Quiz on World Religions

1)  Which religion has no official god?

a)  Buddhism

b)  Hinduism

c)  Islam

d)  Judaism

e)  Christianity

2)  Which religion has an estimated 330 million gods?

a)  Buddhism

b)  Hinduism

c)  Islam

d)  Judaism

e)  Christianity

3)  Which religion has no clear founder?

a)  Buddhism

b)  Hinduism

c)  Islam

d)  Judaism

e)  Christianity

4)  Nirvana in Buddhism is

a)  A place like the Christian Heaven

b)  Escape from suffering and desire

c)  A state of extreme bliss

d)  Annihilation of self

5)  In Islam, Jesus is considered to be

a)  A great prophet

b)  The Son of God

c)  A heretic

d)  A good teacher who taught some truth but also some falsehoods

6)  What percent of American Christians believe that there is salvation in other religions?

a)  8%

b)  17%

c)  52%

d)  79%

7)  Circle the religion(s) that believe that Jesus was born of a virgin.

a)  Christianity

b)  Islam

c)  Hinduism

d)  Buddhism

What does everyone believe – Comparative Religion

World Religions Overview

Rank / Religion / Adherents / Percent
1 / Christianity / 2.1 billion / 33
2 / Islam / 1.5 billion / 21
3 / Hinduism / 1 billion / 15
4 / Chinese Traditional Religion / 394 million / 6
5 / Buddhism / 375 million / 6
6 / Primal-indigenous / 300 million / 4
7 / African Traditional / 100 million / 1.5

Judaism with 14 million adherents at 0.2% is ranked 12th.

In this course we are going to study Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity.

Expected Growth

Here is expected growth of the world’s religions from 2010 to 2050. Global population rate is predicted to be 35%.

Islam would be the only major religion that would exceed the overall population growth rate.

Religion / Growth Rate Percentage / Expected Adherents (billions) / Percent Global Population
Christianity / 35% / 2.92 / 31.4
Islam / 73% / 2.76 / 29.7
Hinduism / 34% / 1.38 / 14.9
Buddhism / -.03% / 0.49 / 5.2
Primal-indigenous / 11% / 0.45 / 4.8

Why study other religions?

26% of Protestant churchgoers believe that there is salvation in other religions.

Look at 1 John 4:1, 4-6

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 4You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. 5They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. 6We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

Out in the world there is a spirit of truth (one spirit of truth) and a spirit of error (many spirits of error actually). God wants us to know and to be able to test both.

Some benefits/reasons to know other religions.

1)  It allows us to better share the Gospel with them.

Acts 17:22-23 we read, “So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, ‘Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects. For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, “TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.” Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.’”

Paul first examined their gods and beliefs and then he used their very weaknesses and vulnerabilities as a launching point to proclaim the Gospel. This indicates that he did not use the exact same method for everyone but that he understood from where they were coming from and started from there.

1 Corinthians 9:19-23

19For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I may win more. 20To the Jews I became as a Jew, so that I might win Jews; to those who are under the Law, as under the Law though not being myself under the Law, so that I might win those who are under the Law; 21to those who are without law, as without law, though not being without the law of God but under the law of Christ, so that I might win those who are without law. 22To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak; I have become all things to all men, so that I may by all means save some. 23I do all things for the sake of the gospel, so that I may become a fellow partaker of it.

This does not mean that we should become a Buddhist to win Buddhists or a Muslim to win Muslims, but, I believe, that it does mean that we should understand as much as possible about the people that we are sharing the Gospel with. Paul’s equation is basically:

Relating to them = Winning the more of them

2)  It will strengthen our own Christian faith. There are numerous ways to view the universe, life, and the divine. Which one is correct? Which one is the most reasonable and consistent, the most historically verifiable, the most prophetically accurate, the most experientially valid? As we compare Christianity to other religions, I believe that we will see that Christianity is far and away the one that meets all of these criteria. I believe that we will come away confident that we, as Christians, made the right choice.

3)  God tells us in 2 Corinthians 2:11, “so that no advantage would be taken of us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his schemes.” One is one of Satan’s greatest schemes? Probably to present a false alternative that looks appealing and will pull many over to it from the true Gospel. We should not be ignorant of these schemes.

4)  Ephesians 5:11 says, “Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them.” Expose them with the truth. But can you expose what you know nothing about?

5)  When you show the person that you know something about their beliefs then it shows to them that you care about them and that you made an effort to understand them before trying to win them over to your side. It is not so much, “Even though I don’t know anything about your beliefs I do know that they are wrong” but more “I do know something about what you believe and I’d like to share something that I think you might find interesting and helpful.”

6)  It prepares you to explain why Christianity is more viable. Suppose your friend comes to you and says, “I am going to convert to Buddhism because they are a peaceful people and I want peace in my life.” If you do not know anything about Buddhism then what will you say?—“Christianity gives you peace also.” He might respond, “That’s nice, but I’m picking Buddhism.” Your answer, “But Christianity is true.” “Why?” Then what do you say? But if you know even a little about Buddhism then you might be able to reply, “Buddhists meditate and seek peace because their lives are an endless cycle of rebirth, death, rebirth, death, rebirth, dead forever. And in all of those lives there is suffering. If that what you really want? But if you really want peace, Jesus says in John 14:27, ‘Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.’ Jesus offers peace apart from endless cycles of suffering. Doesn’t that sound better?”

Is it necessary to know something about Buddhism to win a Buddhist to Christ? No, but I believe that it helps.

Do all Religions Ultimately lead to God?

A Pew Research Center survey in 2008 found that 52% of American Christians think that at least some non-Christian faiths can lead to eternal life.

If you ask the all Americans who are affiliated with a religion (i.e. atheists, agonists, and non-religious people are not included) who can achieve eternal life this is the results:

My religion is the one, true faith leading to eternal life: 29%

Many religions can lead to eternal life: 65%

Don’t know/refused: 6%

When asked what determines eternal life, here are the results:

One’s belief: 30%

One’s actions: 29%

Combination of actions/belief: 10%

Don’t believe in eternal life: 7%

Don’t know/refused: 14%

More Americans believe that at least some other religions than their own religion are true enough to obtain eternal life. Therefore, this is a serious issue.

There is an analogy that many use to demonstrate that all religions are valid. There are four blind men who discover an elephant. Since the men have never encountered an elephant, they grope about, seeking to understand and describe this new phenomenon.

One grasps the trunk and concludes it is a snake. Another explores one of the elephant’s legs and describes it as a tree. A third finds the elephant’s tail and announces that it is a rope. And the fourth blind man, after discovering the elephant’s side, concludes that it is, after all, a wall.

Each in his blindness is describing the same thing: an elephant. Yet each describes the same thing in a radically different way.

This illustrates how different religions are describing the same spiritual reality but in radically different ways. God is the elephant. Christianity may describe it as its legs, Islam may describe it as the trunk, Hinduism may describe it as the tail but ultimately they are all truthfully describing a part of the greater whole and so all of their viewpoints are correct even though they differ. The conclusion is that all religions are equally valid and are merely ways of describing the same thing.

Here is what some have said about all religions leading to the same truth.

Mahatma Gandhi said, “The soul of religion is one, but it is encased in a multitude of forms.”

The Bahá'í religion claims, “In reality, there is only one religion, the religion of God. This one religion is continually evolving, and each particular religious system represents a stage in the evolution of the whole.”

Unitarian Universalist Church, “We believe there is wisdom in most, if not all, of the world's religions. We feel each is valuable for what it can tell us about ourselves and our world, and how its members find religious meaning and direction.” Also, “We believe that people are punished by their sins, not for them, and that the evil people do lives with them. We also believe that we are enriched by our virtues and that the good we do lives with us and helps make the world better. You could attend a UU church for years and seldom hear the word sin.”

One problem with the elephant analogy is that all four blind men are drawing their conclusions from very limited data. And because of that all of their conclusions are wrong. Yes, one aspect of an elephant is like a tree, but to say that the entire elephant is like a tree is wrong. If they all felt the elephant from every spot and angle then they would in fact draw the same conclusion: an elephant is a large animal with large ears, a trunk, four thick legs, and a long thin tail.

This leads to the first reason as to why all religions are not valid or in their own way lead to ultimate truth.

1)  In comparing religions you cannot pick and choose what you want just to prove your point. You must consider all aspects of the religions that you are comparing.

You cannot take limited parts of religions that are in agreement and draw the conclusion that they all the same. Yes, all religions believe in many of the same moral principles. But to draw the conclusion that they are pointing to the same thing you must use all of the data. And for religions, unlike the elephant, they will point to very different conclusions.

When you try to dilute all religions so as to get to a common denominator then you wind up ignoring huge parts of each religion, which is wrong and deceitful.

2)  When comparing any two religions, they will explicitly contradict each other in major areas.

Another problem is that all of their conclusions are not contradictory. It is not that one is saying that an elephant is covered in feathers and another is saying that it is covered in scales. The parts of an elephant are indeed just like each described.

In contrast, religions explicitly contradict each other. The fundamental law of non-contradiction states that A and Not-A cannot exist simultaneously.

Christianity says that Jesus Himself literally died on a cross. Islam says that Jesus was instead taken up into Heaven and a substitute died in His place. Can those twos views be at all reconciled without terribly distorting them?

To Christians, Jesus is God. To Hindus, He is not god and is merely a prophet. Can both be true? Are these not as contradictory as can be?

Christianity affirms the Trinity; Islam explicitly denies the Trinity. These are not two ways of viewing the same thing. One is saying feathers and the other is saying scales.

3)  When you try to make all religions valid you end up denying or contradicting major aspects of each religion that indeed does make it unique.

In John 14:6 Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” If all religions are valid then Jesus lied because then people can come to the Father through other means.

In Acts 4:12 Peter said, “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.” Again, if Christianity is not the only way to God then Peter lied or was at least very wrong. If that is the case then how can we believe anything else that he said? And then, a good portion of the New Testament is out the window.

Of the five pillars of Islam the very first one states that you must believe, "There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger." For all religions to be valid then this statement must be false and so you have now lost perhaps the most key tenet of Islam.