[AssinHT]

Originally posted by Traianvs
Now you're simply clouding the issue by asserting it's too complicated a question. Finding the fundamentals of life sure is a difficult question, but why then can religions be found all over the world with different answers?

The manner by which people search for that deity is affected by the environment, culture and other socio-economic factors indeed. But what I think Gepap meant is that the manner and material aspects of those different religions don't matter, because they're just the tools to search of the absolute answers. In the end the answer should be a universal one. However, reality shows us that every religion proclaims its own fundamental truths.

So why is that? Is one religion wrong, or are they all right perhaps? Are they all merely different manifestations of that truth, that 'God'? If so, then why do they hold different views on those most basic, fundamental things about life?

I believe this is simply because it's a socio-cultural construct. It's a philosophy (for example the Greek pre-socratici) with a spoonful of faith, which makes it internally a logic explanation. But, because it's man-made the explanation differs all over the world.

Simple enough. EDIT: Had to go get a shower before the hot water died, and posted hastily. More thought-out version:

Has it occurred to you that theology is necessarily subjective? You can't exactly rectally probe the Almighty and take measurements. And all subjective insights are necessarily colored by past experience and cultural upbringing. With that fairly major proviso, however, you'll find that most religious traditions are fairly similar once they mature past a certain point. There's a regular progression from vague pantheism to paganism to structured polytheism, and from polytheism to at least a functional monotheism. Even in the deliberately-primitive neo-pagan faiths like Wicca there's some guff to that effect.

And the end product is similar, especially in the more mystical strands; a Sufi, a Zen monk and a Russian starets will give you more or less the same advice on any matter. Now, that's probably because the mystical sects focus a lot on the psychosomatic stuff, interaction between bodily and mental discipline, which is more empirical than plain theological speculation. But it's still interesting IMO.

Exceptions include religions more inclined to the philosophical than the supernatural (Theravada Buddhism, probably others), and Confucianism, which was established with the express intent of imposing societal order, religious truth being basically irrelevant. Oh, and Scientology--for obvious reasons--and young religions that are still working things through.

Look at psychology: even today, there are several wildly distinct schools of thought in it. There are Behaviorists, Humanists, Psychoanalysts, Psychodynamics, Cognitive-Behaviorists, and a whole lot of others (asked my psych-prof mom for a list, was overwhelmed). And there are people who claim it's not a real science because it doesn't have precise formulae like physics or chemistry. The real reason for all the fuzz is that it's the study of something which can only be observed in the most indirect fashion, and different perspectives produce different results. Also some of those schools are closer to philosophies than sciences IMO, probably as a result of that indirectness and its partial overlap with the duties of religion and philosophy.

Now, unlike religion it's still quite young, and technological progress is making it possible to study the brain's workings more directly. The analogy is far from perfect, I admit.