With all the different religions in the world, how do we know that Christianity is the right way to God? In fact, isn't it incredibly intolerant of us to say the Christianity is "right" and all other belief systems are "wrong"? Some people say, "All religions are basically the same. They all teach loving others, compassion, forgiveness, and how to be a good person." Let's take a look at some other religions and see if that's true.
What do other religions look like?
Islam is built on 5 Pillars: declaration of faith ("There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet"), prayer, fasting, giving alms (money to the poor), and pilgrimage (to Mecca to pray at the Ka'bah, a huge black cube). Many consider jihad (holy war against all "infidels" or non-believers) the "sixth pillar". They must pray 5 times a day facing Mecca in order to remind themselves of the magnificents of Allah and to beg for mercy. They must pray three times a day with a string of 33 beads naming the 99 names of Allah, not one of which is that he is merciful or a loving father.
Buddha taught that if anyone was suffering, that no one should help him. His suffering is his own Karma and that compassion was interference. Buddha also taught that there was no God (despite that Buddhists still pray to him), and that only through Enlightenment could people transend the suffering of life and become one with the great impersonal nothing.
Hinduism is a pantheistic religion, meaning that everything is god and god is impersonal. Meaning that dirt is god, and you are god, making you equal to dirt. The United Nations reports that the Hindu nation of India produces enough grain to feed all her people and to export, and yet hundreds of thousands of people are starving to death. This is because rats outnumber people 5 to 1, and the Hindus will not stop the rats from eating the crops for fear of interfering with another's Karma. In Malaysia Hindus will pull their tongues out as far as they'll go and then skewer their them and their jaws with 12 inch spikes. They will then take 6 to 8 foot metals poles with large hooks on the ends and dig them inches deep into their chests and backs. While the poles tear their flesh, they will run 272 steps uphill to the Batu caves where they bow in worship a snake idol. All to balance out their Karma so that they can end the cylce of reincarnation.
The Animistic native tribes in Papua, New Guinea that spirits dwell in everything, the woods, the streams, the fire, etc. They fear these spirits and will do drastic things to appease them. When a person dies, the women are required to cut off a finger at the knuckle. They will take the body and put it up on a rack in the sun to rot. After three days, each person walks by the body and pull off rotting flesh covered in maggots and eat it.
Anyone who says that all religions are basically the same has never truly studied them. Although, in one sense, they are right.
Religion is man's attempt to get to God. All the religions of the world have that in common. Men and women doing everything in their power to connect with a higher power, even if that higher power is a better form of themselves. Whether they're trying to please it or just keep it from interfering with their lives, it's man's effort to reach god. But God's unimpressed. He says "I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies."(Amos 5:21) Paul tells us that all of man's "religious" attempts to get to God are hollow. He says, "Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ."(Colosians 2:16-17)
Christianity is God's attempt to get to man. Unlike all the religions of the world, Christianity is about what God has already done to reach across the spiritual gulf that divides us and touch us. We can't reach him, but he can reach us. Paul says it better than I can. Check out Acts 17:22-28: "Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: 'Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 'For in him we live and move and have our being.'" It's his work, not ours. It's his effort, not ours. "God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."(Romans 5:8)
Is Christianity the only way to God? When we understand that Christianity isn't man trying to get to God, when we recognize that Christianity is God trying to get to man, it's not intolerant to say that Christ is the only way. God declares he is not one of many god, but the One and Only God in Isaiah 44:6, "I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God." It's not arrogant for Christians to declare the same thing. In fact, for a Christian to say that there are multiple paths to God is to call Jesus a liar. He said of himself, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."(John 14:16) When Christians say that Christ is the only way, we're simply telling the truth. It's not that we're right. It's simply proclaiming what God has done.
