Well, it's because different religions are different answers to the biggest questions of life.

So that's why people care so much about this.

Question one, is there a God, and if so, how many?

Some people don't believe in any gods or any kind of spirituality at all. These people are called atheists.

Atheists don't necessarily believe God doesn't exist; some of them simply lack of a belief that God does exist.

So some are more agnostic about it.

But generally, atheists think we don't have any reason to believe in anything beyond the material universe.

But some people who don't believe in God still believe in some kind of spirituality.

And according to Buddhists, that spirituality should involve denying yourself.

Here's why.

Buddhism does not teach that Buddha was a God nor did Buddha teach about any gods,

but Buddha did teach about the ultimate red pill, which is that life is basically just suffering.

At the root of suffering is desire.

Those are the four noble truths.

Number one, life sucks.

Number two, life sucks because you want stuff.

Three, if you stop wanting stuff, then your life won't suck.

Number four, there's a path you can take to not want stuff anymore.

It's simple, really.

The more you desire something, the more disappointed you're gonna be when you don't get it.

For example, the more you like a pretty girl, the more disappointed you're gonna be when she rejects you and she will.

The more you love money, the more disappointed you're gonna be when the economy crashes and it will.

You gotta stop being so attached to all these worldly pleasures, so you need to break that attachment by denying yourself.

And then you can be spiritually free.

Life is a cycle of pain.

But if you eliminate your desire, you can free yourself from the entire cycle and achieve nirvana, which is true spiritual bliss.

Now, some people want spiritual freedom but do not want to deny themselves.

This kind of spirituality isn't about self denial at all.

It's about the opposite, self-affirmation.

It doesn't like the submission involved in traditional religion, but still wants to have the spiritual meaning that traditional religion can provide.

It's about the freedom to pave your own spiritual path.

So because it's all about spiritual libertarianism, it's not an organized religion, but it's a decentralized set of practices that are becoming increasingly popular among Westerners, particularly women.

Now, some people believe in many gods like some pagans and Hindus.

The difference is that Hindus believe in reincarnation.

Pagans are usually polytheists, which means they believe in many gods.

The gods usually represent forces in nature, the sun, there's a God for that, the moon, there's a God for that, the sky, there's a God for that, the sea, there's a God for that.

Your crops, there's a God for that.

So because there's a God for every area of life, if you want to succeed in a certain area of life, you need to win the faith of that particular God.

And often different cultures have different versions of the same gods.

Another thing is the gods of paganism are a lot more anthropomorphic or humanlike than they are in other religions.

The gods are a lot more powerful than humans, but they're still both finite.

They're not all powerful, just like humans.

Gods will fight each other, get drunk, reproduce and make mistakes.

Ok. Now, do Hindus also believe in many gods?

Well, it's kind of complicated because there are indeed many gods in Hinduism, but they're all part of the same ultimate reality.

Hindus believe that the one ultimate reality encompasses everything, but it's received in many different ways.

They believe there can be many incarnations of God or the gods.

And that's why it's okay to worship idols because the divine expresses itself through the physical.

This is why Hinduism has a more pluralistic approach.

Instead of having a strict canon of what you must believe the way some religions do, Hinduism is more like a buffet where you can choose to believe what best suits you because God can be received in different ways.

Hinduism also believes that reality is a cycle.

So that's why they believe in karma and reincarnation.

They believe there's a hierarchy of life forms.

And if you earn bad Karma in this life, you'll move down the hierarchy in the next life, there's also a hierarchy of people.

And if you earn good Karma in this life, you can move up the hierarchy in the next life.

So you could say Hindus are monotheist.

The difference is they believe God is one with the universe rather than separate from it, which is similar to how Sikhs think of God.

The difference is that Hindus worship idols and Sikhs do not.

Sikhism strictly only believes in one God, but not in the way that Western religions do because Western religions see God as something outside and external to the universe.

Whereas Sikhism would agree with Hinduism that God is one with the world.

But unlike Hinduism, they do not think that that means we can worship idols.

They see God as kind of an unknowable mystery.

But they also believe that the Gurus have been enlightened to teach us how to serve God.

And that includes working for equality and justice.

Western religions, on the other hand, do see God as separate from the universe.

And deists don't even think God interacts with the universe at all.

According to Deism, God is outside the universe and he sort of set the universe in motion but doesn't actually intervene in the natural course of events.

So Deism often compares God to a sort of clock maker for the universe.

Why do they believe this?

Well, deists think that from reason alone, we can figure out that God exists.

But when it comes to divine revelation or so for natural miracles, then they're a lot more skeptical.

So God exists but doesn't really care.

But the abrahamic religions believe God does care and he does interact with the universe.

Ok. So how exactly did he do that?

Did God become human in Jesus?

And if not, is Jesus still the Messiah? Judaism doesn't think so.

Judaism is about God's relationship with the Jewish people.

They believe they're God's chosen people, chosen by God to bless the world by helping people live rightly.

And they believe God gave them the Torah to help them accomplish that.

Ok. How strictly do they follow the Torah?

Well, it depends on who you ask some. Jews follow the Torah really strictly.

Some of them follow it kind of strictly and some of them don't follow it strictly at all.

They also believe in the coming of the Messiah, a Jewish superhero who's going to fix the whole world.

The reason they don't believe Jesus was Messiah is because the world apparently hasn't been fixed yet, but they still believe it's their job to start fixing the world in preparation for when the Messiah does arrive.

Now, Islam actually does believe Jesus was the messiah, but still strictly not God.

They believe he was a prophet, specifically a prophet of Islam because they believe the same God gave different revelations to different prophets over the years.

But these revelations gradually got corrupted.

So God gave the final and perfect revelation to Muhammad in the Koran.

They see Islam as the fulfillment of Christianity and Judaism.

So they do believe Jesus was a very important prophet.

They believe he was the promised messiah.

And they even believe he was born to a virgin, but they do not believe he was God and they do not believe he rose from the dead.

They believe that he didn't even die.

God just made it appear that way.

Muslims believe that the Koran is the direct word of God.

It's flawless, it's eternal and it's been perfectly preserved.

And it also says how to submit to God.

And that's very important because the meaning of Islam is to submit.

God is ruler of the entire universe and all humans are called to submit to God.

And eventually, God is gonna reward those who do good and punish those who do evil.

And if you want to know how to do good by submitting to God, there's five big ways to do so.

The biggest focus of Islam is the fact that there is only one God.

There is nothing like God and God is so pure and so far above the universe that God couldn't possibly become human.

Christianity is very different, however, because it teaches God did become human.

Christianity is all about Christ. Jesus is truly human, just like the rest of us.

But he's also truly God, just like God the Father.

And because he's truly human and truly God, he's the only one who can bridge the gap between humans and God.

And there is a gap because God is perfect, almighty and eternal.

Whereas we humans are sinful, weak and corrupted, but still in his infinite love and mercy.

God came down, became human and died for our sins and he rose from the dead and eventually is going to raise the rest of us from the dead as well.

What's unique about Christianity is we don't actually have to be good enough for God because God already did that for us when he became human and died for us.

So we just need to be united to Christ and then we can participate in God's eternal life.

Ok. But how do we do that?

For those who have faith in Christ, the Holy Spirit unites them to Christ because the Holy Spirit is the spirit of Christ and he's the spirit of the Father.

These three persons have relationships with one another, but they're still all the same being.

So Christianity still only believes in one God.

All of this is revealed in the Bible, which is the story about Jesus.

Spoiler Alert!

Jesus wins in the end. He defeated death when he rose from the dead.

And when he comes back, he's going to destroy all evil in the world and make the world perfect, just like he united God and man, Jesus is also going to unite heaven and earth.

So all these religions teach very different things.

Some people try and respect all religions by saying they're all basically teaching the same thing.

But this actually disrespects all religions by discarding the uniqueness of their claims.

The truth is that religion raises the biggest questions of life that everyone needs to answer for themselves.