It is common, even fashionable to say that all religions and holy books really teach the same thing.

Granted, there are similar teachings in some texts. However, when one delves deeper into these different religions it seems obvious that they are actually very different.

For example these different views of Jesus.

Islam. Jesus was an important prophet.

Christianity. Jesus was and is the son of God. Equal to God himself.

Orthodox Jews. Jesus was a heretical rabbi who led people into paganism.

Hinduism. Jesus is one of millions of gods.

Atheism. Did Jesus really even exist?

Or take purification from sin. According to different texts the way to do this is either to sacrifice animals, to bathing in the Ganges river, to making pilgrimages to some sacred site and the list goes on. Of course, we mustn’t forget the people who deny that sin exists at all.

Such a wide range of opinions should show us that all these books do not come from the same source. The way I see it, the options are:

1. God wrote none of the books ascribed to him. There is no God or if there is a God, He doesn’t care, and it was simply human beings themselves who wrote all these holy books to suit their own agendas. Every idea about God is then equal…idle speculation about a being that doesn’t even exist…or if it does, it is irrelevant.

2. God wrote some of the books ascribed to him. There is a good God and He wrote some things down for us to show us a better path. If this is true, every holy book is not equal…there are the writings that are actually from God, and there are others that are not. Our job as human beings is to figure out which writings are actually from God and which are the idle speculations of idle human beings.

What is truth?

Which is the right path?

3. God actually wrote all the books ascribed to him. Yes! There is a God who authored all the holy books that have ever existed. All is one. However, what kind of being would it be that wrote down a whole bunch of contradictory ideas, knowing full well that all these different ideas would cause the human race to fight and destroy each other?

Wouldn’t this mean that God is a being that wants to see the human race self-destruct?

Wouldn’t this mean that God is our enemy?

Is there an option I’ve missed?