Why does Religion matter?
Man has an innate need to know why he is here, what his purpose is, and what happens after death.
Romans 1:18-20 ‘But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.’
Ecclesiastes 3:11 ‘He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.’
What is Religion anyway?
According to the American Heritage Dictionary: “A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.”
--So this means that atheism, agnosticism, humanism and all other non-belief systems fall into the designation of being a religion, despite the fact that these groups deny that they are religions. And like all other belief systems, their religion is defiled (polluted, a lie).
James 1:27 says: "Pure religion, undefiled before God and the Father, is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."
A lot of people think of religion as something you do, however, Christianity teaches that what you do (good works) is borne out of what has been done in you. That is why most Christians take exception to being called “religious.” True religion is demonstrated by charitable conduct and personal purity; if we consider the criteria that it is ‘before God,’ as indicated by this verse, then we must recognize that the motives of our hearts are weighed, and our actions must be purely motivated by our relationship with Him.
How does someone who doesn’t know what to believe decide on whether God exists?
There are Four Basic Argument for the existence of God.
1. Design – “For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”--Romans 1:20,
2. Ontology -“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”--John 1:1,
3. Cosmology - “For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”--Colossians 1:16-17
4. Entropy- “Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.”--Romans 8:20-22
Design- This is a refutation of the Big Bang Theory. If you took a bunch of something and blew it up, is there any chance that it will fall into an orderly, working thing? Another illustration often used by apologist: if you put all the parts needed to make a fully-functioning watch into a box and shook it up, how many tries do you think it would take for it to all fall into place in such a way that it would work? Why will it never work? [It requires a designer, someone or something to inject order into chaos.] The universe is pretty intricate for something that “just happened” on its own. Man has filled whole libraries with volumes of information about the intricacies of the workings of the universe. And scientists will admit they still only know a small fraction of what there is to know about it.
Ontology (Ontological)- This is deep, metaphysical stuff which says “God, by definition is perfect. Or, God, in order to be God, must be perfect.” If God does not exist, then the name “God” refers to an imaginary being. In order for God to be God, He must exist. God cannot have started the world then disappeared or anything like that. He would not be perfect if He did that. Since God is perfect, and this world does exist, God must exist.
Cosmology (Cosmological)- Here’s another deep thought. Everything that exists is “contingent” (or dependent). Meaning that everything has a cause and every cause has a cause and so on. For example, Your car came on because of the key, the key turned because you turned it, etc. Everything around you has a cause. Cosmological arguments state that there has to be a First Cause: that thing which all causes can be traced back to. In order for everything to make sense, there must be that one thing that started everything. That First Cause would need to be independent. It does not rely on any contingent to exist. If there is no Independent Being, what explains the beginning point for all things that are dependent upon a beginning? God must exsit.
Entropy- You may have heard of Murphy’s Law: “whatever can go wrong will go wrong.” Among scientists it’s known as the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Simply put, it says that all things tend towards disorder. So, this busts the whole idea of evolution to pieces. The theory of evolution states that we are moving from disorder to order (man and all other creatures have become more and more complex and better suited for their environment over time—evolving from one celled to complex multi-celled beings). How can you have a theory that defies a law anyway? So, since we know that a law supersedes a theory, we realize that in the beginning there had to have been perfect order. Look around you and you see a fallen world, one that is decaying, and dying; humans that are aging and sinful and flawed. Man is not getting better, our world is not safer than it ever has been, nor is it evolving to perfect completion. The only answer for an originally perfect world is that there is a God.
Man has an innate need to know why he is here, what his purpose is, and what happens after death.
Romans 1:18-20 ‘But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.’
Ecclesiastes 3:11 ‘He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.’
What is Religion anyway?
According to the American Heritage Dictionary: “A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.”
--So this means that atheism, agnosticism, humanism and all other non-belief systems fall into the designation of being a religion, despite the fact that these groups deny that they are religions. And like all other belief systems, their religion is defiled (polluted, a lie).
James 1:27 says: "Pure religion, undefiled before God and the Father, is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."
A lot of people think of religion as something you do, however, Christianity teaches that what you do (good works) is borne out of what has been done in you. That is why most Christians take exception to being called “religious.” True religion is demonstrated by charitable conduct and personal purity; if we consider the criteria that it is ‘before God,’ as indicated by this verse, then we must recognize that the motives of our hearts are weighed, and our actions must be purely motivated by our relationship with Him.
How does someone who doesn’t know what to believe decide on whether God exists?
There are Four Basic Argument for the existence of God.
1. Design – “For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”--Romans 1:20,
2. Ontology -“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”--John 1:1,
3. Cosmology - “For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”--Colossians 1:16-17
4. Entropy- “Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.”--Romans 8:20-22
Design- This is a refutation of the Big Bang Theory. If you took a bunch of something and blew it up, is there any chance that it will fall into an orderly, working thing? Another illustration often used by apologist: if you put all the parts needed to make a fully-functioning watch into a box and shook it up, how many tries do you think it would take for it to all fall into place in such a way that it would work? Why will it never work? [It requires a designer, someone or something to inject order into chaos.] The universe is pretty intricate for something that “just happened” on its own. Man has filled whole libraries with volumes of information about the intricacies of the workings of the universe. And scientists will admit they still only know a small fraction of what there is to know about it.
Ontology (Ontological)- This is deep, metaphysical stuff which says “God, by definition is perfect. Or, God, in order to be God, must be perfect.” If God does not exist, then the name “God” refers to an imaginary being. In order for God to be God, He must exist. God cannot have started the world then disappeared or anything like that. He would not be perfect if He did that. Since God is perfect, and this world does exist, God must exist.
Cosmology (Cosmological)- Here’s another deep thought. Everything that exists is “contingent” (or dependent). Meaning that everything has a cause and every cause has a cause and so on. For example, Your car came on because of the key, the key turned because you turned it, etc. Everything around you has a cause. Cosmological arguments state that there has to be a First Cause: that thing which all causes can be traced back to. In order for everything to make sense, there must be that one thing that started everything. That First Cause would need to be independent. It does not rely on any contingent to exist. If there is no Independent Being, what explains the beginning point for all things that are dependent upon a beginning? God must exsit.
Entropy- You may have heard of Murphy’s Law: “whatever can go wrong will go wrong.” Among scientists it’s known as the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Simply put, it says that all things tend towards disorder. So, this busts the whole idea of evolution to pieces. The theory of evolution states that we are moving from disorder to order (man and all other creatures have become more and more complex and better suited for their environment over time—evolving from one celled to complex multi-celled beings). How can you have a theory that defies a law anyway? So, since we know that a law supersedes a theory, we realize that in the beginning there had to have been perfect order. Look around you and you see a fallen world, one that is decaying, and dying; humans that are aging and sinful and flawed. Man is not getting better, our world is not safer than it ever has been, nor is it evolving to perfect completion. The only answer for an originally perfect world is that there is a God.
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