Can we judge religions?

We live in an interesting society today. People are schizophrenic when it comes to judging things. They have no trouble deciding which car to buy, which house to live in, which job to take. But if you ask them which religion is the best one, you get replies like "Who can say," "There is no way to tell," "I just picked one that resonated with me." But in the next few blogs I'd like to suggest that there are four good, careful, rational ways to select a religion.

First of all, there is such a thing as factual evidence when it comes to religions, contrary to popular opinion. Let's start with scientific evidence, an area I'll spend the rest of this blog covering. All religions have some sort of holy book. Consider the manuscript evidence available for major world religions. Only Christianity has the earliest manuscripts (closest to the originals) and the largest number of manuscripts, which allows a better way of determining what the originals said. Compare this to other religions like Buddhism, Islam, or Hinduism. Their religious documents were compiled hundreds of years after the founder, so who knows what he originally said.

Then there is archaeological evidence. Again, think of all the places and people mentioned in the New Testament. Over and over scientists have discovered the accuracy of these claims. But consider Mormonism -- this religion says there was a huge civilization in Central and North America. However, nobody has ever found a single shred of evidence to indicate that this is true. In addition, Mormons believe Native Americans are Jewish remnants, but modern scientific study using DNA has shown these people to be Asiatic.

Other scientific discoveries have shown some religions are more accurate than others. Take cosmology. Hinduism says the world has always been here, going through cyclical processes. However, in the last 100 years evidence has mounted for the Big Bang, a beginning to the universe at a particular point in time. So the cosmos is not eternal as Hinduism claims. Islam says human life starts in a clot of blood -- not true. It also claims the sun sets in a muddy pool -- again, not true. The American Psychiatric Association denounces Scientology as a quack religion. It is the Judeo-Christian belief that looks good here. Consider its reference to God creating out of nothing--sounds like the Big Bang.

We can also factually examine the history of religions. Let's start with Jehovah's Witnesses. Almost everything practiced by them before 1935 is now considered pagan-- voting, participating in war, observing holidays, smoking, believing Jesus died on a cross. Scientology has a history of indictments of its top officials. Mormonism has seen its Book of Mormon go through many changes although Joseph Smith claimed it was the most perfect book ever written. Islam got its start through bloodshed and warfare. Today, it is the fundamental, true believer in Islam who creates all the problems of terrorism because this individual is staying true to the original aims of his religion. How does Christianity do in this area? Much better than the others. It started as a small group proclaiming a resurrected Jesus in the very city in which he was put to death, which tells me something amazing must have happened for them to be able to make that claim where it would have been easy to prove it false. Christianity spread due to the compassion that it showed to women, children, the poor, those on the lower rungs of society.

I want to continue this in future blogs, but I'll stop here and give you something to think about. Keep in mind that I'm going through a lot of information very quickly, but you can verify all that I have said here if you are curious about this topic. Next time I'll look at the founders of religions to see if we can judge between them.