Why Christianity?

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Why not practice Islam, Buddhism (sp.), Judaism, or anything other than Christianity?

I have my own response but I want to see yours 😉 🙂
 
But why not Buddah or Mohammad? (I totally spelled that one wrong :p)

Oh, I’m playing devils advocate by the way :o
 
For me? Because I chose to believe Christ’s promise, that through Him there is life.

Just because some are born as christians, we still eventually have to make a choice to continue or leave. I learned that the new testament fulfilled the old, that God’s promise was his Son. I decided to trust God’s plan in his Son. God didn’t put all his energy and promises in Muhammad or Buddah, he promised Himself through his son.
 
Why Jesus? Becuase there was something special about him. The man taught to love your enemie in a time where that was unheard of and crazy. His message was love. I aways said if there wasn’t a God i would still follow Jesus becuase he was a great and humble man. I dont give to much credit to others because they came after christ and most of them like muhummad had an awful personal life, like many wives and a war general.
 
Why Christ?
%between%
There are many throughout the history of the world who have claimed to be a god, or that they bore a message from God. In fact, today someone will start some new religion claiming the exact same thing.
  • Christ was the only one to ever be pre-announced. The OT and other ancient writings are full of prophecies foreshadowing Christ. How did the Magi of the east know of his coming? Probabily from the many prophecies circulated through the world by the Jews as well as to Gentiles by Daniel centuries before his birth. The Romams were so fearful of a king who would rule the world that they ordered all children born that year to be killed-*
This lent I have begun Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen.

“It was not so much that his birth cast a shadow on His life, and led to his death,” writes Sheen. “it is rather that the Cross was there from the beginning, and it cast its shawdow backward to his birth.”

👍
 
coolduude said:
But why not Buddah or Mohammad? (I totally spelled that one wrong :p)

Oh, I’m playing devils advocate by the way :o
Click to expand...
This is a very good question, and as I am currently studying Eastern religions, I think it is important that every Christian know their answer to this question.

It’s easy enough to say “Because I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and not Mohamed or Buddha”, and that’s true, it’s a good answer. But I don’t believe it’s enough. As was said above, the fact that the birth of Christ was foreshadowed countless times in the OT is important. Historically speaking, Buddha seems to have been the response of a very well-intentioned man to a Hindu culture dominated by complex metaphysics, but seemed to have little concern for the suffering of the world. In short, Hinduism seemed to have very long answers to questions that weren’t crucial to most people. The Buddha found suffering to be the problem of life (all significant religions address suffering), but it is important to note that he intended to solve it by each individual letting go of attachment to anything. Not only do I find this insufficient and leaving much to be desired (a transcendent God and the individual soul are thought to be illusions that do not truly exist), but I think the Buddhist mindset seems to avoid practical issues, such as dealing with suffering even when one “isn’t attached” to anything. I’m no expert, but I think some of the philosophy is somewhat hollow.

As for Islam, the best way I can describe my disagreement is that you can judge a tree by it’s fruit. I speak not only of the religion that followed, but of the man himself. Christ’s life was healing, casting out evil, preaching the good news that God has mercy for all. Even when He was hated, persecuted and disagreed with, He never sought vengeance, only sought to love. When you look at the life of Jesus, even if you do not have the firm faith of a Christian, His is a life to be venerated, replicated, admired. Not so with Mohamed, in my opinion. I speak not to offend anyone, but from my little experience of the Qur’an, I see a man who was tricked by demons and eventually realized he was spoken to by an angel. I see a man who married a young girl. I see a man who was hated for his monotheistic beliefs, rounded up a band of convinced believers, and went back and utterly destroyed the polytheists who disagreed with him. This is just a brief couple of examples, there is much more. Christianity spread in the hundreds of years after Christ, all throughout the world, through preaching, martyrdom and a loving example of the Gospel. Islam spread by jihad. For the first 100 years after Mohamed’s death (c. 632-732 AD) the Arabs who had embraced this faith, led by the first Caliphs, spread Islam by force, running through the remnants of armies that were already weak from fighting each other. The most disturbing thing is that the Qur’an itself seems to encourage the spread of this religion by force. Mohamed himself was a general, much of his life was spent spreading Islam by conquering. And it disturbs me that to this day, many people (especially “tolerant” non-Muslims who understand NOTHING about different religions) claim that the violent Muslims are an “extremist majority” when in fact they are adhering to the original, Fundamentalist view that began this religion. Say what you want about the Crusades, the Inquisition, the classic examples when sinful men abused Church power. Christ’s life was perfect, and HIS religion was love, peace, mercy of God.

I can go through every religion with a similar agenda. When you look at the founder, where he came from, what he did with his life, who believed him, and what happened afterward, Christianity is the only religion that seems to me to come from God himself. Has it been misconstrued, abused, split over the centuries? You better believe it, God’s Church IS run by humans, after all. But, objectively speaking, there is only one Truth, and I’ve found it within the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ. Thanks be to God!

In Christ and Our Lady,
Frank
 
these religions don’t have Jesus

only Christianity teaches that God is love 🙂
 
Thank-you for that post, Cominghome89! It was very thoughtful and well developed.
 
“The resurrection, then, is not a theory, but a historical reality revealed by the man Jesus Christ by means of his “Passover”, his “passage”, that has opened a “new way” between heaven and earth (cf. Heb 10:20). It is neither a myth nor a dream, it is not a vision or a utopia, it is not a fairy tale, but it is a singular and unrepeatable event: Jesus of Nazareth, son of Mary, who at dusk on Friday was taken down from the Cross and buried, has victoriously left the tomb. In fact, at dawn on the first day after the Sabbath, Peter and John found the tomb empty. Mary Magdalene and the other women encountered the risen Jesus. On the way to Emmaus the two disciples recognized him at the breaking of the bread. The Risen One appeared to the Apostles that evening in the Upper Room and then to many other disciples in Galilee.”

~ Pope Benedict XVI

vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/messages/urbi/documents/hf_ben-xvi_mes_20090412_urbi-easter_en.html
 
Well, it may always draw the ire of non-Christians on CAF in going through our Beliefs but on another thread in looking at the world’s religions I wrote that I suppose one must firstly divide the Monotheistic Religions - Judaism, Christianity, Islam - from the non-monotheistic, who may believe in an Impersonal Life Force or transpersonal gods or no god - the Eastern religions of Hinduism, Buddhism,etc. Indeed in some instances Buddhism can be described as an atheistic religion.

Hinduism and Buddhism both share the belief in reincarnation (Buddhism, unlike Hinduism, does without the caste system): that the soul wanders in an almost endless cycle of births and rebirths until one is released (having gained good karma) to moksha or nirvana in Buddhism. In Christianity we have a theodicy to explain evil, but the Eastern religions believe that if one suffers in their current lifetime this is because they did bad actions indeed in a past life. Simply put, the epileptic or paraplegic or the blindman is simply suffering for the bad he did in a past life. As Christians, we don’t believe in past lives nor that one suffers on account of anything of the sort.

The Buddhist may believe in the 4 Noble Truths to overcome this suffering and be taught that Desire or Craving is the cause of All suffering and that with Buddhism’s 8 Fold Path or right actions and moderation Suffering can Cease and End. Christians don’t believe all suffering can cease based on our own right-thinking but that we need the Lord and Saviour’s help, cracked vessels we are.

The most difficult for the Christian - who is taught by God that humans are made in the Image of God - may be that Hindus and Buddhists accept that one may come back as a monkey, a knat, a rat, even an inanimate object in their next life. Even animals have potential Buddhahood and aim for nirvana. That’s why some sects like the Jains even cover their mouths in clothing for fear of swallowing a knat - a perhaps distant relation in a past life. I realize I’m condensing things, so apologies to anyone dissatisfied.

Vis-a-vis the Jews we of course believe in Christ as Son of God (a God who assumed Human Form to share in our suffering and redeem us and conquer death). The Jews cannot accept that God would take human form - this is a given and one needs to understand this in attempting to perceive Jewish thought on Christ. A strict monotheism will not allow this. (Here comes the whole mystery of the Trinity, way beyond the scope of this thread). Then there is original sin, which the Jews don’t believe in. The Jews tend to focus more on the here-and-now, the Law, as opposed to the afterlife (little mention of it in the Tanakh- Old Testament). Pope JP2 though, acknowledging the debt Christianity owes to Judaism, called Jews our elder brothers.

Vis-as-vis Islam, we have a theology of redemption and believe in a Personal Loving Relationship with God, whereas in Islam, God may be called many beautiful names, but ultimately, according to the Venerable Pope John Paul II, he is not Immanuel, God with us, but a God outside of His creation who demands submission.

What sets us apart is our unique Theodicy [the Cross], belief in the Trinity, belief in the Incarnation, that God is a Personal Being and One and of Unceasing and Perfect Love, and not impersonal or polytheistic, among others. Well, O.K. this is obviously from my Christian perspective and its hard to put it all in one thread.

On arguments for the veracity of the Resurrection, this Anglican Bishop’s (N.T. Wright) writings have met with approval by prominent Catholics in such religious journals as First Things:

"Historical investigation, I propose, brings us to the point where we must say that the tomb previously housing a thoroughly dead Jesus was empty, and that his followers saw and met someone they were convinced was this same Jesus, bodily alive though in a new, transformed fashion. The empty tomb on the one hand and the convincing appearances of Jesus on the other are the two conclusions the historian must draw. I do not think that history can force us to draw any particular further deductions beyond these two phenomena; the conclusion the disciples drew is there for the taking, but it is open to us, as it was to them, to remain cautious. Thomas waited a week before believing what he had been told. On Matthew’s mountain, some had their doubts.

However, the elegance and simplicity of explaining the two outstanding phenomena, the empty tomb and the visions, by means of one another, ought to be obvious. Were it not for the astounding, and world-view-challenging, claim that is thereby made, I think everyone would long since have concluded that this was the correct historical result. If some other account explained the rise of Christianity as naturally, completely and satisfyingly as does the early Christians’ belief, while leaving normal worldviews intact, it would be accepted without demur.

That, I believe, is the result of the investigation I have conducted. There are many other things to say about Jesus’ resurrection. But, as far as I am concerned, the historian may and must say that all other explanations for why Christianity arose, and why it took the shape it did, are far less convincing as historical explanations than the one the early Christians themselves offer: that Jesus really did rise from the dead on Easter morning, leaving an empty tomb behind him. The origins of Christianity, the reason why this new movement came into being and took the unexpected form it did, and particularly the strange mutations it produced within the Jewish hope for resurrection and the Jewish hope for a Messiah, are best explained by saying that something happened, two or three days after Jesus’ death, for which the accounts in the four gospels are the least inadequate expression we have."

ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Jesus_Resurrection.htm
 
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