Well, I
finally finished going over Rodney Stark's important book How the West Won.
Now what? For this blog I thought I would go over some of the key points that
we covered in a Christian apologetics class we held last night. The discussion
was about Christianity as an exclusive faith. So many people say that it is
arrogant of Christians to say that Jesus is the only way to God. So here are
some highlights of what we talked about.
First, this
is not a problem that should be directed just to Christians. Every believer in
every faith believes they have the
truth. So do atheists. That's why people believe what they believe – because
they think it's correct. I'm not sure why it's only Christians who are ridiculed
for this point.
Secondly, we
discussed the differences between religions. People who have not thought very
carefully about this assume that most religions agree on major things and just
have minor differences. However, that's not true. Religions disagree about who
or what God is, where people came from, why we are here, what happens to us
when we die, what's important in life. These are not minor issues at all. In
fact, it is disrespectful to religions to say they all teach the same doctrines.
It shows the person who makes this claim has not really looked at the
individual beliefs of any religion.
In addition,
we decided there is a lot of laziness when it comes to discussions of religion.
People who wave their hands and claim that all religions are the same so why
bother to distinguish between them are mentally lazy. The truth is out there,
the differences are real, and we can all explore those differences if we take
the time to do so. For example, we can look at the founders of each faith to
see what their lifestyle was really like – Mary Baker Eddy, Joseph Smith, Jesus
Christ, Muhammad, Buddha. Yes, this will entail some work, but if our souls are
on the line, it should be worth it.
There's
plenty more that we discussed, but I'll save that for the next blog.
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