Why Jesus over the Hindu gods?

[Ben_Sinner]

I have heard Hindus and ex-Hindus say that there are historical stories that all the Hindu gods actually existed and were seen in their physical form and spirtual form at one time or another in history on this earth…is that true?

I read this from somebody on one of these threads…

I used to be a Hindu myself, before I converted. I can tell you that I have heard stories in the past, as well as references, and sightings of those deities seen by people thousands of years ago and even now, both in flesh and in spirit.

(source) forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=673403

…so if that were to be true than what would set Jesus apart from them as the one true God? How could we know that what he speaks is true and the other gods are false?

…the other gods performed miracles, read minds, etc. too…so how could we prove that Jesus is the one true one.

 

[ConstantineTG]

I have heard Hindus and ex-Hindus say that there are historical stories that all the Hindu gods actually existed and were seen in their physical form and spirtual form at one time or another in history on this earth…is that true?

I read this from somebody on one of these threads…

I used to be a Hindu myself, before I converted. I can tell you that I have heard stories in the past, as well as references, and sightings of those deities seen by people thousands of years ago and even now, both in flesh and in spirit.

(source) forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=673403

…so if that were to be true than what would set Jesus apart from them as the one true God? How could we know that what he speaks is true and the other gods are false?

…the other gods performed miracles, read minds, etc. too…so how could we prove that Jesus is the one true one.

Every religion claims that their story is true. How many of them were martyred for their faith and despite the threat of death, no one recanted?

 

[MarcoPolo]

I have heard stories in the past, as well as references, and sightings of those deities seen by people thousands of years ago and even now, both in flesh and in spirit.

I would ask this. So what is the evidence? It is merely stories? Who told the stories? Christianity has accounts of first-hand witnesses, we can identify many of them by name, who testify to the reality of the Resurrection and Christ’s miracles. As well, Christ fulfills a number of prophecies written before he was alive, which according to the witness of the early Christians, was instrumental in converting a number of Jews familiar with those prophecies, even if they didn’t witness miracles first hand. Then, you have the martyrs, as Constantine mentioned. You also have miracles unto this day. The spread of Christianity regardless of geographic boundaries. Etc…etc… Nothing else has so many characteristics as Christianity that are evidence of truth.

 

[InJesusItrust]

Well, as a ex-Hindu familiar with Indian superstition I will tell you that they do not validate their “miracles”. What atheists accuse Catholics of doing is what Hindus really do. We have 70,000 witnesses in Fatima, DOCUMENTED miracles in Lourdes and reports confirm that Eucharistic miracles are real heart tissue and real blood. Think of how a man was recently arrested for blasphemy for debunking a miracle in India… You cannot separate Hinduism from India, and they are open to everything except being told that they might be wrong. Tell them that Jesus is God and they’ll worship Him happily enough… tell them that Jesus claimed exclusivity and they will become angry. Contradictions do not worry them much.

 

[Carolus_Martell]

Why Jesus over the Hindu gods?

You should check out what Ravi Zacharias has to say about this…he’s THE subject matter expert on this.

He’s on the NRB network on Wednesday night at 8pm eastern, also check out YouTube.

 

[Pelly]

I think… it’s SURE that they were false apparitions. False apparitions and private revelations are to deceive people, to lead them to idolatry, heresy (if the said people are Catholic or other Christian). So, you can dismiss the whole thing.

 

[Faith1960]

Every religion claims that their story is true. How many of them were martyred for their faith and despite the threat of death, no one recanted?

I thought there have been many? No?

 

[MarcoPolo]

I thought there have been many? No?

This is why I tend to not let the matter of martyrs be amputated from the Church’s many other characteristics. Yes, martyrdom is a good testimony to truth, but since other walks of life have had martyrs sometimes opposed to Christianity, that alone is not as good a prooftext (although perhaps there have been more willing Christian martyrs in history, I do not know the numbers). I like to keep the Church’s many characteristics that are evidence for the truth as a “package deal.” You can’t debunk the characteristics one at a time. Just like you can’t arrest a person because he shares 1 characteristic with the police sketch of the perpetrator.

 

[InJesusItrust]

str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5532:

I heard a lecture that was held at Hope Chapel last week by the fine apologist Dr. Greg Bahnsen. He suggested the next time you talk to someone from Eastern religion who believes that logic isn’t really a valid way of finding truth, the conversation could go something like this. “You’re thinking too hard. You’re using logic. Logic isn’t the way to find truth, experience is.” You respond, “So you believe logic isn’t the way to truth?” “Yes, that’s what I believe.” “Well then, you believe it is.” “No, I said it isn’t.” “But you believe it is.” “No, I said it isn’t the way to truth. Experience is.” “So you believe it is.” “How do you say it is?” “Because your way of thinking accepts the notion of contradictions, so if experience is the way to truth, not logic, then experience also is not the way to truth. Logic is the way to truth and it isn’t at the same time. The point being you can’t even talk about your own philosophy if it’s logically contradictory. It becomes nonsense to even discuss it.”

So a person who rejects rationality, a person who rejects logic, a person who rejects the world as a real thing and contends that it is merely an illusion can therefore have nothing to say about the real world because the real world is not real. And any commentary about it would be essentially acknowledging its reality. Any commentary trying to correct your view, such that you would now believe the world is an illusion, must be done by using rationality which ultimately doesn’t exist. That’s why if Hinduism were true we could never know it. I think that’s a valid point whenever you’re dealing with someone from Eastern religion.

There’s another problem that arises out of this too. It’s not only epistemological confusion, it’s moral confusion as well. This is really much more to the heart of the problem that I saw in India. The epistemological confusion, you can’t really know anything ultimately, leads to the more serious applicational problem of the moral confusion. If you can’t know anything at all then you can’t know anything moral. You can’t know a moral thing. Consequently, if you can’t know a moral truth then there is ultimately no distinction between good and evil.

When you study Hinduism you find this is the case. Those distinctions have some value at the lower levels of development as you’re moving more and more towards oneness with the absolute. But when you’re getting to higher levels of self-realization the distinction between good and evil diminishes and ultimately it’s erased altogether. This is one reason you can see incredible debauchery and evil among the highest members of the Hindu castes. The priests are not holy people. Sometimes the priests are the least holy people. The high caste Hindus are known for being underhanded and double-minded and double-tongued and those who have gotten closer to some of the gurus and Brahmin who are teaching find that there’s a tremendous amount of immorality that goes on behind the scenes. Why is this possible? They do not have a sense of morality like we have. Ultimately their sense of morality is not connected to a higher moral law.

 

[Farsight001]

ALL of them? Because there are 380 million or so. I highly doubt there is a story for every last one.

 

[PJM]

=Ben Sinner;10166966]I have heard Hindus and ex-Hindus say that there are historical stories that all the Hindu gods actually existed and were seen in their physical form and spirtual form at one time or another in history on this earth…is that true?

I read this from somebody on one of these threads…

I used to be a Hindu myself, before I converted. I can tell you that I have heard stories in the past, as well as references, and sightings of those deities seen by people thousands of years ago and even now, both in flesh and in spirit.

(source) forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=673403

…so if that were to be true than what would set Jesus apart from them as the one true God? How could we know that what he speaks is true and the other gods are false?

Not by tricks but from GOOD WORK resulting fro miracles.

Were ANY of the Hindu gods" births prophised 700 to 1,000 years before it took place?

Satan: the father of lies can do magic to fool people. He CAN"T do miracles that result in GOOD. Only God can!

therickabys.com/sda/ETsatanmir.html

Exodus 22: 18- "Do not allow a sorceress to live. Deuteronomy 18: 9-12- "When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there. Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord, and because of these detestable practices the Lord your God will drive out those nations before you.

Acts 16: 16-18- "Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. This girl followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so troubled that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her.

God Bless,

pat/PJM

…the other gods performed miracles, read minds, etc. too…so how could we prove that Jesus is the one true one.

 

[wittgenstein]

One must differentiate between what the common Hindu believes and what their experts believe. Of course the peasants will believe in a literal interpretation, that being the most simplistic and easiest to understand. However, the message of Hinduism is more profound then that. Brahman is Atman is similar to Luke 17:21. All the Hindu gods are merely manifestations of Brahman. Similar to the trinity, except with millions rather then 3.

 

[wittgenstein]

Google “paraconsistent logic” that is similar to Hindu logic and was a response to quantum mechanics. Hindus lack a moral code? Ghandi had no moral code??

 

[wittgenstein]

Hinduism is similar to Christianity in that there are many sects. There is a difference between a snake handling fundamentalist and a Catholic. One Hindu sect tells a parable. They believe that thinking about God is the fasted way to find God and enter heaven. An atheist says on waking up,“there is no God”. He repeats this 5 times a day for 50 years. He dies and goes straight to heaven. He is astounded because he never believed. The answer arrives,“you never for even one moment stopped thinking about God”!

 

[_Abyssinia]

Comparing Christianity & Hinduism

catholiceducation.org/articles/apologetics/ap0008.html

Some hindus are pantheistic, some are polytheistic or monisticbut most pantheistic or polytheistic. Identity of God should be consistant and known, not varying on different streams

There is strong evidence the that time, matter and space at a beggining at a point in the past. Hinduism’s idea of a cyclical, eternal universe is unscientific. As per the Law of entropy if the universe had run out of energy that could be used the the universe would of ran out by so the universe can not be eternal

Cosmological Argument shows that everything begins to exist has a cause, the universe began to exist, therefore the universe has a cause. There has to be a first uncaused cause for the universe because it is impossible that there is an infinite regreess of uncaused causes. Jesus taught there was only one God and scientificially one God makes scientific sense

The Bible is made up of historical documents that can be verfidied in history by archeology, and extra Biblical evidence. Myth is known to be used in Hinduism to explain the nature and personalities of the pantheistic gods so a lot of claims in Hinduism can not be verified, whereas if Christianity was based on myth in some of the intrinsic claims the theology would not work. History is rooted in Judaism and Christianity

Hinduism teaches to strive to be perfect morally. Do you believe this is possible? Jesus offers salvations as a gift and understands that due to our sinful nature can never be perfect

 

[_Abyssinia]

Most Hindus are panthestic or polythetic but some are monistic. Identity of God should be consistant and known, not varying on different beliefs that vary as much as believing in many Gods to one God

There is strong evidence that time, matter and space started at a beginning at a point in the past. Hinduism’s idea of a cyclical, eternal universe is unscientific. As per the Law of entropy if the universe had run out of energy that could be used the the universe would of ran out by so the universe can not be eternal

Cosmological Argument shows that everything begins to exist has a cause, the universe began to exist, therefore the universe has a cause. There has to be a first uncaused cause for the universe because it is impossible that there is an infinite regreess of uncaused causes. Jesus taught there was only one God and scientificially one God makes scientific sense

The Bible is made up of historical documents that can be verified in history by archeology, and extra Biblical evidence. Myth is known to be used in Hinduism to explain the nature and personalities of the pantheistic gods so a lot of claims in Hinduism can not be verified, whereas if Christianity was based on myth in some of the intrinsic claims the theology would not work. History is rooted in Judaism and Christianity

Hinduism teaches to strive to be perfect morally. Do you believe this is possible? Jesus offers salvations as a gift and understands that due to our sinful nature can never be perfect

Comparing Christianity & Hinduism

catholiceducation.org/articles/apologetics/ap0008.html

 

[InJesusItrust]

Come to India and live here for ten years and tell me how moral Hinduism is. There are so many aspects of it that lead to the way life in India is now, and they are quite subtle in consequence. The deeper you go into Hinduism the less do you care about true and false, good and evil. Even Krishna said that one must be indifferent in whatever you do.

 

[patrick457]

I have heard Hindus and ex-Hindus say that there are historical stories that all the Hindu gods actually existed and were seen in their physical form and spirtual form at one time or another in history on this earth…is that true?

I read this from somebody on one of these threads…

I used to be a Hindu myself, before I converted. I can tell you that I have heard stories in the past, as well as references, and sightings of those deities seen by people thousands of years ago and even now, both in flesh and in spirit.

(source) forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=673403

…so if that were to be true than what would set Jesus apart from them as the one true God? How could we know that what he speaks is true and the other gods are false?

…the other gods performed miracles, read minds, etc. too…so how could we prove that Jesus is the one true one.

As someone with a high interest in Indian mythology I’ll just point out the one crucial difference: most avatars are supposed to have walked the Earth in the mythic past - something like thousands to millions of years ago. Jesus is the only Deity I know of to have actually lived within recorded history.

 

[patrick457]

Hinduism is similar to Christianity in that there are many sects. There is a difference between a snake handling fundamentalist and a Catholic.

That’s it really. There is really no single ‘Hinduism’ to speak of: there are different schools of thinking which are lumped together under a single name. I think that Christianity, with all it different denominations, is actually more unified than the various Hinduisms are.