All religions are similar, Right?

The following is a response to students questions of all religions being the same.  The typical view is that there are the blind faith believers in religion and the science base atheists in the world.  But I argue this: religion is religion and science is science.  Both tools are used by all believers and all religions, including atheism.

How can one religion teach that Jesus was a heretic rebel teacher, another teach that he was a prophet only who never died on the cross, and still another teach that he is God; and then say that all three have gotten to God equally?

To believe the Jewish tradition we must be opposed to Jesus as any good teacher, prophet or especially God.

To believe the Muslim tradition we must throw all of the historical evidence of Jesus dying on the cross out as false and misunderstood.   This means we must throw all the historical record of Jesus out prior to the Qur’an, which was written in the 7^th Century.  This, of course is hard to do because the 7^th Century is about 600 years too late to be changing whether or not Jesus died on the cross.  Just about all of the secular historians agree this Jesus figure died on the cross.

To believe the Christian version is to determine that an adversary to the one True God who loves His creation is attempting to deceive His creation by any means necessary.  Jesus came to earth, died on the cross for all man’s sins and rose again.  He became sin, he became what separates man from his creator so all men and women could have relationship with their Creator.

How is it possible that these religions will see eye to eye?  Of course, this is just a small sampling of religions, if we get into Buddhism, their founder did not believe there was a god worth venerating.  Hinduism believes in a collective consciousness, Brahman, which man can be a part of, called Atman.  The ancient gods that people worshiped was a lesser understanding of this collective conscious Brahman.  And we can go on and on.  

How can it be true that there is no god worth venerating and Brahman?  Both cannot be true equally and neither deals with a personal god who created with purpose.  

Brahman is all knowledge and ability and we are at our core apart of this collective Brahman and the goal is to get to our Atman.  But if we do not do good in this life we are reborn to a lesser station in life… thus karma is what attributes to us reward or punishment. But if we think about this logically what this really means is that Brahman is both rewarding and punishing itself based on its system of judgment, karma.  So Brahman is both good and evil or these concepts do not really exist.  This is most closely aligned with the Atheistic concept of god.  Please remember, not all atheists can believe in a right or wrong, but the ones who do have evolution/universe/multiverse god which is a type of collective similar to Brahman.  Other Atheists are more like the original  Buddhist and attempt to find  rightness and wrongness within self.  Thus leading to only personal preferences, no standard of right and wrong.  

Again, this cannot align with the Jew, Muslim, Christian perspective. And it is plain to see that all these concepts are religious in nature and do not align with each other.

Most religions, at their core, are different.  It is unfair to attempt to lump them all together as though they are all the same.  The respectful thing to do is study what each is and respect the fact that some truly believe that way.  This of course, does not mean all religions are equally true.

This is why I always say we all use faith and reason.  Our understanding is based on how well balanced we are in using both.