Introduction
There are many religions and faiths in the world, all who believe in their own god or gods, or some other supernatural force.
Some worship nature or energy, others worship a god who is a real person, some people worship multiple gods, and others will claim that we become our own gods.
The notion of afterlife is very common in most religions, some believe in reincarnation, some believe in heaven and hell, some in becoming ghostly spirits, others believe in physical resurrection.
The question on some people’s minds, “how do we know which is the true religion” or “is there such a thing as true religion at all?”. “True” and “False” religions will always have motivations behind them, and claims need to be proven.
Motivations & Causes of “True” Religion
To first define “true” religion, it would be something that is authentic, genuine, believable, has reason, and overall, as the term “true” would suppose, has “truth” to it, and not merely a product of human’s minds.
The origin of true religion, from a secular point of view, would consist of both “true motive” and “true cause”.
Motive
- Truth
- Hope
- Meaning
- Comfort
Cause
- Divine interactions (or so-claimed)
- Metaphysical/ontological conception
- Teleological observation (the observation of intelligence and design in life, leading to a conclusion that there had to have been a designer)
Religions and Spiritual systems all hold some sort of similar belief in that there is either hope beyond death, or an objective understanding of the meaning of life (why were are here, where we come from, where we are going).
These are all deep questions that humans have sought answers since the beginning of man, and in respect of those questions, all cultures have come to very similar conclusions.
Divine Interactions
One of these conclusions have in great part for the majority of human history world wide involved belief in the supernatural, powers, gods and spirits.
This may indicate that either in the beginning of human history there was once a single common descent of one true objective faith or religion (be it through interaction with a god or gods) of which religious system was subject to alterations, interpersonal disagreements or heretical dissenters, causing splinter groups over time (a Mono-spiritual or Theist worldview), or that merely there is a multitude of gods who founded multiple independent faiths (Polytheistic worldview).
Metaphysical & Teleological Spirituality
Others have believed some other spiritual system, supposing that merely that there is a universal set of spiritual or divine truths which many different groups have founded their faith upon on a horizontal plain, though each one not being a perfect understanding of such (Deist or Universalist worldviews).
For example, one might via reasoning of philosophy believe that there is an invisible spirit or soul, or spirits, or that some form of “inner enlightenment” is the one true religion, another via observation of universal design that Pantheism (that all of nature is its own self made god) is true.
“Authenticty” versus “Truth“
All of these faiths would be “authentic” in their ‘reasons’ for belief, but genuine authenticity isn’t always a guarantee that the individual has come to the ‘full’ truth of the matter, but all do have genuine, good, logical and valid reasons for their religious faith or spiritual system.
The ultimate proof in the pudding would be demonstrative evidence of their system of faith being genuine alongside the fundamental foundation and conception (be they miracles, demonstrating the enlightenment of their souls to divinity, or proven interactions with supernatural entities, etc).
All however would conclude that “spirituality” is inherent in human nature. Indicating that religion in itself not being merely a man-made construct of a desire to control, or of mythological stories to entertain or comfort, but that to begin, there had to be “conceivability of spirituality” (ie: The Ontological Conception of God) for there to be any religious variety at all.
Thus, this would lead one to conclude that there is a place and rationale for such a thing as a “true faith” or religion, and that though there be varieties of many “authentic” religions that dont’ always agree with one another in all things, ‘at least’ one of them, if not more, can be argued to be also “true”.
Motivations & Causes of “False” Religions
But there are also “false religions” of which are created for different reasons, and can stem from both true religion or independently by itself. By motives and causes, that would not lend to what we could call “true” in any form.
Motive
- Control
- Power
- Money
- Sex
Cause
- Deception
- Delusion or Insanity
- Misinterpretation
- Blind Faith
Whilst some authentic religions as mentioned above, might not be “true” in the fullest sense, they would also not be fully “false” either, in the manner we speak of here (which is not the Christian or Jewish definition of “true versus false religion”), but all are sharing some kind of common root in something genuine. However, from that genuine root can come corruption, which we are now defining as “false religion”.
False religion is often used to attain power over others or to control them by means of authoritarianism, claiming to be the representatives of a god who will judge them, or that they have the ability to guide and predict their futures via fortune telling. Whilst other false religions are from the deceptions of people’s own minds, causing them to attribute naturalistic phenomena to a supernatural cause, of which they have no evidence or reason whatsoever, and others are a corruption or misunderstanding of an original authentic or true system.
Power/money/control/sex/deception
False religions are often cult-like in structure, where humans have to be obeyed as leaders, though they have no proof of being granted such divine or other-wordly authority. This makes men into gods, and followers subservient to them, by means of becoming their slaves, money providers, sexual favours, soldiers for war, etc.
Humans who seek to rule others usually will instruct their followers to do their work for them, and will not be an example of healthy leadership or practioner of what is preached, but a dictator. For the purpose of false religion is often to create a following to a person, and is not to render oneself as a servant to something greater. Thus, such false religions of this category would not have leaders who are willing to be on or under the same level as others, nor would they willingly sacrifice their own wellbeing.
Their means of construction is through illusions and lies. As the well known saying goes; “follow the money”. Such construction will always lead to some sort of personal gain for an individual or group of individuals.
The origins of these groups may originate by taking advantage of existing beliefs and religious faiths (whether “true” or “false” ones) for their own benefit, or creating a religious system from scratch by appealing to some sort of higher power or ability others are known to already respect, taking advantage of the motivations of those who are seeking “true” religion.
Insanity or Delusion
Others become religious leaders through delusion, claiming visions of gods or other similar beings, but are mentally ill, yet convinced of their beliefs. They hear voices in their heads that are not really there, or see things other people can’t see because of hallucination.
The teachings and beliefs of such individuals however would have to be consistent with mental illness (ie; erratic behaviours, inconsistency in belief, lapses in logic, or incoherency, all things that are well documented with people who suffer some form of extreme psychosis, of which in most cases clears up when addressed with medication or therapy).
These kinds of individuals may be willing to sacrifice their time, energy or even die for their cause, unlike the manipulative creator of a religion for power. However, such men will have no real proof for their claims as its all in their head. Most people would regard these individuals as “not quite right” if not insane, unless they themselves also suffered mental illness or some kind of extreme lack of intellectual ability or high gullibility.
In such a case, the adherents would share similar traits to the deluded man who originated the religion, and the belief system would be in itself incoherent or unreasonable, the intellectually lacking followers would not have the ability to evolve or carry out the religion to ensure its stability or survival, and the fully insane followers would likely come up with their ‘own’ religion and contradict the original insane person they followed, though both would be incoherent and unprovable, and any intelligent man who is able to make some kind of sense out of or take advantage of the insanity of the originator would convert the belief system into a religion of power gain.
In this construct, the person has lied to themself about their own beliefs, but not for gain, but may be followed by others who are questionable of sanity and intellect, or taken advantage of by others who would claim power for themselves.
Some other “delusions” (if I am to use such a strong word in this circumstance) may also involve belief in afterlife because of things such as near death experiences where brain activity takes a person to another “place”, before waking up again, convincing them that “heaven awaits”.
As different cultures and religions have said to experience different NDEs accordingly to their beliefs, experiences or backgrounds, this would lead one to conclude that it is more likely to be a mental experience, not a spiritual one.
The same can be said of those who take hard drugs to enter altered states and have so-called “mystical” or “religious” experiences.
Misinterpretation
Another common form of religion is a misinterpretation of a former religion.
These adherents may be very honest people, but simply mistaken about what the originator said.
This is seen everywhere today in Christianity for example, where many denominations compete over “the true teachings” of the Bible, and much misinterpretation comes from all kinds of causes, be it lack of reading comprehension, bias, instability and so on.
Others meanwhile may purposefully misinterpret the words of the originator, but such motivations would take us back to the deceitful gain of power.
Truth in the Contrast
To those who do not believe in any notion of religion, theism, deism or spirituality at all, they would regard all religion to be false in one of the aforementioned manners. However, this does not take into account that the motivations and causes of true religion also ‘exist’.
In this stead, one may say that a false religion motivated of the gain of power can only exist if some sort of “true” religion or power already exists, as successful lies must contain at least some believable truths in order to be upheld, and is often why such groups are splinters of former groups, or adoptionist of certain preconceived ideas people already believe (such as a god, supernatural power, etc). But they cannot be fully held responsible for the “creation” of those core ideas from scratch.
Considering the aforementioned ontological arguments, the very nature of the naturalism of spirituality ‘allows’ for both true and false religions to exist.
Likewise some may reason delusions, hallucinations or near-death experiences are the “sole true origin” of gods, demons, spirits and where the idea of going to another realm after death comes from, and may be one of the early motivators for the beginnings of the beliefs in the afterlife.
However, as akin to what I expressed in my article on God’s ontology, whilst insanity or delusion can be the cause of false religions, one need not conclude that it is the origin of all religions and spiritual experiences. For again, mental experience is reliant on external input in order to make sense or have a construct of anything (including delusions or hallucinations; which always reflects the culture the mentally ill person is raised in)
And so mental illness or drug trips cannot be the explanation of the origin of religious culture, as insanity without former religious belief or exposure to religious belief, would not result in religious delusions, but rather, non-religious delusions.
NDEs likewise, thus do not fully explain the notion of the formulation of a belief in an afterlife altogether, for those without such beliefs do not have such NDEs of this kind, but rather may describe their lives flashing before their eyes in general, or nothingness, thus, this still leaves open the validity of ontological conception, for one may ask; “who was the first to have a “heavenly/religious NDE” and why?”. We are to reason that NDEs are not the origins of the belief in an afterlife, but that religion came first, affecting people’s NDEs in turn. NDEs are affected by culture, not vice versa, and therefore one can reason it to be unreasonable to conclude the origin of the idea of heaven or religion. The output of NDE is reliant on input.
Thus, we can conclude, that because we have the contrast of conception, and the causes and motivations of both true and false religions, we can then set foot in laying a foundation for the of there being such a thing as a “true religion”, and thus an investigation in which religions may be true or false, on the basis of the motivations, evidences, histories, and source materials at hand.
Following then in the future sections of this series, we will take a look to the many religions from all regions of the world, their beliefs, claims and origins.
Proselyte of Yah 