| (1) What Do People Believe | ||
1. The World Religions (3) |
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Investigating the Other World Views
It is not my intention to offend or demean anyone who is not a Biblical Christian. The only reason to research other religions is to investigate their historicity and the evidences for their foundations. Are they based on historical, verifiable evidence? How have their teachings and writings been preserved and passed on over the ages? What did their founder (if applicable) claim as his source of revelation? Are their claims about God, their founder, and his teachings consistent with scientific observations and secular historical sources? To facilitate comparison of various worldviews from an apologetics point of view, we will discuss the following topics about each of the major world religions:
- Background.
A bird’s-eye overview of some current statistics,
including origins, history and demographics.
- Beliefs
about God. What do they believe about God’s existence,
nature, and character.
- Basic
teachings. The core beliefs, values and teachings especially
about life, salvation and the afterlife.
- The
founder. Historical setting, background, life and teachings
of the founder.
- The
writings. What are the sacred writings, how did they come
about, how are they preserved, are they historically reliable?
- Comparing
to Christianity. What are the similarities and differences
with Christianity?
- Conclusions
from an apologetics perspective. Are the claims and
teachings consistent with, and supported by, the scientific and
historical facts and observations?
In subsequent chapters we will thus investigate Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam.
The Roots of the World Religions
What about Judaism?
If we think about Judaism
we tend to think about
Judaism is significantly small overall; there are perhaps only 15 million Jews worldwide. In the context of this book we cannot discuss Judaism in-depth. Nevertheless Christians should not forget that the first Christians were Jews by descent and that the Christian faith is based on Judaism, they both share the same Old Testament. The difference lays in the person and role of Jesus, the Messiah. For Jews the Messiah still has not come, for Christians the Messiah “completed” Judaism.
Lastly, the state of
Read on about: The Flavors of Christianity
[1] Data for the world religions is from www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html and www.religioustolerance.org/worldrel.htm, data is based on surveys in the 2001-2005 period.
[2]
Data for the
[3] Fritz Ridenour, So What’s the Difference (2001), pages 35-36. This principle is often also referred to as “Sola Scriptura,” a Latin phrase coined during the Protestant Reformation, literally meaning “Only Scripture” or “Scripture Alone.”
[6] Data from The World Factbook 2004, published by the CIA.
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