Aren’t All Religions Basically The Same?

these are the notes from a mes­sage Glen Davis shared at Chi Alpha May 6th, 2003

The point of an open mind, like hav­ing an open mouth, is to close it on some­thing solid. G. K. Chesterton

Here’s one of my favorite poems: Creed, by Steve Turner. You might want to print this one off and hang it on your door–I bet it’ll get a response from your dor­m­mates!

We believe in Marxfreudand­dar­win.
We believe every­thing is OK

to the best of your def­i­n­i­tion of hurt,
and to the best of your knowledge.

We believe in sex before, dur­ing, and
after mar­riage.
We believe in the ther­apy of sin.
We believe that adul­tery is fun.

We believe that taboos are taboo.


despite evi­dence to the con­trary.
The evi­dence must be inves­ti­gated
And you can prove any­thing with evidence.


UFOs and bent spoons;
Jesus was a good man just like Bud­dha,
Mohammed, and our­selves.
He was a good moral teacher although we think
His good morals were bad.



They all believe in love and good­ness.
They only dif­fer on mat­ters of cre­ation,
sin, heaven, hell, God, and salvation.

We believe that after death comes the Noth­ing
Because when you ask the dead what hap­pens
they say noth­ing.

com­pul­sory heaven for all
except­ing per­haps
Hitler, Stalin, and Ghengis Khan.

We believe in Mas­ters and John­son.


We believe in total dis­ar­ma­ment,
We believe there are direct links between war­fare and
blood­shed.
Amer­i­cans should beat their guns into trac­tors
and the Rus­sians would be sure to follow.

We believe that man is essen­tially good,

This is the fault of soci­ety,
Soci­ety is the fault of con­di­tions.
Con­di­tions are the fault of society.

We believe that each man must find the truth that
is right for him.
Real­ity will adapt accord­ingly.
The uni­verse will read­just.
His­tory will alter.
We believe that there is no absolute truth
except­ing the truth
that there is no absolute truth.

We believe in the rejec­tion of creeds,
and the flow­er­ing of indi­vid­ual thought.

Aren’t all reli­gions basi­cally the same? I’ll give you a hint: the answer begins with an ‘n’ and ends with an ‘o’ (and it’s not ‘nacho’). Let’s take a look at four unpop­u­lar truths.

Unpop­u­lar Truth #1: Reli­gions Are Super­fi­cially Alike But Deeply Dif­fer­ent

Unpop­u­lar Truth #2: Sin­cer­ity, While Com­mend­able, Is Not The Lit­mus Test for Truth

Unpop­u­lar Truth #4: Dif­fer­ences Make a Dif­fer­ence
Beliefs drive behav­ior, and con­vic­tions shape char­ac­ter. What we think deter­mines how we act, and so acquir­ing right beliefs is one of the most impor­tant chal­lenges we face as humans.

Unpop­u­lar Truth #4: Jesus Is Unique

The point of an open mind, like hav­ing an open mouth, is to close it on some­thing solid. G. K. Chesterton