"There are 4,200 religions in the world with 320 million gods to believe in. What makes you think Christianity is the ONLY true one?"

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What would be a good answer to this question?

There are 4,200 in the world, and I have never heard or know nothing about the majority of them.
 
Who said I absolutely have to just “think” about knowing Christianity as The True Faith? My very soul tells me that it is true. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:
 
There are 50 pupils in this math class. Presented with a difficult calculus problem they produce 50 different answers. Does it follow that none of them got it right?

The existence of many religions does not in the least mean there cannot be one true religion.

Now if the question is, why do I think mine is the true one?
I respectfully decline to get into that argument.
 
Matthew 7:16

“By their fruits you shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?”

Looking at the fruits of Catholicism, I cannot find any other religion that has aided humanity more.
 
Ask them to think through it.
If it mattered, and there was a God strong enough to matter, would the correct religion be made known to you, or at least many people? A majority of those religions are tribal religions for a specific people ; if they were correct, what does it got to do with you?

This should make it clear that what needs to be focused on are the major world religions, out of which a comparative search and look into can be had.
 
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There are two points I would assert based on this question. First, it is faith, a grace freely given by God, that converts hearts. This conversion is related to Baptism and what St. Paul call putting on the new man. Jesus discusses rebirth with a disciple on this same matter, clarifying spiritual rebirth and not some manner of becoming physically reborn of our earthly mother. Perhaps even before Jesus carried the cross to calvary there were those concerned with marion devotion.
Second, I would open the conversation to this conversion of heart by using this statistic as evidence of the universal call of the human heart to God. From there let God and absolute truth, beauty and goodness lead your mind to speak from the gift of The Holy Spirit within you.
Well, third, but definitely not least. Pray, pray, pray for conversion.
 
Who was first?
Most of the others are people with a dissenting “opinion” of the Church
 
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I think this can be easily countered by the fact that for many years Judasim was the correct religion and that is very ethnic.
 
There are 32 teams in the NFL. And, on Week 1 of each season, each team thinks it has what it takes to win the Super Bowl; each team has its legion of fans who hopes and believes the same thing.

First answer: despite the fact that 31 teams are wrong, and their fans are mistaken, there is one team that’s right, and whose fans’ belief is proper. (In other words, although there are many who are wrong, that does not imply that one isn’t right.)

Second answer: As in any question that isn’t answerable with axioms or empirical evidence, we utilize the “illative sense” that Blessed John Henry Newman discusses in his Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent. This sense enables us, as individuals, to engage the whole range of our experiences and synthesize them, in order that we might reach a conclusion. However, since we’re experiencing them and engaging them individually, we therefore reach conclusions individually. As a result, there is no single answer which each person is forced to accept. Nevertheless, this does not mean that each answer reached by each person is objectively correct. (In other words, the fact that there are many answers, each of them honestly believed by individuals, means that there will necessarily be multiple (and probably, mutually exclusive) answers. Each person must be allowed to reach his own conclusion… but that doesn’t mean that each conclusion rises to the same level of Truth.)

Third answer (and really, this is the one you’re asking about… but it doesn’t work unless you assent to the previous two assertions): Christians believe – based on the witness of the People of God in earlier days, and on the witness of Christians and others in the so-called “Common Era” – that God has acted in history and revealed Himself and His Providence to humans throughout time. Based on their witness – not only as reported in Scripture but in the living history of the Church in the past 2000 years – engages our illative sense and allows us to recognize the truth of God’s Self-Revelation.

(Notice that the first two points are critical in rebutting potential objections to this conclusion: the fact that there are other opinions, and that these opinions are held honestly and fervently, does not mean that our belief in Christianity is unreasonable. In fact, it demonstrates to us that there should be 4,200 religions in the world – but that we, based on the data before us – believe that Catholic faith is the fullness of the Truth.)
 
There is only One Who was predicted from the foundation of the earth. Only One Who fulfills each and every prophecy. Only One who died and was raised back to life. Only One who ascended to heaven. Only One who performed such a litany of miracles. Only One Whose Church established the University system, modern medicine, the hospital system, science as we know it, observatories, innumerable charitable organizations, whose members wrote, collected, tested, canonized and distributed the most scrutinized, researched, validated and most popular writings in human history.

The list goes on and on, but you get the idea.
 
Hi everyone! 🙂 I need to clarify my OP.

I’m not saying that because there are a vast number of religions in the world, that means none are true.

I’m saying that because there is a vast number of religions in the world out there, and I’m going to assume we don’t know that much about most of them, how can we be confident our religion (Christianity) is ‘The One’
 
I don’t think ANY religion is the ONLY true one. I think nearly every religion has a piece of the puzzle, some a larger piece than others.
 
Our God, the God of Abraham, is a living God. All the rest are just dead effigies
 
My background is in archaeology/anthropology. I have studied the ancient and not so ancient religions. None of them, except Christianity has had this profound impact on my soul. Is there more then one way to worship GOD? Of course! But through JESUS we are closer to GOD.
 
Yes, but under the old law, who was saved? A non Jew simply had to be OK (noahhide), and didn’t have to be Jewish to be saved.
 
Not exactly “simply OK.” There were–and still are–seven requirements for the non-Jewish person. However, salvation, in the Christian sense, was not the purpose of the Law (to us the Eternal Law rather than the Old Law): rather, the purpose of the Law is to teach people (not only Jews) how to live a better, more moral and ethical life.
 
Yes, but you know what I mean despite my simplifications (I hope).

A non Jew didn’t have to become a Jew. This makes sense with other “tribal religions” as well, though Judaism clearly had greater things in plan if you look at the promise of God to Abraham to bless all the families.

The non Jew simply has to be righteous, the laws of Noah are not difficult to find being followed throughout the world. I agree the Law is to soften the hearts of everyone for Jesus Christ, who has made Jews and Gentiles one (though if you are Jewish you may disagree).
 
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