This episode explores the fog of Gods that represents the world’s various religions and points out the uniqueness of Christianity. Is the “something” we have begun to suspect is the ultimate cause of the universe actually a “Someone”? And is that “Someone” the Christian God? How can we possibly decide when there are so many religions which propose such a plethora of different Gods? This episode provides a brief, incisive comparison of the world’s religions and explains why Christianity stands out from them all.
VIDEO & AUDIO FILES
VIDEO PRESENTATION: A FOG OF GODS
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TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to Episode 15 of Evidence For Belief, a series which examines the evidence for the existence of God. So far in this series, we’ve examined evidence which points very strongly to a supernatural origin to our universe. Something beyond nature has created nature. And we’ve deduced that this “something” has to be both incredibly intelligent and incredibly powerful.
In the last couple of episodes we’ve then looked at the moral code that seems to have been built into mankind – an intrinsic, universal sense of good and evil. And this, in turn, leads us to strongly suspect that the “something” that created us might actually be a “someone” – and in particular a “someone” who is characterised by moral goodness and who desires that same moral goodness for his creatures.
So all this evidence has led to the proposition that the best explanation for the universe is the existence of a being who is all-powerful, supremely intelligent, morally good, transcendent (meaning beyond nature). And let’s name names here – I’m talking about a deity – a God – of some kind. The evidence so far suggests that some kind of God is the best explanation for our universe and, indeed, our own existence within this amazing universe.
Now, of course, I’m not the only person to have reached this conclusion. Billions of people on our planet have come to the conclusion that there is a God behind everything, and that he or she or it is to be worshipped somehow. In fact, despite the growth of secularism within some western nations, belief in a God of some kind is still the overwhelming view of mankind.
The most recent figures from various research bodies indicate that a whopping 84% of the world’s 8 billion people (as of 2024) believe in a divine Creator and subscribe to some kind of religion.
But that’s not the impression you get from the media is it? The aggressive atheistic movement would have us believe that belief in God is now the minority viewpoint, but the opposite is true. The vast majority of people on our planet are convinced that the universe didn’t create itself. Most people still belief that there is a God behind it all, and mankind overwhelmingly seeks to worship that God somehow.
But therein lies a problem. Because there are an estimated 4,300 different religions around the globe, and they all have different theories about what this supposed god (or gods in some cases) is like. And they worship him or them or it in different ways.
So, what are we to make of this, and how can we find our way through this fog of Gods and the plethora of religions? How can we reach any definitive conclusions about what this God is like and how we ought to worship him? I’m not going to do a full-blown analysis and comparison of the world’s major religions here. That’s a 20-part series in itself! But I do want to make just a couple of brief points.
Firstly, the various religions can’t all be right, because they all contradict each other at key points. Even taking the six major world religions of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism they contradict one another at key points such as their belief about the nature of God, the nature of mankind, the meaning and purpose of life, life after death, and the process of salvation. They all teach completely different things about those key issues and many other issues as well.
Let me give you a few examples. In regard to the nature of God, Hinduism accommodates polytheism – the worship of a pantheon of Gods, Buddhism denies the existence of a personal God, instead embracing a sense of the divine in everything and everyone, and while Christianity, Judaism and Islam agree that there is only one God, yet their views of God’s specific character are quite different.
In regard to the path to salvation, Christianity teaches that salvation is an undeserved gift of God’s grace, Islam teaches that it is earned through faith and good deeds, Hinduism teaches that it is earned through the multiple paths of devotion, knowledge and discipline, while Buddhism advocates an eightfold path to enlightenment.
In regard to the afterlife, Christianity and Islam teach that there is an eternal heaven and hell (although the path to those two destinies is quite different in their respective teachings), and Hinduism and Buddhism teach a series of reincarnations in this life until a person eventually ascends to the a metaphysical plain.
In regard to ethics and morality, the three monotheistic religions, Christianity, Islam and Judaism, teach absolute moral standards handed down by a law-giving moral God, whereas Hinduism and Buddhism teach karma and dharma which tend to emphasise contextual morality rather than absolute morality.
And finally, in regard to authority and revelation, all the major religions have very different sacred texts which claim to be infallibly inspired yet they all contradict each other at many points.
So, the point is, all the various religions of the world can’t all be right, because they regularly and profoundly contradict each other. In fact, from a purely logical perspective, there are only two possibilities: either NONE of them are right, or at best, only one of them is right, but they can’t all be right.
So, how do we decide? Is there any objective way of deciding? Is there any way of sifting through the fog of conflicting teachings and beliefs and arriving at some kind of clear position?
Well, this brings me to my second point. It’s not about what suits you best: which religion you like the best. In fact, that is THE most irrelevant issue. It’s got to be about TRUTH! It’s got to be about what is actually true, rather than what I want to be true or what ideas I like the best. Because if there is a God, he exists particularly and definitively. He has a particular character and a specific reality.
God is not whatever we want him to be. He has a definitive reality and we either get it right or we get it wrong – or we get it partly right and partly wrong – but the point is that God’s particular reality is unaffected by what I want him to be like or how I prefer to think of him. You might like to think of God as a pink fluffy being made of candy floss who lives on Alpha Centauri, but if God ISN’T like that, then your belief is wrong and it does you no good at all. In fact it is potentially very dangerous because at the very point where you think you’ve got it right, you’ve got it completely wrong and you’re not worshipping God as he really is.
And that brings me to the third point. The TRUTH about God can ultimately only be discovered if he reveals himself to us. Because unless God reveals himself to us, all we have are 8 billion different opinions about God and no way of knowing which if any of those is right. Unless God communicates himself to us in some way, we are all completely in the dark, because God, by very definition, is a transcendent being who exists beyond the limitations of our physical world. And we can all sit under a tree like Buddha did and contemplate the meaning of life, the universe and everything for the rest of our days, we can gaze at our navels until the cows come home, and it will do us no good whatsoever, because all we’ll still have at the end of it all is 8 billion different opinions and no certainty. We’ll all still be guessing.
What we really need, what we desperately need, is for God to show up and say, “Here I am, this me, this is what I’m like, this is what you’re like, this is the meaning of life, this is how I want you to live, this is what happens after you die and this is how you can please me and live in right relationship with me, now and forever.” That’s what we need! We need God to turn up and blow away the fog of our various guesses and say, THIS is the truth!
Which brings me to my fourth point. God has already done this: he has actually revealed himself to us in time and space, and Christianity is the record of that historic revelation. Now that’s a big claim, but let me unpack that a little more. Of all the religions in the world Christianity alone provides us with a verifiable historical record of God actually turning up on our planet. I’m talking about the person of Jesus, who came into our world at a specific point in history and effectively declared to us:
“Here I am. I am God in the flesh, this is what I’m like, this is what you’re like, this is the meaning of life, this is how I want you to live, this is what happens after you die and this is how you can please me and live in right relationship with me, now and forever.”
Jesus did exactly what we needed God to do. And because of this, Christianity provides us with the most particular, the most detailed and consistent teaching about God and the meaning of life.
There are many ways in which Christianity is unique amongst all the world’s religions, but the most fundamental and important is that it is based upon God’s particular revelation to mankind by means of his actual physical appearance on our planet. He turned up and showed himself to us. No other religion claims this.
A couple of the other religions acknowledge Jesus’ life and ministry, and even the possibility of his resurrection, but they deny his ultimate divinity and, therefore, choose to ignore or downplay his several clear claims to be God in the flesh. They deny Jesus’ divinity and prefer their own teachings and religious guesses. All the other religions were birthed in a fog of guesses and vague imaginings. But Christianity offers the crystal-clear perspicacity of God’s personal visit to our planet.
Now that’s a big claim, isn’t it? But can I back it up?
Well, over the next few episodes we will be examining the HISTORICAL evidence for the claims of Christianity and for the person of Jesus in particular. And over the course of these next few episodes, I hope to show you that the “Someone” whom we have come to suspect is the instigator of our universe is, in fact, the God of the Christian Bible, revealed most clearly to us in the person of Jesus.
So stay tuned, because we are about to dive into the historical evidence that points us to the true God of Creation who once personally and physically visited us and lived among us.
For more information, you can check out my books, 7 Reasons to Believe and No More Monkey Business, along with a whole bunch of my other books, available from my website, smartfaith.net, where you can also subscribe to my weekly blog.