Entry 345 - Is Christianity Really the One True Religion?

9/30/20

If Christianity is the one true religion, and you need to believe in its precepts to be saved, then which of the 41,000 different denominations is the "true" branch from God? If Christianity is the one true religion, why are there so many disagreements and internal contentions over multiple interpretations? 

If Christianity is the one true religion, then salvation has devolved into a belief system. Before Christianity, there were thousands of years when people didn’t condense salvation into a belief concept; instead, people focused on being the best version of themselves and, for many, their relationship with the Creator.

Many of the major religions believed in reincarnation and also believed that how you lived your life determined whether you spent time with God or “returned” to “cleanse yourself” until you were ready to be with God. The Jews believed that you could be saved without becoming Jewish or joining the Jewish religion. They believed that as long as you followed the Noahide laws, you would be fine. 

Then why and how did it change with Christianity? How did Christianity manage to condense salvation into the tenets of what constitutes your salvation? How did "how you believe" become your ticket to hell or heaven for eternity? How did this become so many people's thought processes and reality?

Other religions also had closely related ways of seeing salvation. They saw life as a lesson and an illusion of sorts, a path to grow and learn, where one would keep coming back until they “woke up” and were ready to meet God. However, later on, other religions sprouted up that made religion a necessity, and if you didn’t believe their specific beliefs, you would suffer eternal damnation. Two of these religions are Islam and Christianity, which are both offshoots of Judaism.

If Christianity is the one true religion, then that means that, according to some Christians who believe in a Calvinistic predestination, everyone who doesn’t believe and never had the chance to learn about the gospel, by default, will go to hell for eternity. This would mean that all those in India, all those in Asia who never heard, all those in North Korea automatically go to hell for eternity.

If Christianity is the one true religion, and you take literally what the preachers say—that once you die there is no chance after that—then those who never had a chance to believe differently or never chose to believe will be in hell for eternity. And those who never had the chance to hear the gospel will also go to hell for eternity because, according to that belief, after you die there are no more chances.

If salvation for eternity is granted through a specific belief from a specific religion and all other religions are false, then that must mean that God does, in fact, choose some to be saved and others to be damned, even though no one deserves to be saved. That means He did select some and not select others, which means He does have favorites. Do you see how wrong that sounds?

Do you see how strange these beliefs are compared to the years before them? They don’t line up. They reduce the original concept of salvation to a belief concept, and if you don’t believe it, your belief is your sentence to eternity in hell; even though our beliefs are constantly changing, Christianity expects you to never change or else to hell you go.  

Do you see the chaos that ensues? The wars it produces? The fear it spreads? It explains why Catholics felt justified in murdering countless people who were against them and against their belief system. It explains why so many return to church day in and day out, worried that if they don’t, they may enter hell for eternity.

Requiring people to believe the way you believe, rather than giving them the freedom to find out for themselves, is why we have millions indoctrinated by beliefs who are afraid to explore because their particular religion said, “Try me, or else to hell you go.” Religion built on fear is not from God. Fear comes from man to control, contain, and use.

Religion built on the idea that our beliefs equal eternal salvation while others’ do not denotes separation and division, which we know are not from God. God does not pick favorites. If belief was enough, then technically anyone who once had a thought about God that aligned with that religion would be saved because they believed it once. But see, now the church has to change its stance on what equates to salvation, because believing it once isn’t enough.