# 10 - Is it difficult to believe because there are so many religions and you don't know what to believe anymore?

I promised to talk about the questions I asked you to write down and think about in input # 3 (2012) at the blog (if you wanted to...):

If I never had heard about Jesus, I think that to become a Sikh would become very attractive to me. The Sikhs value all people and look away from casts. It is not important if you are a man or a woman. You are just as much valued as a woman as a man. All people are to be treated with respect wherever they come from and the Sikhs believe in trying to live happily, work hard and help others regardless of what religion they belong to. God, the Creator, is highly respected and one is supposed to set apart daily time for reflection on God and his name. There is more to it, but I think this is enough to explain the willingness to not only believe in God but to live in a way that might suit God also.

I think a lot of people in the western world today are seeking for something more than to live in a superficial way and try to pick a view of life that they find attractive. Some chose this religion, others that religion. By that way they stop to reflect about Christendom and cling to the new path they have chosen."The grass is always greener on the other side." Or is it really?

Just as the Sikhs I also respect people of all religions, but I'm a catholic. According to the catholic faith God has created us all human beings in His image and given us a free will. So we are to respect the Muslims, the Jews, the Sikhs, the Hindus, the Buddhists and more ... as human beings that have the same needs as ourselves (because they are created by God).

I have deep respect for the rituals in other religions (because it shows the love they have for God the way they know him), the Ramadan of the Muslims (and the Id), the Rosh Hashanah (New Year celebration) ten days before Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) of the Jews , the «Obon» practiced as a Japanese Buddhist-Confucian custom to remember and feel united to their dead ones ... and much more, but I am not a part of these religions. To respect someones religious customs is not the same as to believe in them. One can even share a meal with people of other religions on their festivals if one has a friend or two who belong(-s) to this or that none-Christian religion, as a way of showing respect for the friend's religious belonging. In such cases, however, your friend(-)s have to know that you are Catholic (Christian) in your services to God. If your faith is week, don't go! Cooperation between members of different religions is important to create world peace.

To mix religions on the other hand (the one faith is just as good as the other) might be dangerous, because the message of the savior, Jesus Christ, might be lost in all the adjustments!

CCC 842 – 843 proclaims «The Church's bond with non-Christian religions is in the first place the common origin and end of the human race: All nations form but one community. This is so because all stem from the one stock which God created to people the entire earth, and also because all share a common destiny, namely God. His providence, evident goodness, and saving designs extend to all against the day when the elect are gathered together in the holy city. 843 - The Catholic Church recognizes in other religions that search, among shadows and images, for the God who is unknown yet near since he gives life and breath and all things and wants all men to be saved. Thus, the Church considers all goodness and truth found in these religions as "a preparation for the Gospel and given by him who enlightens all men that they may at length have life.»

This doesn't mean that you are free to chose whatever religion you want if you already are baptized or have known enough about Jesus to understand who He is. CCC 848 says: (...) «Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it». It continues in CCC 849: « This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church (...).»

Of course if you are a doubting or fallen away Catholic, you are free to reject God as Catholics see Him, but if so, your choice will have consequences for you if you have not repented before you die.

When it comes to the people of other religions, it is not up to us to judge who understands the Gospel or not and who forsakes it for belonging to a fellowship in an other religion. Only God knows. In my thoughts it seems as a solution to this «problem» that God shows Himself to those from other religions in the moment they die, if they sought Him at earth, but never found Him fully. They will then have the free will to say the necessary yes or no ....

With that said, nobody can of course guarantee others a path to heaven. Only God know their true hearts!

In blogpost # 11 I will talk about what is so special about the Catholic faith that it would be wise to continue to stick to it or to come back to it.