One God? Why so many different religions?

I belive that God hears our prayers from wherever we send them up from, no matter who, where, or how we say them. Religions are just personalized ways to communicate to God, and they all get the same job done. What a religion does do, and it's what I disagree with, is spread beliefs of a certain few people on how to live your everyday life to a mass amount of people. Not to break off on a wild tangent, but we have laws that were implemented to help live our lives knowing right from wrong, and then there are certain areas where laws and religion clash, and it's harder for some than others to determine what the "right" thing to do would be. In close, I believe that every person can adopt a religion, put their own spin on it to make it their own, and if you follow and truly believe, God will answer, no matter what you call your "religion."

Cultures, language, time, and place. All of these things effect us. Because these things do have an effect on each of us, and on groups as a whole, not everyone can see a thing in the same way. So the Truth finds expression in different ways so that different people CAN grasp it. Of course, over time, people who lack a basic understanding of the underlying Truths involved have a tendency to mess things up, but that's just part of the process too. That's why new religions develop. And that's as it should be. It wouldn't be good for everyone to believe the same thing in the same way because everyone isn't at the same point of spiritual development. That would make the thing to hard, even unfair. So ... It is what it is. And that's OK. Now ... If people would just accept that thought and practice a little love and tolerance, now wouldn't that be nice? ~ Peace & Blessings ~

The only ones that say that every path leads to God are ones that aren't on a path at all and hope that their "pathlessness" will also lead them to God. People have different religions because they have free will and lots of imagination. This combined with the fact that everyone has a sin nature leads to a lot of "other" ways of getting to God, other ways of feeling good about one's self. As long as their religion makes them feel like everything is ok and lets them indulge their sinful nature, then they will claim that it is the right way to God.

The logical question to ask is, would a good God accept any path to Him? Would he accept the Islamic martyr who has killed twenty people in a bomb blast and the Buddhist who claims there is no God and the Christian who claims Jesus Christ? If God accepted everyone, the evil and the good alike, that would mean that justice did not matter to Him. A God who is not just would not be a good God at all. He would be a force, unable to make conscious decisions. That is the bottom line: in saying that any way leads to God, people remove God's own free will. A less powerful God makes everyone feel better, hence the multitude of religions.

The fact is HUMAN life has progressed and expanded differently in differnet parts of the world. In the preliminary stages, it was not religion but only a belief that SOMETHING HIGH ABOVE IS THERE FOR US. But since these views became more and more rigid, they took forms of different religions.

This is because people have asecond nature which says that I AM ALWAYS RIGHT. So, if I follow a particular religion, only mine is right. But, when we go deep in to scriptures of different religions we find that at heart mostly all teachings are same. And those teaching which propagate hate or rigid beliefs are not part of the original religion but put into it later.

In a nutshell, what I am trying to say is that different religions are only different INTERPRETATIONS of same God or same beliefs. So, in that sense, everyone does follow the SAME BELIEFS but only the way of following and believing is different (except if the person is a terrorist or anti-social element whose religion asks him to fight or kill people)

>> Siddhartha (http://sidroy.wordpress.com/ )

100s of wars have been fought over religion and you expect someone on here to be able to answer that question. If you actually get the right answer to this question then you will be remember in history forever. This is going to sound really bad but Churches turn profits over getting poeple to their churches. There are so many religions because many men in history have come up with ideas and plans to make religion their own and have followers. There isnt one religion because someone who has been told their whole life that something is right or wrong isnt going to change no matter what.

Because people like variety. We have ice cream, and it comes in many different flavors; religion is the same way. Religion is what people make up to worship the unknowable. We change it to suit our needs as a society as time goes on, and adopt the practices of other religions, in order to reach people who don't follow what we beleive.

God is called by many different names, but is the same God. People get devisive when they say their religion is the only "true" one, but God says that He makes His name known; even the rocks and the hills cry out that He is God.

Firstly, because the subject is so very important (just our after-life is all)...that every avenue must be thoroughly checked out and examined...no human "knows for certain" that why they're called "Faiths".

Secondly, look at the outrageous differences in individuals and cultures....to expect a "cut and dried" method of serving even "the same God" would be unrealistic. The answer to your question evaded me for years. I married and had children and as they grew and I developed personal and intimate relationships with each child, I realized my answer. It is a "perspective" thing. If someone were to ask each one of my children who I was, what I expected, what was most important to me, etc.; they would receive very different answers. These answers in some cases might be so different as to appear contradictory. But it would actually be just personal view points. I hope this helps...it helped me.

If god truly existed as an infinitely powerful and knowing being as people say, there should be no issue.

He could come down and say 'Hi' once in a while. That would stop nearly all of the religiously motivated fighting.

Either this god likes religious fighting or he doesn't exist.

I'm going with doesn't exist.

I believe that a path of faith is a path to God. No matter what religion... You can't just expect people to all follow the same doctrine. God knows this. People are different.

Its actually a human thing.

Its about building cliques.

Look at any group of people.. office, church, golf club, bridge club, tennis club, volunteer group, masons, high school.

In any group, people immediately build bonds with a few peers. Then these peer groups begin talking about the other groups(cliques). It comes to a head when one group is touting one of their own for..employee of the month, president of the golf club, elder of the church and on and on and on.

So its human nature to split into groups and for groups to split into sub groups.

The other dynamic of this group division phenomena, is that time increases the complexity of the various subtle differences which have created the divisions.

So 2000 years of clique building and division = 20,000 different religions. All of whom think that they have found the true path to eternal salvation.

Alright which of you religions out there have the only true way? Darn it, don't all speak at the same time. You are religious people, your supposed to be civilized.