Thoughts of a Doubting Christian ✓

Religion Roulette

There are some days where I feel solid in my faith, but those days are becoming more and more rare. Most days, I feel as though I'm playing a game of religion roulette. But unlike Russian roulette, where all you have to do is avoid the bullet, religion roulette involves picking the right religion out of the hundreds, if not thousands, of other religions. You have a five-in-six chance of dodging the bullet if you're the first player in Russian roulette, but in religion roulette, you aren't so lucky.

Think of it this way. Let's say that only one religion is correct and the rest are wrong, damning you to eternal torment or separation from God. That already gives you much worse chances of "dodging the bullet," so to speak, than traditional Russian roulette. Then let's say we separate each religion into different sects, denominations, and schools of thought, where only one of those is correct. Now the odds of picking the "right" one are even worse. According to a popular estimate, there are over 4,000 different religions around the globe, although people are usually familiar with the five most popular: Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. And Christianity alone has hundreds sects!

How can we know which one is "correct," if any? Most religions claim that they are the only true religion, but how can that be? Does God accept all of them, some of them, one of them, or none at all? How can we know for sure?

The short answer is that we can't. We can never know for sure. People will always claim that they have found the answer, but there is no way to know with 100% certainty until we die and find out. We can't prove that our religion is the way to go, just like we can't prove whether or not God exists, so people who believe in God or their particular religion do so out of faith. Faith is defined as: strong belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction rather than proof. And before you accuse me of picking that definition because it supports my case, here are a few other definitions:

~ firm belief in something for which there is no proof; complete trust

~ confident or unquestioning belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing; secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of God's will

~ unquestioning belief that does not require proof or evidence; unquestioning belief in God, religious tenets, etc.; complete trust, confidence, or reliance

Even the Bible uses a similar definition to mine: now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1).

Unfortunately (fortunately?) for me, I naturally gravitate to logic and reason, so most of the time I don't trust in or believe in things that I can't see or have no proof for. One of the few exceptions is my religious belief, since it was such an intricate part of my life growing up. But now, I am no longer certain that Christianity is the way to go — the more research I do on it, the less I believe in it! As they say in the scientific community, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and let's just say that I'm not finding that extraordinary evidence.

The religion roulette problem is something that plagues me on a regular basis, especially now that I am at university and exposed to so many different viewpoints. Some days I consider deconverting, but I'm scared that God will be mad at me or that He will be disappointed in me for stepping away from Christianity. It's no wonder that people tend to stick with the beliefs they grew up with; we find change scary, especially something as fundamental as a religious belief. We hide behind certainty, fending off anything we perceive as an attack on our beliefs, and only accept knowledge that bolsters our opinion.

(Just surf through Wattpad and click on any book espousing religious beliefs. You'll find that almost everyone will get defensive if you question their certainty.)

Another component of religion roulette is the problem of inerrancy. If there is only one true religion, then it would probably be inerrant (i.e. free from error). I know people are going to jump on me for this, since in my last book I argued that the Bible doesn't have to be inerrant to be useful. And that still stands! A religious text or the religion itself doesn't have to be inerrant to be useful or speak some kind of truth. But if there was only one "right" religion, you would be able to look at its texts and doctrine and never find contradictions, and its scientific or historical claims would be accurate. But none of the religions can fulfill this requirement. They all contain flaws, whether in their texts, their historical or scientific accuracy, or their doctrine.

So what now? If all religions are flawed, is there a way to pick the religion that is the least flawed? Is it possible to weigh the "truths" of each religion to find the one that speaks the "most" truth or the "truest" truth? Or is it just a matter of what religion feels right to you? If the latter is the case, then the "right" religion is always subjective. That doesn't seem like a great way to save yourself from eternal torment or separation from God.

But aside from the sheer number of religions out there and the problem of inerrancy, there are yet more problems with our game of religion roulette. How about the fact that the majority of people keep the religion they were born into? It's true that, in the U.S., about 34% of Americans identify with a different religion than the one they were raised in. If you count switching between Protestant denominations, the number jumps to 42%. But this is a pretty unique phenomenon, and even here, it is possible to guess what people's religious affiliations are based on what state they live in!

For example, if you grew up in Utah, you'd likely be Mormon. If you grew up in Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, or one of the Carolinas, you would probably be Protestant. Places like Rhode Island and Massachusetts are majority Catholic, while D.C., New York, and New Jersey are home to the most Jews.

In other countries, it is even easier to guess what your religious affiliation would be:

~ If you grew up in Afghanistan, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Mali, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, or Syria, you would almost definitely be Muslim.

~ If you grew up in Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, France, Guadeloupe, Haiti, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, México, Panamá, Puerto Rico, Spain, or Venezuela, you would probably be Catholic.

~ If you grew up in Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Serbia, or the Ukraine, you would likely be Orthodox Christian.

~ If you grew up in Bhutan, Burma, Cambodia, or Thailand, you'd likely be Buddhist.

The same applies to almost every country. If you grew up in China, you'd be Daoist/Taoist or Buddhist; in India or Nepal, you'd be Hindu; in Israel, you'd be Jewish; in Japan, you'd be Shinto or Buddhist; in North Korea, you'd be Buddhist or Confucianist; in South Korea, you'd be unaffiliated, Christian, or Buddhist; and in Vietnam, you'd probably be unaffiliated.

That means that most people don't choose their religion. They grew up with it, their parents or culture gave it to them, and that's that. If only one religion is "right," then those who were born into it were just lucky, and everyone else is shit out of luck. And if the "right" religion is one of those tiny religions in a remote part of the world that only a few hundred practice, then the rest of us are screwed. It just doesn't make any sense. As Richard Dawkins once said,

❝How thoughtful of God to arrange matters so that, wherever you happen to be born, the local religion always turns out to be the true one.❞