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J_Edwards said:
He would have a hard time defending this statement as he does not know what "every religion" without exception teaches. However, understanding him to mean "every religion he has studied" could this be true? Is there ANY truth at all in "cults?" Islam believes in the virgin birth, that Christ will return at the judgment with 1000s of angels, that Jesus was sinless, that He worked miracles, etc. JW and Mormons assert "parts" of the Bible, as true etc. Now I have a hard enough time keeping up with learning the truth from the Scriptures and thus find very little need to study other religions "for truth," but I also desire to be fair and not "overly" criticize someone just because I disagree with the some of his views, et. al. Can members of the board unequivocally state that there is NO TRUTH at all (without exception) in other religions? Can we state we have absolutely NOTHING we can learn from other religions?

Just a thought?

I've always felt that other religions and even cults contained varying degrees of truth. Depending on the religion/cult, the amount of truth could be miniscule or so distorted to be almost unrecognizable, but I still believe it's there somewhere. I think that's why other religions and cults can be so appealing to people. Half-truths are easier to believe than outright lies. Even Satan masquerades as an angel of light. I'm not trying to defend other religions or cults here. They are definitely wrong in their beliefs, but I do think bits and pieces of the truth can be found there. So I don't think we can state that there is "NO TRUTH at all in other religions". I think we can learn things from studying other religions, but mainly through being forced back to the Bible to determine the truth in contrast to the error we studied about in their teaching. Some of the most constructive conversations I've had about Christianity have come with non-Christians/atheists because they force me back to the Bible to counter their criticisms.

I want to stress that in stating that other religions/cults have bits of the truth that I am not saying that we need to or should look to them for truth. Even though they may have grains of truth, they are still horribly in error, especially regarding things such as salvation.

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Now I have a hard enough time keeping up with learning the truth from the Scriptures and thus find very little need to study other religions "for truth,

I'm in the same boat here.

John