Differences Among the World’s Religions

Aren't all religions pretty much the same, so that it doesn't much matter which one you embrace? These are two separate questions. Whether all world religions are the same depends on how you define same. And, if one of them reflects and represents the true nature of existence better than the others, which religion you take hold of might make a huge difference. There's also the issue of what is and is not a religion.

Although many scholars have tried, no one has come up with a definition of religion everyone accepts. Some people have suggested that, at the mos basic level, a person's religion is whatever he or she supremely values. Since, presumably, everybody most values something, by this definition everybody has a religion. This way of understanding religion has its uses, but when people ask if all religions are the same, they're explicitly or implicitly asking about similarities and differences between and among the world's major religions.

As comforting as it may be to assume that all religions promote the same beliefs and values, they simply do not. Many of their respective beliefs and values are, in fact, incompatible, and you cannot subscribe to several of them at once without either becoming mired in inconsistency or turning off your mind. Let's look at some of the more obvious differences.

Like adherents of Judaism and Islam, Christians affirm that there is one and only one God. They believe God acted and continues to act in history, which they believe is moving in a direction. Jews and Christians, if they are serious about their faith, sometimes speak of God as if he were a person. Describing God this way is probably the best we can do as human beings to get our minds around who and what God is; Jews, Muslims, and Christians affirm that God is a conscious being with purposes.

Christians view Jesus as having been sent by God, as a demonstration of God's nature and as part of a rescue plan. They regard Jesus as far more than a charismatic leader or gifted teacher. Christians take seriously the claims contained in the New Testament about how those close to Jesus claimed that, after his crucifixion, Jesus came back to life. The idea of someone coming back from the dead seemed almost as outrageous two thousand years ago as it does today. Yet later in the first century, many who believed in the resurrection of Jesus chose to be put to death, rather than deny it and what they took to be its implications.

Adherents of Judaism often view Jesus as having been either a misguided itinerant rabbi, a self-destructive political leader, a quasi-delusional teacher, or a flawed if inspiring flesh-and-blood mortal around whom his followers launched a rebellious new religion. Few such adherents accord Jesus divine status

You cannot simultaneously believe and not believe that Jesus was sent by God. Nor can you accept and not accept the resurrection. This implies that, however politely Jews and Christians may act toward each other, no one can embrace both religions. There is a growing movement known as Messianic Judaism, largely made up of ethnic Jews who accept Jesus as the sent one, but many would argue that, at root, its members are Christians.

Although followers of Judaism are not nearly as vocal on the issue, Muslims tend to be outspoken in their repudiation of all claims that Jesus was in any sense divine. They regard these claims as offensive, irreverent, and showing contempt for God. Followers of Islam view Jesus as one in a long line of prophets, the greatest of whom was Muhammad (570-632). As with Judaism, a person cannot both accept and refuse to accept Christian claims about Jesus.

Hinduism, like other large religions, has its sects and subdivisions, but most if not all Hundus subscribe to two central beliefs. The first is that the universe is divine and that what westerners mean by God and Nature are identical. Hindus do not believe in a personal God. Second is the Hindu belief that there is not just one but many gods. Christianity centers on affirmations about God, and about who Jesus was when he walked the earth. Neither set of affirmations would be acceptable to a Hindu who remained loyal to Hinduism.

Similar comments apply to Buddhism, which began in India as an offshoot of Hinduism about six centuries before Christ. Buddhists, like Hindus, view the universe and the divine as identical. The goal of a good Buddhist is not like that of the good Hindu, which is to strive for a better life in one's next incarnation. Rather, it is to cultivate detachment from the world. The mentality of Buddhist monks bears some resemblance to that of certain Christian monks, but the beliefs of the two are radically different, and therefore cannot be maintained at the same time.

Our purpose in these few paragraphs has not been to line up, side by side, all the beliefs and values of the world's major religions. Rather, by focusing on a small but important set of differences between and among five religions, we've tried to show that it is not defensible to insist that all religions are the same. Perhaps at the very highest and most superficial level, they are. Every religion prescribes actions that align with its core beliefs and values, and in this way they are the same. But these beliefs and values differ markedly from one another, and so do the modes of conduct they inspire.