My TITLAL Weblog

I once asked a Christian what was the basic difference between them and a Muslim. It was obvious by their attempted answers that they were missing my point. So I gave them my answer. The only basic difference is where a person was born and/or what they were taught to believe in. No matter what your argument is, that is the only basic difference. I remember as a young man in the military I was stationed in an Asia country. My boss and his wife had only sons. They wanted a daughter but the wife could not have any more children. So they adopted a local baby girl. The baby girl had been born to a Muslim woman. They brought the girl back to America with them and raised her as a Christian. So what does this make the girl? There are many things you could argue relative to her religious beliefs. But the bottom line is that until she was informed (if ever) of her heritage, she was a Christian as far as she was concerned. And she may have chosen to remain a Christian if & when she found out what her heritage was. But the point is that it doesn’t matter what her final decision was. Had she never been adopted by a Christian family she probably would have been forever a Muslim. But since she was adopted by a Christian family she may have been forever a Christian. The only difference was the environment she was raised in & what she was taught by someone else.  

An imagined demonstration occurred to me once. Find a person that had never been exposed to any religious beliefs. Or any people or anything outside their own little world. Say someone who has been born and raised in the most remote regions of the world and had no religious thoughts of their own. Without any biases, teach them to read, speak, & understand English. Then give them a bible and ask them to read it and come up with their own understanding of what it said and meant. Tell them not talk to anyone in their group or family about the bible, or ask them any questions about it. Leave them for a couple of years, then go back to see them and find out what they have come to believe as a result of reading and studying the bible. Impossible to do in today’s world, but you have to admit it would be an interesting project if it were possible.  

Like most everyone else in the world, I, too, have opinions about religion. I certainly am not an atheist, but I do believe that an awful lot of people have taken advantage of religion to further their own agenda. History certainly attests to that fact. I also believe that man has evolved religion way beyond what it really is. I think it is very possible that God did give mankind ten rules to live by. We have named them “The Ten Commandments”. But then, over time, man decided that while those ten rules were good, they could improve on them. So they set out to improve on God’s work. Results? Today’s world religions. (For just a moment, think about what kind of world we would have today if every man, woman, and child lived only by those ten rules. It is certainly my opinion that it would be a far, far better world than we have today.) 

I find it interesting just how the King James Version of the bible came to be. Around the third century BC, a Roman Emperor/Pope made a decision based on greed to control people and for personal desires. He decided what writings would be included in the bible and what writings would not be included. Strange that he included some writings of certain authors but excluded other writings by the same author. The writings he included were declared inspirations from God. The question is who knew which writings were inspired by God and which writings were not inspired by God. If God enlightened someone as to which writings were inspired by Him, why would God allow the author to even pen the other writings? Of course, many scholars who are well versed in these matters have come up with some valid reasons why certain writings were excluded. The one that makes the most sense is that there were certain elements of those excluded writings that they just didn’t want the people to know. They then had the excluded writings destroyed. Naturally, what they didn’t know was that there were other copies of those writings. The world should be extremely thankful that the Dead Sea scrolls were found. I believe there are a lot of religious leaders in the world today that wish those scrolls had never been found.  

As far as my opinion of how so many different religions have evolved, I believe it all stems from mans greedy desire for power over others. Man needs to believe that there is something more after life here on earth. The idea that it all ends with our short life span on earth is something we are just not willing to accept. And so-called religious leaders know we feel that way and take advantage of it. We are told by some that there would be worldwide chaos without a belief in God and a reward/punishment scenario. And that may be true. But if we lived just by the ten rules, then worldwide chaos would not exist. The real problem goes back to that greed I mentioned. Initially, before the birth of Jesus, records show that men gained large followings by proclaiming to speak for God. As time went on other men with greed for power in their heart saw this and devised ways to get followers of their own in much the same way. In time, in order to encourage followers of other leaders to join their side, they came up with different “twist” to their teachings. Sometimes these twists would take a more hard line and sometimes they would take a softer line. Or they may exclude or add to their fundamentals as compared to other groups. I would imagine in some cases they would take note of what people’s likes and dislikes were of a particular group and work from that knowledge to establish their fundamentals. Regardless of what they did or how they did it, it was all designed to get more followers and gain power over more people.  

Now we have evolved religion to present day with these 22 major religions and an untold number of sub-groups within those 22 major religions. Just take Christianity for example. Break that down into the different denominations. Go even further and take a look at the how many variations there are of a given denomination. You will literally come up with hundreds. And, of course, church’s to attend for those of each variation. A large portion of them use the King James Version of the bible. And most of them make the claim that theirs is the only real belief. How does that happen? The first answer you will get from most people is that these groups interpret the bible differently. I believe that is partially true with some. But we have just as much greed for power today as there ever was, including many on a small scale. Then you throw in greed for the financial riches that are available today for churches and you have a very good stew for religious variations.  Take a look at just what you see on television. Large church’s and mega church’s with thousands in attendance. Multi-millions of dollars taken in each year. Pay close attention to the church building itself and its surroundings. A very large portion of those dollars spent building the church is spent on unnecessary flamboyancy. Of course, leaders of these churches will tell you that they built their churches in that way for the glory of God. I’m sorry, but I just do not believe that. They are building castles & kingdoms unto themselves by taking advantage of people’s weaknesses. And most of them would not have been able to accomplish this feat without a variation of religion.  

History has recorded for us that more people have been murdered, maimed, persecuted, destroyed, and hurt “in the name of God” than for any other reason, including all the world wars combined. Living only by the basic ten rules would not have allowed this to happen. Most people take notice of only the big events when others get hurt in the name of God. Generally they never even hear about the small events where just a few people are hurt in the name of God, or maybe just a single life destroyed. But this happens on a daily basis all over the world. A large portion of the present day fighting and killing around the world today is done “in the name of God”. Unfortunately, I am afraid that it will always be that way. Abuse of religion is too deeply rooted in society for this to every change. I often wonder what God is thinking about all this. I sometimes feel that God’s most common declaration is “Stop blaming me! I had nothing to do with that!”