Why So Many Religions?

Do you ever wonder why there are so many religions? I have. I was baptized and brought up in Catholic school. I was an altar boy, and I received all of the sacraments, which are rites of passage to get to Heaven. They aren’t exactly necessary, though; see, there are many loopholes with that religion. It’s very complicated and sometimes far fetched. There were certain basics that were very difficult to swallow, like the fact that all non-Christians are damned to hell for eternity. Another gagger was all the different gods.

Having been taught in Catholic school, I was thoroughly briefed on all of the major religions of the world, starting with Judaism, whose God’s name is Yahweh. According to the Christians, with whose beliefs I was indoctrinated by their first governing body, the Roman Catholic church, the Jews had it right for a while, but then they screwed up and condemned Jesus to death.

Unfortunately, they chose wrong, because Jesus came back, and his father, you know, God, basically changed his name to a symbol. He also split up into three parts. I believed that to be a great mystery. I now see that it was a brilliant move by the Romans, as the “Holy Trinity” allowed for the Divinity of Jesus Christ, His “son,” and verified the scriptures, which were actually nothing more than tabloid material at that time, yet were effective for establishing rules of conduct.

The Christians don’t hold it against the Jews, because they REALLY can’t stand the Muslims. I probably didn’t care to notice, but I never thought it was ironic to be taught Islam by Franciscan monks, from texts approved by the Roman Catholics, even centuries after the legendary rivalry between the Byzantine empire and the Arabs, which broke out after a politician and general, Muhammad, borrowed the Christian model of government used by the Romans, made some alterations, and began rallying support for a movement that eventually led to the spawn of the Ottoman Empire which finally overtook the remaining Roman Empire and fought Christians, namely the Catholics, over Eur-Asian soil until the twentieth century. 
*(Notice how countries like Turkey are our "friends?" Constantinople, Turkey's capital, called Istanbul, has been captured and recaptured. The weather-vane landed on us.

Alterations included a secondary version of the old Jewish model Rome had originally recognized, thanks to hefty contributions from honorable Jewish Pharisees, King Herod-types, whose later decision to kill Jesus resulted in his martyrdom and a political backlash when another Pharisee, named St. Paul the apostle, began to drum up support for a new party.*

*BTW, Paul spent much of his last years in jail, like most radicals, but I'd say he left his mark. 

Anyway, the Muslim version gives them the rights to wealthy, fertile Israel, of course. There were other differences that centered around rights to land and patched holes in the stories to discredit Israel and Rome. I missed all of this at the time.

Years of studying Islam, and this is what I got: They are the number one religion in the world by number; that was always impressive. They have a different God whose named was Allah. He did the same things as Yahweh, only a bit different. Yaweh gave land to the Jews, but Allah gave it to Arabs. (shocking) The Muslims DO believe in Jesus, which is good, BUT they believe he was JUST a prophet. That’s not cool, because they say that Muhammad is stronger than Jesus. (I don’t think so.) I also know they pray to the East with their head down, and they think cows are sacred. They DID NOT teach me about the 70,000 virgins, which is their version of St. John’s revelations.

I can't remember exactly how I felt, or if I even cared, but I assume it must be taught, that the Christians believe Muhammad to be a very wicked individual. He pops up everywhere in medieval art and literature, as a Satan-like character, including Dante's Inferno.

I never made the connection between Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, because Islam would always get mixed in with the others, like Buddhism and Hinduism. Buddhists worship Buddha. He is a fat man who sits around, and if you rub his belly it will bring you good luck. They believe we do have an end, but we have no beginning. Freaky, right? That is in contrast to The Hindus, who believe we have NO end and no beginning. They believe in reincarnation. They also have a caste system, and they believe in karma, meaning if you put out good vibes in this life, you can return to life in a higher caste. They also wandered in the woods to die when they were old. 

There were many good vocabulary words to memorize, but it was all just trivia.
I never saw the truth. It is the only truth. The principle of life. There aren’t many different Gods. There is only one. In my opinion, if you can put the word "ruler" after the "religious," then your religion is probably a political platform (insert Jeff Foxworthy voice). Scriptures of the West have been abused and mangled by idiots and frauds over the centuries, so much so that they have fallen into the Devil’s grasp and are working against themselves. Please, when you see science creep into this discussion, don't run. Science is verified truth; it’s not a pagan religion. It is the principle of life, and God is the ultimate principle.

 
When I speak about God and The Devil, I don’t mean a man with a white beard and a red alien. This is exactly the kind of buffoonery that results when stories are the basis of teaching, rather than principles, and it is exactly what, in my opinion, has helped corrupt society, or rather, has shrouded the Truth in mystery and allowed those who have no time to solve it (almost everyone) to fall astray. 

The societal evolution, why things have unfolded the way they have over the years, is my opinion. The facts are facts, and when I speak of “The Truth,” I speak of “what is,” also a fact. When I say God, I mean Truth; I mean what is. God is a principle, as taught in Eastern religions, not a man. Think of God as an atom, the first atom. Everything is made of atoms, and we are made in God’s image. God is everything, like an atom.

 
Now, I know that as soon as that is read by religious zealots, it will be interpreted as blasphemy, but I am NOT saying that God is only an atom. We are created in his image and everything is a reflection of him. Right? We are, and everything is, atoms and are in some form of relation with one another. These are facts. 

I can not explain everything with exact scientific knowledge, but rather than write it off as a “mystery,” which religions in the West love to do, I will say it is not yet figured out. Many things are still untapped in the science world, but we know they can be explained through basic principles. The way things happen in nature is not a mystery; it is either understood or it is unknown, because it is just too complex.

 
So, what started it all? That’s the mystery. Was it the big bang? What put things in motion? What was the original force that created everything in it’s own image, with the same principles? That is God. He IS science. Western religion calls science an enemy. They love the mystery aspect because it allows for much interpretations. There are many versions of the Bible. That is not so in science. The techniques and practices may differ, but the principles are identical. They are one. So, we break it down to the simplest form to understand this principle and look at the building block of life. This is an atom.

 
Like us, atoms always look to form bonds, and when parts of an atom are separated, it becomes unstable, or radioactive, and tries to “reconnect” and stabilize because inherently, it doesn't like the disruption. The natural way of doing this is to shed particles (you hear many spiritual teachers speak of “letting go”) or particles naturally die. It’s called radioactive decay. It occurs to balance itself out, and in effect, balance everything. 

God is perfectly balanced. (You could imagine the poor particles that die. How could “God” allow that to happen?) The answer is for balance. You can say that our negative emotions, fear, hate, anger, etc... are radioactivity. Love is the nucleus which attracts us with a positive energy. Those closest to Him feel it the strongest. Those who drift fall off, become unstable.

 
Now, some humans love this disruption, in fact they work day and night to split, fuse, and otherwise mangle atoms to create radioactivity, because disruptive atoms are powerful, as we all saw in Hiroshima. They are also dangerous and unnatural. Humans love to cause this disruption, but not only in laboratories. 

This radioactivity is occurring inside of everyone, constantly. If this was another inspirational book, I would say to let go by shedding those particles that are causing radioactivity, but I'll leave that up to the great teachers. I simply want to understand. The relation between atoms and our solar system should be obvious, and it is, but by design, religions of the West have separated themselves from science and actually denounce it. They blatantly deny facts, such as believing the world is only 3000 years old.

 
So, for now, we will say that God is the basic stuff of life, the ultimate atomic source, with “love” at it’s nucleus, yet still containing negative charges. Everything is in his image. It longs for balance, and sometimes that means natural death; sometimes it means “letting go.” When the balance is disrupted it becomes radioactive and very powerful. Sometimes it enjoys the “power” and brings about instability, disorder, or “evil.” Let’s call the act of doing that, “sin.” Let’s look at God as a principle. 

This is as basic as it can be told because we are talking about the ULTIMATE principle. So, it is the most complex idea we have figured out, times a million. The Bible calls it the Holy Spirit, the mysterious part of God that we can’t understand. As we said, there are no mysteries in science. It is only undiscovered. Nobody can TRULY explain why scientific principles are what they are, but we know they ARE. God just IS. How many times must He say, “I am” before we realize?

Plume often draws comparison to St. Augustine, who once claimed to be certain
he completely understood the concept of time, until they asked him.