Many Religions​—Their Influence Today

FROM the meditation of a Zen Buddhist in Japan to the self-inflicted torture of a Hindu holy man in India, from the chant of an Islamic muezzin in the Middle East to the ecstatic utterances of a Pentecostalist in Central America, from the mass suicide in Jonestown, Guyana, to the mass wedding in Seoul, Korea, the diversity of religious beliefs and practices throughout the world is truly astounding. No matter who you are or where you live, in one way or another your life is touched by religion.

Just how many religions are there? There seem to be as many answers to this question as there are researchers and statisticians who have tackled the problem. Counting all the denominations, groups, subgroups and cults, the total number must be in the tens of thousands.

Do you live in a land of Christendom? It has been stated that there are 10,000 denominations and sects. However, the recently published World Christian Encyclopedia claims that there are 2,050 denominations of Christian churches in the United States alone, and worldwide that number runs up to 20,000. Claiming a total membership of nearly one and a half billion, or about a third of the world’s population, it is the largest religious body in the world.

Perhaps you live in a country where Islam, Hinduism or Buddhism predominates. With their many groups and divisions, they also claim members in the hundreds of millions. Then there are the Shintoists, the Sikhs, the Jains, the Zoroastrians, the Taoists, the Confucians and the Baha’is, to name but a few of the better-known religions. In fact, according to the above-mentioned publication, all but about 20 percent of the people of the world claim to belong to one religion or another. (See the accompanying diagram.)

Dwindling or Flourishing?

But perhaps you feel that in our modern 20th-century society religion is no longer an important factor in people’s lives. In certain parts of the world this may appear to be the case. People seem ever so busy pursuing a materialistic way of life. They show little or no interest in religious matters. Perhaps you know of people like that. And you may also have seen large, centuries-old, historic churches being closed or converted to theaters, dance halls, markets or other commercial uses. It appears as if religion is on its way out.

On the other hand, you may live where there is much talk of a religious revival. For example, a report from Nairobi, Kenya, dealing with the expansion of the churches in Africa, says: “There is no doubt that Christianity is extraordinarily successful here. Every year, 6 million new believers join the 180 million Christians who now make up about 40 percent of the continent’s population. Christians, outpacing their Moslem rivals, are making so many converts and raising so many children that Africa could contain the world’s biggest body of church members within 20 years.”

Even in communist lands like Russia and China, reports show that after decades of official atheism, religion still has a strong hold on the people. “It is estimated that up to 77 million Soviet citizens, out of a population of 267 million, consider themselves believers​—mostly in the Russian Orthodox, Moslem, Roman Catholic, Baptist, Jewish and Lutheran faiths,” says U.S.News & World Report.

In China, besides the official count of some four million people who pack out the few churches that have been reopened since the late 1970’s, “there are between 25 and 50 million believers in house churches,” according to the China Church Research Center in Hong Kong. And a report from Peking appearing in New Zealand’s The Auckland Star says: “The official Chinese press describes the countryside of 800 million peasants as a macabre, medieval world where 30 years of communism have had virtually no impact on abiding folk religion.”

Clearly, then, even in the last quarter of the 20th century, there are still many religions around the world and they continue to exert a profound influence on the lives of millions of people. Inevitably, the questions come to mind: Why are there so many religions? Throughout the world, what kind of fruitage have they produced? And, most importantly, how is all of this affecting each of us?

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Religions of the World

(Figures in Millions)

Christian (1,433)

Buddhist (274)

Confucian and Taoist (198)

Othersa (252)

Nonreligious (911)

Hindu (583)

Muslim (723)

[Footnotes]

Many Religions​—Why?

“WE SMILE today at Pueblo Indian rain dances. . . . But what do we do when we are desperate? . . . On the two occasions when my life was shattered by the anguish of personal crisis, I did as those Indians did​—I prayed for help.” Thus wrote philosophy professor Huston Smith in the introduction of the book Great Religions of the World.

Man’s need to reach out to something higher and mightier when he is under stress appears to be both basic and universal. Anthropologists and historians tell us that from the beginning, man felt this need when mystified by the forces of nature, threatened by ferocious wild beasts and perplexed by death and the hereafter. This, they say, coupled with fear of the unknown, brought about the birth of religion.

For example, commenting on the beginning of the Shinto religion, the book Religions in Japan says: “Anything which evoked a feeling of awe was revered as being particularly imbued with divine or mysterious power; therefore, the forces of nature, especially awe-inspiring trees, rocks or mountains, and other inexplicable natural phenomena became objects of worship. These were given the name kami (god).” In time, legends, rites, rituals and shrines developed. These were passed on from generation to generation. And thus was born the Shinto religion.

According to this idea, the Sumerians, the Egyptians, the Hindus, the Chinese and all the other ancient civilizations devised their own forms of worship, their own religions, independently. These were then influenced by the people’s way of life​—their foods, their customs, even the climate and the geography of their land. The result is the diversity of religion we see today.

Independent or From One Source?

Such an explanation is satisfactory only to a degree, however. Though accounting for the great diversity seen among religions, it leaves some basic questions unanswered. For example, if all the different religions developed independently of one another, then how are we to account for the many fundamental similarities among them that cannot simply be attributed to natural human response?

Take, for instance, the stories and legends regarding the origin of man. Although details vary, the belief that man was made from the dust of the earth is widespread. One Greek legend says that Prometheus molded the first humans from clay and Athene breathed life into them. The Peruvian Indians used the term alpa camasca (animated earth) to describe the first man. A North American Indian tribe, the Mandan, believed that the ‘Great Spirit’ made two figures from clay and brought them to life by the breath of his mouth. One ancient Chinese legend says that P’an-ku made human figures from clay with elements of yin and yang; another legend tells of Nu-kua, a mythical figure, modeling men and women from yellow clay. The list goes on and on, including legends among the tribesmen of Africa and inhabitants of the islands of Micronesia.

Even more amazing is the universality of legends dealing with the destruction of wicked ancestors in a deluge and the survival or reappearance of the human race thereafter. Peoples and tribes in far-flung places of the earth recount varying versions of the same story.

What Was the Source?

Anyone who is even vaguely familiar with the Bible will recognize right away the similarity of such legends with the accounts in the Bible of creation and the Noachian Flood. But what, you might ask, does the Bible have to do with the legends of the Greeks, the American and the Peruvian Indians, the Chinese and all the rest? Not that these religions were inspired by the Bible. Rather, the Bible outlines the way the many religions came into being in a manner that accounts for both their diversity and their similarity.

In his book The Outline of History, H. G. Wells wrote: “Wherever primitive civilization set its foot in Africa, Europe, or western Asia, a temple arose, and where the civilization is most ancient, in Egypt and in Sumer, there the temple is most in evidence. . . . The beginnings of civilization and the appearance of temples is simultaneous in history. The two things belong together.”

This is what the Bible book of Genesis tells us: “Now all the earth continued to be of one language and of one set of words. And it came about that in their journeying eastward they eventually discovered a valley plain in the land of Shinar, and they took up dwelling there.” (Genesis 11:1, 2) Shinar is in Mesopotamia, the so-called cradle of civilization.

The account goes on to tell us that as the people settled in the plains of Shinar they rallied together for a building project: “Come on! Let us build ourselves a city and also a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a celebrated name for ourselves, for fear we may be scattered over all the surface of the earth.”​—Genesis 11:4.

What kind of city and tower were they building? The city, called Babel, or Babylon, was primarily a religious city. No fewer than 53 temples have been found in its ruins. Its worship featured triads of gods, belief in the immortality of the human soul, belief in the underworld, or hell, and astrology. Idolatry, magic, sorcery, divination and the occult all played a major role. The infamous Tower of Babel was not merely a monument or a landmark; other similar structures unearthed in the area indicate that it probably was a ziggurat with several stages, as well as a temple at the top. It would rise above and dominate the city.

What happened to the building project? The Bible record says: “That is why its name was called Babel, because there Jehovah had confused the language of all the earth, and Jehovah had scattered them from there over all the surface of the earth.”​—Genesis 11:9.

No longer able to communicate with one another, the builders left off their project and began to move out in different directions. Wherever they went, they brought with them their religious beliefs, ideas, legends and myths. Millennia of local development have resulted in the great diversities seen on the surface of the world’s religions. But underneath there are the unmistakable similarities, evidence that they came from the same source​—Babel, or Babylon.

Referring to this common source of false religion, Colonel J. Garnier observed in his book The Worship of the Dead: “Not merely Egyptians, Chaldeans, Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans, but also the Hindus, the Buddhists of China and of Thibet, the Goths, Anglo-Saxons, Druids, Mexicans and Peruvians, the Aborigines of Australia, and even the savages of the South Sea Islands, must have all derived their religious ideas from a common source and a common centre. Everywhere we find the most startling coincidences in rites, ceremonies, customs, traditions, and in the names and relations of their respective gods and goddesses.”

Corroborating the above is this comment by Joseph Campbell in his book The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology: “The archaeology and ethnography of the past half-century have made it clear that the ancient civilizations of the Old World​—those of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Crete and Greece, India and China—​derived from a single base, and that this community of origin suffices to explain the homologous forms of their mythological and ritual structures.”

The Outcome

The Bible not only provides the background of the great dispersion but also foretells the outcome​—the establishment of a world empire of Babylonish false religion. In strong and vivid language she was described as “the great harlot who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication . . . Upon her forehead was written a name, a mystery: ‘Babylon the Great, the mother of the harlots and of the disgusting things of the earth.’” (Revelation 17:1, 2, 5) She wields a tremendous influence over not only the masses but also the political, military and commercial systems of the earth.

What has been the result of Babylon the Great’s long domination over the nations and peoples? Under the influence of her many forms of religion, what kind of fruitage has been produced? This we shall consider in the next article.

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From Babylon religious ideas and myths spread to all parts of the world

ITALY

GREECE

BABYLON

EGYPT

INDIA

Many Religions​—What Are Their Fruits?

‘THERE is some good in all religions.’ That is a widely accepted belief among many people today. They feel that a little religion will make a better person out of anybody.

Is that how you feel about it? Do you think that religion, as a whole, has been an influence for good on mankind in general? Do you feel that the different religions have produced positive, wholesome fruits in the lives of their followers?

Such questions, of course, should not be answered on the basis of personal feelings alone nor, in fact, should they be answered just by the claims made by religious organizations. Rather, we must examine the facts, doing so as objectively as possible.

Examine the Facts

In these days of rapid communication and mass media, it is not difficult to get to the facts. But what should you look for? Well, what kind of fruits would you say religion should produce? In this respect, most people would agree that religion should make people more loving, honest, moral, peaceable, spiritual, and so forth. This is certainly true. In fact, almost all religions have as their basic tenet something similar to the Bible’s teaching of “love thy neighbour as thyself.”​—Matthew 22:39, Authorized Version.

While nearly all religions teach such a concept in theory, what about in practice? Do we see a higher standard of morality among their members? Are they more loving, more peaceful, more honest? Yes, what kind of fruits are the many religions producing?

Religion and Morals

Threatened by the tide of divorce, venereal disease, unwanted pregnancies, pornography, homosexuality and sexual permissiveness, many people are looking to religion for help. They may reason that if governments and schools are not providing the moral guidance they need, then religion must. The push to bring back prayer and ‘scientific creationism’ in public schools in the United States is an indication of this. But what kind of guidance is being offered by religion today? Consider some examples.

● The United Church of Canada (that nation’s largest Protestant denomination) sent out a report entitled In God’s Image . . . Male and Female to all its member congregations as suggested guidelines on marriage and sex. According to the newsmagazine Maclean’s, the report “recommends considering the acceptance of homosexuals for ordination; says sex outside marriage may be acceptable under certain circumstances and when the relationship is ‘joyous, caring, liberating, mutually supportive and socially responsible’; and suggests that marital fidelity need not necessarily include sexual exclusivity.” Final decision on this resolution has been postponed until later this year.

● In an article entitled “‘Born-Again’ Christians Are Discovering the Sexual Revolution,” Russell Chandler, Los Angeles Times writer on religion, reports: “Study panels of several major Protestant denominations and the Roman Catholic Church have concluded that . . . under certain circumstances . . . sexual intercourse between unmarried persons may not be sinful, homosexual practice may be an acceptable alternate life style for Christians and masturbation or self-stimulation may be normal and appropriate.”

● While reporting on “Homosexuals in the Churches,” particularly those in the Roman Catholic archdiocese of San Francisco, Newsweek magazine points out that “over the last decade homosexual caucuses . . . have sprung up in mainline Protestant denominations and inspired similar organizations among Mennonites, Pentecostals, Mormons, Christian Scientists, Seventh-day Adventists and Jews. In many cities gays have organized their own churches, synagogues and even Zen Buddhist centers.”

● The National Clergy Council on Alcoholism estimated in 1977 that at least 10 percent of American priests and nuns are alcoholics, according to an Associated Press report from Los Angeles. But a separate report published in the Baltimore Sun says: “While alcoholism among the clergy has been cited as a problem of world dimensions by superiors of Catholic religious orders, it is no longer the most pressing problem. . . . What was true in the Fifties and Sixties about alcoholism is now true about homosexuality. Certainly the whole problem of homosexuality looms now.”

With this kind of guidance and example, it is not surprising that the moral climate among church members is no better, if not actually worse, than that among the population as a whole. Here are just a few examples:

● The London Times reports: “Official statistics indicate that about a quarter of the prison population of England is designated Roman Catholic, although only one in 10 of the population is.” A conference was arranged to discuss “why Roman Catholics comprise such a large proportion of drug addicts, alcoholics, prostitutes, and criminals in prison,” says the report.

● In the United States, a recent Gallup poll shows that 70 percent of the adult population claim church membership and 40 percent actually attend religious services in a given week. Yet, according to the 1983 Britannica Book of the Year, there was one divorce for every two marriages in 1981, and “reflecting both increased divorces and births to unmarried mothers, . . . one of every five children lived in a one-parent family.”

● The magazine To the Point says: “Nearly one-third of the married Roman Catholic men in the archdiocese of Lusaka (Zambia) have live-in concubines, according to a report by Archbishop Emanuel Milingo.” Out of 10,903 Catholic households in that archdiocese, 3,225 have concubines, says the report.

It is just as Jesus said long ago: “A good tree cannot bear worthless fruit, neither can a rotten tree produce fine fruit.” (Matthew 7:18) The bumper crop of moral decay around the world is a reflection of the spiritual condition of the religious ‘trees’ of the world​—diseased and dying.

Religion and War

Realizing that “the world is on the brink of great peril, perhaps the suicide of the race in a nuclear war,” Zakir Husain, former president of India, appealed to a panel made up of leaders of all the major religions of the world “to play a fuller and more conscious part in the future than they have in the past” in working for world peace. To achieve this end, Husain urged, “they will have to look beyond dogmas, rituals, and practices which obstruct the flow of life from different religious circles towards a new sense of harmony and collaboration.”

That was in 1968, at the International Inter-Religious Symposium on Peace held in New Delhi, India. In attendance, and apparently in agreement with what was proposed, were leaders representing Buddhism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Protestantism, Sikhism and Zoroastrianism. What has happened since that time? True, there have been renewed efforts at further conferences, symposiums and discussions. And due to the mounting threat of nuclear annihilation there have been statements, proclamations, indictments and letters issued against governments and other agencies. But have the religions of the world worked toward doing away with the “dogmas, rituals, and practices which obstruct . . . harmony and collaboration”? Have they produced the fruits of love and peace in deeds and not in words alone?

Quite to the contrary, in the years since, the world has seen more wars and conflicts, in which religion, though not the only cause, played a significant role. Some are wars and conflicts between followers of different religions; some are between members of different sects of the same religion.

Among more recent examples can be listed the violent outbreaks in the Indian state of Assam, in which Hindus battled Muslims; the ongoing war between Iran and Iraq, in which Shiite Muslims fight Sunni Muslims; the by now notorious conflict in Northern Ireland, in which Protestants slaughter Catholics and Catholics slaughter Protestants; the war and massacre in Lebanon, in which Christians, Jews and Muslims are entangled; and even the Falklands war, in which “army chaplains urged Argentine conscripts to fight to the death because it is God’s will,” according to the San Francisco Examiner.

This list by no means exhausts the current state of affairs, nor does it include the countless instances in the past of conflicts between nations and peoples fanned by religious fervor.

Such wars may be touched off by political or territorial disputes. Sooner or later, however, religion is found deeply involved in them. Time and again members of the clergy on both sides are found appealing to the same God for blessings over their troops, calling their efforts ‘just’ or ‘holy’ wars, and promising instant heavenly reward to those who may be killed in such battles.

Does this not make you wonder if there is something inherent in the religions of the world that contributes to the violent nature of their followers? In a Time magazine essay entitled “Religious Wars​—A Bloody Zeal,” senior writer Lance Morrow stated: “Men who have fought in the name of religion and journalists who have observed them detect an eerie difference from more conventional warfare—​a note of retribution and atonement, a zealotry that exists outside time and immediate circumstances, an implacability that is directed from within. . . . The paradox of religion-at-war remains shocking.”

This “paradox,” or contradiction, is perhaps the strongest indictment against religion. Speaking about Christendom’s role in wars past and present, Reo Christenson, a political science professor, wrote in a recent issue of The Christian Century: “Perhaps nothing has done more to discredit Christianity than its practice of taking a stand virtually indistinguishable from that of non-Christians on the practice of war. That Christians on the one hand espouse the faith of the gentle Savior while on the other they warmly support religious or nationalistic wars has gone far toward damaging the faith and promoting the kind of cynicism about religion that has been pervasive among thinking people for centuries.”

What Do You Think?

We have examined the fruits produced by the world’s religions in just two areas​—morals and war—​and what we have seen is nothing less than shocking and disgusting. They have fallen far short of what should be expected. The same ugly kind of fruitage can be seen in many other areas​—racial prejudice, involvement in politics, dishonest commercial dealings, enslaving superstition, and so forth. Yes, religion has indeed filled the earth with rotten fruitage, all to the hurt of mankind.

Perhaps these very things have turned you away from religion. If so, you are not alone. Many people today have given up on religion on account of its bad fruitage. But is that the wise course? Is that the course that will bring the greatest satisfaction and happiness? Or is there something better? We invite you to consider the next article.

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Two examples of the bad fruitage produced by world religion: acceptance of homosexuality and involvement in war

Many Religions​—What Does It Mean to You?

PERPLEXED by the vast array of religions with their confusing dogmas, rituals and practices, and their hostility toward one another, the tendency of many is to shun all religion. Others no longer have faith because of certain personal tragedies that they feel God could have prevented. Still others, on seeing the suffering and injustices among people in the world, decide that there is no use believing in anything. And many others, influenced by evolution, turn to atheism and agnosticism. Do you identify with any of these people and how they feel about religion?

Does Disbelief Satisfy?

Though many today have turned away from religion, does their course of disbelief bring them satisfaction and happiness? Perhaps freeing oneself from the entanglement of the world’s religions does bring a measure of relief. Yet, sooner or later, one comes to realize that man has a spiritual side to him that has to be satisfied. He often wonders: ‘How did we get here? Why are we here? What is the meaning of life? What does the future hold?’

That was the experience of one-time agnostic Masao Fujimaki, who said: “From my youth on I used to think about life and death. Death seemed to me to be such a tragedy, a waste. It made any goal in life seem futile and empty.”

To fill this void, people who reject organized religion or the belief in a Creator often turn with religious passion to some substitute god. Science, politics, philosophy, and even agnosticism and atheism become their fervently held religion.

The popular scientist Carl Sagan, for example, once stated in an interview: “If you look into science you will find a sense of intricacy, depth, and exquisite beauty which, I believe, is much more powerful than the offerings of any bureaucratic religion.” Then he added: “I would not even object to saying that the sense of awe before the grandeur of nature is itself a religious experience.”

But do such ‘experiences’ really satisfy man’s spiritual needs? Fujimaki, quoted above, answered: “I became quite wrapped up in the study of electricity, feeling that the laws controlling electricity were the only things I could trust. But still something was lacking in my life. I needed to know God’s name and his purpose for me.”

Similarly, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the noted Soviet exile and author who considered himself a Marxist in his younger years, took a dim view of atheism when he said recently in an award-acceptance speech: “The entire 20th century is being sucked into the vortex of atheism and self-destruction. We can only reach with determination for the warm hand of God, which we have so rashly and self-confidently pushed away . . . There is nothing else to cling to in the landslide.” That surely does not sound as if disbelief or atheism is the answer, does it?

Finding the Way

Does this, then, mean that any religion is good as long as it fills a void and satisfies some yearnings of the soul? This, surely, would not be the case, for, as we have seen, not all religions produce the right kind of fruit even if they have an outward appearance of holiness. So, then, how does one go about finding real satisfaction among so many religions?

Abraham Lincoln, when explaining why he had never joined any religion, said: “When any church will inscribe over its altar as its sole qualifications for membership the Savior’s condensed statement of the substance of both the law and the gospel, ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself’​—that church will I join with all my heart and all my soul.”

The words quoted by Lincoln were spoken by Jesus Christ and are found in the Bible at Luke 10:27. They clearly point to love​—for God and for fellowmen—​as an identifying mark of true religion. It is no wonder that people are turned away when they see so-called Christian folks and other religious people fighting and killing one another in sanguinary wars, or pursuing and promoting immoral ways of life that bring harm to themselves and others.

On the other hand, throughout the world Jehovah’s Witnesses have become well known during this century as the people who maintain strict neutrality toward the nations’ conflicts. During World War II, hundreds of them were executed because of their refusal to compromise their Christian principles. In some countries young Witness schoolboys today know that upon graduation they face many years of imprisonment for their refusal to comply with compulsory military service. In some other countries, where education is highly regarded, schoolchildren are willing to give up graduation prospects rather than take part in martial arts training. Why? Not because they are antigovernment or antisocial, but because their love for God and for fellowmen moves them to nonparticipation in the world’s violent ways.

What about good morals in words and deeds? Some may say: ‘Aren’t there nice people in all religions?’ Yes, but such “niceness” may have very little to do with love of God, and very often it is swayed to badness in times of crisis. The words of Jesus Christ quoted above show that love of neighbor is secondary to love of God. True neighbor love must be based on, or motivated by, love of God.

Thus, besides endeavoring to live a good and moral life, Jehovah’s Witnesses demonstrate this kind of love when they volunteer their time and energy in calling from house to house to share with others something unique​—a Bible-based hope of living forever here on earth in peace and harmony with men and with God.​—Isaiah 45:18; Revelation 21:4.

The Choice Is Yours

In this series of articles we have considered several aspects of the world’s religions. On the one hand, we have seen that although there are so many religions today, they have developed from the same source of false Babylonish religion and thus are producing fruitage that is disappointing. On the other hand, we have investigated the alternatives, namely, disbelief, agnosticism and atheism, and found that these and other substitute “religions” cannot truly satisfy man’s needs.

Being confronted by this situation in world religion, what will you do? Will you be like the person described in Psalm 10:4, who “makes no search” because “all his ideas are: ‘There is no God’”? Or will you be willing to accept the invitation extended to you by Jehovah’s Witnesses and search for the true God and the religion that he approves?

Masao Fujimaki, who was torn between his faith in science and his need to know God and the purpose of life, made the choice. “When a missionary of Jehovah’s Witnesses called at my door, I readily accepted a Bible study,” he said. As the study progressed, he began to see how reliable and accurate Bible prophecies are as they undergo fulfillment. “This had a great impact on me,” he recalled, and it led him to conclude that Jehovah God and his promises are trustworthy.

Through later association with Jehovah’s Witnesses, he saw the same quality reflected among them, and he decided that he wanted to become one of them. He was baptized after studying for about one year, and he eventually became an elder in the local congregation.

He saw the situation and made the right choice. It is just as Moses told the Israelites when they camped on the Plains of Moab prepared to enter the Promised Land: “I have put life and death before you, the blessing and the malediction; and you must choose life in order that you may keep alive, you and your offspring, by loving Jehovah your God, by listening to his voice and by sticking to him.” (Deuteronomy 30:19, 20) Yes, there is a choice, and it is up to you. What will you do?

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One fruit of true religion is peace between men of all nationalities and races