Ridiculous Religousness

I have never had a problem with people who are religious or spiritual in nature. In fact, some of those people can be the most loving, kind-hearted, wonderful people in the world. What I do have a problem with is people who accept their religion unconditionally without any thought into alternative beliefs.

I get it to some degree. You are raised in a religion, or you have a really good feeling about a belief, or it just feels "right". Feelings are not something to be taken lightly or easily discounted. Feelings can lead to a lot of important discovers about yourself and other people and life in general. The thing that I have a problem with is when people discount all other religions and believe that their way of doing things is the only "right" way. This really bothers me because who is to say what religion is right or wrong?

When asked how they know their religion is right, some people will say that they prayed about it and they had a good feeling about it, or God told them directly that it was the right religion. Well guess what? Billions of other people belonging to countless other religions have done the exact same thing and gotten the exact same answer that THEIR religion is right. It is pompous and ignorant to think that only a tiny fraction of these people got the correct answer.

So how do we know what religion to follow? The short answer is that we don't. I don't think anyone can know for sure that their religion is the best or true or ultimate religion. How can you know that you wouldn't have been a Buddhist or Hindu or Christian if you were born in a different time or place? I think the closest we can come to some sort of enlightenment is to explore every religion and people that you possibly can and try to gain an understanding of why each one believes and practices as they do. Only then can we clearly accept or reject these ideas.

Of course it is impossible to study every single religion in depth, which is why it bothers me so much when people reject all other religions. How can you know it is wrong if you don't even know what it is? Embrace your own religion and live according to its laws if you must, but do not reject others way of living simply because you do not understand it.