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casabolg
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Can someone mention some of the common arguments of accepting Christianity over other religions and worldviews? Besides personal preferencing, of course.
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ChurchSoldier
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I am the way, the truth, the life, the only way to the father is through me. John14:6.
Thanks for asking.
Thanks for asking.
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rossum
Guest
How is that going to convince a non-Christian?
Does this quote from scripture convince you to become a Buddhist?
This is the only way, monks, for the purification of beings, for the overcoming of sorrow and lamentation, for the destruction of suffering and grief, for reaching the right path, for the attainment of Nibbana, namely, the four foundations of mindfulness. (emphasis added)
– Satipatthana sutta, Majjhima Nikaya 10.
Quoting scriptures of a religion that someone does not believe in is not a good way to argue.
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TarkanAttila
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In what other religion do you find a man who is a good teacher, who says “I am the way, the Truth, and the Life”?
In other words, did Buddha point to himself as the “way”? Just the opposite. Did Plato or Socrates point to themselves as the ideal of their teaching? No. They did not care about themselves. Did Moses consider himself to be important? He was a prophet for God; he was secondary.
The teachings of Buddha, Jesus, Plato, Marx, are similar. But there is one radical difference even a blind man could see: why does Jesus call people to Himself, whereas no other philosopher does?
Similarly, in what religion is the basis of the goodness of a man’s teachings founded on his dying and rising from the dead? Every philosopher and prophet dies and remains dead. What god or prophet ever came back to life but Jesus?
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TarkanAttila
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^ This.
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theoda
Guest
Yes, there is only one way. Revelation. Since we already know that logically, God must exist, we know have to decide what God is like. Some of the ancient religions guessed, but the only way of knowing was for God to reveal Himself.
Since pretty much all religions claim God revealed Himself to them, we have to figure out which religion has the most evidence of God revealing Himself. This is obviously the Catholic Church.
There are so many miracles of the Catholic Church. Some even modern like the Miracle of the Sun. 50,000 people( not just Catholics, some atheists, Protestants,etc.)testified that the sun danced in the sky and it stopped raining immediately. The likelihood of all of them having a mass hallucination is slim to none.
Next, there’s the Miracle of Lourdes. Thousands of people are miraculously cured by the water. Do you really think it is all a hoax?
There’s also exorcisms. They have a lot of proof for many exorcisms.
There’s also incorruptible corpses. Over a hundred corpses are incorruptible from different time periods. roman-catholic-saints.com/incorruptible-saints.html
I could go on and on, and go in depth to proving specific miracles happened, but it would take forever.
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jaimeleglise
Guest
In what other religion did God, the founder of the religion, become Man, suffer torture, die and raise himself from death so that our sins could be forgiven and we may have the promise of the joy of eternal life?
Who but Jesus said He is the fulfillment of the Scriptures?
Who but Jesus healed the blind, deaf, lame and lepers. Who else can bring people back from the dead, or forgive our sins?
The fact that Jesus is truly present in The Eucharist is a miracle that other religions do not have.
Who but Jesus said He is the fulfillment of the Scriptures?
Who but Jesus healed the blind, deaf, lame and lepers. Who else can bring people back from the dead, or forgive our sins?
The fact that Jesus is truly present in The Eucharist is a miracle that other religions do not have.
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ricmat
Guest
One small aspect that you might want to consider is “suffering.”
From the Christian perspective, suffering has a purpose. It is not something to be avoided. The goal of Christianity is not merely to remove suffering, and replace it with nothingness.
To achieve Heaven a place of eternal unimaginable joy, love, beauty, and goodness, we must prove that we prefer God to things of the earth. We must freely choose to let go of those things, and sometimes that leads to suffering. Sometimes we refuse to look for God, or to listen to God, and for our benefit he arranges things such that we have no choice but to let go…and the more we resist, the more we suffer.
And acceptance of suffering (which since we sinned, we deserve a lot of) can itself be beneficial to ourselves and others if we offer it up to God, joining it with Christ’s suffering. Helping Jesus carry his cross, so to speak. Suffering can be thought of as a gift since it eventually leads us to Heaven, and perhaps others as well.
God is love, and “all love involves sacrifice.” For many, sacrifice is suffering.
Just a thought.
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rossum
Guest
In what other religion do you find a man who says “I am a fully enlightened Buddha”? In what other religion do you find a man who says, “I am the Prophet of Allah”?
All religions have their unique sayings. I do not think that such sayings will convince people who do not already follow that religion.
The Buddha (re)discovered the Path. Jesus did not do that. Jesus is not the Buddha; the Buddha is not Jesus. You start with the assumption that Jesus is superior because you are Christian. I am Buddhist, so I have a different assumption. You cannot convince people who do not share your assumptions using your method.
Again, you are making assumptions. In Buddhism almost everyone comes back, reborn for their next life. The Buddha managed to reach nirvana and hence he was not reborn. His not returning was a mark of his success. Returning is a mark of failure.
You need to leave behind Christian assumptions, and to study the beliefs of the person you are trying to convert. Start from where they are.
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Ben087
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Saw this quote in your avatar. I was just curious if it was ultimately true.
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rossum
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You are not the first to notice my sig. The original source is Mark Siderits, “Thinking on Empty: Madhyamika Anti-Realism and Canons of Rationality” in S Biderman and B.A. Schaufstein, eds, Rationality In Question (1989). Dordrecht: Brill.
I have not read Siderits but saw the quote in a piece on Nagarjuna. The “Madhyamika” in Siderits’ title refers to the religious and philosophical school of Buddhism that Nagarjuna founded. I have seen the same quote again in other places in reference to the Madhyamika and Nagarjuna - it seems quite popular. The quote is intentionally paradoxical; paradox is necessary to remind us that words are insufficient when trying to describe the fundamental nature of reality.
For a philosophical discussion of Nagarjuna and reality see the web article Nagarjuna and the Limits of Thought. The Siderits quote is at the end of section four of the article:
There is, then, no escape. Nagarjuna’s view is contradictory. The contradiction is, clearly a paradox of expressibility. Nagarjuna succeeds in saying the unsayable, just as much as the Wittgenstein of the Tractatus. We can think (and characterize) reality only subject to language, which is conventional, so the ontology of that reality is all conventional. It follows that the conventional objects of reality do not ultimately (non-conventionally) exist. It also follows that nothing we say of them is ultimately true. That is, all things are empty of ultimate existence; and this is their ultimate nature, and is an ultimate truth about them. They hence cannot be thought to have that nature; nor can we say that they do. But we have just done so. As Mark Siderits (1989) has put it, “the ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth.”
To answer your question, no it is not ultimately true since it is expressed in a human language, and no human language can be ultimately true.
Human languages are a collection of common assumptions, not truths. English speakers assume than “elf” means a mythical humanoid. German speakers assume that “elf” means 11. Neither assumed meaning is an ultimate truth.
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Ben087
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Is this true? Is it ultimately true?
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rossum
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Is it expressed in a human language? Is there any human language that does not change and is not defined as a tautology in a dictionary written in the language itself?
How can you express an ultimate truth in a language that is itself not ultimate?
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ricmat
Guest
“The ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth” leads nowhere. If that’s what makes you happy, then keep believing it.
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rossum
Guest
It helps me not to waste time looking for something that I will never find:
The emptiness of emptiness is the fact that not even emptiness exists ultimately, that it is also dependent, conventional, nominal, and in the end it is just the everydayness of the everyday. Penetrating to the depths of being, we find ourselves back on the surface of things and so discover that there is nothing, after all, beneath those deceptive surfaces. Moreover, what is deceptive about them is simply the fact that we assume ontological depth lurking just beneath.
– Jay Garfield, “Empty words, Buddhist philosophy and cross-cultural interpretation.” OUP 2002.
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ricmat
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So how would you prefer to waste your time then? Surely not hanging around her
So, you want to find something that is findable, and ultimately true, but know that you can’t find anything that is ultimately true. It seems to me that you are destined for a life of unhappiness.
Ultimate truth cannot be found because we search for it. it can only be revealed by the source of Truth. Since Buddha says that it’s not him, then it seems to me that you need to continue looking for Truth from one who revealed it.
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thinkandmull
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Incorruptibles don’t really prove the truth of Christianity. There is a Buddhist incorruptible, and perhaps holy people who reach Nirvana, including Catholic saints, sometimes leave their bodies in a different state than most people. It doesn’t really have any bearing on where the soul goes after death. I’ve never thought it much of a miracle to have bodies partially decaying, yuck; does God do gross miracles?
If the gods of ancient Rome or Greece are true, one or some of them could still give miracles to Catholics for any number of reasons. These don’t really prove anything. Faith is founded on faith!
If the gods of ancient Rome or Greece are true, one or some of them could still give miracles to Catholics for any number of reasons. These don’t really prove anything. Faith is founded on faith!
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ricmat
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“Faith is founded on faith!” (placebo effect?)If the gods of ancient Rome or Greece are true, one or some of them could still give miracles to Catholics for any number of reasons. These don’t really prove anything. Faith is founded on faith!
Or perhaps, when good souls in ignorance pray to the wrong gods asking for good things, perhaps the real God hears their prayers and answers them.
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D0UBTFIRE
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WOW. I really liked that!
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thinkandmull
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But that could happen to Catholics if Allah were real.
Yet what does it even mean if Allah is real? It is the experience of religious spirituality that counts. We may never know, until the end, what is on the other side with full certainty. A pagan could be in the true God just as much as a Catholic all the while believing Him to be a finite god. PERSONS are known, not natures
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