We all have Beliefs, whether we admit or not, whether we are part of any established Religion, whether we call our Beliefs Philosophy, the Cult of Science, or anything else. Our experiences are unique, so we often disagree with each other, even when we are part of the same Belief System. Of course none of us is an independent observer, but those pretending to be, look at all Belief alternatives and say: “They can’t all be right” which usually translates into “They’re all wrong. I am right”.
So which Religion is right? We don’t know, but our disagreements are not so much about the Observable or near-Observable as they are about the deep Beliefs: about God, about our purpose, and about the behavior that can help us the most. We are all part of the same human family, so how come we cannot agree? Because we are not like the adults in a family, but like the small children that lack the deep knowledge their parents have.
If you were the Father of a family, one child may call you Dad, another Daddy, and another may not want to talk to you at all. You tell them to play nice with each other and they fight over trivial issues. You tell the children to eat their food and one doesn’t want broccoli, another doesn’t like milk or seafood or pork or beef. Their understanding of the environment and your will is childishly naïve. Each one has a different opinion and they will argue their crude point of view to no end. You really can’t explain to small children how to drive the car, use a stove, the household tools, or the home chemicals because they are too young and will hurt themselves. It is pointless to even correct their behavior at this time – they are not, and you don’t want them to be, conformist robots that think alike and act the same. As they grow and mature, you will let them discover new things, and you will be proud of them. Hopefully your relationship will strengthen instead of falling apart, but you should be prepared for them when going through periods when they absolutely hate you for no reason at all.
We all know the good from the bad. As children of God (or the Universe), we should do the best we can and not worry so much about who is the perfect child as we would all do poorly when comparing against perfection. It is easy to be skeptical about others’ Beliefs, but when was the last time a skeptic was skeptical of his own Beliefs? Yes, certain Religious texts look contradictory when the interpretation is done by enemies of that Religion. Yes, “Religious wars” were bad but, Religion or not, who’s to say that these wars would not have happened anyway? We are told that the inquisition was particularly bad. Perhaps so, but does that indict the Religion that it was supposed to represent, or just the individuals involved?