So this past week one of the things that kept me really busy is that some questions were asked that I really need to answer. Some of them were really basic and easy but others made me think in ways that I never had. I typed them all out but the file is four pages long, I am not going to publish that all in one so I decided to split it into two posts. When I was writing this I broke it up into two part: Major questions that are more important and minor questions that weren't as important, so here is the first one of two. Also some of this was written late at night after long days so some of it may not make since, if something doesn't just post it in the comments and I will try to make it as clear as I can there.
Major Questions
Since I can't see God how do I know that he is real? This ultimately a question of faith, the chances of God coming and showing himself to you are slim to none but there are other things that you can look at. The analogy of the wind is a good one because humans didn't always know about the wind, there was a time when people thought that the wind was something mystical and mysterious and it really wasn't until the age of enlightenment that we started to think of natural things in light of what they where and not these mystical things. In a similar way we can look at the world around us and see the effects of God, if you are a poet you can see it in the actions of a small child growing and learning, if you are an artist you can see it in nature and the trees growing, but if you are a scientist you can see it in statistics. One simple statistic is about the chances of a single enzyme to form, the chances of this happening are 10 to the power of 20, to 1 then the chances of that enzyme to self replicate is 10 to the power of 40000 to 1. This is just one statistic but the list of things that if changed just a little bit would mean that life here on earth would never have been is seemingly endless which doesn't make much sense at all if you don't have someone or something behind the stage pulling the strings (so to speak).
If you don't follow Christianity do you go to hell? In essence yes, but this is no more then most other religions assert. Jesus said in the Bible that He is the only way to true salvation and Christians hold this statement to be a foundational one. There are, however, different dynamics to the grace of God, primarily being that a person can only be held responsible for the knowledge that they have. This means that if a person in the middle of the African plains dies it is possible for him to go to heaven. The reason for this is because that man was created in the image of God which make him ask questions of himself (Who am I?, How did I get here?, What is the meaning of life?), these questions, when followed to there natural conclusion lead irrevocably back to God. A person doesn't need to know about the Bible or Jesus but when someone is confronted with more knowledge then they are responsible for that knowledge, like we are here in the west.
Why is a monotheism better then a polytheism? In essence this is a very philosophical question so it will get a very philosophical answer. If we look at the nature of God or gods (for the rest of this answer just known as god) from an a priori (being what we can deduce about god simply because they are god) view. The nature of god is that of all power, when a person thinks of god it is not a stretch for them to say that an attribute of a true god is all power, anything less would simply be a lesser demigod. Still thinking of god another attribute that a god would have to posses is that of need, in other words we must need him for something even if it is as small as being simply god, therefor anything less would make this god a demigod. This means that if god exists then we would have to need him and if god is all powerful then there would be no need for two or more gods, this would make one god God and the rest demigods that would have nothing to do with us anyway.
How do I know what is the right way to go with so many religions all saying that they have the truth? Ultimately this, again, comes down to faith, if every religion says that they have the right way to God and they are all different then it stands to reason that not all of them can be right. There are, however, somethings that you can look at with this to help make a decision on what you believe to be right. God would not create a world and not give it a way to live and communicate to Him, that would go against the nature of what god would be, so you know because of that God has given some means to interact with Him, we can also assume that this would be written (this is just logical since written text can be given to the most amount of people and can be past down through out time from generation to generation). In this text we know that God will not contradict Himself in anyway (this would just send mixed signals and would hurt rather then help), this text would also caring with it a good amount of historical evidence for its age and accuracy of writing (This comes mostly in the amount of copies that have been made through out time and how closely they match each other). With these understood if any text from another religion comes in and tries to say that it is the same or better but does not hold the accreditation of these logical steps it would be a very big leap of faith to believe any of them. The Bible on these accounts comes up clear over and over again, the Bible doesn't contradict itself and there is no other book ever written that can even come close to matching the amount of copies made of the Bible (from the dead sea scrolls all the way up to today) and all of those copies match up to within 99% of each other.
Couldn't religion be made up to make you feel better and get people to live a good life? Yes, in fact no one on Earth can really argue that it isn't, many studies have brought back results that suggest that people who regularly practice religion (including praying, reading their Bible, consistent quite times, etc) have happier healthier lives, studies have also shown that prayer actually does speed up healthy in sick patients. There are many religions out there that are made up simply to make the people that are in them feel better, these are usually filled with rules and laws that you have to strictly follow to maintain a good spiritual life. All of this really speaks to a need in people, a need that even though people may try to fill it can't be filled by other things, and when you look at religions that are set up just to fill this need then most of the time the end result will be a person that is tired and more spiritually drained then ever before. The need of religion really just points to the fact that we are a lost people in need of someone to reach out and help us.
What about before the bible came along, what did they do for religion? Some of this I already answered in question 2 so this may over lap a little. People can really only be held responsible for the knowledge that they have received not for what they haven't. This means that before the Bible was written a person couldn't be held responsible for not praying for forgiveness from God, they simply wouldn't have known that they would need to. At the same time, but looking at it from a different angle, when we examine cultures from around the world there are certain things that start to come to light, namely with 2 well known stories Noah's ark and the Garden of Eden. In every culture on earth there is a story of a flood whipping out the earth except for a few that the gods of the culture save to restart mankind. The second story that can be found in most, but not all, cultures in that of the Garden of Eden where people lived in some kind pf a perfect place but through some sort of sin they fell from grace and where kicked out. There are several conclusions and conversations that you can draw form these examinations but one that is clear is that early humans found these stories important enough to pass down from generation to generation for the purpose of teaching them, this in essence was the early religion and these stories were the bible before the Bible was penned down, so to say that they were out in the dark without a light is not a good examination of the facts.
- Does Christianity make you give up anything? If so what? Yes. In a, somewhat, figurative sense what it means to become a Christian is to give up your life, you are putting aside sin and taking up a righteous life style that would reflect that of Jesus, that is actually what the word Christian means "Christ follower". For many people this is a huge change in there lives and can effect them in many ways, it is for this reason that the step to become a Christian isn't one to be taken lightly. On the other side of that same coin would be, to barrow a phrase from Aladdin, "A whole new world, with a new fantastic point of view". This world and anything that comes after would take on new life and new meaning, the security that comes with Jesus is unmeasurable and at the same time impossible to ever experience it all. It sounds mystical and impossible and it is, that is what makes it so great.
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