Life's Second Question: Who Or What Is God? Part II - How To Ensure Admittance To Heaven

    If there is indeed a God who is involved in the affairs of man, we must conclude that (since he is involved) he has established some communicative means of expressing to humankind his existence and his will.  In most if not all religions, this means is through a document or set of writings.  The writings of each religion clearly identify who God is, what He is like, and what His desire is for man.  But which one is correct?

• A very pervasive belief of this age is that all religions basically teach the same thing, and therefore all are equally valid, and all equally speak the truth.

This simply cannot be the case.

1. In the teachings of the Jewish religion, a Messiah is prophesied to come and sit on the physical throne of David to liberate God's people of the literal, temporal oppressions they suffer at the hands of other nations.  This is not supported by Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, or any other major religion, yet it is the crux of the Jewish faith.
2. In the teachings of the Christian Bible, Jesus is quoted as saying, "I am the door...no man cometh unto the father but by me."  This precludes every other religion, major or minor, from doctrinal compatibility with Christianity as the whole of the religion is predicated upon the premise that cohabitation with God is unobtainable without Jesus.
3. The Qur'an details that the angel Gabriel, sent from God, visited the prophet Muhammad and recited to him the teachings of the Qur'an.  This is why Muhammad is the greatest prophet of Islam.  As non-Muhammadan historians and religionists consider Muhammad abusive of women and a murderer of men, it is hardly conceivable that any other religion could deem him inspired of God.  This is not to cast a blemish upon the character of Muhammad, but rather to illustrate the discontinuity of other religions with this one.
4. Though the Good Book (of Buddhism) teaches of spirit and a supreme existence, it is considered today (by its followers and theologians) an atheistic religion.  Needless to say, no other major religion could bear such a contradiction to its own teachings.

So we must conclude that it is impossible to reconcile the religions of Earth as being all simultaneously true.  Most or all are wrong.

How then can we know which is right?

  We must first assume the following about God:  If He truly cares for mankind equally, as all religions assert, he would have designed the path to Heaven (i.e. His will for man) to be obtained by the most brutish and simple minded.  So, in order to understand it, we must cast off the ornamentation of earthly intelligence and think in simple, child-like terms.

• Q: Who goes to Heaven, and who goes to Hell?

                  A: The good people go to Heaven, and the bad people go to Hell.

• Q: What makes you good, and what makes you bad?

                  A: Sin makes you bad, and not sinning makes you good.

    If this is true, then the religion that makes you sin the least is the highest (holiest) way, and therefore closest to God, and therefore the one offering the correct depiction of God.

          So which religion causes people to sin the least?
For this answer, we must examine their books.  

• The Torah: This teaches us to make atonement for sins, since complete abandonment is not carnally possible.
• The Qur'an: Also frowning on sin, it does not hold a higher standard than that of the book of Jewish law
• The Bible: Does the Bible require men to commit no sin?  The shocking answer is yes!

    Though 99% of ALL Christians would refute it, the evidence is so overwhelming so as nearly to become proof that the Bible teaches that men should give up their sins never to commit them again.  This makes a difficult point:  that logically, the Bible holds the highest standard and is therefore correct, but that Christianity is not fulfilling its own Book's teachings, thereby condemning itself.

The following Biblical references all call for immediate cessation of sin:

• II Timothy 2:19
• I John 3:6, 8, and 9
• Romans 6:1 and 12
• John 8:11

    There are several passages of the Bible misused to condone sin, among them Romans 7 where the apostle Paul speaks of sin saying, "...the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.  For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I."

    Contextually it is exceedingly clear (especially within the context of the preceding and subsequent chapters) that he is not here speaking of himself and his present condition, but that he was assuming the persona of a carnal man for the purposes of his topic.  Paul was, at that point of his life, no longer sold under sin and did not that which he hated.

 Other scriptures are used as well but will not be referenced here.

     In an effort not to elongate prolixity, I will merely state that the Bible does hold the "holiest" standard for man to live up to and is therefore the surest means of achieving Heaven and understanding what parts of the nature of God we can.
             It is a fearful thing to delve into the depths of the science of God.