Can I just point something out...
The one book that's common the world's major religions (Judaism, Christianity/Catholicism, and Islam) is the First/Old Testament of the Bible (or Quran, or whatever it's called in it's own respective religion), and the answer is actually right there...
Nowhere in that text did it ever tell man to create a religion (in order) to serve "God".
Nowhere in that text did it tell us to be Jews, Catholics, Christians, or Muslims.
All that shit happened afterwards, when people (man) started writing their own interpretations and versions of the following books (New Testament to Christians/Catholics, etc.)
Needless to say, those who wrote the opposing texts disagreed with the other camp. Hence the following (or religion) was born.
Yet... and this is why men are called sheep... the followers of these religions looked to their "shepherds", instead of actually looking at the source of their shepherds so-called knowledge... which was in fact the First/Old Testament, which actually does not state that we need to be part of a following (Catholicism and Islam have laws that actually say that leaving or doubting the religion is a sin... how fucked up and authoritarian is that?)
There's also one more point...
...all those religions were "born" from the middle east. Notice that the traditional/ancient Japanese religions -greatly- differ in beliefs? What about the tribal ones? Like the native Filipino ones for that matter?
There must be at least a few thousand religions that have come and gone during mankind's stay on Earth... so who are we, (or who are "they") to say that a particular religion is "the one"?
I know I'm going a wee bit off-topic, but seeing as this is the closest amongst the recent threads, I decided to air out my opinions here.
IMO: Religion is the source of all of mankind's evil. Any religion, once it becomes an organized institution, gives birth to prejudice, hatred, indifference, segregation, generalization, greed, authoritarianism, and perversion.
All it takes is a general sweep of history to see that this is all true.
Believe in God, but don't believe in a religion.
People talk about banning things all the time... ban religion. Every single one. Once we have removed that 2000+ year-old dividing wall, we will gradually learn to accept each other for who we are... as equals.
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