This Could Be Your Religion!

I've been sharing a weekly link of photos from Religion News Service that depicts people of different religious faiths from around the world. Some of them and their festivals are quite bizarre; the one highlighted here for instance [click it to read the caption]! The people pictured are sincerely and deeply committed to worship differently conceived religions and deities. They cannot all be right, although they could all be wrong. More pics here.

What does this global religious diversity say about a god who will judge us by what we believe (cf. John 3:16, Romans 10:9-10)? It makes a mockery of such a notion! No reasonable person can accept belief unto salvation. Only unreasonable people do. That's why Christians who worship such a god make all kinds of excuses for this statute of his. Catholics say it's not about belief but good deeds in keeping with belief. Some others say everyone will be saved in the end, while still others take the bite out of damnation by saying the final destination of unsaved sinners is not all that bad. Probably most Christians offer the excuse that God knows our hearts and is a merciful judge, with the implication that even I, a blaspheming apostate debunker, can and will be saved. But if so, such a judging god would be unfairly letting unsaved sinners into heaven who didn't obey this divine statute. Why did he state it in the first place?

If you still wish to maintain your god's stated policy of belief unto salvation from a terrible final destination, then think as you look at these photos. When you look at them ask yourself how your god is going to judge people who just happened to be raised to believe differently? What if they refused to be honest by re-examining their own inherited religion as outsiders do?

But more importantly, what if you're wrong and it's YOU who were raised to believe the wrong religion? What if YOU will face a future final judgment for not believing the true religion, if there is one? Wouldn't you want to know now, not later after you die?