In the blog post “My story”, I tell how in one of the deepest valleys of my life I had wondered if God existed, while being a Christian. As a result, I started my search for God from scratch. In particular, I wanted to adopt a more scientific approach. Fortunately, google and Youtube are good tools that helped me with my search.
Does God exist?
I started my Journey with this question. It is a question that a lot of people have to deal with. However, there is enough evidence to show that there is a God as well as to deny his existence. In the end it comes down to one thing, what do you believe. Even scientists have to make a choice in what to believe, since they also cannot prove that God does not exist. I will elaborate on this topic in another blog post.
Different religions
So personally I have decided to believe that God exists. But then there are different religions that all claim to have the truth. Which one should I follow?
I could also clearly see at some point that the different religions could also be categorized. Here a small take of all the religions in the world to illustrate. The list is off course much larger.
Focused on one creator of the universe:
- Christianity
- Islam
Focused on multiple gods or human
- Hinduism
- Buddhism
Even science says that if God existed, we are talking about an intelligent being who designed the universe. This can be seen from the fact that in the universe everything has a purpose to exist. To me it is actually already clear that we are talking about only one creator of the universe. Then only Christianity and Islam remain and the other religions can be excluded.
The history of Islam
Islam means “submission to the will of God” and originated in the seventh century. This makes Islam the youngest of the largest religions in the world. Prophet Muhammad is the founder of the Islam religion.
The history of Christianity
The name Christianity is derived from the name of Jesus Christ. Specifically, it is based on following the teachings of Jesus Christ. To be clear, this is a name given by none believers to the followers of Christ, it is not a biblical name.
You can say that Christianity actually originated after the death and resurrection of Jesus. That’s about 2000 years ago.
So Why Christianity?
I have now limited the religions to Christianity and Islam. The question now is which of the two is the right one. I also had to collect evidence to be able to answer this question. Now here are some arguments I’ve gathered to support my choice.
The way Muhammad received the gospel
When meditating in a Cave on Mount Hira, he saw the angel Jibril who revealed Allah’s message to him. But in Galatians 1:8 the Apostle Paul says the following, Let God’s curse fall on anyone, including us or even an angel from heaven, who preaches a different kind of Good News than the one we preached to you. So to me the apostle Paul already warned us about this, since Paul had already lived before Mohamad when he wrote this verse.
Muslims claim that Muhammed was prophesied in the bible
Actually, I should devote an entire blog post to this part. The Muslim community uses a handful of bible verses to actually speculate that they speak of Muhammad. But many scholars indicate that none of these verses speak of Muhammad. That is why I take what the apostle Paul says in Galatians 1:8 very seriously. So I am convinced that none of the verses that the Muslims use actually talk about Muhammad.
Jesus is mentioned in the Quran
Not only Jesus but also Mary and even Moses and Abraham are mentioned in the Quran. The Quran describes Jesus as a prophet who did miraculous things during his time here on earth. Even the fact that he will come back is mentioned. The differences are, that Jesus is not described as the son of God, nor that he died on the cross.
There is no historian who question the existence of Jesus
- There is more written documents about Jesus than anyone who lived in that period. Not only the bible itself but also other sources then the bible.
- Different people wrote about Jesus, his disciples and even Muhammad in the Quran. This makes a strong case for his existence and the validity of the Bible.
The resurrection of Jesus
Several people witnessed that Jesus died and resurrected. To be specific, that were the disciples and more than 500 people. Skeptics say that those people were hallucinating, but the thing is that hallucination is something personal like a dream. When people are hallucinating at the same time, each person sees something different. If several people have seen the same thing, it is not possible to speak of hallucination anymore but a fact. Most importantly about the resurrection is the fact that it shows that Jesus was not just any prophet, but the son of God.
God’s love for mankind
Perhaps this one is a bit more difficult to understand. But only in Christianity is God’s love for man central. With the birth and resurrection of Jesus, God wanted to show mankind that he loves us so much that he is willing to sacrifice his only son so that we can be saved. Without a doubt, Jesus accepted the task of going to the cross for our sins.
The discussion about the existence of God is more heated than ever among scientists
Like mentioned at the beginning of this post, there is enough evidence to proof that God exists as to proof that the big bang theory the beginning of the universe is. A large group of scientists believe in the existence of a deity(higher power or creator). To be exact, that is about 51 percent of the scientists worldwide. But not all of the scientists that believe in a deity believe in God. Only about 33% believe in God. As more research is done and thus more evidence is collected, this naturally creates more discussion among the proponents and opponents.
The bible itself
Now a days you have a lot of self-help books. They can be Christian as non-Christian. What interesting is, that a lot of life lessons used in self-help books are already described in the bible. Sometimes even some bible verses are used to illustrate what is taught.
The exodus
The bible describes that at a certain time, the people of Israel were kept captive in Egypt. So God came with a plan to rescue his people out of Egypt. An exodus out of Egypt of a large number of people occurred. Such a large migration of people should have left a lot of proof an scientists have found a lot of evidence that can proof that the Exodus occurred. But there is a problem, the timeline of their findings didn’t match with the biblical timeline. Because of this a lot of scientists reject the fact that these findings are evidence of the exodus.
Hugh Ross
One of the scientists I started following was Hugh Ross. He is an Canadian astrophysicist who had written several books and taught at different universities. The most interesting thing about him was his testimony. He describes converting to Christianity after comparing evidence about the creation of the universe with scripture found in the bible. To him there is no religious book such as the bible that could describe it better.
Eudaimonic happiness
Jesus wants our happiness too. He teaches the eudaimonic happiness. It is a happiness build on fulfilling your purpose here on earth instead of seeking only pleasure. Even if God and Jesus didn’t exist, I’m doing well if I follow the teachings of Jesus described in the bible.
To be honest, none of these proofs are solid. Still for me it is enough. We cannot be certain of anything in this world. So we need to try to find as many evidence there is and keep an open mind. A lot of people want to experience God. That is a nice thing to look for. But God says also this in Psalms 46:10, Be still, and know that I am God. To me that means that we need to look for evidence about his existence and character and not only rely on the fact that we feel his presence or not. We need to know that he exists and what his nature is. But this does not mean that we cannot feel his presence.
Sources
- The Bible
- https://www.history.com/topics/religion/islam
- https://www.history.com/topics/religion/history-of-christianity
- https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief/
- https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/exodus/exodus-fact-or-fiction/
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