Live Free with Josh Howerton - ALL Major Religions EXPLAINED in Under 90 Minutes (ft. Dr. Frank Turek) | Live Free with Josh Howerton

Episode Date: June 22, 2026

Do all religions lead to God? Are Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and other faiths really teaching the same thing? In this episode of LIVE FREE, Pastors Carlos Erazo and Paul Cunningham are joined by renowned Christian apologist Dr. Frank Turek to tackle one of the most important questions a person can ask: What is true? Together, they explore why so many religions exist, whether all faiths ultimately point to the same destination, and the major differences between Christianity and the world's largest religions. They also address one of the most common objections to Christianity: Does God's judgment in the Bible make Him a moral monster? From Judaism and Islam to Mormonism, Buddhism, and atheism, this conversation provides a practical framework for understanding what different worldviews teach about God, humanity, salvation, and Jesus. Most importantly, you'll discover why Christianity stands apart from every other religion—and why the identity of Jesus changes everything. In This Episode: Do all religions lead to the same God? Is God a moral monster in the Old Testament? Christianity vs. Judaism: What's the difference? What Islam teaches about Jesus Buddhism, Hinduism, and atheism in simple terms Why Christianity is unique among all religions How to have better conversations with people of other faiths If you've ever wondered how different religions compare—or how to confidently explain your faith—this episode is for you. Stand firm. Think biblically. Live free. 💬 This week’s giveaway: Comment HAT 🧢 Want a Live Free hat of your own? Visit LiveFree.shop 📲 Looking to grow deeper in your faith? Check out the Lakepointe App to access our Discipleship Guide, daily Bible reading plan, and more. Text APP to 20411 to download

Every other world religion is trying to work their way to God if they believe in God at all. In Christianity, God works his way to us. Most major religions are about how you seek God. Christianity at its core, it's about how God seeks you. God wants us to be people that are good because He is good. But that's actually not the point of existence. The point of existence is to know and worship the God who created us. Well, hey, Lifree Nation.

Before we jump into the episode, this podcast is recorded right here at Lake Point Church in Dallas, Texas. but the live free nation is spread all over the country and all around the world. So if you've been watching and thinking, man, I wish I could be part of something like this. We want to invite you to take a simple next step, and that is join us for church online. Every weekend we stream our services live on YouTube, Facebook, and our church online platform, and it's more than just watching a service. There are a live host in the chat. Prayer teams ready to stand with you and people all around the world worshiping together in real time.

And so whether you're exploring the faith, coming back to church, or just looking for a place to start. Church online is a great way to jump in and experience what God is doing here at Lake Point. We would love to see you in the chat this weekend, and now enjoy the podcast. Well, hey, welcome back to another episode of the Live Free Podcast.

My name is Carlos Arasso, and today I'm here with Pastor Paul Cunningham. And Paul, today we have a very special guest that I'm about to introduce in a very special way. You ready? Yeah, I'm ready. Man, he is a Christian apologist, best-selling author of I don't have enough faith

to be an atheist and a founder of Cross-Examine, but here's how I call him. He is the Jedi Master of Apologetics. Whoa. A heavyweight champion of Christian debate. The cross-examiner of atheism. The man every college skeptic eventually has to deal with, Dr. Frank Tric. Yeah, welcome back.

Well, thank you. I got to ask you guys, what's it like being two-thirds of the best podcast in the world? Come on, man. It is. I mean, think about this. You know, Mortimer Adler many years ago was asked this question. when he was pulling together the great book series, because in the great book series,

the biggest entry is about God. And he was asked, why is the biggest entry about all these great thinkers? Why is God the biggest subject, the subject with the most written on it? And he said, I suppose it's because that more implications come from the answer to the question,

does God exist, and who is he, than any other question. you could ask. That's great. And so what we do here, you do here, and of course Josh does here on the Live Free podcast, is talk about God and what it means, what God means to us and how we should live. There can't be anything more important than that. That's exactly right. He's the center of the universe. He's the center of all creation. Everything revolves around him. We were actually just sharing the other day. I think you showed Mr. Beast, how many subscriptions? Yeah, Mr. Beast literally just hit 500 million subscribers on YouTube. And I said, man, if,

If he can do that to entertain people, I think we can do that to preach the gospel. Exactly. So we only got to multiply it by 500 right now? Is that it? We only need 499 million subscribers. So, hey, one more. We're all about one more. But the point of that was not to take a slam of Mr. B is.

The point of that was to your point saying, man, if God is the center of everything and everything is related to him, why wouldn't we want to talk about it and why wouldn't we want as many people possible to hear about that? That's right. And if God doesn't exist, then nothing ultimately matters. That's right. We all wind up in the same place in the dirt. Exactly.

Doesn't ultimately matter whether you wind up as a missionary or a murderer, ultimately, if there is no God. But if God does exist, then that topic is the most important topic we can talk about. Let's go. And that's why we're grateful that you're here. And I think, Frank, you've set a new record. I think you're the guest that have had the most appearances in Live Free. I am blessed. Your pace setting.

You're like, this is the third time you're here. I am blessed. Right, man. Last episode that we did with you. Like we had people comment all over. They loved having you here. I got a couple comments. Jacob said, Frank is one of the most influential titans of the faith in my life starting over a decade ago.

Sarah said Dr. Frank's Josh impressions are impeccable. Hey, do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Hey, come on, let's wrap up this pod. Come on. Oh, we just started. They are impeccable. All right.

Good. And so, man, today's going to be. I love Josh, by the way. Yeah. I love them. I think it's mutual. I told him, I said, if we could just get every pastor to be like Josh, the world would be Christianized. Every pastor to keep this big.

Well, because Josh is a pastor that rightfully knows that every single area of life should be governed by what Jesus and the apostles say. That every area of life, it's not just what you do at church or at home, it's what you do at work. It's what you do online. It's what you do in the voting booth. It's what you do in the community. Your life should be completely governed by what Jesus and the apostles say, the Bible. Right? Right? And I think too often many Christians and even some pastors act as if, no, we're just here to talk about spiritual things. We're not here to talk about things that are outside of the spiritual, when in fact everything relates to the spiritual in some way. We're not here to talk about politics. We're not here to talk about what you're doing at work.

We're only here to talk about maybe just what you do in church and maybe just what you do in the home, but don't let it affect the government. Don't let it affect other areas of your life. And I think people are misled by that. That's right. I think the Bible ought to be our guidebook for what we do in every area of life. It's not a private faith. It's something that literally should influence every single aspect of your life.

Every single decision you make, yeah. Faith is personal, but it's not private. There's a key distinction there. On that note, today we're going to be asking the question since we have Dr. Frank Turk with us today is God a moral monster? We're going to be asking hey what about those passages in the Bible that are

a little bit more difficult and it seems like God is mean according to some people. Why are there so many religions? This is the special all religions explained in under 60 minutes episode. Aren't all religions Frank just saying the same thing right? Like some people, we'll go there

I know you got some thoughts. Okay I got I got He's already. He was ready to go. Ready to go. Man, I saw it just, the meter changed. I love that. And then we're going to, like I said, we're going to explain all major religions and hopefully under 60 minutes. The podcast is probably going to be more than that, but just that particular section. And we're going to be answering frequently shouted questions on all of these.

A couple things before we do, man, we're excited because Paul and Frank, July 11th, we are starting our At the Movie series. This is, in the Gospels, you see Jesus using stories to illustrate biblical truths. What we do in this four-week sermon series is we use movie clips to illustrate biblical truth. We have fun with it, characters in the lobby, popcorn drinks for everyone. Obviously, in addition to worship and Bible teaching and more, don't miss four weeks at the movies. Can you tell us one of the clips you might be using at this point? I would love to tell you right now. And we, I think there's been some, something's happening right now.

Sorry. I hope you caught it. I hope you caught. I was sorry. I didn't know you were doing this, but you know I have a book on how Jesus is in the movies. It's called Hollywood Heroes. Oh, okay. How your favorite movies reveal God. Yeah, my son and I wrote it, who's also a seminary grad. That's awesome. But you'd be shocked to learn. Well, you wouldn't be. But people out there might be shocked to learn that the major movie franchises of the past 50 years have all stolen from the greatest story ever told.

That's it. Whether they know it or not. Exactly. Whether you're talking about Batman, Iron Man, Star Wars. You're talking about Lord of the Rings, of course. You're talking about Harry Potter. You would be shocked to learn. That's another podcast, by the way.

Yes. Yes. You would be shocked. to learn that J.K. Rowling took the entire storyline out of the Bible. She admits it. Yes. Is that the idea of all the lowercase stories are ultimately pointing to the capital S ultimate story? And Carlos, I don't know if you're about to go here, but just in case you weren't, I want to say like, number one, if you're in the DFW area, you're going to have to come in person. This is a sermon series that we will not broadcast because of copyright issues.

So if you want to be a part of at the movies, you've got to come and be with us in person. But hey, if you already know Jesus and you call Lake Point Home, here's what I want to encourage you is not just to plan on coming, but I want you to be asking who am. I'm going to bring with me? This is one of, if not our best series of the entire year to bring someone who is far from God, but close to you. Because we just feel like we put the truth of God in a very accessible way that anyone can understand. So this is the perfect time. If you've been waiting to invite someone to church, they can come to know Jesus or at least be exposed to Jesus. This is the best series for it at the year. And if you are part of the live free

nation and you are not within driving distance as well, man, come hang out. We got a free gift for you as well. We'd love to meet you. Also, we do a giveaway every single week. So if you're on YouTube or Spotify, shout it to other people joining their. Comment hat. And we'd love to pick several winners to give away some free hats for live free. Also, if you want to purchase them, you can go to live free. Shop or text the word hat to 20411. To find our daily Bible reading plan, plus the weekly sermon and an early release of the Live Free podcast, you can download the Lake Point Church app, text the word app to 204.1. Do people get a free hat, really? Yeah, every single week. Yeah. We left, I know we gave you some last time. I got one. I've been, I wore it on one of my own

podcast. We love it. We love it. We love it. We love it. We love it. We're on the honor and I'm going to be an atheist podcast. Hey, uh, Pastor Mike did another, another phenomenal job. As always. This sermon series, uh, so, uh, Frank, this sermon series called Enfuego. That's French for, uh, you know, that's, I'm not, that's not true. Although Carlos speaks French, by the way. I, I, he impressed me the week. Can you speak a little bit for us right now? I'm putting him on the spot. Oh, my goodness. I'm excited to practice that in a couple weeks. That sounds right.

That sounds right. Literally nobody speaks French in Texas. I know French too. Souffle. My favorite French word, maybe. Chocolate moose. That's great. I mean, it is.

I mean, you are correct. Enfuego, but it's not French. Enfuego is Spanish for on fire. And this is a sermon series on fire, obviously, but also on anger. We had the first couple weeks, talk about anger. And then this last weekend, we talked about the fire of God and how the Bible says God is a consuming fire,

which means that God never changes. But when you experience God, he changes you. And so the story from this weekend, so if you haven't checked the sermon, you can go back and find it. It's from First Kings 18. And this is where there is a drought. And this is the prophet Elijah, which, by the way, this is very timely.

We didn't know this was going to be. The prophet Elijah challenges King Ahab to a showdown to determine who is the true God. And this is Elijah versus 450 prophets of Bail. There's two altars that were prepared. The prophets of Bail are literally all day, cunning themselves, crying out to their gods for them to show up, but nothing happens.

Elijah prays a simple prayer. And with all the odds stacked against him, the Bible says that there's fire literally coming down from heaven and consumes the sacrifice. And then the Bible says Elijah had the false prophets arrested and execute it. I'm going to ask you about this in just a second here. And eventually God ended the drought by sending things. But the whole point of the story, amongst other things, is there is no God like the God of the Bible.

That's right. And this is literally what First Kings 1839 says. When all the people saw this, they felt posturated and cried, the Lord, Jehovah, he is God. The Lord, he is God. This is people that did not know God recognizing the true God after they saw him work. Exodus 1511 says, who among the gods is like you, O Lord? Who is like you? Majestic in holiness, awesome and glory, working wonders.

Psalm 953 for the Lord is the great God, the great king above all gods. And then he tells the people of Israel, Elijah says this, hey, make up your mind who's going to be your God? And so, Paul, anything else that stood out from the sermon to you. Yeah, a couple of details. I mean, one, it's just kind of a flex move. I feel like on the part of Elijah is not only does he call like that simple calling of the fire down, he douses it with water and a ton of water, which, by the way, it's in the middle of a drought. Yes, a huge drought. It's a huge tree.

He said, put some more water on that. He's like, put some more. Put some more on. Because it's like, if you're not much of an outdoor person, that's not usually something you would do if you're wanting to start a fire. You want dry wood, dryest wood possible. So he dowses it almost as a flex. It's like, hey, you're not doing anything, but I'm going to flex a little bit more.

I'm going to have it to douse it. And then God's going to consume it. And it does. I just love that little detail. After mocking the other gods, by the way. Yeah. Like he basically says, oh, maybe your God's in the bathroom. You know, maybe that's why he's not responding and stuff like that.

That's kind of, if you like a trash talking in sports, this is like a great trash talking, like just story in the Bible, great back and forth. The other thing, and maybe this will transition, even to the question I can pose for Frank, because I know you've gotten questions like this before, not just about stories like this, but other stories that seem to be like it, especially in the Old Testament, is we do have to remember that while Elijah does in a sense call for this confrontation, he says, hey, let's settle for all where we stand. And when you actually read the greater story of what's happening here, King Ahab and then as Queen Jezebel are evil people, evil, evil people who are actively persecuting God's people and his prophets. And so in the next chapter, actually, it's funny after this huge thing, Elijah gets discouraged because his life is threatened. But then he has this moment where he's alone with God and he says, these people have put

all of the prophets to death and I'm the only one left. Only one left. Now God does say, hey, actually, I have reserved some over here, but still, the idea of like these people have been killing and persecuting God's people and his prophets like a ton. So we do have to remember in the story that Elijah is not a genocidal jerk. He's a person, if anything, he's been the one being persecuted. All right, let's settle once and for all whose God is the true God. But that being said, Frank, when people sometimes read stories like this now, it just seems to make God like this moral monster, like this mean guy. I mean, you've got stories like

this. You've got the K-Night Conquest. Last week we talked about the flood, and we kind of ran out of time at the end when we were talking about some of the moral problems that for some people this causes. But yeah, what do you do with stories like this where it seems like if God were to do this today, it's like if you were to put to death 450 people of another religion that were like their leaders like, oh, like this is awful. This is genocide. This is persecution. Like what do you do with this when people are like, hey, doesn't this mean God seem mean like a genocidal maniac? What do you say to that? I think the first question that we need to ask somebody that brings this up is what do you mean by evil? Okay. They're they're coming up with a,

an evil scenario, and it depends on their worldview. If they believe in God, they can say, well, evil is a lack in good and God is good, and it appears like God is going too far here. They'll say that. But too often this kind of objection comes from atheists. I had a situation, I was at the University of Central Oklahoma. This had to be almost 10 years ago, and this atheist woman was asking me a question about this. I can't believe in the God of the Old Testament because he does stuff like this, you know, he kills people. And I asked her this question, I said, before we go any further, can I ask you, what is your position on abortion?

And she said, oh, I'm pro-choice. And so then I asked her, I said, let me ask you a question. When God plays God in the Old Testament and he decides who lives and dies, you're claiming he's immoral. But when you play God right now, and you decide who lives and dies with regard to a baby in the womb, you think that's a moral right that you have. Can you justify this for me? Now, of course, you couldn't because there is no justification. We use this phrase, you shouldn't play God. What does that imply? It implies that God has an ability or a right to do certain things that we don't have the

right to do. If God is the ultimate judge, he can take life anytime he wants. In fact, if Christianity is true, people don't die, they just change location. They go from this life to the next life. And that's up to God when that happens. Now, in this case, as you point out, Paul, there's a lot of evil going on between Ahab and Jezebel, and they've pulled people away from the true God Yahweh. And so there's a showdown, and God says, choose who you're going to follow. You're going to follow, Eli, or Elijah says, you're going to follow Yahweh, you're going to follow Ball. And they decide to follow Ball. Okay. This is called judgment. And in America, we think God is a cosmic candy man. He's all squishy love, but no judgment. He's no justice. The very reason we need a Savior is because God is just.

If God is not just, he can look the other way on sin and just say, there's no sacrifice. We don't need a sacrifice. You're in. That's not a just God. So God is just, and he judges these people rightfully. God can take a life anytime he wants. In this case, it has to do with justice. And people say, well, God is all evil in the old, no, he's not. He's judging people. And another thing we need to remember, the Old Testament covers thousands. of years of history. The New Testament covers about 60. There's a lot more time to do evil in thousands of years. You're going to see a lot of periods of judgment in that period of time. Not as much time in about 60 years, although hell is talked about in the New Testament,

and Jesus says basically the city of Jerusalem is going to get judged. Of course, when Jesus comes back, there's going to be a judgment as well. So if you think Jesus was tough in the Old Testament, just wait until he comes back. He is going to judge. judge. So this is judgment. This is not unjust for a God of the universe. That's right. The differences is that we would say murder is the unjustified killing of someone. So even I think that was a brilliant, even turning the question on them and saying, hey, like, what do you believe on abortion? Because the reason we believe that is wrong, because that is the unjustified killing of an innocent baby who has done nothing. That's murder. Yeah. The Bible does not say thou shalt not kill. It says, thou shalt not murder.

Exactly. And that is murder. God can kill anytime he wants. He's the author of life. He can take it. In this case, it's for a reason. It's because they've been unjust and they're leading the people away from the truth. Exactly. Whereas in this case, this is what you're hearing is like, God is just and really he is a judge who exercises that justice. In fact, we would consider judges in our society if awful things like this were happening. And they were not holding the people who were accountable for that. We would consider them awful unjust judges. So actually, if they weren't doing, we would say you're unjust, which that's something I like to do as well. you know, it's about turning it on and ask them a question when I get, when I get questions like this,

usually like you said from skeptics, although even sometimes it's Christians who maybe they're just, again, reading it through a very modern lens and haven't really encountered this idea yet. As I say, what would you have God do in this situation? Like, let's just talk about this right here. Let's move this to like right now we're in the year 2026. Man, what if there is a society that was actively persecuting Christians and their pastors? And they were actually, these people were actually sacrificing. their children to Molek. Yeah, they were sacrificing their children. And let's say God did nothing.

What would you be crying on God? Why doesn't God? Bingo. Yeah. Why doesn't God do something? And here's a situation where God does something. They go, he shouldn't have done that. Exactly. And so this is one of those. We hit this a little bit, but kind of only just teased on it last week because Noah was Fudd. This is one of those situations where if God does nothing, like, well, there can't be a God because he did nothing. But if he does anything, well, there can't be a God because he did it. And I don't like the exact way that he did it. It's just really, it's just saying, Hey, I think God is the one on the throne, and he is the only just and good judge who always does what is right. Even if it doesn't seem right to us, it's always the right thing to do. And that's why we like Jesus so much because God's judgment is real. That's why the cross is so horrid. It's Jesus taking upon himself the judgment of God, the righteous judgment of God, in our place.

Because at the end of the day, it's not that God judges innocent people, is that there is no innocent people. There was only one that was innocent, and that's Jesus. and he received that judgment. And you and I should be receiving that judgment, but we don't, and that's called mercy. And so, again, it all points back to a good and faithful God. So on that note, we have a lot to cover today. They say that if you don't want to ruin a party, don't talk about religion.

In this episode, we're going to talk about all the major religions and explain every single one of the major religions in hopefully under 60 minutes, so it's going to be really fun. We did an episode where we explained all Christian denominations. nations. You can go find it. It's fun. This is the religion version of that. So Frank, I can't think of anybody else to have this conversation with today. Let me start with this. If somebody is asking this conversation, why do we even have so many religions today? Yeah. Well, I think part of that goes back to Romans chapter one where Paul talks about the fact

that we suppress the truth and unrighteousness to go our own way. We know that God's invisible qualities are clearly seen so that men are without excuse. In other words, we know there's a God. In fact, when people say, how do you know God exists? I say, I know God by his effects. Because if there's an effect, there has to be a cause. So if creation is an effect, and it is, there has to be a cause, a creator. And if space, time, and matter had a beginning,

the cause must be spaceless, timeless, and immaterial, right? If there's design in the universe, that's the effect. There has to be a designer. If there's design in life, there has to be a designer. If there's a moral law written on the heart, there's got to be a moral law giver, right? If there's evidence of man predicting and accomplish his own resurrection from the dead, that's the effect. There's got to be a cause who can create and resurrect somebody from the dead. Those first three things I mentioned, creation, design, and morality, everybody knows whether they've seen a Bible or not,

because that's just part of what's called natural revelation, or he might say God's works. God has two revelations. He has his word, but before he has his word, he has his works. It's also called natural revelation. And everybody has that. Paul, you got the passage there? You want to read? Yeah, I was going to say, this is really important. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile on their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. This is Romans 1-21, claiming verse 22, to be wise, they became fools in exchange the glory of the immortal God for images is resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. So just briefly then keep going.

I was like, I've got the passage because I wanted to read that. The next chapter, Romans too. He talks about the law written on the heart. That's the natural law. Yeah. So from creation, design, and morality, we know there has to be a creator who's moral and has designed things. So he's going to hold us accountable.

So everybody knows there has to be some sort of being out there. And some people interpret that in different ways, but all these different world religions are attempts in some respect to explain why certain effects exist. And some explain them better than others, I think, from a rational perspective. So part of it has to do with the human heart trying to create a world that we want. Another has to do with the idea that God has created and designed certain things and has put a moral law in place. And so now we're trying to, if we're following the truth properly, trying to explain those things by a reference to a creator who's moral. Okay.

And if you go to the Bible, I mean, the Bible also talks about the fact that people have these different idols that they are trying to worship, that they want to get certain things in this life. And they think if I pay homage to a certain idol or if I pray to a certain person, my crops are going to be. better. They're still using cause and effect. Notice that? That if I pray to certain gods or deities, I'm going to get what I want here on this life. So part of that is what Paul is talking about in Romans 1. Instead of praying to the true deity, they've set up their own to try and get an effect they want here on earth. Yeah. That's good. Well, I think kind of putting together some what you said there is the idea of, hey, everybody, and we'll get to atheism in a bit. I'll still say everybody has a sense that we had to get here somehow. And the vast majority of people across

human history believe in some kind of a deity or some kind of something that put this all into motion. There had to be some kind of an ultimate cause kind of a thing. But then once sin is introduced, I've heard it said before, that God created us in his image. But the second sin is introduced, we begin trying to make God into our image or into the image of something else. And then so to the question of like, how did these religions go up? It's like, well, if you get groupings of people who believe similar things about who God is and what's the problem with the world, world, they begin kind of getting together and codifying that, and that's how you get religions. And so once it enters into the picture, instead of accepting God for who he is, and that

if we've been made in his image, so we need to know who he is, instead we begin remake him into our image. Would you say that's kind of an accurate information? Yeah, and I would also say it kind of goes back to that podcast you guys did not long ago. Why are there so many denominations? For the same reason, there's so many non-Christians. It's not because the truth is not perceived.

I think it's because the truth is not received. It's good. Right? Say it one more time frame. It's not because the truth is not perceived. It's because the truth is not received. That we want to have it our way. So we'll come up with justifications for believing a certain thing when in fact, if we were honest with ourselves and followed the truth where it led, we would wind up at least with some sort of theistic God.

You don't get all the way to Jesus with just natural law or we would say natural revels. or God's works because you need historical information to know that Jesus exists. We can talk about the witness of Holy Spirit another time. But you would need some historical information. But the fact that there's a deity out there, a being that created and sustains the world and is a moral being, everybody automatically knows that. What they do with that from that point on, there's a lot of reasons they go in different directions.

Yeah, but I don't even know why the Livery Podcast is doing an episode on all these religions because at the end of the day, don't they all just teach the same thing? Frank, I've heard it said this way, like, isn't it true that it's like, you know, it's like an elephant? And then like one religion kind of grabs the trunk, the other religion kind of grabs the other leg and then the other leg. And then everybody's claiming like, oh, I know the truth. And then they're touching, you know, something very different. And then they're all arguing, hey, it's the same elephant. Isn't that true?

The story that Carlos is referring to that when I hear you say, Frank, is like there's this old, like, fable. It's like, oh, it's like all these blind people. And one's holding the tail. and it's like, oh, it's like a snake, and one's holding the tusk. Oh, it's like a rhino and so on and so forth. And so the idea is, oh, they're actually all touching the same thing. They just can't see it. What would you say to that, Frank?

Well, the problem with that particular parable is you can show there's a problem with the parable by asking one question. And the question is, what is the perspective of the one telling the parable? The one telling the parable says all these blind men, think they have the truth, but they don't, because they only have a piece of the truth. You know, one thinks it's a wall, another thinks it's a snake, another thinks it's a rope, another thinks it's a tree, whatever. But the person telling the parable knows they're all wrong, because he can see it's an elephant, right? Everyone's blind but me. Yes, everyone's

blind but me, right? So the parable actually doesn't work. It backfires because the person telling the parable knows that those people are all wrong. It's actually an elephant. But I like to say this. I know people will say this. You know, religions, They all teach the same thing. They teach you ought to love one another. And to which I respond, yeah, they all teach, they ought to love one another. The only thing they differ on is the nature of God, the nature of man, sin, salvation, heaven, hell, and creation. Outside of that.

They're exactly the same. Wait, in fact, we have a, there's a quote there from two years ago. I just want to make sure I wanted you to respond. As you're about to tell us, oh, wait, you don't have that one? Did I not send you that quote? Hold on. I'm like, keep going. Okay, okay.

Let me, let me add to that. Actually, they don't teach you ought to love one another. I was going to say. Okay, because, you know, Satanism doesn't. Islam doesn't, right? You're supposed to submit. In fact, Islam, Allah is not a god of love, all right? You can't call them love.

So there are religions that don't teach you ought to love one another. The truth of the matter is religions agree superficially. They disagree significantly on the essentials. Think of what I just said. I know it was kind of in fun, but the nature of God, the nature of man, sin, salvation, heaven, hell, and creation. These world religions differ on those issues. Now, some are more similar than others. Theisms are more similar than the non-theisms to one another, obviously, and we can get into that. But no, religions are superficially the same, fundamentally different. This is what Pope Francis said in September 13th, 2004. He said, all religions are a path to reach God. there is only one God, and our religions are languages, paths to reach God. Some are Sheikh, Muslim, Hindu, Christians, they are different ways to God.

All right. Give me heresy for 500 hours. Yeah, even my Catholic friends will admit this is heresy. Yeah. Okay. Well, I have many Catholic friends. I've brought up in the Catholic Church. That's absolute heresy.

Yeah. That he would be burned or swallowed with the Baal followers in the Elijah. story by saying that. Wow. Okay. They're not all going up the same mountain, so to speak. You know, you hear all roads lead to Rome. It's not even, it's not even good analogy. All roads don't lead to Rome. I tried to get to Rome here on Highway 30 and I wound up, I wound up in Texarkana. I never got to Rome. He ended up in Italy, Texas. Well, even, like, although, you know, I'm agreeing to completely bit. If I could even kind of come and say, yeah, I'll pass lead to God in the sense that eventually everybody from a religion is going to stand before God at Judgment Day.

And I'm not disagree with you. I'm actually saying, so yeah, the question at that point is, is did you have the right ideas about God? I'm like, well, why does that matter? I'm like, well, if God is a personal God, if he's a personal being, here's what I know about personal beings, including the three of us at the table, including my wife, I've used this analogy before, we want to be known and loved for who we really are. My wife, if I were to say, and I've done this before, I'm not going to do the picture

like I did before, but if I were to say, man, I love my wife, Frank, you've never matter, but let me just describe her to. I describe some of the superficial but still things I loved. She's six feet tall. She's beautiful blonde hair, blue eyes, kind of like Norwegian descent. Like if my wife was listening to her right now, she'd be getting really ticked because my wife is like five foot three. She is so beautiful, but she has got brown hair, brown eyes, got a cute little southern twang. She'd get mad because even though I would still be calling her Amy, I'm describing someone who is not my wife. My wife must be known and loved for who she really is. If God is personal. He wants to be known, loved, and worshiped for who he really is, not for who we want him to

be. In the same way that my wife would get ticked at me, God, frankly, yeah, he gets mad. He is angered by the fact that we worship him not as who he is, but who we want him to be. Another thing, just to kind of expose, I think, some of the silliness of this from a different angle. I was reminded, basically this is kind of talking about relativism, is you're like, oh, yeah, just believe whatever you want. It's all ultimately kind of the same thing. That always sounds good until people actually, to your point, disagree on something. And so we'll get off a religion for a saying, can we put a picture up of the dress? So a little over a decade ago, there was a massive.

It may have been the first example of like rage baiting online, Carlos, where people were debating fiercely online over what the color of this dress was. What do you guys see right now? Frank. I see the color of the dress. Kind of brown and blue. Okay, brown and blue. Yeah.

It's black and blue. That's what you see? See, right now I'm seeing white and gold. And this is the normal thing that happened is all these people were seeing these different colors. And what's interesting is no one was saying, well, you know what, you see whatever you want to see. I'll see what I want to see. People were getting enraged that they weren't seeing the right color, which was the way that they happened to see it. And so actually what happened was some research was done because, you know, the thing about this, we can actually figure out what color this dress is.

You know how? You're wrong, Paul. You're seeing something that's just not true. Exactly. So all of a sudden, we're no longer relatives. All of a sudden, we're no longer relativist. All of a sudden, all the way is the right way. Well, you know, by the way, half of the people watching this right now,

I mean like, what? I know. People are getting angry right now, the fact that I see it white and gold. Well, here's what's interesting is we can actually find out the color of the dress. You know how? We go back and we ask the maker and designer of that dress. And the actual dress is black and blue. And so the idea is there is an objective, one true, in this case, two true colors that it is. But there is an objective colors that make up this dress.

And anyone who says that's why, even if you see it differently, it doesn't matter. You're seeing it wrong. So I'd say, hey, and the same thing is, it's like, you don't get to make God whoever you want him to be. He is who he is, and it's upon us as humans to worship and love him as he is. You know what I think might be motivating the Pope's statement, just to be fair here, is that I really think it's a statement about morality. And the reason I'm saying that is because he's trying to say that God wants all to be saved and God does. And those world religions don't believe in Jesus. So somehow he's going to reach, Jesus is going to reach.

Jesus is going to reach all of those people through those religions. I mean, it may be motivated by what he thinks is a good end. However, what he's leaving out is the fact that God is perfectly just and perfectly loving. And according to his revelation, he's not going to force anybody into heaven against their will. So if somebody doesn't want to be with God in the afterlife, they will not be. And the way to get to the afterlife is through Jesus. It's impossible for God to be unjust in the afterlife. And it seems like the Pope may be motivated by saying it would be unjust for those people if they were to go to hell.

No, it wouldn't if indeed they didn't really want to go to heaven and be with Jesus. Okay? Justice is a good thing. There's only two things you can get in the afterlife. You can get justice or you can get grace. Does anybody really want justice from an infinitely just being? I don't. I'd be toast, right?

I've been unjust in the last 10 minutes, okay? So I think it's motivated by a moral issue rather than a strictly, say, theological reading of the Bible. He's not agreeing with, he's not even agreeing with the Catholic Church. No. And in fact, the Catholic Church has disagreed with itself. In 1302, they said the only way you can be saved is through the Catholic Church. In Vatican 2, they said, no, they're separated brethren who can be saved. Okay, even good Muslims, good atheists, what he's trying to say here.

So it's a contradiction from this, it's a contradiction with the scriptures. It's also a contradiction over the original teaching of the Catholic Church. Okay, so now that we have established that all religions are not teaching the same thing, which I think is very clear, and we're about to elaborate on this. What we're going to do, we're going to go through each one of the major religions, one by one, and then here's what we're going to do. We're going to show a visual representation that we got from chat GPT. And so this is what we got from artificial intelligence.

We're just going to see what. You didn't draw these? I did not draw these. Okay, that's good to know. No, no, for sure. I'm not that good. And then we're going to talk about the founder. What do they believe?

What's wrong with the world? How do you fix it according to this religion? Who is Jesus for this religion? And then we're going to do it like a quick, rapid fire, frequently asked questions for each one of them. And before we jump in, just a few caveats. One in terms of being while we're doing this is to show that there. are differences. And to highlight these, maybe to in a few places, say, hey, here's where we believe that these are wrong in a different place. We're not saying that none of them has any truth,

by the way. I think you've said this before. There's difference. They contain some truths that we would agree on, but they are not capital T truth, right? Yeah, in fact, let's distinguish between a system of truth and a system of error. Yeah. Okay. If Christianity is true, if it's true, just assume for the sake of argument, on this podcast we do. We think it is true. I've written a book on it. Okay, let's assume it's true. If Christianity is true, then all non-Christianities are false. But it doesn't mean that every non-Christianity is actually teaching everything wrong.

Yes. Like, for example, if Christianity is true, Islam is true, there is a God. Islam is true, you ought to pray. Islam is true, you ought to get 2.5% of your income to the poor, just like Christians believe? Nope. That's really... I know, we all pause. We're like, we're like, you ought to give.

That's what they believe. That's what they believe. 2%. We're all the what Christians give, actually. No, I mean, there's a system of truth, but I might have some errors in my understanding of it. Christianity's true, but I may have some errors in understanding. There may be a worldview, like, say, Islam out there, this system of error that has some truth. There's some true things in Islam, but where they disagree with the Christian worldview, by the law of non-conyreview, by the law of non-cony.

contradiction, they have to be wrong. Exactly. And then with that, actually, I'm glad that you brought this up in terms of they have truths. One of the other big reasons we wanted to do this was to say, hey, I think there could be some points of good connection that ultimately one of the reasons why we're doing this is we want to help Christians be able to know what other people from other faith believe and how to share the gospel with them. We're going to hit some of that at the end. But one thing that helps is if you know some basic framework from which you can then do that. The Apostle Paul does this, then Carlos will let you go and get us going. The Apostle of does this in Acts 17. He's with the Athenians, with pagan polytheists, and yet he knew enough of

the stuff that he was able to make connections with them in order to preach the gospel to them. So the next hour, the next 60 minutes, which is about to officially start now, the clock is going to start now that we're actually diving into these, is we want to highlight these so that you can be more informed, but not just that you know more, but that you can articulate your faith better. Well, hey, before we get back to the episode, I want to tell you about something coming up at Lake Point that we're really excited about this summer. We're hosting Ad the Movies. a four-week sermon series where we'll use movie clips and stories to illustrate powerful biblical truths. It's one of the most fun and creative experiences we do all year here at Lake Point,

and it's designed for the entire family. And so every weekend at our physical locations will feature unique movie-themed experiences, fun characters in the lobby for both kids and adults, incredible worship and practical teaching from the Word of God, and of course popcorn and drinks for everyone. So whether you are here and maybe you're a longtime churchgoer, someone who's been away from church for a while, or maybe you're looking for an easy way

to invite a friend, neighbor, or co-worker to church. This right here is the perfect series for you. At the Movies is an in-person-only event and begins July 11 and 12 and continues through August 1 and 2. And so if you're in the Dallas area, we'd love for you to join us at one of our campuses. You can find service, times, locations,

and more information by texting the word ATM to 20411. Now, let's get back to the conversation. Are you going to take Christianity? Yeah, well, we all. I got the photo. So, Trinidad. Here's a Chad GPT visual representation of what Chad GPT thinks is Christianity, or at least, there you go, an expression of it. So this right here, according to Chad GPT, is the three branches of Christianity.

If you are not watching video, you need to switch to that real fast. You can come to YouTube and to Spotify. So let me explain what's going on here because I'm interpreting what Chad GPT has given us. On the left is Protestantism. He's got Pastor Josh, Jesus changed my life. He's got atomic habits. Oh, look, I don't have enough faith to be an atheist. Reading your book.

Reading. Right under winning. Okay, there you go. And he's got his mug. It says, what is it? But first prayer, little heart. Great. So then these are the three main branches of Christianity.

You got Protestantism, Catholicism, and this is what Pastor Josh would look like as Father Josh. Real quick, I just have to say this. It looks like he could be Father Mike's brother. in that picture. I thought it was when I glanced at it. Yeah. Just going to say that.

Just going to say it. He kind of looks like him. Yeah. And on the third, on the right, he's Pastor Josh, if he was a Orthodox Christian. Which I think I can speak for all of us. Pastor Josh, we want you to stay on Team Protestant. But if you can get that beard, that would just take it to a whole other level. We need to ask him if you can get that beard.

We need to ask him. So, okay, let's just go right now. Let's go founder. What do they believe? What's wrong with the world? How do you fix it? You start us off, Carl. Okay.

Well, founder. I'm going to go first. Founder, Jesus Christ. Paul, go ahead. Well, you got the easy one. Yeah. Wow. Thanks for volunteering yourself for like, oh, yeah, Jesus Christ. First century. So what's the next category that we're hitting? Founder, what do you believe? Yeah. What do they believe? Obviously, for each of these, we can't say everything.

We'll be here forever. So we're going to highlight the big thing. So what a Christian believe is that there is one God who eternally and distinctly exist as three persons, father, son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus is God incarnate, meaning God in the flesh who died and who rose again in order to save sinners. We'll get into this in a second about what we believe what's wrong with the world. And then we are people who believe that salvation is by grace through faith. Anything you guys would add to that, obviously there's so much more than what we believe, but it's like if you're going to be a Christian, you have to believe we would say in the Trinity, the idea of one God who eternally exists is three distinct persons, each of whom has always existed. So the son didn't come into existence at some point.

the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have always existed. Jesus is God incarnate. He came in the flesh to die and rise again for sinners, and we're saved by grace through your faith. What else would y'all add? I would add short, three-sentence summary of Christianity. God created it. We broke it.

Jesus fixed it. Right. Okay? Jesus fixed what? Evil, sin that we brought into the world. So our problem is sin, and Jesus is the answer to sin and evil. In fact, Christianity is the answer to the problem of evil. As we get into these other religions, we'll see they're trying to deal with the problem of evil as well.

Christianity is the answer to the problem of evil. If no one had ever sinned, there'd be no reason for Jesus to add humanity to his deity and come to Earth and live the perfect life in our place. So he could take our punishment upon himself, and then we could trust in him and not only be forgiven, but given his righteousness. If we were not sinners, we wouldn't need that sacrifice, but we all are. So sin is our ultimate problem, and Jesus is our ultimate problem. solution. It's good. And it's all by grace. This is where Christianity is going to differ, as we'll see as we go through this, from every other world religion. Christianity is all about grace. You don't achieve salvation in Christianity. You receive salvation. It's free. It's a gift.

It's given to you. Every other world religion is trying to work their way to God if they believe in God at all. In Christianity, God works his way to us, and he pays the price for us. It's simply received. It's not achieved. Word that we use often to summarize what you just say that you'll find in the Bible's idea of the gospel. The gospel, the word in the original language really means the idea of an announcement or of good news. And I think, I think it was J.I. Packer who once put it in the shortest, best way I remember is the gospel is how God saved sinners, how God save sinners. And it's those things that actually happened. And so even to summarize what you did is

Jesus came and he lived the perfect life, none of us could live. He died the death that all of us deserved to die, but then he was raised to life so that we could live. It's each of those things. And so I think, to your point, so much of the other religions that we're going to cover is ultimately about what we have to do. And yet, God is the one who fix his own problem by doing what we could not do, and by taking the punishment that we received him, that what we deserve. And so, whereas the other religions are very much about, you need to do this, the message of Christianity is about this is what God did for us. And then you need to receive that. Yeah, most of the religions do this, do this, Christianity. Yeah, this Christianity is done, done, done. And because it's done,

and what he's done for us out of gratitude, then we will do good works to serve people and serve God and bring people into the kingdom. Yep. We'll circle back to that. Go ahead. You may have something to add. I was going to highlight something to help distinguish us from groups that may claim to be Christian,

but I'll let you add anything else you got. So everything you guys just say, basically we're laying the foundation. We'll circle back to some of these themes as well. We're going to be contrasting some of these other religions with what we're just describing right now with Christianity. Let me just real quick ask you this, and I'm going to ask you about some of the people that say they're Christians, but they're not. I know we did a whole video on this, but quickly, why so many denominations? I think the same answer, as we mentioned, same different religions, and the fact is, is the fact there are a lot of people out there who are not open to the truth.

It's not about receiving the truth, or I should say perceiving. They can perceive it, but they don't want to receive it. In fact, Jesus spoke about this very forcefully where he said, you're nullifying the Word of God on account of your traditions. We have so many traditions, even in the Protestant Church, has traditions that really aren't biblical. And so they break into these different denominations based on traditions rather than the scriptures. Although I will say this, and you guys did a brilliant job of this when you did. We'll put the whole show in the show notes, right, on denominations. But Paul does talk about disputable matters.

Yes. Right? Disputable matters in the church. In other words, secondary and tertiary issues, there's room for different viewpoints, follow your conscience, which allows these different denominations to actually be a blessing to people. Because we'll agree on the essentials, but the secondary and tertiary issues where I may feel strongly about and you don't, I'll go to one church, you'll go to another, but we'll still be brothers in Christ. I've also noticed this, however, that this question comes usually from two camps, usually from the Roman Catholic camp, which they won't admit it, but there are denominations within the Roman Catholic Church. They're called orders, right? You've got Jesuits, Franciscans, Dominicans, etc. Right? And the interesting thing, as you pointed out, I think, on the podcast about this, Paul, that the beliefs of the Catholics in the pews are so far away from the official Roman Catholic doctrine.

So while they don't go to different churches, they could. Yeah. Aren't you glad we have a Pope to keep us unified believing all the same things? Right, but they're not believing all the same things. So that's the interesting thing. So it comes from Roman Catholics. Yeah, I mean, it's still a good question. The second place it comes from is normally atheistic liberals who claim to be champions of diversity,

to which I say, what's the problem with a little bit of diversity? That's right. You don't want diversity. There's too much diversity in Christianity for you, too much flexibility. You know, it seems to be a bit of a contradiction here. God can adapt into all of these different scenarios and still hold on to the essentials, but we can have these differences and worship slightly differently. And I'll say this, I know we got to hit some other questions, because we got to do it in 60 minutes or under.

I know that's our go. So I've got to be careful, Carlos. I'm here to push you. You're here to push me. That's all I'll keep this fast. But oftentimes what people will appeal to, and probably more from the Catholic side of this, or even sometimes well-meaning people in our churches, well, hey, Jesus pray that we all may be one. And the assumption there is for us to be one and to be unified,

we all have to be within the same organization, with the same leader. I would challenge that because if you go, I believe, to Ephetians where Paul talks about one Lord, one faith, one baptism. What makes us one is not that we're all under the same quote and common denomination. The unity that we still all have as brothers and sisters of Christ across denominations are, hey, do we all have one Lord meaning Jesus Christ? One faith, I would say to be, these are the primary things on that podcast, which you can go and listen to it. We get way more in depth. there's primary issues, first order issues, where if we disagree, even if we use the same words, we have a different faith. There's second order issues that are things that if we disagree, it's going to be hard for us to be in the same church.

If you want to do infant baptism and I don't, that's going to be really hard for us to do church at the same place or in the same denomination. Those are the things that people usually divide over. But it doesn't mean that I'm still not a part of the same faith as you. We still have the same Lord. We still have the same faith in the sense of the primary issues and the same, then one baptism, the idea of, hey, all people who are believers in Jesus, and we are all part of the family of God. And so that's just one thing I would just explain to people

is in terms of the idea of, oh, we're all supposed to be one. One does not have to mean we're all part of the same denomination. There's things that bind us together no matter what denomination you're in. On that note, I'll give you 60 seconds. What about Mormonism? Yeah.

So this is, this Mormonism, and I also include Jehovah's Witnesses. These people would claim to be Christians, but they're simply not. They're simply not. A few things of why. One would be a distinguishing mark of Christianity since the earliest days until now has been belief in the Trinity. Both of

these groups reject that. And here's maybe, I know earlier you asked a question. Sometimes it's good ask questions when people are pressing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've got a question. So I wrote this one down to make sure I got it right. So if I was talking to a Mormon and said, oh, you've got to be honest, if I were to say, if a Muslim in Norway said that I still believe in Allah that Muhammad was his prophet, I still practiced the five pillars of Islam. But Allah has given me new revelation that he is actually a compilation of multiple gods who how all happened to agree with each other, and that's why he's won. Muhammad was a prophet, but he's not the final prophet.

There's actually an ongoing line of prophets of whom I'm the next. Would Muslims consider that person of Muslim? Absolutely not. Basically what I'm doing right there is to say, hey, if you say that you are one thing, but you reject everything that is the hallmark and distinctive thing of that thing, even if you claim to be it, you're not it. Yes. Does that make sense?

Yes. And I think there's a way to ask people questions rather than even make statements. on this. Like if a Mormon said, well, I'm a Christian, I would ask, then why are you at my door trying to convince me to join your church if I'm already going to church? We're all Christians. Right? We're all Christians here. Okay, number one. Number two, if you're a Christian, why are you saying the Bible's corrupted? And number three, if you're a Christian, why are you adding to the Bible? Yeah. And if you're a Christian, why are you saying God the Father has a body, a physical body, and there are many gods? That's not a Christian doctrine. Christianity is monotheistic. It's not

polytheistic. So I would ask those questions. Here's an interesting way of looking at something like Mormonism or some of these other what we call cult groups that started maybe with Christian language and some Christian theology but have diverted. They do four things that are associated with the four functions of math. They add to the Bible. So now you got the Book of Mormon, right, and Pearl a Great Price, those things. They subtract from Jesus. They subtract from Jesus. So Jesus is not the second person of the Eternal Trinity, right? And he's the Spirit Brother of Lucifer. They multiply requirements for salvation.

Oh, you know, you got grace, but only as far as grace can go. Then you've got to do all these good works. And there's three different levels of heaven. By the way, that's not in the Bible either, right? And by the way, we're not on the first level with them as Christians. So we're all Christians, but they get to be with Jesus and we don't. That's right. And the fourth, the divide function is they divide the loyalties of the believer.

Now your loyalty is to the church of the Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and for you to get to the ultimate heaven, you've got to be in that church going through their system in order to get there. Because you were saying at lunch that Mormons don't believe that Christians are going to be with Jesus, just Mormons will be, right? Yep. Jesus is in the ultimate level of heaven, only faithful, to your point. You have to adhere to all the things that you have to do to be there. And then the rest of us Christians, even though apparently we're all Christians,

we don't get to be with Jesus forever, only they do. So that's another. Yeah, keep going. Right, but I will say, I love Mormons because they're such great citizens and great people. Yeah. I just think asking some of those questions can point out the distinctions. I mean, they come along 1800 years after the Bible's created, a New Testament is, saying now, suddenly, what you've learned so far is wrong, we're going to tell you where it's wrong, and we're going to add to it. Yeah.

Paul said in Galatians 1. Yes. Even angel comes to you and tells you another gospel. Don't believe it. Both Mormonism and Islam have the same. source in the sense. There's one guy getting a revelation from some kind of angel. No verification outside of that. After scripture was already already, obviously. Yes. Surprised you pointed that out. That's great. Okay, so we got Christianity check. We're going to keep moving here. Judaism. We have a

visual here to help us out. This is from Chad GPT. This is what it seems to be a Jewish scholar, likely a rabbi. He's like in a study room. He's got the Torah there, the Talmud, the Mishnah, and then some other books as well, Star of David, and then there's a show far. Yeah, basically, this is, thank you, Chad GPT. All the things, yeah. All right. Let's go here.

Founder, what do they believe? What's wrong with the world? How do you fix it? I'm going to take the easy one through, because since you did the last one, okay, great. Carlos's contribution to the last one was Jesus. Well, I'm just messing.

I'm moving the conversation forward. Go ahead. I'm messing with you. All right. So the founder, I mean, it is God is ultimately the founder, but God through Abraham. God through Abraham, sometime between 21, and 1800 BC.

Frank, I'll let you give more of an overview in terms of what they believe, their views of what's wrong with the world, all that kind of stuff. Well, here's one of the problems. And one of the problems is Old Testament Judaism is impossible to actually practice today

because there is no temple. You can't bring a lamb to the temple. And so since the temple was destroyed in 70 AD, Judaism has migrated toward more synagogue-related Judaism, obviously, non-temple sacrifice, Judaism, and more toward the Talmud than the Old Testament.

And so there are different, and Paul, you're more skilled on this than I am. There are different sort of denominations of Judaism. I can give a quick rundown and then let you keep going. Yeah, I mean, well, and I think we've said this on a podcast one time where, you know, Pharisees get a really bad rap for very good reasons. But actually, it was Pharisees who helped Judaism survive after the destruction of the temple. Because to your point, when you have no temple to make sacrifices, all of a sudden it became very synagogue-centered, which guess what? That was the Pharisees' home turf. And so then now today,

you have really a few main groups. You have Orthodox Jews, including within that, like ultra-Orthodox, and then kind of semi-Orthodox. They really are trying to keep as much the Old Testament as they can. So very big on ritual purity of food, a lot of things that we'd find in the book of Leviticus. But to your point, they can't sacrifice animals, they can't do any of that in associated with feast or in order to cover their sins. Then you have conservative Jews who aren't going to be as strict on all of the very minuscule purity laws, but they are going to try to keep kosher food. They are obviously going to keep the Sabbath and stuff like that.

Then you have reformed Jews who they may keep the Sabbath nominally, but just not going to have as many requirements. So you can kind of see, basically you've got a, you kind of got Orthodox, really trying to keep as much as they can, and then the more you go further away, they're going to get a little bit more loose with they have to keep. And then you have many, and this way have to remember, many secular Jews who they're barely practicing at all.

Some are atheists. Yeah, some are atheists. For them, Jewish is more of the idea of that's their ethnicity. then it necessarily is the religious practice. That enough? Yeah, I think so. Carlos, what do you think is, I know you guys get emails, sometimes I get emails, there are people out there saying, well, this is a demonic religion.

Judaism. How would you respond to that? Yeah, we would say that it is not, that's not how we would put it. We would say that Christianity comes from Judaism. The gospel and the cross, and what happened to Jesus on the cross, does not make sense if you remove the Old Testament. And so Jesus even came and he said that he came to fulfill the word of God, not to abolish the law, but to fulfill the law. And so we would say that Judaism was fulfilled in Christ. And that's why, again, everything in the Old Testament points to Jesus. We would not

label it as a demonic religion. We would say it all points to Jesus, which is very different. Yeah. In other words, there's a difference between false and fulfilled. Yes. And so if If something has been fulfilled, but then you are not taking part in the fulfillment of it, then unicent to have an incomplete religion. So it's not a false religion or demonic religion. It's an incomplete one because they haven't accepted the Messiah. Yes. Is that kind of you? Yeah, that's the direction I was going in because I think it's horrid that we get Jew hatred coming even out of Christian camp still.

I mean, obviously we're getting them from Muslims. We're getting Jew hatred from secular people. were getting Jew hatred even from Christians. And I'm going, there's got to be a demonic element to this. Why is this group of people, they only number 15 million in the world. Yeah. They have one small piece of land over there. There's like 54 Muslim or 57 Muslim countries in the world that have hundreds of

times the size of land. And for some reason, that little Jewish state has to go, according to these folks. Yeah. These people who are claiming. Yeah. Let me go real quick through these. do Jews need Jesus to be saved? Everybody needs Jesus to be saved, of course.

Yes. They're chosen, but they're not favored. Meaning, God used the Jews to bring forth the Messiah, but God is not going to force the Jews into heaven against their will any more than anyone else. That Jesus is the sacrifice. Without the sacrifice, you've got to pay for your own sins. Yeah.

Okay. This one's obviously bigger. question, and we actually have addressed this in other episodes as well. We can also drop that in the show notes, Arthur, help me out with that. Are modern Jews still God's chosen people? Frank? I would say, yes, Jews are still God's chosen people. And for people who say that Jews in Israel now are not in any way connected to Old Testament Jews, then why has there been persecution about Jews or on Jews for the two millennia? they've been outside of the land.

They had to be identified in order to be persecuted. So, yeah, they're the same people. Yeah, I think, and again, we go into it deeper on the episode, but just to do a brief recap of something we said there, one million percent they are. But we do have to define what we don't mean and what we do mean by that. We don't mean, you already hit this, that Jewish people are automatically saved.

No, they have to believe in Jesus just like anyone else, including you and me and Carlos have to believe in Jesus in order to be saved. We don't mean that Judaism, the practice of Judaism, is a legitimate substitute for faith in Jesus Christ. No, you can be sincere and you can still be sincerely wrong. And we also don't mean that we have to support everything the modern state of Israel does. What we mean by God's chosen people is that God chose Israel to bring the Messiah into the world. So Jesus Christ came up out of Israel. And we also believe that God still has promises for Israel that remain to be fulfilled.

Now, there's disagreement in Christian circles that which promises are going to be fulfilled. but here's what pretty much anyone who has to be faithful to scripture has to admit, that in Romans 9 through 11, we see the idea that in the future there is going to be a mass conversion of Jews to Jesus. And that is in part how those promises are going to be fulfilled. So God has not given up on us people. Literally it says that in the book of Romans. He has not rejected them.

And he has got a plan for them in the future. And that is a huge part of which is going to be them come into faith. Let me say maybe one or two things that we maybe didn't hit just to be clear on. And then I think we can go on. I think maybe to Islam. is Jewish people would also very much say, hey, what's wrong with the world is human sin, and they would also say covenant unfaithfulness. So human sin is permeated in the world, but then Israel has been called to play a part in the world, and they haven't been faithful to the covenant

as part of how they would view that. And then a big thing in terms of how they view Jesus, again, there's so much distinction between different groups and different people. We're giving broad swaths here. They would view Jesus as a good teacher, but that he was not the Messiah. He was not the divine son of God. And so faithful practicing Jews are still looking for a future Messiah that will come. You do if you've ever heard of, if people are listening to this, well, hey, I've heard this group called Messianic Jews. Typically what that is referring to is people who are Jewish by ethnicity, but they believe that Jesus was the son of God. In other words, they are Christians. Yeah, and the idea of a crucified Messiah has been so radical. That is not what Jewish people

have been expecting for this sent one from God, anointed one from God, to ultimately end up being crucified in such a brutal, humiliating way. That's just, again, the New Testament talks about how that idea would be so, so radical that it would be difficult for Jewish people to believe it. That's one reason we know it's not an invented story. Nobody's going to put their Messiah on a cross like a crucified criminal. That's right. You know, I mean, anyone who's hung on a cross according to Deuteronomy 21 is under God's

curse. Yep, there you go. And Jesus was under God's curse. The curse of sin, we all put them under. No one would invent this Messiah. This is not made up. And Jews wouldn't have said, yeah, this is our Messiah. We saw him rise from the dead unless it really happened.

And for faithful Jews to all of a sudden, basically commit and worship Jesus and Christianity exploding from Judaism as we were talking about, that is unheard of. Not going to happen unless he really rose from the dead. To highlight something, then I think Islam, this is going to be a lot of your home turf, Frank. You're going to get told a lot of this. You say Islam?

Yeah, I think, is what we're hit next. Before we get there, just to highlight something, because this will, I think, distinguish through some of the other major religions we'll get to here on the back half of this segment, which is Christianity and Judaism are founded in history. And so in other words, it's not simply a collection of abstract ideas about God or the universe or morality. Instead, it's the belief that the real God who really created the universe has really acted in human history and then who we are responding to as the acts in human history.

And so Jewish people believe that obviously through the Old Testament. But then Christians, to your point, come around and said, hey, there's this guy named Jesus. who claimed he was the Messiah and he said, you're going to kill me on the third day, I'm going to rise, and then he did it. Okay, so then they're reacting to something that actually happened, or we have to say it either

did or it did not happen. If it did happen, everything changes. If it didn't happen, okay, move on with your life. The Apostle Paul himself says this in 1st Corinthians 15. If Jesus Christ did not rise from the grave, let us eat and drink for tomorrow, we die. So I do think that's an important thing to say with both Judaism and

Christianity is these are rooted in events in history that either happened or they didn't. If they didn't happen, well, go do whatever you want to do then. So, all right, keep moving quickly. We got another ritual. So this is, we did Christianity check. We did Judaism check. Now, Islam is next. This is a visual over here of Islam, according to CHAPT. This is a photo representing a Sunni Islam Islam. They got the five pillars up there. Five pillars. Five pillars. Five pillars. On the left, I see that. He's wearing a traditional tunic. He's got the Quran, other collections of

teachings for Islam called the Hadith. He's got these green things are prayer beats. Look at, look, that's a Jeremiah 29-11 mug right there. That's what it says. Oh, the plans I have for you, plans to give you hope in a future. No, it's not. Oh, okay, I was going to say, wait, wait. Either he's reading Arabic or I don't know.

I was about to be like, man, that's a flex. I didn't know you read Arabic. I was like, man. If I'm not mistaken, that white mug says, praise be to God. Amah duly la. I'm totally butchering this. I apologize. And so that would be a visual representation.

Let's go through real quick. Founder, what do they believe? What's wrong with the world? Who is uses for this religion? Frank, I'll let you cook on this one. Okay, Muhammad, born 570 AD, allegedly got a revelation in 610 AD. He tried to say there's one God, and a lot of people didn't like that because at the time they were worshipping many gods, polytheism.

So they threw them out of Mecca in 622. and he went on up to Medina, and in 6.30, between 622 and 630, he was raiding caravans that came on their way to Mecca, and we divide the booty up with his followers. He eventually took Mecca by force, although not many resisted him in 630 AD, and then he died in 632, and according to Muslim, it's called the standard Islamic narrative. The Quran, he didn't write it, Muhammad. dictated to him. He said it. Other people wrote it down. It was compiled after he died in about 650 by the third Caleb Uthman. This is the standard Islamic narrative. Now, my friend, Dr. J.

Smith, has been working to evangelizing Muslims for years, thinks that there's a lot of historical holes in the standard Islamic narrative, but let's say for the sake of argument, it's true. Yeah. Okay. He's just saying there's one God. This turns out actually to be a Christian heresy. It's basically Aryanism, and you'd be an expert on commenting on that. And John of Damascus, who wrote exactly 100 years after Muhammad, in 732, basically says, Islam is Aryanism. It's basically the God for the Arabs. They wanted to have a God, and this God would be the God of the Arabs. And it's Aryanism meaning, Paul?

Oh, the idea that Jesus is not the eternal Son of God, that he is not God himself, but is a creation just like us. So if you kind of think of it like this, if you can imagine a whiteboard on the one side is the creator and on the other side is everything else that is created, Jesus would be on the side with us. That he is a creation just like we are.

Now, he might be a higher creation in that sense he is the son of God that's what they would say as the New Testament says, but that doesn't mean that he is literally divine. Yeah. And there are two basic sex of Islam now. There are more than two, but the two major are Sunni and Shia. The Sunni, about 80%.

They think that Muhammad's successor should have been elected, where the Shiite, more, say, Iran would be Shiite or Shia. They think that Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law, Ali, should have been followed. And so Muslims have been fighting Muslims over that to the death. In fact, Muslims kill more Muslims than non-Muslims, typically. And there's also, as we know, this concept of jihad. Now, not officially in the – we had it up there a minute ago, but the – the five pillars of Islam. One is there is no God, there is no God but God and or Allah and Muhammad is the messenger. That's the first. The second is five times of prayer a day. The third is

obligatory almsgiving or charity for the poor and needy, two percent, just like Christians believe. And the fourth is fasting during Ramadan. And the fifth is, if you can do it, at some point in your life, you've got to go to Mecca and do the Hajj. So those are the five pillars of Islam. They think there is a paradise and hell in the afterlife. And you don't know if you're going to make it. First of all, non-Christians are not going to make it. Islam is just as exclusive as Christianity in that regard. You're going to... But we all believe the same thing. We're going to burn in hellfire. No, apparently not. And... Yeah, there's a, in the Quran, there's literally a verse that says that if you... Something along the lines, help me out here, Frank. Something along that... Go ahead and say...

Yeah, chapter five. It just says non-believers are going to burn in hellfire. Yeah, so it's pretty clear. Yeah, and the only way you can be sure, because Allah is arbitrary, you may think your good deeds outweigh, you're bad, but if Allah says no, you're not going to make it. The only way you can be sure that you're going to make it into the afterlife, the paradise, and get the 72 virgins and all that is if you die as a martyr in jihad. That's in the Hadith. Yeah, that sounds like quite an incentive then to do martyrhood. Yes. So let me ask you this.

We already kind of touch into this, so we're going to probably do a quick, do Muslims and Christians, worship the same God since Allah is just, the word of Allah just means God, right? What would you say? Any Christian and Muslim scholar, if they're honest, is going to answer no. Because, first of all, Allah is not triune in Islam, whereas in Christianity, Yahweh is triune. So, in fact, they think one of the greatest sins is Shirk that's to put partners with God. Now, they actually do that unknowingly. They say the Quran is eternal just like Ah,

Allah. So they do put partners with God. It's been put this way. In Christianity, God becomes a man. In Islam, God becomes a book. Right? And to be very stark about it, in Christianity, God's son dies for you. In Islam, your son dies for God. Explain that. Well, in Christianity, God sends his son to take your punishment upon himself. But in Islam, you're urged to have your son die for Allah in jihad. Which, so you said earlier is the only surefire way. Only sure fire way. It's the only sure fire way to do. To avoid sure fire.

Exactly. And so I think even, I think, you know, here's maybe what we. Hey, can I say what I think? No, keep going. Keep going, yeah. People are going to get all mad for me for saying this. If I've said anything wrong, correct me. Yeah.

But what I'm telling you is the truth is I understand it, okay? And I've done a lot of research into Islam. Yeah. So it doesn't mean all Muslims believe this. No. We might say not all Christians believe basic Christian. doctrine. But here's the question that a lot of people ask about this conversation. Is Islam a religion of peace? And is terrorism rooted in it or a distortion of Islam? Why don't you take that?

I will definitely let you guys take it. I did not. I see a thing. I would honestly, I would have loved to take it if I was ready for it. But in this case, I know Paul is more ready than me. So good. I think, okay, so a few things here. Number one, we need to distinguish between Islam and Muslims. Too often when we're having this conversation, we conflict that you. Now they're obviously very closely related. Islam being, meaning the organization of their beliefs and practices found in the Quran, Muslims who may not actually apply all those things. So there are to your point so many, if not the majority of Muslims, are very peaceful people.

And yet, let me just read some things from the Quran. Fight those who do not believe in Allah. This is from Surah 929 among the people of the book, which would be the Bible, until they pay the Jiza, which is basically this fee with willing submission and filled themselves subdued. So that's basically they can oppress them and if they fight against them until they're actually willing to pay us a fee. It gets worse, Surah 839, fight them until there is no more and religion is holy for Allah. Again, violent. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve, therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them.

That's Surah 812. Now, Muslims may say, well, hey, these are verses around battles of the early history of Islam. And I'm like, well, hey, but what changed? Because we're talking about earlier, like, there's the Old Testament that we saw, obviously God does mean. That seemed violent, but that was very contextual. But in the New Testament, we see a totally different way that God now is at work. Hey, what is that as that has changed for you? So in other words, when we look at the Quran, we see that the way that Islam has historically spread has been through coercive violence

and either repent or you have to pay a fine or even worse kind of a thing. And so I would say, hey, you have to eventually begin asking yourself. And Frank, I feel like you can come in and do a better job than I've done on this one. Is something a bug in the system or is it a feature of the system? system? Is it something? Because even within Christianity, there have been people who have been violent. We would say, hey, but if you actually look at the teachings of the New Testament, you would say they're not in line with them. Whereas I'd say, hey, if you look at the actions of violent Muslims, you would say, hey, it seems like it fits with what you would find in the Quran.

Anything that you would like differ. Well, as you'd say, not every Muslim would believe in this. Just like Christians claiming to be Christians might not agree with every doctrine in Christianity. So thankfully, there are moderates and liberals in Islam because they will not take the Quran literally. But the passages that you quoted from are the later suras. Look, the Quran is divided into 114 seras from largest to smallest, except for the first, is not the, is not the biggest. What does that mean, Frank? It's not a chronological book. It's put together in size of suras or chapters. And there are more peaceful suras that have been abrogated by later suras, which appear to be the more violent ones, like Sauran is a late Sura, that

Muhammad was now preaching violence. And so that violence is what his followers have followed on. And there's 1,400 years of history for this. This is not the so-called Islamophobia, which is a bogus term anyway, because Islam is not a race. It's an ideology. And there are people from every different ethnic or racial group in Islam. it's an ideology that isn't purely religious. It's also a political ideology, a geopolitical ideology, that wants to submit the world to Sharia law. And that is what 1,400 years of history shows us. And it is what they will tell us, too.

In fact, I just had Martin Cedra on my show, who is a former Muslim, not a former Muslim, but a Coptic Christian from Egypt, who had to flee Egypt. because his family's being persecuted by Muslims because they were Christians. He's in Australia now, and he says that they have a plan to obviously take over Europe and eventually the United States in a political way. And so it's not unwise to be against an ideology that wants to take away your freedom of religion, your freedom of speech, your freedom of press, your freedom of assembly, your freedom of association. But tragically, that's what Islam has done for 1,400 years. And by the way, we're giving you.

you an overview. This is, this book right here, the Compact Guide to World Religions, right here, it's 30 years old, but it's still a great book, put together by Dean Halverson. Yeah. And there are many scholars in this book. So if you want an overview of these world religions, it's right here. And we've got to move on. I think to Hinduism next, but mainly just hitting a couple things within this. You got to see, at least originally. Hey, let me say one thing. Yeah, yeah. We're transitioning now from theism. Here's a way to conceptualize three great religious viewpoints. One is Theism. That's God made all. The next is pantheism. God is all. Yes. And the third is atheism. No God at all. That's great. All right. So we just did three of the major

theisms. Now we're moving to a pantheistic worldview or religion called Hinduism. So take it away. Oh yeah. No, actually, real quick, though, is on Islam, because I know we gave a ton of details for that. But it's fitting because it's one of the major pressing issues of our time. If you could kind of sum up so much of what we said, and say, hey, early Islam. And anybody still say it's today, it was a correction. I mean, they say they saw polytheism, which is not true. There is one God. Right. And that one God does not have a son.

So it was correcting polytheism around them, and it was correcting Christian. At least that's what they thought it was. And for them, the problem is people fail to submit to Allah. So then the answer to that is for people to submit the way they do that is by following the Quran and by the five practices you laid out. I just, I feel like we'd give in a lot of people, a lot of different things. I wanted to bring it all together and kind of just lay that out real quickly before. Can I mention one thing? about how to reach Muslims on this?

Yeah, that'd be great. Okay, just one. There's many different directions you can go. It's something called the Islamic dilemma. We have a version of it. I think you may phrase it differently, but it's basically, why you walk people through this? It's actually a really good thing.

Yeah, the Islamic dilemma, here it is. The Quran affirms the Bible is the Word of God, and I usually quote surah five of 46 to 7 on this. And the problem is that the Bible contradicts the Islamic view of Jesus, across just two chapters. In Surah 5, it says, O ye people of the book, you have no ground to stand on

unless you stand on the law and the gospels. In other words, the people of the book are the Christians and the Jews, when Muhammad is getting the supposed revelation in the 600s AD. He's saying,

believe your book, it comes from Allah. But in the chapter before that, Surah 4, verse 157, it says, Jesus never died, so he couldn't have resurrected from the dead.

He was taken straight to heaven. So on one hand, in Surah Five, they're saying, believe the Bible. On the other hand, the Quran itself contradicts the Bible. So here's the dilemma for Muslims. If the Bible is true, quite obviously, the Quran is false and Islam is false, right? But if the Bible is false, the Quran is still false. Islam is still false. Because it's telling you to believe a book that's false, the Bible.

This is the dilemma. So this is called the Islamic dilemma. I've used it in Saudi Arabia. I've used it in Egypt. I've used it in Israel with Muslims. I just asked them the question. Why does the Quran tell you to obey the Bible when it contradicts the Bible? And none of them have a good answer.

I'm just planting a seed, right? Just plant a seed. We'll get there to the end on how to what does that look like for all of these. Let's move on. So Hinduism, here's a visual real quick. This is Chad GPT, again, provide it. You have multiple gods. Interesting, the, is it the Swatzica?

It looks like it, doesn't it? It can look like it, but people don't need to conflate this with Nazis. Well, to my understanding, it was taken by the Nazis, but it's been a symbol that's been used in Hinduism for years prior, obviously. That's right. Which is interesting. Let's keep going here. So real quick, founder, what do they believe? What's wrong with the world?

How do you fix it? Who is Jesus for this religion? Yeah, this can be a tough one, I think, for Christians to wrap their minds around because it's so foreign. And it's very different. Whereas these other ones we've covered, we could point to a very specific founder, very, specific set of beliefs. It's not that with Hinduism. You have no single founder. Instead, Hinduism is a broad term that we use for a family of beliefs that, I like to think of it the United States. You have multiple different states that are very different, but there are some things

that unite us. Some things that you would unite Hindus would be things like karma, reincarnation, the idea of an ultimate reality called the Brahmin, and we're going to dive into some of what those things mean, maybe in the FAQs. But another thing that would unite them is basically this belief that we are all trapped in a cycle of rebirth. And that isn't just true, by the way, of us individually. They see all of history this way, that history has, I think, four cycles that it moves through. And it starts off really good in the first cycle. And it gets increasingly bad.

The whole thing is reset and we start over. But then people are trapped in these as well. So if that's the problem with the world, well, guess what? What's the solution? You have to escape that cycle. How do you escape it? Usually through enlightenment, devotion, or spiritual discipline by, doing enough good things that you accumulate enough

what they would call good karma so that you can escape the cycle. And so in terms of then how they would view Jesus, they'd see him as like a wise teacher or a guru or one manifestation of the gods of many. One thing I can go ahead and hit here, because I think this may have been one of our questions because you mentioned, oh, there's multiple gods. This is again, one thing that may,

if you ask a Hindu, hey, do you believe in millions of gods? Well, you're going to get a different answer depending on which one you talk to. Because some Hindus actually do believe in multiple different gods. that are distinct from each other. Other Hindus believe that there is one single ultimate reality. I guess you could say, for lack of a better term, a god called the Brahman, and all of the others, Vishnu and so on and so forth, or Krishna, they're all just manifestations of that one.

So again, this is just one thing Christians, you've got to know. If you're talking to someone from the Hindu faith, don't assume everything that they automatically believe. This is where asking them good questions will be really helpful to you, because depending on the Hindu you're talking to, they could believe very different things. What else would you add, Frank? I was just saying, on one hand, they could be considered polytheistic. On the other hand, they could be considered polytheistic, meaning that everything's God. We're all God. We just forgot.

We're God, but we forgot kind of thing. But let's talk about this karma concept for a second. Karma and this rebirth is you come back in a form based on how morally well you did in your previous life. So if you come back as a rich person, you must have been good in your previous life. if you come back as a roach, okay, you didn't, right? Now, I have a couple of questions for people that believe this. The first question is, in my first life, what was I serving for? I didn't have any karma, so where was I placed?

Secondly, who's keeping track of all this? It would seem like you'd need a being like God to keep track. Okay, Carlos did this and Paul did this. So I'm going to put them at different levels in the next life. in other words, who is the administrator of this whole system? Thirdly, what is the moral standard by which you're making these judgments? It would seem like you'd need a being like God. And fourthly, the practical element of this, and Mother Teresa saw this when she went over there decades ago,

she would try and help people out of suffering, and people would tell her no. If you do that, you're interfering with their karma. You're going to make them come back in a worse level in the next level. in the next life. She at least began to transform their thinking over there because the thinking in karma is you don't help suffering people. If you help them, you're actually hurting them because you're putting them at a worse level in their next life.

This is the thinking behind it. And what I've noticed, I don't know if you'd notice this, Carlos, maybe in you too frank is karma's become a catchphrase for something that Christians will even say as a joke. But it's like, hey, if I tried to trip you in the hallway and then I fall down back karma, kind of a thing. And so we have to understand that for a Hindu karma is not so much that. It's really more to like, what I do in this present life affects my next life.

And what Christians would say, we don't believe in karma, but we do believe that our actions have spiritual consequences in this life and in the next one. But the next life is not a re-incarnated life. The next life is life in eternity in one of a couple places. There's Hinduism karma and then there's cultural karma. Yes. Honestly, like, most people probably are not thinking Hinduism karma. when they use that phrase, but they do believe in it. Like in terms of, and we're about to talk about spiritual but not religious in just a second,

but they'll think, well, you know, karma means you do bad things, Frank. You will get bad things after because of what you just did. It's like what you sow you reap. That's right. And so they'll say instant karma. Yeah. Right. And so one, a couple things.

So we believe as Christians, Galatians chapter 6 or 7, whatever one so is, you will also reap that. That's called a consequence. But in terms of like karma as a rule of life or a principle of life for you, the gospel is actually the opposite of karma. The most innocent person got the worst outcome at the cross. That's Jesus. He's the best, most perfect person, and he got the absolute worst outcome that denies karma completely. In fact, we are people of, we receive grace, which means that even when I did wrong,

I received God's goodness and mercy, and it followed me. And so karma says that you get what you deserve. Christianity says that you get what Christ deserves, and again, that's called grace. Hebrews chapter 9, back to what you guys were saying, also says it is appointed for one man to die once, and after that comes judgment. Yes. All right.

We need to keep going. Those are good insights, man. I'll hold it. You did an amazing job. Yeah. Oh, okay. Keep going. Let's keep going.

Let's keep going. You know, we got a visual first. Buddha Cunningham. Chattypc is playing games here. He has more hair than I do, so I don't even know that's an accurate representation of me, unless me as a Buddhist. May all things be happy. Okay, take that thing up.

Wait, oh, okay, there's the right one. There we go. There we go. This is a very orthodox show. We have Trinity putting these up. Oh, okay. You're right. Trinity, there you go.

You all things be happy, may all, what does that say? All beans in, be free from suffering. Look, in the bottom right there. There you go. They got the eightfold path. There it is. The noble eightfold path. See it up there over the right show?

Oh, no. It changed. It used to be Paul. Now you have glasses. Who's that? I know. You know. Somebody less cooler than Paul.

Less cooler than Paul. Thank you, sir. Appreciate that. Okay. Let's go ahead and tackle this. Founder, what do they believe? What's wrong with the world? Who is she's for the Buddha?

Yeah, the Buddha was from about 563, circa 563. We're not exactly sure, to about 4, 8. So 5th century BC. And the key here is life is marked by suffering. And the way you get out of suffering is you've got four noble truths and an eightfold path that will lead you out of awakening. Now, there's a problem here from just a logical perspective. They don't think the self really exists. And the self is an illusion.

So how a self gets out of suffering if a self, doesn't exist, I don't know, but you're supposed to try and get out of the suffering by what you see in the back wall there, the right view, the right intention, the right speech, the right action, the right livelihood, the right effort, the right mindfulness, and the right concentration. If you follow those and you can get rid of your craving, get rid of your desire, then you will eventually get rid of the suffering that you have. If you kill desire, you kill suffering because you don't want anything. And if you do these eight things, you can achieve what is often called nirvana.

Yes. And for them then you get to escape, not life immediately then, but do you get to escape? Because they would also believe that life is cyclical, that you believe that you are reborn. And so for them, this is the way out. Define nirvana. Yeah. It's hard. Some people, really, the word nirvana believe actually, Frank, do you remember that

amology of it? Well, no, I don't remember the entomology of it, but I do know that the problem is when you achieve nirvana, you don't exist. So you don't really achieve it because you don't exist to start with and you don't exist in the end. Everything's an illusion. The problem is to know an illusion, you'd have to be in reality to know an illusion. You can't have illusions unless you have some reality. I found it. It's what? I had it in my notes. It literally means to quench or to blow out. And so it's the extinguishing of our passions, of our desires and of our attachment to reality. The extinguishing of ourselves. Exactly. And so the idea is, is there's two innocent stages. The first is the stage I achieve

in this life, but I honestly still exist. But then when my life ends, then I end. So there is no next life. So that's even one thing helping people understand. But see, what I don't get Paul, and maybe I don't understand it completely, to say I want to get to Nirvana when I don't exist to begin with, how is that explained? There's kind of some circular logic here. Okay. Because even like, Well, no, but even it kind of goes back to, I think, what you did so well with Hinduism. I often tell people, Buddhism and Hinduism are separate. But in a sense, Buddhism was an easier, less endless path of getting out of the cycle of rebirth than the others. But actually, I love what you brought up, which there's some issues, is, hey, in order to escape your karma, it seems like there has to be someone outside of you evaluating your karma.

Well, just who is that and where did they come from? Some Buddhism strands would identify there are some heavenly beings. But again, I'm kind of like, and where? Where do they come from? And others don't. Others are atheistic. Other forms of Buddhism. In my experience, Buddhists and Hindus are very comfortable with, oh, it's a little bit

of a mystery. Because to you and me, this kind of seems like circular logic. It seems like we're just going to keep repeating itself. And they say, yeah, that's kind of the point. Whereas I'm kind of like, I started to give you a great answer there, but I haven't honestly gotten a good answer myself. What do you got, I'm going to ask you the next question. A 60 second question.

He's trying to keep us going. I guess we got a couple more. Is Buddhism compatible? By the way, we can't say everything. on all of these. Like, this is kind of obvious. And a lot of these likely will do a full episode at some point.

So if you're watching this or tuning in right now, let us know in the comment section, which one should we do next? Because I know there's so much on all of these. We're all kind of like, ah, we're not going to say more. Let me just ask this last question, 60 second answer for you guys.

Is Buddhism compatible with Christianity? Well, some parts might be, but not all of it. Just like all of them, right? Overall, no, because it denies the self. It has morality to it, just no source of morality. You know, it talks about, you know, right intention, right view, right conduct, that kind of thing. That's all good, but it denies the ultimate creator. And so it's just like we said before, viewpoints that if Christianity is true, contradict Christianity,

are false where they contradict Christianity, but not necessarily false where they don't contradict Christianity. Yeah, I think a few things here. It's like Christianity teaches God exists. Buddhism says there is no credit God. Christianity teaches that humans are sinners, and that's our biggest problem. Buddhism says actually it's attachment to the illusion of reality that is the problem. Christianity teaches that salvation comes through Christ. Buddhism teaches that the solution is enlightenment to escape the sinless thing that actually doesn't really exist.

That's the, yeah. And so in other words, you say, is it compatible? The contradictory part of it. And so, like, here's how I tell people is a lot of times, and we'll get to this with more of people who are kind of syncretistic and combine them all, a lot of times if they would just put their cards on the table, they would believe that the ultimate goal of life is just simply be a good person. Now, I do believe that God wants us to be people that are good

because he is good. But that's actually not the point of existence. The point of existence is to know and worship the God who created us. And as a result of that, you will be good. And so if that's the main goal, well, then no, these can't be compatible because they lead you to two different goals, to do different ends.

We're going to go check on Buddhism. We're going to go to the next one. Atheism. Here's the visual. Here's what we got right now. Oh, what is this? Wait, take a second to like see what's going on here. Just take it in.

We got Dawkins. We got Hitchens. We got Sam Harris. This has got to be a mistake. Hey, Frank, let me ask you a question. Wait, hold on, hold on. Do you have enough faith to be an atheist? No, no.

That's the right one. That's what we meant. There we go. But, Frank, if you check out in the back towards the right, can you, can you read it? Can you read see what it says? This man will convert me to Christianity. and he know he won't. Only the Holy Spirit.

I think God's going to use that, man. But God can use all of us. He can use that. That's right, man. We got a couple posters here, atheist beliefs and science we trust. Got a couple books here, The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins,

Cosmos, skeptic, atheist, humanist. We got a Neo-Degress Tyson bust. This is really good, man. I didn't even notice that. This is really good. The shirt says, think, question, seek truth. Be kind.

We'll talk about that in just a second. We stand for equal rights, free speech. What else? social justice. None of those things which you can justify without a standard beyond us. Peace and tolerance, as long as you agree with this. Yep.

Science not silence. Okay, so let's go quick because these are the questions that I wanted to ask you, Frank, because this is your field. Founder, what do they believe? What's wrong with the world? How do we fix it? Who is Jesus? Well, obviously, there were people way back in Old Testament times that didn't believe in God.

There you go. Because, you know, the Psalm says, the fool says in his heart, there is no God. So there were unbelievers. There were unbelievers among some of the ancient Greeks. But in the modern age, disbelief or unbelief in God really began, say, in the 1700s. I thought it was capped off in a big way by Nietzsche in the late 1800s, who essentially tried to live out the implications of atheism. That life has no meaning. There's no purpose.

Life is just nothingness. And he kind of went mad. trying to live it out. But here's what Nietzsche actually predicted. He died in 1900. He famously said, we've killed God. And not meaning literally, but belief in God. And the problem is, he put it this way, God is dead and we have killed him.

He predicted that the 20th century would be the bloodiest century in history because of that. And he turned out to be right. Wow. Yeah. Because atheistic regimes like Stalin, Lenin, Mao, and Paul Pot, they all rose to kill millions of innocent people. Not that atheism says you have to kill innocent people, but it allows the killing of innocent people because there's no moral standard beyond the dictator. And there's no eternal consequences for anything I do. Frank, what do you mean when you say, I don't have enough faith to be an atheist?

I'm using faith in the sense the atheists use it. like Richard Dawkins, who was in that image, would say that faith is believing something either against the evidence or you just don't have any evidence. That's not faith in the Bible. Faith in the Bible is trusting in what you have good evidence to believe. That's a good distinction. But when I say, yeah, I don't have enough faith to be an atheist. I'm saying that the evidence for God and Christianity is very strong. So for me to be an atheist, I have to be blind. I have to have blind faith to be an atheist. But I just don't have enough faith, blind faith to be an

atheist. The way I like to talk about my son, I've gotten an interaction on this recently, and it's like, imagine if we're just walking on the beach and we come across this really complex object. And one of us believes that, oh, obviously the most simple logical explanation is that this randomly came together. It just randomly came together. And the other one is, no, it seems like this is very complex, very designed to like a fine-tuning process. It's more obvious that someone created this and fine-tuned to exactly the way it is. And let's say we're arguing back and forth that eventually everybody starts gathering around us, who do they think is going to think the crazy person for insisting on their viewpoint?

The person who thinks it all just randomly came together in something very complex. And so I think that's the idea is that, because Alston-Offin goes with this, is, hey, is actually our atheists more rational? I'd say, no, they're more irrational. Because at the end of the day, you have to believe one of two things, either everything came from nothing randomly. But by the way, it never happened again. nothing that has ever happened again none of that none of that

spontaneously appears in front of us ever any any time after that or everything was created by someone intentionally which by the way that happens every day all the time yeah and so to me the more rational viewpoint is the one that actually still exists today and that happens all the time not the one that has never happened again since it apparently happened the first time that's the biggest problem they don't have a cause they don't have an ultimate cause well i was going to ask you some of the poster said uh fight for justice kindness equality. Tell me why that seems to be a problem. Well, because justice, kindness, and equality are not

really moral categories that are objective unless God exists, because you need a standard outside of yourself. Otherwise, it's just your opinion to say, you ought not murder people, you ought to be just to people. It's just your opinion against somebody else's opinion. There has to be a standard beyond us that we're obligated to obey, and that standard can only exist if God exists in order to say, you ought not murder, you ought to have, give people equal rights, whatever your claim is. Moral claims, objective moral claims only make sense if God exists. But wait, Frank, atheism is not a religion. We just don't believe in religion.

What do you say to that? No, atheists, you know, they're say, oh, I lack a belief in God. Yeah, it's atheists, right? Like, no theism. Okay, well, first of all, if you just lack a belief in God, that's a psychological state of your mind. You're not telling us anything about what's outside of your skull. It's just your psychological state, so who cares? But here's, I avoid the whole semantic thing by simply asking atheists this question.

Here's a proposition. God exists. Do you agree with that proposition? If so, you're a theist. Do you disagree with that proposition? If so, you're an atheist. If you don't know, you're an agnostic. All right, let's stop playing word games here.

It's one of those three, right? But the other thing is to say, no, atheists don't just lack a belief. They have positive beliefs. Atheists will say things like, well, I believe all that exists are materials. Of course, immediately when they say that, they're using non-material things to say that, like the laws of logic, right? Those are not made of molecules, right? They believe, a lot of them believe in a multiverse, right? That's how to explain the fine-tuning of the universe.

Or they believe in macroevolution. Those are positive beliefs they need to give evidence for. They just can't say, oh, I don't think your worldview is true. My co-author and mentor, Geyser, used to say this. It's easy to smell a rotten egg. It's hard to lay a better one. Yeah, yeah. You can throw rotten eggs at people all day and say, I don't like your worldview.

It's wrong. Well, what worldview do you have? Oh, I don't have a world. No, you have a worldview. Everyone has a worldview. Let me just read this one paragraph from. We've got a new book coming out in September called The War on Reality. We're covering truth in a world that celebrates lies.

My co-author, Phoenix Hayes, is very witty. So here's the way she writes about atheism. She says, atheism, in the beginning, there was nothing. And then for no particular reason, something exploded into being. cause, no plan, no mind behind it, just an accidental cosmic fireworks show that kicked off space time and matter. Where did the universe come from? No idea. Just be grateful it showed up. And then she says this. Fast forward a few billion years. In planet Earth's razor thin, life-permitting conditions are explained by a very scientific sounding term known as luck.

That's what Richard Dawkins actually said. Atmospheric conditions somehow became just right for non-living chemicals to bond together to form proteins. These disorganized proteins, though through a lot of time and luck, eventually combine in such a way that life emerges from non-life, a naturalistic miracle that even intelligent scientists can't replicate. It's kind of like what you were saying. There you go. It's like, I want to tell people, it's like, show me gravity. And if they're honest, like, well, I can't show you gravity. It's just the best explanation for what we can see by what we can't see. And I'm like, huh, effects. That sounds familiar. Yeah. That's great. We see effects. That sounds like faith.

There's something invisible. That's the best explanation for what is visible. Right. Yeah. That's called faith. We got atheism check. Last one. Spiritual but not religious. Here's the visual.

There you go. This is somebody from California, according to chat, GPD. Spiritual but not religious. You got everything happens for a reason. You got crystals, chakra, energy, the universe, candles, focus on your flow. I think it's what it says. The universe has your back.

The universe has you. You are the magic. You are the magic. Okay, so what's going on here? Founder, what do they believe? What's wrong with the world? Obviously, this is not officially a religion. The founder is you.

That's right. The founding is you. From the universe. Yes, I call this the cafeteria approach to God or to spirituality. Because if you go to a cafeteria, you can take a little bit of all the foods that you want and leave the things that you don't like. And so nowadays, it's obviously in a sense kind of going back to where we began at the beginning, which is this idea of all, they're all the same. And so with that, even if we walked through what we just did over the last 60 minutes, people would say, okay, well, yeah, some of them were different. And then therefore, I'm going to take what I like and leave what I don't.

And so that's the idea of the cafeteria approach. This is about me. I'm choosing what's true. And that's the idea of, hey, you live your truth. You do you. I'll do me kind of a thing. And so at the end of the day, if I'm the one picking them, then I guess I must be God. Because I'm picking what is true and what is not true kind of a thing.

And so, yeah, so this I'd say it's actually. I tell people this is a little bit of reminds me of Elsa from Frozen and her idea of let it go. No right, no wrong, no rules for me. I'm free. So I'm only free if I get to pick anything I want to do and anything I want to believe. So yeah, that's a little bit of what I would say here is basically it's like I'm spiritual. I do believe there's a God, but I don't want to be religious because then guess what other people get to tell me what I have to do and believe. I want to tell me.

I want to be God. Yeah. And the Bible says that there is the Holy Spirit and there are our own Holy Spirit. And so you want to be very careful, very watchful with what kind of spirits you are inviting into your life. Especially when it comes to a lot of these. Again, if it's not the Holy Spirit, what kind of spirit is it? And so, man, I'm hesitant. It's interesting because people think that now we live in a post-Christian society.

And in some case, that is true. There is some truth to that. But at the same time, we also live in a post-secular society. society, which means that atheism and all, like, that kind of didn't work. Yeah, that's right. So now there is a pursuit for spirituality. And it's not Christianity, but it's some other sort of spirituality. Again, you want to be mindful of that, Frank.

Well, in the War on Reality book, we have a tagline. If this kind of you had a tagline, it would be, why choose one religion when you can contradict them all? Right. But it goes back to a story. I was actually in Dallas, about 10 years ago, doing. in a seminar, and somebody came up to the book table and said, do you have a book on Buddhism? And I said, why? And the lady said, well, I have a friend who was a Christian, but now she's a

Buddhist. And so I want a book to help her. And I said, I don't know your friend at all, but let me just ask you one question. Did your friend, who used to be a Christian, suddenly start doing something that the Bible prohibits? And she said, oh, yeah, she just moved in with her boyfriend. I said, you don't need a book on Buddhism. She's not a Buddhist because she thinks Buddhism's true. she's a Buddhist because she wants to have spirituality without moral accountability. Yes. Right? If I had to guess and 99 times out of 10, I'm right.

Yeah. Okay? That's the issue. You want to be spiritual. That's all the upside with any of the negative. Somebody can tell me what to do and how to live my life. Now, as you mentioned earlier, Paul, which is a wise insight, that God gave us, he's our designer and he knows what we're designed to run on and how we're designed to live.

And so he gave us a revelation, and that revelation helps us live our lives according to his design. And the same thing is true when we get a new car. I know none of us read the manual, but the manual's there for a reason. It comes from a designer. And if we want to use the car in a right way, we should read the manual because the designers know how it was designed to run. and how it's designed to maintain. Who writes a book after they buy a new car that, you know, Ford is evil and manuals poison everything, right? Nobody does that, right?

Because it's not a moral thing, right? But we're kind of doing the same thing with God. If the Bible is God's special revelation, and I believe it is, it's sort of like a manual that helps us understand how the designer set this universe up and how we should live. We shouldn't rebel against it, but many of us do. Frank, I want to give you enough because we keep landing to plan. Oh, there's more to speak here. Give us in one minute, why is Christianity true and what sets it apart from literally every other religion that we just talked about? Well, as you said before, Christianity is based on historical events that you can investigate.

That's important. It's not just someone's philosophy. You can see if this really happened. And you only need to establish two basic facts to show that what C.S. Lewis would call mere Christianity is true. Number one, God exists. And you can know that from what we talked about earlier, the three great arguments, creation, design, and morality. We know there's a being out there that created and sustains the world and he's moral. And the second fact, after does God exist, is did Jesus predict and accomplish his own resurrection from the dead?

And the answer to that is yes, because you can look at the evidence for that. If those two facts are true, Christianity is true. And if Christianity is true, then the solution to life is not effort. it's not achieving, it's receiving. You don't achieve it, you receive it. God created it, we broke it, Jesus fixed it. And so that's why this is the greatest message of all time. The greatest message of all time is that you are going to be forgiven

and given God's righteousness by simply receiving a gift. There you go. It's grace. Let me echo everything that we just said over here as we continue to finish this. when you start comparing Christianity with every religion that we just talked about right now, it is overwhelming how different

it is, they are at their core. They're all different. And Christianity sends out in so many different ways. Most major religions, like you said, Frank, at the core, are about how you seek God. Christianity at its core

is about how God seeks you. Genesis literally starts with God saying, Adam, where are you? The name Adam is the name of the first man, but it also means humanity. So it's literally God saying, humanity, where are you? It is God seeking you. And he just calls for you. He comes for you.

This is why Jesus said, I came to seek and save the loss. No other religion has a God who enters suffering, bears suffering, defeats suffering through a cross and a resurrection. And unlike other religions, the core message of Christianity, you mentioned this, Frank, recently, is not what you need to do. It's here's what has been done for you. Buddha's last words reportedly were strive on with diligence. Muhammad's message boils down to submit. That's the meaning of the word Islam. Rabbis would say, keep the law.

Hindu gurus would say, fulfill your Dharma. Jesus, on the other hand, said, it is finished on a bloody cross. Virtually every major religious founder points beyond himself to a path, a teaching or a system. Jesus points to himself. Buddha said, I am a teacher

and points to enlightenment. Muhammad said, I am a prophet and points to Allah. Moses said, I am a messenger and points to Yahweh. Jesus said, I am God. Before Abraham, I am. and points to himself, that's a big difference. And here's the last one. The Bible says in 1 John 4, 8, that God is love.

Again, united to this. In Islam, Allah is merciful, but He, Allah is not love. In Hinduism, you have ultimate reality, Brahman, an impersonal force or energy. You also have other gods portrayed as loving, but it is conditional on good works, rituals, or karma. In Buddhism, there is no personal God who is love. Only in Jesus, we see that love is not something that God does from afar or from a distance. love is who God is as he comes near.

And he does so in a personal and intimate way. And this is why Romans chapter 5, verse 8, God shows his love for you and me this way that while we were still sinners Christ died for us, only Jesus does that. And so as we wrap, last question, Frank, how do you share this with people? With one question.

You only need one question. It works for every one of these face. The one question is, If Christianity were true, would you become a Christian? Just ask that question. Wow. Because that's the thing that separates Christianity from every other world religion. You can investigate it and discover whether or not it's true.

Wow. You can do that. That's good. And so ask it. If people hesitate or say no, it's not a head problem. It's a hard problem. They don't want it to be true. So that's the question I use on college campuses all the time.

Start there. Now, a very end of this question, if you want to take Christianity out of it, because people think they have a negative idea of what Christianity is, the very end of the question is this. If Jesus really did predict and accomplish his own resurrection from the dead to prove he was God, would you follow him? And so see what they say. See what they say.

It's a yes or no. If they hesitate or say no, you just need to pray. One of the things I appreciate about you, Frank, is that, you know, in the Internet you see a lot of people, fighting and debating. And there is a place to debate arguments. The Bible causes to debate arguments and to demolish arguments. But the Bible also causes to love people.

And, you know, we never want to get to a point where we're destroying people and loving arguments. We want to love people and destroy arguments. And so I think you do that well. And I think it's an encouragement for us as well. And for people joining right now, tuning in and kind of learning some of this stuff to be like, okay, let me use some of this stuff. So I can, we're called to go use this stuff not to destroy people, but to love people and destroy arguments for the sake of their souls because we want them to meet Jesus.

And so that's who we are. And I think you're embodied that well. So man, I just want to thank you for that. This, you guys do every week on here. And so does Pastor Josh. And I know he's going to be back next week. But people here who are just watching this now, I want you to go back and start where Carlos started talking like four or five minutes ago, because that was a brilliant summary. Yes. So if you want to summarize everything we talked about, go back and listen to what Carlos. just said. See, this is why this isn't such an important podcast, ladies and gentlemen, talking about the most important issues for eternity right here on the Live Free podcast.

And isn't it amazing? It's called Live Free. You can live free because you don't achieve it. You receive it. It's free. Right here. Let's go. Frank, would you pray for us?

Father, we're so blessed to be able to have a free country where we could present this. we're coming up on our 250th anniversary. We pray that Christians would acknowledge what we have here in this nation and do what they can to preserve our religious freedom. I thank you for the Live Free podcast and all the listeners out there who are becoming disciples through this show and through the scriptures and through the Holy Spirit. I pray for Pastor Josh as he rests.

Pray you bring him back refreshed. We thank you for Pastor Paul and Pastor Carlos and Trinity and the entire team here, do a wonderful job every couple of days putting together another great show that helps make disciples of people. I pray you bless the Live Free podcast and Lake Point Church and all those who are now trying to copy Lake Point and they should because they're doing great work here. We're emulating Jesus. Help us to emulate you and be ambassadors for you and have this message of truth go far and wide. we pray for people in other belief systems as well.

We pray that we've accurately described what they believe in general terms. We couldn't go into detail. So we pray people would seek the truth and find the truth, and the truth is in you. Thank you for saving us. In Christ's name, amen. Amen. Live free, brother. All right.

Live free, brothers.