The reason behind divine religions...

[Reav3R]

Different regions of the world are dominated by different religions. Jews, Christians, Muslims and the list goes on... Divine religions are those provided by the prophets claiming to spread God's message across the Earth.

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But what is the reason behind all these religions? The look different on the surface but are essentially the same. Those which stayed true until now are. Are speak of Heaven and Hell. All speak of the only God. All give us a way to live and claim that it's the true way. They all lie.

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They lie by not telling "the whole" truth. They all lie buy speaking in an arbitrary way. They all lie by being the same in essense but why? Does God really lie to us? Does he even need to "talk" to us? What is God to even begin with?

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There is no "heaven or hell" as depicted in the Bible or Quaran or any other holy book. God doesn't judge us, we do so ourselves. Good and evil are merely made of difference, our perception of them is flawed. Is God really waiting on the other side with a stick in hand to punish us if we don't do what he says?!

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Religions deceive us by telling a part of whole truth to control us. To make us make the rules of our game. Without rules there is no game. Let's face it, if religion weren't here, we wouldn't be either. Hopefully, we would still be living in caves. Why? Because religion prevents us from stealing. Religion prevents us from murdering. Religion prevents us from doing "evil". Doesn't really matter what it prevents us from as long as it prevents us from something.

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Religion is just there for the pawns; to prevent them from becoming the queens and ruining the whole game. To indocrinate the lesser and to shape the competetive game. It doesn't matter what it says, it just has to be there. Whether divine or fake or whatever. Religion is what makes us make the rules. Without rules there is no game.

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The simple answer: Religion is there becuase is has to be, no matter what is says or claims.

[CFTraveler]

Religions are started by Mystics. Mystics get into a state and experience the 'Big Picture'. Then they come back and tell what they learned. Soon they are surrounded with people who either admire them or want to do what the mystic has achieved. Some will learn from the mystic, some will worship the mystic. Soon only a few (the ones that worked hard to learn and achieved it) can achieve this 'knowing', the others begin to think that only the original mystic or his direct followers could do it, due to some special dispensation or characteristic. A few years later, when the original mystic has gone, what is left are: The teachings, and other people who study them and the teachings of the other mystics that followed. Now you have an established hierarchy, with those who 'get it' on top and those who don't on the bottom. As any cultural construct, politics follow, and teachings become commandments. And now you have religion.
Religion, being a social construct, will always reflect whatever structure is dominant at the time of its creation and establishment, which is why they're all different and at the same time, the same.
.02

[ButterflyWoman]

I entirely agree with CFT, but want to add that the reasons for the different styles, flavours, moods, etc., of religions is simply the cultural framework in which they arose. A mystic can only describe what s/he sees using terminology that s/he understands. While many or even most mystics might be seeing and experiencing the exact same things, the framework around that, what they call it, how they perceive it, etc., is going to be different. In some cases, it's so very different that unless one has done a fair bit of comparative religious study and is also able to step back and look at the bigger picture on a meta level, it's easy to think that religious traditions have little to do with each other, when, in fact, it's only the cultural trappings, dogma, and terminology which makes them seem different. The inherent mystical perceptions and experiences are the same, or as close to the same as people from very different eras, cultures, and outlooks can come to having the same experience.

[CFTraveler]

I concur.

[ButterflyWoman]

Of course, there's also the problem that some or even many of the later followers (and maybe some of the immediate followers) will be non-mystics who Just Don't Get It(tm), and so when they try to interpret the original mystic's sayings, teachings, instructions, etc., they will get it very, very wrong.

Sucks to be a mystic, sometimes, because so many people have no idea what you're talking about, but it would suck ever-so-much-more to have followers who turn your sincerely taught mystical insights into weird dogma and strangely interpreted rules and regulations that really don't have much to do with anything you were trying to teach..... I feel for those saints and ascended ones and masters and gurus and so forth who have had this happen to them and their teachings. :(

And, of course, there's plenty of historical precedent for people deliberately taking various teachings and interpreting them in a way that allows them to control the people. This has happened in pretty much every religion. The whole "reward in the afterlife if you follow the rules now" thing is ubiquitous and ancient, and, from the mystic's point of view, ridiculous, but there are those followers again, twisting everything up and gnarling it all around and using it in ways which may or may not be well-intentioned, but which create limitations and difficulties for those who fall into the trap of believing the dogma rather than seeking the spiritual source...