• Pseudo Christian Cults – These groups claim to be Christian and claim to believe the Bible, but they embrace additional man-made teachings that they place over the authority of the Bible. They thereby end up denying or distorting the basic doctrines of true, biblical Christianity. Examples: Mormonism and Jehovah’s Witnesses.
• Oriental Cults – These groups find their philosophical basis in Hinduism and Buddhism. Their basic philosophy is monism & pantheism – all is one and all is god. They teach that the physical material world is an illusion and we must transcend this world to achieve peace by becoming one with the impersonal, universal force they call god. Transcendence is achieved through techniques like transcendental meditation, yoga, or the chanting of a mantra. Examples: The Hare Krishna Movement and Transcendental Meditation.
• The New Age Cults – This movement combines three false philosophies to create a hybrid spirituality – Western Secular Humanism, Eastern Hindu Mysticism, and the Occult. The New Age Movement teaches that humans have evolved physically and now must evolve spiritually to discover our own inherent divinity. Different Eastern meditative practices and various Occult techniques are used to discover the divine within. Examples: Eckhart Tolle and A Course in Miracles.
• The Occult – The word “Occult” is a Latin term that means “Hidden or Secret Things”. This philosophy teaches that wisdom and power may be attained by tapping into mystical, secret forces or by appealing directly to Satan. Examples: Wicca, Satanism, and Channeling.

For more information on the many cults in our world today, please check out Dr. Carlson’s book, Fast Facts On False Teachings, available in our online store.

• The philosophy of Religious Pluralism is the idea that all religions are equally valid paths to God.
• The law of non-contradiction, a universal law of logic, is a major problem for religious pluralism. It states that two mutually exclusive claims to truth cannot be equally true. Either one is true, or both are false, but they cannot both be true. For example, God cannot be both a personal being and an impersonal force. God is either one or the other, or neither, but cannot be both.
• The claim that 'all roads are equally valid paths to God' can only be true if God is impersonal by nature, but if God is personal, and if God has communicated how He wants us to relate to Him, then how we respond to that truth really matters.
• Jesus Christ made very clear, exclusive claims about himself being the only true way to salvation. Thus, it becomes imperative that each of us weigh Jesus' question from Mark 8:29, "Who do you say that I am?"

For more information on the Christian response to Religious Pluralism, please check out Jason Carlson's DVD lecture titled, Salvation: Is there really just 1 way? available in our online store.

• Both the Bible and the Koran claim to be the word of God, but only the Bible bears the marks of divine inspiration while the Koran contains numerous errors, for example...
• The Koran is internally inconsistent in a number of places. One example, in Sura 2:256 the Koran says, "Let there be no compulsion in religions", while in other places, such as Sura 9:5 and 9:29, the Koran advocates fighting and killing non-Muslims who refuse to embrace Islam.
• The Koran also contradicts itself on key theological matters. For example, in regards to creation the Koran says in Sura 7:54 that the world was made in six days, but in Sura 41:9-12 it says God took eight days.
• The Koran is also wrong on basic issues of science. For example, in Sura 23:14 the Koran says that human beings are formed from a clot of blood; and Sura 18:86 states that the sun sets in a muddy pond.
• Contrary to the errors we find in the Koran, the Bible is internally consistent and scientifically accurate. The Bible contains no errors or contradictions.

For more information on the Bible vs. the Koran, please see Dr. Carlson's audio lecture titled, The Religion of Islam, available in our online store in MP3 or CD.

• The Law of Biogenesis states that life only comes from life, life cannot come from non-living matter. Darwinian evolution requires the impossible, that chemical reactions created the first living organisms.
• DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid) is found in all living organisms and is essential for life to exist. Yet DNA can only be produced by life. How when no life existed did DNA come into being? Darwinian evolution has no explanation.
• Science has consistently demonstrated that the Earth is literally fine-tuned for life, meeting dozens of highly restrictive astronomical and physical parameters necessary for life to exist (For example, the distance of the earth from the sun and the earth's force of gravity). The odds of Earth meeting these necessary parameters, by chance, are literally "astronomical".
• The evidence of irreducible complexity in biology is a serious challenge to Darwinism. These are all or nothing systems, structures so complex that all of their parts must be initially present and working together or else they cannot function. A classic example would be the bacterial flagellum.

For more information on God's incredible design in nature, please check out our selection of Documentary DVD's on creation vs. evolution, available in our online store.

• The Old Testament contains over 300 prophecies regarding the coming of the Messiah, all of which were fulfilled by Jesus Christ.
• Remarkably, in Micah 5:2 Bethlehem was named as the birthplace of the coming Messiah, some 700 years before the birth of Jesus.
• The "suffering servant" passage of Isaiah 52-53 accurately depicts Jesus' substitutionary atonement for our sins.
• Psalm 22, Psalm 34:20, and Zechariah 12:10 are amazing prophecies depicting the crucifixion of Jesus Christ roughly 400 years prior to the invention of crucifixion.
• Isaiah 53:9 foretold Jesus' burial in a rich man's grave while Psalm 16:10 prophetically declared his triumphal resurrection.

For more information on the remarkable prophecies of Scripture, please see Dr. Carlson's CD or MP3 lecture titled, The Bible: God's Word?, available in our online store.

• Relativism is the belief that there are no objective, absolute truths. What's true for one person may not be true for another.
• The relativist's position is self-defeating because the relativist is making an absolute truth claim when they say, "all truth is relative."
• If truth is relative, on what basis can we judge or condemn the actions of people with whom we disagree (For example, Adolph Hitler or Osama Bin Laden)?
• Truth is simply the correspondence of what you know or say to what actually is.
• Without a society governed by absolute truths civilization would fall apart. For example, imagine a world where red stop signs didn't absolutely mean, "stop" for all people.

For more information on the nature of truth, relativism, and the dangers of postmodern philosophy, please see Jason Carlson's 5-CD album titled, Answering the Postmodern Challenge, available in our online store.

• The Naturalistic worldview denies the possibility of miracles as it denies the reality of God and the supernatural. However, this denial is a philosophical assumption of faith.
• If God exists supernatural miracles are possible. If God is personal and loving, as the Bible declares, supernatural miracles are probable.
• The existence of the universe, out of nothing, is the greatest miracle ever. There is no Naturalistic explanation for it.
• The Bible contains stories of hundreds of miraculous events. However, it's important to remember that the Bible covers thousands of years of human history. Miracles were as incredible and unique in biblical times as they are today.
• The biblical accounts of Jesus' miracles were written in such close proximity to his lifetime that it is highly improbable that these were legendary accretions into the text.

For more information on the reality of miracles, the nature of God, and the worldview of Naturalism, please see Dr. Carlson's book, Fast Facts On False Teachings, available in our online store.

• Much, if not all, of the Old Testament as we know it today was accepted as Scripture in Jesus' day (see Luke 24:44).
• The historical evidence suggests that by the end of the 1st century A.D. the entire Old Testament that we know today was accepted as Scripture.
• The New Testament canon was recognized based on strict criteria: 1) they were books written by a known apostle or an associate of an apostle; 2) they were books in wide circulation throughout the early church; 3) their teachings were consistent with orthodox Christian theology as revealed in other Holy Spirit inspired Scriptures.
• Internal biblical evidence demonstrates that many of our current New Testament books were accepted as Scripture and in wide circulation throughout the early church (see Colossians 4:16; 1 Thessalonians 5:27; and 2 Peter 3:15-16).
• Ultimately it was God who brought the canon of Scripture together through the divine guidance of the Holy Spirit at work in God's people.

For more information on the remarkable nature of the Bible, please see Dr. Carlson's CD or MP3 lecture titled, The Bible: God's Word?, available in our online store.

• Jehovah's Witnesses claim that the Christian Bible has been corrupted and that their New World Translation is the only accurate version of the Bible today; in-spite of its numerous translation errors and documented changes over the years.
• Jehovah's Witnesses deny all of the major doctrines of historical, biblical Christianity, including: the Trinity, the deity of Jesus Christ, the personality of the Holy Spirit, and the blood atonement of Jesus Christ, and the reality of Hell.
• The Jehovah's Witnesses have a history plagued by false prophecies, including: the failed returns of Jesus Christ in 1874 and 1914, the failed coming of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in 1925, and the failed prophecy that Armageddon would occur in 1975.
• Jehovah's Witnesses are zealous in their door-to-door evangelism. However, it must be remembered that their zealousness is rooted in their need to earn their salvation through good works and faithfulness to the Watchtower organization.
• If you only have a minute to share with the next Jehovah's Witness who comes to your door, share with them the true gospel found in Ephesians 2:8-9.

For more information on the Jehovah's Witnesses and many other non-Christian cults, please check out Dr. Carlson's book, Fast Facts On False Teachings, available in our online store.

• The Jews, Romans, and Christians of the first century all agreed that Jesus' burial tomb was empty.
• The Bible records over 500 eyewitnesses to the resurrected Jesus, many of these eyewitnesses saw Jesus on more than one occasion and even at the same time, sometimes in groups of hundreds of people.
• What could account for the radically changed lives of people like Saul (Paul), Jesus' earthly brother James, or the disciples? Their testimony is clear. They saw the resurrected Jesus.
• The rapid spread of the early church in the hostile climate of first century, Roman occupied, Jewish Israel can only be explained through one fact: Jesus truly had risen from the grave.
• All but one of Jesus' disciples died martyrs deaths because of their claim that Jesus was the risen Lord. None of his disciples ever renounced their testimony of the resurrection.

For more evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ, please check out Dr. Carlson's CD or MP3 lecture titled, The Resurrection: Fact or Fiction?, available in our online store.