I'm teaching a class at church......

[Fumbleweed 547]

.....and it's intended to be an open, honest dialogue about faith and belief. For the first couple of weeks, we're going to discuss "common sources of unbelief" amongst people that are not Christians.

 

I am interested in getting some basic feedback from people who either don't believe in God/Christ, or feel that Christ is not who He claimed to be, or people that just don't think belief requires much of a response on our part. I promise not to use the thread to argue or debate the issues.....just thought it would be interesting to get some feedback. I am using the Search feature also to look at past stuff on the subject from here on the Board.

 

TIA

[MDC 7,411]

I've got a feeling I could help you out with this.

[hoytdwow 202]

God is not going to punish anybody. HTH

[torridjoe 48]

Here's a good question to address:

 

Why does the Christian church depict Jesus as if he were Gregg Allman, instead of a curly haired Middle Easterner?

[GobbleDog 996]

If God existed, he would have saved that idiot who recently hopped into the lion's den and got eaten. Ok, maybe not.

[Quickolas1 80]

read them davinci code and harry potter

[Rusty Syringes 478]

Here's a good question to address:

 

Why does the Christian church depict Jesus as if he were Gregg Allman, instead of a curly haired Middle Easterner?

 

In other words, more like you.

 

[cmh6476 1,025]

Here's a good question to address:

 

Why does the Christian church depict Jesus as if he were Gregg Allman, instead of a curly haired Middle Easterner?

when you cant find the light, to guide you through a cloudy day...

[torridjoe 48]

In other words, more like you.

 

 

Exactly! I'd be much more interested in a religion whose prophet looked JUST LIKE ME.

 

Hmmm...I seem to have answered my own question, haven't I?

 

:wink:

[Isotopes 1]

There may be a god but I don't believe any of today's religions have it right. I just can't believe in something because I was born in a certain part fo the world or to a certain family. How can you be sure that your religion was right? If you were born in India you would Hindu. I tend to believe there was a guy named JC and he was a really good guy, but he was not the son of God. I believe stories about him were just embellished, just like any other story. I have nothing against people who believe, I just don't understand how you coudl if you really sat down and asked yourself why you believed that.

[kilroy69 1,248]

I am agnostic. I think the bible are made up fairy tales used to try to control people.

[Force of Two 0]

.....and it's intended to be an open, honest dialogue about faith and belief. For the first couple of weeks, we're going to discuss "common sources of unbelief" amongst people that are not Christians.

 

I am interested in getting some basic feedback from people who either don't believe in God/Christ, or feel that Christ is not who He claimed to be, or people that just don't think belief requires much of a response on our part. I promise not to use the thread to argue or debate the issues.....just thought it would be interesting to get some feedback. I am using the Search feature also to look at past stuff on the subject from here on the Board.

 

TIA

 

Ill give you an honest non-funny answer....I just dont believe because I really cant buy that everything is Gods Will and I have never seen any true evidence that there is an existence of anything other than that we are just here...

 

I feel like there is more scam artists in that "world" than in any other and that billions of people have wasted time, energy and resources into fiction. Not to mention the fighting between all organized religions (specifically the big 3) is despicable.

 

and lastly if "he" does exist then I think the guy is a pretty sick individual.

[Fumbleweed 547]

Here's a good question to address:

 

Why does the Christian church depict Jesus as if he were Gregg Allman, instead of a curly haired Middle Easterner?

 

Valid question. I have no idea. I do not care what he looked like.......but your point is on target of course.

[MDC 7,411]

The biggest argument I have against Christianity (not nec. belief in God) is that it just too neatly utilitarian to be true.

 

Nobody today thinks that Zeus, Athena, Hermes, etc. are up on Mt. Olympus looking over us, but back in those times the myths served some purpose. Looking at the basic tenets of the Catholic faith in particular (think you said you're Catholic), you've got thou shall not kill, steal, covet they neighbor's wife, etc. These are all just basic rules designed to keep society running smoothly. Even those parts of the Bible that don't seem to make sense today - how it's bad to jerk off and the gays are evil, etc. - in light of those times made sense. You don't jerk off or screw guys because mortality rates were so low, and we had to populate the land.

 

So in a nutshell, I see very little difference between the basic lessons of Christianity and any of the creation mythos, so I don't understand why we should take on seriously but not the other. And it's more than a little convenient IMO that the Catholic creation myth in particular is designed to maintain the church patriarchy - unlike the Greeks (whose Gods created by focking), the world according to the Christians was created by the word of a male God, thus rendering women pretty much useless.

 

Finally, Christians were known for adopting rituals and customs from other cultures, even Pagan rituals (Easter) and making them their own - how much faith can you have in a religion that spent hundreds of years reinventing itself on the fly out of necessity? Not much.

 

Splain that to your students.

[Fumbleweed 547]

Ill give you an honest non-funny answer....I just dont believe because I really cant buy that everything is Gods Will and I have never seen any true evidence that there is an existence of anything other than that we are just here...

 

I feel like there is more scam artists in that "world" than in any other and that billions of people have wasted time, energy and resources into fiction. Not to mention the fighting between all organized religions (specifically the big 3) is despicable.

 

and lastly if "he" does exist then I think the guy is a pretty sick individual.

 

Thanks. That's all I'm looking for........honest feedback.

[Toro 1]

The part about God being all-knowing and always right bugs me because:

 

1) If he was all knowing, he knew that Adam and Eve were going to take the apple before he even put the tree there so they had to take the apple, or he would have been wrong.

2) When he flooded the earth, he promised the survivors that he would never do it again (gave us the rainbow). Well, if he said he would never do it again, that means that what he did would not be considered a proper thing to do because if he thought it was proper and justified, then why would he make that promise?

[Bigtraine 30]

Here are a few...

 

How can one accept the Bible as the direct word of God when it was written and edited by humans? Do you believe that God worked directly through these people to pick and choose what should go in, or do you think that human interest had a part in it? If you think humans had control over it, how can you accept any of it as truth since humans are notoriously self-serving, power-hungry and deceiptful?

 

Regardless of what one's religion is, there are significantly more people than believe otherwise - which means that no matter what religion you believe in, you think the majority of the world is wrong and is going to burn in hell - do you believe in a God that would allow that?

 

Most people look at other religions (and myths) and are able to laugh at things that are pretty far-fetched. "You mean those crazy Muslim terrorists think they are going to get 75 virgins if they blow up? What dumbasses!" But in my experience, people that are religious are not able to see that in their own religion (because if they did, they would probably stop being religious). So my question is: what makes the loony things from your own religious somehow less crazy and acceptable? And for that matter, why are you the religion that you are? If it's because that's the one you were born and raised into, what makes you think you didn't accept the religion and rationalize later? That's what humans do - they make a decision and then find things to rationalize it, instead of the other way around (just look at most of the political posters here).

[ZeroTolerance 584]

There may be a god but I don't believe any of today's religions have it right. I just can't believe in something because I was born in a certain part fo the world or to a certain family. How can you be sure that your religion was right? If you were born in India you would Hindu. I tend to believe there was a guy named JC and he was a really good guy, but he was not the son of God. I believe stories about him were just embellished, just like any other story. I have nothing against people who believe, I just don't understand how you coudl if you really sat down and asked yourself why you believed that.

 

There is a person here who thinks like I do? Quick, I must kill this doppleganger before he takes my place!

 

Here are a few...

 

How can one accept the Bible as the direct word of God when it was written and edited by humans? Do you believe that God worked directly through these people to pick and choose what should go in, or do you think that human interest had a part in it? If you think humans had control over it, how can you accept any of it as truth since humans are notoriously self-serving, power-hungry and deceiptful?

 

He sat in a room and told the author of that book of the Bible how it went, like Interview With the Vampire.

[Bigtraine 30]

Why won't God heal amputees?

 

When people credit God with a miracle, why is it always something that could have been a coincidence? "Hey my cancer went into remission, it must be a miracle from God!" Or maybe it was a coincidence. The above website asks why God never performs miracles that are obvious and verifiable...it's not that there aren't any, is it?

[davebg 0]

How come when L Ron Hubbard wrote Dianetics and a bunch of sci-fi books, then based Scientology on it it's a cult, but when a bunch of un-named savages from thousands of years ago wrote the Bible and based Christianity on it it's a legitimate religion?

 

If the Bible came out today don't you think Christianity would be viewed w/the same skepticism as Scientology? Well...if Christianity also had some looney-toon celebs making outlandish statements on its behalf, but you get the idea.

[GobbleDog 996]

GobbleDog = Godelbbog!!!

 

 

Thou shalt not make Godelbblog angry or I'll turn all of you into flees, ticks and dog poop!!!

[kilroy69 1,248]

There is a person here who thinks like I do? Quick, I must kill this doppleganger before he takes my place!

He sat in a room and told the author of that book of the Bible how it went, like Interview With the Vampire.

Did he smoke while he was doing this? I just had a picture of god sitting in a bathrobe giving an interview and screaming at his publicicts.

[Bigtraine 30]

Regardless of what one's religion is, there are significantly more people than believe otherwise - which means that no matter what religion you believe in, you think the majority of the world is wrong and is going to burn in hell - do you believe in a God that would allow that?

 

Scott Adams put it better than I could:

 

4 Billion Losers

Recently I asked the believers among you to explain why you believe in your own prophet but not the other guy’s prophet. The LDS (Mormon) folks said they talk directly to God and get personal answers. Most of the rest of you said something along the lines that your prophet(s) (or Christ) told you that the other guy’s prophet(s) (or Christ) isn’t all that. Fair enough. I was concerned that you hadn’t thought it through.

 

Now I have another question for the believers. And by the way, I’m genuinely curious. I don’t do this just to stir up things, although that’s fun too. I actually wonder how you think. My question is this: How do you explain to yourself that 4 billion people (minimum) believe different from you?

 

These are the only reasons I can imagine. Pick one or tell me what I missed.

 

1. People are gullible by nature. My God lets 4 billion people worship delusions because he thinks free will is important. Luckily I’m not gullible like the vast majority of the world. What do you mean they all think the same thing about me?

 

2. All religions are basically the same. So when Christians say there is a heaven that’s just like reincarnation. And when the Muslims say the Christians and Jews will all burn for eternity, that’s semantics.

 

3. I and my fellow believers are well-informed and smart. The other 4 billion people are ignorant morons despite the fact that many of them have advanced degrees and inexplicably high IQ scores.

 

4. God is stronger than the devil even though the devil has 4 billion people fooled while my God is sucking the hind tit. But don’t worry because he’s a good come-from-behind player. Eventually everyone will be in my religion.

 

5. We are the chosen people. My merciful God just isn’t into those other people.

 

What did I miss?

[Strike 5,539]

You could put 1000 monkeys in a room with typewriters and eventually they would write the bible

[parrot 789]

My grandmother was the finest person I have ever known and a devout Catholic. She came about as close to personifying the spirit of true Christianity as anyone I can imagine. In the latter years of her life she lost her mind, not knowing who anyone was or where she was living or what decade it was. Why would God do that to someone who had served him and obeyed his son's teachings so faithfully?

[MDC 7,411]

My grandmother was the finest person I have ever known and a devout Catholic. She came about as close to personifying the spirit of true Christianity as anyone I can imagine. In the latter years of her life she lost her mind, not knowing who anyone was or where she was living or what decade it was. Why would God do that to someone who had served him and obeyed his son's teachings so faithfully?

 

Because he works in mysterious ways.

[footballpowers 0]

I could go on and on and on and on on this, but I’ll try and keep it not so long.

 

I believe in Jesus the man, not the God. I believe he is one of the greatest people to walk the earth yet we have yet to truly grasp and understand his teachings. Too many people use religion as a judgment tool and a means to persecute others, when it should be used to help, understand and unite each other.

 

Why I don’t believe:

Every gospel and story about Jesus was written generations after his death in some cases even centuries. Oral stories tend to grow and take on new meaning as they are passed down. I’m not truly convinced Jesus claimed to be the Son of God. I’m not so sure the authors of the gospels didn’t add this or exaggerate this to further teach his message.

 

Every other religion in the world has their own “Jesus”. Mohammad, Budah, Moses etc. etc. Every religion has to have an actual person on earth bring legitimacy to the religion.

 

Many people (most people) need something to believe in outside of the here and now, religion fits this need.

 

Most people are afraid of the thought that when we die we die. They need security and comfort in knowing that they are going to heaven and never dieing.

 

If “God” were truly god why has he divided us so. Why has he allowed the other 4/5th’s of the world to believe in a different message? Why has he not simply come down to earth and said “stop this madness, this is who I am and this is what I want”

 

I feel religion is a form of brainwash. You must have “faith” in all that you can not explain, see or believe. Religions scare you w/ you believe this or you go to hell. You follow this or you go to hell. You give this amount of money or you are not a good (insert any religion here).

 

In looking at the history of the Christian church it is a very corrupt history. Too many instances to get into detail but examples are: The Crusades, the crooked and disgraceful popes (before the church spun off into the different Christian religions), the current catholic molestation scandal, televangelists and on and on and on and on…..

 

I feel most people in general NEED to believe in something outside this world. It comforts their fear of dying, it allows them to feel there is a reason tragedy and good fortune happens. And there are those who are willing to take advantage of this need (they are called religions)

 

 

 

And that is all I have to say about that.

[davebg 0]

My grandmother was the finest person I have ever known and a devout Catholic. She came about as close to personifying the spirit of true Christianity as anyone I can imagine. In the latter years of her life she lost her mind, not knowing who anyone was or where she was living or what decade it was. Why would God do that to someone who had served him and obeyed his son's teachings so faithfully?

Maybe St. Peter likes his women a little

[footballpowers 0]

Another VERY good read:

 

(Let me start with my own disclaimer: The following views are mine and mine alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Memphis Flyer or anyone else associated with The Memphis Flyer: E.W.)

 

 

 

Religion is the root of much evil.

 

It has to be said.

 

Here is what I believe: There is no god, there is no messiah, there are no prophets plugged in to some divine will. There are no saints or holy men. If there is a heaven or a hell or any other kind of afterlife, we can’t know anything about it while we’re in this life, so it’s useless to speculate and foolish to believe. Faith is an empty box. To believe in Christ is to believe in a rabbit’s foot. To believe in the Buddha is to believe that pro wrestling is real. To believe in Mohammed is to believe that the groundhog can predict spring. To believe that the Ten Commandments came from some god on a mountaintop is to believe that television psychics can talk to your dead grandmother. Allah, Jehovah and the Trinity are elves and Tinkerbells. They are no more than desperate hope given a name and anthropomorphic shape by the imaginations of frightened men.

 

It has to be said.

 

Religion is superstition. It is mankind crossing its fingers. Its sole functions are 1) to comfort and console those who cannot bear the suffering and death that are ultimately the lot of every human being, and 2) to offer meaning in a world where meaning can never be established. Religion, in other words, is a fortress of lies built to keep out the terrors of existence and nonexistence. For those in power, it is useful in still another way: Since time immemorial, the powerful have used religion to distract the oppressed, to encourage them to focus on the next world so that they will acquiesce to the injustices of this world. If you would have your slaves remain docile, teach them hymns.

 

This is not saying anything new, but it has to be said again.

 

On balance, religion has made the world a worse place. It has generated magnificent art and wonderful music and spectacular architecture, and millions of people have, over the centuries, done good and beautiful things in its name, but on balance it has not been good for the world. Those millions of good people would have done just as much good without it. Mother Teresa would have been saintly without the New Testament. Martin Luther King would have been a paragon of eloquent courage without having been baptized. Gandhi would have overturned an empire leaning only on his walking stick. Virtue would exist without Christianity or Judaism or Islam or Hinduism, which, in their vanity and vaporishness, are no different from the Roman’s belief in household gods or the Druid’s belief in tree spirits. A magic act is a magic act, whatever robes we clothe it in. But because of religions like these, the world has experienced centuries and centuries of backwardness and unnecessary suffering. Throats have been slit in their name, hearts exploded, the best minds distracted or destroyed, sweet people tortured, millions of children sent horribly to oblivion.

 

It has to be said.

 

Today is a good day to say it. Perhaps the worst of religion’s dangerous superstitions is the notion of the “holy” place. The idea that this patch of earth or that building or that city or nation is somehow sanctified by some god has left us with the bombs and guns and bodies of Kashmir and Belfast, of Baghdad and Jerusalem. “Next year in Jerusalem.” Oh, the lives such words have cost! Why not “Next year in Memphis” or “Next year in Singapore” or “Next year on the banks of the Platte”? What is land but land? What is a building but a building?

 

Today is a good day to say it because we have a praying president convinced that he is plugged in to the will of God, and his conviction is leading the United States to holy war, first in Iraq and later . . . wherever his prayers might take us. The Muslim world is right: George W. Bush is on a Crusade. He believes that God is on his side, just as Osama bin Laden believes that God is on his side, and the PLO thinks God is on their side, and the Irish Republican Army is certain God is on their side. The list of those who have made war in the name of their god is too long even to start here.

 

Today is a good day to say it because Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is convinced, as he said last week, that the United States is a country with God’s special blessing, and Attorney General John Ashcroft thinks his views on abortion and the Bill of Rights come straight from the mind of his right-wing Christian god.

 

Our leaders say they want to make the world safe for secular democracy. I wish they meant it. But I’m afraid that what they really mean is that they want to make a world receptive to their Western god.

 

There are wars enough when what is “holy” is not part of the picture. Communism and fascism and capitalism would have had their wars even with all gods standing on the sidelines. There are land wars and economic wars and grudge wars and wars for no reason that anyone can understand at all. But religious wars are the most tragic, because they are built so deeply on a deluded sense of righteousness. Have nonbelievers started wars? Of course. They have started wars for land or politics or pure villainy. But I don’t know of a single nonbeliever who has killed simply to make others stop believing. (Stalin, you would say? No, he killed for power.) On the other hand, the world has thousands, millions, who will kill, and have killed, in order to make someone else believe as they believe.

 

You won’t read this in The New York Times, but it has to be said: Religion does more harm than good. I wish George W. Bush and his handlers would stop talking to, or about, their god. I wish the Near and Middle East would suddenly be flooded by a sea of atheism. I wish Northern Ireland would overnight experience mass religious amnesia. How much more at peace the world would be.

 

A man truly awake does not need religion. He doesn’t need gods. He doesn’t need miracles. He doesn’t need holy lands here below or celestial heavens up above. For him, life in this universe is itself holy, as is every patch of ground and every path he walks. Life itself is enough of a miracle. To believe in a god who made this life is to believe in a miracle even greater than this miracle. Who needs more than one unfathomable miracle? Existence is a fluke, a freak, a wonder, a dream, a bizarre uncanny thing. Our own consciousness of this existence is so incredible a phenomenon that I don’t understand why anyone feels the need to believe in anything else more “spiritual.” It’s all spiritual. It’s all true magic. Why add imagined magic to explain the magic that is right before us?

 

Religion is dangerous. It needs to be said, and no one is saying it, except on the nonbelievers’ web sites and in their magazines, where they speak only to each other. Our politicians won’t say it. Our commentators won’t say it. The power of self-censorship in this God-fearing country is too strong, freedom of speech be damned. I can say it here only because this audience is so small, and I have little to risk. (Will fifty of you read this? Will 500? I have no business you can boycott. I have no office you can vote me out of. All I can lose is my job.)

 

Nearly all my friends are believers. Nearly all of those I love are believers. Most of them are generous and kind, and their religion gives them hope and comfort and pleasant society. Last night, I went to a Passover seder at the home of Jewish friends. They are wonderful people. It was a lovely evening. My own widowed mother has been sustained since my father’s death by the amazing kindness of the women in her church. Yes, I have seen many good works born in synagogues and church pews. But the nonbelievers I know are just as kind, just as loving, just as hopeful, and they have given just as much comfort to those in need.

 

And I too hope. I hope, for example, that I will see my dead father and my dead friends in some next life, and that we will all be free from worry and pain forever. But it’s just hope, and it’s awake and open-eyed. It’s not faith, which is sleepy and blind. I don’t depend on my hope, and I wouldn’t base my living actions on it. It’s a hope that does not grow out of dogma, and I would never try to impose my hope on someone else. Pure hope never yet has led to war. The same cannot be said of dogma. If I were to found a religion, I would call it “The Church of the Hopeful Few.” Hope would be its only doctrine, and I think it would be a peaceful church.

 

I know it does little good to tell believers that they should stop believing. I don’t really care if they believe, as long as they remain in their closets when they pray, and leave their gods there when they emerge. Their self-delusion saddens me a bit, but it is usually harmless. When it does harm is when it drives them against the self-delusion of those who believe otherwise. Then is the time of enmity and war.

 

If our leaders must believe, then, let them believe. But let them remember that the White House is not a cathedral, and that the capitol building is a place of men, not gods.

[Rusty Syringes 478]

Exactly! I'd be much more interested in a religion whose prophet looked JUST LIKE ME.

 

Hmmm...I seem to have answered my own question, haven't I?

 

:wink:

 

Kick ass. What time is church?

 

[Cdub100 3,907]

If god is the creator of all

evil exists

why did god create evil?

 

If God is all knowing

there is no such thing as free will

everything is already planed out for me wither I think I'm making a "choice" it's already been decided.

So why would god put people that cause so much evil and suffering in the world? IE hitler

[GobbleDog 996]

"Condoms are a sin!!!"

 

"But millions of Africans are dying of AIDS! Condoms could save them!"

 

"Sorry, but God would rather see millions of people die of AIDS, instead of using a sinful condom."

 

 

 

Gotta love the Catholics.

[MDC 7,411]

If god is the creator of all

evil exists

why did god create evil?

 

If God is all knowing

there is no such thing as free will

everything is already planed out for me wither I think I'm making a "choice" it's already been decided.

So why would god put people that cause so much evil and suffering in the world? IE hitler

 

I expect Fumble will be answering a lot of these questions with "the Lord works in mysterious ways" and "it's all part of his top secret plan." It's commendable that he'd want to engage kids in these kind of questions, but really faith is unexplainable because it's faith - if you could prove it or explain it logically, it wouldn't require any faith.

[Bigtraine 30]

I expect Fumble will be answering a lot of these questions with "the Lord works in mysterious ways" and "it's all part of his top secret plan." It's commendable that he'd want to engage kids in these kind of questions, but really faith is unexplainable because it's faith - if you could prove it or explain it logically, it wouldn't require any faith.

 

Which is what makes faith so silly. I can believe in purple Hippos ruling the other side of the universe, but since it can't be proven or disproven I guess it will have to be taken on faith.

 

The only reason a lot of religious people don't believe that is because they haven't been indoctrined with it since the time they were born...

[Strike 5,539]

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett could use all their money to save the world, and if they never accepted Christ as their lord and savior they'd go to hell. If Hitler asked forgiveness, and meant it, on his death bed he'd go to heaven. God seems a bit self absorbed to make that a requirement for heaven. That is all.

[Electric Mayhem 35]

Let them know the truths about the Christian Church. Like that in the old days, you could buy your way to heaven through tithings. And that only certain Gospels are released by the Vatican - the ones that seem to fall in line with their doctrines.

 

most importantly, I would tell them this:

 

If you choose to believe in a higher being, one that will ultimately decide your eternal existance, MAKE 100% SURE that you choose one based not only on what you hear from those close to you. Go out and learn for yourself that there are dozens if not hundreds of religions out in the world and the chance that the one staring you in the face is THE ONE is pretty slim. Take what everyone around you tells you with a grain of salt, because they have most likely chosen the easy path and simply accepted the exact same religion as their parents with NO research whatsoever. Amazingly, a vast majority make the most important decision of their existance (what deity to devote their entire lives to) with less research and knowledge that they would if they were buying a meal or a pair of shoes. Do not be like them. You should be 100% CONFIDENT that the religion you choose to follow comes from YOUR HEART, and not the wills of those around you, as this choice will effect you not only in this life, but your life after death.

 

That should do it I think.

[hoffdaddy 1]

I think my feelings about the Catholic church turned very sour about the time our priest asked us this:

"Are you trying to raise them gay?"

 

That was his comment when we dediced to have two godmothers at our boy's baptism, and no godfathers. Of course, I was already starting to lose patience long before that. Like the time our long time family priest refused to allow my sister to be married in his church because she lived with her fiance. Good times.

[SigEp316 0]

there's great thread about "beating a drug test" arounf here somewhere...that should provide some good insight.

[Cruzer 1,995]

We all know the Cowboys are God's favorite football team, who is he pulling for in the NBA Finals?

[squidfinger 0]

Why do good things happen to bad people? Why do bad things happen to good people? The best answer the bible has seems to be Job, where god basically says "How dare you ask me questions! I made the sun, and the firmament, and the oceans, and the..." It's a problem; if you believe god is directly involved in day-to-day life, then god is extremely arbitrary (and really hard to like/love. it turns into a fear of hell thing). If you don't believe god is intimately involved in day-to-day life, what's the big deal?

 

Also, what gives christianity the inside track on being the one true religion? Other than it just is, because, you know, jesus died for you and stuff which we know because the bible.....every religion has this stuff, and there's no way to sort them out. Although, frankly, the mormons are pretty kooky. But nice.