Last year, I shared a post on the reasons I believe God exists and why it matters whether He exists. I believe God exists for a number of reasons yet there remains the question – how do I relate with God? I checked and saw that there are thousands of religions. Could I just pick whichever I like? Do they all lead to God or do I have to be careful to choose right?
In this post, I will be focusing on four top religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and Christianity). Why do they have so many followers? Is there something to pick from each that can be used to judge the other religions? The goal is to tell few of the reasons I chose my faith. I approach this from three themes :
- Exclusivity versus Pluralism.
- Credibility of Literature.
- Open Test of Divinity.
Let us take a look at the first and second points in this article.
EXCLUSIVITY VERSUS PLURALISM
Some say it does not matter what religion one chooses, they say “we are all serving the same God.”
“God is in the world – but Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad are in their little closets, and we should thank them but never return to them”
– W. E. Hock
“To understand God is to listen. Listen to Jesus and Muhammad and Buddha, but don’t get caught up in the names. Listen beyond them; listen to God’s breath”
– A Zen saying
How do I listen to all of them if they do not say the same thing? In fact, the religions under review all claim exclusivity. Every religion has its way of defining who God is or is not, what God expects from humans or what He detests, that are different from others. Consequently, in the four religions, each claim to be the way to God, implying others are false, directly or indirectly.
In Hinduism, the belief is
“Let there be one scripture… for the whole world… Bhagavad-gita: Let there be one God for the whole world – Sri Krishna, and one hymn, one mantra, one prayer – the chanting of his name”
-Introduction to Bhagavad-Gita page 33
Islam says
“Allah! There is no god but He… The Living, the Self- subsisting, Supporter of all… His are all things in the heavens and on earth… His throne doth extend over the earth… He is the Most High, the Supreme”
-Qur’an chapter 2 verse 255
Buddhism says
“This Lord is truly the Arhat, fully enlightened, perfect in his knowledge and conduct l, well-gone, world-knower, unsurpassed, leader of men to be tamed, teacher of gods and men, the Buddha, the Lord”
In Christianity, it is written:
“For there is no other name (asides Jesus Christ) under heaven, given among men by which we must be saved”
-Bible, Acts 4:12
If I claim to agree with all religions, I would conveniently be picking none of them that way. I also cannot say all of them are wrong until I have good reason to.
CREDIBILITY OF LITERATURE
In a bid to compare religions, it would be a huge task to compare their doctrines and philosophies. That would be like comparing melon seeds with groundnuts; they are quite different and unique.
Here’s a bit of the uniqueness:
- Islam has the distinct language of the Qur’an.
Someone said,“When they listen to it, they feel enveloped in a divine dimension of sound”
- Hinduism contains a blend of religion, ethics, civil codes, medicine, Mathematics, astronomy and other natural sciences. National Geographic claim that “Hindu sages gave to mankind one of the most sophisticated systems of philosophy ever devised”
- Buddhism is quite vast, detailed and mysterious.
“The Pali Canon… fills 45 huge volumes… The Chinese scriptures consist of 100 volumes of 1000 closely printed pages each, while Tibetan extends to 325 volumes”
- In Christianity, the Bible consists of sixty six individual books written by about forty human authors over a period of 1400 – 1500 years. The authors consist of kings, military generals, peasants, philosophers, fishermen, tax collector, poets, musicians, statesmen, scholars, shepherds, farmers, etc. The Lord of the scriptures was the source of inspiration throughout the writing of the Bible, the entire 1400 -1500 years timespan.
Instead of comparing doctrines, the juxtaposition will be on stories. Every religion has stories. What kind of stories do they tell?
There are four kinds of stories:
- Folklore/ Folktale : to preach a lesson, stating reality is not the goal.
- Legend: probably based on a true story but have been embellished to superhuman proportions over time.
- Myth: so far back in history that it is generally labelled as somebody’s imagination.
- History: the closer the account is to the event, the greater the credibility; intent is to state the story without any significant change.
Hinduism
“Lord Krishna first spoke Bhagavad Gita to the sun god some 100s of millions of years ago”
Story says it was lost to human race and came back at the beginning of the Hindu era (3102 BC)
The big Hindu stories like the Ramayana and Mahabharata are considered mythological
“Krishna, according to Hindu mythology is an avatar of Vishnu, the preserver of the universe”
-Ultimate Encyclopaedia of Mythology page 380
Buddhism
“In… one of the most important pieces of Mahayana literature, there is not much of a man left in the Buddha. He is now an exalted being who has lived for countless ages in the past and will continue to live for ever…”
-K.K.S Chen
Account in earliest writings say he was just an ordinary person. 700 to 1000 years later, writings began to say he is now an exalted being, always lived, always will live.
The changes in the writings puts it in the category of Legends.
Islam
The Qur’an was put together in writing by 652 CE (or 652 AD). Muhammad did not write it; he recited them as his companions memorized them and wrote them on materials like palm leaves, stones or leather. After his death, it was compiled twice – first under Caliph Abu Bakr and later under Caliph Uthman. To ensure only one standard version exists (in Quraysh dialect), Uthman established a committee led by Zayd ibd Thabit that burned all other manuscripts that differed from the standard version.
All these happened within 20 years of Muhammad’s life. The short period makes it historical
Christianity
The scripture consists of both the old testament and the new testament. In the Old Testament, there are thirty nine books and over 20 authors who lived at vastly different periods of time. All the books cannot be classified to a single type but many of them are agreeably accurately historical and many parts of its history have been tested, tried and found true.
“It may be stated categorically that no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference”
-Nelson Glueck, a Jewish archaeologist
Furthermore, original manuscripts of the New Testament fall within 20 to 50 years of the life of Jesus, making it historical.
Eleazar Sukenik, Professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem found two ossuaries (pots buried with person’s bones in them) on which are found the earliest Christian writings. They are dated 41 AD (within 10 years of Jesus’ life)
Jesus, all the while has been regarded as God, from the earliest writings.
“Luke’s history is unsurpassed in respect of its trustworthiness”
“This author should be placed along with the very greatest of historians”-Sir William Ramsay (a British archaeologist, after 30 years of comparing his archaeological findings with Luke’s writings)
“In all, Luke names thirty two countries, fifty four cities and nine islands without error”
-Norman Geisler
The Bible New Testament
- written around 50-80AD
- earliest manuscript in 114 AD
- Gap years of 20 – 50 years
- Number of manuscripts that back the writings are 5,686 Greek manuscripts (apart from the Aramaic, Arabic, Egyptian/coptic and manuscripts in other languages )
- In total, there are 24,900 New Testament manuscripts
“In real terms, the New Testament is easily the best attested ancient writing in terms of the sheer number of documents, the time span between the events and the document, and the variety of documents available to sustain or contradict it. There is nothing in ancient manuscript evidence to match such textual availability and integrity”
-Ravi Zacharias
“No other ancient book has anything like such early and plentiful testimony to its text, and no unbiased scholar would deny that the text that has come down to us is substantially sound”
-Sir Frederic Kenyon
“To be skeptical of the resultant text of the New Testament books is to allow all of classical antiquity to slip into obscurity, for no document of the ancient period are as well attested bibliographically as the New Testament”
-John Warwick Montgomery
The next article will explore Divinity. What is that one test that shows one is DIVINE?
Little Tittles 
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