One of the things we come across in our spiritual life are questions about life, God, existentiality, the truth etc., and specifically for us in the Christian faith thoughts may have come along the lines of – is the God I believe in the true God? What if I find out later i.e. when it is too late that it was not Christianity which was the right path?
I will try to address these point based on secular and logical ways of reasoning. Hopefully this will help if anyone has any doubts and also help in terms of evangelisation / apologetics if you get involved.
Let’s begin by looking at it this way – what shows a thing to be authentic? An authentic item will be original, it will not be something which is copied.
If there is an original and if it is well known/famous you can always be sure however that there will be counterfeits or replicas of it. Take the Range Rover Evoque as an example, it is one of the famous cars in production, you will find there is an almost exact replica of it released in China called Landwind X7, it resembles the Evoque but obviously it is quite substandard in comparison. The drivetrain, the engine, materials, none of them match the quality of the Evoque. You can therefore conclude that there is a resemblance of Evoque in some ways but it is not the original, and therefore not authentic.
In a similar way, if one religion is original, can we expect to see a resemblance of it in other main religions? If it does i.e. if there is one religion/God who gets a mention directly or indirectly in other religions, can we logically assume that this one religion and/or God is the authentic one and the rest are counterfeits?
I’ll be going over 6 major/upcoming religions but before that let us look at Christianity.
Since we are all Christians here and I assume we know our Bibles well, we know definitely that there is no mention of any other religious figure/God either directly or indirectly in the Bible. There have been claims made by Muslim scholars that the Comforter (Melchizedek) mentioned by Jesus refers to Muhammad. However the writer of Hebrews blows this assumption out of the water since a clear description of Melchizedek is provided there – He is without father, without mother, without descent, has neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but is made like unto the Son of God; and abideth a priest continually. Muhammad had a father, mother, birth and death, so that cannot be.
So let’s go over the major religions and have a look.
Islam : Jesus is referred to in over ninety verses in fifteen surah’s of the Quran. Islam corroborates that Jesus was born to a virgin, was sinless, performed miracles, and was superior to other prophets.
Verses from the Quran on the following;
Virgin Birth: And ˹remember˺ the one who guarded her chastity, so We breathed into her through Our angel, ˹Gabriel, making her and her son a sign for all peoples. Surah 21.91
There is˺ also ˹the example of˺ Mary, the daughter of ’Imrân, who guarded her chastity, so We breathed into her ˹womb˺ through Our angel ˹Gabriel˺. 1 She testified to the words of her Lord and His Scriptures, and was one of the ˹sincerely˺ devout. 66.12
Sinless: One of Mohammad’s followers asked him if he could carry his sin for him. Mohammad admitted that he could not for the reason that he had his own sin to carry. At the same time, Mohammad confessed that Jesus alone of those born on earth was exclusively born without being touched by the devil. Who then, can bear your sin, if not the sinless sin-bearer who came to die for you, that you need never die?”
Abu Huraira reported Allah’s Messenger as saying: The Satan touches every son of Adam on the day when his mother gives birth to him WITH THE EXCEPTION OF MARY AND HER SON. (Sahih Muslim, Book 030, Number 5838; see also Book 033, Number 6429)
This will suffice, we know that Jesus gets a major mention in Islam.
Buddhism
Buddhism, a religion that more than 300 million people currently practice, was founded by Prince Siddhartha in the sixth century B.C. Having achieved enlightenment, he became known as Shakyamuni and preached a path of salvation to his followers.
Their holy book is Tripitaka.
I’ll make a quote from their scripture,
When Buddha was travelling and living in this world, there was an old Brahman priest who wore white robes who asked the Buddha, “How will all men and all Brahmins continue in their merit-making so as to escape the results of sin?” The Buddha answered, “Even though all of you give alms according to the 5 precepts, the 8 precepts, the 10 precepts, or the 227 precepts for 9 trillion years and you raise your hands and offer yourselves as a burnt offering, or you pray 5 times a day, you will still not escape the results of your sins. If you do this every day, your merit gained will only be equal to the smallest strand of hair of an unborn infant which is extremely small. You shall not enter heaven’s doors.”
The old Brahman priest asked further, “What are we all to do to be saved?” The Buddha answered the old Brahman priest, “The results of sin and karma are very great, heavier than the sky, thicker than the earth, and so high that it would be like an angel dusting the corner-posts of the temple compound with a cloth post that are 18 inches high – dusting them one time per year – until the posts were worn down to the ground. When the posts are worn down, that’s how long it would take to end your sins.”
The old Brahman priest asked further, “So what should we all do?” The Buddha answered, “Keep on making merit and look for another Holy One who will come and help the world and all of you in the future.”
Then the old Brahman priest asked, “What will the characteristics of the Holy One be like?” The Buddha answered him, “The Holy One who will keep the world in the future will be like this: in the palms of his hands and in the flat of his feet will be the design of a disc, in the side will be a stab wound; and his forehead will have many marks like scars. This Holy One will be the golden boat who will carry you over the cycle of rebirths all the way to the highest heaven (Nirvana). Do not look for salvation the old way; there is no salvation in it for sure. Quit the old way. And there will be a new spirit like the light of a lightning bug in all of your hearts and you will be victorious over all your enemies. Nobody will be able to destroy you. If you die, you will not come back to be born in this world again. You will go to the highest heaven (Nirvana).” ’
Here Buddha states that all the good works done over trillion years and many lifetimes will not be able to gain salvation, he asks the priest to wait for someone who will come and these are the signs,
- Design of disc in hands and feet – we know the nails hammered into Jesus’s hands and feet
- Stab wound to the side – we know Jesus was stabbed on the side when hanging on the cross
- Many marks like scars on forehead – we know about the crown of thorns
- New spirit – we know about the Holy spirit that was sent.
To conclude, the Buddhist scriptures directly point at Jesus.
Hinduism
Hinduism is the world’s oldest religion, according to many scholars, with roots and customs dating back more than 4,000 years. Today, with about 900 million followers, Hinduism is the third-largest religion behind Christianity and Islam.
Let’s look at few words from their holy books,
After creating the sky, waters, and the earth, the supreme spirit of the Lord almighty thought “I created the worlds. Now to provide for and to save these worlds I have to create a savior.” Thinking thus He gave birth to a man from himself. (Ithareya Upanishad 1.1.3)
“The word is the indestructible God.” (Brhadaranyaka Upanishad 4:1, 2).
The Supreme Leader who is the cause and governor of all creation who to protect and save sinful mankind, Himself appeared upon the earth wrapped in a body that is Holy and without sin. (Rigveda 10.125)
“The sacrificial victim is to be crowned with a crown made of thorny vines” (Rigveda 10.90.7, 15).
“His hands and legs are to be bound to a yoopa (a wooden pole) causing blood shed” (Brhadaranyaka Upanishad, 3.9.28).
“Before death, He should be given a drink of somarasa” [an intoxicating herbal juice] (Yajur Veda 31).
“None of His bones be broken” (Ithareya Brahmanam 2.6).
There is no need to explain the above, all of these refer exclusively to Jesus, no other religious figure in history can have any of these attributes or peculiarities ascribed.
Judaism
There is no need to explain much for this one, the Jewish scripture Torah has around 351 prophecies about Jesus.
An interesting aside – do you want to know the probability of 8 of these 351 prophecies being fulfilled by ONE person? Imagine filling the United Kingdom five feet deep with £1 pound coins and sending in someone blindfolded to find one marked coin. The chances of that person picking the correct marked coin in one go mirrors the chances of Jesus fulfilling just eight of the hundreds of prophesies that fill the Bible.
Let’s just say that Judaism refers to Jesus and leave it at that.
Atheism
This one is interesting.
Is atheism a religion? Religion means belief which atheists are dead against, but is not atheism a belief as well but a belief that there is NO God? The counter argument provided by atheists is that if we do not believe in something it does not mean it is a belief. We do not believe in unicorns and tooth fairies. We just do not believe in God just like these things, and hence it is not a belief system.
That does sound like a pretty good argument but the fact or reality is that atheists do not just not believe in God, they are actively and vociferously anti-God and religion.
However it does not make sense for atheists to be anti-God because they do not even believe in an entity called God. To explain with an example, we as human beings get angry and annoyed at various people during the course of our days, we may get annoyed at the weatherman because it was predicted to be sunny but it rains all day, we may get annoyed at the road workers causing massive blocks and traffic jams, get angry at tube drivers for striking on the day of your interview etc., but do we ever get angry at the unicorns? Ever? In your whole life? Never right? We would not because unicorns don’t exist!
Now do you want to take a guess as to which group of people get most angry or annoyed at God?
In 2011 a set of studies in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that atheists and agnostics reported most anger toward God either in the past or anger focused on a hypothetical image of what they imagine God must be like.
The group of people who at some point in their life got annoyed and angry at God the MOST is not the people who actually believe in God but those who do not believe in the existence of God, how is that even possible? Just like we would not get annoyed at unicorns, the same principle should be applied by atheists as well isn’t it? But apparently not.
There are many other arguments to prove that atheism is a belief system just like religion but let’s leave it at that.
Coming to our point, how does atheism validate Christianity?
I’ll mention some quotes from famous atheists,
The Bible did not arrive by fax from heaven. The Bible is the product of man, my dear. Not of God. The Bible did not fall magically from the clouds..”
― Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code
“If Jesus Christ were to come today, people would not even crucify him. They would ask him to dinner, and hear what he had to say, and make fun of it.”
― Thomas Carlyle
I think that God that we have created and allowed to shape our culture through, essentially Christian theology is a pretty villainous creature.
― Clive Barker
“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; capriciously malevolent bully.”
― Richard Dawkins,
“Do those people who hold up the Bible as an inspiration to
moral rectitude have the slightest notion of what is actually written in it?”
― Richard Dawkins,
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him will believeth in anything. – Hitchens 3:16”
― Christopher Hitchens
“The Bible may, indeed does, contain a warrant for trafficking in humans, for ethnic cleansing, for slavery etc etc…. but we are not bound by any of it because it was put together by crude, uncultured human mammals.”
― Christopher Hitchens
If you think that it would be impossible to improve upon the Ten Commandments as a statement of morality, you really owe it to yourself to read some other scriptures.
― Sam Harris,
These are some of the famous atheists, but have you noticed a point? There are no references here to Buddhism, Hinduism, the Quran, or Jainism or even new age religions like scientology, it is ALL directed at the Bible or Christianity. Sam Haris even goes to the extent of asking people to read other scriptures in his zeal to discredit Christianity.
What does that logically tell us?
People do not get angry and attack something which doesn’t exist, do they? Have anyone of you gone online and written angrily about unicorns? No right?
No one attacks something which doesn’t exist i.e. is fake, it is only the real/authentic thing which is attacked. That is why I believe atheism makes a case for Christianity in an indirect way.
And the last one..
Satanism
This is one of the fastest growing religion in the western world.
The Church of Satan is a religious organization dedicated to Satanism as codified in The Satanic Bible. The Church of Satan was established at the Black House in San Francisco, California, , April 30, 1966, by Anton LaVey.
This is one of the best proofs for Jesus/Christianity in my opinion.
What is the name of their place of worship? It is not a Satanic mosque or Satanic temple or Satanic gurudwara, it is called a Satanic Church. Their holy book? The Satanic Bible. Not a Satanic Quran or Satanic Upanishad or Satanic Torah.
All the writings in their book are contrary to the Bible or Jesus or Christianity.
Again can you see what this means logically? Satan/devil will only go against the true religion or God. There is no point in him going against Hinduism or Jainism or Buddhism because even though human beings are not aware, Satan perfectly knows who is the one true God and the one true religion. He would only want to oppose the true God.
So that covers the 6 religions I wanted to go over. In the beginning I mentioned about the counterfeits having something of the original in them. All the different religions have something of Jesus/Christianity in them, be it in a positive way like the Bhagvad Gita/Buddhism or in a negative way like atheism and satanic churches.
This is a huge topic but in this short writing I hope I’ve managed to convince you at least to some extent on the authenticity of Christianity and help assuage any doubt/unbelief that people including Christians might have.