Are religions all the same and are they the cause of war?
Watching everything that has gone down this week with the Taliban has caused some interesting discussions amongst different acquaintances in my life. Someone said, “See how dangerous religion is? It is the cause of all wars and all religions are basically the same.”
But this couldn't be further from the truth.
You can tell the fruit of a belief system by the moral hero it would produce if it were fully lived out.
The Taliban ultimately believe that the type of God the creator is, is one who wants to spill the blood of his enemies without mercy or grace and expects his followers to do the same.
The scriptures teach the opposite. That God is merciful, compassionate, and full of grace. That Creation itself demonstrates his graces as he causes his sun to rise and his rain to fall on both the evil and the good.
God's good nature can be clearly seen by what he has made. He gave us eyes to see and then created beautiful colors to experience through those eyes. He could have made the whole world grey.
People must understand the stark contrast between a belief system that tells you to kill in the name of God vs. one that says you should be willing to lay down your life in love for your brother, that your grace should extend to your enemies. That we should model Christ who died on behalf of the very evil people who wanted to take his life.
These belief systems are not only not the same they are complete opposites, not only in what they claim about the character of God but what it means to follow him.
Now, many will say “but many wars were fought in the name of the Christian God too.”
This is very true but I could call myself a bird all day long but it doesn’t mean I can fly.
I am not defining a Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, or Shaman by what they claim. Religions are defined by what they actually teach and people are defined by what they actually believe and live out.
People who started wars in the name of the Christian God were not followers of Christ in any way despite their claims.
Christ teaches that any man who claims to know God but hates his brother is a liar and the truth is not in him.
That being said, there are belief systems such as those in the Taliban whose view of God leads to evil. There are belief systems that believe in no God at all but believe the fundamental purpose of life is self-fulfillment regardless of who you hurt in the process. These belief systems also lead to evil.
You can not just write off all belief systems as basically the same, they are not and whichever one you operate under even if it is a non-supernatural worldview such as atheism will dramatically affect how you live your life.
Take the time to evaluate what you really believe about the big questions in life. If your values were fully played out what would they produce? Where did you adopt your worldview from, do you have good reason to believe what you do or are there holes and hypocrisy in your logic? Is your lifestyle cohesive with what you claim to believe?
If you are someone who does not yet understand the difference between a world view of grace vs. one of retaliation I think this story illustrates it well.
The following is a story a Christian minister shared about a conversation he had with a founder of Hamas at a peace talk
Do you know why the Middle East is in the cauldron of hate? Because it's living with the logic of unforgiveness.
So we've met with the leaders from both sides, and the last day we were there, one of the founders of Hamas, a muscle-bound guy who had served 18 years in prison for all of the killings that he'd been involved in. His son, himself, had been in prison. He'd lost many of his children, some of them in a suicide bombing.
We were all allowed to ask him one question, and when my question came, I asked him the question. Sheikh, I just want to say this to you: Not far from where you and I are sitting, 5000 years ago, Abraham--whom you revere, whom I revere--went up a mountain. He took his son. You say it was Ishmael. Christians believe it was Isaac. Let's not get argumentative about that now. Let's just agree that he took his son up the mountain."
He said, "That's right."
I said, "And offered him as a sacrifice to God, and God stopped him in the nick of time, and held back his hand, and said, 'Stop!'"
I said, "Do you know what God said to Abraham then?" He just looked at me blankly. I said, "God said, 'I, myself, will provide.'" And he nodded his head.
I said, "Very close to where you and I are sitting here in Ramallah, not far from here, 2000 years ago, God kept that promise, and He took His own Son."
I said, "Sheikh Talal, this time the axe did not stop."
He just stared at me. The room was full of smoke with all of his security people [and all there]. I said, "I may never see you again, Sheikh, and you won't like what I'm gonna say to you, but I wanna leave this with you: Until you and I receive the Son that God has provided, we will be offering our own sons and daughters in the battlefields of this world for land and power and pride."
When you understand this Christ who offers forgiveness, it is a message that is unparalleled. In Hinduism, you pay with karma. In Islam, you'll never know they believe your good deeds will have to outweigh your bad deeds.
But the grace of Christ comes to you and says, "If any man comes unto me, I will know why he's a customer." And if we confess our sins--He is faithful and just--He'll forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.