How do you know your religion is true?
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- čas přidán 30. 07. 2024
- www.catholic.com
An atheist caller on Catholic Answers Live challenges Trent Horn to give a reason why anyone should think Catholicism is true.
After his conversion to the Catholic Faith, Trent Horn earned a bachelor's degree in history from Arizona State University and a master's degree in theology from Franciscan University of Steubenville. He is currently pursuing a graduate degree in philosophy from Holy Apostles College.
Trent is a regular guest on Catholic Answers Live, a lecturer who speaks across the country on issues related to the Catholic Faith, and the author of two books, Answering Atheism and Persuasive Pro-life, both of which are published by Catholic Answers Press.
If you are interested in booking Trent Horn for an upcoming event, please contact Catholic Answers at 619-387-7200
"Bye Matthew! Please say hi to your friends named Anthony." I actually laughed out loud for that one. Good show gents.
Great, guys! Gob bless!
Interesting
I always wonder what he writes as they speak.
+IcePrincess619 He's probably writing notes about what the caller is saying so that he can reply to it.
he can just be writing notes of the caller
A help to the memory.
it is important to support claims of quality of evidence by citing evidence rather than just stating that you have evidence, if a peson cannot evaluate the "evidence" then it has no value.
Thou shalt mix your audio unto both channels.
I have a question... if your beliefs are based off of history and evidence and reports and artifacts... why are many theologians of different faiths?
+Cameron Emery Because some people deny that certain things are true. For example, Protestants believe that certain books that are in the Catholic Bible shouldn't actually be there. Also, the same thing could be said of science. "If science is based off of history and evidence and reports and artifacts... why is there so much disagreement among scientists?"
*moot NOT 'mute'.
it's right because of 'feelings'. That's great, if you can ignore reality.
one point on Muhammad's lack of miracles - I was told while in conversation with an ex - Muslim that muhammad "cut the moon in half"
Oh, MY!
Yeah, I he does that every 14 days...
John Beasley search it up on google there is still a line in the moon
Let us also remember there are miracles from God to this day to confirm the right religion. Sincere people looking for information might want to search Lanciano miracle.
This may be a funny question, given that they are all contradictory, can't it be that those who believe they'll reincarnate will reincarnate and those who believe they'll vanish will vanish?
(disclaimer: not an atheist. just curious)
my thought *was* like this, to put it to an analogy let's say there's three groups of people; Group A, Group B and Group C. Group A believes there is only one God and people either get to to peace with God or be tortured for eternity. Group B believes in one God but a different one and that there are seven gates. Group C believes in many gods and reincarnation. My thought was that it is true for A that they have one God but B also has one God (you know like I have one mom and she has another mom) and I would be treated in accordance with my faith like as a Christian, heaven or hell. To the other they'll be reincarnated
i actually got this from possibly *misunderstanding* a passage in the bible saying something like "for we believe in one God, indeed there are many" and maybe I did misinterpret this for we believe there is literally only one God not that we christians have one and others have another. Thinking about this now, it's like I'm polytheist and chose to follow only one but that's false
Hard to tell which religion is really true when the "Loving" God of the true religion is negligent to simply reveal himself and the truth to everyone on earth so that they know for certain what the hell they're dealing with.
+Unclenate1000 I would disagree with your assertion. You say that God has not revealed himself. My response to that is that he has revealed himself in the properties of nature.
+Unclenate1000 Respectfully, may I offer a thought?
I get the issue - sure would be easy if Jesus would physically walk though my front door, show me the wounds in his hands, feet and side, and hand me an notarized Affidavit from GOD Almighty affirming his divinity, right?!?!!!!!
But he doesn't, or at least hasn't (yet) for me! ;-)
However, I think a lot of people would suggest to you that GOD actually Does reveal himself to us in a hundred different ways virtually every day, but we either ignore it, or we are oblivious to it, or if we do see it we attribute what we see (or feel or sense) to anything BUT GOD.
So is that on GOD, or on us?
Second, I think its worth noting that Jesus actually did reveal himself to humanity in a very tangible way, yet most who saw him with their own eyes still chose to attribute what they saw to anything BUT what he was. Similarly, centuries earlier, GOD revealed himself in very tangible ways every day for over 40 years to the entire nation of Israel during the Exodus and yet the same results obtained. People saw, and still did not believe. So history tells us, even if Jesus appeared to the entire world in a 100% tangible way right now, today, many would still refuse to believe.
As an aside, Its interesting to me that few of us question the secular events from antiquity - for example, was Socrates a real person, or just a "character" invented by Plato and Xenophon? Did Hannibal REALLY ride elephants over the Alps to attack Rome?
We have more historical evidence of the life of Jesus than we do of the life of Socrates, or of the specific military tactics of Hannibal (or of many other accepted stories from antiquity) and yet, many of us still dismiss Jesus as a "Myth".
Why?
Nearly all of Jesus' closest followers (the Eye-Witnesses to his life and ministry) died violent deaths rather than recant their testimony of Jesus. To my knowledge, that same level of sacrifice was not associated with ANY other story of antiquity. Plato didn't submit to execution rather than deny Socrates, did he?
But we accept Socrates at face value, and we question Jesus. Kinda interesting, huh?
Alec James Even if that's true it's easily debatable, and we basically either have to spend our life away researching ourselves or put blind faith in the historians who assert that over and against the historians who reject that. On top of that serious problem of uncertainty, not everybody in the world has even heard about any of this or at least enough of it. This is not at all fair. God would need to somehow make himself certainly and directly known to every single one of us. There is nothing positive about God being lazy and relying on just a few sets of private revelation and the tireless work of evangelists in order for most of us (and in the end, not even all of us) to come to know the truth of God.
This God cannot exist as his clear negligence to our spiritual and intellectual wellbeing contradicts the notion that he cares so deeply about us.
Im tired of these pointless guessing games that if he even exists, is clearly playing.
@Unclenate1000 I'm curious, what would constitute as God "revealing himself to the world," in your eyes? I think about this the same way you do from time to time, but it seems like you're making an awful lot of assumptions. For example, you're assuming that if God "revealed himself" the way that you would want him to, then the whole world would accept it and believe in Him. I would say that God has already revealed Himself in a multitude of ways (the Incarnation as one obvious example), yet there are still people like you that don't accept it. So again, what would you want? God could use the stars to spell out "I exist" or label every atom with "property of God". But who's to say that it's not some super advanced aliens manipulating the galaxy to mess with us? Even if God manifested himself as a man in the clouds, it could still be the aliens projecting that image into the sky or manipulating our sense of sight. That man could even be an alien himself. I guarantee you no matter what God did to "manifest" himself, there would still be just as many people that didn't believe.
The second assumption you're making is that God doesn't have a good reason for not revealing himself to the world. Christianity teaches that God gave all of us free will so that when we bow down before him, it would be of our own choice, out of love. God doesn't want slaves. When we choose Him, He wants us to mean it. Jesus said Himself, "I no longer call you slaves, but friends." So if God just made His existence clear to the world, then perhaps people would no longer have a choice but to fall down and worship Him. God desires for you and I to come to know Him in our own lives through personal relationship.
Lastly, the third assumption here (which I mentioned before) is that God has not already revealed himself. Like I said with the Incarnation, I think God making himself a man and being born into the world, and willingly handing himself over to be crucified is a pretty clear way of revealing Himself, yet still people reject Him. Also, if you don't think God has ever manifested or revealed His power, I highly encourage you to read the lives of the Saints. Some of them have done things in Christ's name that you won't read about in any science textbook. One recent example is Saint Padre Pio. You can see photographs of his stigmata (baring the wounds of Christ) as well as his incorruptible corpse. You can read numerous testimonies of his bi-location. And this is just one Saint out of thousands. Also read the testimonies of Lourdes, and the countless miracles that took place there, and how the host that when consecrated actually turned into human flesh, has been DNA tested numerous times, and has been confirmed to be actual human tissue. Miracles like these do exist, and are not countable. Would you honestly believe that every miraculous story of a Saints life or of a manifestation of Christ or his mother are just completely made up? These testimonies number in the hundreds, even the thousands. If you believe that every one of them is nothing more than a hoax, you have more faith than I do for believing in God.
So all in all, I would say that maybe the question you need to be asking is not, "why doesn't God reveal himself," but rather, "why doesn't God jump through MY hoops and reveal himself the way I want him to?" Anyway, I pray that God gives you the answers you're looking for friend, God bless.
In terms of what would constitute God revealing himself to all of humanity in a certain way, i'm honestly pretty open about how he should do that, and would leave it up to him, who supposedly knows full well how the human mind works, etc, more than i ever would. If you ask me, i was looking for something along the lines of how God periodically interacted With Adam, Moses and Abraham, where it's obvious to us that he's there because he's directly interacting with us and doing it often. Something like that, but that's not my point.
What ultimately matters is that just about everyone doesn't know for obvious certainty that God, and that particular god, exists, which is problematic when we try to say that this God cares about us and wants us to know him and care about him.
So it's not really about what particular method I think God needs to employ, it's that, somehow, the certainty that He's even real gets across to the whole world.
On another note, i find it fascinating that you bring up two very conventional arguments against my point, simultaneously, while these two arguments actually go against one another.
Basically on one hand, God won't make his existence obvious because it won't make a difference. No matter how hard God tries, people will still doubt just like they do now.
Yet, on another hand, God can't reveal himself because if he did, we would have to believe in him, it would dissolve our free will, all at the same time that people wouldn't care and would still doubt in the face of his presence. You obviously can't have both of these at the same time.
In the end, i think His negligence can only be well explained by the absence of his very being, rather than our vain, brain-racking attempts to justify his behavior, when it easily would've been condemned had one of us do it to another.
All that said, i appreciate your remarks and your time. Respectfully
The reason there a better recordings for the Christian religion is because it originated in the Roman empire, and then was the first scripture to be massively reproduced by the printing press.
Well i believe with my heart, and i think the only evidence can be found in faith and trust. I am Christian (my family as well) but ive always believed that other religions or atheism and agnostism are not nececariliy wrong, what matters if u have love in your heart and put it in your actions. Just like the heavenly Jerusalem has many gates, God loves everyone and has a plan for them.
Many people "Believe" that their religion is true, and they say that this particular religion of theirs is a religion of their independent choice. What is odd about this claim is that most of them follow the very same religion as do their parents. I mean, of all the religions out there in the world, by some inexplicable reason, they just happen to choose the very same religion yet still classify it as being an independent choice.
If you can see the truth of whether or not your religion is the true religion, then you can see truth. If you can not "see" truth, thus you must "believe" that your religion is the true religion instead, then what errors are you making that keep you from the truth.
I know my religion is the true one because Jesus has revealed its true
ALL legitimate evidence shows that the apostles wrote those manuscripts at least 30 to 60 years after Jesus. They were wrote anonymously and only later was there speculated as to who conceived them. There are ZERO primary sources for Jesus Christ, making his claim of existence a very very bad one in the eyes of historical validity. No historian would take the evidence there is for Jesus as a "good" probability of him existing. As a matter of a fact his claim is probably one of the worst claims of historicity ever excepted by folks.
You obviously have never heard of Josephus :P
+Wargames, Actually, the evidence for Jesus is much more closer to the actual event than any other historical figure of his time, I deny the 30 to 60 year time frame you state, I think it is a serious error. St Paul wrote within 20 years of His resurrection. Peace
+Wargames -- Are you willing to die for the full accuracy and veracity of your statement? Probably not (but maybe, who knows?); I imagine all of our lives are worth a heck of a lot more than laying it down for anything you or I might write on CZcams in a general sense? Ha! But I always found it interesting that among the apostles, wherein there are accurate records of their martyrdoms, why any one of them would be willing to believe in a lie of Jesus' resurrection, be willing to go through the tremendously personal counter-religious effort of making the Judaism they all knew and love not the primary religion in their hearts anymore, and why each would be willing to die for their testimony that they did see the risen Christ. Each could have spared his own life by denying it, if it in fact it were not true - and as from those apostles who were really intent on following God, denying it would be the right thing to do if they had not really witnessed the risen Christ. But, no one dies for a cause they know if false. As for primary works, which is somewhat separate from what I discuss above, there was immediate oral tradition and even primary literary pieces in the beginning years, which is demonstrated in scholarly biblical exegesis which show that the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke (the Synoptics) seem to have all depended upon an earlier literary work still (Q), given many similarities but also tell-tale differences in language and literary structure - so there is indeed demonstration that primary literacy pieces did predate the final Gospel renditions, even though the primary work may now be lost to history. In other words, zero primary works in the modern day doesn't mean there were never primary works, which careful scholarly study strongly supports there were, since distant writers depended on some common literary sources, which is more than evident. There are other examples of primary sources as well, including the historical bases for the historical accounts of Josephus, a secular historian, and other evidence, too. Just some thoughts in so limited space.
Thank you very much for such an instructive comments!
Dave Keene Prove it, because sources claim he did his writings in the 30s to 50s. Also, he had a vision of jesus lol...that is not proof kiddo.
He is right, but the bible in and of itself is contradictory without the help of other religions, hahah.
Jesus' story is not unique. So many attributes tied to him can be seen in numerous ancient pagan religions.