Decisions decisions . . .

It's 1990 and you are thinking about becoming religious - specifically - becoming a Christian.

The internet is in it's infancy and will not be open to the general public until 1991.

Pretend for a moment that there are only six Christian denominations in the world:  Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal, Church of Christ, Catholic, and what the heck - Jehovah's Witnesses.

It just so happens that in your town, each of these denominations is represented by at least one church.  You don't really know how they differ in their beliefs, or even if they differ, and since the internet hasn't been invented yet, you will have to rely on the information that the people at these churches offer you.

~ The Problem ~

How will you determine which of these churches (if any) is representative of the "TRUE" religion?  If you talk to one, or several representatives from each church, and if you take notes, you will quickly come to realize that they all differ in their beliefs.  Some of the differences are minor but some are major.  Interestingly they all derive some or much of their doctrinal beliefs from the Christian bible.

I suppose you could just "fact-check" each denomination with the bible.  As you are talking with the representatives from each church, asking many questions and taking notes, you then compare their doctrinal stances and beliefs with the bible - then - comparing each denominations beliefs with the other denominations beliefs, you can begin to eliminate each denomination based on how well their doctrinal beliefs line up with the bible.

~ The Problem ~

Remember, this is 1990 - pre-internet - so this is going to take a lot of time and effort.  You may be tempted to take the easy way and seek "advice" from the denomination representatives, but unfortunately, each representative believes that their particular denomination is the "TRUE" religion, making it irrational to trust their judgment (which will be loaded with confirmation bias) and making it entirely unwise to base your decision on their testimony.  You are entirely on your own.  Your decision has to be based only on your reading of the bible.

~ The Problem ~

Should you really trust what the bible says?

bob
r.u.reasonable@gmail.com