There are over 4200 religions listed on just www.adherents.com a religion statistical site. Does every religion out in the world think that all other 4199 are completely wrong and going to what they consider “hell”? Why do churches take some scriptures literally and other are viewed as suggestions? What does history say about the lives and times of the bibles most inflectional people?



The first step down this rabbit hole leads us to the question what is the difference between the religions. I will initially look at four religions Christian, Mormon, catholic and Islamic.

	Christians	Catholics	Mormons	Islamic
Sacred Texts	Bible (some include Apocrypha)	Holy Bible, Apocrypha	Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price	Qur'an (Koran)
God	Trinitarian God, who does not have a body		Heavenly Father, who has a physical body	unity - one substance, one person
Jesus Christ	Son of God, Word of God, God, second Person of the trinity		Son of God, Savior, originally one of the spirit beings that all humans used to be. Has a physical body.	true prophet of God, whose message has been corrupted
Holy Spirit	God, Third Person of the Trinity		A spirit being who is a separate being from God and Jesus.
Original sin	Affirmed (by most denominations)	Affirmed	Denied	Affirmed however both Adam and Eve took the fruit.
Free will	Free will to do good is seriously impaired	Free to do good or evil	Free to do good or evil	Free to do good or evil
Purpose of Christ’s incarnation	Teach about God, provide a model for right living, die sacrificially for human sin, reveal God directly to humanity		Teach about God, provide a model for right living, die sacrificially for human sin	…???
Resurrection of christ	Yes		Yes	No, Jesus did not die a follower took his place.
salvation	Both faith and works; faith emphasized (in most denominations)		Both faith and works; works emphasized	correct belief, good deeds, Five Pillars
second chance after death	No		Yes, during a period of "learning and preparation" after death	No
afterlife	Souls of wicked sent to Hell, believers go to Heaven for eternity.		All spirits go to the spirit world, undergo preparation, then rejoin with bodies in the resurrection. The good spend the intervening time in spirit paradise, while the wicked go to spirit prison.	Souls of wicked sent to Hell, believers go to Heaven for eternity.