The Realities of God and Faith

By: David Knoll

NOTE: This does not attempt to answer theological questions or topics about any of the faith systems herein; rather it is designed to address the inherent truths about many faith systems and of God. For questions regarding theologies within faith contact the author at apologeticselite@gmail.com or see other papers written by same author listed at end.

~The Great Question~

Does God exist? If he does, who is he? These are some of the most important questions a person can ask themselves. If these questions are not answered and explored then there is nothing else that matters as much in our lives. Any path we choose for our lives erupts from how we answer this.

~Truth~ I suggest that the first part of this question is the most important. Does God exist? If he does not, the rest is void. So does he? Many people have proposed many different reasons why or why not throughout the millennia. How can we sift through all the ideas to find the truth behind this question? If we are to begin anywhere it must be with that idea of truth. We must first explore what truth really is. Many propose that truth is relative and fluid. Others propose that truth is fixed, and that there is nothing that can change it. Webster tells us that truth means the quality or state of being true; that which is true or in accordance with reality. That seems to be a simple straightforward definition. This means that for something to be true it must be in accordance with reality. Reality does not change, only perception. So does the truth vary by the way someone sees it? Not in the strictest sense. Seeing something as true doesnt make it true or false. Only when contrasted to reality can we understand what is true and what is not. If I hold up a book and say I am the only person holding this book! That by default of being a true statement means that you are not holding it. You can hold a different book, or the same book later, but the truth of the statement cannot be changed. Absolute truth is real, objective, and exclusive. If one fact is true, the opposite cannot be true until the situation changes.

~The Existence of God~ Truth being exclusive, only one of the answers to the great question can be true. Does God exist? There are three great and conflicting ideas on this question. Either God doesnt exist (atheistic),

or he exists and has revealed himself to humans (theistic), or he exists and has not revealed himself enough to be known (agnostic). Regardless of what you believe on the issue, reality is what truth is based on, not sincerity of belief. So what does reality tell us about God? Lets look at one idea that utilizes what we know about the world. 1. 2. 3. 4. We exist. We are not responsible for our own existence. (Contingent beings) The universe exists. The universe will end (according to the laws of thermodynamics; all energy will eventually reach a state of perfect entropy and will cease to change form). 5. The universe cannot have always existed. Negative infinity (something that has always existed into the past) dictates that it must also have no end. Because we know the universe does have a foreseeable end, it cannot have existed into an eternal past. 6. Because we know that the universe exists and has a beginning and ending point, we know that the universe must also be contingent (not responsible for its own existence). 7. Since we know that all these things are contingent, there must be a necessary being (one that has neither beginning nor end, but exists outside of time; sometimes called the first cause or prime mover). This idea of a necessary being is what most people call God. The points here argue against the idea that a God does not exist altogether, but does not answer any of the questions about who God is. That leaves us with 2 of the proposed truths. God exists and has revealed himself to mankind, or God exists and had never revealed himself at all. How do we know? With all the religions out there, how do we know if there is a way to sift through them all and land on any of them over the others? There are a number of ways to maneuver through all the ideologies, but I think that a simple truth test for each religion is a good way to do it. Truth, as we have defined before, is something that conforms to reality. Thus, a true religion needs to conform to reality before we can even look at its validity of representing God. There are thousands of different religions out there and the task may seem daunting, but most of the belief systems are simple to test in or out. There is not enough space here to cover every single religion in the world, but I will cover the main faith systems below. First lets talk about how we test them. Do all things supernatural rule out a faith? Absolutely not, because if there is anything that God could do if he did exist, it is the supernatural. However, with that in mind, there are tenants of these faiths that may break the mold of supernatural into the realm of impossibility. So we test each of them to see what parts of the faith system go against the grains of reality and ring false. If there are enough false reality claims in each faith system we can logically conclude that God cannot be accurately represented within its beliefs.

~Mystery Religions/Pagan Faiths~ Most pagan faith systems take a once upon a time approach. These faiths can be sifted into one of two categories. Either they are true but there is absolutely no way to know because they offer no evidence or historical background, or they are false. With both of these scenarios being on the agnostic side of the coin, we can filter these all out of the category of conclusively true representations

of who this necessary being might actually be. These religions include the vast majority of the mystery religions, pagan religions, and cults in the world. Where does that leave us then? It leaves us mostly with Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Mormonism, Judaism, and Muslim (or any denominations therein). If all of these can be filtered out as false, then we can say that either God has never made sufficient contact with humans, or that mankind has simply misunderstood God when he did show up. Either way, that leaves us agnostic. However, if one of these turns out to be true, we will have to dig deeper into what that faith says about God.

~Eastern Faith~ Lets start with the eastern faith systems. Hinduism and Buddhism are the largest, and most eastern faiths branch out from one of these foundations. Do they teach anything that flies in the face of reality? The most common thing attributed to these faiths is the idea of reincarnation. We must be careful not to confuse their view of this with the romanticized western view of reincarnation, where it is made out to be some great and mystical thing. To be reincarnated is a bad thing in these faiths because it means that you did not reach enlightenment in your past life and must endure it all over again. The basic problem with this view is the same problem that exists with the view of an infinite universe. The belief that there is a cosmic vat of souls waiting to be born into human bodies and then enlightened and rejoined with the Brahma (essentially destroying all personhood) means that we have been trying to be enlightened for eternity past. There is an end point to the cycle of reincarnation. This end point means that there are only two options left. Either we will never reach enlightenment because we have had literally infinite time in the past to accomplish this, or we have already reached enlightenment (which is not true because we are still here on earth). This is fundamental in the way they understand God and the universe and cannot be, thus we conclude that these may be ruled out as a true representation of God.

~Judaism~ Mormonism, Christianity and the Muslim faith are all based strongly from Jewish tradition and religious history. So lets explore Judaism first. The Jewish scriptures tell narrative about Gods supposed interaction with the Jews throughout ancient history. The Jewish scriptures have lots of archeological and historical support for many of the events that allegedly happened. The Exodus from Egypt, the Babylonian captivity, the Persian invasion, the conquests of Alexander the Great, the Assyrian captivity, the rebuilding of Jerusalem, and many other events are all historically backed. However, what does this mean as to the claims of the God they support? What it does do however is to lay a good historical foundation for all the other faiths we are going to talk about. There are no glaring historical or reality errors (keep in mind that supernatural is not the basis for what we consider reality errors) in, what is commonly called, The Old Testament.

~Christianity~ So, with a firm base of history, other religions begin as a sort of offspring. The first of these major offspring to come into being was that of the Christian faith. Not originally called Christians, these were simply Jews who believed that the Old Testament prophesies concerning the Messiah who was promised to them by God had been completed in Jesus. So, does the Christian faith hold true when compared to reality? Christianity takes a stance different from that of many other religions in its approach. Far from being in a once upon a time fantasy setting, the writings about the life of Jesus and the early church are strongly rooted in historical events. They spell out times, dates and names of those living during this time as well as providing good historical background. It is very difficult to turn, what is commonly called, the New Testament down on grounds of historical inaccuracy. Take for instance the Gallic wars with Rome. We have 10 good manuscripts from that time in history and we say well, looks like this actually happened. As well we have the ability to look at archeology and see the repercussions of the conflicts that took place. For the New Testament we have more than 24,000 manuscripts and many date back to the first century. Supporting archeology continues to spring up to support the historic events claimed during those times. But what about its claims on God? If it is historically accurate, does that mean that it is right about God? Not necessarily, but it does filter it in as one to look at. We will discuss the merit of spiritual claims later.

~Islam~ The next that came up out of Judaism was that of the Muslim faith. With a root in what happened in the Old Testament, the man Mohammad claimed that he was given revelations directly dictated by God and delivered to him by his angel, Gabriel. These dictations are what were written into the Holy Quran (Transliteration: Koran). Taking this into account can be important for looking into the truth behind the claims made here. It is a great and powerful thing to claim that your holy book was not only inspired by, but actually dictated directly by God. This has great promise if it turns out to be true, but could be detrimental if any of it proves to be false. Most of the problems come from the errors it makes when siting history. For instance, it claims that Jesus was not crucified, flying in the face of the historical backing for his death. It also makes a significant error in the person of Mary, the mother of Jesus. The Quran 3 times confuses the ancient historical person of Mary, the sister of Aaron and Moses, with the mother of Jesus. Another glaring error is that in the accounting of Moses coming down from Mount Sinai with the 10 commandments, it claims that a Samaritan crafted the golden calf to misguide the Jews. However, apparently unknown to Mohammad, the Samaritans did not exist until the Assyrian captivity of Israel, a considerable amount of time after the events of Moses (more than 700 years later). These are only a few errors among many, but if the Quran was dictated by an Omniscient being then it would be impossible to have any of these errors about historical events. We can reasonably rule out Islam as accurately representing God.

~Mormonism~ Last faith system we are going to look at was born out of the Christian faith (and thus by extension the Jewish faith). The Mormon faith, aka The Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints,

shares a difficulty in nature with that of the Muslim faith. Joseph Smith claimed that he was directed by an angel of God to a place where tablets were hidden in upstate New York. These tablets had written upon them the history of God and the Jewish people after some of them had crossed the Atlantic Ocean and settled here in North America. The reason it shares a similar problem is that the tablets were not translated by himself in his knowledge of language, but rather were translated by God himself. This means that errors are a larger issue because they must be Gods errors. However, does it have any errors or does the Mormon faith make this claim because it is actually the real word of God? According to the book or Mormon, the Jews traveled across the Atlantic Ocean twice, once in about 2300 BC and again in 600 BC. Transatlantic travel was not possible until approximately two thousand years after the second date (15th century). Other major historical errors include the idea that the Jews created huge cities in North America, none of which has ever been found; or that the ancient Jews had steel, which was not invented until closer to 400 AD, nearly a thousand years later; or that there were horses and oxen on the Americas back then, which anthropology has shown did not exist there. There are a multitude of other historical errors fraught throughout the Book of Mormon and its other holy books, but with a reasonable amount of surety, we can see that it cannot accurately represent God.

~Exploration of God~ After our truth test for the above faiths, we are left with 2 major religions that may be true, Judaism and Christianity. They both have strong historical roots, and the histories do not fly in the face of reality. Does historical accuracy of the events mean that what each faith claims about God is true? I dont think that historical accuracy can tell us that they are true, but it is a good place to start. From there we must look for evidence that pertain to the claims it makes about God. When the evidence points strongly enough in a particular direction, that is something you should believe in. If you believe you can walk through a door, but every time you try you run face first into it, your belief should begin to reflect what the evidence is suggesting. What evidence then is there for the God described in the Jewish and Christian faiths? My particular favorite is prophecy. Humans cannot see or tell the future. We may be able to use our intellect to predict events in the near future, vaguely, but in the end these are educated guesses. There are a huge number of prophecies within the Jewish and Christian faith that we can pull from. These events span the spectrum from military campaigns and the highly specific and accurate prediction of the rise and fall of empires, to the life of Jesus, and all the way to the end of the world. In the Jewish scripture, long before they happened, the exact way in which the Babylonians (Nebuchadnezzar) would fall to the Persian advance (Cyrus) was prophesied. After that it predicts that Greece will rise up and conquer with great haste and then break up into 4 nations (Alexander the Great). After that it goes on further to predict the rise of the Roman Empire. Another great example is the prediction that the nation of Israel would be scattered around the world after losing their land, but that in one day it would become a nation again. Within this same day it would be fraught with the birth pangs of creating a country (wars) after being established. May 14, 1948: The United Nation gave over an area of land to the Jews to have as their own, their ancestral home, and in the same day it was recognized as a sovereign nation by other countries. In the same 24 hour period, after it was founded, it had war declared against it by Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Keep in mind that this was predicted about 2550 years prior.

Jesus life is one we can look back on as well. Hundreds of years prior to his life, there were dozens of prophesies regarding him. His place of birth, his actions, his ministry, his baptism, his death style, the manner in which he would be buried, the manner in which he would be treated after death; even 400 years prior to his birth, it was prophesied to the day when he would walk into Jerusalem. These are just a few examples of his life and the fulfillment of Old Testament scriptures. There are many, many more prophesies in the scriptures that have come to pass with surprising accuracy in history. No human mind can see into the future like this and so lends credence to the claims made by the prophets who laid down these predictions.

Other evidence for the authenticity of the claims made by Christians is the real life of Jesus Christ. His walk on this earth can be explored and seen by the entire world. What does his life tell us about God? When the Prophets claimed to speak for God, we can easily compare their statements to reality, like our tests of the faith systems above. If they all prove to be true, it leads us to believe what they say about God. Similar is that of Jesus. He made claims about himself that can only be one or the other, true or false. What does Jesus claim about himself and God and could he back it up? 1. He claimed to be God. 2. He claimed to be the full revelation of God to mankind, so that we may know who, what and why God is. 3. He claimed the power to even raise himself from the dead. These things are what we must look at. If he was God come in flesh to reveal truth about him to mankind, he would need to be able to back it up. Can he back up his claims about himself? When we deal with the miracle of seeing into the future, we can look at the events that took place in history to ascertain if they are true or false. When we look at the Jesus resurrection claims and say, Yes, it is reasonable that this happened.? We know a few things about the events that may shed some light on the situation. We know that Jesus lived between the times of around 4 BC and 33 AD, and that he was executed under the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate. After his death he was buried in a tomb owned by a Pharisee named Joseph and the tomb was then sealed. We also know that on the Sunday following his death, the tomb was empty by the testimony not only of his own followers, but also attested to by the Sanhedrin (the ruling body of the Jews). So what evidence is there that he was raised from the dead? Some evidence can be found in the followers of Jesus after his alleged resurrection. It is easy to convince a man of a cause and tell him to die for it, but it is a very hard thing to have a man die for a cause he knows is false. The remaining 11 disciples, as well has hundreds of others, did not have to be told of Jesus life for them to believe. They did not need a biblical study or a breakdown of the facts to think he was alive. They were in a unique position, unlike that of any other religion in history; they knew for certain one way or the other. They had little to no incentive to spread what they believed to other people. We see many cults and religions start up surrounding one man that grants him power and wealth. This is not the way that the early Christian Church started. A group of men who knew 100% if they were right or wrong, because they are living through the time, all lived lives of persecution, poverty, and death in almost every case (John was exiled rather than executed). Why would they do it? What could prompt a man to give up his life for a cause? That is a simple answer, because he believes it. If we can look back at them and say, Yes, they believed it, and these same people could know and not just believe, there is strong reason to believe along with them.

This is where things get a little bit tough. We must now look into our own lives and souls and say, the evidence strongly points into a specific direction, do I choose to accept that conclusion? That question plagues all of humanity daily. We have enough faith to accept that the Gallic wars were fought, that Alexander the Great conquered a vast empire, that the Romans existed, that George Washington crossed the Delaware River, and that Christopher Columbus sailed the Atlantic Ocean; all of these events we did not witness but we have enough historical evidence to accept them. Do we have enough faith to accept that which has so much reason for us to believe even though we didnt see it happen? If you do have the internal gumption to accept the evidences about God that are spelled out in his word, what do you do then?

~What now?~ This is where the rubber meets the road. Belief changes the way you act. For example, if I run into a room and yell FIRE, you can say I believe you, and just sit there. If you took this course of action what do you really believe? You said you trust what Im saying, but your actions show otherwise. So, when you said you choose to believe in Jesus then your actions should show it. It is time for learning and growing in knowledge from this point on. If you have any questions or even dissenting views, I can be reached at apologeticselite@gmail.com or read any of my other articles on religion and God.

Other papers from same Author: ~ The Nature of Salvation (Speaks on the way salvation works, and how its secured) ~ The Cosmological Argument (Speaks on the existence of God in simple terms and flowing logic)

More on the way! If you have any suggestions on topics youd like to see in the future, you can reach me at apologeticselite@gmail.com. Thank you guys for reading and always keep questioning!