Hello Tegs . Thank you for entering this month's contest.

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Grill a Christian  (13+) What is the best path to enduring inner peace? #2327636 by LightinMind

As the official Judge of this contest, I have the following comments to offer for "Invalid Item" 

Did you answer the question?

Yes, you answered the question by first disputing whether the two most significant religions could prove their truth claims vis a vis the other. You then proceeded to suggest a third way to think about truth.

Use of quotes, proof-texting or AI - could I hear your voice?

This sounded genuine to me.

How consistent was your argument?

Effectively, you argued that the major religions could not prove their truth claims. You argued that because there are choices, the noise of competing arguments makes it impossible to assert one over the other. This is not an argument, as one might be wrong and the other true. This was an assertion rather than an argument, You did not address any of the authorities that would be used by the religions in question nor run any comparisons of relative credibility, of strengths and weaknesses. You then discussed the unrelated Stargate project, sharing that the various psychics yielded no valuable intelligence to their US Army sponsor. Then you proposed a speculation as to why these experiments failed as a new way of looking at truth relating to the Universal Consciousness. So, I found the overall argument incoherent and unsupported.

My thoughts on the substance of what you said

Last time you entered the competition, you argued materialistically. I critiqued you for that. I suppose I should commend you for an entirely different approach this time. You seem to have embraced a version of the supernatural linked with a conception of Universal Consciousness, a sort of Westernized Hinduism akin to the New Age movement. I was waiting for a quote from that great Jedi Master Yoda as a part of your argument, as the Universal Consciousness you described sounded impersonal and more like a force or universal sense of being than a theistic understanding of reality. You differ from Hinduism in that Brahman, what Hindus suggest is the ultimate, formless, and infinite reality from which all emanates, mainly transcends all human understanding. Hinduism is a more unconscious path than the pantheistic unity you describe.

Christian understanding differs from this Universal Consciousness idea and, indeed, from the Muslim Tawhid doctrine (The oneness of God), regarding both views as superficial and not going deep enough into the mystery of Divinity. The fuller revelation supported by scripture and made available to mankind by the incarnate Son of God is that Truth is personal and the Truth dwelt among us as a man showing us, to the limits of human understanding, what it meant to know God. The gift of the Spirit reminds us of Christ and his words, opens up God's revelation to us, and further demonstrates the personal nature of the Trinity. The doctrine reveals to us a God of love. It shows God's personal love for us. Because of Christ's redemption work and the Spirit who dwells in the Church, we are enabled to know and love God and to live in His love. By contrast, Islam's God is distant, and to worship Him is not to know God personally. A Universal Consciousness is ultimately a speculative abstraction, and you offer no proofs or explanations of it here.

But how can we adjudicate between the three views you offer us here? One way is to point to the historical reality of the life of Christ in a definite time and place, to testimony from non-Christians as well as Christians of that existence. Muhammad also existed, but no one pretends he lived a perfect life and indeed, there is much to explain in the life that he did live and which is attested to by Islamic tradition, e.g., his marriage to Aisha and the massacre of all the males in a Jewish tribe. In the Christian faith, you have an account of a perfect life that witnessed to the Divine in well-attested miracles and, which indeed, following the crucifixion rose from the very dead to reconfigure the entirety of our thought on God, the Universe and everything. Who best to speak of God to man than one who came from heaven, God with Us - Emmanuel - who could not be held by death and lived among us as one of us? He dissolves the boundaries set for our perceptions of reality by walking through the supernatural realms, in and out of his grave through history as a man, with a message of hope and love worth hearing. Only Jesus brings together the human/material and the mysteries of the supernatural world into a coherent life.

Though I liked the shift to a more supernatural perception of reality, I thought your argument was weaker than last time.

Mechanical issues

You write well, and it is always a relief to be able to focus on substance with authors of your quality.


Thanks again for entering.
LightinMind

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