how can any one religion make a valid claim to be the fundamental truth?

Wow, that is an awesome question!I started to write an answer, but to tell you the truth, I just don't know right now. We could start another topic on it, and hash it out.I will also ask some people to gather information on it. I have my opinion, but I am just not sure. Give me about a week, and we can start another topic, I'll start it.

I wish I knew more about it, to have an opinion. I hope to study it someday. It is a search for the truth. The only thing I would have to say is if you do not feel the truth eminating from within side you, then it is a deception. But you knew that already.You seem to have a lot of misconceptions about the Christian bible (unless some of the things you say in here are just trying to stir crap). Have you ever tried to study it on your own? Did someone or school teach you?

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You seem to have a lot of misconceptions about the Christian bible (unless some of the things you say in here are just trying to stir crap). Have you ever tried to study it on your own? Did someone or school teach you?

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A mixture of self-study, sunday school and talking to the church leader. I look at it again now and again but the more I read it the more convinced I am that it is untrue (large elements are clearly rubbish from a scientific point of view). Indeed all of the interactions with christians on here only strenghts that's idea.

I also came up with this question a few months ago while debating with a LDS missionary in the middle of chelmsford. He had no answer to the question either, I'll be happy to play once the thread starts.

option 1: though will answer the option on a personal level hardly gives the world in general any useable new empirical evidence..How do 2&3 falsify god? And if not what bearing would they bring?Anyway interesting though this is it is showing the signs of wandering off topic, the issue of whether the existence of god can be proven or falsified its not where the thread was mean to go..I apologise for the tone of M36 it was voiced in the wrong way.What I meant was:Though I know, and respect, the fact that you believe in God, his existence, his works, the Bible and all it stands for as the word of god. And these truths are such a deep part of you, you can’t see any possible way that anyone could not see their fundamental truth when it finds them.I understand this and deeply respect it. But and here is the important bit, you have the capacity to say but if I am wrong I would accept that. You don’t say there’s no way in hell I am wrong, there IS no debate but this is what I hold to be true with all my being, but IF I’m wrong and that is all the difference in the world. That is what I meant when I said you accept the possibility, however slight, that you could be wrong. You know in your heart you are not wrong but the ‘IF’ makes all the difference. I just voiced this too harshly in post 36.That’s all I wanted, because with that ‘if’ the world would become a better place, If all religions could embrace the ‘if’, hell if everyone could embrace the ‘if’ things would be far better. Because with the ‘if’ we can realise that there is no truly correct way to answer the why?We all have the right to answer the why? in our own way but we must realise that that our answer does not invalidate someone else’s answer. That’s way I make the assertion that no one religion or view on the question of god can take prescient over any other. Either they must all be equally valid or all equally false.This message has been edited by ohnhai, 01-16-2005 21:10 AM

Duh?
What is 'duh'?
I know what is 'Du', but what is 'duh'?
Duh sounds like a primal grunt.
A man of the forest would make a sound like that. Am I right?
I love to learn new things like that.

As did I.
I experienced the same thing when searching for God. My opinion is that 90% of the people we talk to, and try to find God through, probably can't help us. Even traditional churches have masked the true word of God, and covered it up with man made traditions.Might I suggest that you look for God with your Spirit, and not your mind. Pray to him when you read his word and ask that you inderstand it. Also when you pray to God, take some time out to hear a response. Listen. One of the ways he talks is in a small still voice. Usually it is the first thought that enters your mind after asking a question.

Well I think it is biblically correct to say that only God can create or destroy, so it would raise a flag in me if man was to have the ability to create or destroy matter. I base all my beliefs on the evidences from science and God. I do not know everything, so yes there is a possibility that I could be wrong. If I am wrong, then I am probably a psycho, and need mental help. At this point in life, having seen all that I've seen (I am 39 with 5 children) and being fortunate enough to have God call me out, I do not spend my days trying to disprove God's existance. My feeling of God's existance is only a recent one, less than 1 year. So the rest of my life I spent searching for one or the other, and never really knowing one or the other. At one point, I was convinced there was no God at all. I was also angry at him, if he did exist, but it wasn't his fault as it turns out.This is a little different than having doubt. I think every Christian experiences that. Thats when you have to step up your faith, and rebuke the enemy. (sounds crazy right?) If you find God, it will make more sense.When the Holy Spirit enters your life in a stronger fashion (he is there already) and you recieve the gift that Jesus left us. You experience the truth in its fullness. Again I tell you, its almost impossible for me to describe it to you, but if you can relate to the feeling you get when someone tells you something that you know is true, and times it by 1,000 , That gives you an idea of what it feels like. It is a new awareness, and you see things in a different light. You can see clearly the battle between good and evil.Picture this, everything you see in reality is a reflection of the spiritual. Look around at life with that thought, and you might start seeing it.

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Might I suggest that you look for God with your Spirit, and not your mind. Pray to him when you read his word and ask that you inderstand it. Also when you pray to God, take some time out to hear a response. Listen. One of the ways he talks is in a small still voice. Usually it is the first thought that enters your mind after asking a question.

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No I'm sorry it's too late for that, to me your christian godhead occupies the same space as zeus, thor etc. I don't believe in the spirit or the soul either.

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In the end which one you take off the shelf has more to do with how it suits your tastes rather than an accurate claim to be the one true religion.

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Excellent topic ohnhai and your method of defining it is impressive. The perspective of one on the sideline or as a hesitant consumer is interesting.If in this world of yours there is no god, then it would seem that a disproportionate amount of human energy is spent on it as frivoulous nonsence. But human civilization has survived all of it's attempts to exterminate itself over the thousands of years and every civilization seems to have at it's core, some type of religion. Even if it's Communision which places man as the god. So either nature is about to wipe it's face of the snot called humans because the creature is defective in it's priority to use energy on theology verses energy on survival and species perpetuation, or the whole reason to exist is because of the existance of one true religion. (And the struggle to find or hide this truth from the inhabitants).In military aviation, one of the biggest problems in operating over a battle front in the air, is being shot down by a surface to air missile. The most deadly are the radar guided missiles because they have an outside intellegence feeding them directions to the target, verses heat seeking which for the most part hone in on the hottest object within it's targeted field of view. (Some of the newer heat seeking missiles are able to choose between true and artificial targets though). The objective for the aircraft is to survive over the battle field long enough to accomplish your mission and then exit the theater of operation and return safetly to base.For a heat seeking missile to be fooled, the aircraft targeted simply fires off a few flares and since the point source of heat from the flare is 7 times more intence then the exhaust of the aircraft, the missile locks onto the flare and destroys it - the plane survives.However, the radar guided CW (continuos wave) type missiles require more thought. Basically, as the search radar locks onto a target with it's pulsed energy, it sees the radar return on the view scope. The target is designated and the missile is fired. The ground radar sends tracking data to the flying missile and guides the missile to the target. Target destroyed. How do you defeat this? We do it by sampling the signature of the transmitted radar signal and then mimicking it as a radar target return, complete with all the dynamic bells and whistles. So when we are hit with a search radar, a natural radar return signal off of the skin of our aircraft occurs which is the genuine return, and WE purposefully create false targets with our own electronics. So the view on the radar scope is not just one genuine target but hundreds of targets, all equally accurate from the viewer's eye. The targets all appear genuine, but move in different directions, at different speeds. So which one do you tell the missile to go after? Welcome to the world of Electronic Counter Measures or ECM.Now why would there be so many religions, each seemingly the right one yet each moving in different directions and at different speeds, if 1) all humans evolved from the same parent human as evolution suggests, or 2) there is only one correct religion.Well, from an evolutionary perspective, the whole concept of religion is a waste of energy and resources and will probably result in the extermination or at least the stymying of the species.However, if religion is true and valid, they all can't be correct. They can be similiar but only one is the correct genuine truth and the other's are artificial. Why would there be artificial religions? Why are there artificial radar targets. The targets are purposefully generated by an outside intellegence to protect the genuine target from distruction. The artificial religions are purposefully generated by an outside intellegence to promote distruction. And it is an effective form of spiritual warfare in it's battlefield just as Electronic Warfare works well over it's battlefield.In battle there is a goal and an objective. In spiritual warfare there is also a goal and an objective. So what you need to do is to determine what the goal and objective is in spiritual warfare so as to better understand the enemy your are facing. Once you get a good understanding of the enemy, you can access their capabilites and that gives you an idea as to what they are trying to hide, similiar to in ECM we try to hide the genuine radar return by flooding the scope with many false targets. The odds of hitting the correct target with one missile amoung hundreds of seemingly valid targets is slight. That promotes survival.The view screen of truth is also flooded with hundreds of religions. What are the odds of hitting the right one the first time with just one life? (I will say that an individual made the statement long ago that "narrow is the path to eternal life and few find it").Not good unless you take the time to discover and then understand the enemy. Once you get to know more about the enemy, you can better find what it is that the enemy is trying to hide. What you eventually find just like in ECM, is all of the false targets are in fact similiar to each other and discernable from the one genuine target. It takes an immense amount of processing of the available data to come to that conclusion and hit the right one.So too, in discovering what the true religion is, if you should ever make if past the stage of viewing religion beyond an evolutionary anomily.

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However, if religion is true and valid, they all can't be correct. They can be similiar but only one is the correct genuine truth and the other's are artificial.

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Ah, but you seem to be missing an option there.1) Religion is all total nonsense.
2) One religion has the genuine, 100% truth and the rest are nonsense.
3) Added option - All religions are reflections of that genuine truth, and no one religion has ever quite gotten it.Think of it as having all shades of grey rather than just black and white.The Rockhound

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3) Added option - All religions are reflections of that genuine truth, and no one religion has ever quite gotten it.

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Listen to a piece of symphony music composed by any one of your favorite composers. The piece as a whole moves together even though different instruments play different parts. Even if you go to a symphony and listen to the warm up practicing before the start, it gells as all of the instruments play independent and the musicians practice whatever warm-up excercise they choose. It all flows together as if each piece is a part or a shade of the grand picture.Now blow a ships airhorn. Have Billy Idol scream "WITH A REBEL YELLLLLLL!!!", light some firecrackers, sound a siren, turn on a circular saw. That's more of what you have with the world religions of today. So even if no one religion has ever quite gotton it just right, they're not even emulating from the same source document.If they are all reflections of the ultimate genuine truth, then the truth itself impossible to describe or understand. I believe that if option 3 is in fact the correct option, then the genuine truth that they all reflect is that there is no truth at all. That's fine but it does not explain the deep hunger that humans have for truth if it in fact it doesn't exist. That's illogical.I hunger for food when I'm famished. I thirst for water when dehydrated. I long for truth because it is also a void that needs filled. But since I don't have a void for foylabula, I don't hunger or desire foylabula. I don't have a hunger for foylabula because foylabula doesn't exist. I have a hunger for truth because it does exist. So it's either option 1 which means humans are a defective byproduct of evolution and we will exterminate ourselves as we fight over nothingness but call it religion. Or option 2 in which there is one truth and hundreds of decoys.This message has been edited by Lizard Breath, 01-17-2005 13:20 AM

Dear PecosGeorge; (Acts 28:22) "as regards this sect it is known to us that everywhere it is spoken against." Some things never change. This is an 'urban legend' that is frequently repeated that is nothing more than a misconception. Probably based on some real deep thinking, like -Jehovah's Witness believe things we don't, they have published a Bible translation, therefore it must because they altered the Bible!- which is pretty dull, what do you think would happen when a religion tries to use their 'altered bible'? Just take a look at your example of the Mormons, and their 'extra books' and how throughly discredited they are. Now imagine that someone just made up stuff and added it to the Bible, now don't you think it would be kind of obvious? Then you line up your followers with their 'new bibles' and sent them out to preach to the world with them. Sounds pretty dumb to me, don't you think people would learn to just ask them to turn to one of the more obvious changes and point it out to them? I provided you with a link to an on-line copy of the NWT, why didn't you post a 'obvious change', instead of just repeating what you had been told without checking the truthfulness of it? Human nature I would guess, why we still have urban legends and rumors.What Jehovah's Witnesses have done is to change their doctrines to conform with the Bible. They are guilty of the charge of changing what they believe in over time. Which is what happens when you correct your beliefs to conform to scripture, you make this change and because of it you can now see others things in a different light. So you change them to fit better with scripture and then understanding that, you see this over here really means that, and so on and so on. It is an on going process, (Proverbs 4:18-19) "But the path of the righteous ones is like the bright light that is getting lighter and lighter until the day is firmly established." It was prophesied that this would be the case for the who follow Jehovah in our day. (Daniel 12:4) "And as for you, O Daniel, make secret the words and seal up the book, until the time of [the] end. Many will rove about, and the [true] knowledge will become abundant."Sincerely Yours; Wm Scott Anderson

Thank you very much for your reply.
We are subject to information as well as misinformation.

For now.