Are all religions the same?

Many people today say that all religions are the same or that one religion is as good as another.

They only say it because they think religion is dangerous and they hope that if people think all religions are the same they won't fight over religion.

Every religion is a family and each family has its own anthropology.  They are all a far cry from the naturalist view that a human being is put together by nature and not by any intelligence.  With Christians, you are thought to be a spiritual soul in the image of God.  You are meant for reaching your zenith by being raised body and soul to eternal life from the dead.  In Buddhism, you are meant for escaping the body.  In Hinduism, everybody and everything has the same soul and the soul is God. In Islam, you only exist for Allah to decree your fate.  If you sin and repent he may not forgive.  Anthropology is the very basic thing and is the proof that religions only look like they have some overlaps. It does not change the truth.  This leads to radically different theologies or worldviews.  The person who believes in a right to die is a polar opposite in this to the person who says that life should be endured to the end for it is sacred.  It is an insult to the seriousness of these people and the seriousness of that question to pretend they are not that different.  Substitute religion/s for person/people and you see clearly.

The fact is that human nature is a spectrum not a thing.  There is more to us than arms, legs, food, water, speech and so on.  Norms are just based on statistics.  Those who are seen as abnormal at a certain time by be seen differently a decade later.  Abnormal can be fulfilling and enriching and educating.  So when it does such good is it really right to mean it's somehow bad?  Maybe it is just statistically uncommon that is all.  There is no norm for human nature or if there is it is not very useful so all religionists being the same or all religions (collections of religionists) being the same is just a ridiculous suggestion.  It surpasses fundamentalism in absurdity.

Evidence and looking around you tells you there is no norm.  Thus it proves that there is no God as in one who sets up a norm.  The best you can do is have one who has not set up a norm!

It would be dangerous and irresponsible to insist that any man-made religion is as good as another. It would be obvious rubbish. If man is flawed, the religions he makes up will be too. Catholicism would be offended at the suggestion that God didn't set it up and man did. The suggestion is not as tolerant as it looks. It insults religion unjustly. It patronises each religion by telling it that it is the same as the rest when it says it is not. 

Christianity is about a relationship with God. Islam is not. That is a core difference. "Allah does not reveal Himself to anyone in any way. Allah reveals only his will. That is the great difference between Christianity and Islam" - Isma'il at Faruqi, Islamic Theologian. Another difference is how the Koran never says that kindness, compassion, justice and love are not defined by God's nature. It says that God has these qualities but Christianity says that God does not have these qualities but is them. For Christians, you can only learn these things and define them if you see how God is kindness, compassion, justice and love by nature.

Some seem to think that one religion is as good as another for every religion accepts facts that others may not accept but on balance the religions are equal when it comes to truth and error. Every religion teaches at least some facts . Some religions are more wrong than others. They disagree on many essential teachings. For Christians, Jesus must be worshiped to the exclusion of other gods while Hinduism says Jesus MAY be worshiped along with other gods. We need to stop peddling the lie that all religions are at heart the same. A religion is a system of belief that members are obligated to follow. Why not teach that the truth is buried in the heart of each person rather than at the heart of each religion? It is people that matter not systems.

They think they are fans of tolerance. But they are far from tolerant to the person who thinks he has the one true faith and who believes in peacefully and gently trying to bring members of other religions into it. Everybody is intolerant of something so we should be intolerant of grave evil.

They do not really believe all religions are the same.

If they do then why don't they go from one religion to the other?

Why don't they want religion to have the right to say it is right and every other religion is wrong?

How could all religions be the same if one religion claims to have all the truth that is needed and other contradicts it in serious matters and says the same thing?

Some religions claim to be mere opinion. Others claim to be objective truth.

And why say that all religions are the same and not say that all faiths are the same? No two people in a religion have exactly the same faith. For example, the liberal Catholic may consider the Mass to be a social ritual and nothing more. The orthodox Catholic will consider it to be a sacrifice to God wherein bread and wine turn into Jesus. If religion does not matter then surely it is intolerant of the Catholic Church to delay initiating a person into the Church who has made no effort to reach the required level of knowledge of the faith. It is intolerant of the faith they already have in the sense that it is deemed unformed and insufficient.

Christianity says that God is important. Buddhism says God is ridiculous and unimportant if he exists.

Satanism says you must hurt others for it's a dog eat dog world. Muslims say Muslims must live in peace and unity.

When you tell the "one religion is as good as another" brigade all that, they will say that if religion differs on the theoretical stuff and the theology on the day to day level religious people strive to behave the same way in the essential things such as honesty and decency.

Some Hindus hold that you should let the poor suffer as they are only paying for their bad karma.

Some religions say that we should not bother looking for converts. Others say they have the truth and they want to share it with unbelievers and those who have never heard their gospel. If all faiths are the same why bother?

Christians say you should help the poor.

Catholics say that it is a grave sin to miss Mass on Sunday. You cannot say, "I want to work in the soup kitchen instead!" It is not taken as an excuse.

Muslims say Israel has been given to them by God. Their Bible the Koran says it. The Jews say they have been given it. Their Bible the Old Testament says it.

Christians say the Bible is the word of God and the Vedas are not. Hindus say the Vedas are the word of God.

Some religions believe in sexual orgies. Others forbid such sex.

Those who say one religion is as good as another tend to be angry and nasty if this belief is contradicted. Their whitewashing is ineffective. It solves nothing and only insults religions that want to be taken seriously as theologies etc. They tend to argue that religion and politics should be kept separate which shows they are not as tolerant as they pretend to faiths that say religion should get involved in politics and indeed is obligated to.

All religions are not the same. There may be one religion that is the best or there may not be. Maybe Humanism in some form is better. Accept it.

If all religions are the same then surely we should say that all non-religions are the same and as a good as religion. Nazism and Communism and Maoism and Humanism are all the same.

To say that all religions are the same but all schools of atheistic worldviews are not is just giving religion preferential treatment and special treatment. It is unjust discrimination and bigotry.

Why bother religion if all religions are the same? If every religion is terrific then none is terrific! Get it?

Another problem is religion is hard to define. Catholics define it as a system of doctrine and worship devoted to God. But that denies that Buddhism and many forms of Hinduism are religions. The religious pluralist must know how to define religion correctly then if he is to say that all religions are the same! He must know what systems going under the name of religion are not religions at all. The arrogance of the liberal pluralist is not going to help the problem of religious conflict and the problem of dangerous religion. It is only going to facilitate it.