Are All Religions Getting at the Same Thing?

After scraping away the personalized vernacular and symbolism, I find so many religions to be getting at the same things. The biggies of this fall into two aspects:

• Providing a general model of how the world works
• Some explanation of how we got here
• Achieving personal happiness and socialization with others
• And some meaning of our lives

While I expect there to be some outliers, I've seen this pattern with the ones I've come in contact with and/or studied. As typical when I write on what can be a taboo topic,

This is purely my take on things. It by no means suggests those that disagree are wrong. The goal of religion is a debatable, rather subjective concept, often without an objective answer.

So let's go a little more in depth on each of these points.

Religions Provide a General Model of How the World Works

I want to start off that Science and Religion aren't mutually exclusive. Both are attempting to provide an idea of how the world works, just coming from different starting points with religion based off feeling and science bases off observation.

It's psychologically difficult to come in contact with natural phenomena that we don't understand, have the ability to control or predict such as lightning, earthquakes, tornadoes, etc. On top of this humans have a natural tendency to come of with some answer to things (even if wrong) using our brains interpreter module. It's really quite rare that we aren't able to come up with some idea of why something we see occurring happens. It's more comforting believing that lightning comes from Zeus throwing down his thunderbolts compared, which could be appeased with various acts (like sacrificing an animal to him,) compared to nothing at all.

Most religious texts provide a model (often through Gods controlling varying domains) that provide explanations for how things encountered work. While the vast majority of these involve aspects of weather or nature (crops, other animals, etc,) some slightly outside of these include birth/conception, death, growing up (aging, puberty, etc) and disease.

While most of these now have scientific explanations, one stands out: DEATH! Even though we typically know what causes death, we don't honestly know what happens when we die. Often people's answers for this fall into a few categories:

• Heaven and Hell
• Afterlife with no good/bad distinction
• Reincarnation
• or Nothing

I typically don't like saying I believe in things versus having a best idea, since that tends to imply more of a willingness to take in new information and adapt accordingly. So, while I do have my own best idea of what happens when we die, that deserves more of it's own post.

Each religion had it's own scope of what it considered everything, or the universe, for which it provided explanations. In the western world we've gone from our planet being flat, to the sun revolving around the Earth, to being a tiny speck in our galaxy among many other galaxies. Even if it turns out to be wrong, some answer is always provided.

Some Explanation of How We Got Here

This specific question is where the Science versus Religion usually rears it's head. While having an understanding of the physics of nature, there really is plenty of room to also say that God was a part of setting up those physical rules. Knowing that atoms in clouds rubbing against each other to build up static electricity, until it discharges as lightning, doesn't make somebody less religious (in most people's eyes.) However, the question of creation seems to cause this rift.

Part of this is due to us not having the ability to directly test, observe and refine our theories on how the everything started. No matter how hard we try, starting a whole universe from nothing, probably isn't due in a laboratory anytime soon. While I don't personally have a problem with the Big Bang theory (which is probably one in a series of bangs,) it doesn't have the same level of testing compared to other aspects of nature.

But again, in reality, it really isn't that difficult to simply say God was a part of the universe creation, whether the Big Bang or something else. Instead the issue seems to be more based around whether it took 7 days or a much, much longer period of time.

Most religions give some type of creation myth to explain the start of everything, with others including Mesopotamia's Enuma Elish, Hindu's Cosmic Egg or a myriad of others. It's easy to say that everyone is able to believe that they exist (short of being in the Matrix) and hence reverse engineering it towards some answer, regardless of being right or wrong. It's pretty easy to go through life without this one being directly tested, since we don't have a way to experience the beginning of the planet (let alone a universe.)

Achieving Personal Happiness and Socialization with Others

While this is an extremely subjective concept, it's a fair generality in my mind. The underlying purpose (to me) of every religion is to try to connect yourself closer with yourself, other people and the universe as a whole.

While obviously everybody has their own measures of being happy, it is a rather fleeting emotion. What makes us happy today, loses it's potency over time (i.e. not making us quite as happy next week.) An example of this is when you get something new...at some point it just becomes normal and no longer having that new excitement it once held. There is a need to progress things we do, have, experience, etc to keep ourselves feeling happy.

For most of us this requires having other people in our lives whether friends, family, children and/or significant others. Most religions have some focus on socialization including some stories on interacting with people in or out of their community. There are some philosophies (even if not exactly a religion) that devote the vast majority of their writings to teaching self-reflection and interacting with other people to lead towards a happy life.

In the end though, I prefer to look at this aspect of religious teachings as personal progress. It's all about being better than you were yesterday, last week, last year, etc. None of us are the same person we were twenty years ago. I certainly hope none of us are the same we were in high school!

Meaning of our Lives

In the same sense of the interpreter module giving us a natural tendency to form some answer for anything, finding meaning in things and life tends to have some explanation. I'm definitely faulting a meaning being applied towards life or situations, but I still find it to be reverse engineered.

My take on this is rather straight forward:

How do you know something was meant to be?

It happened!

Conclusion
I've found it to be rather meaningless to judge somebody on what term they use to describe their faith. Being a good person, progressing their life and those of others, is based solely on the individual, not their label.

While I do find it an interesting characteristic of how each person defines their faith (including agnosticism, atheism, 'I don't care-ism, etc.) it's by no means the end all. Every single group out their has their own good, bad, fanatic and crazy people making us focus more on the specific individual.

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Image Sources:
All Religions
Greek Gods
Creation Myths
Aristotle Quote
Meaning of Life Quote