FAQ

The word of God (the Bible) explains that God makes sure that ‘enough knowledge’ of Him is given to all men everywhere so that they can all come to know that He exists and that  and are therefore, without excuse. God provides evidence of His existence by general revelation throughout His created world. He provides knowledge of our fallen state by giving each man, woman and (older) child a conscience. Both of which are plenty to produce a repentant heart that seeks reconciliation with the Creator God. This will set the isolated person on a journey to seek mercy, forgiveness and life. However, all who worship idols, spirits, false gods etc. do so as a direct form of rebellion and rejection of the God who made them. As all mankind is enslaved to sin until they are set free by faith in Christ. Often times, in response to the heart that cries out to the true God that made them, He will then send His specific revelation through His word: Bibles in their language, missionaries who speak their language or local preachers so that this isolated person is not left without a witness. The problem is, the vast majority of isolated peoples are identical to the vast majority of peoples of developed nations in that they are in rebellion toward God out of choice not out of ignorance.

Consider this, having specific revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ isn’t a guarantee of salvation as we see in the west with Bibles in every home, on tv and the internet, STILL mankind of the western world turns his back on the Creator despite ALL this information about Jesus and turns further toward their own sin and ultimate destruction.

Some say that the existence of evil is contradictory to the existence of an all-powerful (omnipotent), all-loving (all good) God.

The assertion goes:

1. If God were all-powerful, he could destroy evil,
2. and if that same God were all-loving/all-good, he would destroy evil.
3. Evil exists.
4. Therefore, God does not exist.

It may appear that a strawman fallacy has been committed with this representation. However, this is exactly the position held by many atheists and agnostics today. This is an odd argument in that even if the premises were valid, still this would, hypothetically, only serve as an argument against a God with the above attributes, but would still not prove or disprove the existence of a different deity with other attributes.

But is there really a God who is both all loving and all-good in a world where we are seemingly surrounded by evil, pain, & suffering?

One of the mistakes made in the presumptions by either atheists or agnostics is that they fail to take into account the possible (even probable) existence of ‘levels’ of good as universally defined by human beings. For instance, a starving man may ask for food, one person gives him a sandwich, the other buys him a restaurant, and the third person takes him home, cleans him up, trains him to be a productive member of society, provides a reference for the starving man to achieve gainful employment, ultimately resulting in the starving man receiving a new start in a new career. Whereas the first man provided a sandwich which was good, the third man would be considered the one who provided the greatest good for the starving man. Secondarily, proponents of the argument against an omnipotent, all loving being and the existence of evil have also missed the possibility of that Deity using evil to accomplish a “greater good”.

There is a distinct difference between ‘good’ and ‘personal happiness’. Sometimes we view the violation of the latter as a violation of the former when often times, this is simply not the case. For instance, I may be stuck in traffic and late for a dinner appointment. I may rail against all things considered ‘God’ and cry out, “WHY ME!? WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME!?” while ahead of me, on the road to my home is a drunk driver weaving in and out of his lane. I clear the traffic jam and then as I approach my neighborhood I see a terrible fatality accident with the drunk driver and a telephone pole. Although my personal happiness was violated by the delays and perceived victimization at the hands of an angry Deity, in reality, it was a good thing for me to have been trapped in traffic in that the delay prevented me from the distinct possibility of being involved in the fatality car accident in my neighborhood. My personal happiness and ‘good’ were not synonymous in this case.

A deeper philosophical explanation for this position can be derived from the “Moral Argument” for the existence of God. What we find is that the standard of good by which we condemn an “all loving all powerful” God and the source of that standard of good are one and the same: We know that good exists from a source of good, yet we use that knowledge of good to condemn the source of good.

Ultimately, presuming the existence of a Creator, the creation does not hold the final say when it comes to defining what is “good”, “better”, and “best”. We may be utterly gutted over the loss of a loved one, but as the creation, we can rest assured that the unfortunate circumstance that we face is not the end of the story, we can know this because we are not the authors of the book.

To suppose that all gods are ultimately the same God and that each ‘god belief’ is simply a different “understanding” or “expression” of who god is can be referred to as spiritual relativism. Some believe that as mankind has evolved physically from a molecular glob into a fish into a frog into a 4 legged creature, into a monkey, and then into a man, etc, there is also a belief that our religious/spiritual belief system is also “evolving”.

The claim has been made that Spiritual Relativism is a “higher, more evolved” way of thinking about god. One is “enlightened” once they “realize” that all gods are the same God. But is this actually a higher and more evolved way of thinking about who God is?

Or has this belief system one that existed since primitive times and indeed is only one step away from primitive Animism? Lets take a look.

To suppose that a particular belief system is truly “advanced” would suggest that it is different or maybe more sophisticated than the belief systems of the past. The origins of Spiritual Relativism can be traced back to the Pantheistic underpinnings of mainstream Hinduism which is historically, one step further along than Animism (Voodoo, Shamanism, Black Magic, Paganism, Wicca, etc).

Lets begin with the idea of “all gods being the same God”

1. In Animism, there isn’t a “supreme god” just a hierarchy of spirits all of which seem to be without any origin.
2. In Hinduism, there are over 33 million deities, the most powerful of which are Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva.
   • This is a belief system brought into Northern India by the light-skinned inhabitants of the Indus Valley.
     It was a system that contained an ever-growing pantheon of gods (each introduced deity was added to Brahman – all is god), and they even brought their own priests. As with invasions in Northern Europe, Asia, and the Americas, the invaders brought in a ‘caste’ system whereby, those of the light-skinned invaders were a higher caste, and those indigenous tribes from the south who were “darker skinned” were deemed “lower caste” and “untouchables – Dalits”. Strangely enough, even today one can travel to India and witness the caste system for themselves and amazingly, the higher castes are, yes, lighter skinned Indians and the lower castes are darker skinned Indians. Is this more advanced? Is this a higher evolution of religious belief? That all gods are absorbed into this giant cloudesque god-like existence called Brahman is nearly 2500 years old, yet today many believe that whatever god a person espouses is indeed real (for them) and is really a partial expression of the overall impersonal “God”.
3. In Islam god’s name is Allah and can be referred to by no other name. All other gods are considered false and belief in such gods is considered blasphemous.
4. In Buddhism, many have deified Siddharta Guatama (Buddha) and have taken to worshipping him by religious ritual – prayers, meditation, and burning of incense to his likeness.
   • Siddharta himself declared that his followers were not to worship him or elevate him to deity however, within a few hundred years of his death, Chinese emperors were burning incense to his tomb and a god was born. He is referred to as “Buddha the Protector”. But he was simply a man who was a former Hindu that became obsessed with suffering and the antidote for it, he lived, taught, died and his bones are still on Earth today. He did not speak of an afterlife but rather ascending into Nirvana which is a variation of the Hindu idea of Brahman. Is Buddha the same God as Allah of Islam? Are Allah and Buddha identical to Brahma? Vishnu? Shiva?
5. In Christianity there is One God in Three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and is referred to as the Trinity.
   • This God claims that He and He alone is responsible for the creation of all things seen and unseen and further declares that said creation was all accomplished through and by His Son Jesus. This was done in conjunction with the third person of the Trinity referred to as the Holy Spirit. This God says that all other gods are false and are actually demons masquerading as gods, imitating His power in order to deceive and destroy human beings which bear the likeness of Almighty God and are thereby hated by the demons. According to the God of Christianity, Allah is a liar and a demon, Buddha is a thief and a destroying devil, Shiva, Brahma, and Vishnu all are liars, thieves, and destroyers of mens souls. So how can it be that the God of Christianity could be considered the same god as those He refers to as false gods and lying spirits?

Is the true God greater or lesser than the men and women He has created? If indeed He did create them, then by default, He is greater. If each man and woman has an “essence” whereby they derive their identity i.e. personality, looks, demeanor, mannerisms, preferences, etc. why is it that their Creator (according to spiritual relativism) is stripped of all unique features and the essence by which He derives his identity?

• The truth is, He does have a right to His own identity as it pertains to His essence as He has revealed Himself to His creation. So if God has a unique identity, this would mean that spiritual relativism would only be compatible with a direct revelation from God himself whereby He decrees that all gods, in all their diverse and self-contradictory personalities, are indeed Him. Has God said this? If so, where has he revealed this? Can the idea of such diverse god-beings co-exist with actual truth? We would have to look at the various descriptions of god as given by the various world religions in existence today, consider the source of those descriptions and determine which is the most reliable understanding of the God of the Universe.

The qualifying question to accompany this question would be, “Is there information that I have not yet received or investigated?”. This is important in finding the answer to this life-changing enquiry.

The question would need to be addressed after defining the term religion. Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines religion as:

1. the state of a religious religion> b (1): the service and worship of God or the supernatural (2): commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance
2. a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices
3. archaic : scrupulous conformity : conscientiousness
4. a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith.

To put it another way, religion is ultimately any set of beliefs combined with ritualistic observances which either partially, or completely comprise one’s world view and ultimately govern one’s actions.

There are “world” religions: Animism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, etc.secular religions: Humanism, Atheism, Politicism etc. and even some personal religions: Spiritualism, Amway, Alcoholics Anonymous, etc.
So if we take the Webster’s Dictionary to be correct, then suffice it to say that nearly every one of us has some sort of religious behavior (even ol’ Bill Maher himself). It may not be Muslim or Christian necessarily but the idea of religion and religious behavior do not necessarily have to follow or contain any reference to any God whatsoever, so chances are, we all have behavior that is ritualistic and coincides with the personal beliefs that shape our world view and ultimately our actions in the world around us.

Can we find outdated, primitive superstition in some religion? Certainly. Say for instance, the idea that a spirit lives in a river and if one were to cross that river without sacrificing a chicken to the spirit, then the spirit will be angry and will cause horrible curses to come upon the one who crosses it, is indeed superstitious, yet MILLIONS believe along those lines (see Animism). There are also nearly a billion people who believe that if they commit a crime in this life, they must be reborn as a victim to the same crime in their next life. Suffering people MUST not be touched or helped according to this primitive belief system as this will interfere in their natural life to life progression. So, people are left to starve and die of poverty and disease. This concept is referred to as “karma” and is an attempt by Hinduism to solve the problem of evil, but sadly, karma only perpetuates evil. It does not solve it: for one to come back as a victim in their next life, there must be a victimizer in that next life who then must come back as a victim at the hands of a victimizer and so on and so on without end, to the system, or to evil itself. Again and again, we see religion after religion holding to ancient tradition and ritual in an effort to curry favor with a cosmic being. Do we then broad brush all belief systems as superstitious? Do we dismiss all things deemed “religious” as ‘outdated’ whether there is any validity to their claims or not?

The answer is no, we do not. This would be absurd, great claims deserve investigation, the most we have to lose is a couple hours of reading/learning, but what we have to lose could be far greater. There are certain immutable truths with overwhelming evidence that deserve investigation prior to our dismissing them by way of prejudice.

Can religion be outdated? That would depend on whether the religion was based on myth or on verifiable fact. If the faith is based on verifiable fact then it falls into the category of truth. If the faith is truth, then we must ask the question: “Can truth be outdated?”. If 2 + 2 equaled 4 in 460 A.D. then how could time possibly cause this truth to become a lie?
So is there a religion (or religions) that is/are based on substantiated fact? Take a look at our World Religion Comparison Chart and judge for yourself.

If the answer is “no he can’t do that” the typical response is, “Well then he is not all powerful”. If the answer is yes he can do that, then the response may be, “If he can make a rock so big that even HE can’t move it, then he can’t move it, therefore he is not “all powerful”.

This question, erroneously races to the conclusion that the idea of an “all powerful” (omnipotent) being is a self-refuting concept and therefore an absurdity and therefore, not worthy of discussion. But what exactly is the theist claiming when he or she asserts that God is ‘all powerful’?

What is power? What things can power, as defined in ‘all powerful’, accomplish? This is an important bit of information to examine when discussing the idea that an omnipotent being is a self-refuting concept. When a theist discusses the all-powerful concept of God, they are referring to the historical, traditional, and logical definition of power itself in that God is capable of accomplishing everything that power is capable of accomplishing. Can power accomplish victory in the midst of tragedy? Yes. Can power accomplish change in a society? a family? an individual? Yes it can. Can power change the weather? The ecostructure? Can power create something physical from the non-physical? These are all questions of power.

This question in itself violates the logical principle known as the law of the excluded middle which states that a ≠ ‘not a’. How much power would it take to make a = not a? Can power as we all know or understand it, accomplish such an absurdity? It does not require “power” to create an absurdity, just stupidity. A shortened form of the question might be phrased:

“Can God can’t?”

As silly as this may sound, when stripped down to its core, the question, can God make a rock so big that even He couldn’t move it, is the absurdity, not the concept of omnipotence.

As Dr. William Lane Craig writes in his book, A Reasonable Faith, it is absurd to speculate on matters that power is incapable of accomplishing. i.e. How many nuclear bombs would it require to make 2+3=7? His answer to this question is, “God is capable of doing all things that power can do”

Thus the question itself is flawed and is often used as smoke and mirrors to distract from the real question, “Does God Exist?” which we discuss more fully on our page that is dedicated to addressing the faith-based beliefs of atheism.

There is more than a distinct possibility, rather an irrefutable fact that God has communicated with humanity but it is not the mystical “word from God” that some bizarre mystical cults might claim. Within each of us is an overwhelming passion to know and embrace a deity of some sort due to the naturally in-born conscience in every man, woman and child.

Many religions around the world have their own ideas of how their gods speak to them. For the Hindu, it may be 1 of 30 million gods and goddesses, for the Muslim it may be the god, Allah, invented by Mohammad, or for the Buddhist, they may disobey Siddhartha Gauthama (The Buddha) himself and offer worship to him, or for the Christian it is the God of the Bible, the God of all creation Jesus Christ. 

So for the animist, some Buddhists, the Muslim, the Jew, and the Hindu, these all have the same communication resulting in a drive, albeit wrongly placed, to know and embrace deity in some way, shape, or form which shows that within each man is a built-in device pulling and drawing them to know the One True God Almighty found in scripture. But has God already communicated His preferred method of speaking to His creation? Let’s take a look…

Who is this person that everyone refers to? Some refer to Him as a teacher, some call Him a prophet, some call Him a divine avatar, some call Him Messiah, and some call Him Almighty God. Who is this person and why should we know him? How can we know him? And what does he have to say about himself? The first thing I’d like to talk about is why is it important? What is the importance of knowing who Jesus is? The person of Jesus. There’s a fancy name for this type of study, it’s called Christology.

This is part 1 of a 7 part podcast series which will discuss a biblically correct Christology, what others have said when answering “Who is Jesus?”, what Jesus’ early followers thought Jesus was and finally, who the Bible says Jesus is. We examine 4 great Christological passages which answer this question definitively. Why is this important? READ MORE…

There has been a fair bit of conversation around ‘truth’ with many asking the same question that Pontius Pilate asked of Jesus when confronted by the Son of God: “What is truth”. We’ve had post modernists try to convince us that “all truth is relative” and that there simiple is no “absolute truth”. This has been clearly debunked as self-contradictory as the post-modernist must make an absolute truth statement to declare to us that there isn’t such a thing as absolute truth! We seek to address the topic of truth here as Jesus claims that all must “worship God in Spirit and in truth” and then in John 14:6 He declares of Himself, “I am the way the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but by Me.” This elevates the topic of truth to one of eternal significance. There are matters of categorical truths which we will discuss below:

What is the meaning of life?

The facet of world views which seeks to answer this question is called Teleology

Teleology comes from two Greek words: telos which is ‘end’ and logos which is ‘meaning’. In short, your teleological world view is your belief of what your ‘end meaning’ is individually and perhaps the ‘end meaning’ of all humanity. That is to say, it answers the question of what is the meaning of life. Many philosophers attempt to answer the famous question ‘what is the meaning of life’. The answers they provide are primarily based on their underlying religious world view e.g. theism, atheism, pantheism, etc. We’ve included a few of these teleological world views with a comparison to the Biblical teleology in the following article…

What is the meaning of life?

Pentecostalism is not a denomination per se but rather a vein or stream of theological belief knows as “pneumatology” whereby different groups hold to different beliefs regarding the person and work of the Holy Spirit (the third person of the Trinity). One group holds to the belief of “non-cessation” of the spiritual gifts mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12 i.e. the spiritual gifts are available to all those who have put their trust in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins – that is, “true believers”.

This group is the emergence from a line that began with the Catholic mystics of the 15th and 16th centuries which then gave rise to the Quakers and Shakers of the 17th century who then gave rise to the Pietists of the 18th century who then gave rise to Methodism of the 18th-19th century which then gave rise to the Holiness Movement of the 19th century which then birthed Pentecostalism in the early 20th century.

Because Pentecostals are believers in the continuation or “perpetuity” of the spiritual gifts we might have several denominations that are “pentecostal” in belief but are different denominations from each other. Some examples are: Assemblies of God, Foursquare International, Church of God, Church of God in Christ, Church of the Nazarene, Vineyard, Potter’s House, Calvary Chapel etc. READ MORE…

An astounding number of likenesses exist between two very unlikely spiritual bedfellows: Islam and Mormonism. I thought I had stumbled on to these similarities myself and was all ready to plant a flag for my discovery when, after minimal research, it became quite obvious that most of these striking similarities were written about as early as 1873! And of course there are scores of web sites that log even more comparisons than the ones I’ve found below…all the same, its still a very interesting correlation which sheds great light on the journey from the status of cult to a profoundly greater status of world religion (which I believe Mormonism is becoming in its own right). READ MORE…

The term “denomination” wasn’t really used until about the 16th-17th century when the Christian church saw a sudden explosion of ‘creeds’ within the orthodox protestant faith on the whole. Prior to this time, groups may have been referred to as “movements, sects, schisms, or even heretical groups!”. But ultimately the 7 major families: Oriental Orthodox, Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Pre-Reformers, Lutheran, Reformed, and Anglican Churches came about as follows. READ MORE…