My apologies, I'm a little confused on faith right now. How Is Christianity True?

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I've thought about your religion time and time again, and one thing bugs me deeply. How is God merciful? I know you like to blame Satan but when Satan rebelled against God it is said he made him like a beast (natural and instinctive) and later let him rule the earth. How is this merciful and kind like the way Jesus was? He unleashed demonic forces upon the world and then blames the natural and instinctive forces he himself unleashed.

We think about the holy trinity and whether Jesus was an accurate representation of God which as far as I can find he was not, because Jesus isn't truly God in the holy trinity. He's not a selfless character like Jesus was and sends others to eternal hell which is not merciful or kind or just.

I'm sorry if I'm confused. I've just became that way.
Oh and BTW, Jesus CONSTANTLY said that He is God, non-stop, continuously from the first word spoken about Him to the last.

And then He proved it indubitably and CONSTANTLY day in day out.

And then He resurrected HIMSELF by His own will and power.

And then all those who were legitimate witnesses spent the rest of their lives declaring CONSTANTLY that Jesus is the True God.

You had better dust off that Bible and find out for yourself buddy. While you have "time".
 
At first I thought Christianity, but I have problems with your faith, I converted to buddhism and now I just don't know.
Buddha resurrected himself?
Not so you would notice.

Buddha wrote the entire Bible about Himself in advance?
Nope.

BTW, since when is Buddha seeking and saving that which was lost? And is paying the price and doing the work to get the job done?

John 5:39: "You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me."

[Luk 24:44 NKJV] 44 Then He said to them, "These [are] the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and [the] Prophets and [the] Psalms concerning Me."

Luke 24:25-27: "Then He said to them, 'O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?' And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself."

Luke 18:31: "Then He took the twelve aside and said to them, 'Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished.'"

Luke 9:22: "Saying, 'The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day.'"

Matthew 26:54-56: "How then could the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must happen thus? ... But all this was done that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled."

Acts 28:23: "So when they had appointed him a day, many came to him at his lodging, to whom he explained and solemnly testified of the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus from both the Law of Moses and the Prophets, from morning till evening."

Acts 3:18: "But those things which God foretold by the mouth of all His prophets, that the Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled."

Acts 26:22-23: "Therefore, having obtained help from God, to this day I stand, witnessing both to small and great, saying no other things than those which the prophets and Moses said would come—that the Christ would suffer, that He would be the first to rise from the dead, and would proclaim light to the Jewish people and to the Gentiles."
 
My apologies if I shook your faith, I don't really mean to but I just find logical problems with the existence of an all powerful deity who is helpless to stop Satan.
Shook my faith? No not really.

Did you happen to notice that the Nation Israel is back in their land?
PRECISELY as prophesied in Scripture?

Right on schedule BTW.

Sure there are people who deny it and/or ignore how this event OBVIOUSLY fulfills massive amounts of prophecy. But hey, they WILL not believe (as in not willing) even if one rose from the dead!

[Luk 16:31 KJV] 31 And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

[Act 10:41 KJV] 41 Not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God, [even] to us, who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead.

[Jhn 8:23-24 NKJV]
23 And He said to them, "You are from beneath; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.

24 "Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for if you do not believe that I am [He], you will die in your sins."
 
Yet I heard that in the trinity God is Jesus but Jesus is not God.

God the Son is Jesus, God in the human dimension/Messiah is Jesus. Jesus is not God the Father.

You will need to ask you parents if you were an accident/mistake.
God weeps for sinful humanity, which is not yet in the best place.
I wish you would become reborn at this time.
Buddhism is not the Way to be saved.
No one knows; we must walk by faith.
However, right reasoning results in confidence in Christ.
 
I've thought about your religion time and time again, and one thing bugs me deeply. How is God merciful?
When one considers God from an outside perspective it can be helpful to consider things from his perspective (insofar as we can);


Another thing to consider is the difficulty in creating beings that have their own free will;


While Buddhism correctly identifies the major problem with humans (our sinful desires), their solution, the elimination of desire, is not as helpful as they think. The solution is the transition from selfish desires of what Christianity calls the flesh, to the selfless desires for the good of others that Christianity calls walking by the Spirit. The bible defines this selflessness as "love"

1Co 13:4 Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
1Co 13:5 doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not provoked, taketh not account of evil;
1Co 13:6 rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth;
1Co 13:7 beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

Christianity can seem a hopeless muddle for all the strange ways it has come to be practiced. This is even more difficult if one brings with them a different religious construct the lens of which makes understanding even more difficult.

Basically man was created with a connection to the creator. This was broken when man chose to go his own way. Ever since people have only their own desires to motivate them. We are all born helpless, ignorant, and selfish. However, those that seek truth can find in Christ that which is truth and be able to trust in it. This reestablishes our connection with God and is the means by which we can give up the selfishness of our flesh and transition the the selfless love of Christ-likeness.
 
Ask Jesus to reveal the truth to you. Who is the real God, create heaven and earth.
Sincerely ask Jesus, He will answer you.


Exactly!! :)

Matthew 7:7: Seek, and you will the door open to you
Jeremiah 29:13: You will find Him when you search with your whole heart.
Proverbs 8:17:
Wisdom says that those who look for her will discover her.

🙏
 
Yes there are many similarities but in place of Satan is Mara. Who may very well be the ruler of our universe as far as Buddhism is concerned. So maybe it's not the best choice to piss off the ruler of our universe. I don't know at this point.

I have changed my mind many times but I met the holy spirit, and it's just confused me into thinking I should choose a faith and sometimes that is Christianity and sometimes it is Buddhism. I simply cannot make up my mind. I'm sorry for being wayward.

The holy spirit looks like living water, if you must know, it is a water spirit in other religions.
Ill be direct, Your mind is cluttered with mostly lies and half truths, press the reset button and please start anew, read the bible but not by judging God. have you not learned by now there is only One God, the rest are imposters and seek only to destroy. Why is that so? They don't want you to make it its that simple, they rejected God and a permanent death awaits them, they are judged and shall be no more, If you don't want to be part of that Lot and they want you dead I assure you, do as Jesus said, just read John, Matthew, Luke and Mark, if that does not ring a bell with you then......
 
I'm sorry if I offended Jesus, I identify with Kafziel, the angel of loneliness and tears because I'm solitary and sad most of the time. I find it's my nature, so me and Kafziel share a nature.
What I don't understand is why, back in 2021 in the thread PennEd linked to in his post, you asked for advice as someone who had just become a Christian, and now you are saying you share the nature of a mythical angel named Kafziel. There are only two angels who are named in God's word, the Bible - Gabriel and Michael. If you were truly converted and became a Christian in 2021, you really need to read the Bible and see what it says about God, about His mercy, about what it means to be a Christian, and so on. About mercy, the Bible tells us:

Psalm 116:5 Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; Yes, our God is merciful.

Joel 2:13 So rend your heart, and not your garments; Return to the LORD your God, For He is gracious and merciful, Slow to anger, and of great kindness; And He relents from doing harm.

And here is part of what Paul wrote to people who had become Christians in Ephesus:

Eph 2:4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
Eph 2:5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
Eph 2:6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,

God's mercy is when He withholds the punishment our sins rightly deserve. God's grace is when He gives us good things that we do not deserve.

I pray that God will help yu to learn more and more from His word, the Bible.
 
I'm sorry if I offended Jesus, I identify with Kafziel, the angel of loneliness and tears because I'm solitary and sad most of the time. I find it's my nature, so me and Kafziel share a nature.
Does this Kafziel fellow know that Moroni fellow?
Yea, there are lots of frauds, fakes and trolls running amok.

2Co 11:13
For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.

2Co 11:14
And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.

2Co 11:15
Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.
 
What I don't understand is why, back in 2021 in the thread PennEd linked to in his post, you asked for advice as someone who had just become a Christian, and now you are saying you share the nature of a mythical angel named Kafziel. There are only two angels who are named in God's word, the Bible - Gabriel and Michael. If you were truly converted and became a Christian in 2021, you really need to read the Bible and see what it says about God, about His mercy, about what it means to be a Christian, and so on. About mercy, the Bible tells us:

Psalm 116:5 Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; Yes, our God is merciful.

Joel 2:13 So rend your heart, and not your garments; Return to the LORD your God, For He is gracious and merciful, Slow to anger, and of great kindness; And He relents from doing harm.

And here is part of what Paul wrote to people who had become Christians in Ephesus:

Eph 2:4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
Eph 2:5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
Eph 2:6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,

God's mercy is when He withholds the punishment our sins rightly deserve. God's grace is when He gives us good things that we do not deserve.

I pray that God will help yu to learn more and more from His word, the Bible.
I thought I had converted at the time but I take issue with the bible and so I moved away from it. I'm sorry if this caused confusion.
 
There's just so much posting here and I find I'm overwhelmed give me a moment to sort through what you all have said.
 
1Jo 4:1
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

1Jo 4:2
By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God,
 
God is merciful, because He forgives everyone who cooperates with His condition for salvation.
Sinners have only themselves to blame for not resisting Satan but instead choosing to believe lies.
God created humans with moral free will rather than robots, even though they may unleash evil in this world until the Judgment.
Insofar as the infinite and invisible divine essence can be manifest via the human dimension, that person is Jesus.

Hope you are a truthseeker and no longer confused regarding those questions (2Thes. 2:10, 1Tim. 2:3-4).
Next question? :cool:

Then how is merciful, just or kind if we're to be tempted according to his will?
 
I don't think you should be sorry for being confused. These are serious questions, and honestly, asking them is better than simply accepting an answer you do not understand.

There is an old saying that knowledge is power. There is truth in that. When we do not have enough knowledge about something, it is easy to become uncertain, doubtful, and undecided. Sometimes the problem is not that the truth makes no sense, but that we have not yet gathered enough pieces to see the whole picture.

So I would encourage you to keep asking questions but also to examine the ideas behind the questions carefully. Otherwise, we can end up rejecting something because of a picture of it that was never actually true in the first place.

I think that is happening with several things in what you wrote.

First, the Bible never says that God made Satan into a beast and then gave him the earth so that he could unleash evil upon mankind. Some passages are sometimes understood as describing Satan's fall, but we should be careful not to turn symbolic passages into a story the Bible itself never plainly tells.

What the Bible does say is that evil entered God's creation through rebellion, and that God has allowed Satan limited freedom for a time. But allowing something is not the same as causing it.

Jesus made this distinction very clearly. When He was speaking about the devil, He said:

He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. (John 8:44, NKJV)

Notice what Jesus does not say. He does not say that God made Satan evil and then blamed Satan for what God Himself had done. He describes Satan as someone who chose falsehood and became a murderer.

There is also an important difference between God's mercy and God's refusal to judge evil.

If a judge sees someone hurting innocent people and simply says, "I am merciful, therefore I will never judge you," that would not really be mercy toward the victims. It would be injustice.

Biblical mercy does not mean that God calls evil good. It means that God gives people an opportunity to turn away from evil before judgment comes.

And this is where Jesus becomes extremely important.

You said that Jesus does not seem to be an accurate representation of God because Jesus is not truly God in the Trinity. But that is actually different from what the Christian doctrine of the Trinity teaches.

The Trinity does not say that Jesus is merely a good man who represents God. It says that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are distinct, yet there is one God. Jesus Himself made claims that go far beyond being merely a prophet or representative.

I and My Father are one. (John 10:30, NKJV)

And when His disciple Thomas saw the risen Jesus, he said: My Lord and my God! (John 20:28, NKJV)

Jesus did not correct him. But there is something even more important in your question. You asked whether Jesus is really what God is like. Jesus answered that question Himself:

He who has seen Me has seen the Father. (John 14:9, NKJV)

That means if we want to know what God's character is like, Jesus is not a problem that we have to explain away. Jesus is the very person we are supposed to look at. Look at how Jesus treated sinners.

He called people to repent, but He also forgave them. He warned people about judgment, but He also wept over Jerusalem.

He taught people to love their enemies. He healed people who were suffering.

He welcomed the rejected. He told His disciples to forgive again and again.

And when He was being crucified, He prayed: Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do. (Luke 23:34, NKJV)

So I would not begin by asking, "How can God be like Jesus?"

I would begin with Jesus' own statement: He who has seen Me has seen the Father.

Then the harder question becomes: What do we do with the parts of Jesus' teaching about judgment?

Because Jesus did speak about judgment. He spoke about hell, destruction, separation from God, and the consequences of refusing God's way. We cannot honestly remove those words simply because they make us uncomfortable.

But notice something very important: Jesus did not take pleasure in the destruction of people.
When He looked at Jerusalem, He said:
"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! "(Matthew 23:37, NKJV)

There is both love and judgment in Jesus' teaching.
That may actually be closer to justice than the idea that God simply sends people to punishment because He wants to.
Jesus repeatedly presents the matter as a choice. God calls people to life, but He does not force them to love Him.

"Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. "(Matthew 7:13, NKJV)

And He also says: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." (John 3:16, NKJV)

So perhaps the question is not really, "Why isn't God exactly like the gentle parts of Jesus?"

The Christian answer is that Jesus is showing us what God is like.The difficult part is accepting that perfect love and perfect justice are not opposites. A God who loves His creation should oppose evil. A God who is just should judge evil. And a God who is merciful should give people an opportunity to repent.

Jesus presents all three.

So I would not tell you to stop questioning. I would encourage you to go one step deeper. Instead of trying to understand God first through doctrines about God, start with the person who claimed to reveal God to us.

Read Jesus' words carefully. Not what someone says Jesus said. Not what a denomination says Jesus meant.

Read what Jesus actually said, especially in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
Then ask one simple question: If Jesus really shows me what the Father is like, what kind of God do I see when I look at Him?

That question may lead you much further than an argument about theology ever could. if you have any questions, please do not be shy.
Knowledge is power but power leads to temptation. Well allowing something is enabling it, he's enabled evil in the form of allowing Satan to do what he does. I don't know, it just seems like God isn't a just ruler. I'm sorry for not doing an in depth analysis of what you said, but there's too many posts and too much information to respond to.
 
As long as you wear judge’s robes and keep accusing God, you are not receptive to Light. You are not humble enough to find answers to your combative questions.

We have nothing to forgive God for.

Blasphemies like this display a darkened heart that is far from truth.

Gautama Buddha denied the existence of God and declared that man could reach perfection on his own through the 4 noble truths and dharma.

This haughty philosophy has tainted your outlook.

The only thing that can dissolve these smug and evil attitudes may, unfortunately, be extreme suffering.

Isaiah 66:2

My hand has made both earth and skies, and they are mine. Yet I will look with pity on the man who has a humble and a contrite heart, who trembles at my word.
You present a common western misunderstanding of what Buddha taught. The four steps were actions humanity could take to improve themselves, but it was still an act of grace by the creator/creative force that allowed humanity to achieve their goal. In both Judaism and Christianity, following the Torah is a means of attempting to direct oneself towards the desired ultimate goal, but it still takes an acto f grace to achieve it. Sometimes with careful study one discovers that some claims are potato/potahto.
 
No but I think I have a lot to forgive God for, this world tainted by it's evil and if he is the all powerful he allowed this to happen. I'm not sure I can forgive him, and mostly the character of Chirst doesn't match God himself. I just don't know at this point. Buddha was a saint at least, teaching people the way of self transformation.
When you were in school, especially in the higher grades, which teachers did you like the most and which were unjustly hard on you. Then, after you were out for a few years, did you opinions change and did you gain respect for the unjustly hard teachers and lose respect for the nice ones because the unjustly hard teachers better prepared you for actual life experiences?

What is true evil and is God allowing what you call evil from your human perspective to prepare you to deal with actual evil?
 
But the world was perfect until humans were added. We were the ones that followed our own way and allowed evil to flourish. That was not God's wish.





All other religions are about what you can do to make yourself better, higher, more enlightened. But Christianity is not about what you can do, because when you stand before a Holy God you are unworthy and you will always be. Christianity is about what God can do and what Christ did for you. He made you worthy through the shedding of His blood. And you can never achieve this on your own no matter how you try.
Scripture never says that the world was perfect before humans were added. Rather it says the world was "good, very good", which is fully capable of meaning that the world was functioning exactly as God desired it to, which does not have to mean "perfect".
 
Knowledge is power but power leads to temptation. Well allowing something is enabling it, he's enabled evil in the form of allowing Satan to do what he does. I don't know, it just seems like God isn't a just ruler. I'm sorry for not doing an in depth analysis of what you said, but there's too many posts and too much information to respond to.
According to Job, Satan cannot do whatever he wishes. He must first obtain specific permission form God and God sets the limits as to how far Satan may go, and not any further. Now that Satan is allowed to go farther than we humans like could very well be a measure of our ignorance, not God's justice.
 
Knowledge is power but power leads to temptation. Well allowing something is enabling it, he's enabled evil in the form of allowing Satan to do what he does. I don't know, it just seems like God isn't a just ruler. I'm sorry for not doing an in depth analysis of what you said, but there's too many posts and too much information to respond to.
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