This video is simple. It just explains what the symbols on the Contradict bumper sticker represent. It also explains that the sticker itself and it’s simple tagline, “They Can’t All Be True – John 14:6” doesn’t say which one is true. All it says is that they can’t all be true. To say that Christianity is true, more arguments must be given. I’m sort of tired of liberal, pluralists seeing the sticker and responding that the Contradict logo is arrogant and superior. Standing alone, it’s just logical.
Category: Contradict Movement
Significant Discoveries from Studying Other Religions #3
I gave a test to students on an overview of what religions are, Hinduism, and Buddhism, and for many of them it was the first time they had studied a religion other than Christianity. I asked a question at the end of the test for extra points: “Explain the most significant piece of religious information that you’ve learned so far this semester from this class and how it has impacted you.” Here was one response:
I learned so much from these chapters, since I am from Asia where Buddhism is a great influence. I always wanted to learn about this religion. However, I never knew that they don’t have God and that their teachings have mostly to do with one’s self. This was kind of shocking to me because I have believed in God my entire life and couldn’t imagine how a religion could exist without believing in God. Also, the eight characteristics common with religions helped me to define religion easily. I actually had an opportunity to talk to a friend in Life Group who is Buddhist. She said her family is not vegetarian and goes to the temple only for special events. Talking with a friend of another religion was fun because now I know some key terms from their teachings. However, I knew more about the Buddha’s words than her. I learned that knowing other religions’ teachings makes it easier to evangelize people.
God is too big to fit into one religion – rebuttal.
This is an interesting concept. God is too big to fit into one religion. If this were true, it’d means that every religion is wrong about their view, or lack of a view, of the divine (God).
This is ultimately saying that God is unknowable from one religion alone, and since the teachings of the various religions contradict each other, combing them all into one God-smoothie doesn’t help matters.
Wrong #1 – Christianity, as well as some other religions, claim that God is omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent. How can God be bigger than that? Is it even possible for a God to exist bigger than a God that is not restricted by time, space, or matter, who is not limited in any ability to do as he wills, he has complete and perfect knowledge of everything, and always acts in ways that are wholly good? I don’t think so. Therefore, it’s completely possible that God can fit into one religion.
Wrong #2 – Religions aren’t containers. They don’t contain God. They’re not boxes that somehow, God conveniently fits into, although some religious adherents treat their religions as such. Religions offer revelations and explanations to who God is. It’s committing a category error to say that “God is too big to fit into one religion.”
Significant Discoveries From Studying Other Religions #2
As a “freebie” question at the end of a test on Hinduism and Buddhism I gave the following question: “Explain the most significant piece of religious information that you’ve learned so far from this class and how it has impacted you.” Here is one high school student’s answer but to understand his answer you might need to be familiar with Buddhism’s 4 Noble Truths and the 3 Marks of Reality:
The most significant piece of religious information that I’ve learned so far from this semester is about the 4 Noble Truths and 3 Marks of Reality in Buddhism. I disagree with the 3 Marks of Reality because God doesn’t change, he has a permanent identity, and has released us from suffering by dying on the cross. Also, I agree that desire will end in suffering, but to live is not to suffer. God gave us lives as a gift, not for us to plainly suffer. We are free from suffering when we faith in Jesus, not when we follow the 8-fold Path. This impacted me because I don’t have to follow a certain rule in order to be saved. Also, I was grateful that I don’t have to view living as equal to suffering.
Ephesians 2:8-9 – What is the object of saving faith?
A song that I really despise is Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing.” I don’t even know if that is the name of the song, but I’m sure anyone reading this will know the song I am talking about. Usually if I mention a song, I’ll add a Youtube clip of the song to the blog, but in this case, no, no I will not! I don’t know the song well enough to even begin to tell you the context of the chorus, but it seems like what is called fideism, which is essentially faith stands alone apart from reason or philosophy. Faith trumps all. Just believe. Just have faith. Faith in faith. But what’s the object of the faith? Don’t stop believing, Journey? Don’t stop believing in what?
I watched the worst Liam Neeson movie, The Grey, in a movie theater. I know anyone else who has shared this experience is probably cringing right now. That movie – that movie – oh man… it was bad. In a holy crap we are all about to die talk around a fire, the one character in the bunch who seems to believe in God, although we don’t learn which God, he seems more like a Deist, because God forbid there is a strong Christian character in a Hollywood movie, tells Neeson’s character, “What about your faith? You got to have faith. You can’t lose faith” I wanted to puke – Faith in what? Faith in whom? “Just don’t stop believing?” And most people probably have no problem with this, because they don’t realize that who, or what, we have faith in matters! Pluralism has made all beliefs co-equal and co-valid. The sincerity of your faith doesn’t matter! It’s the dependability of the object of your faith!
A famous saying that emerged from the Reformation is “By grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone by Scripture alone with glory to God alone.” This is pulled from Ephesians 2:8-9. However the word Christ, or Jesus, is not found in these two verses. Christ is implied, and to the implication comes from the rest of Scripture. Enjoy looking these verses up and I pray that the Holy Spirit will create, work, sustain, and strengthen faith in your life!
Ephesians 2:8-9 (New International Version)
8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast.
Faith in what, or whom?
Galatians 2:21
Romans 4:5
Romans 3:21-24
Romans 3:28
2 Timothy 1:9
Hebrews 11:6
Galatians 2:16
Titus 3:7
Andy Wrasman 