Why can't we be wrong too? Convince me

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Mijoy2

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The Mormons have the Book of Mormon, The Muslims have the Koran. “Christians” of which includes Catholics (by the measure of some but not others) have the Bible.

We’ve all been faced with question before, who is correct, of any? “We are correct”, of course, is what bubbles up to the surface, by each group. And, we, catholics, are no different. By any objective measure, our view, would make us equally as pompous and arrogant, Yet we firmly plant our feet in the earth and scream from the rooftops we are different. We have “the Truth”. Again, how pompous of us.

Why I propose, can’t we all be wrong? So many individuals over so many hunderds of years, have so firmly believed thier Revelation (Joseph Smith, Mohammed) yet we (catholics and other christian faiths) chalk this up to nonsense, they why can’t we be equally wrong? However possibly with a longer (possibly more impresssive) history?

In other words, thay are all wrong, but we are more impressively wrong.
 
Short answer, we can’t “prove” it in the way you are suggesting. We believe by faith.

But it’s not about dueling books. It’s about a Person - a Person who said “If I do not perform my Father’s works, do not believe me; but if I perform them, even if you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may realize (and understand) that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” (John 10:37-38)

We believe Him, because we trust the witnesses of those he ordained to spread the good news. We accept Him, and then we experience the promises He gave to those who believe, and that strengthens our belief and enables/emboldens us to tell others.

And if we’re being proud and pompous, we are not being faithful witnesses, because He made it very clear that we cannot earn or deserve this grace which He makes available to everyone.
 
Mijoy2 said:
The Mormons have the Book of Mormon, The Muslims have the Koran. “Christians” of which includes Catholics (by the measure of some but not others) have the Bible.

We’ve all been faced with question before, who is correct, of any? “We are correct”, of course, is what bubbles up to the surface, by each group. And, we, catholics, are no different. By any objective measure, our view, would make us equally as pompous and arrogant, Yet we firmly plant our feet in the earth and scream from the rooftops we are different. We have “the Truth”. Again, how pompous of us.

…
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I don’t consider it being “pompous” to stand up for what one believes is true and openly declare it – whether the person is Mormon, Muslim, Christian, or…
For example, I would fully expect a believing Mormon to openly profess that his faith is the truth (else why would he believe it!). Likewise for people of any other faith.
Could you explain why you find such declarations pompous?
 
I think that the only real way to be sure would be to study every religion and then try to tear them apart one by one. If the religion is true you won’t be able to poke holes into it. Unfortunately most people don’t have time for that, but luckily there are those that do, and they write compressed books so that you can read those, get exactly what you need to make your decisions based on that. The proof you are looking for can’t be covered so easily as to pop onto a site and ask, you’re going to get a lot of different answers that will cover a large range of topics some of which will be right, but either way you’d have to verify for yourself… Just my opinion anyway 🙂
 
Catholics actually have plenty of evidence to back up their claim, the other groups have little if any evidence to back up their claims that theirs is the true religion. Catholics, on the other hand, have more than enough evidence. We date back clear to the time of Christ and if you believe the Bible is true, there is plenty of evidence in the Bible that Jesus is God. Jesus clearly founded the Catholic Church and if Jesus is God, which He is, then Catholicism is therefore true.
 
Nita,

I’ve heard protestants call such a thing pompous because, for themselves, they’re in a denom. that they like mostly or well enough. They think all denom.s have something wrong with them and they pick the one they like best… thinking that they can never find a perfect one. :confused:
 
There are many reasons why I believe Christianity is the only true religion, but I will give you the one basic reason why I belive my faith is unique. Christianity alone teaches that man cannot earn his salvation. All other religions begin with man and try to perfect him through his own efforts. Christianity teaches that our salvation is only made possible by God coming down to us, offering His life as payment for our sin, and then inviting us to benefit from the salvation He paid for. Of course the true Christian honors God by obeying his commandments, but these efforts can’t save us. That makes Jesus message unique.
 
Mijoy2 said:
The Mormons have the Book of Mormon, The Muslims have the Koran. “Christians” of which includes Catholics (by the measure of some but not others) have the Bible.

We’ve all been faced with question before, who is correct, of any? “We are correct”, of course, is what bubbles up to the surface, by each group. And, we, catholics, are no different. By any objective measure, our view, would make us equally as pompous and arrogant, Yet we firmly plant our feet in the earth and scream from the rooftops we are different. We have “the Truth”. Again, how pompous of us.

Why I propose, can’t we all be wrong? So many individuals over so many hunderds of years, have so firmly believed thier Revelation (Joseph Smith, Mohammed) yet we (catholics and other christian faiths) chalk this up to nonsense, they why can’t we be equally wrong? However possibly with a longer (possibly more impresssive) history?

In other words, thay are all wrong, but we are more impressively wrong.
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Study the Church Religious ] Founders.
Study the Church Religious ] lineage
Study the Church Religious ] Teachings

Believe me, it doesn’t take a PhD to compare. 🙂 Even kids can do it. 😃
Especially, with Internet sources like CAF.

The question IMO is not who is right…but what is right - for me.

The book of Mormon - The Koran - The Torah - might have served me well… if I was ignorant of Catholicism and didn’t compare Catholicism against these others.

As a budding Apologist, I have found, in debates, - not to attack another’s Religion - BUT to defend mine Catholicism ]. I present them with the evidence.

I hope this helps. 🙂
 
stevekehl said:
There are many reasons why I believe Christianity is the only true religion, but I will give you the one basic reason why I belive my faith is unique. Christianity alone teaches that man cannot earn his salvation. All other religions begin with man and try to perfect him through his own efforts. Christianity teaches that our salvation is only made possible by God coming down to us, offering His life as payment for our sin, and then inviting us to benefit from the salvation He paid for. Of course the true Christian honors God by obeying his commandments, but these efforts can’t save us. That makes Jesus message unique.
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👍👍
 
Let me say something:

The truth is, truth is hard to find no matter if you’re religious or not. Just because you are religious and part of that certain religion doesn’t mean that you have the truth totally.

So what is truth?

For religions to say they have the only truth and says other religions don’t is being very close-minded and ignorant. The same goes with atheists.

I am an atheist but at least I’m open-minded. Sure, there are somethings in religions that get my blood boiling but maybe it’s for a reason and a justified reason.

Consider this: maybe we aren’t all fools but maybe we are, both believer and atheist. We really don’t know what the truth really is so it doesn’t hurt to believe or not to believe. Only if the truth were present and evident and we refused to believe or not would we then be considered foolish.

So in other words, don’t call others fools for believing or not…because you just never know. If God does exist, atheists shouldn’t call belivers fools…on the other hand, believers should’t call atheists fools for not believing…maybe God doesn’t exist.

And until we see with absolute certainty or have real evidence, we are not fools for believing or not.

Almost like the concept of “innocent until proven guilty”, well, in this case it would be “not foolish until given evidence” lol.

Make sense?

We, as a human race, have to understand and realize we live in a universe where anything is possible and that includes the existence of God…or he doesn’t exist.

Which is true?

We will never know.

The truth could be he does exist or the truth can be he does not. There is truth but we will never know.

It’s not up to us to assume. We will never know for sure.
 
All truth pre-exists in God. Where the words and images conceptualizing this truth agrees with it, no matter by whom it is offered, there is union with God, the source and end (perfection) of this truth.

The Church can be seen to be the fullness of this in that She produces things, She produces saints.
 
Chanel said:
Let me say something:

The truth is, truth is hard to find no matter if you’re religious or not. Just because you are religious and part of that certain religion doesn’t mean that you have the truth totally.

So what is truth?

For religions to say they have the only truth and says other religions don’t is being very close-minded and ignorant. The same goes with atheists.

I am an atheist but at least I’m open-minded. Sure, there are somethings in religions that get my blood boiling but maybe it’s for a reason and a justified reason.

Consider this: maybe we aren’t all fools but maybe we are, both believer and atheist. We really don’t know what the truth really is so it doesn’t hurt to believe or not to believe. Only if the truth were present and evident and we refused to believe or not would we then be considered foolish.

So in other words, don’t call others fools for believing or not…because you just never know. If God does exist, atheists shouldn’t call belivers fools…on the other hand, believers should’t call atheists fools for not believing…maybe God doesn’t exist.

And until we see with absolute certainty or have real evidence, we are not fools for believing or not.

Almost like the concept of “innocent until proven guilty”, well, in this case it would be “not foolish until given evidence” lol.

Make sense?

We, as a human race, have to understand and realize we live in a universe where anything is possible and that includes the existence of God…or he doesn’t exist.

Which is true?

We will never know.

The truth could be he does exist or the truth can be he does not. There is truth but we will never know.

It’s not up to us to assume. We will never know for sure.
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REALLY!!
how do you suppose you could know?
 
Chanel said:
I don’t know.

How would YOU know!?
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Well, we got to start in somewhere.
I think the key point here is Jesus Christ. He is the One that makes the difference. Also the Church which He found. Are they in agreement?

Is Jesus the One we should believe it or not?
 
Mijoy2 said:
The Mormons have the Book of Mormon, The Muslims have the Koran. “Christians” of which includes Catholics (by the measure of some but not others) have the Bible.

We’ve all been faced with question before, who is correct, of any? “We are correct”, of course, is what bubbles up to the surface, by each group. And, we, catholics, are no different. By any objective measure, our view, would make us equally as pompous and arrogant, Yet we firmly plant our feet in the earth and scream from the rooftops we are different. We have “the Truth”. Again, how pompous of us.

Why I propose, can’t we all be wrong? So many individuals over so many hunderds of years, have so firmly believed thier Revelation (Joseph Smith, Mohammed) yet we (catholics and other christian faiths) chalk this up to nonsense, they why can’t we be equally wrong? However possibly with a longer (possibly more impresssive) history?

In other words, thay are all wrong, but we are more impressively wrong.
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We* can* be wrong, of course, all of us can be wrong. But many of us have explored other religions, and, speaking for myself, I didn’t know or care which one was right-I only had a hope that things like truth and love and justice might exist* somewhere*-and I certainly didn’t find those virtues residing in any consistent degree in human hearts. But I did find it in Christianity where a voice spoke authoritatively about truth and yet spoke with love and humility, virtues which we were told to follow in cultivating for ourselves. This was a religion that knew what was what-and had the answer for what ails the world-and was worthy of my attention. I really doubted that any such thing existed. Later I was to find, to my own further surprise, that the CC most clearly articulated this voice, this truth.
 
Chanel makes a valid point, that truth can be found in other religions (I think this was part of your point). However, in reading Scripture we can see that this too points to God. The Apostle Paul wrote that God has written His law on the hearts of every man (Romans), this is why we see a lot of agreement in the worlds religions. The Buddha, not having heard of Judaism and living centuries before Christ, understood some of these truths and attempted to communicate them to his followers. So we see many Judeo-Christian values in the Eight-Fold Path, the buddhist moral guide to life (although buddhists don’t believe in God). While similarities in religions convince some that all religions are the same, I believe the beliefs held in common are due to God hard-wiring His moral code into each of our brains.
 
Chanel said:
snipped for length . . .

We, as a human race, have to understand and realize we live in a universe where anything is possible and that includes the existence of God…or he doesn’t exist.

Which is true?

We will never know.

The truth could be he does exist or the truth can be he does not. There is truth but we will never know.

It’s not up to us to assume. We will never know for sure.
Click to expand...
On our own, we cannot know - but because He has chosen to reveal Himself to us, we can. Jesus’ question to the apostles is to each of us as well - “Who do you say that I am?”
 
Chanel said:
Let me say something:

The truth is, truth is hard to find no matter if you’re religious or not. Just because you are religious and part of that certain religion doesn’t mean that you have the truth totally.

So what is truth?

For religions to say they have the only truth and says other religions don’t is being very close-minded and ignorant. The same goes with atheists.

I am an atheist but at least I’m open-minded. Sure, there are somethings in religions that get my blood boiling but maybe it’s for a reason and a justified reason.

Consider this: maybe we aren’t all fools but maybe we are, both believer and atheist. We really don’t know what the truth really is so it doesn’t hurt to believe or not to believe. Only if the truth were present and evident and we refused to believe or not would we then be considered foolish.

So in other words, don’t call others fools for believing or not…because you just never know. If God does exist, atheists shouldn’t call belivers fools…on the other hand, believers should’t call atheists fools for not believing…maybe God doesn’t exist.

And until we see with absolute certainty or have real evidence, we are not fools for believing or not.

Almost like the concept of “innocent until proven guilty”, well, in this case it would be “not foolish until given evidence” lol.

Make sense?

We, as a human race, have to understand and realize we live in a universe where anything is possible and that includes the existence of God…or he doesn’t exist.

Which is true?

We will never know.

The truth could be he does exist or the truth can be he does not. There is truth but we will never know.

It’s not up to us to assume. We will never know for sure.
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I think that using logic and reason is a good start to finding the truth. Two contradicting statements can’t possiblely both be true. Look at the history, look at the texts, look at the writings of others and then from there it is up to you to compare and figure it. Like I said in an earlier post, no one has time to study EVERY religion, but a lot of that has been done for us, so we do what we can to make the best decision we can, with the evidence that we do have… For instance the lord, liar, or lunitic argument is a good one to apply to Christ, but before you get there you must know that the Bible is telling the truth. The only way to do that is look at history and the credibility of the witnesses. Pointing out all of the Apostles (minus one) were martyred for example would seem to point at them believing what they were saying since none of them just came out and said they were lying while they were being tortured and killed. It’s things like that, I believe, that point to the truth of the Bible and to Jesus… There’s alot more people could point out, but at some point people have to do the work on their own to figure it out.
 
wisdomseeker said:
Well, we got to start in somewhere.
I think the key point here is Jesus Christ. He is the One that makes the difference. Also the Church which He found. Are they in agreement?

Is Jesus the One we should believe it or not?
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No. I wouldn’t want to. He’s far from even being God, not to mention he’s very abrasive!

I’m not trying to sound arrogant but that’s a fact.
 
Mijoy2 said:
The Mormons have the Book of Mormon, The Muslims have the Koran. “Christians” of which includes Catholics (by the measure of some but not others) have the Bible.
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  • When was the BOM written, and who wrote it? Who canonized it?
  • When was the Koran written and who wrote it? Who canonized it?
  • When was the Bible written and who wrote it? Who canonized it?
Surely you’re not claiming equivilence between these books…right?

BTW, as a suggestion, when you say “Christians” your discription is a bit awkward. It is baptism that qualifies one to be called Christian. There are two groups that qualify as Christian, Catholics and non-Catholics… Before all the serial division, there was only ONE Christian, …Catholic.
M:
We’ve all been faced with question before, who is correct, of any? “We are correct”, of course, is what bubbles up to the surface, by each group. And, we, catholics, are no different. By any objective measure, our view, would make us equally as pompous and arrogant, Yet we firmly plant our feet in the earth and scream from the rooftops we are different. We have “the Truth”. Again, how pompous of us.
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You sound like Pilate…“What is truth?”

Look at the following definition

Heb 11:1
faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

Faith is a gift from God who is ALL truth. Therefore, In that definition of faith, substitute ambivalent or doubt for the underlined words, and see what it does to the definition. It not only doesn’t make sense, it contradicts the definition.
M:
Why I propose, can’t we all be wrong?
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Because you’re saying then, that no ONE is right.
M:
So many individuals over so many hunderds of years, have so firmly believed thier Revelation (Joseph Smith, Mohammed) yet we (catholics and other christian faiths) chalk this up to nonsense, why can’t we be equally wrong? However possibly with a longer (possibly more impresssive) history? In other words, thay are all wrong, but we are more impressively wrong.
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You act like there’s no proof to what we believe. That it’s all one big shell game. No truth anywhere. Who’s been messing with you?
 
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