What is the scope of differences between religions?

Question

We talk about christians and islami, protestants and orthodoxs... Why did each community feel the need to differentiate from other?

Answer 1

Ignorance. There are and always will be people who will use the religions for their own material benefits and than there are people who are filled with hatred. They will keep promoting these differences instead of try to bridge these differences and follow the simple rule live peacefully whatever religion you are following.

Answer 2

As far as the Christianity sects, - I've always found it kind of interesting that the groups split up like this.

The two concepts go something like this. Unity vs. autonomy and worldly-ness vs. spirituality.

So it's a big deal to the Christians that "the body of Christ is one", and that reconciling differences with 'brothers' should be done. But also, the need to worship Christ as you see fit, and purge the "fallen" brothers from your ranks is also a big deal according to the Bible. Hence the disparity between unity and autonomy. There's no easy answers here.

Along those lines, 2 groups evolved a "practical" and / or corrupt church, and the spiritual, Divine church. It's harder to distinguish who is who here, but for 2,000 years there's corruption and selfishness that can be difficult to deal with.

The Orthodox / Catholic split happened in 1054 AD., but had been brewing for centuries. The Catholic / Protestant split happened in 1517.

You're seeing it today even with the concept of homosexuals being coddled by the church. It's so explicit in the Bible about sexual deviants, that you'd have to WANT TO BE BLIND about what the un-biased reader should perceive what the Bible says. But even now, there's well-meaning folks that want to (false) love anything and everything, all in the name of (false) peace or self-esteem. And then there's others that think that the only thing to 'save' the world is a strict adherence to the word-of-God, with trust and confidence that HIS Will shall be done.

Answer 3

This is what makes religion so harmful, because it is man-made and it DIVIDES. There is good in all religions, yet people can be so dogmatic that it does more bad then good. There are MANY similiarities betwen the religions, they just overanalyze the differences and make thme seem like the right religion when there is NO right or wrong choice.

Answer 4

Honestly, I don't think there is much difference in the essential theories behind different religions. Each has its own way of defining God (or Goddess), their own creation story, their own view of life after death. I think the main reason that there are so many different religions becuase people are different and experience spirituality differently so they had to re-form religion in a way that made sense to them.

Answer 5

Someone in a church is unhappy with the philosopy or rules of the church or they interpret the Bible differently and they break off and start a church that believes the way they do. Orthodoxy goes back to the time of Christ. Then the Catholics broke off of Orthodoxy and had a Pope.

Answer 6

You need to have them seperate.
Umm, look at the potential for greed and stuff when we are under one system/
Like roman, napoleon, and hitler.
So to have seperate choices is a good thing
Or you may experience the wrath of the Inquisition look what happened there.

Answer 7

If the difference didn't matter, there would be no need for any of it. If you believe it matters, that there is a God who cares what we do with our lives, then it's natural to believe he cares what we believe about Him and how we act on that belief.

Answer 8

People like to think they are special, so they invent new religions, or sub-cults of those religions, so they can pretend to be God, or pretend they are more special to God than anyone else.


It's called arrogance, vanity & pride.