All Abrahamic religions have essentially The same agenda, I.e. to spread their belief system to all cultures.Actually, the agenda of the Jews was never to spread their belief system to others. It was about a promised land for the Hebrew people, and a law given them by God by which they were to live in that land. Anyone who joined them must live by their laws as given to them by God, but they only conquered a specific land that was promised to Abraham. It was the teachings of Jesus, who claimed to be the the Jewish Messiah, that eventually sent the message of salvation from sin and reconciliation with God to all nations. But this was not to spread the belief system to all cultures, it is to call out from among the nations a people for God before God's judgment comes on all nations and destroys all sinners. Islam combines the two. They are theocratic and want to take that theocracy and the law within it to all nations. They want not only their own land, but the land of the Jews and Gentiles as well. Their goal is to dominate the world and for all people to submit to Allah and his prophet Muhammad. Jesus never claimed to e the Jewish Messiah. Other people made that claim hundreds of years after his death. Both Islam and Christianity are religions based on lies, misinterpretations, distortions and false claims. Lois
All of them claim to be "THE One True Faith And All Others Are False." All of them claim to be the guardians of what you call "the true message of Christ."I understand, but how does that show that the true message has not survived. Even if the vast majority of people are gravely mistaken, that doesn't show the true message of Christ is not believed by some. The apostles, including Paul, took the message of salvation to the ends of the earth at Jesus' instructions--his teachings. If Paul is the inventor of the faith, he is an amazing man--a man who invented a faith based on someone named Jesus, said he was the Messiah, claimed his message would go to the ends of the earth, and here we are at the ends of the earth still discussing his message while all this time Paul doesn't even take credit for it, but gives that to some man he made up named Jesus. Uh huh.
All of them claim to be "THE One True Faith And All Others Are False." All of them claim to be the guardians of what you call "the true message of Christ."I understand, but how does that show that the true message has not survived. Even if the vast majority of people are gravely mistaken, that doesn't show the true message of Christ is not believed by some. The apostles, including Paul, took the message of salvation to the ends of the earth at Jesus' instructions--his teachings. If Paul is the inventor of the faith, he is an amazing man--a man who invented a faith based on someone named Jesus, said he was the Messiah, claimed his message would go to the ends of the earth, and here we are at the ends of the earth still discussing his message while all this time Paul doesn't even take credit for it, but gives that to some man he made up named Jesus. Uh huh. The Islamic message has survived, too. Does that mean it's the true message? The Jewish message is that the Messiah has not yet arrived. There are many Jews who believe that. We have hundreds of religious messages that survive today. Who is to say which one is true or that any is true? That some people believe these things means nothing. Almost the whole population of the earth believed the sun revolves around the earth, even after Galileo. Did that prove that a geocentric universe is true? How many people believe a premise has no bearing whatsoever on its validity. Paul giving credit to Jesus instead of taking it himself also has no bearing on the truth of his message. Paul may have been an amazing man, but that also has no bearing on the truth of his message. Lois
LilySmith
If Paul is the inventor of the faith, he is an amazing man—a man who invented a faith based on someone named Jesus, said he was the Messiah,
Paul never invented the faith and either did Jesus. Paul was a big part of the evolution of the Christian faith. The church used what was called foot note bibles that they could mark the changes needed in the text. Now come-on what’s that all about?
I understand, but how does that show that the true message has not survived.You have no way of verifying that it has because, quite simply, no primary sources of any kind have survived. Frankly, you can't even prove that the person known as Jesus Christ ever even existed. In that light, claiming that a message of his has survived is pretty damned arrogant.
Even if the vast majority of people are gravely mistaken, that doesn’t show the true message of Christ is not believed by some.Given the conflicting opinions on what that 0ne True Message is, there is no "IF" abut it. If even one of them is right, the rest are absolutely wrong. Even if this message of yours has survived somewhere, that doesn't mean it's mean it's valid. Really LilySmith, if you're going to advance an opnion here, you're going to have to do WAY better then to offer all the canned answers your pastor has brainwashed you with. There are too many people here who know the REAL history of the Abrahamic cults. If all you have to offer is the standard apologetics, then you're just wasting everybody's time.