Use the method everybody uses
By what process does one choose their religion? How were you able to determine that your religion was the best when you were making your choice? This is very interesting to me.
If you say that one religion is the best - you speak for God. If you can say that a religion is best for you - God has spoken to you.
Most of us don’t really pick our religions, we just get born into them. I suspect if we all had to pick, the world’s religions will be claiming far fewer adherents.
I was raised Episcopalian. Ugh. Even our whole church broke away. But I argued about religion through my teens and am a Deist Christian since my late teens, not concerned with denominations, having taken a route through astronomical science. Prove all things. The heavens do declare His glory.
Use the method everybody uses
By comparison. By living, seeing, hearing, thinking, feeling. I was raised as a Catholic but by no stretch of the imagination did I swallow any of it whole. What you may be wondering is how people in a closed environment can make a choice. The answer is what Jesus commanded: “Go and tell the world...” Give them an opportunity to make a choice. It's not for nothing that western slaves took the religion of their “masters”....they read the Words and saw nothing in there that indicated that their oppressors were their actual masters.
” By what process does one choose their religion? How were you able to determine that your religion was the best when you were making your choice? This is very interesting to me.”
I’m assuming this is a serious, not rhetorical, question; so I’m going to give it a serious answer. I am a scientist and used to believe that, if there is a God, “all religions lead to God”. In fact, I spent some years as an Objectivist.
About ten years ago, I read the books of John and Acts on a recommendation from a friend. Then I read a little apologetics and some of the opposition to the apologetics (there’s tons of each).
Combining what I read with the historic evidence of the rapid spread of Christianity and the normality of martyrdom for early Christians, I came to the conclusion that it was very likely that, about 2000 years ago, a guy got nailed to a cross, died, rose, and then ascended directly to heaven. More details on the reasoning if you want; but it took a couple years of investigation.
Once you accept that premise as likely or even somewhat likely, you need to take what the guy on the cross said seriously. One of the things he said was:
“I am the way, and the truth and the life. Noone comes to the father but through me.”
That’s about as clear as it gets. I still don’t much like it. I’d prefer that good Hindus and good Objectivists go to heaven. But that’s not what Jesus said was going to happen—over and over. And the evidence for the resurrection is awfully good. So I have submitted to that statement and work to get my heart to be more accepting of it.
So that’s the how. I started with evidence and came to faith.
From a rationalist viewpoint, it seems to me the aggressive athiests have the reasoning exactly wrong. They want 100% proof of God’s existence. The stakes are so high, though—eternal life in a newly manufactured and perfect cosmos versus damnation in a burning sea (that’s what the Bible says, a remade heaven and Earth, not some airy fairy floaty Heaven)—that it seems to me a much smaller certainty of the resurrection should suffice for people.
My theory for why the lower certainty does not work for the vast majority of humans is that Jesus demands you submit to Him and the Father—we have to repent our sins. That’s the price.
And that brings us back to the point of the thread—humility. Voluntary submission is a form of humility. And that is very very hard for humans. Most would rather tell themselves that they bow their head to no man or God than take the chance for life eternal.
Humility and submission are, in my judgment, the hidden subtext to most discussions about Christianity with non-Christians. The price of salvation is submission. And that is why I think the words “Jesus Christ” provokes such a seemingly extreme response from many non-Christians. Humans have an instinctive revulsion to submission.
So the next time a Christian asks you how is your relationship with Jesus, remember, they are trying to get you eternal life in a good place. And the evidence for their position is pretty good. You may not want it. You may not believe it. You may not think it worth the price. But realize that’s what is going on.
Two other things: When a Christian talks to you about the Gospel: (1) That is submission by the Christian—Jesus commanded that we tell all people about Him; and (2) You have no idea how hard it is to talk to non-Christians about the Gospel. A lot of people are really, really nasty about the subject. So it is really submission to subject yourself to that.