Gilbert Thurston

Random Thoughts About Life, Ministry and Whatever Else Happens to be on my Mind

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Aren’t All Religions the Same?

January 23, 2014 by Gilbert Leave a Comment

This is a pretty common question and it’s sometimes asked this way…”Don’t all paths lead to God”?  Or sometimes people will say, “Each of us should be free to connect with God however we feel?”  Now to that last one, yes we all have the freedom to choose our own religion but that doesn’t make them all the same or equally right.

Let’s start this conversation by acknowledging that in many of the major world religions there are some basic morality issues that all have in common.  Things like, don’t lie, cheat, steal, murder, etc. are widely held beliefs even amongst people who choose to not follow or practice a religion.  However, the argument that all religions are the same and that no matter which you choose will ultimately get you to God is simply false.

  • Some claim there is no God, others that there is one true God and others believe that there are 1000’s of gods.
  • Some say that we are made in the image of God, while others believe that one day we can become God.
  • Some claim that at death we cease to exist, others that all go to be with God, others that heaven or hell await all, others that we will be reincarnated and still others that we will go to a place of utopia.
  • Some say there is no such thing as sin, others that only God can forgive sin and still others that say we must do good deeds to overcome the bad that we’ve done.

The above is just 4 issues of many where it’s impossible to say, “Oh all religions teach the same thing”.  Obviously they don’t, so now we get back to the issues we’ve talked about in previous weeks.  If you haven’t already read my posts on intolerance and how Christianity can be mathematically proven. Please do so now…don’t worry…I’ll still be here when you get back.

Going back to 2+2.  The only correct answer is 4.  You can’t say that there are other correct answers or that if someone else gives a different answer that they are equally right.  No!!!  2+2=4, it always has and always will.  So when it comes to religions, all claim to be the truth, but as we have seen, all claim something different.  So then it comes down to, can any of them be proven as correct?

The answer if yes!  Now all will claim that they can, but only Christianity can back that up.  And it’s done in 3 ways…

1.  Personal stories of life change:  Now this is actually not a great way because all religions can share stories of how people’s lives have been changed.  This one is very subjective so it’s the least reliable way to prove anything.  In fact, this one actually doesn’t prove anything at all but I wanted to throw this out because many people will try to use this as to why their religion is the correct one.  The problem though is just because you are sincere about something doesn’t mean that you are not sincerely wrong.  If you’ve been taught all your life that 2+2=5, it doesn’t matter how sincere you are in that belief the fact is you still have the wrong answer.

2.  Archeology-  This is where you begin separating Christianity from all the other religions (with the exception of Judaism, their Torah and our Old Testament are the same).  For years the stories of the Old Testament and New Testament have been labeled by many as nothing more than fairy tales.  But yet each year as more and more archeological work is done, the digs result in finds that back-up the times, places, people and events that the bible records.  Many critics of the spiritual claims of the bible now readily admit that as a history book the bible is pretty accurate in what it records.

3.  Predictive Prophecy-  This goes back to my post about math and the astronomical odds of all those prophecies in the bible just merely being chance.  Again if you haven’t read that post, please do so now.  Ok, now that you’ve done that, let me point out that Christianity is the only world religion to have something like this, with the exception being Judaism and Islam.

Again the Jews Torah is the same as our Old Testament and there are other prophecies that were predicted and fulfilled in the Old Testament times that we both acknowledge was the handiwork of God.  However, the Jews somehow take the hundreds of prophecies that Jesus fulfilled and say, “Nope He’s not the right man, someone else will need to fulfill them”.  Now to be fair, most Jewish people have just been told by their leaders that Jesus isn’t the promised Messiah and haven’t been presented with the facts like I laid them out.  In fact, I’ve helped led a couple of Jewish people into a relationship with Jesus just by simply reading some scriptures to them and then asking, “Who were they referring to?”  They say, “Your Jesus.”  I then ask, “How do you explain that?”  Of course they ask, “Explain what?”  I then say, “Well everything I just read to you was from your Torah”.  All along they assumed I was reading from the New Testament, when in fact I was reading from the Old.

Islam also has a few predictive prophecies in the Qur’an.  Muhammad on multiple occasions told his Muslim troops that they would have victory in battles, which they subsequently did.  However, what good general doesn’t tell his troops that they will have victory?  Also, Muhammad predicted that he would return to Mecca.  However this is called a self-fulfilling prophecy.  It would be like me saying, “I’m going to go to Florida for vacation this summer”.   Now it’s possible that it might not happen, but largely the outcome of that is influenced by me.  In any case, these types of prophecies that Muhammad made are not even close to the statistical improbability that we’ve seen that Jesus fulfilled.

So are all religions the same?  No.  Which means they all can’t be equally true.  Is there a way for one of them to be proven true?  Yes.  But you still have freedom of choice.  I pray that you choose wisely.  For further study I suggest the book, “The Case for Christ” which details an investigative reporters own personal journey in determining if there is enough scientific and other data to prove the bible and the claims of Jesus.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Archeology, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Personal testimony, predictive prophecy, Theological Thursday

What Do Jesus and a Russian Spy Have in Common?

January 9, 2014 by Gilbert Leave a Comment

My post last week on Why Are Christians So Intolerant turned out to be quite popular.  It was interesting to watch it statistically spread, first throughout the USA and then into, as of today, 23 other countries.  I’ve been following some of the comments and one gentleman said something to the effect of, “I’m glad he found Jesus if that’s working for him, but his claim that Christianity is an absolute truth is inaccurate because it can’t be mathematically proven like 2+2=4 can.”

Today, I want to show why that is not an accurate statement, but first a story.  During the 1940’s, a U.S. Army Sergeant by the name of David Greenglass was working on helping the U.S. to develop the atomic bomb.  What no one knew at the time though was that Greenglass was also working as a spy for the Russians.  For 2 years he passed along top secret information by working with couriers.   Finally though, under a cloud of suspicion, he needed to make his escape to Mexico where he would then be given means to get to Czechoslovakia.  For this to work though it would require working through other spies stationed in Mexico.  Here are the instructions Greenglass was given along with a form letter that would help pull all this off…

Upon David’s arrival in Mexico City, he was to send the letter to the Soviet Embassy and sign it “I. Jackson.” Three days later after he sent this letter, David, carrying in his hand a guide to the city with his middle finger between the pages of the guide, was to go to the Plaz De La Colon at 5 p.m. and look at the statue of Columbus there. He would wait until a man came up to him, when David would say, “That is a magnificent statue,” and tell the man that David was from Oklahoma. The man would then answer, “Oh, there are much more beautiful statues in Paris,” and would give Greenglass a passport and additional money. David was to go to Vera Cruz and then go to Sweden or Switzerland. If he went to Sweden, he was to send the same type of letter to the Soviet Ambassador or his secretary and sign the letter “I. Jackson.” Three days later, David was to go to the Statue of Linnaeus in Stockholm at 5 p.m. where a man would approach him. Greenglass would mention that the statue was beautiful and the man would answer, “There are much more beautiful ones in Paris.” The man would then give David the means of transportation to Czechoslovakia, where upon arrival he was to write to the Soviet Ambassador advising him of his presence.

Now I told  that story for a simple reason.  Notice the details that went into making sure the correct man was identified.  I count 7, some of which I’ve lumped together.

  1. A particular letter had to arrive at the Soviet Embassy.
  2. That letter had to be signed I. Jackson.
  3. The meet up had to be exactly 3 days later.
  4. He had to be carrying a particular guide.
  5. He had to have his middle finger tucked into it
  6. This all had to take place at a specific place , time and statue.
  7. The conversation had to be exactly as described.

This was all done to ensure that there was absolutely no mistake in identifying the proper man.  A random person may get lucky and have 1 or 2 or 3 of these characteristics thus temporarily confusing the spies,  but to get every detail correct would mean it was all a part of the plan and you had found the right person.

You’re going, “Ok Gilbert, but what does this have to do with absolute truth?”  I know you want to get there, but indulge me with one more thing.  What if today I was able to tell you in detail about your great-great-great-great-great-(and a few more greats)-grandchild who will live 400 years from now.  Let’s say I gave the location of their birth, when they will be born,  what their name will be, what they will do for a living, where they will live, the name of their spouse, when they will  die, and how they will die.  8 things in all.  If somehow today we were able to know that I accurately predicted all of those things, you’d go, “Gilbert that was amazing!  How did you do that?!  I mean what are the odds?”

Well actually someone has figured that out.  Dr. Peter Stoner and 600 of his students in the Math Department at Pasadena City College,in the 1950’s, put the odds at 1 chance in 10 to the 17th power (10^17).  In case you forget what they looks like, here it is 1 chance in 100,000,000,000,000,000.  That number is too big for our mind to conceive so they came up with a way to illustrate it.

If you mark one of ten tickets, and place all the tickets in a hat, and thoroughly stir them, and then ask a blindfolded man to draw one, his chance of getting the right ticket is one in ten. Suppose that we take 10^17 silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas. They’ll cover all of the state two feet deep. Now mark one of these silver dollars and stir the whole mass thoroughly, all over the state. Blindfold a man and tell him that he can travel as far as he wishes, but he must pick up one silver dollar.  The odds of him picking up the marked coin?  1 chance in 10^17!

Here is where things get really crazy.  If you up that number to 13 predictions instead of just 8, now we don’t just cover Texas with silver dollars, but the entire earth.  And not just 2 feet deep either…now it’s from the earth to the moon deep.  Moving on to 48 predictions, we find the chance is 1 in 10^157.  To put that in perspective, try quickly counting to 100 in the next minute.  Ready…set…go.  Did you do it? If you did great, but to count to 10^157 you’d have to repeat that every minute, of every day, for the next 47.5 million years!

OK, so here it is!!!!  How do you explain that?  You might be asking, “Explain what?”  Well I told you about David Greenglass and his 7 signs for being properly identified.  I told you the odds of 8, 13 and 46 predictions all coming true.  Did you know that there are 456 prophecies about Jesus found in the Old Testament of the bible?!!  Now to be fair, some of them are a little ambiguous, but even once you take those out you are left with 333 specific prophecies. Now you saw how the numbers grew from 8 to 13 to 46 predictions…our mind can’t even conceive of the chances of 1 man fulfilling all 333.  Again think of David Greenglass.   Getting all 7 of his signals correct was a pretty strong sign that you had the correct man.  In Jesus case there were 333 of those signs!

Now a bit of background.  The Old Testament was completed and being circulated into other countries 400 years before the birth of Jesus.  So there is no way that others later went back and changed it so He met all these predictions.  So then your left with two options…

  1. The 30 writers of the Old Testament just got lucky and defied astronomical odds.
  2. Each of these writers was inspired by God in what to write.

As I mentioned in last week’s post, it actually would take me more faith to believe option 1 than it does option 2.  So as follower’s of Jesus, we really do believe that the bible is God’s Word to us.  We really do believe that Jesus was the perfect fulfillment of prophecy that God would be born among us.  So with that said, we really take the life and teachings of Jesus seriously.  And it was Jesus who said that He is truth.  Not has truth, but IS truth.

So to the person who commented that mathematically Christianity can’t be absolute truth and to all of you reading this, I hope you’ve been challenged that actually it can be.

2+2=4.
David Greenglass + 7 signals= You’ve found the right man.
333 predictive prophecies + Jesus fulfillment= We’ve found the right man and He is the way, the truth and the life.

Next week I’ll explore some of the implications that this post has to do with our lives, beliefs and world.  Until then keep checking back each day as I write on a variety of topics.

Ministry Monday’s
Topical Tuesday’s
Whatever Wednesday’s
Theological Thursday’s
Funny Friday’s

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Absolute truth, David Greenglass, Jesus, Peter Stoner, predictive prophecy, statistical odds, Theological Thursday

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