There are more than 10,000 religions worldwide, but in a broad stroke almost all religions can be described as a belief system relating an individual to the external world outside of that individual. It is how a finite person relates to the infinite, or how the known relates to the unknown (this is a definition I heard from Jordan Peterson, but I don’t have a concrete reference).
Science is not supposed to be a religion because its main purpose is to negotiate the boundary between the unknown and the known and bring more of the external world into the known. But it is important to understand that science is not supposed to explain the unknown, or to proclaim that the only valid worldview is what is known. Nonetheless, many pseudo-scientists, especially those studying evolution, tend to conflate science with a worldview, making it a religion. Having a proper appreciation of the unknown is what enables many Christians to be great scientists or engineers.
Confucianism is interesting because it denies being a religion. Confucius famously refused to speak about the unknown.
子不語怪力亂神
(The subjects on which the Master did not talk, were: extraordinary things, feats of strength, disorder, and spiritual beings.)
——論語 • 述而
Many would consider Confucianism only as a philosophy. It is a belief system that prescribes social order between a person and other individuals external to the self, but it teaches worshipping someone higher in the social hierarchy or one’s ancestors. For this reason, it is actually an irreligion, which is a religion-like system used by the ruling class to legitimize control over its subjects.
Buddhism is an interesting religion professing that anyone can become Buddha through self-help. People who like Buddhism philosophy are probably attracted to its poetic ambiguity. Its abstract imagery leaves much to the interpreter’s imagination. And it’s egalitarian: nobody’s imagination is holier than anyone else’s. Since nothing is expressed in concrete terms but only using metaphors, you can derive both a statement and its counter-statement. You can prove everything but rely on nothing.
While some religion can help someone become a better person, this is not all there is to a religion. Conversely, there are many non-religious ways for self-help, so one does not have to appeal to religion in order to become a better person. And not all religions make a better person out of someone. In the Old Testament, we see warnings against false religion that demands the atrocious act of infanticide burnt sacrifice (Leviticus 18:21).
Christianity is the archetypical religion showing how a finite person relates to the infinite God who is the creator of heaven and earth.
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End”——Revelation 1:8, 22:13
And how the known relates to the unknown.
33 Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!
34 “Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?”
35 “Who has ever given to God,
that God should repay them?”
36 For from him and through him and for him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.
Even though God is the unknown, God is relatable at a personal level because He desires to have a relationship with us.
Christians believe that the only way to God is through Jesus, and no other religion will lead to God. This is not because of arrogance or intolerance of other religions. To be precise, we are talking about the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God who created the universe, the heaven and earth, and the giver of life. I will not deny that some other religion might lead someone to some other deity who is not this particular one. For example, if someone rather prefers to worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster as their god, it is really their personal choice, but we are not concerned with men-made gods who has no breath and cannot give life.
But what is the basis of our claim that the only way to the life-giving God is through Jesus? It all started from the promise that God made with Abram the great father, that God will give Abram a son through which Abram will become Abraham, the “father of many nations.” Through this son, God will bestow upon Abraham as countlessly many offsprings as there are stars in the sky. God made a unilateral covenant such that if God did not fulfill the promise, God would suffer the consequence of death: cut and arranged in halves as Abraham did to the sacrificial animals of the covenant making ceremony. This is the account written in Genesis 15.
But how do we know that God is truthful to His Word and faithful to His promise? This is why God asked Abraham to offer his son Isaac as burnt sacrifice to God, as written in Genesis 22. Casual observers might decry that this is the same atrocious infanticide demanded by false gods, thereby renegading on His promises. It might first appear that both Abraham and Isaac were being naive and just blindly following the instructions, but there is a twist. When Abraham said to Isaac, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son,” did Abraham lie in order to dupe his son into becoming child sacrifice? And would Isaac, in teenage or early twenties at that time, be stupid enough to allow his dad to tie him up in a rope after Abraham built the altar, with the object of sacrifice still missing?
I think neither Abraham nor Isaac were as naive as it first appears. They knew full well about God’s unilateral covenant in Genesis 15, in which God would bear the consequence of death if the covenant is broken. And in Genesis 17, God said He will establish the covenant with Isaac. So if Abraham killed Isaac in Genesis 22 as God appointed him to do, there would be no one else to fulfill the promise. Abraham would cause the death of God if God were truthful, or find out that the god he served is untruthful and unworthy to be served. In the end, God stopped Abraham when Isaac was about to be killed, and God provided a ram as the sacrifice offering.
So this test is really a reading comprehension test to see if Abraham understood God’s promise and God’s character. Abraham followed God’s direction, but he knew God would not contradict Himself. That’s the faith of Abraham, and that’s how we know the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is a faithful God who will fulfill His promise. I also think that it is remarkable that Abraham did not purposefully kill Isaac in bad faith, so Abraham indeed deserves to be the great father of many nations.
As for the rest of us, we are unlikely to individually make a covenant with God, but we have the option to accept the covenant of Abraham through Jesus Christ which we may participate as our inheritance. Abraham is the reason why there is no other way to God, and there is no religion that will lead to God, except through Jesus, whose surrogate parents are both descendants of Abraham even though Jesus is really God Himself. Jesus is God incarnated to become the Son, who took the place of Isaac to be sacrificed as the ultimate offering.
And no other gods can do that for us.