Which Religion is True?

Chapter 1

Does God Exist?

For most efficient search for the right ‘religion’ or ‘way of life’ we must begin by asking the ultimate question: Does God Exist?

The reason this search is most efficient is that if a supreme God exists then we can simply discard all religions based on the philosophies of men. These religions include atheism, secular humanism, atheistic communism, Budhism, Shintoism, Taoism, Confucianism and the like. We can also discard all ideas of the non-religious on what is the right way to live, of which secular humanism is a part. So let’s ask ourselves the ultimate question: Does God Exist?

We have very good news in this regard. We have plenty of proof that one supreme Creator God does indeed exist. The author will not provide proof here, because the Churches of God and many other churches have written excellent books or booklets on the subject available free of charge. Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong, through whom God founded the modern era of His Church, also wrote a booklet titled “Does God Exist?”

To find proof that a supreme Creator God does indeed exist, please order, read online or download your free copy of any or all of the following publications:

1. “Does God Exist”, By Herbert W. Armstrong, available at www.pcog.org.

2. “Does God Exist”, published by the United Church of God, available at www.ucg.org.

3. “Does God Exist”, by David C. Pack, Published by the Restored Church of God, available at www.rcg.org.

4. “The Real God: Proofs and Promises” by Douglas S. Winnail, published by the Living Church of God, available at www.lcg.org.

The author does provide proof of the existence of the supreme Creator God in two ways on his web site www.ChurchofGodMessage.com. First proof is provided by his booklet “Evolution is a Lie!”, which proves that man did not evolve. Since creation demands a creator because something cannot create itself out of nothing, and humanity did not evolve out of nothing leads to the conclusion that man and all creation that we see was created by a supreme Creator. Therefore the proof that evolution is not true and the existence of creation prove the existence of a Creator God.

Second proof is provided by numerous prophecies fulfilled as detailed in this booklet. The Creator God foretold great events in the history of mankind and brought them to pass in precise detail. That proves the existence of a God who has all the power to foretell the future of man and bring it to pass. And fulfillment of these predictions should be provable from world history. Since all these prophecies are contained in only one holy book, it also proves that that holy book is God-inspired. It is the true word of God.

Now since we can prove that God exists, we can discard all religions that are entirely the philosophies of men as a poor guide on how human beings should live. This means that we no longer need to waste time with atheism, secular humanism, animism, ancestor worship, atheistic communism, Budhism, Shintoism, Taoism, Confucianism and the like.

We may be forced to look at all these religions only if the Creator God has not provided an instruction manual for mankind, and has left humans to determine for themselves how they ought to live. But it would be an unenviable task because all these religions are different from each other, often in conflict on many points. That’s why humanity has been unable to reach a consensus on its own on what is the right way to live. And that’s why more wars have been fought over religion than any other reason because humans are trying to ‘save’ others by forcing them to accept what they believe is the true religion. We will have to look at the scriptures of the various religions anchored on the existence of God to see if we can reach a conclusion on this issue. And none of these religions except two have a clear code of conduct for living everyday life. The ones that do are Christianity and Judaism with the Ten Commandments being that code.

Since we can prove a Creator God exists, we need to answer the related question: Is there one supreme Creator God, or are there many gods? If there is only one Supreme Creator God in absolute total control of all creation, then our task of answering the question which is the right religion (or way of life) is made easy. We just follow the religion revealed by this supreme Creator God. But if there are multiple gods, then we have a much more difficult task on her hands.

Is there More than one God?

Let’s look at the evidence for the existence of more than one God.

Before looking at the evidence, we must ask related questions so that we can look for the right kind of evidence. The questions are:

a) Are there multiple gods, and how many are there?
b) Are all the gods in harmony with one another, implying that there is one supreme God over them all, or are they in discord and in competition with one another? Another possibility is that some are in harmony with a supreme God whereas others are in direct competition and enmity with Him.

We must look for evidence in two sources: in the universe and on earth. Here is what we find.

We find the universe in harmony, perfectly obeying the laws of physics, mathematics, chemistry and astronomy. This is evidence that there is one supreme God in control of all creation. He is the Creator of everything and has total control over it all, including all the power to sustain His physical laws of the universe. Laws must be sustained to continue functioning precisely and that demands that the Lawgiver has the necessary power to do so. That’s why the universe exists in perfect harmony. If this were not so, there would be chaos with celestial bodies colliding with one another and breaking up into smithereens. There would be chaos if multiple gods in competition with one another had created their own different universe. There would be constant war in order to take over or destroy the creation of other gods with each trying to become the supreme ruler of all the universes. At least that’s the only way we humans can imagine this cosmic competition to be like.

The earth follows a precise orbit in our solar system. Even a tiny variation in its movements would make conditions too cold or too hot and all life would end on earth.

Evidence of the universe in harmony that we know of seems to prove the existence of one Supreme Creator God. But there is also other evidence in the universe that points to chaos at least at some point in time in the past.

We need to merely look at planets and their moons in our solar system. From EnchantedLearning.com: “The surface of the moon is scarred with millions of impact craters. There is no atmosphere on the moon to help protect it from bombardment from potential impactors (most objects from space burn up in the Earth's atmosphere). Also, there is no erosion (wind or water) and little geologic activity to wear away these craters, so they remain unchanged until another new impact changes it…These craters range in size up to many hundreds of kilometers…An impact basin is an impact crater that has a rim diameter greater than 185 miles (300 km). There are over 40 impact basins on the Moon.”

Despite the erosion problems on earth, 165 impact craters have been identified so far, and more are being identified each year.

To a question on the number of craters on Mars, the www.quest.arc.nasa.gov web site provides the answer: “There are literally thousands of craters on Mars and they range in size from small features a few meters across to large basins such as Hellas Basin which are between 1300 and 4200 kilometers across. The Earth was cratered just as much as Mars was. The difference is that almost all of the craters of the Earth have been eroded away or destroyed by sea floor spreading. So, the oldest crater observed on the Earth is younger than the oldest craters on Mars.”

The U.S. Geological Survey web site provides information about craters on the surface of Venus: “The NASA Magellan spacecraft provided synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image coverage of 98% of the surface of the planet Venus…The database tables include the name (where applied), coordinates, diameter, modification state, crater morphologic type, and mean elevation of 967 craters interpreted to be of impact origin within the area of the planet imaged by the Magellan spacecraft between 1990 and 1994.”

From among the many moons of Jupiter, all of which are cratered, Callisto is the most heavily cratered moon in the solar system. The moons of Saturn bear similar scars of a space battle.

From the NASA web site: http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/ “Asteroids are rocky fragments…[and] can be found orbiting the Sun in a belt between Mars and Jupiter. This region in our solar system, called the Asteroid Belt or Main Belt, probably contains millions of asteroids ranging widely in size from Ceres, which at 940 km in diameter is about one-quarter the diameter of our Moon, to bodies that are less than 1 km across. There are more than 90,000 numbered asteroids.” It further describes the meteorites: “Where do they come from? They probably come from within our own solar system, rather than interstellar space. Their composition provides clues to their origins. They may share a common origin with the asteroids.”

In addition to the Asteroid Belt, at the outer edges of our solar system is the Kuiper Belt, dwarf planets and the Oort Cloud. According to planetary scientist Alan Stern, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, many more planets existed in our solar system than the eight major planets we now count (Space.com; “Astronomers: Earth like Planets may be very common”, by Robin Lloyd February 18, 2008).

The suggestion that at one time there were many more major planets in our solar system than the 8 we currently have is evidence that some planets in our solar system were destroyed at some point in time, perhaps in a war between competing gods. All that space debris can be found in the asteroid belt, the Kuiper Belt and perhaps the Oort Cloud and may have even resulted in the formation of dwarf planets in our solar system.

We have not been able to send probes outside our solar system. So we don’t have photographic evidence of destruction on surfaces of planets and stars outside our solar system. But strong evidence exists that a space war was fought in much of the universe.

The Washington Observatory has discovered a vast expanse of empty space in the northern sky that does not contain a single star. The reason why there is empty space in the northern sky is that the stars may have been destroyed in this titanic space war.

Thus what astronomers and scientists observe in outer space is not evidence of an evolving universe, but the wreckage of a monumental battle waged apparently between the forces of at least two gods in competition with one another.

There is also other evidence that the earth itself was involved in a cosmic war. That evidence is provided by the fossil record.

The fossil record shows that two different kinds of animals and creatures are buried in the earth in sedimentary rocks. The two kinds of creatures are found in different strata on the earth. They are not found buried and fossilized together.

The earth was inundated twice in two separate catastrophic floods. The pre-Adamic earth was destroyed in a global catastrophic which included flooding of the earth. That is why the world of dinosaurs, flying reptiles and other strange animals is found buried in sedimentary rocks and older coal seams. Then another Flood (in Noah’s days) buried the world of warm-blooded mammals, many other creatures and man in overlying sedimentary rocks. But sometimes the deposits from Noah’s Flood were laid down on original rocks and the Flood washed up the earlier deposits of the dinosaur world and laid them in an inverted order. So the fossil record on earth also provides evidence that there was a likely cosmic war between gods which included the earth as well.

We will reconcile these two pieces of evidence of a universe in harmony indicating the existence of a supreme God full in control, and also a universe that experienced chaos in a cosmic war indicating the existence of more than one god competing with each other after we examine the scriptures (or holy books) of various religions.

Further Evidence of More than One God

Further evidence for the likely existence of more than one god is available on earth. This is available from the different religions based on the existence of God. These include Hinduism, Islam, Christianity and Judaism.

All these religions differ from each other on many issues, including the basic question of what is salvation. So the end goal they are promising their adherents is different. This evidence will be provided later. But since these religions differ from each other, they cannot be the creation of one supreme God. This points to the existence of more than one God.

Another evidence for the existence of two God Beings, or even three God Beings is provided by the Bible. The two God Beings are known as God the Father and the Word who later became Jesus Christ. But these two God Beings are in perfect harmony with each other in the Bible, with Jesus Christ being fully and totally in subjection to God the Father. So the cosmic war that resulted in chaos and destruction on earth and the universe did not result from a war of competition between these God Beings, but between two or more other gods.

According to another interpretation of the Bible, there is only one supreme God Being who exists as three God Beings: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Others say it is three separate God Beings existing as One God Being. But nobody seems to be able to explain it logically at least to human beings. So they call it a ‘holy’ mystery. But another possibility is that this is a wrong interpretation of the Bible. This issue will also be examined in detail later as Islam points to it as being illogical.

The existence of multiple gods will be examined in detail later to see if there is a logical and acceptable explanation for it.

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