There are so many religions that people are confused. It puts off intelligent people investigating much further. Competitive religion is a devilish ploy to confuse people.

Medicine has the adage that if there are many treatments proposed for a condition, then none of them work because the one that works would drive the others off the market.

On such a principle, intelligent people might realise that this should reduce the options to consider, to the few major religions that dominate various areas of the world. This being so, you should be able to examine the claims of each major religion.

You could begin by asking yourself what worldview dominates in the various areas of the world and what it has done for its people.

Let us begin with the ‘non-religious’, secular worldview, the newcomer in the 20th century and which dominates the largest and most populated countries of the world. It has a litany of social failures in Russia, the USSR and China.

What about Hinduism that claims greater antiquity than Christianity and has devotees in the massively populated country of India? What has it done for India? The Hindu caste system is still in place.

What about its offspring, Buddhism and Confucianism? What have these done for South East Asia and China? They still worship their ancestors in South East Asia, China and Japan, where until the second World War the Japanese worshipped their human emperor as a god on Earth.

Worshipping ancestors makes us think of the animism of Africa. Look at how difficult it is to bring African countries into 21st-century governance? Even atheist Matthew Parris admitted the utility of Christianity to deliver Africa from its ancient superstitious religions, as a halfway house or stepping stone on the way to Parris’ preferred secular atheism.

Two other major competitors appeared together in the 7th century AD – islam competed militarily and ideologically with developing Roman Catholicism, each now covering vast areas of the world. This allows a comparison at the very least.

The islamic world is still challenging the Christian west, which has been weakened by the third worldview growing in the West during the past 150 years, the secularism resulting from 19th-century Darwinian evolutionism and biblical criticism.

These are the three main contenders at present, Christianity, islam and secularism. Latin America has not contributed much at the ideological level and North America has simply extended the major religions westward.

An intellectual effort is afoot to remind us of islamic scholarship and culture. This is being spoiled by the aggressive islamic terrorism that is holding back its acceptance at a global level. What have islamic countries done to restrain this violence and forced conversions? What has secularism done to restrain islamic fundamentalism ? Precious little. Secularism has gone for the easy target, Christianity – easy because in this developing age it does not slaughter its apostates or its enemies, although true Christianity never did slaughter its opponents.

This brings us to the Western world where people are ready to judge Christianity as a failure because of the Crusades, colonialism and empire building. Comprehensive history is bigger than these microcosms, but if the Christian West is so bad, why is there mass migration into Europe in the current time? How many are migrating to Russia and China? Why are they migrating from islamic Africa to Western Europe?

Deeper considerations

Ultimately we need to examine the worldviews themselves.

Consequentialism only goes so far in arriving at the truth, although results are important. What many fail to notice is the distinction between the different forms of Christianity.

What is the difference between North and South America, northern Europe and southern Europe, Northern Ireland and the southern Republic of Ireland? The economic difference is historically easy to see. The religious difference is that the prosperous north has generally Protestant Christianity while the less prosperous south is generally Roman Catholic. This was identified by Max Weber in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Opposite this Western Christianity there is Eastern Christianity – Greek, Coptic (Egyptian) and Russian Orthodoxy, whose essential Christianity is much like Roman Catholicism.

Ask yourself, which of these have served their countries well?

Admittedly, Protestant Christianity had been diluted and weakened in the past 100 years so that it is a pale shadow of its former self, but its civil and economic benefits with its afterglow are still apparent to see. The civil decline parallels and follows the protestant decline, as various religions are blending into a soup of disparate ideas. What has Roman Catholicism done for the countries where it has its hegemony? Some countries have benefited at the expense of other philosophies and worldviews, but what about Latin America and other countries under Roman Catholic sway?

Too many gods

The reason for too many religions is that there are too many gods. Each group forms its gods according to its own ideas. Instead of listening to what the one, living, true God says about Himself, they have molded their gods to their own imagination.

The arch-sceptic Richard Dawkins makes the quip that, having dismissed all these false gods, he would just get rid of the last one, the Christian God.

This might seem clever, like some of his other specious quips, but a little thought should show its folly. Getting rid of fake currency does not mean that there is no real currency. Getting rid of quack medicine does not mean that there is no true medicine. This sound-bite interaction by Dawkins shows how shallow is his religious thinking.

Besides, the Christian God is completely different from other false gods created by men’s imagination. These false gods are historically acknowledged to be products of the Universe but the Christian God is the Creator of the Universe. He is above and beyond it. Dismissing Greek and Roman gods does not get rid of the Christian God.

Jesus Christ is the Way to heaven and you are welcome to learn from Him and to follow Him to heaven.

Come and welcome to Jesus Christ.