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First of all I would like to state that this is not an attempt to disprove religion, or the existence of God. There is just a lot of confusion, due to many contradictions.

According to some people, God sends people to Hell because they were misinformed (believed in the wrong God/followed the wrong religion, etc).

  1. Is this true? And why? If God saw the future, he would know that there would be many people, millions even, preaching the wrong things. If God had the power to create us all, why didn't He write The Bible, and just dump it somewhere on earth for us to find and replicate? Thus helping to eliminate the chance of mis-interpretation, which is seeming to be a never-ending problem.
  2. What was wrong with the Old Testament? Apparently, the Bible is revised because things are mis-interpreted and that's how the New Testament came to be.
  3. If God could see the future, why didn't he write a version for each language that would be invented my man kind? So that there would be no possibility of mis-interpretation in future generations?
  4. How do you believe in God, without doubts, when there are so many other religions and Gods? What is it about your religion that makes you say "Yep. This is the real/only God."?

Now I will admit that I have not followed religion my whole life but I have never dismissed the idea that there was a God, either.

But I am so confused by everything, and when I read things online, I get even more confused because there are so many Christians out there who preach this, or that, and then I click away to a different website where another Christian will preach the complete opposite of what I just read.

How can one follow religion when we do not really know the real story? As far as I know, everything we read today about the Bible is just yet another revision of something we have not read yet.

Is there an original Bible? I.e. An unedited/authentic version of the Bible that still exists that is being sold, or given away around the world? Or is it merely an artefact preserved in some Museum now?

How can we believe in the right thing when there is more of a chance of us believing in the wrong thing, and never even knowing?

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    Welcome to the site! It seems you have some really good questions, and it is commendable to ask such things. It seems we may have to divide this question up into several different ones. The fourth question is perhaps the most intriguing, but all of them are really good. – Narnian Feb 5 '13 at 15:50
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    +1 And I second what Narnian said. Very good questions but you'd probably get better answers if these questions were divided into separate questions. I'd be interested to know how you came to the conclusion (in Q2) that there had to be something wrong with the Old Testament for there to be a New Testament. – nico_c Feb 5 '13 at 16:07
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    "Is there an original Bible?" Do you know how to read Greek? It's the translations that are all different. – Byzantine Feb 5 '13 at 16:08
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    Thank you everyone. I will ask these questions individually :) – Arrow Feb 5 '13 at 16:09
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    Hi! and welcome to C.SE. I'd like to ask you to break this up into a series of questions. We're looking for answerable questions. I see several related questions, would it be possible for you to narrow them substantially and ask them as separate questions? As it is it's very difficult to even try to answer your question in a way that will be useful to you. – wax eagle Feb 5 '13 at 20:39
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The only reason to believe something is because it is true.

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil. (1 Thessalonians 5:16-22 ESV)

How do we test if something is true/good? By holding it in the light of what we already know to be true.

Some things are true by their very nature. Some truths are derived through logic or widsom. Some, we believe, cannot be deduced or induced from nature itself and so are revealed to us.

The reason there are so many disagreements about what is true regarding God and heaven, Jesus, religion, etc is because everyone has their own frame of reference and current baseline that they compare new information or ideas to.

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    this doesn't really answer the question(s)... – Greg McNulty Feb 6 '13 at 1:57
  • @GregMcNulty no, but if you read the OP he's clearly floundering in the ambiguous uncertainty of it all. I was trying to take a step back and address the the confusion behind the questions. It definitely needs to be expanded but I ran out of time. – kurosch Feb 6 '13 at 16:08
  • ok, that makes sense, +1 – Greg McNulty Feb 19 '13 at 21:20

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