How to determine which religion is the correct one

There are about 4,300 religions in the world. Is there one right one? Are several right, or all of them? 

Or none of them?

Is there a way to reason out which ones have a core of truth, and which ones are complete hokum?

Perhaps you think that I’m making an unfair assumption; that in our current politically correct world, no religion should be dismissed out-of-hand, but consider a couple examples:

•  Reliable sources have quoted L. Ron Hubbard, a starving science fiction writer trying to live on the penny-a-word his publisher paid, as saying, back in the late 1940s, “The way to make a million dollars is to start a religion.” Shortly thereafter he started Dianetics and the Church of Scientology.
• Rastafarianism was born in the 1930s in Jamaica when a black political activist, Marcus Garvey, told his audience to watch Africa for a black king to come to power. He would be their redeemer. Shortly thereafter, Haile Selassie was crowned emperor of Ethiopia, and Garvey’s followers hailed him as the returned Messiah, the ‘Lion of the tribe of Judah’ foretold in the Bible. They claimed he would never die, and that he would lead black people to superiority over their white oppressors. Selassie was embarrassed by the claim. He died in 1975, but the religion lives on.

How long would it take you to study one religion in order to know if it was the right one? A week? A month? A Year? You aren’t going to live long enough to spend one year, or even one month, studying each religion. Even if you only spent a week on each one, 4,300 weeks would equal your whole life. There have to be shortcuts. Let's see if we can find some: 

• There are more than a dozen real religions that have their basis in UFO sightings – from Scientology to Heaven’s Gate to the Order of the Solar Temple to Ashtar Galactic Command. I believe we can safely subtract those from the 4,300.
• There are at least 5 major Satanic religions. I’m subtracting those – if Satan exists, he is the antithesis of God, so why would I want to worship him? And if he doesn’t exist... why would I want to worship him?
• Let’s eliminate religions that have come along recently.  By that I don’t mean when their current organization was set up. I’m talking about the teachings their religion is founded on. Scientology was founded on some principles written on a bar napkin. Mormonism is founded on some supposed gold plates that didn’t come to light until the 1830s. Wouldn’t God, if He exists, have taught humankind from the beginning or nearly the beginning of human life how to have a beneficial relationship with Him? Wouldn’t such guidelines have been written down, and wouldn’t such writings have 1., substantial proof of age, 2., widespread availability? That eliminates pretty much all the neo-pagan and New Age religions.
• Can we safely rule out any religion that glorifies a particular individual? No one is so great, so above the rest of us that he deserves adoration. That rules out the cults that formed around Jim Jones, David Koresh, Bagwan Rajneesh, Sun Myung Moon, and Marshall Applewhite. It should also eliminate religions that claim virtual divinity for individuals like Muhammad. Ellen G. White, one of the founders of modern Seventh Day Adventists, is almost revered by some adherents. Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, claimed to be inspired, and his followers seem to agree with the claim. The philosopher Siddhartha Gautama came to be known as the Buddha, a title that implies he had reached perfection. By the same rule, it could also virtually relegate to ‘cult’ status those churches of Christianity that worship Jesus. I’ve studied the Bible exhaustively, and nowhere does Jesus ask anyone to worship him. There are, in fact, several accounts where he deflects worship aimed at himself. His consistent message to his followers was to worship only God. (John 4:23; John 5:24)
• Can we also assume that God doesn’t need your money? Therefore, any religion that spends a significant amount of its time and energy asking for your money is a scam. That eliminates the three richest religions – Catholicism, Islam and Hinduism. It also deletes the Buddhists. One of their primary doctrines is that monks should spend all their time begging for money. And, of course, it also exposes all those TV preachers with their private jets and super cars.

What about religions whose practices contradict their own messages? With some religions you can recognize the lies and contradictions within minutes. Here are a couple obvious examples:

• Some sects of Islam foment terrorism, killing – in the name of “Allah the Merciful” –  any ‘infidels’ who don’t share their beliefs. If Allah is real, and if he is really offended by some humans, wouldn’t he be able to do his own killing?
• The Catholic Church has been claiming to be God’s representative on Earth for over 1,600 years. For most of that period they have claimed that the pope and, depending on the point in history, the cardinals and bishops, were infallible. Yet if you read their history, it is jam-packed with evil people doing evil deeds.

While their defense is that there are always going to be sinful men, how do they explain shuffling those evil men to other parts of the world to avoid prosecution?  Shouldn’t the Catholic Church have excommunicated:

• The thousands of priests who, over the centuries, molested so many hundreds of thousands of children?
• The hundreds of nuns who enslaved and tortured thousands of women who got pregnant out of wedlock?
• The thousands of nuns, priests, monks and schoolteachers who ripped indigenous children from their homes and abused them to death in Catholic boarding schools?

If such practices were declared from the pulpit as part of their religion, common sense would tell us they are not the true religion. The fact that those practices directly contradict the book they claim their religion represents, the Bible, proves that the religion should be avoided.

Following all these shortcuts might cut that 4,300 number down to 3,000, 2,000, or even 1,000. But that is still too many for a person to reasonably investigate in a lifetime.

What is the solution?

Well, if there is one true God, wouldn't He have the ability to reach out to you? What could happen if you prayed to Him, in sincerity, asking for His direction?

Don't trust 'a feeling'. Don't expect to hear a voice in your head. Lily Tomlin famously cracked: "When we talk to God, that's called prayer. When God talks to us, that's called schizophrenia."

But if you get a letter with a religious message, read it, reason on it, and investigate it before you discard it. Is it asking you for money? Throw it out. Is it trying to scare you with claims of hellfire and eternal damnation? Can't imagine God works that way. Is it an invitation to some church claiming they have a great, charismatic pastor and that you can come as you are? Toss it.

But if it is a positive message, with a suggestion that you do your own research to learn more, what do you have to lose by learning more? Likewise if you get a phone call, or a person knocking on your door, wanting to talk to you about a spiritual subject, what does it hurt to hear them out? You don’t need to attack them or cut them off. Converse with them. If they are wrong, you’ll be able discern that. Listening to them won’t hurt you, as long as you do your own research.

It might just be God trying to reach out to you. 

Bill K. Underwood is a columnist and author of three Bible-friendly novels and the non-fiction book “99 Ways to Fire Your Boss”, all available at Amazon.com.