Like many people, at some point of time, had to make a concious decision, on questioning our own faith, and decide why we follow it. Blind faith without reasoning is stupid - thats how I see it. So I went searching around, trying to understand the various religions in the world, and try to reason with their teachings. By asking several questions, all of the religion that i've looked at, based on what being practised by their curent followers, passed some and failed some of the criterias (including conventional Islam). Then I decided to re-read the Quran translations, but this time around, several of the terms that was left remaining as Arabic in many translation, I tried to read it in the least bias as possible, ignoring what the current followers believed in. and that experience, led me to come to the conclusion that God have assigned a "Way" to human to live their lives. However, human themselves, altered this "Way" - through appending myths, and manmade doctrines and created "Religions" out of it.
This "Way" is something like an expected pattern which a particular creation should behave and react. I believe that God, have created all creations in heaven and earth. To each of His creations, He assigned a particular "Way" or Law or Rule to each of His creation to follow. Nature is assigned with (what we call) Physics laws. Animals are given their own pattern of behaviour. Chemicals are assigned with their reaction / chemical properties. etc etc. These creations, follow their prescribed "Way" willingly and did not go against it - because they have no free will to refuse.
The core message of The "Way" assigned to humans is that "Believe that GOD is One God, He does not beget, neither was begotten and worship Him, and Him alone and do not worship His creations.". Allongside this core message, there are are also moral codes, laws, and ways on how men should live, manage their their life and community on planet Earth.
Mankind, is a creation that have a little bit extra than the other creations. We are given free will to choose whether to accept or refuse. We have the ability to think and decide on our path. This free will is a gift , and also a test from God to mankind. The very first human couple, Adam and Eve, was commanded to not eat from the Forbidden Tree. If they are other creations, they will obey God unconditionally. However, Adam and Eve, as they have free will, disobeyed the command, and ate from the tree. They incurred God's wrath, but repented and God accepted their repentance. However God have other plans to mankind, they are sent to earth, to be the vicegerent of this planet.
So Adam and Eve arrived on earth, and started to live their life here. They created offsprings, and continue breeding of mankind. During this period of time, theres no such thing as "religion". There was only a particular rule/laws which God prescribed to Adam and his family, and each of them follow the rule - a "Way". However, after several generations, the "way" is forgotten due to mankind errors. During the early generations, some created statues of the elders as a sign of respect to the elders, however, after several generations, some ended up worshipping these elder statues, as they believed it'll help to relay their requests to God. This is when God started selecting and assigning prophets to fix this error. The prophets brought teachings and scriptures to guide mankind back to the "Way" of God - to worship Him alone and not through intermediate/idols. The prophets also teaches mankind righteousness and things that they have yet to know. Some people rejected them, some followed them.
Those who follow the prophets or a particular prophet, after a period of time, starts to find a way to associate themselves with each other, this is when the concept of "religion" started to be born. From this associations, leaders are chosen among themselves to lead the group. However, some groups, probably due to self-desire or being too imaginative, started appending myths and doctrines to the "Way" and these cocktail eventually evolve to what we now see as organized religions.
Abraham, he grew up in a society where its religion is to worship idols. He being a man who reason through observation of his surroundings, conciously question on the religion of his own people. He , in the end, concluded that these idols, would not be gods, as they are too are created. A true God would not have the need to be created, as He created everything. Idols are different across different groups of people, and Abraham realised that, if these idols, are really gods, the different group of people would have been a totally different species altogether, and the world, would be in chaos as the gods might fight each other for control. He then come to the final conclusion - by himself - that God is One, and God created everything, and he chooses to submit to this Creator, Lord of the Worlds. This concious decision without external interference is what made Abraham honoured by God in the Torah, Gospels and Quran. Abraham was a man of pure faith, who was not idolaters, and he submits to God, and God alone. He was then later assigned as a prophet and messenger of God, and from his bloodline, many were assigned as prophets and messengers.
While Abraham bloodline is put in high honour, there are still prophets and messengers assigned in other races in the world. As God is Just and Most Loving. He guides everyone in the whole worlds to His path. He would not forsaken these other races to focus only on Abraham bloodline. If He do focus only on Abraham bloodline, that would be unjust and cruel for Him as that mean He have discriminated other races and nations in the world, leaving these nations to worship something apart from Him, punish them for that, while on the same time, not doing anything to reveal the truth to these nations. So, these nations too are assigned prophets and messengers of their own to guide to the "Way". However, like the previous nations, many rejected the prophets, and some followed. Those who followed however, after a long period of time, started to add stuff into the teachings of their prophets, and ended up creating "religions". Some of these religions remained pure in their core concept of God, some ended up worshipping His creations (idols, or something that created by God, such as, a person, heroes, saints). To the religion followers that are considered as 'believers', God sent prophets and messengers to bear good news to them. As for religions which its followers worships something apart from God, He sent prophets and messengers to guide these people back to the "Way" - an action which shows His Mercy and Love towards all of His creations. He does not only Love the bloodline of Abraham, not only Love the bloodline of Israel (Jacob), not only Love the bloodline of Ishmael, He love the whole mankind in all part of the world, including the unbelievers. To the unbelievers, He loves them, so He sent prophets and messengers to them to lead them back to the "Way". But sadly, they rejected the message. And God, being also Most Justful, will punish them. If these unbelievers were not punished accordingly, it is unjustful to those who have tried hard to serve God and His "Way". Of course, He have all the power to strip mankind from their freewill and make mankind follow His command without questioning. But He wished that not.
Do note here, that Abraham was neither a Jew, nor a Christian, not an Arab. The Jews are Children of Israel , (where Israel = Jacob). The term Jew comes from Judah, which is one of Israel's children, and also a name of an area at Palestine, so Jews means "people from Judah". Christians are originally people of Nazareeth who follow the Messiah (the Christ). In Quran, the Christians are referred as "Nasrani" - which probably derived from "people of Nazareeth", and Jews are referred as "Yahudi" - which probably derived from "people of Yahud (Judah)" - the origin place of the 2 religions. Arab people in the other hand are descendants of Ishmael.
Eventhough Abraham was a man of pure faith, his descendants does not remain like him. The Children of Israel kept straying from the "Way" of God - fighting each other, indulged by greed, opressing weaker people, some even turn to idolatry. Which led to the assignment of Moses, and other later prophets who upheld Moses teachings. Jesus too, upheld the Torah. Jesus condemn many other rabbis due to their greed and opression of weaker people. Which led him to be hated by the many rabbis. He was assigned to stop this oppression of the rabbi and their manipulation of the Torah for their own gain. Jesus also assigned as The Messiah, the figure who will return back in the end of time, to bring everyone back to the worship of One God - the saviour of mankind from the Anti-Christ.
The rabbis that hated Jesus, plotted to kill Jesus through crucifixion. As during those time, crucifixion is the worst and most humiliating way of dying. They rejected the prophethood of Jesus and his role as The Messiah. To them, if Jesus was killed on the crucifix, it prooves that Jesus would not be The Messiah, because if The Messiah have died, theres no way for him to return at the end of time, to fight the anti-christ - because he have died. However, God intervene with their plan, and saved Jesus. Jesus later came back to his followers, to bid farewell. God then raised Jesus to heaven, and will return him back later when the End of Time nearing to come.
While the Children of Israel been frequently reminded of the worship of One God by the many prophets assigned to them, the Children of Ismael (Arabs) slowly drifted away from the "Way" of God. The Arabs became quite similar to what Hinduist are today - Monotheistic Polytheism. They believe in one Highest God (which they call Allah), but also believe in the many forms of God - which are their idols. They even assigned daughters to the Highest God. Muhammad - a direct descendant of Ishmael, was assigned to these people, to bring back them to the "Way" of God. While Jesus is the Messiah, Muhammad is the Seal of The Prophets. Both of them are great men, Prophets of The AlMighty, and both of them are assigned with a large task each.
Jesus, is assigned as the savior of mankind during the end of time. To prove his prophethood and that he is The Messiah, he was born of a virgin, and was given the gift to be able to speak during an infant. He was also given many visual miracles such as creating a living bird out of clay, healing, etc. This is to remind people, that the End of Time is near, and The Messiah have been born. The Messiah later was raised to heaven to wait for his final task. Muhammad in the other hand, unlike the previous prophets, who were sent to their own people, Muhammad was assigned to spread the message that God is One to the whole world. To fulfill this task, God gave Muhammad a bit different gift , an audio gift. The Recitation (Quran). The reason behind it that visual gifts would only last for several generations as afterward, people will start dismissing the gift/miracle as fairy tales. While an audio gift which is spreaded through letter-by-letter transmission is hard to be dismissed. What the Arabs heard from the prophet mouth during revelation, is exactly what we heard from a reciter mouth. This ensure unchanged continuation of the message. Some part of the message sent through Muhammad is to tell the the Christians to not say 'Trinity', but to say God is Absolute One. As the Quran is transmitted verbatim, its up is up to man to listen, and think of the message.
Then we look at the second lineage of religion , which are the Vedic religions -> Hinduism and Buddhism. While not many information left about the oldest scriptures of Hinduism, (oldest, as in the one existed during the time Hinduism started), Hinduism is a Monotheistic Polytheism, similar to the religion of the Children of Ismael before the assignment of Muhammad. They believe in One Highest God (they call Brahman), but they also believe on the millions of incarnation of God on earth. While the Christians view God as 3 in 1, the Hindust view God as 3million in 1. They believe that the idols they worship are one with the One God. What happened to them that made them to become polytheist are unknown, only God knows. Based on details on some historical texts regarding Gautama, theres a probability that Gautama preaches on the worship of Brahman, and only Brahman. However, most that left of the teachings of Gautama nowadays are mainly the wisdom, philosophies taught by him.
Another worthy look is Zoroastrianism. If you read about their belief, they believe that God is the Supreme Intelligence (Ahura Mazda). And theres only One God. They also believe in Prophets and Messengers, with their most respected Prophet is Zarathushtra. They believe that God sent prophets to guide people to the path of God, and also believe on Angels of God. If you look again, it bears a striking resemblance with Judaism, Islam, and contents of the Gospels. These people does not belong to the bloodline of Abraham, they existed way before Abraham, yet the teachings of Zoroastrianism, is very very similar to the teachings of the Abrahamic religions. While the sacred rites assigned to the Jews and Christians are to honour the Sabbath, and the sacred ritres of the Muslims are to worship God five times a day, the sacred rites of the Zoroastrians are to keep the Sacred Fire alive, through feeding it five times a day.
The natives in Africa, even with their least exposure to civilization, and the nonexistent of organized religions in their area, have a very solid belief that God is Absolute One since long ago.
In all of these religions, there is something common across them. The core is that "God is One, theres no other like Him". All these religions worship God on a certain sacred rites. All of these religions believe that after death, there will be another life (Hinduism/Buddhism have a slightly different view of life-after-death, instead of on another world, their belief is life-after-death is on this current world, through reincarnation). All these religions also believe in some sort of prophet/messenger/holy person who teaches the religion. All these religions also have a moral code that quite similar to the 10 Commandments. The difference of these religions are mainly the 'decorations' that surrounds it, stories, myths and certain teachings which probably was added later not by the origin of the religion, but by later followers.
This claim of manipulation of religion for personal gain is not far from reality as its still happning even today. The easiest example I could give of this happening can be seen in the current Islamic world. If you look around and compare, you will notice that there are groups of people who manipulates Islam for their own benefit - the mullahs, militant terrorists, and if in my country, some political parties. Just that the difference is, the Quran is there unchanged, those who are noticing this corruption by leaders and groups, can always turn back to the Quran for guidance. There are many sects of Islam - the major three are Sunnis, Shiites, and Sufism, and each of them have differring opinions and teachings than the other - created by human addition and opinions. These human additions, is what made the people of the sects fighting each other. While the differring sects of Christianity have different set of books accepted as Bibles (Protestants bible have less books), the differring sects of Islam, the Quran is still same between us - no changes. No removal nor addition to it, not even a letter. So, it remain a reliable source to learn about the true message of God, as it was not biased to sects. And if you read the teachings of the Quran and compare with the actions of the terrorist, you will notice that, they are not doing what the Quran teaches. Theres a quote I like from a scholar : "Don't look at Muslims, look at the teachings of Islam.", I totally agreed with him as when I look at the Muslims, I saw a "religion", but when I looked at the contents of the Quran, instead of seeing a religion, I saw a generic "Way". And I came to the conclusion, God sent a "Way" for mankind, but after a period, due to human addition and alteration, the "Way" became a "religion".
Now, God is All Justful, All Loving, All Merciful. Then if God is All Justful, All Loving, All Merciful, then a "Way" revealed by Him should also support this claim. Now, if you look at all religions, they are mainly originated from a particular location and spread out. However, none of these religions able to spread out throughout the whole world immediately, in short time. If theres only one of these religion are true, then that would be unjust of the god of that religion ignore/punish the people of the people on the sides of the world for something that they does not know of. Also, what will happen to people who died before the existence of the religion? would it be Loving and Just for God to punish these people?. If everyone was born into sin, what will happen to babies who died before learning about any religion?. Would it be Just and Loving for God to punish these innocent children?. If we go further, a bit into science fiction, if theres other intelligence species in other earths, would it be Just and Loving for God to only show Himself the species of this earth?. If God able to do anything He wishes, why would theres a need to sacrifice for Him to forgive a person? - as that would mean theres something that He can't do or refused to do without being offered sacrifice of something, would it be Just and Loving for God to reject the repentance of these people - especially those who could not offer any sacrifice??. If men should go through someone or something else to ask the forgiveness of God (eg: idols, priests, rabbi, holyperson, mullah, etc), would it be Just and Loving of God towards those who never met these idols/priests/rabbi/etc and would it be All Powerful of God to require someone else to relay a message to Him where He supposedly is All-Hearing??. If only believing in God is enough to attain paradise, would it be Just for God to not punish evildoers who believe in God, while the good-doers tried hard to serve the path of God through doing good deeds??. If only followers of Islam (or any religion) are able to attain paradise, would it be Just and Loving to the good-doers who does not know about the message of God to end up in hell??
I myself was surpised on the answers I found from reading the Quran regarding the questions above.
Of course, mainstream followers of Abrahamic religions might or might disagree with my views. And Its totally up to them whether to accept this view or not, as from what I have learned from questioning myself, my own religion, and looking at other religions, I came into conclusion, as long as they believe that God is Absolute One, God will judge them accordingly, Justfully with Love and Mercy. We will be rewarded for the good deeds we've done and will be punished for the bad deeds we've done. He will judge us by what we differed on. But in the end, to those who have even the slightest believe in in the One God, after the punishment have been executed fully, by God's Love and Mercy, He will return them who have been punished to paradise. This is what I believe the true path of salvation brought by the prophets of God - to believe that God is One and Only. But simply believe would not save us from the fire of hell, unless we do good deeds. The believe will only guarantee that God will never forsake us and will judge us accordingly, and if we do evil deeds, we will be punished for our actions, but after the punishment have been fully executed, we will be released. Theres only one type of people who will be punished in hell eternally - which are those who refused to believe in God, those who does not even slightly believe in God. The Polytheist too, if they have slight belief that God is One, will be judged accordingly, but unlike those who believe that God is Absolutely One, they will be punished for the sin of taking something else as object of worship besides God - which is the second worst of all punishment.
Surely He is God, The One and Only, The Most Justful, Most Loving, Most Merciful, The AlMighty, The Creator of All, The Lord of the Worlds.
May Peace be unto you
