches that God was a man on another planet and is married to a goddess. There's no historical evidence to validate the Book of Mormon. They believe humans become gods, that belief in Jesus is not necessary for heaven, that Jesus was born of God and a spirit woman in heaven and then came to earth through Mary and was born again. All of its contrary to the Bible, which I've already shown to be true. Then you've got Islam. Now it? This is good. This people would think that it would take hours to do this. I'm going to refute Islam in 30 seconds. It teaches that the Quran is the absolute truth revealed from their God, allah. It states and this, this is crucial here that if one fact in the Quran is incorrect, then Islam is not true. Okay, it says that in the Quran itself, that if one fact is incorrect, then the whole kit and kabudal is invalid. But the Quran teaches that a man's seed comes from his chest, not his testicles. It describes crucifixion before its invention and it says that birds and ants can talk. Now, since these aren't true, islam can't be either. I would drop the mic, but it was 300 bucks. Atheism here's another one. Islam is just a negative worldview. It can't be validated to be true that there is no God and that all things in the universe can be understood in terms of motion and matter and chemical reactions? It can't, because it's a position of negativity. A denial of the existence of something is impossible to validate the incarnation Hinduism, buddhism. They've got the problem of karma. This one I've got to read because I can't even speak it. Karma is the residual cause and effect from previous lives that governs future incarnation levels. You can't even speak this stuff. These incarnations serve the goal of teaching the soul through life's journeys so that they can return to the divine source. How can this be verified? But each soul had, at its initial incarnation, perfect karma. But each soul failed to return to the source even while having had perfect karma. Each soul is locked in an ongoing cycle of reincarnation. Now, if the soul had not learned its lesson after experiencing perfect karma, how can it do it with imperfect karma? Those Eastern-based religions deny the absolutes of logic. They're just illogical systems that contradict known logic and can't be validated through history or reason. They're what's called unfalsifiable. That's a big fancy word with a really funny meaning. Unfalsifiable is the ability of something to be proven false, like if I said that there was a green lizard sitting in a rocking chair on the fourth largest moon of Jupiter. This statement is not falsifiable because it can't be proven false, because it can't be verified or denied. The resurrection of Jesus was falsifiable in that all the critics had to do was produce the body, but they didn't. Falsifiability is a test of the validity of a belief or occurrence, and that is not falsifiable can be said to be untrue since it can't be confirmed or denied. Then you've got the New Age movement. It offers the person a subjective, unverifiable experience, as it's all about human divinity, or the divinity of nature, or the divinity of animals, or the divinity of rocks or air or whatever. It's. So unstructured, lots of contradictory belief systems. It's a mess. How can anybody take it seriously? Now, all of these are very simplified and you can analyze deeper yourself if you want to, but you've got to remember their claims must be verifiable in some way, both archaeology, ancient documents or concurrent with verifiable history, and they must be rational. But when a theological system can't be verified using either normal historical examination or internal logical consistency, how can it be assumed to be true? It can't, so where else can we go? So in the Bible, jesus had just fed 5,000 people, listening to him speak, and he's talking about communion, and that no one could come to him unless it was granted to him from the Father. And at this point a lot of people in the crowd just abandoned him. And Jesus looked at his disciples and he said you do not want to go away, so do you. And Peter answered him. He said, lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. Peter's answer is relevant today. If we decide to abandon Christianity, then what better offer can anybody make that would be of greater truth than the words of Jesus? Islam and learn to kill. To Mormonism, to answer the call of pride in order to become a God ourselves. To atheism, which offers nothing except inconsistency, to reincarnation with its endless cycle of suffering and incarnations and lives. What's better than Jesus? To whom shall we go? If we abandon Christianity and I had to say that King James style to whom shall we go? If anybody has anything better offer than the claims and the deeds and the sacrifice of Christ, then we should probably go that way. But since no one else has anything better to offer than Jesus, and since no one else has fulfilled prophecies and performed miracles and raised people from the dead and risen from the dead himself and promised to return for his people, then we're forced by reason and the evidence to continue to believe in Jesus, to continue to believe in his teachings, to continue to believe the truth that Christianity represents, as it's found in Jesus itself. Christianity is true and we're not deceived because it's based on the person of Jesus, who fulfilled prophecies. Jesus claimed to be God in the flesh and he performed miracles and he died and he rose from the dead. Christianity is consistent with reasons and facts and shows evidence of God's inspiration. And, finally, all the other religious systems in the world are unverifiable or irrational, which disqualifies them as being true. With all that said to the person that sent me the message this week, absolutely, christianity is true. You are not being deceived. Now, that's all for this week's show. I hope you enjoyed it and I pray that I gave you something to think about or use as you try to answer that same question. If somebody asked you, if you heard something you think a friend or family member would like or needs, send them a link to the show. You have so much more influence over their salvation than I do. You can catch up on all previous episodes by going to the show website at renewedmindsetscom or listening wherever you get your podcasts. Now, while you're on the website, leave a voicemail message right there. It's available on the main page. Just look for the little microphone, then listen for your message on a future episode, until next week. I'm Rick. I love you. See ya. And now Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy. From Rick Uhaas. I think if a kid asks where rain comes from, I think a cute thing to tell him is God is crying. And if he asks why God is crying, another cute thing to tell him is probably because of something you did.